'Kanfietu vas?'

Some say that a child can connect easier with the ones around it, lacking prejudicies and fear of rejection. Also, they say that a child can find out more accurately what it really wants. Looking back, I must say that there is only one thing that never changed regarding my wantings - my insatiable craving for sweets. After the fall of the communist regime, trade suffered some changes. In the city by the Danube, where I was born, this change was easily spotted. People coming from Ukraine, especially for the Saturday fair, would bring various products to sell. The chance to see something new was one that every Romanian wanted to seize back then. We used to go and watch the wonderful spectacle of 'free trade' (freedom was a word highly used during the first years after the revolution in 1989). Completely different puppets than the ones I could see in the window shops of Romanian stores would arise my interest, but most of all I found myself spellbound by the colored wrapping of sweets. Russian chocolate was the first thing I tried. I didn't like it. But I was not discouraged. I tested all kind of candies. And these were to my taste. Having witnessed such high interest in sweets, a she-merchant taught me how to ask 'have you got sweets' in Russian. If I remember it well, it sounded like 'Kanfietu vas?'. Once the language barrier was overcome, I stopped wasting time scanning the products on the stalls. I used to go from one stall to the other, and I wouldn't stop until somebody answered 'Da' (which is 'Yes' in Russian). My folks would laugh on my expense, but the merchants were much more amused. Nevertheless, they were facing a client who knew what she wanted, not claiming too much. And one knows that such thing is very hard to find. « Kanfietu vas ? »