Salute To Roman

Roman, Romania was my home away from home starting in April 2009 until December 2009. (Although I thought I was going to be living there for 2 years.) We were expatriated there for David’s work and had no idea what we were in for. Apart from travelling to Paris and England we had never ventured deeper into Europe and certainly not into Eastern Europe. I have written in the past about my experiences in this town but decided recently that I did not post enough pictures of my first Romanian experience. In the days leading up to my departure from this city, I ran around Roman furiously taking pictures so that I might never forget it. The beauty, the boldness and the downright ugliness. All of it had a part in my story and it had to be documented. It is only now that I have had a chance to finish my salute to ROMAN!

Two weeks before the girls and I left Roman we made our very own Romanian wine from the grapes in our backyard. A man with all the old school tools of the trade came to our house to show us how.

When I say old school tools, I mean by Canadian standard but this is how home grown wine is made in Romania! It was really cool.

Notice the ridiculous hat on Ruby. All babies wear hats like these until it’s either over 20 degrees Celsius or there is not breeze at all. Typically I’m not someone who will do what everyone else wants me to do but really a woman can only take so many “you’re a terrible mother” stares until you break and stuff one onto your kids head.

I wanted to do a whole blog on the holes of Roman. Yes I could actually have enough material for that. You see the man hole covers are made with steel and copper and being that the people in this Moldavian province are quite poor, they steal the man hole covers. That’s right, they rip them right out of the ground and sell it on the black market so they can feed their family, pay bills or there is the one I don’t like to think about, get drunk.

Now these holes can sit there for days, weeks or months without getting recovered as the city doesn’t have enough money to buy more man hole covers. So, if it’s on a really busy road, they will stick a tree in the hole to alert the drivers of the roads fault. That’s right, a tree!

 No orange tape, no pylons or safety fence... a large stick is the answer here. Someone could easily injure themselves but that doesn’t seem to come into consideration. To make it all the more pleasant, the odour coming from these open sewers was enough to gag a maggot.

My girls attended a little Romanian school while we were there for something to do and for socialization. The school was tiny but the owner had big ideas and a bigger heart. Her name was Anca and she did the most with what she had. As I said, Roman was not a very rich town so not many people could send their kids to a private kindergarten. (Cost 400 lei per month per kid. Approximately $143.) Therefore the school had limited resources but made up for it in heart. It was run out of the only Anglican Church in Roman and it was really lovely. My girls learned some Romanian and the Romanian children learned some English. A few times, the girls and I went in and taught the children English songs. That was really cute. The little church and the school were sweet but looking across the road you were quickly reminded of the poverty in this town.

The gypsies dump their garbage wherever they deem fit and it sits there and rots for weeks until the city finally manages to clean it up. The week before I took this picture, the pile of garbage was as tall as I am.  This marked the border of the "Gypsy Zone."

The apartment buildings in Roman are really very interesting and it took me a while to figure them out. This concrete jungle was made during communist days where each family was given an “appropriately sized” apartment for the size of their family. These apartments are owned by the individuals living in the building. There are no condo fees, no board members raising money to update the facade. Nothing. So you end up with street upon street of really bleak looking places.

However, if you talk to the owners of the apartments below you and above you and find the right construction company you can have a new facade.

The trouble is it that you get a pretty strange looking building in the end because it is rarely possible to be able to have all the residence afford such a change.  There are buildings like this all over the city with half of it renovated and the other half falling to pieces. 




The doctor’s offices are laughable and sad at the same time. Even worse than South Street hospital. Would you want to go to see this Neurologist?

The government pays doctors here less than Ontario nurses!  It is no wonder they can only afford a one bedroom apartment as their practise.  The doctors then feel it necessary to demand payment even though the medical system is supposed to be a socialist one.  The more money you have, the quicker your service is given. 


The public schools in the city are a sad state of affairs.

With money being taken away from the education system at every budget, schools are suffering in Roman and all around Romania. No money is spent on playgrounds, paint or safety. They simply don’t have it.

Life in Roman was like nothing I’ve ever experienced but I can say now I feel privileged to have lived there. To see these people live their lives day in and day out.

To witness first hand a very different way of life to my own.  The different clothes, language, food and transportation.  But the animals... oh the animals. I wish I could have saved them all. Is it crazy that I think about them all the time?

Every time I leave my stroller outside I now instinctively check it for purring cats.  This was a homeless cat that hung around outside of David's bosses house.  She just wanted to curl up somewhere warm and cozy.

When I walk by a dog food store, my instinct tells me to run in and buy some treats for the homeless puppies that wait for me every day. My heart bleeds for them. It was hard seeing them alone and starving but I can honestly say I am glad I did not live here during the winter and watch them all freeze. I don’t think I could have taken that.

What I am going to miss the most about Roman are 2 very important people. My “paid friends” as David jokingly calls them. Alexandra was Ruby’s babysitter while I did my school work in the mornings but she was much more than that.



Our friendship grew quickly as she helped me cope with the day to day living in Roman. I wish I could put her in my suitcase and take her to Canada but it’s not that easy.

I hope to keep in touch with her for the rest of our lives.


Oana-Maria was my other paid friend. She came to my house 2 – 3 times per week and helped me to keep the house clean and me to keep my sanity. My kids loved her and she loved them back.

This woman is the hardest working woman I know. She was working a fulltime security job, cleaning for me and in her second year of Law school. She was so welcoming and warm and easy to get along with I found myself wanting to hang out with her more and more. She invited us to her family’s home and treated the girls to a much loved visit with her brothers kittens. It was really hard leaving both of these wonderful women as I didn’t know when I would see them again and they truly made life liveable in Roman. I am so happy to have met them.


What I have learned most about Roman and about the province of Moldavia is that many the people have hearts of gold and although the exteriors might be bleak and hopeless, the people continue to find beauty and happiness in their lives.  I loved watching the people do what they did with the little they had.  They made it work.  Like how to get cabbage home on your bike when you don't have a car. 

There are spots of beauty in this small town including the parks,

the paths and the trees but it’s the people that I found to be the biggest surprise in the end. Yes, even the starrers!  In the end it was an unbelievable experience.  One that I am endlessly proud of and feel thankful to have had the opportunity to live here.  Roman you will always be in my heart.


Alison xx