Vagina Monologues

My senior year at University I went to a showing of Vagina Monologues. Aside from being, frankly, a bit uncomfortable by the blatant vagina lauding, I found myself completely in awe of the confident, young women who stood before me making no excuses or apologies for their bold performances. On Friday evening at 5pm, at the Baia Mare library, I became one of these bold, fearless women who I had admired; only I did it in Romanian. I teamed up with Peace Corps Volunteers Jenny, and Chip, and our Romanian Partner, Andrea. Since I no longer live in the area we had to put it together in a few days time, each taking responsibility for our individual pieces, wardrobe, delivery etc. Jenny and I made up some fliers, which I had the honor of pasting around the light posts of Baia Mare. On the day of the show we all showed up a few hours early, complete with pre-performance jitters. The results were better than we had anticipated. Not only did we all rock it hard, we also had a surprising 40 person showing, the help from friends in the form of picture taking, filming, lights, and the help of the audience in completing a hand mural showing their support in ending gender violence. Hopefully, as was suggested by one of the comments left in our comment box, it will become a yearly affair.

On the Move

With my stuff safely packed into garbage bags, which are currently littering my hall, it seemed like a good time to update about the changes I have faced, and seem to be continuing to face through the duration my Peace Corps service. While Peace Corps volunteers are all versed on the importance of being flexible, I think the buzz word that best sums up my personal experience over the past year and a few months is mobile. Tomorrow marks my fourth move since I began my Peace Corps Journey. The first move of course being from the USA to Romania. The second being from My training site to a small Village in Maramures, in the far North West of Romania, after that came my more dramatic move from Maramures to Dumbolvita, Moreni, an old oil town in the South of the Country, not far from my original training site, and finally my move tomorrow, in which I will find myself in a smaller apartment, but still in Moreni. Even when I am not moving my life around I am likely still on the move. In the past few weeks I have worked at a camp in the East of the country then back home for a wedding and after that straight to a vacation to the Black sea, then to the center of the country for my second year of Ocland English camp in Hargita county. I'm not nearly done. As soon as I can pile all of my earthly belongings at my school I will be heading back up North to Maramures where I will be a reader in a Romanian reading of "The Vagina Monologues" after which I will be facilitating a week long GLOW (Girls Leading our World) camp that I have organized along with my friend Diana. This summer is moving along as quickly as I am. No doubt that my second year of teaching will find me before I know it.

Ukranian adventure

Last Saturday, after much talk and little action, the famous Jenny Ball and I finally made it across the boarder to Ukraine. Of course she couldn’t find her camera, and I couldn’t find my charger, so there is nothing to show for it other than the bottle of paprika vodka in my fridge, some very cheap butter, and the stamp in my passport. You would expect that considering I waited 6 months to go to Ukraine it must have been a difficult trip, but after a 45-minute bus ride, and a half an hour walk, we arrived in Solotvyno. To our pleasant surprise while most things were illegible everybody in Solotvyno speaks Romanian, so communication was not a problem. After changing our money our first line of business was to find some traditional Ukrainian cuisine. The menus at the restaurant were written in the Cyrillic alphabet, but after asking the waitress to interpret for us I found that the traditional food was exactly the same as the food in historic Maramures, where I live. The similarities didn’t end there. We crashed a mother’s day performance, and all the kids were dressed in traditional outfits, nearly identical to the ones worn in Rozavlea. Despite the similarities there was plenty new to explore. The markets not only had cheap goods, but also were full of things we had never seen or heard of. We loaded up on a few new things at every store we passed. After our bags were good and heavy we headed out into the old salt mine looking for the mud baths that we had heard of, but nobody in the town seemed to know about. After walking through, the salt flats for about 20 minutes we stumbled upon an abandoned tourist village that was, and likely is mud baths and salt springs when summer rolls around. It was very strange coming across this well-established tourist destination in the middle of a the old salt mining area. Supposedly people with ailments come from all over Ukraine to be healed in these springs and baths. I hope to come back in the summer when it is up and running, but for some reason I have some reservations about vacationing amongst ailing Ukrainians.

Solotvyno has a fascinating history. Check it out: http://simsester.co.ua/English/History.htm

March first is big day for a Romanian Peace Corps volunteer, as it is both Martisor and the Peace Corps anniversary. This year was particularly important as it marked 50 years of Peace Corps. In celebration, my Peace Corps neighbor, Jenny Ball, joined me in hosting an event at the American Corner at the Baia Mare library. Sixty plus kids show up, eager to practice their English and learn about volunteering. Jenny and I decided to use this as an opportunity to both teach and fulfill two of the Peace Corps goals. The first, being to share information about The States and our culture with people from the host country, and what better way than with a game of audience participation jeopardy. The gem of all our questions had to be, how many Romania’s would fit in the USA. The answer is 41, or 42, I forget. The second goal that we focused on was sharing things about Romanian culture with American. We did this by passing out papers and having the students write one thing that they thought Americans should know about Romanian and Romanians. Here are some of the answers we received. Warning, I didn’t fact check al of these.
-Christmas is very important in Romania, and there are many traditions (hopefully I showed that a bit in my last entry)
-Oina is Romania’s national sport. It resembles baseball.
-March first is known as Martisor. It is the first official day of Spring, and t is customary. for people to give woman pins that they wear until the 8th.
-Bucharest is the capitol of Romania, not Budapest (no offense).
Hope you learned something!

Memories of a Christmas pid slaughter.

As my brother recently pointed out, it seems that I have fallen a bit behind on my blog. So, here is a quick recap. The holiday season in Maramures was everything it promised to be. I got to dress up in traditional clothing and attend a church service, watch the Rozavlean version of the nativity story, go Christmas caroling, eat so much I could burst, and witness the traditional Christmas pig slaughter.

It is not enough to eat pig for Christmas, the actual action of slaughtering the pig and processing the meat is an important part of village tradition. My neighbors, who didn’t own a pig, bought a live one, so that they could slaughter it themselves.

Though I wasn’t entirely sure this was an experience I wanted, I didn’t really look at it as an optional. I came here to be a part of society, and this seemed like part of what I signed up for when I joined the Peace Corps. By this time I have witnessed a number of pig slaughters, sometimes just by chance, when looking out my window, and I can say that it is a reality I am happy to know, as being a vegetarian has never lasted more than a few months at a time.

On this first occasion, I woke up early and walked over the neighbors to watch the slaughter before it was time for school. I wasn’t the only visitor, two other neighbors helped drag the screaming pig into the snow, by two metal chains attached to its legs. The men held it down while the man of the house slit its thought with a knife. It breathed a few last bloody breaths and then was no more than a bloody carcass in the snow. It is a graphic process, so graphic in fact, that I felt truly in need of the shot of horinca that we took in honor of the pig.

Once the pig is dead and the alcohol is drunk, the pig is torched in order to clean it and get off all that damn hair. Once clean the ear is cut up into pieces and shared among the witnesses. The others seemed to be thoroughly enjoying their pig ear, I was able to nibble it down only because it was basically tasteless.

Next the pig was hoisted up onto a table where the butchering begins. It was about this time when I had to run off to school and teach with nothing more than a pig ear and a shot of alcohol in my stomach. Needless to say I didn’t feel all that great and was happy when it was time to go back and check up on the pig. I arrived just in time to help make the carcabosi.

One of the greatest things about the pig slaughtering is that almost nothing is wasted. The bones are used to make soup, the skin is eaten like a snack, the layer fat is salted and later eaten with bread, the bladder, while now not used, was traditionally made into a drum, and lastly the organs, and all other unmentioned parts are boiled, ground, mixed with rice, and turned into a sausage called carcabosi. I will never shake the vision of my neighbor grabbing a piece of the boiled snout, taking a bite, and then throwing the remains in the meat grinder. I have nothing but respect for this ritual, but it is taking some time to get over my American bred resistance to organ eating.