The summer of 1989. The IT school camp at Predeal. Computer in the room, swimming lessons, tennis hours, sauna and a souvenir - lice. (74)

I had lice in the second grade and I know I took them from one of my colleagues. I came from the summer holidays, when school began and they checked us to see if we didn?t have lice; they realized the entire class were full with it and the school nurse gave us a ? prescription? mostly based on kerosene.  Mother found gas and washed me with kerosene until I felt my head took fire. As for cutting my hair, I didn?t. (O. S. 120)

LITTLE BONNET

Do you remember that red fez (Turkish cap) with a pompon that I used to wear in the house to keep me warm? The woman from Moldavia called it ?ciupilica?. I had it permanently in my pocket and as soon as I got home, bam, I would immediately put it on. (V. M., 49)

LIVING STANDARDS

Living standards were rather low, no goods could be found in shops anymore, there was nothing left to buy really. Queuing up for food and the basic necessities of life had become the natural thing to do; it was infuriating, but people?s attitude towards the authorities was rather passive. More specifically all we did was criticize the regime and talk about the ways we could use to revert the country to democracy. I constantly kept myself well-informed and abreast of the events by tuning in to BBC or Radio Free Europe, but given my so-called unhealthy social origin (I was a priest?s daughter) I really had to be very careful all the time with whom I talked to or how I acted. But I never lost confidence in the other people; I remained open to dialogue and respectful, then as now. The years after 1990 haven?t changed me in the least.

The political leader that impressed me the most at the time was Manea Manescu. He was an intelligent man, educated in the West; I looked up to him as the one who could actually change the regime. He had spent a long time in the West and I credited with the capacity to reform the political regime or to effect a Romanian velvet revolution. Another western-minded politician was indeed Stefan Andrei.