Be careful of Hitchhikers

Ever since I arrived here in Romania, and since I am driving lots in the car, I notice the roadside. I notice that the lush green pastures are now being turned and seedlings are starting to sprout. I notice road signs of which I have no understanding of their meaning, I notice people trying to hitch a ride and occasionally I notice the street workers.

I've been wanting to stop for a hitchhiker ever since I started driving. Unlike in places like Sydney, it's quite common to hitch a ride here in between towns and cities. Some places aren't serviced well by any public transport so people rely on hitching a ride to get to work. And they pay for it too. I often wonder who they are, where they're going and also wonder why there isn't a more efficient system to make this hitching a ride business easy. Like why don't they hold up signs stating where they want to go?



We travel a lot between Arad and Timisoara and sometimes to Szeged in Hungary and see lots of people. Today was the day we stopped. It was a chilling and quite devastating 10 degrees today. Rain and wind. Just after crossing from Hungary to Romania at Nadlac I see this woman with shopping bags standing on the side of the road. We have to stop and pick her up I say. It's freezing. I'm excited. Our first hitchhiker.

I get out and make room for her and all her shopping bags. I expect we'll have a conversation about where she's going and what she does. We learn she is headed to Deva, about 5 hours drive from where we collect her. We tell her we can drop her off in Arad. She seems OK with that.


Silence. The conversation stops. She doesn't reveal any more information and I don't probe. Not that I can really ask deep and meaningful questions in Romanian yet.

We drop her off and I notice her high heels, extra tan stockings and bright red lipstick. I'd only noticed her shopping bags before. Perhaps they didn't have groceries in them. Linda2 tells me she realised just after we picked her up that perhaps she was a street worker and we'd be expected to pay her going rate. If so we were not very demanding clients. Then I thought she might be an occasional street worker. Only doing it when she needs to.


I later told a local that we picked up someone on our way back. They thought we were crazy. They're gypsies you know, they have more money than you. Why should you waste your petrol on them! What an insane idea. Why wouldn't I pick up someone who wants to go where I'm heading? And I'm already polluting the environment by driving and that person isn't.

Might just pay better attention when collecting a woman next time. Be sure I won't have to pay her instead of her paying me!

Uneven Ground

The cobble streets are uneven yet delightful. I’d forgotten what it’s like to walk through a historic city. Timisoara. I’d almost been captivated before I knew how important this city was. I’ve found my favourite café, my favourite pastry shop and remembered how to navigate my way between the two beautiful piazzas that dominate this city. I’ve driven round in circles – the city was built as a fortress - managed to identify and remember a few street names and distinguish the two bridges that cross the Bega river.


Timisoara (pronounced timishwara) is the site where the 1989 revolution was born when protesters gathered outside the house of Pastor László Tőkés, a vocal opponent to the Ceausescu regime. The secret police were ordered to deport him and his supporters protested. The army were ordered to fire and thousands were killed. It ended the communist regime of Nicolae Ceauşescu and marks the Romanian revolution.

I could have walked through the cobbled streets of Timisoara and not have known what significant ground I was walking on. They cause me to trip, women in high heels navigate them and hundreds of birds feed on them.


I later saw a water fountain where people stop to fill their water bottles. A water fountain adorned with hundreds of names. I ask and am told this is a monument remembering those who died on that fateful night. It seems a rather insignificant monument for such a catastrophic event. I ask again and am told it’s just one of a series of monuments that were created and installed around the city. An eternal flame, a statue and others I haven’t yet located. Then there are monuments that were donated by companies. One is a tall and intrusive neon cross erected in front of the Romanian Orthodox Cathedral by an electrical company. Seems somewhat dubious.


I then wonder if there’s a symbol or face to this revolution? An image, an icon or worse or better still a figure. I glance up and see a billboard that features Che Guevara selling something. How different the idea of a revolution seems here than in Latin America. Why? Yes hundreds died, fighting to free themselves from an oppressive regime. Should this not be revered? I meet an Iraqi immigrant, now a Romanian citizen, who introduces me to his daughter, her name is Gegehvara. Named after the ‘revolutionary’ figure he tells me.




No one seems to smile. Everything seems a struggle. But you’re free now I think to myself, why are you still so sad? Of course I don’t think it’s that simple. Are they all waiting for a miraculous turnaround of events? Now part of the EU, most people tell me there’s been no real difference. This week the president announced salaries would be cut by 25% starting June as the country has no more money! Each election a different party is elected and seems to undo, for better or worse, the work of the previous government.



Sure there is progress. Infrastructure, technology, commerce….but do all these things mean that much? The average wage is 200 Euro per month while the average apartment in the city centre costs about 300 euro per month?

I paint a bleak picture. I get frustrated easily. I get happy when someone smiles. I’ve discovered birds outside my window that sing all day and night. I begin to like walking on the uneven ground.