This morning I had a meeting with colleagues from Bucharest and Timisoara on potentially building a centre for atomic clock research in Romania. It is not clear where the money would come from, and what can be proposed and where, but there is some enthusiasm. I am the only one without affiliation to a Romanian institution because there is little room here for people from abroad.
Then in the afternoon I went to Salbagel with my mom and the kids. With the help of two ladies from the neighorhood -- both in their fifties -- we picked our potatoes and some of the corn. We had planted one sack of potatoes in the spring, and tomatoes, pumpkins, cucumbers, carrots, salad, raddishes, onions, peppers, and beans. We had some salad, raddishes, carrots, onions and beans earlier in the summer during and before the heavy rains started. Then today we picked three sacks of potatoes, a sack of nuts, which need to be cracked later, three sacks of corn for the chicken, six pumpkins and a few figs. The rest of the vegetables were either over-run with grass or just rotted away. Several trees dried because of the combination of rain and draught. I did not think trees could have too much water.
While I held the baby, and Edward and the ladies dugged and picked potatoes, we had a group discussion on world-affairs and on local affairs. My helpers were factory workers. One had extended family working in Spain. They said the COVID deaths were few both here and abroad. They did not know anyone who had been sick or had died from COVID-19. In Lugoj we know of a relative of a friend who died of COVID-19. She was 94 years old, and had a stroke before she caught COVID-19. Another death is the neighbor of another friend. He was severely overweight at 150 kg, and could not lose weight. Last year he had caught pneumonia and barely survived with damaged lungs. This year he got out in the rain and got COVID-19. He did not make it. His wife also had COVID and survived. If one divides the number of daily deaths by the number of counties, they get between one and two deaths per county per day. It's not signficant and people are angry and afraid of getting locked-in again and losing the little they have. They don't trust leaders. They don't trust that the measures are for the good of little people like them and us. They think this virus is used to make the very rich even richer and to ruin their future, and the future and livelihood of their children and grandchildren. They are not the kind of people who would go out and protest. They don't have the time or the inclination for such matters.
They work hard. In two hours the potatoes, corn and nuts were picked. They delve into family history. One lady is the Godmother of the other. The aunt of the God-daugther owned my house before her daugther sold it to the person I bought it from. With the money she purchased a one room apartment in a small, nearby city because she was tired of working on the farm. The house has four rooms in two separate buildings, 6000 square meters of garden attached, and a nice well with a bucket, which is the only water source at the moment. This cousin did not invite her to her mother's funeral. This was unjust because her mother had helped them even though they had only been half-sisters -- only the father was common. So, the revenge was that she did not invite the cousin to her own mother's funeral, and they don't speak now. She still felt bitter that the cousin was visiting other people when she returned to the village, but not herself. I did not know that funerals were attended by invitation. But each area has different customs.
The two ladies are the only ones in their families who work in the garden. They are both overweight, but kind, hard-working, and very efficient -- they are so much faster at field-work than me or than their own children that I feel useless, lazy and ashamed of not doing more each day. What will happen to the land when they are gone? One has a son and three grand-children because her daugther-in-law is religious. The daugther-in-law is only 25, blond with long, thick, curly hair and still very pretty. She might have even more children (I feel ancient at 38). She does not help in the garden because she cares for the children and her husband does not do much either, but he works for a company and carried the sacks of corn and potatoes to the car for us. Perhaps one of the grandchildren will take interest in field-work, and learn from his grandmother. The other lady has two children, and two grand-children. One of the grand-children is in their first year of medical school and the other is seven and likes pupies. They ask me what I do. I tell them that I worked in a university teaching science and mathematics and doing research until four years ago, and now I am a caretaker with an interest in science and education. They have respect for math. Few can do it well and teach it to others. I forget to say I write. But I only do so when I don't have enough energy for one of the many chores that need to get done or when I cannot sleep like today. I am not particularly good at keeping a house clean, at cooking or at being a caretaker, but I do my best. These two ladies understand me better than my colleagues or my brother who think I do nothing all day.
