(Originally posted on Apr 23, 2007 - 07:50)
Another Crash moment today. (For those who don't know what I mean, I am referring to the movie Crash. I use to call the racist problems that I face in my everyday life "Crash moments")
Every month I have to pay my rent at the ING Bank in Eroilor. For some mysterious reasons I can only pay it at Eroilor agency. And I have to deposit it in dollars.
I had most of the rent money already in dollars but I need 5 dollars more. So this morning I went to an exchange booth down on Stefan Cel Mare. The one where I usually exchange was still closed so I went to the next one which is just a few meters around the corner.
When I arrived there, there were two old men inside the 0.7x0.7m booth so I just waited outside. And waited... and waited... They saw me there waiting but just ignored me. And they were talking to the girl inside the booth and smoking (in that very confined space). And I waited... A lady came after me and asked me if I am waiting for long and I said yes, for a few minutes. She waited a while. got impatient and opened the door and asked if they are going to take long. Only then they finally "realized" that the people waiting outside are customers. Duuh! What would we be doing standing at the door of an exchange booth? And it turned out that the two men were security guards of the exchange company, not customers, and they were there just chatting with the exchange girl. By the time they came out of the booth the lady who was behind me had given up and left. I should have done the same...
I finally enter the booth, told the girl that I wanted to buy 5 dollars. She asked me for my ID. She took it, looked at it, fliped it, looked at it again, flipped it again and started entering the date in the computer. When she came to the ID number she got confused because the number format is different from the normal buletin. Then she gave me the ID back and said: "We can't sell dollars to you."
I asked why and she said: "Because you're foreigner"
Then I said "What is this? Racism?" to which she answers "No! It's not racism. I just can't sell dollars to foreigners, only to Romanian citizens"
Hellooooo?
I asked her "Why not?" And she says "this is the rule".
I insisted: "What is the reason why you can't sell to foreigners?"
"No reason, it's just the rule"
"And it is NOT racism?"
"No! It's the rule!"
So, isn't this racism? You don't have to believe me. The American Heritage Dictionary, for example gives this definition to Racism: "Discrimination or prejudice based on race." And the WorldNet online dictionary gives us this one: "discriminatory or abusive behavior towards members of another race "
I don't know about you but "I can't sell dollars to you because you're foreigner" and "I can't sell dollars to foreigners, only to Romanian citizens" sounds like discrimination to me and the specification "you are foreigner" and "only to Romanian Citizens" suggests that this discrimination is based on racial difference, no? I tried to argue but it was like trying to reason with a cassette player stuck on "it's the rule" loop.
By the time I gave up the other exchange house was open. This is the exchange booth where I usually do my business and the lady who used to be there knows me by name. But this time it was another one so just in case I asked her if she sells to foreigners and she said "Of course!!" And I tried to explain what happened at the booth next door and she didn't even let me finish, saying that she knows because this problem happens everyday in that booth.
So I asked for 5 dollars. And in the most rigamarolish way, she announces me that "In the chapter of dollars I am sorry to tell you that I have only these:" and she showed me some bills of 100s, 50s and 20s and of course no 5s.
By then the banks were already open so I went to the Transylvania bank, asked for the fiver. The lady tells me it will cost me "o suta doispe". I may not be an expert in Romanian language but I am very sure that this means "112". So I put 120 on the counter. The lady looks at the money, looks at me and wait. When she realizes I am not going to take any more money out of my wallet she looks indignated and tells me in a raised voice: "Am zis O SUTA DOISPE!!", to which I ask "Si cat am dat??" She looks at the money on the counter again. Her eyes open in such a way that you can read "oops!" behind the pupils and without blinking, without hesitating, without the normal "I'm sorry. My mistake" she shoots: "Pai, e o suta douazeci si patru!! (124)".
Huh? Hellooooo? I don't see how that was MY mistake (I mean, besides moving to Romania. Don't get me started on it!) so I don't see why should I be yelled at!
I finally got my fiver. I took the metro to Eroilor. In the train, in front of me there was a lady. She opened her bag, pulled out a bunch of official looking documents and forms. Checked them against her mental list, put them in a big envelope. Then she opened a supermarket bag, pulled a big red slab of Elita Coffee, rolled the envelope around it and put the package in her bag.
I don't know who I hate more: the officials who demand spaga or the idiots who offer them. Both. But maybe the second a little more. And then I had recollections of the many times that I had to go to Hungary to get my romanian visa because I refused to be part of this spaga mafia.
Mondays are always Mondays. But some Mondays are more Mondays than others.
"I want to shoo... ooot the whole day DOWN!!"
0 comments:
Post a Comment