In the press from Iasi it is written in bold letters and sarcastically the title: „The library shared with the gypsies from Păcurari on ‚’’manele’’ rhythm”. The only rhythms of the building from the Main Road Păcurari, number 29 are of poverty and incapacity.
In the ex-subsidiary ,,Garabet Ibrăileanu”, a building with bars at the windows, the plaster of the walls fallen down and holes in the ceiling, without drinking water and central heating, live 19 people in a fight for adaptation to the world beyond the pieces of fence standing upright. As the space could not be considered a library anymore became the home of some people. In the right part, at a few meters away, the garbage chutes spread sharp smells, and the yard is full of wooden boxes or plastic ones, bottles, torn furniture pieces, gathered also from the garbage, among the ruins that should mean a home.
Here enjoys her childhood Stefania as well together with her family. She is 9 years old and in the middle of October, dressed in only one thin and blue dress, and helps her aunt to bring water. This, of 30 years old could be easily mistaken for a child because of her frail stature. She hasn’t been to school, she confesses, and she hardly pulls the cart full of water containers. The girl smiles. She has a small purse on her shoulder, almost in rags and a boyish haircut and bold. She likes to go to school although she tells me that the boys torture her with strikes and malicious words. , If I take the ball in my hands they come and hit with fists until I drop it”, whispers her playful voice of little girl while she looks with a relish, Students’ lyceum”, cars and people in a hurry. When she arrives home she is surrounded by cousins and she goes out to play, across from the road”. From the opposite block of flats an elderly lady starts shouting in a threatening way: Go away for here. God damn you. If I call the police you will all disappear from here”. She has her eyes half open, dirty teeth and a malicious voice. She doesn’t allow the children not even get near to the benches that she says she washed them with ’’her own hands” and she looks at Stefania’s mother with hate. This, of 38 years old, loses with her little height among her own children and fights back at the malice of the elderly woman. Her eyes are bathed in tears and her voice strangled of pain – , Are you crazy? Why are you shouting like this? What have we done to you?” But she gives up and she goes away pushing a bike for small children, in which the 8-year-old little boy enjoys a thing that he could not receive at the right time. , Ştefania is a naughty girl”, says her mother, but she goes to school daily and has good grades. Her mother helps her the way she can, because she studied 12 grades and she enjoyed a special education from her father’s side. The uncovered books as well as the notebooks of Ştefania look miserably, as any other thing that surrounds her, and on the first page of the Romanian notebook she has hardly written, ‘’Do you shelter me in your house?” The question mark is big as two lines, and the sadness that embraces the eyes of the little girl from the 2nd grade is overwhelming. Nevertheless, Ştefania fights with all her malicious classmates, with the poverty and she goes to school, and this year she waits to register herself as well as her sister Andreea, of 13 years old, to the ,,Palace of Culture” and play the violin.
Her mother does not have an easy life. With a husband possessed by the vice of alcohol and a son of 5 years old suffering from chronical pancreatitis, her days are bitter. 11 years ago a daughter of 4 months died because of a heart failure. From the pension of attendant and allowance, 900 lei per month, 800 spends on medicine, and the rest of the money hardly saves in order to pay the rent of 40 lei, to buy food for the children and clothes. She does not even remember since when she did not buy for herself something to wear, and her legs are sore from the shoes that are too small which she wears. And because she is thin and weak she wears the worn out clothes of Andreea’s and she saves for the children all that is good. Her husband works as a day labourer at cutting firewood, at taking care of the gardens, now, during autumn, at picking up grapes and he brings some money in the house in which everything misses, although things piled up stay in every corner. , My children go to school, they went to kindergarten as well” she says proudly, looking with a mother love around her, although the children are dressed badly and thin. When she is asked if they are obedient, she answers with tears in her eyes, my children don’t claim anything. If I give them onion with polenta they eat it”. In spite of all the hardships, these smile and play in front of the blocks fascinated by everything that surrounds them. The pride appears in the soul of Ştefania as well because of a ‘’Very Good’’ at Maths and of the drawing carried out at school with a coloured house, whse window has 4 coloured eyes in blue as well, red, yellow and again blue. It is the flag of her desire to have a house full of colour, only for her family and to touch the things she wants. A clean and new sheet, a coat only for her. These little desires are impossible dreams, and the soul of her mother struggles mournful every day- , Sometimes, if you want to believe me, I don’t have anything to feed them!” Her brother wanted to go to the circus with the classroom and asked 10 lei from his mother. And because she couldn’t give him the money he cried, then he forgot this little sadness and about the circus because he doesn’t know what it means. Sometimes he comes closer shyly to the coffee machines, he touches the grill where a few drops fell with the fingers and puts them in his mouth. He closes his eyes in half and he enjoys the taste, then he runs behind the others and he looks for a hand which he can hold. The pride of the family is Andreea, much quieter” who plays the piano and the guitar. She is an excellent child, with a harmonious voice and with blessed hands. She is never absent from school, she does her homework with devotion and listens to her mother. Unlike many members of her family, Ștefania knows the name of each one, the age and where he/she learns if they are children, or where they work if they are adults. She has a blue & big schoolbag which covers all her back, but it’s her daily happiness, because in thei way she detaches herself from home and enters another world. A fascinating world is and, The Palace of the children” where her sister goes, Andreea. She wants to go as well this year and to play the violin. When she comes from school Ștefania is blushing and happy and she can hardly wait to go out & play with her cousins, so different from her schoolmates who make her troubles. The only obstacle is the lady from across the Street, of whom Ștefania is afraid. She avoids carefully the benches, of the crazy lady” and starts running and laughing by hiding behind cars. Her white & dirty T-shirt is too small for her size, and her denim skirt, not at all suitable with the weather, is her favourite. Her sister is a model and she thinks about her that she will be an important person someday. Not even she is less ambitious. She accompanies her mother to register her at the courses, especially because it is free of charge and to follow her dream. The singers from TV, because she also has TV, are her joys, because she wants so much to sing, that her childish mind dreams about this thing continuously. The evening is reserved for the homework when at home arrives Andreea and she can help her, because sometimes the mother is behind the times.
At those 13 years old, Andreea, is the grown up & literate person who provokes admiration around her. When she sings it seems like she stuns, she closes her eyes and the soul is startled with joy, because people listen to her. People who maybe on the street wouldn’t stop not even to look at her even though she would cry. It’s what belongs to her from everything that surrounds her. One day she would like to wake up being a singer on a stage. The happiness that she feels is experienced by her mother as well who tells me that, she is amazing” and by her grandfather. The yard full of children who go to school, even if sometimes they take an ’’S” or ’’I ” as well are the everybody’s hope.
Ștefania & Andreea are their mother’s happiness, because they change her life every day through the will and their pleasure to go to school. There isn’t a more beautiful thing for her the fact that the two girls of hers will sing someday and will have a different life. In the end, these children will learn how to fly, although they live among ruins, because school represents for them a wonderful world, different from everything they have at home. For the two sisters is a dream come true to go to, The Palace of the Children” and to sing. There, it does not matter that at home they have a cold bed and bad food. On the school’s desks nothing is boring, because although they are only some children they feel that it’s their only chance to live differently.
This article can also be read here https://samewhiteblue.wordpress.com/2014/12/17/copiii-acestia-vor-invata-sa-zboare/
