Down the street from my flat, at the far side of a park frequented by grandparents and their young charges, is Piata Crangasi. Every day from dawn till dusk this small square is bustling with farmers and merchants selling their goods to the crowds shuffling past their stalls. Young women selling apples, grapes and blueberries, weathered old men offering their peppers and cauliflower at bargain prices, all noisily competing for the attention and lei of the passersby. In the evening, as everyone slowly packs up for home, the sound of loud bartering is seamlessly replaced by the loose minor chords of that soulful Romanian music genre that is so skilled at sending shivers through me. A wizened old man dances exuberantly, resolutely, with his half-full beer bottle, while children dodge his sporadic steps. Maybe he's celebrating a day of good business, but my guess is he'd be still be dancing if he hadn't sold a single bean.

Every day, either before or after work, I stop here for some fresh produce. I have yet to have a transaction without some sort of misunderstanding, but people here don't seem to mind. After I use wild gestures to explain that I want two apples, not two kilograms of apples, and then inadvertently give them the entirely wrong amount of lei, they smile and say "nu suntet romunca." I've heard it enough to figure out that they're inferring that I'm not Romanian. And then begins the guessing game.
France? Germany? England?
America.
Ahh! America! You speak English? She speaks English!
They yell across the aisle and a man comes running over, telling me in a very thick Romanian accent that he is from England.
I know they're asking me what I, an American girl, am doing buying fruit and vegetables from their market everyday. Maybe in a few months I will be able to tell them. For now I just smile and tell them I don't understand.