On my first visit to Romania, not long after the fall of Communism, I have a distinct memory of shadows and darkness. These lasting images were probably a result of too many films about life behind the “iron curtain” and too much John le Carré. The Eastern Bloc represented the great unknown. It was my frontier.

At that time, crossing into Romania by car was challenging. My group was bringing in a large amount of medical supplies to be donated to an orphanage. We had been warned that there could be questions and there could be consequences.

The line of automobiles and trucks was backed up for miles. It was not the Hungarians, but the Romanians causing the delay. Cars were overheating, sitting in the July heat. Often they had to be manually pushed out of the line. Especially the Dacias – the Romanian-built economy car.

As we passed easily through the Hungarian border check, we began the grueling wait to have the same success with the Romanians. The movement of the vehicles in front of us was snail paced. Trunks were opened, people inside vehicles were individually questioned, and some were asked to vacate the vehicle.

How would they react to our medical supplies?

We were next in line when the vehicle in front of us caused some suspicion and was pulled aside for greater scrutiny. A harried guard waved us through without anything but a cursory check of passports.

We were in Romania.

By this time, night had fallen and I began to see the shadows. Even the city park we passed looked ominous. Streetlights, when working, did little to dispel the bleakness of the night. At each intersection, haggard children – their faces aged from a life on the street - darted out of the shadows and approached the car for a handout.

At this time, the newspapers were full of stories about the number of abandoned children in Romania. It was estimated that upwards of a half-million had been deserted by their parents. In his effort to populate the country, Ceausescu had forbidden the use of contraception, and now families could not afford to feed the young. They would take them to the hospital, give a false name and address, and then never return to claim them.

It was a response of this crisis that prompted our visit.

Our aim was to volunteer for a private orphanage founded by the Queen of Sweden. We were there to provide labor in the building of a dairy to provide a food source for the children, and in time, training in a vocation for when they were old enough to leave the facility.

But this was the night before the daylight; the time of shadows.

The sun would reveal a different country – one capable, in time, of great beauty. There were soaring mountains in the distance. Village churches with onion spires were everywhere. I would discover the fields of sunflowers. I would encounter the haystacks that reminded me of those painted by Monet and Gypsy wagons with the young colt walking alongside the toiling mother.

But even in the daylight, you quickly saw a country struggling under the shadows of a terrible economy and years of abuse. Quickly erected apartment buildings already in decay. Steam pipes which ran above ground for miles from the generating plant, often broken. Even the guard towers that dotted the horizons of the now-abandoned collective farms, managed to cast shadows – maybe just in my mind – but still shadows.

The Traveler