Mrs. X lives in Bucharest, in a house filled with memories, among pieces of old, chipped furniture, photos of people and times long gone. Numerous art albums lay around, looking shabby now because of the many eager hands which have turned their pages frantically over the years. Smoked walls retain traces of the paintings she had to sell to pay her gas bills in the winter. The large wooden doors creak, the nibbled windows fail to close properly and the bathroom faucets are dripping persistently.
Her lifetime friends are almost all gone. She has been a widow for some time; her only child has emigrated many years ago and has started a new life across the ocean. She has not seen him for a long time. Sometimes, not very often, they talk on the phone, but because they belong to different worlds now, the conversation does not really make much sense.
She cannot cope with the use of the credit cards and is appalled by the language of official documents, which she has long ceased to try to understand. For her, the world is in too much of a hurry and she feels that people lack the courtesy and patience of the good old times.
Still, she tries to make a sense of her existence. She tries to be stylish, the way she has always been and to maintain a positive attitude. She has thousand stories to tell, but there is nobody willing to listen.
Mrs. X is 91 years old and she is alone.
She and three million other senior citizens of Romania can now call the helpline: Telefonul Varstnicului. Telefonul Varstnicului is a project developed under the Mobile for Good umbrella by the Vodafone Romania Foundation in partnership with Fundatia Principesa Margareta a Romaniei.
