Portrait of a shepherd

Nicu R is scouring pots by the fire.  He has his head down, concentrating on scraping off the remains of polenta which have solidified on the metal.  When he looks up I see that his eyebrows meet in the middle, making a curve like an arrow's flight across his forehead.  His sardonic expression suggests that he is older than his 21 years; his small stature and sweetness of countenance make him seem much younger.  When he holds his soggy footwraps to the heat, they steam as though in pain. 

Nicu may be short but he is immensely strong.  He proved his strength a couple of years ago, when he brained a landowner who had knocked down his boss, Ghiţa’s father, over a disputed trespass.  I had heard a version of the story from Dragoş Lumpan: the shepherds were taking the flock to their winter grazing, it was nearly dark, and the sheep may or may not have strayed onto a field of lucerne.  When the angry landowner floored Simion, Nicu attacked him with his bâta, a tough hazel staff.  As Nicu went for him, the man had raised his forearm in self-defence.  Nicu broke that as well.   

He was put away on a charge of attempted murder.  He could have got 15 years, but, happily, the man Nicu attacked survived.  Ghiţa hired a lawyer to defend the young shepherd.  After 18 months in gaol, Nicu returned to the fold.   

Nicu comes from Mediaş, a town in central Transylvania, and has worked as a hired shepherd for eight years.  Here he is, at 9.30pm on 30th January, drying his ciorapi after a supper of pastrama (mutton) grilled on the embers, and bread.  Above his head, the stars are diamonds in black ink.  Scents of sheep's dung and wood smoke mingle with frost: I could make a pretentious reference to olfactory challenges here but will not.  I can think of few more live-giving smells.  The sheep, gathered a few yards away in an unfenced orchard, gossip and bicker among themselves.  A molly ewe shimmies down to the fire, nosing for scraps.  Her silky tresses glint in the firelight. *

Ghiţa and the other three men, Tica, Dinu and Sorin, had left for the night, leaving Nicu to look after the sheep.  Ghiţa was going to his wife who was staying with her mother, 15 miles to the east.  Andreea was expecting their first child and Ghiţa was more than usually preoccupied.  Like Ghiţa, the others were two hundred miles from home.  They had come north from the Southern Carpathian Mountains to help him build a lambing shelter.  I did not know where they were lodging. 

I was there out of curiosity: having started a book about transhumance, I wanted to know more about what shepherding in Romania was really like.  It was hard to tell what effect prison had had on Nicu, but his self-possession was impressive.  He was articulate too.  This surprised me: although I knew it was patently untrue, I must still have thought that being often illiterate, hired shepherds were idiots as well.  I did not know if Nicu could write, but his brain seemed as sharp as an icicle.     

Ignoring Ghiţa’s advice to doss down with the pups in the barn, I accepted Nicu’s invitation to make my bed on a slope in the orchard behind the yard.  He brought an extra cojoc for me to lie on, then helped to  lower me like a ladder to the ground, where I lay like a shag pile mummy, listening to the sheep’s jaws clicking as they snipped sparse shoots of grass.

“Cojocul e casa ciobanului.”  ‘The shepherd’s house’ is what they call these armless, ankle-length sheepskin greatcoats which make the eastern European shepherds who wear them look prehistoric.  The cloaks have the fleece on the outside, and once installed, you feel as safe as a castle. 

Nicu lay about three feet away in his own cojoc and asked me about sex.  For some reason I did not mind all that much.  It was like being interrogated by a younger brother, or a nephew, and whatever the reason for his enquiries, I took them as genuine curiosity, not seeing any prurience or other suspect motive behind them.  

Time passed, and I remained rigid in my cloak.  Cold crept from my feet up to my shins, not quite reaching my knees.  I kept my head tucked well inside the tickling hairs, lulled by the ewes’ stertorous breathing when they finally slumped down to rest.  

At 2 am, a call of nature made me get up fast.  Nicu had disappeared.  A silver light glinted on intricate patterns of pale grey-green lichen which grew on the bark of the plum trees.  Although it was nearly freezing, there was an exhilarating tang in the air.  It consisted of sheep, wet earth, snow, and countless other night-time smells from woods and mountains.  

At 8 the following morning, Ghiţa shattered my fragile peace.  He was furious.  “Where the hell have you got to?  Why aren’t the sheep out on the hill?  What the damn do you think you’re doing letting the donkeys into the hay?”  For a moment I thought he was firing all that at me, but as his boots stomped past my head, I realised it was Nicu he was after, so I kept cavy. 

Five minutes later, I picked my way down to the farmyard, carefully keeping the cloak out of the mud.  It was too late for that; the beautifully tailored skins which Ghiţa had dropped onto my shoulders the previous evening were already besmirched with snow and soil.  Probably I had twigs in my hair. 

Ghiţa was so cross that I was afraid to look him in the face.  I felt a sudden empathy with the bitch who cowered on the edge of the human circle with her tail between her legs.  We were both ravenous.  Sensing the tension, Tica, Dinu and Sorin were pretty quiet, too.  Not knowing what to say, I lifted the cojoc onto a gate to dry, and returned for the other, smaller one.  Having acted as my mattress, it was in a far worse state.  There was no sign of Nicu. 

Dinu fashioned a spatula out of a scrap of pine that had come from a pallet.  Instead of leaving its sides smooth and ordinary, he cut symmetrical steps into its shoulders making a piece of rubbish into something special.    

“Doamna, mâncaţi!”  It was an order, but welcome: I was afraid Ghiţa would ban me from eating.  We had bulz.  This is a wodge of mămăliga squashed around melted sheep’s cheese so that it resembles a miniature rugby ball.  We cooked our own in the ashes of the fire which Tica had started again, amongst the sheep and donkey dung.  Trying to distract myself, I looked for abstract patterns in the shit.  I scoffed my charred bulz while it was still burning, cradling it in my hands like a grenade.  It was delicious but stodgy and there was nothing to wash it down with except chemical green juice from a two-litre bottle.  Sorin passed it to me; the sugar rush was surprisingly good - in the circumstances I was grateful for anything. 

An hour or so later, Ghiţa handed me a plastic carrier bag.  “Will you take this to copilul?  He hasn’t had any breakfast.  He’s over there, on the other side of the hill; go past that big tree up there and keep heading to the right.”  Copil means child: since the youngster had defended Ghiţa's father, there was a close bond between them, though given the force of Ghiţa's rages you might be surprised to hear that.  I scurried off, glad to be doing something useful. 

The hills were cheetah skins: spots of sodden black earth spattered with beige grass, and melting snow. 

Nicu was standing in a wide hollow.  For an instant, in his conical căciula, he was an emperor surveying his kingdom.  An amoeba of sheep were his people: they nibbled submissively around him but could explode into 500 hydra at any minute.  His dog, an elderly, dark grey Puli bitch called Linda, was keeping close to Nicu’s heels. 

“What was it like in prison?”

“A fost, a fost.... între Dumnezeu şi dracul.  It was hell.  La început, a fost cumplit.  Horrible at first.  They kept moving me from place to place, so I never got to know anyone.  N-am potut să mă obişnuiesc cu nimic.” 

“Were you lonely?”

“Da. I felt like an animal’s prey.  Nobody helped you.  Have you seen those films about American jails?  It was like that.  Think about it.”

He was looking straight at me. 

“They beat me too.”

“Why?”

“I had a phone, and it wasn’t allowed.  So.... two or three of the prison inmates piled on top of me, and beat me up.”

His jaw was set. 

“This, this... stuff you’re giving me, it’s useless.”  He peeled one of the mandarins I had brought, along with chocolate and bananas, as a present for the shepherds.  “We need more than this.”

Who ‘we’ were, and what more, I did not ask.  It felt insensitive, as though I ought to have known: Nicu is one of the thousands of destitute Romanian kids who are struggling to make a decent lives.  And to make themselves heard, I thought.  When we met at Stâna Domnilor the previous autumn he told me he had been to school, but I did not believe his assurance came from book learning.  Nicu knew what the world was about, and he did not need any footling do-gooders muddying his waters.

“Ghiţa taught me to use the Bible.”  He opened his hands as though proffering a copy of the precious book.  So he could read after all. 

“Tu te sălbăticeşti.”  You get a little wild here.  Nicu's gaze wandered off to the horizon.  “Şi m-am întors la oile.  E liniştit.  E bine.”  ("I came back to the sheep.  It is peaceful.  It is well.") 

Before I could reply, he sped away: the flock was on the move and keeping them safe was his first and only responsibility. 

It was time for a discreet withdrawal.  Lambing had not yet started, and although
Ghiţa had said I would be welcome, my time was running out.  A friend, the abbess of a nearby Orthodox monastery, said I could stay for a while and I decided to go there before I flew back to a country where, in theory at least, a beneficent state looks after the weak. 

At the edge of the road that ran down to the village, I looked back.  The sheep had come over the ridge before me, and were heading slowly for the farm.  Nicu was concentrating on keeping the animals together and had his head down.  I called “Să trăiţi” – which means something like “Take care”.  He looked up briefly and shouted, “Drum bun!” 

In the farmyard, Ghiţa explained his outburst: “I was worried about you; you could have got ill.”  I was sad to have upset him, and moved by his care for me.  But I had wanted to hear Nicu's take on things for a long time.    


Who learnt the most from our meeting?  Spending time with Ghiţa and his shepherds had blasted my preconceptions about what poverty means.  There is a loyalty on both sides.  Travelling together over such long distances, far from help, they have to rely on each other.  I have heard hired shepherds complain about their conditions, and their bosses complain that their employees live in clover.  I could not endure the shepherd's life, but then I have not grown up the same way.  It is easy for people in remote offices to dictate how others should and should not live, while not really understanding what their lives are like.  (For a similar discussion which is much better informed, see anthropologist Katy Fox's doctoral thesis on life in two rural valleys of northern Argeş).  

I cannot bear to see small farms disappear in a welter of ignorant bureaucratic huffings, and financiers' greed.  They are destroying things which are beyond price - extended families and closely-knit communities which are part of a social order that works, not to speak of ecosystems, clean air and water...  


There is much talk about bad shepherds in Romania, where, as in Britain, farmers are generally despised.  No doubt there are dreadful, tragic cases, but I saw every instance of negative press about close shepherding and transhumance as another nail in the coffin of a tradition that had so much to recommend it, not only because it stands at the other extreme from factory farming, but because it gives people and animals a sense of belonging to the universe which you never get in an office - and certainly not in an animal processing plant.  That statement presupposes that Ghiţa's animals are humanely slaughtered, which I am pretty sure they are not.  

You can find a discussion of how sheep are treated when they leave the farm in the post, 'Stand up for sheep', in this blog, but both shepherds and animals need understanding if we are not to disappear down the Polish road demonstrated by Tracy Worcester's film, Pig Business.  (As to that, Smithfield, the giant American food corporation, has already arrived in Romania so my bland hopes are also too late.) 
 
Nicu and Ghiţa are among the shepherds whom Dragoş Lumpan has interviewed for his forthcoming film, The Last Transhumance.  
 

*Ghiţa’s sheep are Ţurcana, whose ancestors scampered about in the Himalayas.  Although their wool is too coarse for fine city clothes, they are good all-rounders, and hardy enough for the bitter Carpathian winters.   

During the Communist period, Romanian shepherds were persuaded to abandon the Ţurcana in favour of fattier types which gave softer wool (Ţigaie and Merino), but since 1989, most oieri (sheep farmers) have returned to their trusted long-haired breed.  (During Ceauşescu’s rule, Romanian sheep farmers benefited from fixed prices for milk, meat and wool.   

After the Revolution, the market for Romanian sheep’s wool more or less collapsed, in line with global trends.  Competition from New Zealand forced Romania’s lambs’ meat and wool trade down further, and although there are signs - in Britain - of new uses for wool, for example, as buildings’ insulation as well as a revival of wool as clothing and carpets - exporting lambs for meat is Romania’s great hope in terms of making sheep farming a viable business.  Romania has one of the largest national sheep flocks in Europe.) 

 
 

   

   

Stâna Domnilor (The Gentlemens' Fold)

[This post refers to events that occurred between 26th and 28th September 2012]  

It is sometimes hard not to stamp your feet when people are surprised by Romania's loveliness, as though the country were such a sink that it could not possibly be awe-inspiringly beautiful, too.  Standing bleary-eyed at Sibiu airport at four one September morning, I suppressed such an urge as I said goodbye to another group of British visitors who had come, seen, and been delighted by Romania's people and landscapes.  Probably I am not cut out to be a tour guide, because you need nerves of steel and a hide like an ox, but I have to remember that not everyone has been as lucky as me, with twenty years of experience to go on, and the benefit of the most wonderful Romanian friendships to guide me around the country through most of those years.  To pass some of my love, enthusiasm - and gratitude - on is the aim of this blog, if I don't always manage the same courtesy while on the road as a guide!

As soon as the visitors had left, I high-tailed it back to the hotel for a few more hours of sleep, and then caught a bus to the mountain top village which is home to my friends who are shepherds.  I had not seen any of them since May, at the end of the eight days I had spent following the sheep on a kind of preliminary transhumance, and I was eager to get back there, to people I had grown to respect and love.

The Transmixt coach leaves from the autogara next to the railway station, about as brutal a contrast in travelling comfort as you can imagine: the Austro-Hungarian period train station has been done up and looks splendid; the bus station is an asphalt apron with a cold, dark, blue-painted ticket hall and a waiting area that usually offers interesting scope for sociological observation, if nothing else.  Like the railway station, it is also a place where prospective hired shepherds gather when looking for work.

If the old bus that serves the Margineni villages leaves a lot to be desired in terms of elegance, it is the place where you get the first whiff of homecoming: usually, the passengers regard each other with suspicion until they are sure they are friends and neighbours.  Then the floodgates open.  It is one of the joys of journeying around Romania that these country buses still exist, and are still needed.  If you want to take the temperature of this nation, go by bus.

Having successfully asked the driver to leave me at the brutaria (the first bakery) so I could reach my friends' house quicker, I felt that lightness of step that accompanies the shearing off of responsibility and the anticipation of pleasure.  My job was done, whether well or badly I could not tell, but I was free again, and boy, it felt good!

My aim was to find Ghita and the shepherds before they descended to the village.  I did not know where they were, and, my phone conversations with Ghita always being a little stilted, was not sure I would find out.  At his home, his mother, Paraschiva, greeted me as though I had never left, gave me one of her quizzical smiles as much as to say, "You may be a crazy dreamer, but I'm damned if I'm going to admit it!", and as usual, instructed Nicoleta, one of her bonny grand-children, to lay the table so I could eat, while Paraschiva vanished back to one of the myriad tasks she had to accomplish every day in order to keep the household afloat.  Nicoleta was ten and lived with her grandparents so she could attend the local school while her mother worked in a faraway town. 

Rule 1, in this - and most rural Romanian households - all visitors share in the board, and as the battery-powered kitchen clock ticked its inexorable, jerky rhythm and the flies buzzed lazily in the window, I noshed on the home-grown fare which I had come to relish: delicious meat, slanina (cold pork fat), sheep's cheese of varying descriptions, onions, peppers and white bread from the nearby bakery, washed down with water.

'Where is Ghita?', I asked, once these formalities had been accomplished and during one of Paraschiva's brief apotheoses.

'Sus', Paraschiva jerked her head upwards to indicate somewhere in the vast expanses of the mountains to the south.

'Is he at Stanisoara?' - the name of a coliba (summer farm or shieling) and grazing area where I had been the previous autumn.

'No, Domnilor'.  It was a lucky coincidence: Stana Domnilor was about the only other sheep fold I had heard of, and having found it on a clever little map bought from the Erasmus Bookshop in Sibiu twelve months beforehand, could remember the name and location pretty well.  It was the highest if not the most remote of all the folds belonging to the village, and my senses quickened: could I get there?

'Can I go there?' I asked, following thought with question, which meant, of course, is anyone else going there and can I get a lift?  

It turned out that Ghita's father, Simion, was planning to drive up there the next morning.  I could go, if I could get up in time.  He would be leaving at 3am.

I had learnt not to ask too many questions, and did not want to annoy Paraschiva by bombarding her: there is a time for everything, and she looked more than usually harrassed.  I wondered why, then realised it might have something to do with Ghita's impending departure.  Paraschiva and her family were used to transhumance; they had grown up doing it, and she herself had been on the road, to and fro from winter and summer pastures, for many years.

Still, since the Revolution (and the restitution of farmlands to their private owners) the practice was getting trickier each year, and something else she said, something about Ghita and Andreea, his girlfriend, something seemed to have gone wrong...  but I could not make out everything Paraschiva said, and did not want to pry.  There were other problems too: the family did not know if their leases on the grazing land would be renewed when they came to an end the following March.  Added to which, because of the drought, the grass had made the milk less abundant, and that in turn had changed the taste of the cheese from which this family derived at least a half of its income.

Simion appeared from somewhere, looking weary but undaunted: both Ghita's parents have an indomitable air combined with a sense of humour that always makes me feel welcome.  They may have wondered what on earth I was doing by turning up so often, but had been well-briefed by Dragos Lumpan, the photographer who was making a film about transhumance (and with whom I had collaborated in Wales), and they accepted me without any awkwardness.  

Well, I had made it there, and they had offered me the kitchen sofabed for my rest, so at somewhere around nine pm, I set my alarm and settled down to the most restful sleep I had had in weeks.  Fresh mountain air, frank people, good food: what more could anyone want?

Three am came, and I was hovering like a nervous fly.  On the previous evening, Simion had loaded a trailer with all kinds of provisions, heavy tubs, batteries, cords, churns and what have you, while I looked on, wanting to help.  While I hovered, he walked steadily back and forth, making the arrangements, cracking odd joke, just getting on with things.  Stars sparkled overhead.  A warm wind whispered sweet nothings.  Hens burbled in their sleep; the pigs did the same in theirs, only in a lower key.

Hai, la masa!  Simion waved me back into the kitchen.  Eat something at this hour?  You must be joking!  I stuffed some cheese and bread down my reluctant throat.  Simion checked his watch.  Were we expecting someone else? 

At half past four, someone else arrived.  To my shame I did not recognise him until the afternoon, but it was Tica, Aurica's son.  (Aurica was another sheep farmer with whom I had stayed the previous summer.)  Tica was going to be our driver.  We clambered into the old jeep with its battered fabric hood and were off.  With Tica at the wheel, the leisurely drive I had anticipated evaporated with one palmed swing of the steering wheel.  Tica was young, very young - early twenties, and full of glamour.  And then I realised, we were taking the Transalpina road, the new alpine highway that drew all the boy racers from Bucharest in the summer.  It is a wonderful road, or rather it goes through wonderful scenery, and it links the Transylvanian Plateau with the other side of the Carpathian Mountains, the region called Oltenia, to the south.  The Transalpina is an old sheep road; 'discovered' by King Carol II of Romania, it then became known as the King's Road (Drumul Regelui), but its present manifestation, a hard-surfaced switch back that soars over the mountain tops makes it fast and dangerous and terribly exciting.

Tica thought it was exciting too, and once we had filled up with fuel in Sugag, and the cassette player was blaring (to do him credit, it was a tape of traditional Romanian folk music - by the time we had got to the fold, three hours later, I knew at least one of the songs by heart), we were truly on the road, with the trailer bouncing along hysterically at our rear.

It was magical to be abroad at that hour; the mountains were in total blackness and only a very few other drivers - one or two trucks labouring up the inclines - shattered the illusion that we had the whole world to ourselves.

We mislaid the turning onto the forest road and stopped to get out once in the eerie stillness, then bumped up narrow logging tracks between tall pines, and out onto the summit, and over the grass towards the flock.

Everything was still in darkness; a royal blue light in the east was the only sign of dawn.  As the sun rose, a vapour trail crossed the sky, but below, it felt as though we were the only people alive.

The sense of grandness and isolation was intoxicating.  We were in a heathland and forest paradise.  I made myself scarce, taking pictures, while Simion, Tica and the others unloaded the trailer - I would have helped but they did not want me to.  Two Carpatin pups played round the fire.  A couple of donkeys wandered about, looking purposeful.  A small, green and white towing caravan showed where the shepherds slept and kept their food.  There was a wooden hut, put up by them as a temporary store.  The turla, the sheep pen, was surrounded by six-foot high mesh fencing - some measure of protection against the gadina, the predators, the bears and wolves that habitually threatened the sheep's lives.  Around this, their camp, lay a vast wilderness, grander by far than any I had seen on my Romanian travels until now.

Of the aforesaid Stana Domnilor, there was no sign.  I asked Simion where it was.

"Vedeti acolo", he said pointing to the west.  In the far distance I could see the grey-beige outlines of a wooden cabin, the deserted building of a once-thriving coliba (the same as a shieling or hafod if you speak Welsh.  A summer farmstead).  Ghita and his shepherds might have used it earlier in the summer, but now it looked forlorn, like so many of his village's colibe: the old days when whole families would take up residence for the milking season were vanishing along with the nedei, the wonderful mountain top parties when people danced and sang, and young people got together, and became engaged.  Maria Sterp, the village's most famous poet, had shown me some of the verses she had written in praise of shepherding life, and the life of the coliba came across as the most profoundly satisfying of all. 

It had been my intention to stay a few days, but one of the shepherds, Nicu S, showed signs of being fractious.  He had been on the booze, and there was nothing anyone could do with him.  He was nice enough while I was there, although his jokes became more suggestive with every minute, but I did not want to risk calamity.

Nicu S was helping the others to harry and shuffle the ewes towards the comarnic for milking: it was very late in the season for this, and I understood it was the last time they would milk them that year.  Apart from Nicu S, there were two other hired ciobani (shepherds), Nicu R and Ilie.

Nicu R I had heard of by repute: he had been in prison when I went on the April transhumance.  I did not know why, and it had seemed rude to ask.  Nicu R was very short and much younger than I expected - he looked barely old enough to wear long trousers, but turned out to be 21.  When he went to collect water from a stream in the forest, I went along too, and asked him about himself.

"How long have you worked for Ghita?"

"Five, six years".

"Do you like it?"

"Yes".  He looked determined, efficient, and although I thought my questions might seem nosey, he did not show any animosity towards them.

"I've been doing this for eight or nine years.  Straight after I left school. It's my life."  Nicu fed water from a mossy spring into the plastic can and I followed him thoughtfully as he banged it awkwardly homewards, to the camp, springing over the soft ground between afine (blueberry) shrubs whose leaves were bright red, and overshadowed by stately spruces whose branches rustled in the early morning breeze.  I thought of bears and shuddered a little: it was beautiful in the forest, the pale and dark greens of the mosses, reeds and grasses, shafts of golden light alternating with cool shadows, the damp, rich, aromatic smells of early autumn would make anyone frisky, let alone bears.

Ghita and Nicu R milked the sheep while Ilie kept an eye on the sterpe (literally, the dry sheep, ie, those who had not bred lambs, either because they were too old or too young, and had no milk, and the rams).  I justified my existence by taking photos, to the shepherds' amusement:

"Dragos has never taken photos of me milking!", laughed Ghita.

"Will you put us on the telly?", "Send us copies", but nobody objected: there was too much else to do, and they get lonely in their sheep folds, so any new company is a pleasure.

"Are you going to stay here, and sleep with us?" queried Nicu S.  Unaware that he was steaming, I parried.

"I'm not sure... I'm not very well prepared".  (Again, I had not planned this venture, having had one chance to live as a shepherd in April, but just wanted to see if I could.)

The milking over, it was time for some food.  To my shock, I realised that it was already 12 noon.  And I was famished.  Nicu S emerged from the caravan, his cheeks stuffed like a hamster's; Simion beckoned me inside, "Mancati!" ("Eat!").  I entered, and made myself a sandwich.

Outside, Nicu kicked the pups off his cojoc, which in his absence, they had been using as a blanket:

"Get off it, you're making it smell worse than a Gypsy!".  A common curse even though I knew, as does anyone who has spent any time with the Roma, that they are scrupulous about cleanliness.

"Doamna!  Stati, sau nu stati?"  Are you staying or going?

The milk loaded, Ghita was impatient to leave.  He was swapping places with Simion, and I could stay, for an undefined period, or until the next time someone took the jeep to Stana Domnilor, or I could go.  He was indifferent; it was up to me.

Choosing discretion over valour, I decided to hop it.  Who knows how long I could be stuck up there with an inebriated and probably very powerful Nicu S, and it would be stupid to put myself and the others into a difficult position.

Driving down the mountain again, Ghita scoured off the severe trappings of boss-hood: like me 24 hours previously, he was suddenly, exultantly, free, and he revelled in it.  As Tica drove, gunning the engine at every opportunity, Ghita let himself breathe again.

We stopped on the way to collect mushrooms, clambering over branches and through great curtains of branches, sucking in the fragrant, musky smells of resin and pine needles, moulds and mosses, our voices echoing through another part of the forest which seemed so pretty, timeless and full of promise.  Where else on earth could you find such places?  How long would they survive?  Why did people have to ruin every natural thing?  It was only I muttering to myself about such things: the two boys were far too happy, looking forward to life, not regretting it.

Back on the habited roads, we pulled up at a cafe.  Ghita bought me a coffee and sweets because I had left my change at home (unintentionally!).  I asked him about Andreea.  His face became softer and more inward-looking.

"She is well," was all he said. 

For those of you with access to Romania's tv channels, and especially Protv, you can see Ghita in the new Vodafone ads, which went out from September 2013.  He has become a star.  Proof of this is his facebook page, Ghita Ciobanul, which attracted more than 200,000 Likes in little over a week.  


 

A wedding, and lambing not yet started

Ghita and his shepherds reached the winter grazing grounds in November, after many of the usual alarms and excursions.  How hard it was, I will never know, because Ghita is reticent about disasters: he has to save his energies for the present.  Apart from the two dogs which the hunters killed near Cluj, wolves took 30 of his sheep sometime in December or January.

Just after Christmas, I got a phone call from Ghita's mother.  I was at home, thinking of anything but, and when she rang, I couldn't understand who it was:

Drrrn-drrn, drrn-drrn, drrn-drrn.

Me: Hello?

Other end: (Silence)

Me: (slightly sharper) Hello?

Other end: ALO!!!!!!!

Me: (startled, then incredulous)  Paraschiva?

Other end: DA!  Ce mai faceti?  

Me:  (still incredulous, Paraschiva never wastes time on the phone, and to
receive a call from her in Wales is unheard of)  Bine, si Dumneavoastra? 

Paraschiva: Bine!  Asteptam o nunta, si daca sunteti in tara pe 20 ianuarie, veti fi bineprimiti.

Me: (bowled over)  Da?  Extraordinar!  Sper sa vin.  Doamne ajuta!

Other end: (click)

So Ghita and Andreea were getting married!  It was wonderful, glorious, heart-warming news.  I was recovering from an eye operation and hoped I'd be well enough to get out to Romania in time.

Thanks to providence, the good surgeons of Swansea, and my kind, supportive cohabitee I arrived in the village of J three days before-hand, in time to help with the wedding preparations.  These consisted of making vast quantities of food in the old Camin Cultural, one of J's two community halls.  This building, made of concrete and painted a thankfully fading acidic green, was freezing as regards temperature but blazing with good will and laughter.

Inside the hall, the main chamber was a lofty, cavernous space whose walls were clad with brown-painted wood-pannelling to above head height, and whose floor was a well-worn parquet, stained to a discreet, muddy colour from years of good use - ranging from formal public meetings to carefree celebrations such as the one that was about to begin.  Ghita's wedding was an occasion for everyone to revel in, and that it had brought them an unexpected relief from post-New Year dreariness.

It was bustling with activity: it seemed that the whole village was involved in one way or another.  Friends, neighbours and relations - people often combined all three categories - rushed about merrily, chopping freshly-killed, home-grown pork and mutton to be served as steaks or minced into long sausages on an industrial mincer, dicing cooked carrots and parsnips for beef salad, arranging vast saucepans of delicately folded sarmale (stuffed cabbage leaves) into beautiful whirlpool patterns, singing and joking as the steam rose from red faces, necks and fingers.  After an hour or so, one of Ghita's five sisters laid food out on long trestles for the helpers and we were regaled with delicious meat stew, cake, plum brandy and the dreaded orange drink that begins with F.

There was a lump in my throat because all these near-strangers had brought me into their hearts as though I was one of their own.  It felt like a colossal privilege.  I hardly saw Paraschiva: she was like a flash of black lighting, here, there and everywhere, directing operations with a sure mind trained by years of bringing up six children, one husband and numerous quadrupeds all of whom needed guiding in one way or another.

Paraschiva is one of J's true matriarchs.  She is capable of flashing anger and if it breaks over your head, you'd better watch out because her words can be sharp and penetrating as daggers, but if you're prepared to stand and take your medicine, nobody is more forgiving and sunny in the afterwards.  In his book on the Margineni shepherds who led their flocks to southern Russia and the Caucasus, Toma Lupas wrote in praise of Margineni women, whom he says are the most wonderful combination of feminity and strength.  In Paraschiva, you see one such personified.

On Sunday, the wedding day, I arrived at 10.30am, as requested: the day was cold and snow lay in wet solid banks, and where it had compacted the ice was treacherous.  Like everyone else, I was wrapped up in overcoat, scarf, and about twenty base layers on top of my elegant wedding gear, and I wore my trusty old Swiss hiking boots instead of court shoes: hardly elegant, but it was more important to be there.  Dragos Lumpan had arrived too, with his state of the art cameras: Ghita was his friend before mine, and Dragos is in the final stages of making his film, The Last Transhumance, in which Ghita and his men feature several times.

In the hall lobby, a three-man Gypsy band played their socks off - jinking and bouncing with their saxophone, accordion and drum, the guys had come from Bordeaua, J's Gypsy district, and in the chill blast that came in from outside, they certainly helped to keep everyone feeling cheerful.  (When I went to visit Bordeaua, the people I met there told me they are not Roma but Baiesi, that is, descendants of the poor, 18th century miners who came to J from the Apuseni Mountains in search of a new start in life.)  More guests arrived every minute: with an inward yelp of delight I recognised Andreea's pretty mother and sister, and her sister's husband, but embarrassingly not her father, who did recognise me, and was - naturally - quite offended that I could not remember him. The bride's party had driven up that day from Salaj in a minibus because unusually the wedding was being arranged - and presumably paid for - by Ghita's parents, and I felt a pang of sorrow for them because they really should have been the hosts and they looked a little shy and uncomfortable.  After a five-hour journey, it was not surprising.  But like everyone else, they soon radiated happiness. 

The hall itself looked immaculate: instead of the two trestles I'd seen on the Friday, they were covered in swathes and flounces of red and white net and satin, and arranged in diagonal rows, herringbone fashion, one row along each of the two side walls, leaving a decent space for processions in the middle.  A large red and white heart fixed on the wall at the back of one other table, placed parallel to the wall, showed where the bridal party would sit.  There were more tables on the stage and at the opposite end, near the door, a smaller stage was cluttered with electronic gadgets and cables ready for the musicians to take their stand there. To the other side of the door into the hall, a step led down into a two-room kitchen from which steam floated aromatically: the four or five volunteer cooks were there again, hair plastered to their scalps, bending over the huge vats of bubbling liquids in which I thought I could see sausages, dumplings, soup, stew.  Here too were a new group of people, dressed in smart black and white waitering gear: this is certainly going to be a serious, no holds barred affair, I can see, I told myself.

Ghita was (thanksbetogoodness) in evidence, in a very smart white waistcoat and shirt, black jacket, trousers, and dickie bow - an Adonis in person.  He looked absolutely joyous.  He must have come from the winter farm in the past couple of days as well; he only has a couple of hands to look after the flocks (split as last year into two halves, one for lambing ewes, the other for rams and non-breeding ewes).  Immediately after the wedding, he had to return to work - no romantic honeymoon for this dedicated couple.  

At 11, Andreea herself arrived, looking more regal and lovely than I had ever seen her, and completely different to the diffident slip of a girl who had greeted me in Paraschiva's kitchen on the Friday morning.  At that moment, I had not clapped eyes on her since the previous April and was not sure if it were she.  Andreea had broken the ice for both of us by stating, quite truthfully, that it was hard for strangers to know where to put themselves at a time like this!  I guess she was talking about herself as well as me, and felt for her.  It has not exactly been a whirlwind romance but Andreea's people live a long way from J and she has not had time to get to know his family well.  I was sure they would treat her well, but could understand her nervousness.  Not to speak of the momentousness of getting hitched in the traditional Romanian style.  An option such as mine - to live with someone else without being officially married - would not be open to her and Ghita, and I'm sure they wouldn't have wanted it, but this was a daunting occasion nevertheless.
    
What the bride wore: a full white dress embroidered with tiny, shiny silvery-white beads and a fluffy white jacket to keep out the cold.  She had white flowers in her hair which is dark blonde, and which she wore up.  She came into the lobby with a basket on her arm.  In the basket were little flowery tokens for each guest: she went around each of us pinning the tokens to our chests.  Boy it was packed in there!  Everyone wanted a picture.  The kids who were nasi, that is godparents, to the bride and groom, stood out by their special costumes, that sober and extremely elegant combination of clothing which is confined to black and white, but the little girls wore fine veils of cream coloured material as thin as gossamer which made them look a bit like Dutch milkmaids.  How beautiful and dignified all this was is hard to describe. 

And so, the day began: after the giving of posies, the couple went to the Primaria (town hall) for their civil wedding.  In J, the primaria is next to the old camin (and to the new one, but you don't need to know that just yet).  Urged by Ghita's sisters, I followed the procession into the building, up the white marble stairs to the first floor, and into another lobby, where standing as far back as I could, I heard rather than saw, my two friends tie the knot.  The deputy mayor conducted the service in a serious but relaxed manner.  After his kindly speech - the deputy mayor was amongst friends, you could tell from the briskness and not infrequent joshing which he allowed himself - we had glasses of champagne and bonnes bouches which helped to keep out the cold a little, and mildly tiddly, I followed the procession back down the stairs and outside again, where a crowd of villagers was waiting in a dutiful phalanx to enjoy the spectacle of one of J's favourite sons getting married to this little-known girl from outside the county.

We walked up the hill to the second of J's two Orthodox churches, which is Ghita's parish church but looks like a miniature cathedral.  It is an early 20th century building, very white with a tall circular arcaded tower - not as charming as the older one but it is an imposing landmark and lives up to its nickname of the Cathedral of the Mountains.  Inside, Dragos and the other official photographer performed gymnastics with their cameras, taking pictures from all angles, back, front, sideways, from above in the balconies, and from down below, nipping about all over the sacred spaces, while the priest got on with the solemn business in hand, and while Ghita and Andreea stood, knelt and stood again, exchanged vows and rings, and then eventually tender smiles and a kiss (sure I could write for Mills and Boon...).  And we all trooped out again, down the slippery paths and steps to the icy road, and back to the hall.

Where chaos broke out.  The well-behaved procession of nasi, little ones and larger, suddenly descended upon bride and groom and an unseemly rough and tumble ensued in which Andreea seemed to be given away for a bar of chocolate and Ghita for, well, I couldn't make it out, it all happened too fast, and my Romanian, pretty serviceable at a steady trot, gave out under this gallop.  As I heard later from my friend Ileana who keeps the Pastoral Museum, the nasi pretend to sell off the mireasa and mirelul (bride and groom) before the wedding feast begins.

And feast it was, for the eye, the ear, the nose and the stomach: the hall was decked with red and white satin bows and streamers, and there were gadroons of food and drink, not only what you could see at the start, laid out decorously on the trestle tables, but course after course which issued out of the steaming kitchen, to delight the carnivores, herbivores, cake gluttons and drunkards among us to the point of unbelievable satiety.  There were hot soups, grilled meats, rice and potato dishes, and cold collations with (a recent innovation this) plenty of fruit and salads - including the salata de boeuf which I'd helped to dice - to offset the traditional hunkiness of Romanian cuisine.

And of course there was music, non-stop, mostly live and definitely boisterous.  It was pop-folk music, and apart from the digital recordings, it came from two bands (one a Baiesi Gypsy group from Bordeaua, an upwardly mobile ghetto attached to the northern side of J), and from two glamorous female singers who sang raunchy solos on the floor of the hall, and from Dinu B, one of Ghita's closest friends, who gave a virtuoso fluier performance of such melancholy and longing that it set my spine on fire.

And of course there was dancing - I wish I could remember the differences between the Jiana, the Hategana and the Invartita but we had all of these rounds or horas as people call them, linking the dances to the brandy, the double-distilled horinca which of course flowed like rivers).  And there were spectacles such as fireworks which sprang out of the floor in silver flares (one of them practically under Andreea's feet), and dramatic, candle-lit entrances by the waiters and waitresses, dressed in black trousers, white shirts and elegant waistcoats, bearing the next course.  Of course.  

Andreea and Ghita's wedding went on all day, and all night, until 5am.  There was a short break around 5pm, when the guests went home to feed their livestock.  When they came back they had changed out of their warm, day clothes, emerging like butterflies out of chrysalises in silk and satin and velvet, the women in high heels, with their hair piled in shining coifs that defied gravity, the men in smart suits that made them hard to recognise as the tough guys in all-purpose khaki who I was used to, stomping around the village and charging about in their 4x4s.  Some of the younger kids stayed at home after this watershed, but others came back to the hall, to run around amongst our legs until very late.  At one point I noticed the floor: soft wood planks stained black with decades of drink and the other inconsequential things that we chuck away when we are very happy.  People treated the floor like a friend, and lay on it for rest.  Or maybe I was enjoying myself so much that the floor looked like the deck of a ship in a rolling sea, rising up to greet me.

As for me, I held out until 3am; by that time Dragos had long since disappeared.  Walking home to Ileana's by night, I realised that all my inhibitions: fearing I wouldn't fit in, would be seen as an interloper, an awkward presence in the midst of all the celebration, had evaporated.  The air smelt icy and sharp, ready for anything.  I knew that after a few hours' rest, I would be too.     

Update: Thanks to Vodafone and Protv, Ghita has become a star - you can visit his facebook page, Ghita Ciobanul.  We wish him and his family every success.