2007.03.11: March 11, 2007: Headlines: COS - Romania: Small Business: Clarksville Leaf Chronicle: Forest Ratchford's mission for the Peace Corps in Romania is to increase entrepreneurship and to help small businesses integrate technology such as cash registers into their fledgling capitalist operations
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2007.03.11: March 11, 2007: Headlines: COS - Romania: Small Business: Clarksville Leaf Chronicle: Forest Ratchford's mission for the Peace Corps in Romania is to increase entrepreneurship and to help small businesses integrate technology such as cash registers into their fledgling capitalist operations
Forest Ratchford's mission for the Peace Corps in Romania is to increase entrepreneurship and to help small businesses integrate technology such as cash registers into their fledgling capitalist operations
Since May 2005, Ratchford has lived without a mall, a supermarket, or a car to get there if there were one. He has no hot water, and has running water only between 5 and 10 a.m. and 4 and 8 p.m. each day. "I had an interest in Eastern Europe and communism," Forest Ratchford, 28, explained in a telephone call from Moreni, Romania. "I wanted to see what it was like. I wanted to immerse myself in what used to be our enemy." Ratchford says he was also attracted to the idea of working for the good of the people, rather than for monetary gain. "It feels really good to see the smiles on people's faces when you help them complete a project or help them improve their lifestyle," Ratchford says.
Inspired by the work of Heifer International, an Arkansas-based charity that provides cows, pigs, goats, fish, and even bees to poor farmers worldwide, Ratchford began writing grants and making plans for his own goat project in Romania. Goats cost about $150 each, which is about equal to the average wage for a rural Romanian family for one month. Having two goats that can breed as well as produce milk used to make telemea a cheese-like staple of the Romanian diet can revolutionize a family's standard of living. "The farmers use the goats to make cheese to provide enough telemea for their family, and if they have any left over, it goes to market," Ratchford said in a phone call from Moreni, the town of 20,000 in Romania that he calls home. Goats are practical because they graze on weeds left behind by cows, and goats are hardier than sheep.
Forest Ratchford's mission for the Peace Corps in Romania is to increase entrepreneurship and to help small businesses integrate technology such as cash registers into their fledgling capitalist operations
Local man helps through Peace Corps
By STACY SMITH SEGOVIA
The Leaf-Chronicle
Caption: Goats cost about $150 each, which is about equal to the average wage for a rural Romanian family for one month.
Forest Ratchford was always best friends with the exchange students in high school, fascinated by their stories of lives so different from his own.
But even his own mother was surprised when in 2004, the Clarksville native quit working as International Sales Manager for CDV Software Entertainment AG, a German video game publisher, and applied to the Peace Corps.
"I had an interest in Eastern Europe and communism," Forest Ratchford, 28, explained in a telephone call from Moreni, Romania. "I wanted to see what it was like. I wanted to immerse myself in what used to be our enemy."
Ratchford says he was also attracted to the idea of working for the good of the people, rather than for monetary gain.
"It feels really good to see the smiles on people's faces when you help them complete a project or help them improve their lifestyle," Ratchford says.
Since May 2005, Ratchford has lived without a mall, a supermarket, or a car to get there if there were one. He has no hot water, and has running water only between 5 and 10 a.m. and 4 and 8 p.m. each day.
"He doesn't have to live large," says his mother, Barbara Ratchford.
Ratchford says he misses driving, and misses being able to eat fresh fruits and vegetables in the dead of winter. Most of all, he misses American reliability.
In Clarksville, the Post Office will be open during the hours printed on the door. The mayor's telephone will work, and the secretary will answer during business hours. Ratchford says he has spent whole weeks trying to track down mayors of small towns a required first step before doing business there.
"That dates back to the old communist days," he says.
Ratchford's mission for the Peace Corps is to increase entrepreneurship and to help small businesses integrate technology such as cash registers into their fledgling capitalist operations.
Communism formally ended in Romania when dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was shot and killed on Christmas day in 1989 in Targoviste, near where Ratchford now lives. Although cities such as Bucharest have conveniences similar to those of Western European cities, Ratchford says the majority of the country is rural and lagging behind in its adaptation to capitalism.
"The mayor is like an old Indian chief. He knows everybody and has all the power in the city," Ratchford says. "You have to talk to the mayor to do business with anyone in the city."
Ratchford has periodic telephone access and even Internet access except when it rains. Although he says he's lucky to have gas heat, he's frustrated that his gas bill is split evenly among everyone in his block apartment building. The energy hogs pay the same as the misers, which can be a problem on Ratchford's $300 monthly Peace Corps salary twice the local average. Further, one person's nonpayment gets gas service cut off for the whole building.
But Ratchford quit focusing on the minor discomforts of life in a Romanian village long ago. Today, his whole focus is goats.
Independent of his Peace Corps mission, Ratchford began his own project to get goats into the hands of impoverished farmers.
Along the way, Ratchford fell in love, with the Romanian people and with one Romanian woman in particular.
He recounts his introduction to the country, when he was taken on a camping trip "in the middle of nowhere."
"The nearest village was literally 20 or 30 miles away," he says. "We went to some farmers and asked for some food. They gave us cheese and a bunch of other food. We kept trying to give them money, and they pushed us away. They're so hospitable. They act like they're your best friend."
Once Ratchford was settled in Moreni, one of his co-workers had her daughter, Sorina Popescu, show him around.
"When she went back to college from her summer break, we realized that we missed each other a lot," Ratchford says about Popescu. "In November (2005) we started going out, and either I would go up to see her on the weekends in Sibiu or she would come down. Then on a weekend trip for our anniversary in the mountains last November, I asked her to marry me."
Ratchford and his fiancee, a 24-year-old dentist-in-training, will be married June 2 in Moreni, which is Popescu's hometown.
"He's met a beautiful, very nice young lady. I just love her," says Barbara Ratchford, who met her daughter-in-law-to-be when Popescu visited Tennessee in the summer. "I'm looking forward to their wedding. Forest says it's a two-hour ceremony, mostly standing, followed by an all-night party. It will be an experience."
Popescu says it's Forest Ratchford's giving heart that made her fall in love with him.
"He's one of the few men I've met that are nice and caring," she says. "It's hard to find good guys these days. He's one of the good guys."
Stacy Smith Segovia is a features writer for The Leaf-Chronicle. She can be reached at 245-0720 or by e-mail at stacysegovia@theleafchronicle.com.
Links to Related Topics (Tags):
Headlines: March, 2007; Peace Corps Romania; Directory of Romania RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Romania RPCVs; Small Business
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Story Source: Clarksville Leaf Chronicle
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Romania; Small Business
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