On Romanians.

In the aftermath of French elections and the revelation that 20% of them are apparently Fascists, the timing could not be more appropriate for a piece on the Romanians. I can almost bet that Sarkozy will promote more closing border crap, making a big fuss out of immigration issues.

It turns out that, other than the human rights agenda, Romanians is the only issue that European countries can agree upon, rightly or wrongly so. Perceptions do matter. Talk to a diverse enough pool of people in European countries, like when you do in hitchhiking, you discover that, no matter who they are, they are bound to have something to say about Romanians. 

Romanian national history has it that Roman general somehow settled there one day, and suddenly an area appeared with Latin language speaker among a bunch of Slavs. Competing theories exist but that's not the point today.

So I was having a conversation with a young educated Hungarian couple, driving from Slovakia to Budapest. At a certain point we talked about the gypsies minorities who came from Romania.

"They don't have jobs, drag down the economy, and are just there doing nothing! Big problem these people."

That was how the conversation went. No longer are gypsies living in camps, but even with housing they are a mess.

Note that word gypsies is used here. A little research showed how confusing this generally was. Gypsies speak the Rom language, close to Indian languages. Many of them came from Indian subcontinent and some settled down within the boundaries of Romania today. Gypsies are sometimes called Romani. See where the confusion comes from? But ethnically supposedly they have no relations with Romanian proper. In fact gypsies are a group of people who live as nomads, but they are not ethnically homogeneous. Anyhow, importance is to know that gypsies and Romanians are two different peoples.

Next up talking about Romanians was a Austrian truck driver, who picked me up at a resting space right after crossing the Austrian border. There you notice a lot of big coaches, some of them with the sign "Spania-Romania." While hitching, noticed some women were walking towards the woods; looking for bathroom? Perhaps they didn't want to pay. Anyhow it seemed that one of them wanted to squat down and do something, the few others started yelling towards me, and of course I wasn't gonna look. I had a car to catch.

Austrian truck driver turned out to speak some Spanish. He has a house there apparently, Barcelona to be precise. On Romanians, his comments could not be more direct.

"Alli, todos cingaros." Points to back of truck.

"Romanos, todos banditos!"

Confusion? Or should I take his word for it?

First actual Romanian I met was in fact in Austria, in the outskirts of Vienna. Vlad, my fellow hitchhiker. Romanian named Vlad, an embodiment of Romanian: a Latin language speaker with a Slavic name. We waited an hour and half together and finally got a ride. Learned quite a bit.

Romania apparently is the biggest outsourcing place of accounting work for various companies around Europe. In other words, the accounting office for Europe. No wonder, labor is so much cheaper there.

Another interesting anecdote. What most people do not know, but the EU perhaps knows, is that by making Romania a Schengen state, the EU is effectively making the 3 million or so Moldovans EU citizens as well. According to Vlad, Moldova was essentially a Soviet creation, but its majority of inhabitants are ethnically Romanians, or at least partially so. In Romania there is a law that says if either one side of one's parents is Romanian, he/she will have the right to citizenship. This is essentially a big percentage of Moldovans says Vlad. They go to Romanian, wait 6 months, get their citizenship, whack their ass and say "hey bye bye west we go!"

It was in Stuttgart that I realized that half of our very own Peter Nagy's extended family lives in Romania.

And there you go. In the resting space on the autobahn just north of Stuttgart, an hour waiting in the blistering cold and rain, only a Romanian car was willing to pick me up. Took me to Mannheim. It was a family, father, mother and a young son, and in such situation was still willing to take me! They spoke little English, but who cares. But it is at these moments you realize who to be grateful to. It ain't Germans, it ain't Belgians, but definitely Romanians.

Touched upon Romanians again on my last ride to Paris, resting space near Saarbrucken. A rather cool Belgian driver. Those boys over there from the east, he told me, work for lower prices, longer hours, how can we compete? Romanian drivers was one of them, but not exhaustive.

You might or might not know, my bag was stolen while hitchhiking out of Paris. At La Porte de la Chapelle, traffic light before junction that leads either to A1 motorway or St Denis. Two guys on a scooter apparently. 

As I was walking in St Denis hoping to find a bag thrown on the side of the walk, an African guy approached me. Spoke French with an accent. 

"You're selling stuff? DVDs and stuff?"

"?!! Nah, I'm looking for my bag man. [told him story briefly] Ye so I hope they threw it away because there's really nothing valuable inside."

"Oh bonne chance then. But do know that if it were Romanians, they don't throw anything away! Les voleurs sont voleurs!"

Right. 

Don't you love this categorization? In this part of the world, even thieves' conducts are classified by by nationality. Even an immigrant himself has something to say about other immigrants.

Before I reached Calais, I hopped on one last ride from a Romanian truck driver. Spoke fluent Spanish. By now I am no longer convinced of hitchwiki's warning of Romanian drivers charging money. Another fellow hitchhiker had confirmed me so, but I needed to see for myself.

So I told him about my bag being stolen in Paris.

"Oh it must be Romanians. Without a doubt."

This coming from a Romanian.

"La vida es una mierda. My boss is crap. I work hours driving between England and Romania [4-day journey] sometimes other routes, but get crap pay!"

"You prefer life here or back home?"

"I always prefer home, but back there there's no work. What do you do?"

Long sighs. Fatigue.