Gifts for the poor

After a canned breakfast of white bread, chocolate croissants wrapped in plastic, jam, cheese and the like, we quickly get used to the fare of a big city hotel. Of course we would like fresh fruit and yoghurt, but we are confident that we will soon be able to eat real food again. We leave the Orchidea at midday to stroll through Bucharest. We are looking for poor people, for people who urgently need clothing. After being confronted with the poverty of street children and beggars during our last stay in Bucharest, we decided not to leave empty-handed this time. Tanja packed a suitcase in Germany full of worn clothes that we no longer use.

We find what we are looking for just a few hundred meters behind our hotel. We meet young people sitting under a bridge and sniffing glue. In this way, they numb themselves to escape the harsh reality of homelessness for a few moments. We go to the fence and wave the young men over to us. Shyly wondering what the tourists might want from them, they walk towards us. Tanja hands them socks and something to eat. They happily accept the modest gifts and say thank you. We move on and find a woman sitting in front of a supermarket with her two children. She is also grateful. “It’s a great feeling to be able to give something to people,” says Tanja, her whole face beaming. With her endearing social nature, she is undoubtedly in her element. She would love to spend days walking through Bucharest to help the poor. Sometimes she loves it more than sightseeing. In a park we meet an old, run-down woman. When Tanja approaches her, she reacts shyly and ashamed. From a distance, we can see how the beggar immediately pulls the socks over her bare feet. So we walk about 6 kilometers through the city until we can satisfy our hunger in a restaurant. We talk about our planned trip. About the poor in Romania and about fate. Why it is so well-disposed towards some people and why it robs many people of their shirts. But we don’t want to complain about fate, sadness and misfortune. We want to make something of our lives with our good fortune to have been born in a Western European country. We want to be satisfied and talk about people who cross our path of life from our subjective point of view. There is no doubt that, with an open mind, life is highly interesting and in many areas one of the most fantastic things that can happen to us humans.

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