An Appearance on Romanian Television

On Tuesday night, I was, along with fellow intern Megan and our employer, Radu Oprea, invited to appear on a local talk show in Galați We arrived at the television station fifteen minutes before the 8 pm broadcast time. This would be a first appearance on broadcast media for me. The program was carried live.

We entered the studio and were introduced to the host, Cezar Amariea.

The production crew then fitted us with microphones.

Cezar, Megan, Myself, and Radu 

Cezar speaks English, but the broadcast was done in Romanian with Radu translating into English for us and into Romanian for the audience. The host introduced us and Radu gave a brief synopsis of why he invited us to Romania. Megan and I then each described why we choose to come to Romania and work for SMART over our other options and some of our early impressions of Romania and of Galați now that we have been in the country for three weeks.

Next, we discussed public policy. The host described some of the public policy issues facing Galați and asked us to describe how we would deal with such a situation in the Untied States, and if we had any recommendations regarding possible courses of action. The first issue was, unsurprisingly, the dog situation in Galați .

Next, members of the Galați community called into the program and described some of the issues they had observed. Radu translated their comments and asked us again to respond to the situation. If I've learned anything in my time in Galați its that it is important to be sensitive to the fact that the situation in Romania is often very different from that in the United States. Most of the situations described by the callers would be unfathomable, at least to the degree described to us, in the United States. For example, one lady who called described a situation in which a car wash was constructed next to her home, resulting in excessive noise and chemical fumes. I discovered that Romania does not having zoning ordinances like we would expect to find in the United States in order to guard against such situations. Another caller described a situation in which power lines had been cut to her home. He had been without power for two weeks and there were no signs of any authority producing a remedy for the situation. Another recounted the story of a unstable tree that was deemed a hazard by the authorities. Two months ago, a crew was sent to remove the tree. However, they were called away in the middle of the job, and still have not returned.

I attempted to invoke the training I have received in policy analysis over the last year at Pepperdine in responding to questions, and I think it served me well. One tendency I noticed was that many people want a fix to the symptoms or minor potions of a problem without addressing the underlying issues. For example, several times various minor issues that have resulted from the feral dog population were brought up either by callers or the host, to which the interlocutor would want a solution. However, people did not seem to consider that they were symptoms of the dog problem, and not the problem itself. The dog situation really is a national issue in Romania, and it does not seem to me that any proposal instituted on a municipal level is likely to be a permanent solution, even on a local scale.

The two hours during which we were on the program, with only one ten minute break in the middle, went by very quickly. Below is a recording of the broadcast:

After the show, we went to a football (soccer) game. The last of the season for the local team in fact. Power went out for about fifteen minutes during the second half, after which Galați proceed to lose to Bucharest.

Power On

Power Off

A Weekend in the Carpathian Mountains

My employer's family owns a vacation home near the village of Soveja in the Carpathian Mountains, around  a 2 1/2 hour drive from Galați. This past weekend, I was invited among a group of 10 people to spend the weekend. I was exicted to see the Romanian countryside and the mountains. 

We departed Friday around 5 pm. The first stop was a large grocery store called Carrefour in order to buy supplies for the weekend. Carrefour, which is a French chain, reminded me of a mix between Wall Mart and Costco. We bought a lot of food.

From there, we resumed our trek into the Carpathians. The first half of the drive was mostly flat farmland. Sheep, goats, cows, horses (and of course dogs and cats) were a constant feature of the scenery. Once we got into the mountains, the scenery reminded me very much of Western Washington state. Tall trees lined the windy roads. At some point, we arrived at a dirt road. Its a good thing we were in an SUV because the house was about another half hour up the dirt road, and even over two small streams.

Around 9 pm, we arrived.The house is very large, with two stories and six bedrooms and sits on about 5 acres of land. Electricity is provided by a gas powered generator which requires activation, so we arrived in the dark. My first encounter upon arrival was with a millipede ambling across the floor:

We then built a fire to sit around late into the night.

The next morning, I was finally able to get get a  good view of the local environs

Saturday was occupied with hiking, lounging, reading, barbecuing, and just generally enjoying the mountains.

Besides the millipede, other local wildlife included very large spiders, very large grasshoppers, frogs, little fish in the pond on the property, and a beetle with a very shiny, almost sapphire like carapace (plus the local dog, who would return periodically in search of leftovers).

I didn't see any of the bears or boars which inhabit the Carpathians, but we did hear a couple of gun shots from hunters. Here's a bouquet made up of local wildflowers:

I had an opportunity to try mici, a Romanian dish which was described to me as a hamburger in the shape of a hot dog. It was good, though no one was actually sure what was in it. The owner of the farm I visited the previous weekend also brought delicious cheese made from the milk of his animals. There was cow, sheep and goat cheese. All were good, with the sheep being my favorite. 

The next day we departed. Here are a few more shots of the scenery around Soveja:

On our way back to Galați, we made two stops. First, was a German World War 1 cemetery. 

We also stopped at a monument which was built to honor Romania's soldiers in World War 1. The interior is a mausoleum. 

Overall, it was a great weekend. I enjoyed the mountains a lot. Though, two days in the wilderness is about my limit.I'll be spending this week writing policy papers which SMART will be sending to the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the European Union. Also, I may have several appearances in local media. Next weekend is not set yet, but it looks like we'll find ourselves either in Brașov (known for its castles, among them that associated with the historical Dracula) or Bucharest. 

A Primer on the Romanian Language

As previously mentioned, one of my primary goals for my time in Romania is to learn the language, hopefully to the point where I can become at least moderately conversant with a native speaker. I am very fortunate to have found a wonderful tutor who works as a translator. This post will describe some of my impressions about Romanian. I have only had a few lessons so far, and my formal training in linguistics is somewhat limited so if anyone more knowledge about the subject thinks I say something incorrect, please let me know!

Romania sits near the eastern extent of what was the Roman empire, and is the result of Latin (which was my undergraduate minor, and has helped immensely in learning the language)mixing with Slavic languages, which surround Romania on all sides except for Moldova to the east, where Romanian is also spoken. There are many elements of Romanian which reminds me of Latin.

Much of Romanian is pronounced in a similar way to how I was taught to pronounce Classical Latin. However, the Slavic influence is obvious and I occasional think someone is speaking Russian. There are two phonemes in Romanian which are not found in English. The first is the same trilled r which occurs in Spanish. Though this same sound is found in Latin I have not been able to produce it, even after years of trying. Luckily my tutor says it will not be such a big problem if I fake it. The other sound not found in English is a vowel sound denoted by â. There is simply no equivalent sound in English. After much practice, I was finally able to produce the sound somewhat correctly by pulling my jar far back, raising my tongue to the roof of my mouth and imagining someone punching me in the gut.

In addition to â, Romanian orthography also uses ă to denote a different vowel sound. However, this one is found in English (its the initial sound in above).  Being able to produce the vowel sounds in Romanian correctly is very important, and words are often differentiated simply by one vowel sound. This has been another challenge of beginning to learn Romanian. Words in English are not usually differentiated in such a manner. I remember reading studies a whole ago discussing how native speakers of certain languages are naturally more apt to learning other languages than native speakers of some other languages. I now see the conclusions validity. I am still having great difficulty sometimes hearing the distinction between vowel sounds, even when asking someone to repeat pairs of words a few times.

Besides the additional vowels, the Romanian alphabet also contains two more characters not found in English spelling - ș  and ț. The first is pronounced like "sh" would usually be in English, and the second is pronounced like the final sound in the word "cats."

Another challenge has been that, besides the additional sounds and characters, Romanian places sounds together in ways which English does not. This has caused me to occasionally trip over my speak  but I suppose improvement with just take practice. 

Romanian actually maintains more of Latin grammar than other Romance languages, at least under my impression. For example, Romanian maintains most of Latin's extensive declension system for nouns and adjectives. Markers are present for normative, genitive, accusative, and dative cases. Another retention from Latin which was lost by other Romance languages is the presence of three grammatical genders - masculine, feminine, and neuter. Oddly, neuter  nouns decline like masculine nouns in the singular and feminine nouns in the plural. 

One very interesting feature is how Romanian deals with articles. Indefinite articles are placed before words like in English or other Romance languages.. The feminine indefinite article is o and the masculine indefinite article is un. Definite articles, on the other hand, are enclitic, attaching to the end of a noun. For example, the masculine noun hotel becomes hotelul, the hotel. The feminine noun poștă becomes poșta, the post office. Here's one of those cases where the vowel sound changes the word. 

Now that you have read through the boring linguistics talk, here are some pictures of Romania:

The last picture is of gypsy houses in Liește, near the farm I visited last weekend. The small amount of gypsies who are well off routinely demolish and rebuild their houses larger in order to show off their wealth. I also discovered that if you want to marry a gypsy girl, you basically have to buy her from her father. I heard of one case where the price was 500,000 Lei and a Maserati. 

Today I am leading a panel discussion on Romanian and Bulgarian labor in the EU and tomorrow I am leaving for a weekend in the mountain town of Soveja. More updates soon. 

Work and other updates

After a week of orientation and becoming familiar with Galati, yesterday could be described as my first full day of work. While at SMART (which does not actually stand for anything, by the way. Though I have mentioned that they should do what we usually do in the United States and first come up with the nice sounding acronym and then figure out what the letters stand for) I will be working on several different projects. The grant application for the primary project on which I will work was finally signed yesterday and will begin shortly. Before that, my first task is to write a policy brief on an issue of interest.

SMART has established a couple of websites to act as platforms for civic engagement. There is a site specifically for issues concerning Romania  and another for issues concerning Europe. The methodology, modeled after ideas taught in classes at Pepperdine, proceeds as follows: (1) Someone posts a topic on the site (2) The topic is published for public comment (3) SMART considers the proposals and writes a policy brief, which is submitted to a relevant agency (4)  The agency (hopefully) responds and the response is published on the site (5) The original author is asked to asses the agency's response.

The first topic I will be taking on is how Romanians and Bulgarians are viewed with the European Union. In 2007, these two former Soviet Satellites were admitted to the EU. Generally, citizens of one country within the EU are free to work in another member state within restriction. As a condition for entry, there was a seven year moratorium on this right for Romanians and Bulgarians. This period comes to an end January 1, 2014. Many Western European countries have expressed great concern about a sudden invasion of workers from the east taking jobs from their own citizens, and taking advantage of state funded programs. Based on media reports, this concern seems especially great in the United Kingdom. However, a poll commissioned by the BBC shows these concerns are unlikely to reflect reality.

I am spending the next couple of days researching the topic. If anyone has any thoughts, please go to the above link a post a response. On Thursday, I will be participating in a discussion group to help me cement my ideas in preparation for writing the brief.

In other news, I visited in the nearby village Liesti.  Here are some pictures of the Romanian countryside.

My first stop was at a Romanian Orthodox monastery inhabited by nuns.

The monastery was very pleasant. At some point, I may spend a night at a different monastery. 

After that stop, I visited a farm owned by the family of my employer's sister's boyfriend. We first had lunch on their wonderful covered patio complete with a full outdoor kitchen. I am definitely installing one of these in my future house. 

This was also certainly one of the better meals I have so far had in Romania. We ate lamb and chicken that had been raised on the farm.

The first dish above was referred to as stew. It consisted of chicken cooked with various vegetables. The bowl of green was a condiment for the meat made of garlic and green onion.

After lunch, we were provided a tour of the farm. It was impressive, with all sorts of animals and plenty of vegetation.

On Friday, I am leaving Galati for a weekend in the northern village of Soveja. I will be staying in a house in the mountains owned by my employer's family. I am looking forward to seeing another part of Romania.