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!
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
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.
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.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
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.
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.
Friday, October 1, 2010
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!
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!
Monday, September 27, 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
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.
Friday, September 10, 2010
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.
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.
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