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   Life Slows Down ...

January 2000:

Singing in the new year, we traveled to Ogna Sugatag where the children's dance ensemble from Sirbi performed for the well-to-do at the Ogna hotels.

Young "Dracs," natives to Ocna, also performed for the midnight revelers.

We retired to a Calinesti home. There we shared that family's new year's: watching the number one TV program in Romania: Surprise Surpise.

The president of Romania tried to grab some free TV time ten minutes before midnight.  But the family flipped to something else, checking back only to see if he was still on.   

Getting late, and with a wood fire providing the heat and a small amount of smoke, Henry needed to clean his lenses.

They've never seen anything like it before.

Before the holiday flair worked out of people's blood, our village ensemble gave an outside performance for a camera crew from Bucharest.

"dragu-mi unde am zinit."

The change over to the Gregorian calendar has left its mark. On January 6th they celebrate the 'Old Christmas' (when the holiday used to be on the old Julian Calendars) by ritually bathing in the out of doors.    

   Here the Catholic service of the village Sirbi is held outside since they don't have a church.

With the holidays finally over, the villagers got down to the business of spreading their manure.

It's like a veritable manure freeway.

The cold seems to stop the unstoppable forces of nature.

Except of course, death, which seems if anything to have sped up.

(This boy was killed by a drunk driver sliding on icy roads. His funeral was held on New Years Eve.)

Clearing the snow cannot stop. If they don't keep on this, they run the risk of their roofs collapsing, or being snowed into their compounds, unable to get out...

Another truly unstoppable force of nature: sledding kids.