How Romania is like California

1. Dang if fruit doesn’t grow on trees. We have a great diversity of fresh local produce.
2. People talk about great beaches but I can’t seem to get to them.
3. Amazing civic pride and beauty juxtaposed by evidence that they’ve run out of money to fix the roads.

4. Mountains in the middle.
5. Good people make it a great place to live.
6. The Romanian word for governor is “guvernator.” Really.

More about the Unisex

Alas, dear reader, there will probably end up being more in this blog about bodily functions than you may require; it's the nature of the Peace Corps. Today, though, it is simply a funny anecdote. The other day I walked into the unisex mid-conversation with a man also headed for a stall. We joked, over the stall dividers about how the end stall was the best because the door closes, the flushing handle works, and there's a window--and really, who doesn't want to tinkle next to a tree and a breeze. As we were washing our hands, we laughed that we have crossed the boundary of chatting on the toilet with members of the opposite sex who are not related. Such simple funny things that define, pretty accurately, what it means to be Peace Corps. Stay tuned.

A lot of study groups this weekend, both for language and for my practicum project that I'm doing with three other PCTs. I'll talk more about that later, maybe if we ever figure out what we're doing. But I can guarantee you there's pizza in my future. It's a popular thing to go out for, and very delicious. Similar to pizza in the states except the toppings may vary. We get blue cheese as one of the four on our quattro formaggio. Yum. Somehow I think that's supposed to relate to toilets, but the pizza makes my tummy happy.

Around Targoviste

The city where I am living during my eleven weeks of training has plenty to offer in addition to all the flowers, Gina’s good cooking, and the general hospitality of the Romanians.

Saturday I visited the Chindia Tower and its associated medieval ruins. Targoviste was, once upon a time, the capital city of Romania. The first buildings of this historic site were built around 1400. The tower was later raised by Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler, later to be immortalized in fiction as Count Dracula) for surveillance and defense. At some point in the 16th century the capital moved to Bucharest and the buildings here endured fire, flood, poverty, infighting, all the usual challenges. About a hundred years ago, a program of restoration began and continues today. Today you can pay a few lei to see the tower. I climbed up the narrow circular staircase to the top – a very European pastime free of those pesky American safety standards.
Then I wandered around town past a beautiful theater building and to the end of that street, at the edge of town, to the train station. The train station is much nicer than the bus station—I think that’s a worldwide phenomenon. This is the train station

Targoviste feels very much like a modern city. Some residents feel like not enough has been done to maintain employment levels here, worse than in other parts of the country. And many people live in Communist era bloc apartment buildings which have little to no charm on the outside. But inside people keep them nicely, as observed by my PC-mates who live in them with host families. I’m happy with my garden paradise, but I know I could end up in a bloc when I move to my site—all but the smallest villages have these apartments.

I haven’t been out late so I can’t tell you about Targoviste after dark. Evidently there is salsa dancing and beer drinking to be had. There are lots of outdoor cafes and restaurants. We have a couple of favorites for pizza and lemonade. Mostly I get bubbly water because I like it and it’s the cheapest. You can also get plain water in a bottle. We are instructed not to drink the tap water because although it is properly treated, the pipes are old and usually leach lead and other minerals. All of our gazda’s homes have been equipped with water filters for us.

Today I sat at one of our favorite restaurants for about 6 hours with PC-mates eating pizza, studying together, and basically being Americans. At one point we had a waiter help us with our homework which he was happy to do.

Goin' to the Country

I should have more to say about our action-packed four-day field trip to the countryside. But since I didn't get a weekend, I'm a bit exhausted. Here are a couple of pictures for now. Also had an afternoon trip last week to a nearby national park. Heaven, and great hospitable staff.<

The Unisex

Do you remember the TV show Ally McBeal? Her law firm had a unisex bathroom. So do we at our school. One of Ally's coworkers keeps a remote flusher in his pocket so he would always have a fresh bowl.

One element of cross cultural exchange that is inescapable is the toilet. I'm happy to report that we have them, and they are readily available. It's Europe, after all (although we are not a bidet culture, alas). But there are some curious differences. Often there are no toilet seats, often no toilet paper. And yes, we share at school. There is a large room with sinks and mirrors and another room with a row of five toilet stalls with doors that don't stay closed. And there is little we can do to guarantee a fresh bowl. Toilet paper should not go in the toilet, but rather in the waste basket. And if one of us forgets or isn't on board yet, the toilet she no flush so good.

Humor is also required in the bathing department. We have tubs with a shower head on a flexible hose, but no shower curtains. Our hosts complain that we splash water around, and we hunker in the tub to bathe. Somehow, despite the heat, we all smell just fine.

The prize in the category of personal hygiene, however, goes to PC-mate Saint A. the Heroine who, while attempting to take her first bath, was intruded on by her host mother who proceded to bathe her. Very kind and motherly, no? A. laughed her way through it and won our admiration. I think she's worked this out.

Ah, we take it all in stride. We carry our own toilet paper, put on more deoderant, and keep on laughing our way to Peace Corps success.

The First Week

I should start by saying that I am very happy here in Romania, and I must congratulate myself on all of the hard work to get here and for letting go of all that I have left behind. As I hope is apparent in the next few paragraphs, every indication says that this is where I should be. There have been bumps along the way and will continue to be, and certainly the challenges are great. But, dang!, what I great life I am leading!

Let’s begin with scoala (school). I walk about 15 minutes each way to scoala every day. The mornings are spent in language class which I actually enjoy now that I’m getting used to them. I think I’m doing well and I try very hard to use my newfound words out at cafes and in the magazine (store). I am blessed in that I am entirely unselfconscious in my language use, ie, I don’t mind making a fool of myself in the attempt to practice my language. Hence I find that I am usually the one elected to ask where the bathroom is. (Unde este baia?). Fortunately, of course, the answer is usually a gesture.

After language classes, we have lunch in the cafeteria at scoala. They feed us a very nice lunch, and always a have a veggie option. The vegetarians among us sit at a special table so I generally have the same seat mates every day.

Then the afternoons are spent in sector-specific class. Of the 37 of us (two of us quit and went home after the second day—I’m sorry for them) seven are in my sector (environment), eight or ten are in youth development, and the remaining twenty of so are in TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language). The TEFL group actually visited classrooms this week. We ENV and YD folks have had small group sessions with our program directors. We also had one-on-one interviews with our PD’s. While it’s not certain, I have reason to believe very strongly that my PD, Daniella (lovely, caring Romania woman—physicist by training), has chosen to send me to a national park when we are done with training. I think she’s had me pegged for weeks! This next week we will begin small group practicums (practica?) with local agencies. We will attempt to accomplish a small practice project in the next ten weeks. When they first started talking about this in session, I thought, “Ugh, just when I was getting comfortable with language class, now this! We can’t catch a break.” And the truth is we won’t be catching a break this entire ten weeks. But that is the point. And I have it on good authority that training is the hardest part of our whole tour of duty. So we must also work hard at supporting each other and being good to ourselves.

Next weekend, we have a four-day fieldtrip to visit a current volunteer working at a National Park somewhere in Romania. The element of surprise seems to be a favorite tactic of the Peace Corps. I’m doing well with this, but many others struggle. I feel like my experience so far is exactly what I expected because I didn’t know what to expect. I am trying to go with the flow and be happy at what appears. I’m actually being wildly successful at this.

The food continues to be delicious and overly plentiful. I have to be very firm sometimes with my gazda (host) Gina about not finishing my meals. She is really wonderful and we get along well. And her cooking is delicious. But… So a few words about what I’m eating. Breakfast is always accompanied by a cucumber, a tomato, and often some green or red pepper. She’s made omelet which are yummy, but who do you know who could eat a five-egg omelet? Often it’s ham and cheese with bread. Now I’m also getting yogurt, but it’s along with not instead of. The yogurt here is a bit runny and completely unflavored or unsweetened. But it goes well with banana, which are ubiquitous, and her muesli (cereale—chee-ray-ah-lay). Then for lunch at scoala, it’s usually soup to start and then fried cheese or fried chicken or fried soy patty or fried eggplant and cabbage salad or tomato cucumber salad or potatoes. Dinner at home usually starts also with soup and then maybe a stew or potatoes, always with that chicken leg. Lots of vegetables and herbs, particularly dill. Today Gina made one of her favorite foods—yellow peppers stuffed with a pork/rice filling. Very yummy, although it’s hard for her to accept my dislike of sour cream.

Saturday
Yesterday was a full day and a good day. After breakfast told Gina I needed to go to a post office and could she point it out on my city map. She said instead that she would take me there. We ended up being out for three hours while she sold her Amway products around town. So I got to visit pharmacies, book stores, a department store, and other sites. We walked to the central square with beautiful rose gardens and historic buildings. Lots of flowers and history both here. I’m in Targoviste and it is the former capital and a very nice place. Then we went to the piata which is our version of the farmers market and bought lots of vegetables. People were selling Dixie cups of wild strawberries.

After a mid-day nap, I went out to meet friends at a pizza garden. They supposedly had wireless internet and pizza. Alas, while they were open for drinking the kitchen was closed because of a private party. And the internet did not work. But it was a good excuse to get out and the restaurant was next to the large city park. There are medieval ruins in the park that are preserved and available as a tourist attraction. I did not go in, but will soon. Eventually, those of us who were hungry broke off and found a lovely pizza restaurant and chatted the afternoon away.

Sunday
Today is a slower day. Gina has been away most of the day working a big election—Romania’s representative to the EU. So I washed my hair and did laundry, only to find out when Gina came home for lunch that we don’t do laundry on Sunday. Oops. Many little things like that to negotiate. But I think I’m doing OK with not being too offensive! Later this afternoon, I’m meeting up with friends to do tema (homework).

The weather got hot yesterday. Maybe upper 80s. It’s going to reach 100 here sooner than later. Not terribly humid, although we did have a rockin’ thunderstorm one night this week. And if you’re in the shade, we generally notice a good breeze. Alas, here a crossbreeze is called curent and is generally thought to be bad for your health. So no crossbreeze. Yikes.

I’m happy here. All that meditation is paying off. Everyone comments that I’m always smiling. Before I came here, I had a stated goal that if I brought nothing else to Romania it would be my happiness. Of course it helps when friends send me nice notes. So thank you to all my friends and family for that.
Amsterdam street near where we had lunchGina's house and garden
Buying flowers for GinaInternet cafe with non-working internet and no food
City Park of Targoviste with the date in plants

To Begin at the Beginning

Dispatch from Dulles
I met my group of 39 other new PCTs (Peace Corps Trainees) in Washington, DC, last Wednesday afternoon. Washington was as wonderful as ever—humid, full of schoolchildren, loud boisterous men on the bus who instead of bothering me helped the aged woman off the bus. We had some free time on Thursday morning so I visited the Lincoln Memorial and the WWII Memorial. Then a long afternoon of packing the bus and making our way to Dulles. Alas a long wait (2+ hours) on the runway as the weather did something over the north Atlantic. KLM staff were wonderful and fed us snacks and let us use the toilets. They also plied us with warm moist handtowels and decent food inflight.

Amsterdam
Because our flight was late, we missed our connecting flight and—oh darn—had a ten hour layover in Amsterdam on a beautiful sunny day. We found lockers for our carry-ons and figured out the quick, easy train into Amsterdam. I say quick, easy—but it took us some effort to figure it out at first. Luckily, everyone in Amsterdam spoke English and was nice to us. We were exhausted, but my group of six had a chance to wander the historic downtown, eat yummy lunch at a café (vegetable omelets for some, merguez for others), wander around, and catch a boat tour on which most of us caught at least a catnap. We did see the outside of the home where Anne Frank and her family hid during most of WWII, but the line was long to get in. I was completely charmed by this city; it was a gift of a day. Also a fun way to get to know some of my new PC mates. Stumbling tired, we boarded our plane at 8 p.m. local time and flew on to Bucuresti.

And then I stumbled into Paradise
We spent the weekend in a hotel in our training city which is not Ploiesti as we had assumed. Because the PC asks us not to identify our location too exactly, I will call my city Not Ploiesti. It is a small city of 70,000 inhabitants and was chosen for its representational qualities of the rest of the country. Sunday afternoon we met our host families and were taken to our new homes. Gazda is the word for host and I may use that term frequently. Although I can also say that my gazda is a woman named Gina with whom I’m getting along well. Her house is the paradise of this paragraph. The house itself is simple, but her family has a stunning garden with fruits and vegetables. I will tell you, Mom, that the peonies here are all but gone. Alas. The garden is in a courtyard framed by three buildings and the street. Gina’s house is to the right upon entry. Along the whole length of her house is a grape arbor. She has already made me a variation on stuffed grape leaves. Her parents live in the house in front as you enter. Like Gina, they speak no English, but have responded very pleasantly to my efforts at saying hello. Then in the house on the left, I believe one of Gina’s daughters and her family normally live but the house is being renovated. They have a young daughter named Annamaria with whom I have practiced numbers and letters. She is charming and I gave her crayons. My room is perfect, with a bed, a large armoire, a small table, and two bookshelves stuffed with books that I cannot read but appreciate their company. The best story of my first day at Gina’s was when it was time for Sunday afternoon nap (blessed event). Grandma took her cushion outside and put it down between the rows of tomatoes and onions and took a nap in the sun. I took my nap on my bed, but really who could blame her. It was a beautiful day.

Give us this day our daily chicken leg
Not doing so well on the vegetarian front, although some people who want to be strict are succeeding. On my homestay questionnaire, I was much more adamant about smoking, drinking, and privacy. So my gazda does not smoke, drink, or overengage me. But she does feed me meat at every meal. At some point I will have enough Romanian to let her know I don’t need that much meat. But til then, I can have a vegetarian meal at school every day and do just fine. And Gina’s cooking is very nice. Actually all the food I have found to be delicious. We have a lot of vegetable soup. When Gina makes it, it has a chicken leg in it. Also, the stuffed cabbage is around. I forget the name. Gina made hers with the grape leaves instead, filled with rice and spiced pork. I’ve had a risotto-type rice dish twice, fried cheese a couple of times ( I wish Gina would make this but I don’t know how to ask for it), the ubiquitous potato (which I love in all its forms), and blessedly a lot of vegetables. Breakfast is bread, ham, a local cream cheese-like product, two whole tomatoes, cucumber slices, olives, and tea. Gina has a bad stomach so she has muesli for breakfast. I bought some yogurt and am trying to transition from the ham sandwich back to my normal banana/yogurt/muesli breakfast. Tonight for dinner I had mashed potatoes, the chicken leg and thigh, and a delicious vinegary cabbage salad. And plenty of it. I have yet to finish all the food she gives me, but if it’s not my imagination she is starting to serve me less. I feel a bit badly because it really is all so delicious. I think I’m conveying that properly.

Durere de Cap
Which translates to headache which I’ve had the past two evenings after class. The language barrier is the hardest part right now. Fortunately Gina speaks mediocre French, as I do. So the two of us are butchering the French language regularly. But it really has been a help. She has two daughters who live locally who speak some English, which helped the first day immensely. But I’m confident, after our language lesson today, that I will learn Romanian in due time. It’s hard and will be a lot of work, but I’m up for it.

Oh, I have to go to bed now and I haven’t even started with the stray dogs, my beautiful PC mates, our kind PC staffers, and our patient language teachers. Internet access is still not great. But I would love to get a postcard at the address listed to the right.

La Revedere.