Q: Do you have any kids?
A: One daughter
Q: How old is she?
A: Twenty six.
Q: How many years have you been in Spain?
A: Since 2001, for sixteen years.
Q: How was your life in Romania before you came to Spain? What kind of job did you have?
A: In 1998 the farming company that my husband worked for got closed down by the State in autumn and left him jobless. A very bad time of the year to go find a new job.
So because of the circumstances we found out from friends and acquaintances that someone was going to emigrate to Spain. So after talking to a lot of people, in three weeks everything was arranged and he went to Spain to look for a job.
For three months I didn’t hear anything from him. In January I finally got a very short call that he was still alive but he wasn’t doing good. He was living on the streets with no food and that he hadn’t found any job. This circumstances lasted till the summer. He tried to sort out his life on the streets, at bars, etc. And then a social worker from Alicante came. So after living for three weeks in Alicante under a bridge, sleeping on cardboards, this very nice social worker helped him. So that’s why I earlier said that we have been welcomed to Spain like someone from Spain. With difficulties and needing to do some research, but very welcomed. She found him a place at a country house at Santomera where he could work and live. He lived there for over a year and a half. After that, the owner of the country house had a bar at Murcia. So my husband learned how to speak Spanish and was offered a contract to work at the bar. So after a year working there he was offered a contract and I had to validate it in Romania with all the necessary ministries.
After a year working with a contract he had the right to reunite with his family. So he filled in all the papers for it. At that time I was working as a primary school teacher. He came here so we could finish the paperwork. In January I came to Spain to have a look and check if life was ok here because I wanted to make sure that I was making the right decision. I wanted to make sure that it was the right decision leaving my good job and that everything was going to be okay for my daughter. So in January I stayed for a month, familiarized with Spain a bit. I found out that the language is not that hard to learn although nowadays we still lack the Spanish accent. So in that month I made the decision with my husband, after three years being apart, to reunite the family because we weren’t a family with him living here and we being there.
So I waited for the school year to finish and asked for a gap year because I didn’t want to lose my position at the school just in case. Finally we moved to Spain in August. Everything was good, my husband was working at the bar and he found us a place to live at Santomera.
After a few weeks we met a friend who was working at the Factory in Albanilla. So in September I started working there. I couldn’t speak any spanish, the environment was masculine. There were only men working there. It was a factory that made tables and chairs for the kitchen and they needed an upholsterer. So I started working there as an upholsterer. After some time they closed down the factory and moved to Molina and I moved with it. After a few years the manager told me that the factory wasn’t doing good economically and was going to be shut down. So we started talking. What first started as a joke later on got serious and we decided (the two families, Spanish and Romanian) to start our own Company.
We did all the paperwork with some loans and in March 2007 we officially opened our Company. We started out great, made a lot of contacts from the former Company we worked in, so we were doing great. Unfortunately the crisis started that fall. We needed a lot of help from God and people to make it through. So from 2007 till 2013 the years passed without knowing what a family was or free time, we worked day and night.
But in 2013 the crisis was at its max, and as you all know well the savings people had they saved them for food in the future not to buy furniture for the kitchen. So that´s when we decided to close down our Company for good. Saving all the experience, stuff and connections we have made through the years for the future. Since 2005 I have also been working in the weekend in a restaurant until the present day. The bad thing is I’ve been jobless for a while now (except the weekends) but with always a positive head up towards the future. A month ago I started working as a salesperson selling products from a Factory. And bit by bit I’m making my connections again. We are still fighting.
Q: What was your feeling when you came to Spain?
A: When I came the first month to visit or when I came for good?
Q: When you came the first month because that’s when you made the decision to stay or not and when you finally lived here.
A: There are multiple things to analyse here.
Q: Did you have different feelings when you came to visit compared to when you moved here?
A: With the circumstances we were living in at that time I can’t really talk about feelings I was feeling at that time. It was more an intuition. And as you might know women first think with their head and then with their heart.
I started with numbers. I had to make calculations if we were going to be able to live together as a family of three persons with, in the beginning, only one working husband.
So comparing both ways of living, the one we had in Romania together, the one we had in Romania when I was living there alone with my daughter and the one we were going to have here in Spain with the three of us. Then I compared the conditions of the life we were going to have in the building we were going to live in, because to rent or buy a house here you need 5 salaries in Romania. I also examined the cleaning and the streets. The facilities they offer you. The humanity you find in the people with the good people. But that’s the same everywhere. You’re not gonna help anybody if you don’t know who you’re gonna help. But once you open yourself and you tell the truth the people would receive and help you. This happened when I just moved to Spain and is still happening. With luck I have never found myself in the situation where they told me to not come back to work or whatever. I have been working, as I told you, in the restaurant since 2005 and now I am working as front-of-house manager. We are still working with the same owners and with the same staff and you can tell that 2% of people working there are a bit jealous of that. But that jealousy comes from people that want to ascend with no effort at all and no responsibilities. On the other hand the environment is very good, the people working there, the bosses. The bosses are very professional, they tell you compliments when they need to and the also tell you what you did wrong. But always apart from the rest, explaining it to you. This is what Romania lacks. In the aspect of work Romania lacks a lot. Because in Romania the boss is the boss and the worker is the worker. When the boss should step back a little to let the worker step up a little so that they are more on the same level because we are all humans. If we are all on the same level, when bosses ask for what they need correctly, then things would work out differently. When you work just to meet expectations but without motivation, it is no good. If you are not comfortable or you don’t feel useful, if your boss doesn’t cherish your work, you don’t make an effort, but you do if you have a good work environment. We have been through many hard times, but we have always fought. Sometimes we have been hungry and told no one, sometimes we had plenty and helped others. I would like that to happen to all foreigners groups. I want us to have a community feeling, to be united, helping each other. We are lacking this connection between us. The Roma people made us a bad reputation, those with bad habits. There are some very honorable and educated, but some have damaged our image. It is true that sometimes I say I’m Romanian and a wall builds up, maybe involuntarily, and rejection grows. Many times we had to explain that we are many Romanians, and that if one of them is mean, that shouldn’t harm the image of the others. There are Roma people everywhere, some integrate and are nice, but others are not. Every forest has a dry tree. Every country has good and bad things. But in general we had a good experience.
Q: What did you leave in Romania?
A: I left both my parents, 70 years old. My mom was weaker than my dad. A sister that lived in my same building, that says everything about our relationship, and a sister in another city, 8 years older than me.
Q: Are you in contact with them?
A: Of course. The last two years we could go back to Romania to see our parents each year. It was harder before, when we couldn’t go. We couldn’t buy plane tickets in advance because we didn’t know if we would be able to travel. What you save in a year you spend it on one trip of two or three weeks to Romania. I speak with my parents once or twice a week. With my sisters it is more rare but we see each other on Facebook and write each other. Each one has their own problems and life, but we keep informed through our parents. We have land scattered in many places, and you can’t enter them in an association, you have to work the land yourself. My parents need help with the vineyard so my sister helps them and gives them a hand with it. My older sister is farther away. My husband also left his family in Romania, his parents are a bit younger than mine, in good conditions. Five years ago my father in law died, he was all alone, he was a wonderful person, humble, 75 years old, no studies, he lived during the Second World War, he treated you perfectly, very nice, very kind with everyone. It was a very big loss, and it was hard. This is the bad thing about living far away. Unfortunately only my husband could go to see him one last time, my daughter and I couldn’t go and I am so sorry. This is the hardest part. You are far away and you wish to be near the ones you love. It hurts me to see how my parents grow old and are defenseless and needy for support.
Q: Would you go back to Romania?
A: I don’t think so. My daughter came here with 8 years and she does not manage Romanian well. She grew up here, with a different mentality, so when we go there, after a week we already want to come back home. The life conditions are very different, it is hard in my town. It varies in a town and a city. There is a big difference. I have an apartment there but it is like it was 20 years ago because it is useless to maintain it if no one lives there. There is a huge difference between that apartment and the one I bought here in 2005. The accent still stays, so if you go back there you feel a bit like an outsider. Sometimes you can’t find the words in Romanian. Some think it is to show off, but living and working here makes you think in Spanish. You have made an effort to learn the new language so you incorporate it. I took very seriously studying the language, with a dictionary and all. They made us bad jokes and talked ironically, and it is not fair, so that made me learn the language faster. If you go back to Romania you feel a bit rejected and marginalized. It is because of our mentality, we need to be more open, understand that beyond the frontiers there are other mentalities. Some think that you leave your country because you want to be rich, but that is not always the case. They misjudge. My husband couldn’t accept to be unemployed back then, everything was uncertain, that is why he came.
Q: Do you think Romania evolved since you came here?
A: Some think it did and some think it didn’t. Politicians will say it developed a lot. Normal people in the streets will say that many things improved but many others are worse. There were improvements in the country, we started to change our mentality. 30 years passed since the revolution, and it should be more than enough to embrace, accept and apply democracy in every aspect. During communism, some privileged people had power to do what they wanted. Fear, oppression. People were scared to talk. All lands were nationalised, and the party owned everything. So a mentality started growing and people only cared for themselves, they didn’t mind about what was happening to their neighbors. There we have a humanity that I don’t see here, in my opinion, it doesn’t exist anymore. If something happens to you in the street people should stop and care about you, and that doesn’t happen here. We need to have that humanitarian feeling and worry about other people. The way to manage the cities has improved, politicians started to be educated and study democracy so as to apply it, and they try to apply it, but we still have that ancient thought of wanting the best for ourselves and giving the others very little. It is clear. I don’t have Romanian TV, but the people I know keep me informed and they tell me that we still have a long way to go to reach Spain’s level, if we ever do, I doubt it. Corruption and waste after the revolution was impressive. Entire factories were destroyed. We payed all external debt back then and it was decided that Romania should self-finance, because we have many resources. Then democrats came and I think they got to power with the same mentality. We need to find honorable politicians, willing to work hard, then we will be able to evolve further. But for now, with corruption and the discussions between political parties, it is an uncivilized fight, so it won’t be possible. The ministry of Education is regular, but the ministry of Health has decayed a lot in the last years. When a country does not take care of the health of its population, many problems start appearing. A lack in health moves to everyone’s personal life and affects it. Running water, electricity, roads, educational centers.. they have improved. But the joy of the people I was used to is not there anymore. And I think I am quite objective to analyse these things. The situation is like this.
Q: What are the main differences between both countries?
A: The health system. Here you go to a hospital and they care about you and law is respected. In Romania there is a lot of corruption in health. If you want a doctor to treat you, you need to pay. People die, and they shouldn’t, they still have so much to live. There we don’t take care of older people. Pensions are a joke, they can’t even pay for electricity each month. There are many expenses and it is not enough. The prices are the same here and there, but there money is not enough. Prices go up without an economic basis. Older people suffer and their kids too. The everyday life is different. Here, you can afford to go out on the weekend, but you can’t afford that in Romania. They have made a couple of changes and improvements in education. But there is a war between teachers, students, parents and the ministry. It is very stressful to raise the new generations. Teachers used to make a big effort to teach well because they knew they had the support from the parents. Now there are many good students but the system is damaged. Professors are badly paid so they are not interested in teaching. It is a vicious circle. Good students today are good because of their effort and good will to study. Schools have more materials now but we have to work on it. Here, education is in a lower level than in Romania because bullying destroys everything, young people make excuses, teachers are well paid, they all have lawful rights, and only three students per class care about learning. In Romania there is still control and teachers have the ancient thought that they have to build minds. They have the same students for five years and they have the mission to form little men, to do something good with good results, for the students and also for their self esteem. So in education Romania is better than Spain. All these aspects are basic and fundamental to build a good society: health, education and wellbeing. Now there are some helps for people who need them but many of them are pleased with it and then they don’t make an effort to find a job and make a life and try to be better. Now people are proud and are pleased with the help, they don’t make an effort any more. It is psychological. It is harmful. I am not saying that we shouldn’t help, but I think that we need to find another way to help young people. During communism, when you finished high school, you had to start working because the law said so, either you worked or you went to military school. A more conscious, more responsible youth was formed, eager to go forward. We need that in Romania and here as well. I think that making it compulsory to work after your studies, it would help change society, the mentality to do something for our country, leave aside the individualism, envy, egocentrism, because they are very harmful. Health, education and young people are the three basic and more important aspects that can help improve the country.