\n
\n<\/p>\n
Raised in the village of Geoagiu de
\nSus, in Alba County, in a community with respect for traditions, where people
\nwould gather in the evenings to sew, weave, learn traditional songs and games, Mariana
\nMereu has taken it upon herself today to promote the traditions of the place. The
\nassociation she set up to this end has taken part in tourism fairs, exhibitions
\nand conferences. The owner of an impressive ethnographic collection, Mariana
\nMereu has organised . Mariana Mereu turned
\nher home into a grandparents’ school, a place where the elderly pass on their
\nskills and knowledge: <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Mariana Mereu<\/strong>: Ever since I can remember, I have preserved and taken care of
<\/p>\n
Mariana Mereu was sad to find that
<\/p>\n
Mariana Mereu<\/strong>: Last year a family came here from France,
<\/p>\n
Mariana Mereu speaks passionately
<\/p>\n
Mariana Mereu<\/strong>: This is the 7th year I’m growing hemp. I learned how to
<\/p>\n
Something Mariana Mereu regrets is
<\/p>\n
Mariana Mereu<\/strong>: We make wool socks with hemp fibre, but if
<\/p>\n
Since she is passionate about hemp,
<\/p>\n
Mariana Mereu<\/strong>: I’m still hoping the authorities will
<\/p>\n
Mariana Mereu and the members of her
The Grandparents’ School is designed to teach such crafts as spinning, sewing, weaving, hemp processing and so on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":137041,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42520],"tags":[43345,39627,43343,32515,43342,43341,39889,43344],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-137040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inside-romania","tag-costumes","tag-crafts","tag-hemp","tag-school","tag-sewing","tag-tradition","tag-village","tag-weaving"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\neverything old, I haven’t thrown away anything we had at home, from the old
\nloom used by my grandmother and my mother to old spinning and sewing items. I love
\ndoing that, it’s what I would like to do all day long, and I would like anyone
\nto learn how to do these things. I worked hard and I organised workshops here
\nin the village.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nit is foreigners who appreciate local traditions more than anybody else: <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nand I showed them how to work with a loom, a spindle, a distaff, and they even
\nwent to Maramure\u015f to learn how to make hay. They paid people to teach them to
\nuse a scythe. This is what it’s come to! Few young people today know how to
\nmake hay, nowadays we have machines to do it. And maybe they would if they got
\npaid, because after all they need to make a living.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nabout growing hemp, spinning and weaving, and says she wants to teach others as
\nwell, to bring back to life a tradition that is becoming history. She makes
\ncloths and traditional costumes out of hemp: <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nwork with hemp from a woman who passed away in the meantime, she had some hemp
\nin her attic and this is how I started. It’s hard work, and it’s also difficult
\nto get the permit to do this, just when you think everything is in order
\nsomething else comes up. Processing hemp is quite difficult: you have to dry
\nthe plant tied in small bundles and then retting follows, where you keep the
\nhemp under water for a week, to help separate the stem from the fibre. Then you
\ntake it out, wash it and dry it again, whiten it, then you move on to breaking,
\nscrutching, spinning and weaving. The process is not necessarily complicated, but
\nit’s time consuming and it’s hard work. However, to see something come out of
\nyour own hands, to turn a plant into a traditional blouse, it’s a miracle!<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nthat, when the girls and women try to sell the products they have learned how
\nto make, these items are not properly appreciated: <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nyou ask 10 euros for a pair, people say it’s too much. But a pair of socks is
\nnot made in one day! And this is something you can wear around the year, if you
\ncut the wool or hemp fibre you can see it’s empty inside, like spaghetti. You don’t
\nsweat or get cold wearing them, they keep warm in the winter and cool in the
\nsummer.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nMariana Mereu has also initiated a festival called the Hemp Day, which reached
\nits 4th edition last year. Locals and tourists alike found out more
\nabout the entire process that begins with a hemp seed and ends with traditional
\ncloths and folk costumes. And Mariana Mereu hopes she will get more support for
\nher efforts to promote traditions:<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nfinally wake up and pay people to teach and to learn these crafts. I’m told
\nthat in other countries they do that, old people are paid to teach and the
\nyoung are paid to learn, and this is how people are motivated to keep
\ntraditions alive-not to be ashamed about being peasants or about being
\nRomanians, not to forget their language, their traditional costumes. As the
\nsaying goes, a nation’s culture should be worn proudly, like one’s Sunday best .
\nI encourage everybody to at least try to pick up a spindle and see how it
\nworks, because if you don’t know how much work goes into making something, you’ll
\nnever be able to appreciate it properly.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nassociation are putting their faith in the tourist potential of the village,
\nand are working hard to make Geoagiu de Sus a stronger presence on the region’s
\nlist of tourist attractions. (A.M.P.)<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"