TABALINK is an English / Romanian Twinning Association promoting the sharing of friendship, interests and cultures. Our aim is to promote a real, two-way, linking of equals.

Babadag - Where?

Picture yourself sitting on a bench roughly 500 metres away from the biggest building you've ever seen, about 1/4 mile across - a grand palace. About 100 metres away from you are an elderly gypsy couple using sickles to cut the grass in front of the palace and loading it into the cart, probably either their own cattle or to sell on to feed someone else's. You look to the left, the view consists of an old church, an official -looking building, an eastern-looking building, maybe a temple, a block of flats, a hotel, and a tall modern circular business centre, made of a glass-like material, all these buildings are about 250 metres away. Add to the view about 20 cranes dotted here and there and a busy main street in full use about 50 metres behind you.

This is a description of the capital of the country which I returned from, roughly two months ago. I stayed in a place called BABADAG - Where??? Well that's the kind of reaction I got from most people I've talked to, and the city I described? Bucharest, you may have guessed by now, in Romania. Not what you expected Romania to be like? It wasn't what I expected either. Ask the average person in Great Britain what they think Romania is like and they'd probably look at you with a blank expression on their face or they'd come up with a description of an orphanage that they'd seen on the news, with deprived, hungry, children rocking from sheer boredom. Don't get me wrong there is a lot of poverty in Romania and an awful lot of it and the above description isn't that different to what we saw ourselves but there is another side to Romania that an awful lot of people don't see. The people there have a lot to offer and they're quite willing to offer it, as well as being eager to learn from others too.

To say Romania is a country of contrast would be an under-statement. One thing that doesn't vary, though, is their welcoming, caring, friendly manner and character. I had been in BABADAG all of about 24 hours and already a girl of 14 approached me, befriended me, and invited me to go out with her and her friends to their local night-club, she also invited me to stay at her house afterwards. She was maybe a little more confident than the average 14 year old but her attitude and friendliness, I would say, from my experience in Romania, was quite typical. The fact that she could speak almost fluent English amazed me, but this as I later found is also not uncommon among the young people of BABADAG.

What we (my family and I) are trying to achieve, as people who live in Tansley may already know, is a twinning link with BABADAG, which is actually a town in Eastern Romania. If anyone is interested in the link, has any extra information on Romania, or would like to write to someone in BABADAG please talk to me.

©1997 Frances Ledbury

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