Romanian Chicken Death Match Contenders and other observations

Romanian Chicken Death Match Contenders and other observations

Warning:  Chickens are larger than they appear.

I am in Romania to do a field check of some equipment that was recently installed here.  The field location is about a two hour drive from the small city of Medias, Romania, where I am staying.  Fortunately, I am not doing the driving.  I say fortunately, but I wonder about that.  The driver, Fione, is very familiar with the area, but these are winding two lane roads.  The asphalt paving has long ago worn out. And the patches have been patched. I sneak a look at the speedometer and we are going well over 80 kilometers an hour, and we barely slow down for curves.  We are in a small European manufactured car with those tiny 14” tires, and I am fearful that we’ll hit a pothole at these speeds and a tire will disintegrate. We pass all the slow moving vehicles like they were parked, and once we nearly pulverized a dog who decided to challenge us as we sped by.  

Fione crosses himself, as in a Catholic ritual, when we pass certain churches.  With the aggressive way he drives I hope he is building up Catholic points for godly protection. If he continues to pass cars on curves I may start to cross myself too.  It can’t hurt to hedge my religious bets.

On trips like this I tend to spend a lot of time in other people’s cars with drivers that don’t speak English.  There are two guys in the backseat and I am in the front with Fione.  He has one of those cell phones that sticks in his ear, and with no warning, he’ll suddenly starts yakking.  Since he speaks Romanian, with a few English words mixed in, I don’t know if he is talking to me, the guys in the back, or to the phone.  He’s one of these guys who cannot talk without using their hands, so he will begin gesturing wildly and raise his voice for no apparent reason.  I wish he’d just keep both hands on the wheel.  I am getting old, I guess.  I wonder if I should tell him not to run with scissors.

The guys in the back are blathering on in Romanian too.  It always seems like everyone talks at the same time.  Don’t they take a breath?  And there is talk radio on too.  So I am surrounded by voices but completely ignorant about what is being said.  It is easy for me to filter all this out. (I am married, you know). I ignore the voices and daydream in my own world.  For me it is a cacophony of silence.  

The rolling hills are full of the past season’s corn crop.  Either the dried corn stalks are still standing, or stacked in shocks in the field.  I see corn cribs stuffed full of dried ears.  I guess it was a good harvest.  As we drive past the farms, the modest homes have livestock milling about in the yard.  I see milk goats, sheep, cows, and a few horses.  It is common to pass a horse drawn cart that is used as the family station wagon, loaded with feed, or people, or nothing, being pulled by a trotting horse.  I notice that there are very few power lines in this country.  I am told that these homes have running water, electricity and gas, but their power consumption must be low.  

Most homes that we pass have small vineyards, where I suppose they grow grapes to eat.  They certainly could not produce enough grapes to make wine, in the spaces allowed, unless they grow them for a cash crop.  When you live in the country you do what you need to do to put food on the table and money in your hand.  I also see lots of giant free range chickens that seem to be in every yard.  Compared to the chickens that the fetching Mrs. Intrepid Traveler raises on our property, these Romanian chickens are huge.  They look like they would kick her chicken’s asses.  Make no mistake, I do not advocate chicken fighting.  I am not the Michael Vick of the Global Poultry Death Match Competition.  I’m just saying that these Romanian chickens look like they could bench press a Volkswagen bus.  Col. Sanders would be salivating.

I admire the folks who live out here.  The ones walking on the road, or in the villages that we blast thru, are the generation that lived thru the communist years.  They probably grew up knowing nothing but Totalitarianism.  I would love to have a conversation with some of them.  I am very interested in how European cultures live.  The problem is we don’t speak the same language.

I hope that I get our equipment problems solved here on this trip, but I would love to have an excuse to come back here in the summer.  I want to experience Romania when the crops are growing and the days are longer.  This is a beautiful, peaceful place.  Just don’t piss off the chickens.