Ecologie
The German Tourists From Valea Verde</b><b>" We Will Do Everything Possible So That Rosia Montana Stays The Way It Is Now"
In mid May, in Deva it is already summer. An explosion of flowers seems to be hurrying spring"s departure, overlapping, in a chaotic alternation, scents of elder tree flowers, of acacia flowers and of many, many roses. There are so many roses, it"s almost unearthly. From here I leave for Apuseni, yearning to go back to a sacred space. And as I get nearer to my destination, I discover the naturalness of the season that"s not over yet. As if an unknown border separates it from the rest of the country, in the Apuseni area spring wants to stubbornly linger a little longer. This is a sign that even the simple change of seasons happens here slower, in a more settled manner, following the conduct of the people who live here.
First of all, it"s about the people
I"m going towards Valea Verde, the enchanted village about which I have already written, the village that lies on a hill top, somewhere, close to the sky. Last year, when I first got here, a beautiful autumn was just starting. I was accompanied by one of the "natives", Ioan Sicoe, the Motz who had succedded into transforming his parent"s house into the most wished-for destination for the German tourists from Nürnberg. Now it"s an explosive spring. The meadows are covered with daisies, pimpernels and bellflowers. It"s a heaven of colors and scents, in which the Germans have already settled in. They are back in the Apuseni, as they have done each holiday, in the last five years. I want to see them and I want to meet them. I want to ask them the reason why they have chosen the wilderness of Valea Verde, in the Romanian"s Apuseni area, to the many other exotic holiday offers in their touristic agencies.
"Here there are extraordinary landscapes and the people are extremely wellcoming. There are a lot of things that are happening here in the most natural way possible, there are things that are part of the people"s usual lifestyle, things that we have lost a long time ago. First of all, it"s about the people. That"s why we like coming here. It"s more than just the landscapes, it"s the people"s friendship, the way the wellcome us, the warmth we feel in their every gesture. And this is much more important than the landscapes !", says Walter Schöberlein.
Walter is the one who in 1997 saw an amateur video recording of the spectacular Valea Verde lanscapes. Walter is the one who in 1999 initiated the first trip, organizing the first group of Germans who were about to discover the Valea Verde heaven. Walter is the one who ever since has been coming here twice a year, every time with a different group of 20 to 25 persons. And it"s Walter again who, this year, has done the first steps towards acquiring a house in the Apuseni region. And not anywhere in the Apuseni region, but in Valea Verde to be precise. The idea is that starting this very autumn he will be able to say, each holiday time: "I"m going to Romania, to Valea Verde, that is, I"m going home !". He is 54, he"s a professor with the Popular University in Nürnberg, he has three children, who accompany him each time he comes to Romania.
Ever since he"s discovered Valea Verde, this is his dearest holiday destination. "We come here because here it doesn"t matter what time it is. We can do whatever and whenever we want. We can"t even decide what we like best: the nature or the food ? There is no pollution and because of that everything we eat has a special, unmodified, true-to-nature taste. The people who live here live with and for the nature, and everything here is part of their life. They don"t need much more than what they already have. They accept everything just as it is, without trying to modify nature. In time, modifications could destroy this precious nature and it would be such a shame !", says Walter.
I know he"s in a hurry to leave, together with his group, towards one of the most beautiful waterfalls in the area, the Pisoaia (to be read Pishoaia) waterfall. It"s a two hours and a half walk to get there and it takes just as much time to come back. They don"t want to be still on the road at nightfall, but Walter gives no sign of impatience and continues to kindly answer my questions. Right beside him stands Helene Ruhmer, another "veteran" German guest in Valea Verde. She"s a professor too, but with the Popular University in Hassfurt. "Every time I tell somebody of Valea Verde, I tell them that here we don"t need any wrist-watches, because here time simply doesn"t matter. Today"s trip should have started at 10:30 and it"s already 11:30 and we"re still here. But nobody is nervous or agitated because of this.", says Helene smiling. "Here we live naturally, without any kind of stress and this is one of the reasons why we prefer coming to Valea Verde. At home, when we go on holiday, everything goes according to a strict programme. Just like in our everyday lives.", adds Helene. And Walter joins in. "Breakfast is served at a certain hour, then we visit the local church, we spend a little time around the pool, and then we go for a quick visit to the museum. Everything is done according to a very strict programme. This is what holidays look like for us.", tells Walter.
Contemporaries with their own grandfathers
Standing between us, in front of some coffee that"s turn cold, is a blond and beautiful girl. The color of her eyes - a clean and fresh spring green - and something in the way she looks around says that she"s not "one of ours". She"s Cosmina, the person without whose help the reporter"s dialogue with Helene and Walter wouldn"t be possible. Cosmina translates calmly, but not without a slight commotion, although it"s not the first time she does this. Since 1998, when Walter helped her find a job as a baby-sitter in Germany, Cosmina can"t be separarted anymore from the Germans who come to Valea Verde. For a year, the time she worked in Germany, she learned to speak the language, but not by the ear. She took some courses, kindly payed by Walter Schöberlein. Cosmina took a few days off work to be able to come here. Now she a restoration specialist with the Dacian and Roman Civilization Museum in Deva. Through her voice, I ask my two interlocutors, if there is something in particular that the Westerners have lost by coming here, to the Motzi in Apuseni, or perhaps if there is something they have gained. "No", says Walter, "one cannot say that we have lost something. In Germany there are people who are payed to take care of nature, to preserve it as it is. Here, nature is part of the people"s lives, such as it is. We have grown modern too fast. Here everything happens at a slower pace. It"s just what I"ve been saying: here time really doesn"t matter !", adds Helene. Still, I insist: there must be something in particular that makes them come back, year after year, to Valea Verde, enjoying it each time as if it were a newly discovered place. "Nature, people"s friendship and their lifestyle, which, with us, has ceased to exist a very long time ago. It"s just like going back to our grandfathers" childhood. It"s like we were contemporaries with our grandfathers-children." Helene gives me a less poetic answer than that of Walter. "The technique people use here dates back to the time of our grandparents. In fact, each country has its own story, tradition and music. It"s nice and interesting not only to remember, but also to see with our own eyes, to learn from the people who still know how it used to be. I"m talking about the way bread is prepared, or jam, cheese, sausages, or handmade things, whether it"s knitting, spinning, sewing or weaving. And then there"s the alpen-horn ! We love to hear aunt Iulia playing the alpen-horn ! ..."
We are on your side
I can feel the joy of my two interlocutors in their words, when they speak of Valea Verde, and of the places around it they have visited. They seem to be just a bunch of happy, careless children, who, for the first time, went to the countryside, to their grandparents" , discovering, as in the beginning of a new world, unknown beauties.
It"s time to bring into the discussion the problem that brought me here in the first place. It"s Rosia Montana, the desastre prepared for the Apuseni region by the stateless Frank Timis. I"m wondering whether it"s a good idea to spoil these people"s happiness, by telling them about the mountain"s death and about the cyanides. As if guessing my thoughts, Helene points towards a bear hill top. It"s the only one in this area that looks like that and it"s impossible not to notice it. She asks me: "What"s there ?" I tell her that it"s Rosia Montana. In a few words I explain them the nightmare that haunts those places, the entire Land of the Motzi. They don"t have enough patience to let me finish. Helene knows something, she has heared a litlle bit about Rosia Montana. "I have very few information about Rosia Montana, but we want you to tell us everything you know. But even with the few information we have, we cannot agrree to what"s happening over there. The health and even the lives of the people who live there, of the youngsters who will work there are at stake. The pollution we are talking about is tremendous. It will destroy nature and will change the lives of the people in Rosia Montana and around it. We will help you in every way and we will do everything possible so that Rosia Montana stays the way it is now. We will unconditionally ally with all those who fight against the destruction of nature, not only in Rosia Montana, but especially there. We will print articles in the German newspapers, we will contact the German Environment Minister and we will ask him to transmit all the information about Rosia Montana to the entire Europe, through the European Parliament. "
I am sorry that my brief discussion with Helene Ruhmer and Walter Schöberlein ends on a sad note. We will see each other again in September, when they"ll be back in Valea Verde. Maybe then we"ll have more reasons to be happy. For now, I am content that somebody else is on our side. Whatever help, no matter how insignificat, may incline the balance in favour of life in Rosia Montana. And it wouldn"t be fair either to chase away from Rosia Montana not only the Motzi, but also the Germans, French, and Belgians who have settled here lately. And everything because of the unbelievable greed of one crazy businessman !
Camelia StÂRcescu
Translated and adapted by Ines Hristea