Treasure Hunt in Bărbătești

The day 26 of november, we take the bus to Bărbătești.

Bărbătești is a commune located in Vâlcea County, Romania. It is composed of four villages: Bodeşti, Bărbăteşti, Bârzeşti and Negruleşti.

The population of this commune is 3.861 residents.

In the bus, we met a girl that help us, she responded our questions and called the council to inform about our arrival.

When the bus stopped in front of the council, the bus driver accompanied us to enter in the building.

After they talked with us about:

- The origin of Bărbătești name: According to the legend, three brothers, Barbat, Costea and Dobrea had a big argument, so they decided to split and create their own community, respectively Bărbătești, Costesti and Dobriceni

- Another legend is about the monastery Mănăstirea Pătrunsa: The legend says that the inhabitants of Bărbătești were fighting against the Ottomans and a lady of that village was pregnant and to save herself and her baby who carried in her womb, fled the village and hid in the mountains, there gave birth to a child who later decided to build the monastery as a symbol of such a miracle to which it gave its name.

-The  story is about an important celebrity whose name were Ticarel, Ticarel is known in the community as the Romanian Robin Hood. He was a rebel who lived in the mountains and as Robin Hood also Ticarel robbed the rich to give to the poor.

Also they talked with us about the local problems and for the community the biggest problem is that young people leave the village to go to work for other countries and the village without young people is an aging village.

When we asked about the traditions, they showed us traditionals clothes, dances and songs and they gave us some presents. A belt, gold belt, whom won in a dance competition and a book about Bărbăteşti.

Also they gave us a two traditionals recipes: Sarmale and Cozonac

And one of the best part of the day were when they invited us to have lunch with them and try the tradional food: Mămăliga with cheese, meat pork and of course Țuică!

When the lunch finished we went out to visit diferent places where they made by traditional methods Țuica and Palinca.

 

So they took us to visit diferent natural places and after Dumitru Tîrcală invited us to drink a coffee and met him family, because we only had met one of his daugther, Denisa. In his house we met the other daugther Ariana and his wife Alina. And we felt truly like at home. They not only invited us to their house, also gave us jams, syrups, natural juices and a nice conversation.    

To finish the day in the town, Alina went to the bus stop with us... 

Bărbătești is not a big commune but their residents made us feel at home.

Welcome Party to New Volunteers

While we were starting the new activities time, when volunteers who have been travelling returned, another unforgettable activity happened was the “welcome party” that older volunteers prepared for us and for other new volunteers.

The party took place at the office. It started in the evening and lasted all night long. Not only volunteers from our organisation and others from different cities but also local people joined this party and shared a lot of nice moments all together. We brought food and drinks prepared by ourselves including traditional ones.

During the night people enjoyed food and drinks as well as dances and music of many different kinds. We had a good chance also to have guests from different cities, meet them and share moments together while meeting new people and making new friends. At the end of the night it was one of the most significant memories for us which gave us the chance to have a day with many nice moments and social experiences.

An overview of this month

Also October was a fantastic month. The volunteers of the Go for green project arrived and also a girl from China called Fang-Fang, who stayed here for a few days in an interchange program.

We spent a lot of time with each other. We remain committed to learn Romanian and we made some trips. I had my on arrival in Busteni, that was great!

Here the description of some activities that made this month:

-We went with volunteers from another project to the kindergarten doing activities with the children.

-We did interactive activities among us, in the office, coordinated by Sergiu and Georgeta in order to know the new volunteers and develop other skills related with the team work.

-We participate in an activity to clean the “Centrul de agrement Cozia” in Călimăneşti”. It was an amazing day. Many young people in this city also volunteered for this activity and so it was a good opportunity to meet the locals.

-We addressed some of the bureaucratic issues such as opening bank accounts and settle our stay in Romania in the Immigration office.

-We continue with the Romanian classes.

-We continue to work on our Facebook page and we started working on our blog.

-We went regularly to the museum to know it deeply. We start by cleaning up the houses (which was very interesting due to the fact that we spent a long time in every home forced us to pay more attention to each object that was there).

-And of couse we made a lot of parties and dinners together.