The new beginning.....a year on

One grey morning I woke up to a quiet farm. The cats and dogs had gone, so had all but two of the horses. Danielle and I packed our few remaining belongings into the back of our truck, hitched up our trailer, and loaded the last two horses: Doru and Pintea. We said goodbye to the few people who knew or seemed to care about our departure. Finally, mid-morning, we set off down the muddy village street, bumping along past grubby yards and houses that needed painting, crawling along below the cold umber hills.

A few miles later, I realised that a box had been forgotten in my old tack room, and turned back. Three horse carts stood in our yard as neighbours and former employees took whatever could be carried out of the house and workshop, which was not a great deal. Little furniture remained, though the blacksmithing gear that I could not carry was both valuable and useful. I retrieved the box and set off for the last time.

Long hours later, after a slow four hundred kilometres on crumbling roads, we crossed into Hungary. Suddenly the roads became smooth, the towns and villages well cared for, the people Western. I had arranged a stop at a village guesthouse on the Great Plain, and we were welcomed kindly, the two horses finding comfortable boxes on a nearby farm.

The journey went on, slowly towing a rather poorly balanced trailer. Another night was spent in Hungary, then a night in Austria. A strange feeling overcame me: the realisation that I had been a complete fraud selling holidays in Romania. Not in a premeditated sense, since I had travelled so little that the contrast between Romania and neighbouring countries to the West had escaped me. But I had become an apologist for an ill-run and corrupt nation whose very own population, for all their faux-patriotism, cared neither for their heritage or their environment.

A year later I am sitting in a hotel room whilst away on a training course for my work and have a few moments to type a final post on this blog. My new life is a complete contrast to the old. I may work in an office again, however my employer gives me interesting and indeed challenging work, trusts me, equips me with the tools that I need, and pays me well. I have good, competent colleagues in whom I trust. This work brings out the best in me, and I am very happy with it.

I have a horse to ride in my spare time. Indeed, after twenty thousand miles in the saddle, riding as and when I choose is a welcome change. My back is well again - finding a chiropractor was nearly my first action when I stopped in the West.

Danielle and I are married now, and we have a modest but pleasant home. We can begin to lead normal lives after the many problems that Romania through at us. We can get on with life without being asked to pay bribes, without our every effort being sabotaged by the jealous and the ignorant, without our neighbours stealing from us.

Given the changes that took place in the world economy, we did not move a moment too soon. The tourist industry in Romania has slumped, and former colleagues report that the going is tough. Several no longer work in Romania at all. I feel sorry for the remainder, struggling on in a fragment of the Third World jostling like flotsam at the edge of Europe.

I suppose that the village did not seem so bad a decade ago. It was still then a fragment of an older world, where there existed memories of honour, where people still knew how to work after a fashion. But they were dragged down by their corrupt urban compatriots and became simple uncultured materialists. What a sad end for a people and a country that seemed to have such hope! It seems that nothing which I did made the blindest bit of difference to anyone whom I employed or worked with. I am sad for that. I miss the mountains and forests, the expansive views from the lofty ridges, however one can neither eat the view nor pay the bills with it, or even sell it profitably to tourists when almost each Romanian blindly trashed his backyard.

I do not need to say where we live or where we work. Suffice it to say that we moved on from the first place where we stopped. I did take down this blog for several months in response to abusive and libelous comments posted by certain corrupt Romanians. I suppose that these people regret that the opportunity to solicit bribes has passed. No, it did not prove possible to close down my affairs out there as I would have wished, however that is thanks to corrupt lawyers and real estate agents who obstructed me in the hope of largesse that I was not willing to offer.

Suffice it to say that Danielle and I now live in a better place amongst better people.

A friend visited the village recently. My former neighbours were drunk, Cornel's new employer hadn't paid him for several months and his wife begged for money, my looted former home is empty and ruined. (I had found Cornel a well paid job working with horses for an English employer, however his wife had incited him to leave that job because it involved lodging away from home on weekdays. So now they are nearly destitute. Again he is a sad alcoholic man with no prospects.) Of all the people whom I left behind, I feel regret for Cornel's fate alone, perhaps because I spent the most time with him and perhaps because (usually and at least when sober) he tried to be a good employee. But the place and the people dragged him down, who might have prospered in better surroundings.

Nearly ten years of my life vanished into that place. Almost a decade, all my savings, and more besides. Long years of stress and struggle for what precisely? Well, they made me stronger and more resillient, they gave me a better perspective on life, they cured what tendency I had towards depression. So I did not emerge destitute of hope or options.

Yes, Danielle and I live in a better neighbourhood now.

Comments

[Naomi Smith, down Mexico way, south TX, USA]

I just received your update, so heart-wrenching. I am so happy for you and Danielle on your new life together, and at the same time so very sad for your loss of time spent in Romania. Of course, you know it all happens for a reason, and know that none of your time there was spent in vain. I believe you gave light, hope, and joy to those you touched, what they choose to do with what they recived is their choice. Know that you did your best. That community does not realize what they loss, and consciously, may never know, however, deep in their hearts, they know. Be proud of the soul work you did for them. In time, I believe they will come to understand, soften, and appreciate it all.

I hope you will continue to write on this blog, if you change, please invite me to join your group, whatever you write about. I love reading what you write. I believe you should send a manuscript of your "Transylvanian Horseman" tale to publishers. I believe this will be an excellent read in book form, and possible new income for you. Look at U.S. President Barrack Obama, he made over 2-million in royalties on his book sales alone in 2008. Any amount is helpful these days. Go For IT!

Take care, both of you, you two seem like old friends to me. And, I hope to continue to hear from you, and the most vivid colors and tales of your lives.

[Joanne]

How very sad! I am hoping that despite the odds somehow your horses have found a home with kind people.

[Amelia Seifert]

Dear Julian and Danielle,

A happy Christmass Season to you!

I'm very sorry to hear things didn't work out in Transylvania. It sounds like a messy affair and I hope your much happier where you are now.

My experences working at Stephan Cel Mare all those years ago have been in the back of my mind for the last few years, as I've been pottering through an Anthropology Degree in Belfast. I am now contemplating a masters, and turning my thoughts to research possibilities. One idea that keeps popping up in my head is returning to Romainia and focusing the on the (presumably changing) relationship between the people, the land the EU and the horse based agricultural lifestyle. You had mentioned that Romania had the largest working horse population in the world at the time, if I recall correctly?

Due to not being awefull at languages, I had given some thought to ways of potentially getting round the language barrier. I had wondered about contacting the vet you used to employ. When I worked with him and his fiance at your farm, assisting in surgery and the like, they had said that they thought I learn Romanian and enroll in the University where he taught. A dodgy idea, but it did suggest that perhaps they wouldn't mind having me around. My idea (all very hypothetical at the moment) was to contact that vet (whos name I can't recall...) and see if he would be interested in taking on a helper/researcher for a short time. I could then hopefully make use of his translation skill while meeting and conversing with many horse based agriculturalists in diffent parts of the country.

I know how you feel about Romania in general, but I still think it may be a valuable research direction, as the dirth of horses is unusual in itself and the junture of this more traditional lifestyle and relationship to animals and the joining of modern Europe.

Your thoughts on this proposition would be most helpfull.

Many thanks,

-Amelia-Roisin Seifert