Painting is a bit different in Romania. I will explain; I mean you still paint with a
brush and wait for it to dry and sometimes have to put on two coats, but some
things that you think are universal are not.
In some peoples’ houses if you rub your hand on the wall or
rub against it with your clothes you will have chalk like dust on you. I guess the “paint” is a dust that you add
water too. I’m not sure why people use
this type because no one likes getting the dust on them. In one room of our house this is the kind of
paint that was in it. We decided to
paint it to stop getting the dust on us and around the bed in the room the wall
“paint” was about all rubbed off. We
painted the whole room a nice yellow and by that evening I noticed a couple
spots that were pealing a bit. I just
thought we would have to do some touching up.
By the next morning about half the paint in the room was all peeled up
and looked horrible. We had to chip it
all off and primer it before we did it again.
Talking of primer that is another story.
The primer here is so runny.
In the US the primer is like paint and sometimes you don’t even need to
paint it if you only want white, but not here.
This primer is so watery that you put it on the wall and it looks like
you took a bucket of white colored water and painted it on the wall, but some
how it works. You might have to put on a
few coats though:) And after the primer is dry is looks hardly different, but
it does its job and the paint works.
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| Neighbors house with nice painted trees and curb. |
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| Picture of our house non-painted |
The last thing about paint is how Romanians prepare for
Easter. Now this is nothing to do with
Easter the holiday really, but they set this date that they have to have
certain cleaning stuff done before Easter.
They got lucky this year with a late Easter, not until May 5th. So, part of the cleaning process is painting
the trees and the curb in front of your house.
The reason they do the curb I think is to make it look nice. It is always just a white runny paint as well
that you think will not work. They also
paint the tree trunks from the ground to about 3 feet up as well. Now, I am not exactly sure why they do this,
but I have heard many things from different people as to why. One person said so it looks nice for Easter,
but I think most say it is something healthy for the trees. Now, I would understand that if it was a
special paint with pesticides or something, but when I have watched them do the
painting they use the same paint for the curb and the trees. So, my question is does the curbs need special
paint to keep them healthy? Another
thing I heard once was that it keeps the bugs away or something. Are bugs scared of white paint? The painted trees do look kind of
pretty. In Romania most roads are lined
with trees and it looks nice when they are all painted going down the
road. My mom I believe said that back in
the day in America the roads were lined with trees as well, although I don’t
think they were probably painted. Last
year we did not do the painting in front of our house but our neighbor
did. I guess they felt sorry for our
pathetic non-painted trees and curb.
We’ll see what happens this year because we have no plans for doing it
this year either.
For the last few days a team from America has been here
working with us. They have done an
incredible job. It is funny that Sheena
wrote about painting because with the team recently painted some rooms, probably what inspired her:) The American ladies kept commenting on how the paint was so thick. Thank you to Andreea, Madalina, Adi, Sheena Carol and Marsha for all
the hard work and everyone that donated to the project.
