Balo Bobocilor

Last night I had the pleasure of being a judge at the Fall 2010 Balo Bobocilor. Balo, while similar to an American school dance, has a flavor all its own. One difference, which I can still smell on my clothes, is that many of my students were smoking all evening, inside nonetheless. I have become quite accustomed to my high school students smoking. In fact it was the first thing I learned about many of them since "I like to smoke" is the only English a number of them know. However, when I see my 7th graders smoking some maternal side of me is awakened and I find my self waving my finger in their faces saying "bad, bad" before I can stop myself.

On a similar note, Unlike the dances I went to in high school, all of which were either in the cafeteria (we don't have one of those here) ,or the villa, the event was held at a bar, meaning the kids were free to purchase alcohol though only a a small number did, and unlike my high school dances, pre-breathalyzer days, nobody really appeared to be drunk. Generally Europeans seem to have a healthier relationship with alcohol than Americans.

The thing that really makes Balo, Balo, is that rather than determining the king and queen of the dance with a popularity contest, at Balo the 9th graders get the opportunity to compete in a number of contests in order to determine the Miss and Mister or the event.

While I wasn't particularly involved in the organization of the event I was invited to be on the jury. The day of I helped make gogosi (doughnuts) and appetizer platters and went to one of my students houses to get my hair done, a real school dance tradition.

It has been six months since I have touched my hair with anything more than a brush, and even that is rare, so a little hair straightening action is all it really took to make me feel ready for my debut as judge.

The students competed in pairs. Each pair had to introduce themselves, sing karaoke to a song of their choice, dance, and answer some trivia questions. Additionally the boys had to make a love statement for their female partner using some funny words that were written on a piece of paper, and knock an orange across a finish line using a bottle of water that was tied around their necks.

As you might imagine being a judge was a bit of a challenge for me considering that Romanian is my third language, and nervous ninth graders don't enunciate particularly well, so my scores were definitely based more on how things were said as opposed to what was said. The winners of the contest, Vasile and Ioana were quite adorable. Despite the fact that Vasile is three or four inches shorter than Ioana, he sure knows how to dance.

After the contest the judges were served with the food that we had prepared earlier that day. I had been wondering what it was for. It seemed like a pretty sweet deal for us, but it seemed a bit unfair that the judges got to indulge in the food when the kids did all of the work. They did however get some doughnuts when we were done. After the eating the bar turned into a club and the dancing commenced. I will probably be ready to join a Romanian traditional dance ensemble by the time my two years since Romanians seem to like to dance about as much as I do.

Resting Up

I missed my maxi-taxi to the big city tonight, and instead of trying to forge a less traveled path through Maramures, I decided to take a hint from fate and have a night in. It is probably for the best anyways, as this week has been a bit taxing.

After two-weeks of awesome behavior,my third graders turned into the savage kindergartners from the cartoon, "Recess" and proceeded to run around the room hitting and screaming at eachother as I helplessly yelled, "stati jos" (sit down). I probably had it coming, considering how smug I had been about how good they were for me, while the religion teacher had previously had so much trouble with them that the police had been called in to scare them. Oh, and yes, they do teach religion in public schools in Romania. Additionally, just yesterday I a visit from my boss, or bosses actually, which was really great, since I had not yet had any guests, but still taxing. They sat in one of my classes.

This week has been my first week splitting classes with Raluca since I now have my own classroom. I have found having my own room to be very beneficial despite the fact that it is oddly long and skinny. First off, it means I don't have to remember where all the classes are, as in the Romanian systen the teachers move from class to class, and secondly I feel like I have more control, since now the kids come to my turf instead of me being on theirs.

So tonight I have been catching up on old "Weeds" episodes, and tomorrow I will try my luck once again at the whole Romanian transportation game. If it is anything as cold as it was today, I will actually succeed at buying winter clothes, which would be nice, since the drop in temperature is surely a sign that I am not far away from the reality of an Eastern European winter. Yikes!

A quick update

While I have had the intent to write many a times in the past few weeks, I have not had the time. Since school has started I have been pouring any, and all of my creative energy into the preparation of lesson plans. While I traditionally think of lesson planning as a neat activity that takes place at a desk, my process tends to involve all of my art supplies, cutting, gathering of objects that can be described by vocabulary words that I intend on introducing, coloring, and drawing. When all is completed my living room is generally covered in a fine blanket of shredded papers, pens, pencils paints, making it somewhat unrecognizable. In fact this description perfectly describes the state if affairs in my living room as we speak, but I decided to try to overlook that fact so that I ciould finally write this much overdue blog.

School: School started two weeks ago. It started slowly and lightly. My first week I mostly observed and was observed. After being introduced at the assembly on the first day and anonymity I had in town was officially gone, which is fine by me. I can't deny that I like the attention and popularity that accompanies being a foreigner in a small Romanian town. The second week I actually began teaching, although since my room wasn't ready I taught ended up with about half of what will be my normal 16 hour load. This week, my class should be ready, so Raluca and I will be splitting her classes. She meets with each class twice a week, meaning that if she has 30 students in a class I will take 15 of them one day a week and the other 15 the next time. I am looking foreward to having smaller classes, as it is hard to have comunicative based classes with such large numbers.

Projects: Before school started, Jenny, a peace corps volunteer from last years group, who also lives in Maramures, contacted me about getting involved in "Let's Do It Romania", a national campaign to clean up trash on the 25th of September. I started to look into it, but after hitting a few road blocks, such as, the fact that my counterpart wouldnt be in town the weekend of, the fact that i couldn't understand what the website was asking of me, and the fact that I was overwhelmed by the beggining of school, I dropped the ball, or so I thought. It turns out that instead of dropping the ball, I had actually just passed it on. A few weeks before the event I had mentioned that I had mentioned to the mayor that I wanted to organize a "Let's do it Romania" team in Maramures. He said okay and apparently meant it beacause during my last class on Friday I was informed that we would be meeting at 10am the next morning to pick up some trash. The event ended up being a success. Not only did about 30 kids and 20 adults come and clean up the town, but I also got a taste for how I will be able to organize events in the future.

So that does it for the basics. I promise to take some time to comment on some of the more colorful things I have been apart of, such as "cutting hens", and meeting an American in town, wow! But right now, I need to sleep.

As it turns out Spunta Maria is a two-part holiday. I spent Spunta Maria Mare (the death of the Virgin Mary) at a nearby monastery, dressing in white and participating in processions around the grounds. Spunta Maria Mica (the celebration of the birth of the virgin Mary) also involved dressing in traditional costume, however it was more low key, and conveniently took place in my town.

It was cool seeing how the town transformed to accommodate the festivities. The streets of my normally sleepy village were lined with busses venders selling toy guns along with other less popular toys, hoards of women in traditional dress, people turning their yards into impromptu restaurants to feed the hungry masses, and on a less positive note, the addition of beggars, some of which I recognized from the first Spunta Maria.

While all of this was a bit unexpected, I was most surprised to learn that wedding hall at our most happening hang out, turned into a disco that night, in honor of the holiday. My counterpart, (the English teacher I will be working with) had just arrived in town with her sister and her sister’s boyfriend, so we all went to check it out. The disco couldn’t compete with those I went to in Spain, but for a town of 3,000 people it was crazier than I expected. The music was a mixture of the standard club mix: Rihanna, Lady Gaga, ect, and traditional Romanian music. At the beginning of the evening people were only dancing to the traditional music. The traditional music of Maramures has grown on me, but I think that I still have a few months ahead of me before I will be able to consider myself a true a fan. I can, however, honestly say that I love dancing the Hora, which goes hand in hand with it, as it is both simple and inclusive. After we staked out a table my posse and I got up and joined a group of strangers, who gladly made room for us in the circle.

I don’t see the connection between religious celebration and discos, but I like it, and hope that I don’t have to wait another entire year for it to happen again.

Transylvanian excursion

Things don’t always go as planned. You may remember that I had planned to leave site on Sunday evening and to arrive at camp in Hargita county on Monday morning. I wish I could blame my abrupt change in plans on anything other than myself, like the bus breaking down, or not coming, but the fact is that I was on the wrong side of the road and the bus simply passed me by. Looking back it was probably a blessing in disguise, since the next day, when I was able to get a ride with host family to the train station, I realized that never in a thousand years would I have known where to get off the bus. I don’t remember seeing any indication that the particular obscure, unpaved road that jut off the main drag, led to the train station. Even if I had asked the bus driver and he had pointed me towards said road, I would have likely turned back, sure that this long steep road that the car could barely get up couldn’t possibly lead to anywhere, let alone a train station, but indeed it did.
My trip consisted of three colorful overnight train rides, which left me sleepless, but in Hargita County at 7 in the morning, where Eva greeted me. At the time all I knew about Eva was that she was the director of the camp where I would be volunteering. After our half an hour ride to the camp I was fairly well acquainted with her and her unique culture. Hargita County is interesting because central Transylvania is home to a Hungarian population. I was shocked by how different the culture is compared to Romanian Culture. The most obvious difference is the language. The people here speak a dialect of Hungarian. Another major difference is the Religion. While the vast majority of Romanians are Romanian Orthodox, this region boasts a majority Unitatian population. In fact the Unitarian church was started in this area in the sixteenth century. By the end of camp I had become familiar with the church in town since Eva is the minister’s wife and the camp is held in two of the buildings owned by the church.
Work started upon arrival. After throwing my stuff down in the girl’s room I headed downstairs where I led the first session of the day. Our second activity was supposed to be a follow up activity to the video “Peace One Day” that the campers had watched the day before. We divided the rowdy teenagers into three groups, each with a counselor to help facilitate. Of course, while the other groups developed countries based on ideals of peace my group invented “Boratstan” where the rivers flowed with Vodka. Great first impression I thought, but Boratstan, was appreciated by one and all. The students especially liked our national sport, cup ball, in which one stacks as many cups as they can and balances a soccer ball on the top.
The hardest part of the whole camp was remembering the names of the kids. I have become familiar with Romanian names, and in my town there is a preference for the names Maria, Iuana, Ion, and Vasile, which makes it rather easy to remember any outliers, however since Hargita county is one of the Hungarian regions all of the names were, well, foreign. By day five I finally had them all down, which was just in time for the end of camp.
The original plan was to leave camp a day early, and head to the music festival that was nearby, to meet some friends, but as it turns out camp actually lasted until Sunday, so I gladly stuck around. It would have been hard to leave Eva’s mom’s amazing Hungarian cooking any earlier than was necessary. In fact, once I found out that I could get a ride with Eva, to Cluj (which is on my way home) I decided to stay though Monday and help with the first day of camp for the younger kids. I talked Carly, the other peace corps volunteer at the camp, into taking a day or two off to accompany me on my adventures in Cluj.
I would love to say that when in Cluj I saw the famous church, went out to eat at the restaurant my friend had recommended before I came, and flat out enjoyed the sites of the city, but Instead Carly and I hit the mall. While it sounds less than interesting to someone who has been living in America, I hadn’t seen anything that reminded me so much of home in the three months and so I was perfectly happy to save the culture for my next visit and instead indulge in the food court Chinese food and two movies on the big screen. It was a good end to what ended up being a great trip, even if it did end up a bit different than I had originally planned.

The last two weeks at site I have milked two cows, worked in the field (not very hard mind you, I mainly just ate home made bread with home made jam and napped all day), Went to the pool, went to the river, went to the salty springs, participated in a 24 hour religious ceremony in full traditional dress, ridden in a karuta, again, Eaten some amazing food that others made for me, and some ok food that I made for myself, sewed clothes for my neighbor’s Barbie, went to the merry cemetery (as pictured above), done some running (not as much as I said I would, of course), and eaten some ice cream (much more than I said I would). I feel like the seed of community integration has been planted, and that it is time to do some exploring before the real work begins. Tomorrow I am headed to the Hungarian region in the center of the country, to help with a camp for older kids that will focus on Peace and Environmental issues, details are pretty much non-existent. I am anticipating a bunch of really confusing trains and busses, and likely no sleep, but right now, with the trip a safe 18 hours away, I am confident that I can handle it, lets hope this confidence sticks around at least until Monday morning when I arrive. After 4 or five days at the camp I will turn 24 and then I will go celebrate that fact with some friends at a music festival, before finally returning to site. I will keep you posted.

My greatest fear about my first few weeks at site was that I would be lonely and bored. This all seems silly now as my greatest problem, if you can even call it that, is that I have barely been able to find a minute to myself. My new neighbors have kept my busy with lots of swimming, card playing, and best of all, cultural activities.

Last Sunday was Sapunta Maria, a Christian Orthodox holiday celebrating The Virgin Mary. I went to a nearby monastery with one of my future 10th grade students. We tagged along with the procession of one of the neighboring towns, since her dad was chauffeuring them in his bus. At 1:00 on Saturday, we boarded the bus dressed in my town’s traditional white shirt and skirt, both embellished with delicate hand embroidery. The others on the bus had a similar shirt, but their skirts were green and had a flowered pattern, as every town has their own costume.

The bus ride there was filled with song. I became so familiar with these songs over the 24 hours that I now can’t seem to get them out of my head. The singing was put on pause when the bus stopped. We unloaded, with all of our stuff and made a trek up the hill to the Monastery. Once the Monastery was in sight we lined up with the smaller children in front carrying banners and a picture of The Virgin, followed by me and my friend Anuta, on either side of the priest, followed then by the others, who carried large images of Mary which hung on sticks. We joined a number of other groups who were circling the monastery singing songs that I at the time hardly understood. When we finished the rounds we went over to the large open-air area where we would be sleeping. We searched for a open area on the wood chips where our group could fit our blankets in amongst the hundreds of other people who had already claimed their real-estate.

When hunger stuck we made a trip down to the town, where a carnival type scene had emerged. We ate some mici and headed back up for our second tour of the church, this time I had become familiar enough with the songs, so I was able to contribute, rather than lip-sync, like I had the first time.

That night I actually slept pretty well, which is impressive considering that there were sermons and singing most of the night. I may have been one of the few. When I asked one of the 60ish year old women, the following morning, how she slept and she said she didn’t I felt a little bit wimpy. But I had no time to nurse my bruised ego, as I had to get dressed up for our last procession around the church. Afterwards we went down the hill to get coffee. Everybody insisted that I stay dressed up which scared me considering coffee is black, my borrowed costume was white, and my reputation for being a little on the clumsy side. Some how I managed to make it back up the hill, stain free, just in time for the final sermon.

My wondering why we remained in traditional dress for our trek down the hill back to the bus, was put to rest when we finally stopped outside of the town lined up for the final mile or so trek to the church in the center of the town that the procession was from. I guess it was our way of brining the trip full circle; a pilgrimage of sorts. According to some, people used to, and do now, only less frequently, make the trek to the monastery on foot. I can’t see how anyone would be able to do that in the heat that we have been experiencing, with no sleep. I could barely hack armed with both sleep and the assistance of a bus. I guess this just goes to show the power of faith. Anyways, finally, 28 hours after we had left I made it back to my bed, both tired and cultured, thankful to already be experiencing so much culture so soon into my stay at site.

First day at site

I have finally made it home, to the small village where I will be living for the next two years. I end my first full day at site salty and smelling of cow, both of which I have my ten year old neighbor to thank. You may remember her from my entry about site visit, when she helped get me a ride on both a karuta and with a cart and bull. So far she hasn’t let me down. Even if we don’t have a chance to do the things planned, she fits in something different and equally amusing into the day.

Today our sites were set on the salty springs that are a town or two away. I have no idea if it is possible to hop a maxi-taxi to there, but being able to go by car was a treat in itself, if for nothing else because I could fully enjoy the beauty of the rolling hills and picturesque villages without fear of being crowded, and in this case, in the comfort of air-conditioning, a luxury which has proven to be rare.

The salt springs themselves consisted of three large pools. They were surrounded by tree, and quaint chalet type pensions, which bared a vague resemblance to the type one might find around Lake Tahoe. The pools were the perfect temperature, but upon entry I immediately became fully salient of the location of every mosquito bite I have itched and the popped blister on my feet. Those I came with told me, that the salt water has healing powers. While this may be true, I think the immediate pain that one feels upon entry into the salty water, is a bit hard to see past. However, there was one major advantage that I noticed right away; since we could float without effort I didn’t have to spend my time keeping my eye on the over ambitious Iza, who likes to jump in the deep end of the pool despite the fact that she can’t swim all that well.

After about three hours there, I went home fully satisfied with my first day, unaware that it could get any better. After dinner I got a knock on my door, “Vrei sa mulci vaca” (want to milk the cow?) Iza asked. My reply was an enthusiastic “DAAAAAAAAAAA”. So we walked about 30 feet to her uncle’s where I got to milk a cow, not for very long, mind you, as it is extremely difficult, but I plan on putting “can milk a cow” on my resume when I get back to the States, so this surely won’t be the last time.

The Peace Corps staff has said that trains are a good place to experience Romanian culture, and that we are likely to have some of our most memorable experiences while aboard them. They hinted that it was likely that not all these “memorable experiences” will be good ones, but thankfully those I have had so far, have all been positive. My first such experience was in a sleeper car on my way back from my site visit. The people who were in my compartment shared their amazing food with me, told me one of the most personal life stories I have heard, exchanged e-mail addresses with me, and gave me both a poem and a four leaf clover. This experience is a good vignette of Romanian culture. These are people who know how to share in every sense of the word. My trip this time, while still filled with warm Romanians, was a horse of a different color. One factor was likely the fact that this time I was carrying two years worth of stuff on my back, in my hands, and was all around a stress case. My travel companion, Ryan, who will also be my closest peace corps neighbor (about 30 km away), on the other hand, had even more stuff than I did, yet didn’t appear to have a care in the world, a personality trait that I for one have not been blessed with.

We had about three hours to kill between our Personal train and the Acceelerat train that we would be taking overnight, so we got some food, and tried not to look at the dog that had been split in half and lay on the tracks in front of us.

At some point a homeless man sat down next to Ryan and struck up a conversation. Ryan later confessed that homeless people befriend him everywhere he goes. I’m not sure if it is his laid back hippy disposition (he is the splitting image of “Sunshine” from Remember the Titans), or the fact that he usually can be found smoking freshly rolled cigarettes, but I do know that in this case, it was his accepting and giving nature that kept this man with us the entire time.

About two hours of conversation and ten lei later it was about time for Ryan and I to catch our train so we made the dreaded journey across a set of tracks to the platform. Ryan unknowingly had not only bought this mans dinner, but also his loyalty. He helped Ryan carry one of his many bags and tailed loyally behind us as we made our way. We had only been at the correct platform for about 5 minutes when a train pulled up. “Is this our train?” Ryan and his friend were sure it was so we looked for our car. Only a few minutes passed and the train began to move. It became apparent that if we were going to catch this train we were going to have to hurry. We began to run.

I can’t help but chuckle when I think about how the three of us must have looked to passers by. I was running as fast as I could with my giant backpack, dragging my rolling suitcase, which had fallen onto its side and refused to turn upright, and casting off unnecessary extras that were holding me back, such as my two water bottles, my attention focused on the outstretched hand of the man on the train. Ryan was doing the same only he had an additional smaller back pack on his front and was being tailed by his friend who was still nobly carrying one of his suitcases. Finally, I realized that I had two options, either drop my “rolling” suitcase and hop the train, or give up. I seriously considered the first option, which in retrospect would have been insane, considering it had my computer in it, among other objects of value. Ryan also decided to stay with his luggage. When the train was out of sight we stood next to each other, out of breath and disillusioned. I looked at my watch and realized that it wasn’t time for our train to be there yet. The homeless man still insisted it was our train, but I decided to get a second opinion. The people next to us informed us that our train still had ten minutes, at which point we couldn’t help but laugh at ourselves.

When the train finally got there we boarded successfully. There were some complications in fitting our bags in our compartment, but it all worked out and 15 hours later I found myself saying goodbye to Ryan, the last shred of my American support system, and heading off with my new Romanian colleague to my new Romanian life.

The past week or so has been a whirlwind of language tests, our swearing in ceremony at the ambassador’s house in Bucharest, after parties, packing, and finally goodbyes. It was bittersweet. While I can’t wait to get started with my service, there are plenty of things to miss about training. I have had such a great experience with my host family, and leaving the support of my fellow volunteers and their ability to speak English is hard. However, my last night in town, I had an experience that made it apparent that it was time to leave the city.

I was walking in the city late at night, which I try to avoid when possible. Unfortunately, I had gone out to celebrate my last night with friends and somehow forgot to bring enough money for a cab. I walked with a fellow volunteer to her home and had only a short bit further to go on my own, but at night a block or two can be dangerous because of the turf wars. No, I am not talking about gangs in the traditional sense. I feel incredibly safe on the street in terms of the people; I am referring to the dogs. While I have grown accustomed to them during the day, at night they run the streets. Every night for the past three months I have been able to hear them barking and fighting from the safety or my room, but now I found myself in their territory.

Suddenly, two dogs approached me. They were being oddly friendly. One came up and nearly forced me to pet it. Then it started to get slightly aggressive, biting my skit and pulling at it. I yelled at it in an attempt to scare it away while simultaneously trying to hail one of the passing cabs. No luck, in fact the dog just started to growl, and the cabs ignored me. I decided to just freeze and hope it left eventually without taking a bite out of my leg, and finally, after three terrifying minutes, it went away. I only had two more blocks left, but I knew there was still much ahead. I walked no more than 50 feet when another dog approached me, growling and braking. This time a cab came out of nowhere and stopped next to me, just in time. I pleaded with him to except all the money I had left, however insufficient it was. He agreed without second thought. On the short trip to my apartment, we passed at least ten dogs on the way, all of which barked and chased after us. I’m not sure if he the driver was trying to make me feel better, or just having himself a little fun, but for whatever reason he drove straight at them in an attempt to either scare or kill them, I’m not really sure. All I know is that if there is one thing I won’t miss about our training site it is definitely the dogs.

Site Visit

The moment that I laid eyes upon the place that I will call home for the next two years, I was reminded of a conversation that I had on a date that I went on months earlier. I had told said boy about the Peace Corps and the very real possibility that I would soon be in Eastern Europe for two years. His response was something like, “Wow, Eastern Europe, that is great, while most people in Peace Corps go to rural parts of Africa you will partying for the next two years.” Now, months later, I was finally seeing the reality of my future Peace Corps experience. As I peered out the window of the maxi-taxi at the small Transylvanian town that will be my home for the next two years, I couldn’t help but laugh to myself. Oh, how wrong he was! He was right about one thing, the most important thing, which is that it is great, however this will not be the party experience that we speculated about that night. In contrast to the disco lined streets filled with high heel bearing women that occupied my imagination long ago, the reality that lays ahead is that of a small traditional town with a single paved road, surrounded by rolling green hills, and dotted with hay stacks. I had the opportunity to party in college, but this kind of rural country experience that is sure to be something truly unique.

Seconds later, Raluca, my counterpart, interrupted my silent dialogue, asking the maxi-taxi to stop. Oh my goodness, I am finally here! We got out right in front of my soon to be home, the mayor’s house. We were immediately greeted by the mayors wife, Elena, and Mrs.Marza, the vice principal of the school where I will be teaching. I introduced myself in Romanian. They were surprised, “Vorbeste Romaneste!?!?!?!?!?!” (she speaks Romanian!?!?!?!). I got used to this reaction after my three days at site, as it isn’t common for foreigners to speak any Romanian. I was happy to surprise everyone, but it was bit intimidating to listen to people talking about me, rather than to me.

After some coffee, a tour of the town, and a tour of the school, Raluca went to her house for a nap. She had lost three nights of sleep thanks to two weddings at her hotel during the conference, and our one night in a sleeper train. To top it all off she had presented her master’s thesis an hour and a half after we got off the train the day prior, so she was understandably tired. I went back to my place and tried to sleep, I don’t think I rested long before I awoke in a panic: “Oh my god, nobody will look at me, this is terrifying!” My first thought was to just stay in the safety of my cute apartment forever. That thought lasted for about two seconds and then my training from the last nine weeks kicked in.

One of the good things about the monotony of pre-service training is that when you hear things over and over again it is difficult to forget them, even when you aren’t thinking clearly. Mantras such as “go outside and take a walk because exercise can work wonders, your site is what you make of it, and you are responsible for the relationships that you will have in your community” were playing over and over in my head. So it was decided, first things first, I will force myself out the door and take a walk. I know this sounds a little ridiculous since there are only 3,000 people in my town, and one main road, but just putting my foot out the door was a bit of a battle. Once out the door things seemed a bit more manageable. I walked around for about 30 minutes and returned back to my apartment with a clear head, ready for the next step of integration. I figured the only way to get people used to me was to be seen, so I took my book out into the garden and read at a table. I sat there for about 10 minutes until my 10-year-old neighbor, who had been peeking out at me from behind the door all day, finally came and sat down across from me. A friend! I jumped on this opportunity somewhat over anxiously. I figured that since she was ten she wouldn’t be put off by a little social awkwardness. “I have a small present for you”, I said in Romanian. I ran upstairs and grabbed some American flag stickers and my deck of cards. We played war, then she taught me a Romanian card game and I taught her “Speed”, which I renamed “Repede,” the Romanian word for fast.

By the time I met up with Raluca at 6 pm that night I had fully recovered from my mild freak-out and was ready for whatever lay ahead. Thankfully, that which lay ahead was cheese pie at the vice-principals house (my favorite) and some Twika, Palinka, or Horinka. I’m not sure which I had, as they are all variations of Romanian liquor. It is most commonly made out of plumes and usually home made, like nearly everything in the Romanian countryside. The thing that differentiates the three is how many times they are distilled. My host father described their differences a bit more colorfully: “Twika is strong, Palinka is much stronger, it has bubbles and is bluish in clolor, and Horinka, well Horinka starts fires.” My theory is that they further North you go in Romania, the colder it is, so the stronger the alcohol has to be. My theory holds up in Maramures county, (the far North West), where I will be living. Here, the most common form of this traditional liquor is the potent Horinka.

From this point on out I was at home. I met a lot of great people including future students, I went swimming at one of the pensiones in town, I made plans to partake in many cultural happenings come August (milking cows, going to church, cutting grass with a scythe, dressing in the national costume, hiking), and I even got a ride on both a cart with bulls and a caruta (horse drawn cart) thanks to my precautious 10 year old neighbor.

Come Friday morning, I was sad to leave. Now, however, I am torn, knowing that in order to start the next great thing, I have to leave the town that has become home and the people who have become family. So for the moment I am enjoying the present and hoping that when the time comes I will some how figure out how to fit all of my new Peace Corps paraphernalia into my bags, so that I can make the 18-hour journey to site. More on that later, I’m sure…

Counterpart conference

I am in the middle of what has proven to be the never ending week, or really 2 weeks without a break. What would normally be called last week, was pretty much normal, in that we had training, training, training, and training, followed by a day of preparation before the beginning of our counterpart conference.

Saturday the conference began. I met my counterpart; the Romanian, English teacher who I will be working closely with for the next two years. Some of my fellow trainees had organized a ice breaker/greeting in which we had to find our counterparts and socialize with them. We were all armed with a list of cheesy questions to ask in case the conversation got awkward, but thankfully they were unnecessary. Raluca, my counterpart is everything I could hope for. She is young, has a sense of humor, and from what I can tell she has a lot of fun in class, has a great relationship with her students, and has some good ideas for projects that we can work on together. I was also really happy to find out that she has volunteered with the Red Cross for years, and has even taught her students some first aid. This is something somewhat special considering that I have been told numerous times, that the word volunteer still has a somewhat negative connotation in Romania, due to the fact that it was used during communism to describe forced labor, and is therefore not quite as common as it is in America.

The conference itself, while tiring, has been a good way for us to adress how we want to work together, and how we can avoid problems ,that are common in any cross-cultural relationship, before they arise. Also, my fellow trainess and I have had opportunity to share some of our experiences in Romania with the group through presentations and skits. I personally spoke about my experience teaching 6th graders during practicum, which included an introduction in Romanian. I ended up pretty much just reading this part, but at least I lived to tell the tale.

This brings me to now. Right now I am blogging, but more importantly I am not packing for my 14 hour train ride tomorrow. For some reason I thought that procrastination would end after I graduated from college, but it seems as if I am getting even better at it with age. I better get it together soon because tomorrow Raluca and I are leaving straight from the conference, a little early even, in order to catch a train and then another train so that she can get home in time to present her masters thesis on Tuesday morning. It will be both of our first times riding in a cuseta (Romanian sleeping compartment) so hopefully she will be able to get some rest before this extremely important event.

After that we will contine on to my future home and I will spend the rest of the week getting to know the people, the lay of the land, and hopefully even see the house in which I will be living for the next two years. I can't believe this is finally hapening. I am soooooooo excited and can't wait to tell whoever is reading this all about it!

Too tired to write, but here is this: http://s934.photobucket.com/albums/ad186/saraannepcv/Bucharest/

This weekend marked the first, since arriving in country, that we were allowed to venture outside of county lines (with the exception of our field visit a few weeks ago). As natural born travelers, most of the 44 people in my training group made the most of this opportunity to explore, venturing to some of the best known tourist cities, on hikes, camping, or to Bucharest. I was one of the few who stuck around town on Saturday. Don’t get me wrong, I experience the travel bug like street dogs experience fleas (ferociously and all the time), but it was my Gazda mother’s birthday and I wanted to be part of the festivities.

We celebrated with Whisky, a cigar, and some tiramisu, a winning combination that together made it feel like a special occasion. Later in the afternoon I went just outside the city with my host brother, Octav, and his girlfriend, Andrea, to see his grandmother in the country and to go swimming in the river. As you have probably heard if you are European, and probably haven’t heard if you are American, the Moldavian part of Romania is currently experiencing devastating floods. We are fine, but being that we are down steam from this area the river, unlike the shallow Russian river that I am accustomed to, was actually rushing and probably dirtier than usual. We went in anyways. It was a bit as I imagine those swimming machines to be, where you can swim forever in the same spot, so it wasn’t long before I got tired and retired to shore.

On the walk back to his grandmother’s house Octav stopped to shake nearly every hand that we passed. The small communities here are so friendly that it makes me look forward to going to my future home in Maramures and experiencing some of this sense of community for myself.

When we got back to the city in the evening I made American hamburgers. I am glad that I have found such an easy way to share American culture, although I don’t think I have thrown anybody off of the fact that I am not much of a cook.

Sunday, it was time venture to Bucharest. My friends, Brad and Becca, were nice enough to supervise me in the big city. I being highly map and public transportation illiterate happily handed them the reigns and enjoyed the sights as I followed them through the city. The day consisted of aimless wandering although we did throw in some lunch at the much suggested Caru Cu Berem After lunch we met up with our friend Marta and continued the adventure with a trip to the National Art Museum where we saw some really great Romanian art. This was followed by a bit more wandering, and a lot more getting lost, as we attempted to find the Peace Corps office; a mission that we accomplished only after a phone call to the higher powers. Finally we met up with one of my friends, a Bucharest Native, who helped straighten our meandering path and took us to a bar on the top of the national theatre to get a beer. It is a good thing he came and showed us the way because not only was it awesome, but more importantly, the entrance looked so shady we would have surely turned around before making it to the top. Once at the top we found a concrete setting with lean-tos filled with beanbags and a wall covered in art. It was the type of space that is truly unique to a hipster crowd only cool enough to live in Eastern Europe. After this it was time to go. We walked so far to my friends car, that I am pretty sure we could have made it to the bus station in about half the time, but regardless of the fact that I gave him a rather difficult time about this, it was nice to see some more of the city, including the Romanian Parliament, which is, from what my friend tells me, the second largest building in the world, following the Pentagon. In conclusion, Bucharest is cool. I still have much to see, and when I go back I hope my tour guide doesn’t have to spend all day with his family at his brothers wedding, like he did this time.

Today we had an hour and a half session about one of the most complex issues in Romania, the Rroma (more politically correct term), more widely known as gypsy (Tiganii) population. The session reaffirmed the complexity of the issue. We had three speakers who each painted completely different pictures about Rroma in Romania. The first lady who spoke was a Romanian woman who works with the Rroma population, the second an former Peace Corps Romania volunteer and also Ethan Hawks mother (not related to the topic at all, but interesting) who has co-founded an NGO that works to help Rroma children with education, and a current PC volunteer who has dedicated much of his service to working with the Rroma population at this site. Although their topic was similar their experiences and opinions were rather different from one to the next. I left this meeting, still thoroughly confused on this issue. I think it just goes to show that learning culture, like language, takes time, and while you can spend as long as you like in a classroom it is most efficiently accomplished through experience.

And the site goes to...

Yesterday was even more special than I expected. The language teachers put a lot of work into trying to make this a fun event for us. They decorated the courtyard outside of our school like an awards show, complete with a red carpet. The sites were divided into categories based upon their common characteristics, such as agriculture, or the black sea. Each was accompanied by a cute description, PowerPoint, and its own mood music.

For each site they would announce the name of the site and a number of nominees. For instance the nominees for my site included Sarah Jessica Parker, and the great monsoon, to name a few. The last name in the series (in this case my name) was of course, always the actual recipient of the site, which is good because I don’t think Sarah Jessica Parker’s Manolo Blahniks would hold up in the rural part of Romania where I am headed, and as it turns out, monsoons are rather partial to the tropics (bad joke alert).

The cherry on top of the ceremony was that the American Ambassador attended and opened the ceremony with a few words of support for the work we are doing and an invitation to Thanksgiving dinner at his house, which will be a 15 hour train ride away from where I will be living at the time.

I really wish I could remember the exact words used to describe the category of sites of which mine was a part, but all I can remember was that there was some mention of small hats. For those of you are not experts on the different regions of Romania, and need me to be a little more specific than “small hats”, I am going to a small tourist town in Maramures, the North Western part of Romania. The small hat comment is a reference to the fact that this region is known for having well preserved traditions, including traditional clothing.

As far as location goes I am not too far from Ukraine and Hungary. I am, however, going to be quite a ways away from most of Romania group 27, and again, a 15-hour ride away from Bucharest and the Peace Corps office. Having never been there I cannot attest for the magnitude of this areas awesomeness, but all of the Romanians who I have told seem pretty enthusiastic about it, but you should go ahead and give it a google and see for yourself, or better yet, come visit me.

At this point all the site really is to me is a piece of paper, I am guessing I would have been happy with anything, but from what I have read it seems as if the site matching coordinator drove up to Transylvania built this town to my exact specifications.

As you may remember the other day I posted a link to a Transylvania tourism website because I am interested in how Romania can build tourism that will benefit both the environment, and economy without destroying the heart of the place. I also am drawn to tourism in Romania because I think it can be a great way to empower the woman in communities throughout Romania, since it allows them to support themselves by doing something that they would be doing anyways, being world renowned hosts.

As it turns out, the people at my site specifically asked for someone who has experience in tourism, and would be able to help them further develop the industry. I don’t know if growing up in Sonoma County and working briefly in the wine industry makes me a qualified candidate, but I am looking really looking forward to getting involved.

Another thing that I had requested was to teach a mixed level, because I like variety, and sure enough I will be teaching 3rd through high school.

The only thing that differed from my initial preferences was the size. The town where I will be living is slightly smaller than what I thought would be ideal, but has always been important to me to be in a community that is small enough so that I can easily get to know the most important influential people in the community so that I can be effective in my development projects, such as the mayor, and since it sounds like I will likely be living in a guest house outside of his residence I think that should be fairly easy, which is great.

So In conclusions I am very happy, and looking forward to the next big step in the process which will be the next weekend, when our counterparts will come to meet us, and the week after that when we will go back to our site, with our counterpart to see our communities for the first time!

I really would like to write something interesting, as there is much to say, but at the moment I feel a bit like a goldfish in a bowl. Every ten seconds my thought pattern is interrupted by the realization that tomorrow is site announcement day. In a short number of hours I will know where I will be living for the next 2 years! So for now I will leave you with this: www.savortransylvania.com, A travel website created by a past PCV who is now living here with her husband, also a past PCV. He started a fabulously successful non-profit that I want to write about at a later date. Anyways, I haven't had an opportunity to give it the thorough once over it deserves, but hopefully if you have been at all inspired by my blog, you this will give you the tools you need to come over and check it out for yourself, not to mention pay me a visit.

Practicum is officially over. We wrapped things up today with my 11th grade class with an egg drop. I tried to make it somewhat academic by having a discussion and adapting spoken stories about skydiving. After that I told them that they were in a plane that was about to explode with 2 garbage cans (plastic cups), 4 blankets (napkins), some rope (string), and some rubber bands, and they had to make a make-shift parachute for themselves (the egg). It probably would have been good to explain the full metaphor because about 5 minutes into it, when they were still complaining that it was going to be impossible, I realized they may have really thought that we were going to be dropping them out of an airplane, instead of out the window of the second story of the school. I explained that when I went to Interex (the grocery store) they were fresh out of planes, so the second floor would have to do. Four of our five eggs didn’t survive the fall and the fifth had, what we decided, was the equivalent of a broken arm.
I really liked the 11th graders because their high level of English meant that we could do anything they and I wanted, as long as they were speaking English while doing it. Not to toot my own horn, but from the feedback I have gotten from the people observing us and from the reaction from the kids I am a pretty damn good teacher, which is great considering it is going to be my job for the next 2 years.
Speaking of good feedback, we had language station tests on Monday in which we had to act six scenarios out with our language teachers for five minutes each. I was pretty convinced I was going to get a straight B average, and was pleasantly surprised when I opened my report card to find B+’s and A-‘s with only one B. They wrote that my most winning accomplishments in language include my great attitude, and my listening abilities, which I have probably gathered from ease dropping on the conversations of my gazda parents, gazda brother and his friends.
It is encouraging to know that they think I am doing okay, but my real sense of accomplishment in regards to language came on Tuesday, when one of my gazda’s friends came to stay with me for a night, since they went on vacation for the week. We went for a walk around town and I was able to get to know her using mostly Romanian. Now however, my Romanian is super rusty since my family is still gone, and the past two days, Romanian lessons have been replaced by medical, security, and history lectures. Thankfully I am, as we speak, awaiting the company of two Romanians (host brother and his friend) so hopefully they will exchange language practice for the American hamburgers that I am prepared to make them.
Anyways, I am really looking forward to this weekend when we will be having our forth of July party, and next Wednesday, when I find out where I will be living for the next two years!

I woke up 5 am to Skype into my cousin’s wedding. Unfortunately it happened to be dinnertime there, (my second favorite wedding activity) so I went back to sleep and woke up again at 7 am. It was 9pm there and time for dancing (my number 1 favorite wedding activity), so it was a bittersweet because I knew when people said goodbye to me they were headed to the dance floor without me. It was, however great to see everyone, I even met a few new people, including Rae (I think) who is six and Rosemary who looked about four, and eager to tell me that it is gross to eat raisins after you stick them up your nose, advice that I promise to take to heart in the future. They were kind enough to tackle William, who was shy, and hold him down long enough so I could meet him. All of the family with whom I spoke confirmed that they were, or would be reading my blog in the future, so now I have some real pressure to come up with something better than bathroom humor.

I would like to assure you that while I was not present at the wedding my Saturday too was filled with merrymaking. I went to 2 barbeques and ate my weight in cake since I knew I would have to watch people eating wedding cake on the internet and I didn’t want to feel left out. I am still so full, that I really am considering a day of fasting, with coffee of course. Now that my addiction is full fledged I don’t want to know what would happen if I went a day without it. Scary!

My day began with a brisk walk to Kaufland. On my way there a man, who I had never seen before, looked me in the eye, smiled, and said hello, he too was obviously American. “Oh no, how did he know?” I thought. “Was it because I was walking fast?” I was rather disheartened that after living here for 5 weeks I could be so easily pegged as am American. When I got to Kaufland I shared this story with some fellow PC trainees who I was meeting there. They, being much more in the know than I am, informed me that it was likely David from PC Romania group 26 (last years group), and he had probably recognized my picture from facebook. After hearing this I was my mind was put at rest and I was able to focus on the next task at hand, buying phone credit, which still makes little to no sense to me. The man at the Orange store asked me if I was a Peace Corps Volunteer. Some people in town do know who we are because there have been things on the news, and in the newspaper about us, but his use of the name Peace Corps took me back a bit. As it turned out he had been David’s host brother last year when he was a trainee. “Oh, I just met him, kind of,” I replied. I decided after that that this town of 80,000 people is already getting very small. It feels already feels a bit like home, and I imagine it will be hard to leave when the time comes.

After I had spent all the money I had brought on phone credit I helped with the serious task of shopping for the American BBQ. After going to three butchers we finally found meat that somewhat resembled ground beef we headed to Aaron’s Mansion. Before coming to Romania Aaron lived in an apartment, but now that he is a Peace Corps volunteer he lives in a beautiful mansion outside of town. I find this rather Ironic. Apparently, the weekend before a bunch of trainees had gone over there to plan lessons and Aarons host family had made them a giant Romanian BBQ, so it was the Americans turn to return the favor, and thankfully I was invited along for the ride. Not only was it excellent, but also I have been trying to think of something to make my gazda (host) family and somehow had never thought about making American hamburgers.

After eating 2 hamburgers, and some Romanian BBQ, that Aaron’s host family had stuck on the grill. I headed off to a BBQ in honor of my host brothers friends party part two. There we ate mici, and some sort of mini hotdog type thing, the name of which I forget, followed by chicken and more mici.

Having been to about 7 BBQ’s now I feel that I can somewhat safely say that mici is a Romanian BBQ essential. Mici is spiced ground meat, which is formed into small sausage like shapes. I am probably not the world’s best food critic since I am not all that discerning, but I think it is excellent. I do however think, that like hotdogs, mici is better enjoyed if you don’t pry too much into the actual ingredients.

Pr(ahhhhhhhhh)cticum

This week has been in a word, crazy. On Monday my fellow PCV’s and I started practicum, which consists of two weeks of practice teaching classes and is advertised to the Romanian children as free English classes. While the volunteers who trained last year spoke of having 15 students in their classes, the situation this year was slightly more insane. Apparently word had gotten around this year, and not only that, the Romanian teachers had told many of their students to come without actually registering them. So, on Monday morning we found hundreds more students than we had been expecting. I had some mothers sitting in chairs in my class, with the intent of saving their children seats, and other mothers trying to force extra students into our classes long after we were supposed to have started. I of course was a bit of a sucker, so we had kids sharing desks, seats, and even sitting on the floor, until someone brought some extra chairs for us. Our classroom was equip to accommodate 27 but after the mothers had gotten to me we had well over 34.

We finally began teaching about a half an hour after we had planed. The surprises didn’t end after class began. I had planned for Monday under the false impression that all 6th graders in town would be as fluent as my 13-year-old host sister. While there were some very smart students who knew what I was talking about, Including my host sister Andy, who I had forced into one of the seats in order to ensure that she wasn’t turned away, It was clear that the majority of the kids didn’t know what I was talking about. Thanks to my experience teaching English to lower level children in Spain I quickly realized how I needed to adjust my verbal communication and rely heavily on writing in order to make myself more easily comprehended. Once we had that figured out the remainder of the three hours flew by. Me and the two other trainees, who I have been sharing my class with this week co-taught the entire first day, which served as nice training wheels. It was a really nice way to warm up to this rather draining experience, but it made what lay ahead even more intimidating.

On Tuesday we divided the three hours amongst ourselves and observed the other teachers while we waited our turn. During my hour, of course, one of the Peace Corps Volunteer Leaders decided to come and observe me (all of us get observed at one time or another during the week). I was freaked out since it has been so long since I have been in front of a class, and now, on my first spin by myself in Romania, I would have expert eyes on me. This of course was ridiculous on my part since the PCV’s are there to be helpful, not rather than malicious, but I, the overachiever that I am, have a hard time wrapping my head around this concept. Thankfully my “Marilyn Monroe/ adjective” lesson flowed excellently, much better than you would think it would based upon the name I have given it. Since then I have been really confident in my teaching and have had a lot of fun in the classroom. It would be hard not to; these kids treat us like movie stars. During every break I have to pose for at least 3 minutes while they take pictures with their camera phones. It is fun to be famous! So yeah, I have only gotten to Tuesday, and I haven’t even touched the afternoon portion of my days, but that is just going to have to wait until I learn genitive in Romanian. Study time!

I have now made it through the first month and I feel like we are really in the thick of training. Last Saturday through Tuesday we got the opportunity to get out of town for a little bit. It was a nice break since we have not yet been allowed to leave the county. I along with my language group, and one other headed towards the region of Moldova to visit with Liz, a volunteer there who is nearing the end of her service. She was awesome and did everything she could to help us and show us how she has been living and working in a this city of 50,000, a larger city than what most of us trainees are expecting. Besides eating really good food, and watching the world cup we managed to find the time to get to know Liz’s’ school, counterpart (the teacher she has been working with most closely during her service), and we got to see the children’s center at which she has been working as a secondary project.

Both days we took a group of kids from the center to the park. The first day we took the bale bodied kids. We picked five girls up from an apartment where they live with a teacher and met another five who live at the center, in the park. To my amazement some of them were fluent in Spanish, which they learned strictly from watching telanovelas. Speaking Spanish with Romanians is something I have come across more often than I could have imagined before arriving here. Many Romanians go to Spain and Italy to work and live, so it isn’t too hard to find someone with whom I can speak Spanish. I have found speaking Spanish with Romanians to be the most confusing and tiring activities that my brain has ever been encountered. Some words that used to be natural part of my Spanish vocabulary have been replaced with the Romanian word. Without thinking I mix the languages saying “da” where I once said “si”, and so on. At one point when I was chatting with the girls over ice cream, about something that they had heard in English, my friend Brad came over and let m know that we were having a conversation in three languages. I hadn’t even noticed.

The second day we took a group of children with severe mental and physical disabilities to the park and swung with them and interacted with them. I will never forget the excitement of the boy that I took to the park. Even the mere action of being pushed in a wheel chair elicited happy screams and bouts of enthusiastic clapping. It was nice to be able to do this for the kids. They have wonderful people at the center who do work that breaks my heart, but they are understaffed, due to lack of funding, and cannot always give the kids as much individual attention as would be ideal.

After two busy, eye opening days we came back “home”. We were all a little annoyed to have to leave by 6:40, but it turned out to be a small price to pay in order to avoid the later part of the day. As the day drug on, the maxi taxi that we were on got progressively hotter and more crowded. On the positive side, the ride was filled with amazing pine forests, mountains, and ideal villages tucked in at the bottom and it made me very excited that come week seven we will be allowed to leave the training city and explore some more of this beautiful country.

Being back has been equally as busy. We received our placement questionnaires, and so I have been spending a lot of time thinking about the kind of community I would like to live in, the age I would like to teach, and the kinds of activities and projects I would like to be involved in outside of school. I am going to try to keep an open mind and expect that everything will work out for the best because not having expectations has worked well for me so far, and when it comes down to it, this experience isn’t so much about me as it is about being in a situation in which I can be help. Next week we will have our sight-matching interview, along with our first week of practicum. For the next two weeks, the four hours in which, until now have been filled with lectures and such, will now be filled with teaching. My fellow trainees and I will be teaching a total of 800 junior high and high school students in order to get a feel for the age groups we like and practice teaching. Next week I will be sharing a sixth grade class with two other trainees. We will take turns, each teaching an hour a day. Since I am a California girl and one of the other girls in my group is from LA we thought it would be appropriate to do a Movie theme. Planning has gone really well so far, but I really have no idea what it will look like in practice. My home-stay sister who is a 6^th grader has perfect English, but there is no telling what level the kids in class will be at.

That was all pretty technical, so just to liven things up a bit I will leave you with an anecdote, which demonstrates the chaos that is my life. This morning I was leaving to go to school to print out a few things for Monday’s classes when I ran into one of my neighbors in the entrance to my building. He was excited because he had just bought a car. I went over to check it out and as I stepped down from the sidewalk I noticed a flash of orange. Turns out I had left my house in my slippers. Whoops!

Background. check!

I fear that I may have gotten a little ahead of myself, so before I pick up where I left off in my adventure here is a little bit of the back story for those who don’t know. My name is Sara, I am a 23 year old Californian and recent college graduate. I have come to Romania as a Peace Corps volunteer. Peace Corps, for those who do not know, is an agency of the American government that was created by John F. Kennedy, in 1960. The mission of Peace Corps is to:
-Help the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
-Help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
-Help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.
http://www.peacecorps.gov/
Three goals that reflect many of my values and that I think are necessary in order to promote peace in the face of globalization.

I applied about a year ago, and after a large application, a few letters of recommendation, and interview, and 12 months of waiting not always that patiently, I have found myself in Romania. I am now in an eleven-week training that focuses on giving us the tools to teach English, create other development projects, and gain the cultural and language skills necessary to live integrate into Romanian culture. For the training I am with 44 or so volunteers in a moderately sized city. After the 11 weeks of training we will be placed in rural communities throughout Romania, where we will live and work as TEFL plus volunteers for 2 years, or more if we chose to extend (don’t worry family, I have no plans of this…yet).

So far I am very satisfied with my experience. While I found my Peace Corps to be rather distant and disorganized during my year of waiting, my experience in country has been quite the opposite. Peace Corps Romania is blessed with a great staff, and I truly feel that they have, so far, given me more everything and more than I could possibly ask for in the way of support and training.

Disclaimer: this blog does not reflects my personal views, and not those of the Peace Corps, the Peace Corps Romania program or the United States government.

This is by no means my first attempt at starting my Romanian blog, but hopefully this one will actually make it to the Internet. If you are reading this you can thank both my friend Laura, who told me that I should write a blog because “people will read it”, and my mother, who keeps threatening to get a facebook account if I don’t keep her up to date with my adventures. So here you go. I am now a little more than two weeks into my Romanian life. The experience in many ways reminds me of being a child, in that there is so much I don’t know, and in that I am learning at such a fast rate.
So far most of the things l have learned are very basic, such as where the woman’s bathroom is at my school (as opposed to the men’s), a lesson I learned after using the wrong one for about a week and a half, at the expense of one very surprised Romanian boy.
The bathroom education continued today as I learned that when the city has turned off the water for the day, the water that you will find on the bathroom floor is likely bleach. My tom’s shoes will carry the evidence of this for years to come.
On a more serious note, in the last 14 days I have learned an insane amount of Romanian. That being said, I am only now becoming capable of putting together short sentences and only understand 1/16th of the Romanian spoken in my Gazda (host family), but compared to where I started this is nothing short of miraculous.
I have also become very comfortable in my surrounding and routine. I am living on the ninth floor of a block building with a Romanian man and woman, and occasionally her 22-year-old son and his 13-year-old daughter. They love rock music and dark chocolate, two things I can appreciate. They have all been so welcoming and inclusive that my transition has been fun and easy. I really couldn’t ask for anything better. Even, Their cat, who, at first, made his distaste for me known through a series of displays of rather violent behavior, seems to have finally put down his claws, which I greatly appreciate.
My schedule too is becoming second nature. A regular week day consists of waking up and having awesomely strong Romanian coffee and some breakfast, then out the door by eight with my gazda made sack lunch in hand. My walk to school takes about 30 minutes, a feeble attempt to “keep my figure” but at least it is something. The first four hours of class are made up of language class. The classes are very interactive, and there are only six students in my class so we get a lot of practice. The second part of the day consists of lectures and discussions ranging anywhere from the Romanian economic situation, to English teaching theory, to what to do if bitten by a stray dog (more likely than one may think, as one of my fellow trainees already knows too well). All of that is broken up by lunch and the occasional frisbee or volleyball break. At 5pm it is either time to go home to study and socialize with the Gazda, or out to socialize with fellow PC trainees.
This here, is a hardly adequate description of my day, and more importantly my experience in Romania in general, but it is a start. I will do my best to better fill in the picture for you in the weeks to come, and remember, friends and family, I want to know how you are doing too, so don’t be strangers!