Lelioara Bolovan is 66 years old and comes, as she herself told us, from a poor family. "I was born in 1957 in Scarișoara, Rudari village, over Olt (…) I didn't have a horse, I didn't have a cart. I used to walk a lot", the woman remembers the times when she was only 12 years old.
Her family suffered because of the Second World War. "My mother was taken to Russia. They mistook them for gypsies. They took them to Transnistria. King Mihai got rid of them and brought them back. Some died, others could not come. It was a disease, typhus. Yes, it was called typhus. My mother told me (n.a. - narrated) that three of her children died," Lelioara told us.
After escaping the war they fought the great famine of 1946-1947. Record temperatures (even over 50 degrees Celsius) generated an unprecedented drought, and that meant a food crisis. This problem, superimposed on the post-war historical context, created a dramatic situation especially within the poor social strata.
"My father worked for the boyars. He told us that, since the great famine, he worked for a boyar even on a gavan (n.a. the hollow of a larger wooden spoon, usually used for the preparation of cheeses in the barns) of flour and one of sorghum. And he cared. The hunger was hard then, he told us that it didn't exist", Lelioara Bolovan told us.
Her parents' life was not easy even after the family was reunited once the war ended.
When Lelioara Bolovan was only 13 years old, she had to leave home with her father, a carpenter.
"You hear that there is a good forest in this place. I was going there. That was where the good wood was. Dad used to do the heifers and whites, I remember he had a tesla, he had an ax to take them (n.a. to hollow them out, to give them a shape). I was a child, I was 13 years old, I walked from here to the road that goes to Turnu. I left because I was starving. I left my mother to go to the forest, to Cioara", the woman recalls.
De la tatăl său a învățat meșteșugul rudăritului. Dar, a făcut mai mult linguri și fuse pentru torsul lânii.
"I stayed in three brothels, I raised five children only on my back. We lived with spoons. Fuss and spoons. I would go with the children after me, I would take them in my arms and with the bag on my back, from village to village. We used to go even beyond Bucharest", Lelioara tells us.
A smile comes to his face as he remembers how he shouted to attract buyers.
"I was going from village to village and shouting "Take spoons dear, take spoons, take spindles. Fast, fast! Albion!". If you had a washing machine, "Go to the washing machine!". People used to stop you from getting a washer, because their shawls hurt. We kept shouting "Big spoons, small spoons".
Now, when the world has everything they need in their homes, they no longer deal with pottery, they no longer make spoons of all sizes, as they once did. He is engaged in gardening on a large scale, and sells the produce as he used to do, going from village to village and shouting at the top of his lungs.
"After I left the spoons I took the gardens. I took gardens on lease. "Let's give you the gogones madam, the gogones my lady."
He stops, takes a breath and tells us that he has too much he doesn't know how to say. A few seconds later, he continues.
“Come on tomatoes miss, tomatoes miss, greens. I have cabbage, tomatoes, kapia, doughnuts".
