One week of quarantine

Today marks one week of quarantine. It has been quite easy so far. My work, which is remote anyway, continues as usual. Natasha's school moved online very quickly and she has lessons every day from 0845. Today, Saturday, and tomorrow are harder to handle without that regular schedule, but we are managing. Monday we will go food shopping! We are excited and regularly thinking of things we want to cook or bake and eat and adding to the already long list. By now everyone in the western world is experiencing a lock down, so I won't go into what a shopping trip entails. We have heard from friends and family about queuing outside the store and maintaining distance to other shoppers. My cousin in Hamburg told me that in the shops there not a word is spoken. The shops are full but one could hear a pin drop.
The situation around Europe continues to worsen. The Chinese have sent medical supplies and medical teams to Italy to help the overloaded health system. Our hope is that the results that the Chinese seem to have attained - stopping the virus in a relatively short time - will evidence themselves here also. The Chinese are surely better at quarantining people, though, so I doubt the results will be as quickly attained here.
On the geopolitical front the Chinese will make huge strides forward with these events. They were already on the doorstep to eclipse the west, but if it is true that they stopped the spread of virus and are now coming here to help us, that is another huge turn of the tide in global power.

9 years on and a brave new world

There are no police looking for quarantine violators at 6 in the morning, so I was up and out to get exercise before the sun came up. This is the fifth day of quarantine. We are in Spain. I arrived here in the last week of February and was going to return to Switzerland for a while in March to check mail, pay bills, ride my motorcycle and go to the office for a few days. We took a week of holiday to drive campers around Portugal with friends when the virus outbreak hit Italy. Portugal was safe while we were there and we watched events from far away as we had parties on the beach. Returning to Spain the situation continue to look dire in Italy, especially in Lombardia, which is only 5 kms from our home. Prudence - and my wife - told me to stay here in our house in Spain. The risks of passing through Malpensa were infection, the possibility of not being able to travel to Switzerland from Italy and also the possibility of not being able to return to my family in Spain. Although my wife and daughter changed their residences from Switzerland to Spain in September, I am still domiciled at home and pay my taxes at home. Although weeks before it actually happened, we envisioned a situation in which the countries would close their borders and since I have no right of residence in Spain, there was risk that the authorities would not let me reenter the country. 

All of February I had been in Switzerland and the US and it was important that I stayed for a while. This is day 6 of a 15 day quarantine. So far it has gone well. My work is fully remote, so for me each workday is basically normal, although there are new crisis-related legal issues to confront, along with ordinary business. If you ask me, the ordinary business will wind down to nearly nothing over the next months. The first half of the year is a wash and there is little hope for anything positive in the economy to happen. There is a lot of possibility for the society to behave differently and more consciously after this, and we will see if that happens, but for the most part people are blind and won't reflect on these events. More about that later. 

Into the Ukraine

My dear readers. It has been ages since my last post and for this I apologise. Traveling has become more intense, more challenging and has allowed less time for writing and philosophizing. In order to bring the blog up to date, I will do one long entry encompassing everything that has happened in about the last three weeks. There will be less detail but in the book I will write after this tour I will include all events I experienced.

Having left so early in the morning, by 800 I am at the port on the far side of the river from Galati in order to take the ferry across the Danube. Enjoy a coffee and watch the activity in the port. The sky is wonderful, I am feeling fine, full of energy and excited about crossing the border into the Ukraine. Galati proves to be nothing special – I did not expect it to be - and I am in and out quickly. In order enter the Ukraine I have to first enter the Republic of Moldova, ride about 5 kms in it and then cross into Ukraine. This meant a lot of border hassle. First to leave Romania, which was not too bad, then to enter Moldova, which I thought would be a big deal due to the reputation that Moldava enjoys. The border guards were however very professional and even friendly, laughing when I told them that I was going to ride to Odessa. They quickly stamped my passport and I was through. Moldova has always held a mysterious place in my mind and it was strange and exciting to be here. It makes me think of ex-Soviet bureaucracy, gangsters and gypsies. After a few kilometers there is a joint Ukraine-Moldovan customs-type check, though I am not really sure what it is. That was a bit more complicated and I had to wait in a room not knowing what to do. I was sure that I was going to be hit up for a ‘gift’ but that did not happen. It just took time. A few kilometers later I left Moldova and though had only been there for about 30 minutes had to go through the formalities again, and then both passport and customs to enter the Ukraine. In total there were 5 checks in the course of 5 kilometers, but it was nothing but bureaucracy, no necessary bribes and it was not bad.

Once in the Ukraine there are two routes to Odessa – the main route that re-enters Moldova, carries on for about 50 km and then re-enters Ukraine and means two more border controls – and one that swings way south but stays within the Ukraine. Having just gone through 5 controls I was not too keen on doing another two that day but the main route to Odessa was much shorter, so I chose to deal with the bureaucracy. Nonetheless, after just a few kilometers the main road changed from bad pavement to cobblestones. Cobblestones. This is the main route between Ukraine and Romania and during Soviet times surely was of significant importance but still, made of cobblestones. Such a surface on a bike is not a pleasure so I turned back and headed down the route that swings south along the Ukrainian side of the Danube delta. The route was piss-poor and the heat overbearing, but there was very little traffic and so it was ok. Hell, I was in the Ukraine, and on my way to Odessa, so feeling quite good about the adventure. The problem with riding in the Ukraine is that the towns are very far apart, the roads are bad and there is nothing to see except fields, fields and more fields. Every 30 kms or so one can see an old collective farm, but these are largely abandoned and so it is just fields and fields. Within days I was no longer looking left or right but riding along more than half zoned out and just staring at a point about 3 meters in front of the bike to watch for and avoid large holes. The riding was not pleasant.

As evening approached on the first day I was still far from the town of Izmail, which I had sort of selected as a target for that day. There was a collective on the horizon and I thought I might find a place there to pitch my tent. It was deserted however, but down the road I saw a sign for the town of Larschanka and rode toward it. In the town I stopped to talk to some townspeople about sleeping in their gardens but was not able to make myself understood or to convince them that I was not a threat. Whatever it was, I carried on through the small streets. At one point there was a house with a small market in front and many people milling about. I started to explain to them that I was looking for a place to sleep and suddenly a young woman appeared and talked to me in English. I told her what I was seeking, she communicated to the group and then all the people started talking amongst themselves about where I could go. It looked like a nice, friendly group and I hoped that I could stay near there and partake in the happenings of the street. Maria told me to wait a moment and then soon came out to tell me I could stay in her house with her parents and brother. They set about to put things in order and I sat on the bench across the street from their house and had a chat with Igor and Andrei. There is a lot to tell about my stay there, but for the moment I will just say that it was wonderful. Everyone made me feel completely at home, cooked great food, fired up the Russian sauna, had the neighbours around for a dinner and big talk and a lot of vodka. I had my own room and we talked a lot and on the first night I was invited to stay the next day to go fishing in the delta. The next day with vodka hangovers Nikolai (Kola) and I piled into the neighbour’s old Volga and drove down to the delta and in a filthy old wooden boat set out to fish for a few hours. Luckily we did not catch anything but did buy a load of fish from one Kola’s friends who is a professional fisherman. Later that day I was invited to the old Soviet shooting facility and fired some of the guns. The next night we had a huge pot of fish stew, a lot of homemade wine and more great talk. The whole stay with Kola, Mascha and Tanja deserves a chapter for itself and will get one in the book.

From there it was another three days of riding through fields and strong headwinds, the monotony being broken only by imposing soviet monuments. Nothing special about it but I was coming closer to the destination and counting the time in days and no longer in weeks or months. When I finally arrive at the Black Sea again just south of Odessa it is like a wave of joy to see something cool and inviting after days of fields. Here there are no long distance cyclists or other westerners with whom to stop and chat and break the routine. I am alone in the fields and although it is only for a few days, I am feeling worn down by the many thousands of kms, the headwinds, the monotony and probably also by all the drinking I am doing whenever there is occasion to do so. So when I arrive at the sea it is like a revelation and I feel renewed. I pass through small and simple beach towns and then arrive on a Friday afternoon in the Odessa beach mecca of Zatoka. It is the commencement of a three day weekend and there is a lot of action with massive amounts of holidaymakers arriving. I walk all up and down beach searching for a room for one night but because this is a holiday weekend no lodging wants to let a room for one night. I had basically resolved to hang out until late and then sleep on the beach but talking with two men on street who are advertising rooms for let, they ask me about my journey. Like almost all men here they have worked on ships and can speak some English. A group forms around us and all are talking about my bike and journey. One nice man hears that there is nowhere for me to stay and says “come with me”.  I follow him to where he is staying and tells the administration “this guy rode here 50 days from Switzerland and can’t get a room, do something for him”. I am able to get a very simple wooden cabin, more like a shack, for 70 ghrivna. The family holidaying in a cabin nearby from Kiev sees my bike and he and his family come over to talk. He is also a cyclist and I am soon invited to them to sit on their porch and drink vodka and eat Russian food. In the evening I visit the holiday town. There is loads going on and I have a beer and walk on beach.

In the morning the stench of the communal loos has me out early looking for a coffee. I spend a few hours in the town, visiting the beach, writing, repairing flat tire, then head out to Odessa. The ride to Odessa is only 55 kms but is hard because there is a lot of traffic and hilly. Kola, from Larschanka, is going to be arriving in Odessa today as well in order to work there for a month. He will be staying with friends in the city and I have been invited as well. When I arrive I start to ask around for the address he has given me. I am expecting an industrial city but find a very quiet town with peaceful, wide streets and general quiet that makes me think of Vilnius. I talk to some Azeris who are very curious about my journey from Switzerland and why I am in Odessa. 

Your prison is walking through this world all alone

When we arrived back in Mahmudia, there was no point in riding any further that day, so we stopped by our babushka to ask if we could stay another night. She was sitting in the garden with her friend, another Russian babuschka, both dressed in colorful dresses and head scarves. It was like a scene out of revolution-era Russia. Babushka was very happy to see us and started cooking almost right away. Over a dinner of salad, bread, fried potatoes, chili peppers and homemade wine, she told us her story.

She was born in 1944, which was a shock because I would have guessed 20 years earlier. In any case, she was born in 1944 and attended school until the 4^th class, which was taught completely in the Russian language with one hour of Romanian as a foreign language per day. She was only 14 years of age when her mother died, leaving 5 daughters to be raised by the father, who had managed to create a relatively prosperous family farm. Problem was that shortly thereafter the new pro-Soviet government collectivized all the farms and the father lost everything that he had

worked to attain. This was too much for him because he had some sort of breakdown and disappeared for three years. The five girls had no idea what had happened to him. Only three years later did they learn that he was alive and living in Bucharest. In the meantime the girls worked on the collective farm and all married early. Our babushka married at 18 but the marriage lasted only 3 years because her husband drank too much. She married again thereafter, had children and a happy life, a lot of which was made possible, she says, by the great system and country that Nicolae Ceaucescu created. Besides the sadness she showed when she talked about how unjust it was that he was executed in 1989, the entire time we were there she was always smiling and happy a pleasure to be with.

That morning we headed west toward Tulcea. Tat had a train back to the big city at 1500 and after that I would carry on alone toward my destination of Odessa. The outskirts were comprised of gypsy villages but the center of Tulcea turned out to be quite nice. It was a bloody hot day so when we arrived we sat in the shade and drank a cold one, then walked around the town square and visited the stalls selling hand-made goods from around the country. There was a Danube festival in the town that weekend and there was a lot going on.

At the station we bump into Alex and Ina again, which is a pleasant coincidence. They are heading south as well and so Tat will have company on the train. I however, am alone again and quite sad about it. Many years ago I chose to leave the environment in which I lived and set out on my own in order to change the course of my miserable existence and remove myself from the bad influences that defined my life. The result of choosing to live far away from everything I knew was that I did and still do spend a great deal of time alone. Frankly I am used to it and not bothered by it, until I have spent long periods of time with others. Then I realise the alone-ness and the loneliness. Here I was in a part of the world that I did not yet know, was again alone and for the next few hours was feeling quite down. It made me think of a passage in the book Rad Ab by Peter Smolka, a courageous man who several years ago rode his bicycle alone around the world. He told of when his brother joined him for a few weeks of riding in Africa and how alone he felt when his brother returned home. What I am doing is nothing like the great adventure he undertook, but I could in that moment relate to that feeling.

I spend the afternoon and early evening riding west of Tulcea in the direction of Galati. The countryside is made up of light hills and golden wheat and corn fields and is beautiful. Near sunset I arrive in a village and begin seeking a place to sleep. Stopping at a few houses I am unable to get a corner of a garden in which to place my tent. Knowing or perhaps feeling that I will find something, I continue on unconcerned. The road climbs a hill as it enters the village and to the left a dirt road branches off to a collection of houses. To the right of the main road the hill drops off toward the Danube delta so that there is a brilliant view over the delta and the sunset. At the first house three elderly people are sitting outside, overlooking the delta and the sunset, and I begin talking to them about the evening, the route, etc. In time I raise the issue of a place to sleep and they offer me their garden. This house must the local meeting place because as the evening progressed and the sun fell closer to the horizon, about a dozen people of all ages had turned up to hang out on the steps before the house. As they turned up they would talk with their friends and then slip in a “who is this guy?”. Then the conversation would start again about my trip, my bike, the Delta, etc. The view over the delta and the sunset were so spectacular that an apartment in my country with such a view would cost at least 10’000 per sqm.

I remembered that I had a half bottle of red wine in one of my panniers and I broke it out and we passed the bottle around. Some people I know would really be annoyed with me for drinking out of the same bottle as those people in the village but fuck it, I did not think it would do any harm and it made for a nice moment. When the sun had disappeared the local hang-out closed down, we went inside, the old lady made dinner for me and then I rolled out my iso-matt and sleeping bag and slept outside under the porch. By 600 in the morning I was on my way and heading toward Ukraine. 

Lazy days at the beach

We spent two days in Sf. Gheorge, sleeping in the tent in the garden, visiting the beach and visiting – strange to me – an independent film festival being held at the campground. It seems like an odd place to hold a film festival, deep in the swap in a place accessible only by two boats per day. The town is located two kilometers downriver from where the river meets the Black Sea. It is comprised of one main street and one semi-street that follows the quay along the river. There are probably 100 houses in total and the streets simply sand streets. During the stay I notice a total of about 4 cars, which are four-wheel drive vehicles that can probably be used to reach the only other town in that part of the delta, Sultina. Other than that, the village is only accessible by boat. There is one beer-garden-like establishment, a bancomat, a general store and we hear that there is a pizzeria, but although we walked around the entire town, did not see it.

Even if it is a strange place to hold a film festival, it is in any case a nice atmosphere. People have come from all around the country and some even from abroad to camp, enjoy the beach and in the evening watch films on a big screen set up in the campground.

The two days we spend there are on the beach, picnicking, eating fish stew cooked by Aurora. The campground is located between the beach and the garden in which we are staying. There is a lot going on there due to the festival and so whenever we go or come from the beach we stop there to check out what is going on. On this day we stop there to buy a couple of cold ones, make a lunch of salad, cheese, bread and beer and chill out under the covered communal area that has a number of long wooden tables. It is crowded and we find two places across the table from a middle-aged couple. They are clearly foreign and I was 90% sure that they are German. Usually it is easy to tell. I think it would be interesting to talk to them about why they are hear, etc. I have a German-language book in my backpack that I was reading at the beach and as we unpack our things I lay it on the table nonchalantly, as a way to break the ice and start a conversation. There was no comment so then I asked if they are German and they responded affirmatively. We tried to talk with them, offer then to dine with us, etc, but we got only one-word responses “nein”, “ja” and they were almost physically leaning back to get away from us. It was a strange. They soon left and Tatiana said to me “these people are on holiday? If they are so, what are Germans like when they are home?”.

We then found the campground showers and showered for the first time in days. They were communal camping showers with only luke-warm water, but if felt great to be clean again. At the house of our babuschka Tatiana had been able to wash her hair when our babuschka heated water on the stove and helped her by pouring the water over her, the old fashioned way. I had not showered properly in days.

Since there was a larger number of visitors in the town due to the film festival, there was some confusion on the boat situation back to the mainland. On our last day we rose at 6 in order to be at the quay at 630 for the 700 boat. by the time we arrived half the campers were already there and it was quite clear that we could not get on the boat, which was limited to 150 persons. We hear that normally the crew would overload the boat, but today someone from the maritime control entity was aboard, so that this was not possible. We are told that larger boat will arrive in the afternoon and it will have place for all who remain. That means that we have another day on the beach and in the late afternoon we return to the quay, accompanied by Costi. 

The boat is indeed much larger and we easily have place for the bikes. After all the sand, sea, and wind of the last few days we are tired. A quick exploration of the boat turns up lifeboats on the top deck and we stretch out in one and slowly cruising down the river we watch dark storm clouds roll in over the Ukraine and watch the lightning show. The storm was off in the distance and no threat to us, though it was cool and we pulled on fleece and jackets for that lovely evening-at-sea feeling and dozed off in the lifeboat. The trip upriver is longer than the one downriver and when we woke we still had 2 hours ahead of us. I went exploring and found in the bow of the boat three German boys, who I had seen the day we arrived, playing great music on their old battered instruments. We moved to the bow, found a spot to lean against the bulkhead, view the delta drift pass and listen to their music. It was a great chill-out, end of a long weekend at the beach atmosphere. 

still too tired.........

That morning we have a tremendous wind coming from the north and we are riding due east. In order to stay on the bike I have to ride leaned over about 10° into the wind. Wind like this I have experienced only in the Bretagne, at the sea. It makes the riding hard and by early afternoon we are wrecked. Looking for a picnic location we go up and down the woody beach bordering the Danube, but the wind is so strong and constant that any attempt at eating would be futile and result in eating more sand than food. We head away from the water and after a time we find a picnic table next to a store, buy cheese and beer to accompany the kilos of fruits and vegetables and bread we had been given by Ioanna before our departure, eat a huge lunch and fall asleep for a well-deserved rest. The night before we ended up sleeping in the small house of Ion and Ioanna rather than in the tent but I had had a rough night because Ion, just a few metres away in the next room, snored like a machine all night.  

In the late afternoon we arrive in the Lipoven town of Mahmudia, from where we hope to catch a ferry boat the next day through the delta to the sea. We meet a little girl on the street who tells us that her babuschka has a room to let and we walk over with her. The old woman has a lovely little house on the main street, a comfortable room for us and a garden with a pergola covered by grape vines full of fresh grapes. The room is very inexpensive and we gladly move in. It seems that she takes in visitors more for the pleasure of having people in the house than for the few RON she earns. She busies herself making up the room and asking what we would like to eat that night. In the evening we sit together at the table outside, eat a nice dinner, drink a bottle of wine I bought at the store and also her homemade wine.

The next day at three in the afternoon we have – allegedly – a ferry boat to Sft. Gheorghe, which lies at the end of one of the three main river branches of the delta. I write allegedly, because accurate information here seems impossible to find. One hears things from others, then tries to substantiate it by checking again with others and if one is 80 or 90 percent sure, that is already something. At 2 o’clock we walk the bikes down to the port to see what we can find out. There is a large group of people waiting for a boat, so it seems that our info was indeed correct. At about 3 a large ferry turns up and it is a chaotic scene of passengers disembarking and embarking and loads of food being carried aboard for transport into the delta towns. We manage to get the bikes aboard and are directed toward the stern of the boat. My bike is so wide with all the bags mounted on it that it is hard to maneuver it but I get a hand from another cycling tourist who grasps the handlebars while I take the back of the bike and we manage to wedge it into a corner in the stern of the boat. The man is named Costi and is planning to ride his bike from Sft. Gheorghe to another town in the delta from where he hopes to find a boat going to the Ukraine (he is not sure if there is boat but will wait at the docks for a few days) from where he will ride home to Kronstadt (Brasov), Romania. His bike is ancient, maybe from the 1970s, but he has managed to ride it all over southeast Europe, the Balkans, even to Istanbul. We talk for a while, then go to explore the boat and buy tickets. In regard to the tickets we are told we can pay RON 56 for the two of us and receive tickets, or we can make a “gift” of less than that and not have tickets. You get the idea. This is how everything works around here. We are on a budget tour and choose the gift option and spend much less than the normal price.

We slowly cruise three hours down the delta, relaxing on deck, drinking cold beer and watching the nature drift past. It is an old boat, beaten up, but fits perfectly into the scene. A trip like this should be done on an old beaten up boat. Arriving at Sft. Gheorge, which is located at the end of this branch of the river about 2 kms from where the river meets the Black Sea, the local taxis our out en masse to meet the visitors. The local taxis are horse-carts and a dozen of them are waiting. We see Costi at the quay with three others. He is visiting friends here and we are invited to go with him to visit the friends.  Costi is a professor of violin and the friends he is visiting are both in the Transylvanian Symphony orchester. Aurora is an oboist and Lenu is flautist. Again, despite being simple bicycle tourists, we have the great fortune to arrive among intellectuals. On the boat Costi also met Alex, a young man from Tulcea who studied engineering in Constanza and is now doing a master degree in marine engineering in Norway and his girlfriend Ina, from Stuttgart, who studied ship building in TU-Harburg (Hamburg) and is now also doing a master in marine engineering in Norway, and they are there also with us in the garden. It is quite a colourful group and we sit for a few hours in the garden drinking home-made wine and talking. 

Too tired to think up a title to this entry.........

Riding north into the delta we come to our first Lipoven community – Russians who came south hundreds of years ago to escape the reforms introduced by Peter the Great. It was quite a surprise to pass from one village to the other and see the writing change to Cyrillic and the language to Russian. Stopped for coffee and to check the map. The terrain was easy, with rolling hills, but the wind was a real challenge. This area of the world is now a great source of wind energy. The Spaniards in the form of Iberdrola arrived here a number of years ago to harvest the energy, which must be very good if they had enough patience to overcome the local bureaucracy.

We carry on along quite roads with little traffic and villages placed about every 10 kms. The roads are pleasant but when the wind comes directly from the front we cannot be making more than 3kms per hour. Walking the bikes is the solution, otherwise it is just a waste of energy. In the early afternoon we arrive at a well preserved fortification overlooking the Black Sea, which is said to have been a Genovese fort in the 14^th century, when that state had these trade routes under its control. After the visit to the fort we stop for cold beer in a local bar. Rather than a bar it is a set of tables on a concrete patio and a refrigerator inside. The bar lady simply collects the money and opens the bottles. It costs 2 RON, so who cares how it looks? It is time to eat but in the only store in town we ask if it has cheese and get a response as if cheese were a delicacy. The answer is no, but the message behind the answer is ‘cheese? What kind of an idiot are you?’ We move on and find a larger town, buy food and create a monumental picnic in the small town square. The street dogs arrive to get their food. They are very sweet. One would think that dogs who spend their entire lives as strays fighting for food and survival would be very mean, but they are usually very afraid and very happy if one plays with them and pets them. As we are eating a man who is clearly in a bad state turns up to rest in the square. Homeless is a word we would use in the west. He is just in a bad state and probably never had a home or a decent life. Thinking about all the kindness that has been shown to me over this trip and thinking that it cannot simply be chance – that my task is to pass some of that on to others – we make him a big sandwich and then I go to buy him a cold beer. It is nothing, no special gesture or effort, but I do feel that I am sending back some of that wonderful positive energy and support that the universe has been sending me.

With full stomachs we set off for the late afternoon ride. With strong headwinds we ride not more than 15 kms later and arrive in a very poor town set at a crossroads – one direction heading directly to the city of Tulcea and the other heading due east into the Danube delta. Selling fruit at the intersection is a great big bear of a man of whom we ask directions. We start talking and soon Ion suggests that we set up tent in his garden. It is hard to arrive there, he says, and we should wait until his son comes to collect him and then follow him. We walk to the store to buy some biscuits, talk with Ion for a while and soon his son arrives in a horse cart and they load up the fruits and vegetables that were unsold for that day. We try to understand his age. He looks little older than I am but speaks of his grown children and grandchildren. It felt a big confusing and I was not sure of the situation at first. We follow him through the village, down some dirt roads, to a neighborhood of old wooden houses on the outskirts of the village. The garden is teaming with ducks, chickens, geese and loads of other animals. We meet the two children who still live at home, the wife and two grandchildren, then set up the tent in the garden and are invited to drink some homemade cherry schnapps and the family toasts our arrival. Later we walk through the garden and pick fresh vegetables and fruits for dinner and then all sit down at a plastic table in the garden for dinner. We get to know Ion and his wife and learn their story. Ion is 51 and already worked 25 years as an electrician in the coal mines in the south of the country before moving to the north five years prior to work as a farmer. The family earns money by selling vegetables, fruits and eggs in this village and surrounding villages.

After dinner, Ioanna, the wife brings a small bottle of whiskey and Ion and I enjoy a drink. A typical miner he is not. Even when we first met on the street it was evident that this is an intelligent and educated man and our discussion over whiskey reveals this even more. He is discussing literature and asks about our favourite poets and authors. Now, I am no intellectual and say something about Pablo Neruda, but in truth I don’t recall any of his poetry. Neruda’s life is interesting to me and I once visited his former house in Chile, but poetry in general, although I am sure it is very interesting, I have never really been able to get into. Ion tells us that he was raised in a very poor part of the country and was raised by a physically abusive. As a child he would escape and hide in the fields around his village and would bring books with him when he did so.  His brother, he tells us, did not find an escape from the violence and became a violent person himself, got into trouble as a young man and passed away early. Ion learned to become an electrician while serving in the military and when he returned to his village he became an electrician in the coal mines. I think he must have continued to bring books with him when in mines. I can picture him in a dark and dirty mine shaft, reading Alexander Dumas by his coalminer’s head light. Under other circumstances he might have become a literature professor or an author, but in Ceaucescu’s Romania, coming from such a background with little formal schooling, he surely had little if any chance.

Normally I refrain from talking too much about my life and travels when with poorer people because my world is usually too strange and exotic for them to understand or perhaps even an affront to people for whom existence is a struggle. It was not so with Ion and family. They were thrilled to hear the stories and see the photographs. We left the next morning after a big breakfast of coffee, warm milk directly taken from their goats and quite a few shots of palinka. We exchanged contact information with the 21 year old daughter, Ionela, and have been in contact with her since to thank again for the wonderful time. I will stay in contact and if this blog does become a book, will send a copy to the family. By the way, the title of the last blog entry (12 August) is from Ion.