Making a difference on the streets of Cluj-Napoca
14/05/03, Cluj-Napoca, Romania: The cool marble rim circumventing the water fountain in Stefan-Cel-Mare Square at Cluj-Napoca is less frequented on hot afternoons, hardly a location for locals to pass the time of day.
Although the afternoon sun pounded unbearably, I choose that particular vantage pint to observe a small boy, faced down on the ground – arms, shoulders and legs sprawled to capture the intense emanations of afternoon heat. His face pressed downwards into the cooler slabs of brick, helping to make his conscious impervious to any passersby. For the moment I perceived only a mane of black, brushy hair, standing out against the sun-bleached surroundings.
For several minutes the boy remained motionless, turned deep inside, preoccupied with the woes of a preceding predicament. By all appearance he was drawing nourishment from the very place he lay. Between the sky above and earth below only the world inside seemed to count.
Then again he was a beggar child, not yet realizing why God had chosen for him this particular place in life, much less knowing when and where his next bite was about to surface. At least over the summer he could find refuge in parks and open spaces, already beginning to swell with inexperienced tourists and visitors from out of town.
Even the sudden, energized appearance of a light-weight friend did little to persuade the limp dead-weight; a nudge here, a jerk there, so as if to say: “come on, let’s go, adventure waits!”
At last patience was rewarded. In the blink of a moment both sprang up and darted off towards two smoking teenagers in the hopes of pawning off a cigarette. The 8-year old initiator was triumphant and soon clenched the glowing ashes between his fletched white teeth, so as if to say: “how easy it was if you only tried.”
By then all cares were forgotten, and off they skirted again, this time to a nearby intersection, where they were soon joyously dodging stalled traffic, entreating coins from unwary drivers with open windows, of course careful to choose only select and promising vehicles.
They moved with feline ease and speed throughout their environment. Repeatedly they would size up the advancing situation, the character of the actors involved, and choose their methods of behavior by which to proceed. If one way didn’t work then no matter, it became the experience of something learned.
Such are the risks of life at its fullest.
Cort Vallis
Journalist, Cluj-Napoca
15 May2003