Raveka, Rosia Montana

Raveka welcomed me into her home during a very strong summer storm. Over the course of three hours, she opened up to me in a way which I did not expect to experience in such a short amount of time. She talked to me about her life and the historical moments she had lived through: she remembered the legionaries hiding in the Apuseni mountains, the Holocaust of Jews and Roma in Romania, how people viewed Ana Pauker during the communist regime, and more. She talked to me about her sons and dived deep into the topic of mental health in rural Romania with no stigma or shame - she's been learning recently about depression and has been talking to the women in the village about how this illness can impact people's lives. She later speaks about folktales from her childhood and how she, too, once saw the feminine mythological creatures called iele.