I am very lucky to be commissioned by tranzit.ro to write and draw about my partner’s childhood’s neighborhood. I got to interview Luci, his mother, and various neighbors who still work and enjoy life on the banks of the river Bega, in an old neighborhood of Timișoara called Crișan. We visited the gardens on the river banks many times, either going to the cemetery in preparation for the day of the dead, to have a bath in the river, or just to see what has happen since last time. The trips we took with Luci were on memory lanes, of who did what and where from the time of her childhood until the time of her early motherhood. In the cities, the practice of gardening was encouraged during the socialist times, but not on the river banks where it was completely forbidden. Nowdays, old city garden plots are mostly used for buildings but the river banks have lost the watchful eyes of the dîlmaș and gained a number of (still illegal) gardens. Read the article here, available in english only.
