EVS Express

As Semlac is also one of the resident places for volunteers, I decided to visit this beautiful village and find out how they are blending into the local community.

Semlac is a village with 4065 inhabitants about 37km from Arad. One cemetery, 5 churches, couple of bars and a market on Tuesday.  Christina, Marina (Spain), Claire (France) and Elena (Moldova) are living in a broad house. The house is heated by wood, but the hard work of fire making is not up to the girls. For that is a man they call “the fireman” who comes 3-4 times in 24 hours and makes sure that the house is warm. On the yard there is a pink outside oven for grilling meat and sausages, but lighting the fire there is up to volunteers themselves, no help from the fireman.

Semlac is also a village with unique culture – every year before Christmas a special men choir gathers to practice Christmas songs. They sing in the circle with a drum and they are called “Dobaşii” (the drummers). On 24th of December they go from house to house to sing. Usually they pick houses where there are more wealthy people or beautiful young girls to impress them with their voices. The tradition to go from door to door on Christmas Eve is widely spread in Romania but the “Dobaşii” is only the inheritance of Semlac, that kind of choir is not know even in any other neighboring villages. On the wall of the village government where the “Dobaşii” men have their rehearsals are historical pictures of the drummers from the beginning of last century. But the exact date of the first “Dobaşii” remains unknown.

On Sunday morning volunteers go to the church like other people from the village.  Because most of the Romanian people are Orthodox, the service we went was from that religion branch. Father Ioan was really happy of our visit and he also was a perfect model suggesting places to take pictures of him with the important book – the Bible.

This Sunday, the 22nd of November was an important day for the whole Romania – the election Sunday. People had to take a decision in 3 different questions – the next president, the one chambered parliament, the decrease of the number of parliament members.  Right now the parliament is 2-chambered and has 471 members. Of course it was a really important day for the inhabitants of Semlac and we went to witness that. By 1pm after visiting all the local election places, we knew that 17% of the people with the right to vote in Semlac had used their right by that time.

Volunteers are already quite known in the village and they have managed to establish nice relations with the community. A perfect example of those good relations was the invitation of the mayor after our visits to examine the elections.  She invited us to the place for special occasions to enjoy the traditional Romanian food – sarmale cu smântână (cabbage roll with sour cream). The food was very tasty of course and the weekend in Semlac made me appreciate the simple joys of the life in village. But as I wasn´t totally sure how the volunteers themselves see the life in the village, I had a small interview with them:

-    What do you like the most about the life in Semlac?Elena: “People are kind, sociable, house is really nice.”Claire:”The community life, the life with my housemates.”Marina:”The people, the village.”Christina:”The people, the quietness, rural life. Very beautiful.”

-    Is there anything that you don´t like or what would you change in Semlac?Elena: “I can´t think of anything”Claire:”The garbage problem – the garbage of the house is gathered outside and it is taken away on Tuesdays but sometimes nobody comes and in the night cats and dogs drag all the garbage out to the yard.Marina: “We need more cultural places, to meet people in other places than a bar or school.Christina: “No, nothing, OK.”

-    What do you prefer, if you could change now, would you still choose Semlac or a city?Elena:”Semlac.”Claire:”Semlac.”Marina:”Semlac, at the time, maybe in 3 months I change my mind, but now Semlac.”Christina:”Semlac, for sure.”

I asked the same questions from Anca, the accountant of the village government. She also answered that she prefers Semlac and wants to stay there mostly because her family is living there. She has tried to live in other places also, but she has returned always and likes Semlac the most. The only thing she would change is to make a good place for dancing, a disco place, not just bars like there are right now.

The train back to Arad takes 1 hour and 15 minutes. I have a short discussion with the bench neighbor about the cold from the window. With the fading light while the sun sets, I leave behind the life in the village taking with me only the nice memories of that visit.