Humans Cursed by Geography on the Pursuit of Happiness

True to Fact Stories
Ceausescu kept his nation in total dark and indigence. Children were sent to work the land to pay the debts the dictator made. Women encouraged to remain pregnant as often as possible. Then December of 1989 comes, and the communist leaders were shot dead on Christmas day. The country went into chaos. Freedom was not as people expected. The rich industry disintegrated at once. Schools were closed, forests were denuded…
With faces covered in tears, we kissed our elderly parents and abandoned everything we knew on the pursuit of any future. Italy, one of the most beautiful countries in the world, was our main destination. However, Italians were not happy, and the inferno continued. We are humans without identity. Humans of inferior birth.
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This manuscript gathers my previous memoirs from Romania and Italy. If you read them, please skip this one. Ten Years in Italy, Three Weeks a Human + Ten Years a Human in Asiago + Oranges at Christmas in a Communist Country.

Excerpt

Rationalised food in the Golden Epoch

In 1981 Romania had to request the International Monetary Fund a line of credit and adopted a policy to pay back its debts. If before Romanians were okay with Ceausescu's dictatorship, that year they all started to feel pressured, used and dispensable. The food began to be rationalised, the power cuts were happening every day, same as the hot running water and central heating, no imports just export. The country was in total austerity, and the president couldn't care less. He had everything he needed and much more.

My family was doing fairly well, much better than others. That because we all worked night and day, no matter what. We had the necessary food for surviving, but chocolates and fruits were a luxury. And when you know you can't have something you want it even more.

The piece of land we had was reserved to growing vegetables. We couldn't afford to plant any sort of tree or grapes. Our neighbours had apple, pear, plum, cherry trees, and several types of grapes and we wanted so badly to have some too, but my father was against it because fruits were not considered nourishment, but a caprice. We exchanged some corn for apples or pears, but that was about it. We terribly craved for cherries and grapes every Autumn.

The first time I saw a banana I was seven maybe. My mother cut it into thin slices and when I tasted one, I thought was very disgusting and refused to eat more.

As I said, there was no chocolate to be found in the two shops of my village. Sometimes my older siblings would bring us some imported from Russia, bought illegally from people in the streets. It was the worst thing I tried in my whole existence back then. It had the exact texture and taste of plasticine. I promise. I tried plasticine when I was in kindergarten, not sure why, but that's how I know what Russian chocolate tasted like. Nobody liked it, not even the birds we raised.

Ironically, twenty kilometres away from my village was a huge chocolate factory, and one of my neighbours worked there. He used to bring home large cubes of raw chocolate, and something else called glucose. A sort of raw sugar used in the making of chocolate. His children always vaunt themselves with that, and we were quite envious.

We had loads of milk, cream, and made cheese every day. Every Saturday, my mother baked the most amazing sweet cheese pies in the world. All my siblings were raised in fear of God, and we've been taught that giving is one way to demonstrate you had a good heart, so we always shared our goods with everybody, especially with these neighbours of ours. They were truly poor and in need. However, they never gave us a piece of chocolate or glucose in return. I used to cry and complain with my parents, and my father would always say, “Cristinuza, sweets are not good for your teeth, health nor mind. You have the best food anyone could ever dream, be grateful for that and leave them alone. You don't need their stuff.”

“But I give them cheese, and bread, and pies because they are always hungry and their parents never cook. Why can't they share some of their things with us? Why are them this way, Papa?” I would ask with tears in my eyes.

“People are all different, child. Don't be upset. God will always take care of us.” My father will reply with sadness.

And when somebody reminded me of God, I would just fall in adoration as I was a true believer.

Anyway, my uncle used to bring us chocolates from time to time, proper and amazing chocolate, but I wanted glucose. That was the only sweet I ever liked as a child. 

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