Celebrating MARTISOR in the Bucket

FRIENDSHIP AND CONNECTION WITH OTHERS IN ROMANIA

I am not sure if I have mentioned on this blog the fact that I spent a year teaching in the city of Timisoara in Romania  under the auspices of the Fulbright  Program.  I know I alluded to it in  my  blog entry where  I mourned the loss of a wonderful  woman doctor Pat  Kennedy Issarescu, MD who was  married to a member of the old Romanian royal family and was the sister of my good friend here in Rhode Island,  
So much happened in that year  in Romania, and I did not  try to write about it after I returned to my regular teaching gig at the University of Cincinnati.  Although I have  found some journals that I kept during that  time, which have brought  back some memories.

This time of year and this unruly snowy beginning of March reminded  me of  how this  month is welcomed in Romania.  MARCH  FIRST is a holiday there.  I did not know that until I saw  vendors in the streets and squares selling  small string bracelets and pins  for a small amount of money. Maybe one lei or  less.  I asked students what they were for and they explained to me that they were to welcome  Spring and were given as  good luck for the coming year to friends and family and  any one whom you wished to show  your friendship to. They said that I would no doubt receive some. 

So I bought about ten and kept them in my pockets and  waited for March 1.

This holiday is another  one of those cultural  reminders of the  Romanian connection with ROME. After all Romania was a Roman colony and Romania has Roman ruins as do all the Balkan countries.  Most of all the Romanian language-although pronounced very differently, is a Romance Language and has its roots in Latin and later Italian.  That is one of the reasons that Romanians  seem to all speak  French and Spanish and Italian so easily.  They are all close language  buddies.

So I was happy when on March 1 in going into the University of the West  campus and climbing the stairs to the American Library where I hung out several students stopped to  give me bracelets or pins of red and white string with tassels. I was  glad that I was able to  give them a similar keepsake. March is the first day of  Spring and in Romania,  unlike here in RI, the weather seemed to cooperate. 
Pansies were showing their faces in the lovely beds planted  in front of the cathedral. That is hard to imagine as we await  yet another winter snowstorm and frigid  temperatures.  But March was named by the Romans to  honor the God of War -- MARS.  And it was the first month of the Roman calendar.

The IDES OF MARCH made infamous by Shakespeare's Julius Caesar was considered the most auspicious time to go into battle.
The Romanians  give the thread as a  talisman against evil, and it is considered the thread of life.  Not unlike the one the Fates  weave and will cut to determine the length of each human life.  Braided with red and white strings to show the unity of opposites of male and female and winter and spring and life and death. 

THAT IS A LOT TO THINK ABOUT
SO  I GIVE A SHOUT OUT TO ALL OF MY ROMANIAN FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES--SOME I STILL HEAR FROM  AND OTHERS HAVE PASSED INTO THE OBLIVION OF FORGETFULNESS.