We are in a foreign
country. They don’t speak English. They do however listen to the
Beatles and Backstreet Boys. As everyone in the bus sings along with
the Joey Fatone (is that his name… I don’t even know), “I don’t
care who you are, where you’re from, what you did as long as you love
me,” Stacy talks with the driver in her fluent Romanian. Her
family immigrated from Romania a few years after she was born. She
still has family here and visits them every couple of years.
I note the cross
suction-cupped to the windshield. It sways slightly as we drive on
this deserted highway at one in the morning. Also, taped above the
driver’s head there is the picture of Mary, one of Jesus, a few more
of some saints, and an icon with Mary and the baby Jesus.
Crowded, concrete,
two story houses. Old, unpainted, wooden fences. Bushy trees. I
would expect Cuba to like this, but Romania?! We are driving from
the airport through the outskirts of Bucharest.
On our left are the
lights of skyscrapers. Only as we get closer I realize they are
lighting the smokestacks and towers of a large factory. There are
three smokestacks and they are huge, the size you’d expect from a
nuclear power plant. A slow but steady stream of smoke or steam is
drifting off from them.
The air is acrid
and dry. My eyes burn, either from the late hour and all the travel,
or because of the polluted air. Or both. Paul asks Matt and I if we
are sports fans and tells us he follows college football closely.
The season just started last week, but he hasn’t been able to check
scores or results. Stacy continues her conversation with the driver
in Romanian, which reminds me of a combination of French and Spanish.
We are past the factory, but I see behind it two other of the huge
smokestacks, both dark, both silent.
Too be continued…
