Back to Piatra Neamt
the place to be
After studying, working and living in Bucharest and abroad — USA, Germany, France, Nederlands, my partner and I decided to come back to our home town Piatra Neamt when our baby was on the way. And it has been one of our best decisions so far. We plan to keep it that way by making an impact through bringing our contribution to the community’s overall well-being. See below an interview for Home in Dialogue related to our experience.
What would you say were, for you, the stages of readjustment to Romania in the last four years? What was challenging about each stage and what helped you in navigating those challenges?
Since coming back to Piatra Neamt my family and I have been in a continuous readjustment to:
- people not grasping the meaning and existence of postpartum depression (it is considered it only lasts 2 weeks after giving birth)
- having family and neighbours too close to our life which enables them to make suggestions on what we should do or not
- people’s expectations to visit them, to behave in a certain way, to dress our child in a certain manner
- Innumerable instances of unsolicited advice and remarks
- violent reactions in response to small things such as parking for a couple of minutes in someone’s parking space whilst they weren’t using it
- lacking friends with similar views of the world in the first two years and
- being told that we were too European (Western European) for this town.
To overcome these and so many other challenges there were plenty of things involved and I will try to enumerate some:
- Places like “La Caiace” and events were so dear to us from the first moment
- Time helped a lot in getting used to new people, them getting used to us and most importantly realising we cannot wait for better reactions from others who fail to see the good part in life, who have lived a certain amount of time in contexts that haven’t allowed them the opportunity of getting a more relaxed view of life
- The last stage to our integration and feeling of purpose was us contributing as much as we could to our community: volunteering with orphans supporting them with homework, going out etc.), participating in clearing-up community events, donating and getting involved in projects to improve our community’s life and education.
- What also helped was making the best friends one could have with similar interests like hiking, dancing (we reached out to the Tango community in Piatra Neamt to continue our beloved activity), volunteering, cross-training, visiting the surroundings and making long trips abroad also had its share.
- Now we feel like very privileged visitors who are here to stay and help as long as possible. Conflicts appear but we take them as normal and do our best to solve them in a way that respects others.
As a new mother in your first year returning to Romania, what was most challenging and what were the things that sustained you during that time?
Piatra Neamt doesn’t have too many options of healthcare for babies and the support for new mothers seems either to be absent or maybe I didn’t know where to find it.
The postpartum depression was the greatest challenge, at its worst for the first months. I had no clue that almost all the problems were triggered by that or simply imagined because of my depression. My husband’s patience and knowing my child will grow eventually helped me see that all my worries were for nothing. There were a few people who understood my situation and their experience was a bit helpful. It also helped me to talk to other mothers, seeing them go through similar feelings helped me understand what I was going through was normal.
What impact would you like to have through your presence and work in Romania? What are the specific areas of thinking or activity that you’d like to influence?
As I am reflecting constantly on moving abroad or remaining in others places I lived in previously, I am actually surprised by a great feeling to see that I actually would like to stay not just in Romania, but specifically in Piatra Neamt — to have a positive impact here. My partner and I want to be an example for our community and our society’s lifestyle: from sports to garbage selection and recycling awareness, volunteering for causes we find important such as working with children, planting, sustaining a clean environment.
Bringing our contribution to education through different educational projects. Identifying issues in our community and communicating them to the local authorities, getting involved in the political life and finding any other way we think a citizen could help with: donating blood, staying open, calmly giving our opinion and reasoning to other people so that, hopefully, in time they can use it and understand it. Our mere presence here and that of our child made our family more enthusiastic, optimistic and gave us a purpose in our everyday life.
Mihaela Munteanu is a programmer, mother and, hopefully, a future entrepreneur who appreciates technological advancement and its potential to bring the best out of people. She cares a lot about education. Happiness is an attitudine and Mihaela contributes to building the context for it to thrive and gives others the opportunities to foster it themselves.
Home in Dialogue is a collective storytelling platform on migration: leaving, returning and the in between. Contributors shape both content and medium. By and for those in movement. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram.
