Arts Lab Report: Travelling through Romania's beauties

June came and went faster than I thought. The on arrival training has finished and with the less strict condition of the alert status we were able to move around more freely (with a mask of course). My mind was concentrated on the various task that went evolving progressively even though I faced some difficulties on the way. For example, the video. If anyone follows the activities and uploads of Super Tineri knows that a video about Târgu Frumos had been published. Well behind this simple video a lot of things happened. The video was on the making before the quarantine began and there was even a shotlist (paper where the recording plans are written) ready.

When the state of emergency happened, it was put on pause for two months. For this month, I was determined to finish it. I finished the video with my friends and it’s now out there displayed to the world. Now I am satisfied that it’s over and people can watch it.

My intention for the crowdfunding projects things was to make documentary pieces of interesting subject around town and give them an opportunity to share their story. For that reason, I started to put posters around town, specially in places where people pass by often. However, so far to this day I haven’t got any replies related to the subject. I guess the people around here are shy. For that reason I had been looking for different subjects around town. One person did contact me and she is a school director in Butea who wanted to share her story of how she was able to renovate a small school to a big one with many different facilities.

An interesting subject that I had been keeping in mind was the animal bazaar that happens every Thursday next to the hills over the train tracks. In a modern, technologically advanced society like today, I am fascinated that these markets still exists. According to the coordinator it’s a dying black market where the only ones buying the cows, horses and other animals are old farmers. Might investigate more about it soon.

It’s sometimes hard to get inspired staying in only one fixed place, so every weekend me and my colleagues we always try to travel somewhere different to explore more about the Romanian culture. This month I had the chance to visit many cities/towns nearby: Bacău, Piatra Neamţ, Târgu Neamţ, Strunga and of course, Iaşi. It was refreshing visiting different locations around Romania and meeting new people there. The Neamţ Citadel was an impressive historic visit while walking around the river in Piatra Neamţ was very pleasant. Bacău felt like a friendly city with big churches and the pleasant bike ride to Strunga was nice but ended shortly by a hailstorm. A kind priest was kind enough to keep us safe inside the local church and take us by car.

In conclusion, June was a return to normality for me which was supposed to happen at the beginning of this ESC project. I’m glad that I can start travelling back again while trying to adapt to my daily routine as a busy volunteer. Hopefully the quarantine situation doesn’t come back as we all are motivated to explore more and discover everything about this country.

Written by Hanul Choi

Hanul is European volunteer for 8 months, in Arts Lab 2.0 project,  funded by European Solidarity Corps, with the support of European Union.