Those who have never visited Mărginimea Sibiului have no idea what they have missed.
2010. End of June, beginning of July. Crisis, The crisis is suffocating, vuvuzelas are deafening, the world seems to be going mad.

The car goes patiently along the Olt Valley. The Olt River is wide, black, angry and very dirty. It carries down from the mountains thousands and thousands of plastic bottles. Transhumance has an ugly step sister – the transhumance of plastic bottles coming from the mountains, down on the Olt and going probably even as far as the Black Sea. If we had been an Atlantic country, the Ocean would be full of plastic bottles belonging to Romanians who ‘enjoy’ nature… No comment…

Sibiu welcomes us with a stunning sunset and the title of ‘Capital of good manners’. And rightly so. In Sibiu, no matter how crowded it is (and it was), you would never hear drivers blowing their horns, swear words or other manele-style reactions. We cross the town, drive through Cristian – the world capital of storks, we look for the Orlat road sign, drive 4 km more and here we are at the heart of Mărginimea Sibiului… Gura Rîului, also rightly called the ‘Heaven’s doorsill’. The road is good, the houses are clean, people are standing at the garden gates and are NOT eating sunflower seeds. Are we still in Romania? Yes…

We come to our B&B: “Călin”. The gates open wide and our hosts welcome us: Mr. Ghita, Mrs. Ioana and their two sons: Ghita (the little one) and Ioni. They are a shade nervous, a bit tired after a long day’s toil, but they ask us in with kindness and warmth. In a few minutes, the food is on the table. The ham, onion, bread and tuica look delicious. We eat well, talk about this and that, about the journey here, the road, the programme for tomorrow and then we go to bed. The room smells clean and fresh, it smells of wintertime. It is so quiet that you can hear the grass growing… I wake up in the same position as when I fell asleep… That’s a good night’s sleep…

At 8 in the morning we go down in the garden. On a table there, cheese, ham, onion, real milk, fresh eggs are waiting for us… I’m still sleepy, so I’m desperately looking for coffee. Mrs Ioana, our host, explains to me patiently: ‘Have something to eat, and then, you see, I’ll bring the coffee, too.’ Excellent. My mother’s dream that I should eat something before having coffee has just come true. Mrs Ioana, you can’t imagine just how grateful Mother is!
We start towards the communes where we are going to work: Orlat, Cristian, Săliște, Tilișca, Amnaș, Galeș, Sibiel, Rod. We need volunteers and it will be quite difficult for us because children are on holiday.

We stop in Orlat first of all. The “Ion Pop Reteganul” General School. We are lucky, the director, Mrs. Mariana Cristea is still at school. We explain to her what this is all about, why we are here. She is thrilled to hear about our action and she promises us to let the children know that we are looking for volunteers. We’ve started with our right foot forward.

Săliște comes next. “Ioan Lupaș” Economics School. Here… surprise! The students are not yet on holiday, it’s practical activities time. The Director, Mr. Dumitru Paiș, and the deputy director, Mr. Boromiz, show the same enthusiasm. We can go right now to meet the students, tell them about our event and ask for volunteers.
I don’t know about other teachers, but the ones that we met here put their hearts in what they do and are really wiling to get involved and to involve the children in their schools in this campaign. And everybody is truly content. Not only children from Săliște attend this school, but also children from Tilișca, Amnaș, Galeș, Sibiel. So we ‘hit’ five ‘birds’ with one stone.

We return to Gura Rîului for lunch. We stop at the Townhall, where the Mayor, Mr. Ioan Dutu, receives us in his office. He has to deal with the latest heavy rain alerts, but he shares our enthusiasm and confidence in the success of our enterprise. With patience that can be only found here, in Mărginimea Sibiului, he signs and stamps for us almost 80 ‘Green civil conduct’ diplomas, and then returns to the truly important problems of the community he leads so well.

Back at the B&B, our hosts welcome us with a feast: sărmăluțe (meat rolls in cabbage leaves), tocăniță (traditional meat stew) and other delicious dishes prepared by Mrs. Ioana. We eat well and then start making plans for tomorrow. Evening is upon us before we know and it brings an extraordinary show: the herds are returning home from pasture. We come out at the gate, armed with cameras, as true townspeople that we are. The commune’s cows and buffaloes pass in front of us, one by one, one more beautiful than the other. At dinnertime, we all gather in the garden, start the barbeque, tell stories, eat (again!!!) and, inevitably, we grow sleepy. Lazily, we go up to our rooms and the wooden stairs creak under the weight of the sarmale and steaks we have eaten earlier. I collapse in the wonderfully white and clean bed. I’m surrounded by a sweet winter evening feeling. I get under the duvet and sleep without dreams.

I wake up in the morning as the cows grazing on the hill behind the house ring their bells. I go quickly down to the back garden, eat and thoroughly enjoy my coffee, unable to take my eyes off this hypnotic hill. Before I know it, it’s 10 o’clock and we go to meet the volunteers in Orlat…

The school is quiet. ‘Maybe they haven’t come yet,’ I say to myself.

The Director is waiting for us in the teachers’ room.

‘There are some pupils waiting for you in the first classroom on the right,’ she tells us.

We walk in. Ten faces are looking at us with curiosity. We introduce ourselves, I explain to them the reason we are here, we hand out T-shirts and promotional materials and… surprise! There is a first question: ‘When do we start?’

‘Well, if you have some time and if you want to, you can even start today, but not before we take some pictures.’

Said and done. We gather in front of the school, all wearing our yellow T-shirts… say cheese… click! click! … and they are gone to hand out leaflets and put up posters.

The same story in Săliște. All the pupils in two classes have volunteered, but unfortunately we could only pick 20, and all of them were great! We’re proud of you all!

News that we need volunteers spread quickly in Gura Rîului, so there’s a surprise in store for us. When we came back, some 14 brave kids are waiting for us in the B&B garden, ready for big deeds. Some are eager to start, some are cautious, all in all we get to the point, hand out T-shirts and… here are the volunteers of Mărginimea Sibiului.

It’s almost evening and I borrow our hosts’ bike to go around the commune, take some pictures and check the community ‘pulse’. I can’t believe what I see. Five kids wearing our T-shirts are dropping leaflets in people’s mail boxes.

‘Dears, what are you doing here?’ I ask in my most ‘authoritative’ voice.

‘Well… we thought that we don’t have much to do now that we are on holiday and we could even start today,’ they answer.

Gooood… short phone call to Bucharest to send extra leaflets and posters.

One week later, we return to Mărginimea Sibiului for the Festival.

To be honest, seeing just how keen the kids had been, I expected to see posters everywhere as we passed through Cristian, Orlat and Săliște. But… surprise… The children have put up posters ONLY where this was allowed. In other words, they took the first step to keep Mărginimea Sibiului as it is… clean. And we want to thank them for that.

The next days will be the test of truth for my volunteers… meeting the people in the street, dealing with their questions and curiosity, as well as the attempt to overcome a certain barrier to communication. A new kind of communication.

Saturday morning. The ‘Rhododendron Festival’ starts. The Romanian Association for Recycling RoRec is one of the organising partners. There’s a new stir in Gura Rîului. Many cars are going up towards the dam, where the Festival takes place. The people of Gura Riului are in front of their garden gates or putting the finishing touch to their week’s work.

We told the volunteers to meet us at 4 p.m. They start coming at 3.30, all of them wearing the T-shirts and carrying the leaflets bag on the shoulder. Just as we expected, they look very serious. Although many of them are not very tall, there is something special about their attitude as they walk through the gate. They arrive one by one: Laurențiu, Ioana and Ana-Maria, Ileana, Teodora, Radu, Teodor, Narcisa. Paula is missing, but she has a very good reason: she plays the shepherd’s flute and she is part of an ensemble performing today, but she will join us after the show. Some of them have also helped their parents with the house chores today – Hats off to them! They are very curious, want to know what we are going to do today and assail me with questions. I make a call to order and start by explaining to them. ‘Today we are all going up to the Festival site and we’ll hand out eco ash-trays, bumper-stickers, leaflets, biodegradable bags and rubbish bags… the most important thing is that you talk to the people when you give them these objects, make them understand why they are necessary, convince them to keep that spot as clean as they found it…’ Laurențiu is blinking fast, Ioana looks through me, Ana-Maria watches me with her head on her palms, Teodora is smiling, Narcisa gathers her hair in a pony-tail.

Maybe I’m not clear enough, so I start all over again. ‘Today we’re all going up to the Festival site and we’ll hand over materials that will help the people who came to the Festival leave Gura Rîului clean: eco ash-trays…’

‘Yes, we’ve got that!’ Laurențiu interrupts me all of the sudden. ‘We know what we have to do, but when we finish, can we take a ride in the carousel?’

I’m stunned, speechless…

‘If your parents let you… we take a ride in the carousel, too…’

‘Well, in that case, let’s go! What are we waiting for?’

Three cars drive us up to the site… we are surrounded by delicious aromas, while the children (including our Paula) playing the shepherd’s flutes on the Festival scene make the delight of the public. I can see the kids ‘assessing’ the sea of people with their playful eyes, they are already picking their ‘targets’. I’m nervous, I have to keep an eye on them all, not to lose them from sight, make sure they are all safe. The tension is going up. As if following a sign, the children enter the sea of people and start handing out the materials. People look at them with curiosity, listen to them, congratulate them, and my little volunteers go further, from one person to another, and another, and another. They cross the sea of people like a Macedonian phalanx, until they reach the other side, and then turn and start again… until they finish the materials in their bags. Gooood…. It’s time to pass on to the business operators. They receive rubbish bags, biodegradable bags and eco ash-trays. Some of the kids come back with a present, some sweets or soft drinks, even a ‘cocolos’, a local delicacy. The little yellow sea made up of the 10 volunteers is a big hit. Everybody looks for them, people have understood their message, ask for bags, for ash-trays… I’m proud of them.

We went on like this till evening. Then, we had dinner, and some of them, after asking for their parents’ permission, enjoyed the carousel and other rides there. We parted later on, some of us feeling tired, other still keen on more work, and we decided to meet on the next day in front of the village church.

Sunday morning. Excitement reigns at our B&B. Our hosts are wearing their traditional costumes, which look impeccable. Mrs. Ioana has outdone herself.

At 12 o’clock we all gather in front of the RoRec tent, which is already full of waste equipment. In the square in front of the church, everybody is excited. Lots of people, most of them wearing traditional costumes, all is black and white. Here and there one can see a yellow dot… our volunteers.

The show is opened by the young men of Gura Rîului, introduced by the Deputy Mayor, Mr. Călin. Proud-looking men up on their horses watch them with great attention. Behind the church fence, women in their traditional dress, reminding one of old photos, watch the young men’s dance, too. The Mayor and his wife are here as well, a bit nervous. I am under a spell, I cannot take my eyes off the dancers… I must admit, I have never seen anything like this in my life. It’s exquisite. Then, those wearing traditional costumes get up in carts pulled by horses. The Mayor and the Deputy Mayor, riding two beautiful horses, are proudly heading the ‘official’ parade. Without any hurry, people head again to the site of the ‘Rhododendron Festival’. The line of cars waiting patiently behind the parade is a few kilometres long. We get our kids in the cars as well and start on.

We reach the Festival site. The children already know what they have to do. We ‘sweep’ through the crowd a few times, then talk to the business operators and then head on to the tents. People cheer up when they see us. A stout man, as red as a lobster, shouts from his long chair in front of the barbeque: ‘Here they are, the little ecologists! That’s the way, kids! A jolly good job you’re doing!’

The children laugh, they give him bags, rubbish bags and ash-trays, and the man offers each of them a glass of water. A few tents farther, Ioana and Ana Maria’s parents welcome us with ‘cocolos’ and steaks. We take a break, to rebuild our strength and we go on. A few meters farther, a few families are truly enjoying the green grass. ‘So good that you’ve come, we’ve run out of garbage bags.’ The men are watching the football game, the women are cooking. All around, the tents area is perfectly clean… Great!

Time flies and we feel we have butterflies in our stomachs… next comes the raffle with prizes for those who have handed over old appliances, but first of all our volunteers will receive their prizes, on the stage, so everybody can see them. Many ask me if I feel nervous when I get on the stage… and what they should do when they are nervous. I tell them to relax, nothing extra-ordinary happens. We all gather behind the stage, we take a few more photos and… finally… it’s time to get on the stage and offer them the prizes. Together with the Mayor and the Deputy Mayor, the children go on the stage… they are shy, but confident at the same time. I call them one by one and they come to the front to receive their ‘Green civic conduct’ diplomas and not only: Laurențiu Achim, Ana Maria Bunaciu, Ioana Bunaciu, Teodor Căpățînă, Teodora Cândea, Paula Farcaș, Narcisa Ghișoiu, Radu Lupe, Ileana Stanciu. They were joined during the days before the festival by: Radu Demian, Ilie Bischin, Cosmin Tătărău, Petrică Grigore, Alexandra Haiduc. They are all current or former pupils of the “Aurel Decei” General School in Gura Rîului.

We must also thank the children of Orlat: Simona Topîrcean, Andreea Topîrcean, Iulia Pipernea, Alexandra Tăban, Dragoș Marin, Cosmin Schiterli, Ana Maria Sârbu, Ilie Răzvan Savu, Rareș Mihail Ghiță, Ionuț Olariu, Ioana Petronela Paul, and Săliște: Adrian Neag, Ioana Ciuberea, Alexandra Pop, Adrian Oltean, Alexandra Rapa, Adrian Băcila, Georgiana Mândrean, Robert Simion, Andreea Giurgiu, Diana Hânsa, Andreea Iuga, Ana Maria Gândila, Ștefan Munthiu, Adina Voicu, Sorin Avram, Monica Răcean, Karina Birc, Andreea Schwichel, Ioana Marica, Marian Poplăcean.

They believed in flying and are now masters of the horizon. Congratulations!