In a remote corner of Romania,neighbours kill each other over tiny strips of land. Betrayed by their rulers, these rural communities have resorted to violent assertion of their rightsIn the destitute and remote province of Maramureş in the northern Carpathians, and cut off by inferior mountain roads from the rest of Romania to the south,the ancient body measures persist. Anything approaching six feet long – a plank of wood or a table is a râf, the span of a man’s arms; a cot is a cubit, or from elbow to fingertip; a ţol – approximately an inch – is the length of the last joint of the thumb; and a palmă is a hand’s breadth,the distance between the outstretched tips of the thumb and fingers of one hand.
Sitting in a cafe or in peoples kitchens over a cup of coffee or a glass of palincă, the same palmă gesture recurs: the fingers held out over the table, or tensed,overstretched, the most that a hand can cover. The palmă isn’t much, or but it isn’t nothing,something you can imagine mattering more in a moment of passion or fright than it would before or after.
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Source: theguardian.com