1. Respondent ID
1. 1. Age: 12
1. 2. Sex: M
1. 3. Parents(s) abroad: Mother. “…and my father died when I was a kid.”
1. 4. Country: Spain.
1. 5. The Respondent was born in Spain where he lived until age two.
1. 6. Respondent lives with: maternal grandmother
2. Details of Respondent’s life before:
I: Your mother is in Spain, isn’t she?
R: Yes, she is.
I: When did she leave, if you remember…?
R: I was born in Spain. I lived there for two years. I had to come here, to Romania, and accustom myself.
I: Did you start from the idea that you would go to school in Romania?
R: No. Mom was in Spain to work, so that she could make some adjustments to our house here. She had an affair with a man and then they had me and my grandma had to come to Spain to take care of me. After two years, my father had an accident and they had to take me to Romania.
I: Now you live with your grandma.
R: Yes.
I: Can you tell me what kind of accident your father had?
R: Mom told me first that he had had a car accident. I know the truth from my grandma: he had been with another woman before he married Mom. He left the car near a lake with the keys in the ignition. He left and we don’t know where he is.
I: has your mother left abroad again. When?
R: She was here in May and left in June.
I: She was on holiday…
R: She comes home every three months, to visit me. It’s not that I miss her. We see each other on Messenger or WhatsApp.
I: How long did you stay together?
R: She came on the twenty-sixth of May. On the twenty-seventh we celebrated my birthday. She came exactly on my birthday party and was tired. We agreed to celebrate the next day.
I: What do you like best to do with your mother, games or talks or others?
R: I like to walk with her around town, here around Buzau.
I: Who helps you with your lessons?
R: Sometimes my grandma, but times have changed and learning is now more complicated than in the past. I also document with my cousins and sometimes, if I don’t know, I use the internet. Sometimes I search for the lessons I don’t know.
3. Details of Respondent’s life after:
I: When do you say your mother left the country?
R: On the fifteenth of June.
I: Let me see. Your mother left for Spain, where you were born, you came here when you were two years old. Did your mother bring you?
R: No, my grandma did.
I: And your mother remained there to work and she visits you from time to time. Can you tell me if you understand why she has to stay in Spain? Why do you think she must live in Spain?
R: For me in particular, to ensure a good future for me.
I: What do you feel about that?
R: (his eyes wet.) I’m a little sad.
I: Who is taking care of you?
R: My grandma.
I: Do you get along well with her?
R: (he smiles broadly.) Yes, I do, very well.
I: Meaning what?
R: I can tell her some issues that trouble me. Troubles…
I: Do you also have relatives in town?
R: (he smiles again.) Oh, yes, Very many. Uncles, aunts, cousins…
I: Do get along well with them?
R: Yes, I do, with all of them.
I: I understand your cousins help you with your lessons….
R: Some of them, my first cousins who are in the tenth grade help me more, now and then.
I: Do you live close to each other?
R: Yes, we do. My grandpa had a big house where he used to live and he gave land to their son and he built a house on it. And we live like a family.
I: Did you recently need to see a doctor or go to hospital?
R: Oh, no!
I: Do have friends or colleagues whose parents are out of the country?
R: Colleagues.
I: Do you have a different relationship with these colleagues than with the ones whose parents are here in Romania? Do you feel any difference?
R: No.
I: Do you have more to discuss together?
R: Not really.
I: Do all your colleagues know your mother is abroad?
R: All of them.
I: Do they envy or pity you? Are your relationships special?
R: No, we are just friends. We talk about boy business, games, our activities, homework.
I: What games?
R: We mainly play a strategy or intelligence game called Clej Royal, a game with several arenas and several cards. We play it together.
I: What does your mother do there?
R: According to what she said last night, she is a cook or a bartender.
I: Do you know what her job was here, before leaving?
R: She didn’t have a job here. She abandoned the idea, because work was poorly paid and she couldn’t support me and Grandma and Grandpa and she said she wouldn’t work here, but go to Spain.
I: Does she send you presents?
R: No. She brings me what I want when she comes home. There they say that if she intends to send me a laptop, she could hide a bomb in it.
I: Money?
R: She always sends money.
I: To you in particular, or to your grandma?
R: She sends it to Grandma and I tell Grandma what I want her to buy me with that money and she does so.
I: Is there anything you would like to have and hope to get with the money your mother earns?
R: I have too many wishes.
I: Tell me about some of them, please.
R: I would have liked to have a PS 4. It’s a box, some rectangular monitors with two consoles you have to charge. You introduce a CD, log in through TV and play certain games – FIFA, Counter Strike, CSGO, GTA 5.
I: Anything else? Clothes, maybe? Or you are not interested in other things?
R: I would have also liked to have a very large teddy bear.
I: Have you told your mother about these wishes of yours?
R: I have, but she said she would buy it here. It’s difficult for her to carry it from Spain.
4. Internet-based communications.
*Technical.
I: Do you have internet access at home?
R: Yes, I do.
I: On what: smart phone, tablet, phone?
R: On the phone.
I: You certainly have a telephone subscription. Who pays for it?
R: Grandma. We receive two overlapped invoices. Grandma and I use the same network. She made the subscription and has to pay thirty-six lei. Each time I had to pay my part of four euro… Then, she realized that we’d better make a one-year subscription and when she wanted to make it in Mom’s name, they didn’t agree, because Mom had failed to pay some invoices in the past. So, Grandma made the subscription in her own name and pays seventy-two or seventy-three lei per month.
I: Since when have you got a phone?
R: Since I was eight.
I: Is it the same phone?
R: No, I had a smaller one before, which opened like this (he shows how the flip of the phone opens) and had some buttons and touch screen.
I: What kind of phone have you got now?
R: A Huawei 600 U 20, it’s as big as a tv.
I: Who bought it?
R: Mom did and she brought it to me.
I: Was it on a special occasion or she simply bought it for you?
R: She saw I was using a phone with buttons before and she said “I’d better buy you a new phone and stop using that”. And now, when she came, she brought me an LG K 8. I pushed its restart button and I didn’t know how to create a Google account.
I: And how did you manage with it?
R: I let it aside and when she sends me money I will have it decoded. That phone is not broken, but this one is. (he laughs.)
I: Have you ever written letters by hand?
R: To send them?
I: Yes.
R: No, I haven’t.
I: Do you use internet programs to get in touch with your friends and colleagues?
R: Yes, sure, and mainly through Messenger.
I: Why Messenger and not others?
R: All my friends have Messenger, Facebook accounts. We keep in touch, even if we are away. When they are not in town, we ask each other “How are you? What’s up?” … questions we usually ask. Sometimes I ask about homework from my colleagues if I missed some classes, or we also exchange things like “what are you doing? Will you go out for a walk or for a meal?”
I: Do you have a Facebook account?
R: Yes, I do.
I: Does your mother also have one?
R: Yes, but she seldom opens it.
I: Why?
R: She’s much too busy with her work. She sleeps during the day and works at night.
I: How do you prefer to communicate with your mother?
R: I would have best liked a face-to-face talk.
I: Why?
R: Because… sometimes, you cannot see very well though video calling, it’s often interrupted. And I would have liked to talk to her face-to-face.
I: You mostly communicate through video calls.
R: Less through video, the program blocks too often.
I: Who calls usually, you or your mother?
R: Both of us. We call and chat now and then.
I: Since when have you got a phone…?
R: Since I was eight.
I: And you learned to use it at that age, didn’t you?
R: I was eight when she brought it to me. I was helped to learn, taught how to use it.
I: Did your mother help you?
R: No, my cousin whom I lived with while Mom had a problem with her legs and had to have two braces. I lived with them for about two months.
I: Do you only use your phone for internet?
R: Both for internet and for listening to music.
I: So, you know everything from your cousin who taught you when you were eight.
R: Right.
I: Do you use a computer?
R: Yes, I do, but now I have to reinstall the Windows.
I: Why?
R: She brought me a laptop and it couldn’t be connected to the net and I had to buy some sort of chip to put into the laptop and then make the connection. Otherwise, I would have waited a lot with the WI-FI card, the router to be able to have a net connection…
I: I see… Yes. What else do you do on the computer or the phone? At a certain moment you told me that the computer helped you with your lessons.
R: Sometimes I write what I don’t know for my homework.
I: What else do you do?
R: I search for events here in Buzau, breaking news, rumors.
I: Is there any special website?
R: It’s on Facebook. There are several groups. I am a member of that group and they always tell me what happens in Buzau.
I: And are you interested?
R: Sure.
I: You are a strange person. Very well, then … So, you’d rather use WhatsApp to talk to your mother, is that right?
R: Both WhatsApp and Messenger.
I: Hangouts? Skype?
R: No, no.
I: Have there been case where you would have liked to talk to your mother but you couldn’t?
R: No.
I: Do you also use e-mails to communicate with your mother?
R: I sometimes write a message to ask “How are you, Mom? How do you feel? How are things going there?”
I: Ok, e-mails. What about Yahoo or Gmail?
R: Oh, no. I don’t use these.
*Content.
I: How often do you talk to your mother?
R: Several times a day.
I: Is there a certain time interval?
R: When she has her day off.
I: You say she sleeps during the day, trying to rest because she works and night. Tell me, do you remember your first audio or video communication with your mother?
R: After I received the phone, for about two weeks I learned to use it and in the third week I called Grandma while she was in Bucharest. I asked her “Granny, how do you feel, when do you come home?” I missed her so much.
I: And with your mother?
R: My uncle had a phone which was smarter than mine and I talked to her.
I: Forget about the phone you used. Do you remember your first phone conversation with your mother, or you were too little?
R: I had no idea, didn’t even know how to find my way around.
I: Do you talk regularly, or only on special occasions?
R: We talk when we both have some free time…
I: Do you ever call long or persistently?
R: Oh, no! This could be only in case of incidents or if Granma is ill and I don’t know what to do. It has never happened so far.
I: What do you usually talk about with your mother?
R: Mostly about the time she will come home. She says she will come in September and it seems she will also come in December.
I: What did you talk about last time? Do you remember?
R: About what she was to bring me, I told her I would like some jelly bears. They are my favorite sweets.
I: Do you like sweets?
R: Yes, I do. I told her to bring me four or five packs, to share them with my cousins. She said she would. I asked her to also bring me some clothes, sort of scarf, but not very thick, in the Spanish colors.
I: With the Spanish flag colors.
R: Right.
I: Does she also ask you what you would like her to send or bring you?
R: No, because she doesn’t know what my decisions are. I hardly make a decision.
I: Well, that’s why. Doesn’t she ask you?
R: Sometimes she does.
I: When you talk to your mother, the conversation is just between you and her or someone else is around?
R: Always my grandma.
I: Do you show your mother, through internet, what you did at school?
R: I write her about my marks, like I got an 8, I got a 9.
I: Do you play online?
R: No.
I: has she ever told you stories online?
R: No, she didn’t. I only watch TV serials and thrillers.
I: Has your mother any possibility to talk to your teachers?
R: Not really. I don’t see how she could from Spain. No. When she comes home she sometimes talks to my head tutor.
I: But who keeps in touch with your school?
R: Grandma.
I: How old is your grandma?
R: Sixty-seven.
I: Many happy returns!
5. Relationship with the absent parent (important stages/significant moments):
I: How often does your mother come to Romania?
R: Every three or four months.
I: What did you do together when she last came home?
R: It was in May, on my birthday. All the family went for a walk in Crang Park. Me, my aunt, my cousins walked, had cotton candies – my favorites. We rode four-wheeled bikes. I almost ran into a box of ice cream freezer. We also rode hydro-bikes. It was very nice. We took pictures.
I: That was on your birthday…
R: It was the day after my birthday.
I: She came on the twenty-sixth, on your birthday…
R: Yes, but we had a party at home on the twenty-seventh and then we mainly spent the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth of May in town.
I: Do you remember what you did a home on the twenty-seventh of May?
R: In the morning everybody was waiting for me. It was nine o’clock and I hadn’t got up. They started playing tricks on me. They did some makeup on me with watercolors… When I got up, I went to look in the mirror, ’cause I always must arrange my hair. (he makes a gesture, arranging his hair) “My God, what happened to my face?” When I went out, my cousins threw some cream into my face. “Happy birthday to you!” That was after I had washed and removed the watercolors. Then they brought some confetti and blew them up. I even got scared. Then the music started and at about one or two o’clock they began making the barbecue. We had lunch and they brought the birthday cake. Mom called me: “Come here, boy!” A bottle of champagne! Wow! “What’s here?” And I popped the cork off and in a second it was on our neighbor’s car. “He will kill me if I damage his car.” Luckily, the cork hit a wheel, not the windscreen of the car.
I: And the days passed… the twenty-seventh, the twenty-eighth, the twenty-ninth… And what did you do after?
R: I was at school most of the time. Sometimes Mom waited for me to leave school and we went into town, sometimes she helped me with my homework; on the last but one day of her staying home, her boss called her to return to work; it was a very sad day, I started crying. Then when I was leaving for school in the morning, she told me: “I’ll come to school to say good-bye to you”. But she couldn’t come, It was my last class and I asked my teacher to let me go to say good-bye to Mom. Grandma didn’t come to take me from school and when she did… I grabbed my bag, my binder and I hurried up to kilometer zero, but found she had left.
I: Kilometer zero… where is that?
R: At the bus stop.
I: have you ever been to her, in Spain?
R: No. We decided that after I finish middle school and all the final assessments, I could also pay her a visit.
I: Do you know anything about the place she lives in? Did she tell you where she lives? Did she describe her place?
R: She lives in an apartment which belongs to one of her very good friends.
I: Did she tell you about her job or about your relatives’ work?
R: Granma told me more.
I: Would you like to go there?
R: Yes, I would.
I: Would you like to go on holiday or to move there for good?
R: Only on holiday. Moving is out of question.
I: Why?
R: Because… until I get an identity card there… they hardly could take me out of Spain and bring me in Romania. If they find me without an identity card and I am under fourteen they would take me there as the son of my father.
I: Has your mother left Romania for good?
R: No, she hasn’t.
I: When do you think she will return?
R: She said she would send us money to buy firewood and then she would come to live home.
I: Yes, but she intends to leave again, doesn’t she?
R: I don’t know, it’s her own decision. She said she wanted to live here. But nobody knows when she will come.
I: Do you feel there are some benefits from her being abroad?
R: There would be some. Next year, when I am in the seventh grade, it will be more difficult for me at school. I will study chemistry. They may ask me for something important for the chemistry lesson and I may not have the money for it. I would call mother and tell her “Mom, please send me at least sixty or seventy euro, to buy what I need.”
I: Are there any things you want to hide from your mother?
R: Not really. Maybe if I had a girlfriend, I wouldn’t tell her.
I: Do you have any poor marks…
R: When I get a poor mark, I will tell her…
I: What if you have some unpleasant discussions with your relatives? Would you tell her?
R: No; I don’t want to cause any stress to her. Too much stress may be fatal.
I: What can you say about the negative aspects of your mother’s being abroad?
R: One is that I just told you about. When she left and didn’t come to school, she had promised she would come to say good-bye to me and she didn’t.
I: Do you exchange any particular messages for the holiday season? Do you try to have a longer chat on video? To…
R: No, my phone isn’t very smart to request… If my cousins come home or if my uncle comes back from France, as he said he would like to return to Romania, I could talk to her and we will all see her on the camera.
I: I suppose you celebrate Christmas with your grandmother and your relatives…
R: Yes.
I: Can you describe one of these holidays?
R: Christmas in particular. In the morning I take my cousins to go trick-or-treating. I proposed that the boy would go with me for the “plugusor” and the girl would go for the “sorcova”.
I: And then?
R: We the children go out, say what we would like to get from Santa, have a snowball fight, if there’s any snow. Once I almost hit my cousin in the head and he got angry and put me into the snow with my face down. In the evening the whole family gathers around the Christmas tree and the fire and we get warm and sing “Oh, Christmas tree!” I don’t know the lines too well, but I mumble.
I: Do you try to contact your mother in such moments?
R: Yes, when it’s possible. Sometimes she may be very busy and we cannot reach her.
I: OK. Thank you very much.
I: You’re welcome.