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.

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!