A Change of Plans

This past Tuesday our landlord came through with our contract and we were finally ready to start turning documents into the immigration office. We got our passport-style pictures taken the day before and purchased the specific folders for our documents as we were instructed, and made copies of everything for our records. We were ready.

There are two men who work at the immigration office. The light-haired one is mildly helpful. The dark-haired one claims he’s the one who actually processes our paperwork, and thus usually gives us more specific information. On most accounts, they tend to give us different information and requirements depending on the day. We prefer to talk to the dark-haired one since we feel he might know more what he’s talking about.

On Tuesday, we got the dark-haired guy. I handed him my documents and he started to go through them. I can’t remember if we posted about the previous encounter at the immigration office, but they required an additional piece of paper stating exactly what our volunteering consisted of at the bear sanctuary. We went back to the bear sanctuary office and got this piece of paper and had it signed and stamped. Unfortunately, there was a line on this piece of paper stating that one of our qualifications must be that we had some kind of specific degree or certificate. The dark-haired guy spotted this line and told us that unless we actually had this degree, this was not valid. I asked him if we had to show him a piece of paper with a stamp on it to prove we had the degree, and he said yes. He then proceeded to tell us that another one of our documents was wrong and we also had to make a copy of a different page in our passport. I said, “Ok, we’ll go get this done and hopefully be back in an hour or so.” He replied, “Oh, I don’t think you’ll be back in an hour. But you can try.”

I pretty much wanted to cry right there. We were already one week overdue (which would have been ok, if all our documents had been straight), we already paid our money, our landlord went through the trouble of getting a lawyer to draw up a contract, and now we had to get three MORE things done – two of which required someone else’s involvement.

So I called the bear sanctuary and explained that we needed the wording changed on one document and we needed two copies, plus the original of their “business registration certificate” (for lack of a better term). Since we knew they wouldn’t be too keen on letting us take the original certificate, we offered to pay for a taxi for someone from the bear sanctuary to come to the immigration office and show it to them (that’s all they needed anyhow). Yes, they were willing to do this, however, they were bogged down with work on Tuesday, so it would have to be Wednesday. Fine, no problem. One more day wouldn’t hurt.

Wednesday morning I get a call from my contact at the bear sanctuary. She had spoken with the director of the organization and they decided that they would not provide us with the business registration certificate. Apparently, by providing the immigration office with this certificate, it made them more responsible (or something) for us and they were not willing to do this.

And this, my friends, is how one little piece of paper is the downfall of our visa hopes this time around.

Plan B. This week we’ll pack our stuff up and head out to Moldova for two and a half months. By the end of July, we’ll be able to return to Romania and have another 90 days to figure something out. We’ll be more prepared this time for what’s necessary. We’ll work diligently from Moldova to apply for jobs (any job) in Romania (preferably in Brasov, but perhaps elsewhere) so maybe we could even come back earlier. Regardless, we’ll be back in Brasov for the party (exact dates still pending) and hopefully have something more stable by that point!

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If any of you are familiar with the “Rocky” series than you know what happens during Rocky III. Rocky, for those of you who don’t know, fights Mr. T who is incredibly intimidating. Mr. T insults Rocky and he knocks guys out silly in the prelude to his fight with Rocky. Rocky is incredibly confident. He is the champ. Nobody can beat him. He has the best trainers, best diet and best place to train in the world. But he loses in his first fight with Mr. T.

This is kind of like our situation right now. This is the third time we have faced off with the dreaded Romanian bureaucratic process (hence my Rocky III reference). We come from the best country in the world, bar none (no offense to my Romanian and Moldovan readers). We had all the confidence that things would go our way. But things didn’t.

Rocky lacked heart before his fight with Mr. T. Mickey died in Rocky III. But I know that you guys know what happens in the end. But for those who don’t know I will tell you.

*WARNING* Spoiler alert from 1982.

After months of training, a questionable relationship with Apollo Creed (hey, it was 1982) and a much-needed pep-talk from his wife, Rocky came back and crushed Mr. T like there was no tomorrow. It wasn’t easy but he put his mind to it. Rocky was getting ready to retire but he decided that he couldn’t go out like a punk losing to Mr. T. He couldn’t let Mickey die and him not be on top. He couldn’t let his wife down. This is our situation.

I probably don’t have to remind you my dear reader(s) what Rocky did in Rocky IV. That’s right. He conquered Russia. Ok so now I’m mixing the two timelines up a bit but I have to do this in order to provide you with an awesome story.

And what an awesome story this is. Who does this stuff anyway? Not only did we get severely beat down by the commies (again, no offense my dear Romanians but you have to update your system) but we are going to come back for more. We ain’t no punks. Foo.

Since my story equates our situation to Rocky it is only appropriate to illustrate it with Rambo pictures. We weren’t allowed to bring our cameras to the festivities at the police station so we will have to use these pictures that we found online because it looked almost exactly like this. I assure you that this is pretty much an exact replica.

Visa: It's Everywhere You Want to be.

Sorry we haven’t posted in a little while. We’re kind of holding our breath now for a volunteer organization to give us a contract so that we will have all the necessary paperwork to remain in the country for at least a few months. We have been volunteering at a couple different places at this point. The first place is F.A.S.T.: this stands for something in Romanian, but basically they work with a large Roma (gypsy) population outside of the city.

These guys said that they couldn’t sign a contract with us because they are going through some organizational changes and don’t know if they can accommodate volunteers. This was very disappointing because we feel that they are a good organization and would have enjoyed working more with them.

So we started to volunteer at the bear rescue/sanctuary just outside of Brasov. When we talked with one of the coordinators, she said that they wouldn’t mind doing a contract and they do this sort of things with foreigners all the time. We like this organization as well and the people who work there. Most of the work is centered around feeding the 50+ bears they have there since they are big animals and they eat a lot. Hopefully in time we can get more involved with the organizational aspect because it seems like this is the area that they need the most help. When you click on the bear picture, you can see the bear sanctuary website - it's translated into English using Google translate, so the meaning can get lost in translation so to speak...

The way it looks right now, we have a best-case, and worst-case scenario, and even worst-case is not all that bad.

Best-case: We get the volunteer contract and subsequently the visa and we volunteer at the bear sanctuary. During this time we find work either legally with a company that can hire us in Romania or we find a job(s) online and continue working with the bear place on a volunteer basis.

Worst-case: We don’t get a visa and have to leave the country for a couple months. In this case we would probably go to Moldova and volunteer somewhere that can provide housing and food since we don’t have money coming out of our ears. We come back to Romania in late July and still are able to have our party in August. We will then have another 90 days to get a visa and this time we will be more prepared.

I know that just by looking at our blog it seems like we have just been sitting around and being tourists. This is not the case. Most of our time was spent in vain going through interviews and waiting for a response from one of many people who made it seem like it would be a sure-fire thing to be able to hire us until the Romanian Bureaucracy swiftly cut our hopes short. If it happens that we have to leave the country we will be more familiar with everything that’s available and also what they will need to do for us when we come back in July.

But please cross your fingers that we get the visa this time around. We don’t want to have to look for another apartment in July. We like this one and we don’t want to have to go back to Moldova until it’s time for setting up a party. Parties are better than being homeless in Eastern Europe.

Amidst all of this waiting, we made two more trips back to the friendly folks at the immigration office. Technically, our deadline for turning in all of our documents is April 7th – that would be this coming Wednesday – and understandably, we began to feel stressed out when we realized that we had just one week to gather everything up signed and stamped. So in the beginning of last week we visited the immigration office to get more information specifically about the volunteer contract and what should happen if we don’t have everything in on time.

Since Robert already took his turn talking to the immigration official, it was my turn. Friendly would not be the word I’d use to describe the official, however, he was civil. He referred me to section 195/2001 of the law which pertains to volunteering and said I could just search for it on the internet and get any details I need there. I proceeded to ask him the rest of my questions anyway, even though I’m pretty sure he was hoping to get rid of me with his first suggestion. I found out the following: there is no minimum number of volunteer hours needed, you can get a volunteer visa for a maximum of one year, and as long as you turn in your first document (among many) by the 60-day mark then you are not past the deadline. This was helpful.

We decided to try to collect as many of the documents as we could without the volunteer contract so we would be entirely prepared. Off we went to the doctor’s office to get a clean bill of health! Fearing this could take longer than a couple days with blood tests, etc, we wanted to get this out of the way first. Our friends helped us find a doctor with open appointment hours, and after waiting about fifteen minutes in an empty waiting room, we were invited into the doctor’s office. We handed her our passports, she asked “Are you healthy? Do you have any diseases or mental problems?,” we both answered “yes” and “no” respectively, she took our blood pressure, she signed and stamped our medical clearances and we were done! Who knew it could be so easy?

After she took my blood pressure she said that it was a little high. She said this was normal since I was a little fat. I suggested that it was because I drank a lot of coffee before I went to see her.

Next was our medical insurance. Our timing was off because we arrived at the state medical insurance office outside of “public hours.” This means the civil servants working there are far too busy chatting amongst themselves to be bothered with matters of serving the public. They were kind enough to provide us some information for our return trip, though. We were informed that in order to receive health insurance, one must first have a “CNP” which is a Romanian identity number. We could obtain one of these numbers by going to the police station (incidentally, the same location as the immigration office) and inquiring there.

Back to the police station we went! Upon explaining our situation to the front desk attendant at the police station, we were directed around the building back to the immigration office. And so we found ourselves in front of the immigration officer once again. It was a different man than I had spoken to a couple days earlier and although he was equally as civil as the first, he turned out to be much more helpful.

First, we asked him about the CNP number. He asked us if we already had a visa and proceeded to explain how the various types of visa will determine what we need to do for our medical insurance. We told him we would be volunteering. He then explained that there are many different types of volunteering (religious, humanitarian, etc) and that, too, would change our insurance requirements. Why this was not written on the “informative” website, I don’t know. We went on to ask him about the various tariffs that had to be paid for visa applications. He began to explain, “The tariff is 120 euro. You must pay this to the Takramama (or something like that).”

Us: So you can’t just bring cash and pay it here?
Immigration Officer: No. You must pay it to the Takramama and then bring us the receipt. But you must pay the Takramama in Romanian currency, not euro. You must take out euro, have it exchanged into Romanian currency and then pay the Takramama and then give us the receipts.
Us: Ummm…so let me make sure I understand this. I start with lei, then change it to euro – 120 to be exact. Then I take the 120 euro and change it back to lei, and save my receipt. Then I take the lei and pay it to a specific location (the Takramama) and save that receipt as well and give it to you along with the euro-to-lei exchange receipt…?
Immigration Officer: Yes.
Us: (Pause.) ***quizzical look***
Immigration Officer: I don’t know why this is.

Perhaps when said this aloud it sounded equally as ridiculous to him as it did to us.

Us: And what about the 230 lei that this sign here talks about? (*Note: This fee was mentioned nowhere online or anywhere else besides on a printed out sheet of paper taped on the Immigration Office door.)
Officer: That must be in lei and deposited at the CEC Bank into the account number printed on the sign.
Us: And then bring you the receipt…?
Officer: Yes. But the price varies depending on what kind of visa you get. So does the 120 euro tariff. Just bring me your volunteer contract when it is signed and I will tell you what to do after I see it.

And so out of all of that (and there was more…), we found out that…
1) the 60-day deadline is somewhat flexible (“Three or four days is ok. Just don’t let it be 24.”),
2) the visa might not cost us as much as we thought, and
3) we might have to visit the doctor again since her note apparently must read word-for-word that we do not pose a danger to Romanian society (the officer kindly wrote out what it needed to say on a sticky note for us).

Oh, and as of Thursday, everything is closed until Tuesday due to the Easter holidays. Who needs Easter egg hunts when you’ve got Visa scavenger hunts instead??

Parties

Ok, we’ve talked it out and have come up with some more concrete dates. I have yet to hear any feedback about dates so Amanda and I did some research and it seems that most universities get going again around the 25th of August. We did get some feedback on timing of the parties since lots of people will only be able to get a week or so off from work. We have set it up so that the parties will be within the same week so those who want to come to both Moldova and Brasov parties can do it in one week if they so choose. Here’s a tentative schedule of events that is a bit more detailed than the last one. The date range we have here is Monday, August 16th through Friday, August 27th; however, anyone who wants to come for more time on either side of the schedule is most welcome!

August 16: Arrive in Bucharest. There is not an international airport in Brasov so you can spend the night in Bucharest or take the train or bus (we recommend the train) to Brasov that night. Amanda and I or one of our “representatives” will meet you at the airport and take you wherever you need to go.

August 17: Get situated in Brasov. We’ll give a general tour of the city so that you can get oriented. Depending on when the majority of people get in, we may need to save this for the next day. We will have one scheduled meal together every day, otherwise you can be on your own. Brasov is a very English-speaking-friendly town so you will probably have no trouble doing whatever you want.

August 18: Castle tours-see some of Transylvania’s beautiful castles. Amanda and I will do some research so that we can give you the tours by ourselves if it’s possible (some of the nicer spots have obligatory tours that are included in the price).

August 19: More castles and palaces! We’ll probably head out to Sinaia to see Peles castle. This is also located in picturesque Transylvania. Depending on what the group is like, we may do some “real Dracula” stuff instead and see some places where Vlad the Impaler really lived and impaled some folks.

August 20: Bear sanctuary day- we’ll go out to the place that we’re currently volunteering at to see some bears. These guys were mostly rescued from zoos and circuses and are well taken care of out in Zarnesti, a town that is nearby. Right now there are more than 50 bears! Also, if you want to “adopt” a bear and then see it in real life when you get out here just let us know.

August 21: Free day. Do whatever you want (we’ll have suggestions) while Amanda and I get set up for the party the next day. This is also a good day to come in if you can only be out here for a week. Again, we can facilitate transportation once you get into the country.

August 22: Brasov party. You don’t have to dress up or anything. This will just be a good time for our friends and families to meet each other and have some food and drinks. We will probably ask some of you to bring some items with them so that we can have some good American food as well as some Romanian classics.

August 23: Recovery day. Recover during the day because we will be leaving for Chisinau, Moldova on either an overnight train or bus. Which one will depend on how many people we have. I think if we have more than 7 people going to Moldova with us then we will rent a bus/maxi-taxi because it will be cheaper and we can be more flexible. Either way we will be traveling overnight. We’ll probably be stopped at the border for 1-2 hours. Bring some sleeping pills. If you don't want to do the Moldova leg of the trip then this is probably the best day for flying back. Or just hang out in Romania for a while!

August 24: Chisinau day. We’ll go see some world-record-holding wineries or if you’re really adventurous we can take a small group to see Transnistria for the day. We’ll probably have time to shop around for some cheap, bootleg stuff in Chisinau before we get back on the bus and go to the village. You will go to your host family’s house. I know everyone very well so I will not set you up with a shady host family. They will be well-paid (by Moldovan standards) to take care of you. Unless there are a whole bunch of us you will also probably have a Romanian-English translator (i.e. us or one of our Romanian friends or former Peace Corps volunteer) there to facilitate.

August 25: Moldova party in Burlacu. This is the village that I spent 2 years in during Peace Corps. It is a friendly village and Amanda likes it there as well. We will have probably a more traditional Moldovan party with traditional food and probably a “taraf” (a musical group that will play traditional music). These parties tend to go into the wee hours of the morning so be prepared. You will probably be asked to join in traditional dances and get drunk. Traditionally of course. Stick with your host families and just go home with them when they go home.

August 26: Recovery day. Get recovered quickly because we will be on the bus/train back to Romania that evening. We will probably go straight to Bucharest so plan on buying your return ticket for the 27th of August. This is also Moldova’s independence day but unfortunately we will be in Romania for that.

August 27: Bucharest day and leaving for your flight. Those who have time can go and see some sights in Bucharest but we will mostly be facilitating trips to the airport. Those of you who want to stay longer are welcome. We will go back to Brasov that evening so you are welcome to come along. If you weren’t able to make it to see Brasov before the party you can see it now.


OK! So this is the tentative plan. If you want more details and FAQs, you can go to the "party info" link under "pages" on the left-hand side of the blog page.