James Gray-Cheape is running a delivery company in Bucharest. He started his business seven years ago, giving jobs to kids from orphanages to work as couriers and providing them with a chance to start a career.
George Porfir knows every street in Bucharest by heart. He rode his bike back and forth across the streets, through all the slimy holes, passed between busses and rushing cars, fought with the snow and drizzle and kept delivering his packages first, always on time, at any cost. His damaged knees are proof of that.
Through all this effort, he earned himself a life without crime, a life off the streets he seemed destined for by birth. He is one of thousands of kids abandoned by his family, growing up in an orphanage in Bucharest. When an opportunity came his way, he grabbed it with both hands. His chance was a Scottish man named James Gray-Cheape.
Gray-Cheape came to Romania in 1997 from Africa, where he had been for a year. "I wanted to start a business in Romania, because it's slightly closer to home," he states. And when deciding to do a business here, he sought young guys who were keen to work hard and accepted going throughout Bucharest on a bicycle all day long. "I had a friend who was teaching English in what was then called 'Casa de copii' (orphanage). I asked him about the children in the Casa de copii. I didn't know what orphans were; I'd never met an orphan. He said they were absolutely wonderful: they're trustworthy, they speak good English, and they're pleasant, hard working and really keen to learn," Gray-Cheape said.
He set up a meeting with the orphans and thought they were the employees he needed. Before making his decision, Gray-Cheape sought some advice from his Romanian and expat friends in the business community. Foreigners thought it was a brilliant idea, as Gray-Cheape was getting the work done and at the same time he was doing a good thing for the orphans. "On the other hand, Romanians advised me not to do this because orphans don't have a good reputation in Romania and people would not entrust their packages to be delivered around the city by them," Gray-Cheape says.
In spite of that warning, he decided to go ahead and hired five kids from the orphanage, but also decided not to make their background public until the company became established on the market. Porfir now has a middle management position in the courier company. Every day he sorts through thousands of parcels and gives them to the couriers to make their deliveries. Before becoming a dispatcher, he was one of those taking the packages from somebody else and delivering them throughout Bucharest on a bicycle.
Porfir started working seven years ago as a courier for Pegasus. "I was riding the bicycle all day long, making hundreds of deliveries. It was hard work. I was doing deliveries in minus 15 degree weather," he remembers. Porfir accepted the long hours working in the cold and heat because he saw in this job a real chance for a normal life. He grew up in an orphanage, although he has a mother and two brothers. He is not ashamed of his life in the orphanage, but says he doesn't like talking about it. "Living there gives you a different vision of the world. You have trouble trusting people, because you always think they are going to lead you on," he says. In a way, things were easier for Porfir as a kid, he says. "We always knew how to make money. Sometimes we'd beat up a smaller kid or sometimes we'd steal the coins from phone booths. We used to block the phone with some wood. People put coins in the phone, but could not get them back anymore. And when the phone was full, we took out the coins with a magnet," Porfir remembers. When they had money, he and one of his brothers went to the movies or to a bakery. "I remember we once bought ten chocolate cookies and we ate them all," he says.
After finishing 8th grade, Porfir went to professional school and became a wood sculptor. "I got a job in a furniture factory. It was fine for a while, but then the factory stopped getting orders and they would not pay us our salaries on time," he says. And getting another job was not easy for an orphan, given the prejudices people have about them. People imagine that individuals who grow up in orphanages are violent or that they steal, get drunk or use drugs and that they are not willing to work.
Porfir was among the first orphans to go to work for the company. "I was at the orphanage and I heard two people came in, along with some boys from another orphanage, looking for kids to hire for a company. They employed a few kids and I thought I should go too. If they could do the job, why couldn't I?" he remembers.
He started his job as a courier. "The first two weeks were very difficult for me. I thought they would put me to work, but not give me any money. It was my orphanage thinking," he says. Plus, there was a lot of work to do. "You have to work hard and really enjoy your job, if you want to make it. I have to admit, if some other job had come up back then, I would have left Pegasus for sure," he adds. Things slowly got better for him, Porfir says. He got used to riding the bike around the city. Now he knows just about every street in Bucharest. There were days he went to over 100 addresses, taking packages and delivering them to the other side of the city. "I had two large bags filled with letters, I could barely get up, they were so heavy," he says. Porfir was competing with his colleagues. "After a few years, I got so I could make three times more deliveries than other couriers. I enjoyed it, although it's not that easy riding a bicycle when it's freezing outside," he says. Porfir remembers riding on bumpy roads, slipping between cars and busses in busy traffic, speeding up to get his deliveries done on time. And when it was snowing, he would give up the bike and simply walk or take the bus to get the envelopes delivered.
The worst thing Porfir remembers from his courier years is knee problems. "Since I was a kid I've had problems. First my knees hurt while I was growing. And I don't know how it happens, but every time I fell off the bike, I would hurt my knee," he says. "I once fell so badly, I had to stay home. I couldn't ride the bike for a while. That's when I thought I had to change my job," Porfir remembers.
He did not leave Pegasus because he managed to get another position in the company. After five years of delivering packages, he became the person who sorts the packages and gives them to couriers. That's hard work too.
"I come to the office at 8:30 in the morning and leave late at night, after I finish everything I have to do. I once left at two in the morning. Some days I have four tons of parcels to sort," he says.
Late hours at work have an impact on his personal life. Porfir got married this summer and his wife, Oana, is sometimes upset her husband comes home late. "We've had some quarrels about that, but she usually understands that I cannot leave work until I finish everything I have to do," he says. Porfir plans to remain with the company, at least until his wife finishes university next year. "I don't want to leave the company, because people here helped me when I was in need. They are like a family to me and this is very important, especially when you grow up in an orphanage.
Former couriers develop new careers Porfir's colleagues from the orphanage have also found their way in life. "Three or four years after we started, three guys, Eugen, Sabin and Nicu came to me and said they wanted to go to Ireland," Gray-Cheape says. "For me it was quite a moving experience. First of all, they had the good nature to come to me and ask if they could go. They asked me to write a statement about them to say if they were good or bad. I thought they had to go - they had to go on with their lives, because you cannot be a courier for the rest of your life, it's a young man's job," he adds. They wanted to go there to make some money and then come back to Romania to buy houses for themselves and settle here, Gray-Cheape said.
The three went to Ireland and worked in the meat industry. One of them even got a middle management position in a meat company. "I see them about once a year, when they come back. They're all married in Ireland and they're doing really good, he adds. Another orphan who worked as a courier, Florin, went to university, he said. Gray-Cheape said the company lost its connections with the orphanages. "The couriers we first hired grew up and don't know kids from the Casa de copii anymore. And now, people know us and come to us for interviews," he said. But there's always a chance for an orphan at the delivery company Gray-Cheape runs in Bucharest.
