Forging plans, snooping street children

Events from 23.06.2006 to 24.06.2006

I use the morning hours to take care of the new archiving program. Which means transferring the pictures taken with the Leica cameras to the laptop on the same day and immediately labeling them correctly. Although this is additional work alongside writing and the journey is a little slower as a result, it makes our work much easier. We used to have thousands of pictures after every trip that had to be developed, duplicated and labeled by hand. Today we work with an archiving program that helps me to number the pictures, assign keywords and subtitles. When we get home, our pictures are archived and we can start working immediately. Years ago, the quality of a slide was unbeatable. However, the R9 with digital back from Leica is so convincingly good today that we can do without the slide in the future and are therefore faster. Above all, we save an enormous amount of space with digital administration.

“Come on, don’t fall back into your old rut of working without a break. Let’s go to lunch,” says Tanja, whereupon I switch off the computer. “You’re right, I’m ravenous,” I reply, looking forward to some exercise. We walk through the hot summer city to a restaurant that we discovered on our excursion yesterday. We take our time. We first have to relieve the stress of preparing for the trip and, above all, acclimatize. Bucharest is an ugly city with many houses in need of renovation and broken streets, but we still feel comfortable and are very happy to be on the road again.

Although it is already after 12:00 noon, we are the only guests in the restaurant. Nevertheless, we are allowed to order. We use the waiting time to talk about the rest of our journey. “It’s a good idea of yours to avoid the dangerous traffic by starting with the sunrise,” says Tanja. “As a further safety factor, we should also choose Sunday as the day of departure. All the rush hour traffic will be gone on Sunday and we’ll have the streets to ourselves.” “Then the nightmare of having to cycle through a busy city will be a thing of the past.” “Yes, it often makes no sense to rack your brains weeks in advance. It’s often a waste of energy,” I say thoughtfully and am pleased about the simple and good solution of leaving Bucharest behind us with our heavily laden bikes. “And what are your plans for the future?” Tanja wants to know. “What do you mean?” “Well, I mean which direction should we cycle? Do you still want to go to the Black Sea?” “Sure, we want to follow the Danube to its mouth. Even if we can’t cycle along its banks, I definitely want to cycle through the Danube delta. Besides, we can then relax for a few days at some nice seaside resort. I think we should aim for the coastal town of Constanta. What do you think?” “That’s a good suggestion. Oh, look what the waiter brought us. Did you order two schnitzels?” asks Tanja. “Definitely not,” I reply in wonder, looking at the waiter questioningly. “Excuse me. I know you only ordered one portion and a salad for your wife. The chef misunderstood. If you don’t mind, I’ll leave both schnitzels. Of course, you only have to pay for one,” explains the friendly waiter somewhat sheepishly in easily understandable English. My stomach growls like a dangerous predator in eager anticipation of being able to shovel two meals into me in just a few moments. I nod at the waiter with expectant eyes, whereupon he withdraws with a satisfied smile. “Do you think we can trust him?” “Sure, don’t think they’ll end up charging us double despite his friendly assurances,” I reply, chewing impatiently.

“Oh God, look at that. It makes me lose my appetite immediately,” exclaims Tanja just seconds later. “What? What’s going on now?”, I get annoyed after a few bites have just ended up in the endless depths of my impatient digestive tract. “Over there, right next to the restaurant. Can you see the poor children?” “Yes. And?” “Well, take a closer look!” “Oh dear, they’re sniffing glue,” I whisper. “These must be the Romanian street children we were told about. In their poor rags, they look terribly malnourished. My God, we’re sitting here stuffing our stomachs while these children have to live under the bridge with no prospects for the future and ruin their health,” says Tanja, suddenly very sad. I look at my two schnitzels and suddenly feel guilty. I chew away listlessly with far less vigor. Our euphoria has faded for the moment. From our safe place, we watch with fascination the young people who have not found a place in society. There are about 12 children, estimated to be between 7 and 14 years old. I would love to cross the street and give them one of my schnitzels, but to be honest I simply don’t have the courage. The concerns about being attacked by them are not unfounded. Tanja and I have often gone into the slums during our travels to give clothes and food to the poor. Sometimes our work was dangerous, and in some cases we were lucky to get out with our skins intact. So it makes no sense to go into the lion’s den with a camera around your neck, money in your pockets and well-dressed and want to play the holy Samaritan. Standing there half naked in the end would be the least of the evils. Because this is the first time we have been confronted with suffering and misery in a large Romanian city and have had no chance to get used to such facts, we sit there paralyzed. The children run back and forth as if in a trance. Each of them has a sniffer bag under their jacket or shirt. Again and again they stick their nose into the bag and take a deep breath. As a rule, they sniff cheap glue. Sometimes also gasoline. In Australia, the Aborigines steal petrol from car tanks to get high. One reason why many Australians have lockable gas tanks. I have no idea whether this is also a problem here in Romania. In any case, the effects of this terrible addiction are terrible. Even at a young age, these people destroy their lungs and brains. Irretrievable and irretrievable. Suddenly one of the boys breaks away from the group, hides his sniffer bag under his jacket and comes to the street. As he crosses it, he starts to limp terribly. One arm disappears under the jacket so that he looks like a one-armed man. The transformation is perfect. In no time at all, he has become a severely disabled teenager. When the traffic lights turn red and the cars come to a halt, he shuffles through the narrow lanes of cars. Because it’s summer, many drivers have their windows open. The beggar’s hand goes to his mouth then into the passenger compartment. Sometimes the driver or passenger puts a coin inside. Then the sad figure limps to the next car and the next until the traffic light turns green again and the stinking avalanche of cars starts moving again. The professional beggar saves himself on the sidewalk in time and waits for the traffic lights to change again. We watch the spectacle spellbound. Even more children have now joined them. They talk to each other and seem to divide the territory between them. It only takes a few moments for them to stream out to tackle the big crossroads. Some of the children run along the sidewalks, holding out their hands here and there and moving out of our field of vision. The Romanians walk past, bustling about, and every now and then one stops, takes a few lei out of his pocket, puts them in his begging hand and walks on. It is precisely this crossroads that gives us a glimpse into a foreign world for a few moments. A few minutes later, the spook is over. Almost all the children have disappeared. Only the limping man still creeps through the car lanes.

“I would like to leave the restaurant,” says Tanja. “Where should we go now? We’re in the middle of Bucharest and don’t know our way around. The only thing left for us is to go back to the hotel. But it’s too early for that,” I say quietly. After we have paid, we walk through the streets listlessly and with an uneasy feeling. Behind every corner we expect to be attacked by the gang of snoopers. I talk to Tanja and try to explain that we don’t need to be afraid. That the street children of Bucharest are part of the cityscape in some neighborhoods and that we have nothing to fear, at least not during the day. We reach a shopping center. Beer benches and parasols are set up in the middle of the parking lot. The fragrant smoke of fried food drifts across the parking lot like a wall of fog and merges with the exhaust fumes. People come out of the nearby supermarket with their heavy and full shopping bags and sit down in the shade of an umbrella. Beer is drunk. It is served with fried, well-seasoned minced meat, a few slices of white bread and a sweet and sour pickle from the jar. We settle down at a table in the crowd of stressed shoppers, drink beer from a paper cup and watch life go by. It takes us a while to digest our experience with the sniffing children and our mood returns to normal. We are talking about Romania. The people, Bucharest, the city’s population and what is likely to happen to us in the coming months. “I wonder what it’s like in Moldova?” Tanja suddenly asks. “No idea. It’s supposed to be a very poor country. But I’m still curious. The man at the hotel reception told me yesterday that the people there are supposed to be very nice,” I chat. As the sun sinks behind the ugly, gray buildings at around 9 p.m., we make our way to our hotel.

We shower the dust off our bodies and go to bed early. I lie there pensively. The sounds of a big city filter through the open window. A man screams terribly, a woman drools back. There is a small piece of undeveloped land directly below our hotel. It is densely overgrown with weeds. In passing, we discovered a cardboard hut inside. I wonder who lives there? Does the bickering come from this makeshift dwelling? I toss and turn. We switched off the small air conditioning unit because it was fighting a losing battle against the stifling heat. Better to accept the open window with the noise from outside. Which border should we take from Romania to Moldova? Do the officers frisk our equipment? Will we get our cameras and satellite phone over safely? It goes through my head. We still have a few hundred kilometers to go before then. Don’t worry so much. Who knows where the river of life will take us. I calm down and try to calm down despite the screaming and moaning of the street noise. Thank God at this point I don’t have the slightest idea what fate has planned for us. I certainly wouldn’t sleep a wink for the rest of the night.

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