Expat (2)

219327 Romanians emigrated in 2017
640 people per day
24 people every hour
1 every 3 minutes.

Probably I wasn’t the only one taking a one way plane to the UK
that early morning of august.

My family,
mother, father and brother
live off less than 400 euro a month.

I have been working since I was 19
and in 10 years I managed to work my way up
so that I don’t have to eat just potatoes every last week of the month.
I was one of the lucky ones,
not like the 25% of Romanians that live on the poverty limit.
If I would keep a tight knot on my expenses
I could even afford to buy a new pair of boots for the winter to come,
because in winter, when heating goes up
you can barely make it out with some money.

I still had hope
like my parents did, and their parents before them.
I endured a flawed democracy hoping it will change soon.
Meanwhile,
rate of nosocomial infections in the hospitals went skyrocketing,
developments on the infrastructure were never built
and education remained at the same levels it was in the 80’s.

A grip of corruption took hold on the country,
some say it never left
but who knows, it’s been like this for so long
nobody can remember how it was before.

Let the diaspora come so we can piss on them,
said a social democrat senator earlier in 2018
2 days after I had left the country.

Is there still hope for Romania?
Honestly, I don’t know.
Am I homesick?
Not really.
Did I manage to accommodate here?
From the first day.
Will I ever go back?
Is a question I ask myself everyday.