They first laid eyes on each other in the schoolyard. The encounter was outside in the smoking area at Delaware Technical & Community College in Georgetown. Both regulars at that smoking spot, they eventually got to talking.
The younger of the two fellows by a year, John Chaconas was taking introductory college courses. The other, Petru Tarnovschi, aka Dylli, was into a semester of study for an associate’s degree in respiratory therapy.
During the initial conversation they discovered a similar origin. Both were born in Romania.
John spent his earliest days in orphanages in the Romanian city of Arad. Ionika, as he was called in those days, lived in public facilities until nearly the age of 8, when an American woman looking to adopt a child arrived. John was selected over the other boys in the room, he likes to say, because of his smile.
Then a first-grader, John now muses about that moment. “I was at the homework table with other boys when the director walked in. He was with a pretty lady. They looked around the room, and the lady pointed her finger at me. I later learned the reason for the attention was my smile. The pointed finger was me getting chosen.”
Years later, John still has that engaging manner and friendly countenance. He exudes an open friendliness.
After complying with the details of Romanian law, Ionika was brought from Romania to Germany, where the adoptive family was then living. They moved from Europe to Wisconsin, then to North Carolina, and finally to Washington, D.C. John eventually settled in Rehoboth Beach where the family has a home.
Along the way Ionika was changed to its English language equivalent, John.
John, now 24, earned his commercial driver’s license from Del Tech and is driving trucks for the Nuttle Lumber Co.’s Do It Center in Rehoboth. “There is nothing I can’t drive. And boy, do I love my job,” John said with his infectious enthusiasm.
Dylli’s story is a bit different. He came to America later in life.
In 2003 he was a third-year student in quantum physics at Romania’s oldest and best university.
He had a chance to come to Delaware on a student visa. He dropped everything in Romania, and he has been going to school in Sussex County ever since. He hopes to work in a hospital, converting his current visa into a work permit and eventually citizenship.
“It hasn’t been easy,” Dylli said of his American experience. “Although my parents have respectable middle-class jobs in Romania, they are unable to help me with money.” In accented but grammatically sound English, Dylli tells how his father, a journeyman welder, came for a visit. He helped out in a car wash. He made more in a week then he did in a month at his profession in Romania.
After that first schoolyard meeting in 2003, John and Dylli became roommates. They shared space for nearly three years, John eventually driving trucks, Dylli going to school and doing odd jobs. Although no longer under the same roof, they remain fast friends, as both settle into their new lives.
John is self-sufficient. Dylli, on the other hand, is still struggling, “I’m two-thirds finished my studies,” said Dylli, a solid ‘A’ student at Del Tech.
“I get no financial aid and have to pay out of state, so school tuition is a challenge.” Dylli, the king of getting by on very little, nonetheless clearly maintains a positive optimism that’s way off the chart.
Both guys still smoke. “I know it’s bizarre,” Dylli said, “me studying respiratory science.” Not wanting the dream to go up in smoke, John and Dylli struggle with this troubling aspect of life in 21st century America, but both say they plan to quit.
“Despite the happy first meeting,” John said, showing straight white teeth and flashing his Hollywood smile, “it may be best if neither guy ever goes back to that schoolyard for a cigarette.”
