“For all its problems, as you say, Romania has a special something that you won’t find elsewhere. When I’m away, say, in England for a few weeks, I miss that special something, whatever it is.”
Year: 2016
We were with local kids collecting litter from a mountain lane, when a local yelled, “Hah! Vino Mama, sa ma vezi cum lucrez la spatii verzi!” Angela told me that this was a sarcastic reference to a communist-era work slogan: “Mum, come and see, I’m working in the green spaces!”
Mike Ormsby’s voice is never invasive nor in the least sounding like the usual “wise guy from the West”. Rather, quite often he limits himself to acting as litmus paper within his environment, letting people and situations speak for themselves.
As I walked to reach the venue, I was impressed by the level of participation in the event: families, children, older people, youngsters of all types – from hipsters to students, to manual workers – women from every kind of social and cultural background, and eccentrics, of course.
Rap is not my genre but rappers may tell us something about the mood of the youngest ones: they powerfully echo shared disillusionments and hopes (?)…
If you believe in the power of serendipity Bucharest is the place to be: here the music of chance may easily lead you to discover something intriguing just round the corner. If you can afford to invest some of your time in random walks, then just go for it. At times you may even experience shy forms of travel in time.
“I am a film-maker”, he declares with a curious mix of humor and gravitas, specifying: “in fact, now a worldwide director with scissors”.
Romania through the prism of a video. Take Despre Smerenie (About Humility): people’s reactions to that song can provide useful clues as to the range of mentalities coexisting in today’s Romanian society.
This kind of connect-the-dots game has taken me first to Palatul Primaverii in Bucharest and then to the Muzeul Comunismului in Târgoviște, a town 80 kilometers (50 miles) northwest of the capital.
“Street children do not exist, only children forgotten in the streets by adults. And we are those adults”, Miloud Oukili
