My Latest Addiction

For many years I've listened to a DJ named Vin Scelsa, variously on WFUV in NYC and then on Sirius satellite radio, now again on FUV via the internet. He's a great source of all kinds of interesting music. And this week was no different. He played a guy who goes by The Tallest Man on Earth. He's Swedish, and actually fairly slight. He strums guitar and sings weird songs that are about frankly I'm not sure I could accurately say. His voice is, well I can't describe it either. But maybe not everybody would like it. And yet, I have listened to this stuff non-stop since I heard it. I am absolutely hooked. It's exciting to find new music because I feel like I listen to the same (great) stuff all the time. It takes a lot for me to make a leap to a new musician. Maybe I'm having a Scandinavian phase.

Tallest man on earth - These Days (Nico Cover) - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

That's actually a Jackson Browne song that Nico recorded, which was used to sublime effect in The Royal Tenenbaums when Margot picks up Richie at the bus station. Browne recorded it beautifully on a 2005 live album. I think it's a gem.

A Fine Spring Day

Thursday I took advantage of my freedom, put on my hiking boots, and took myself for a walk. My first stop was at the school in Luncavita to make an appointment with the director for a field trip in May. The Junior Ranger lesson is coming along nicely and we're going to give it a test run with an in-class lesson followed the next week with a trip into the park.

Then I headed south from Luncavita on a hike that I've wanted to take for some time. I followed the road down to Cetatuia and then a little farther until an established trail cuts through the park. I was hoping to take the trail that goes up to or near the tallest peak in the park. Alas, somehow, I missed the turn-off somewhere in the park and continued on a different trail that I had already traversed in the fall. The way I ended up going was longer, but without the steep climb up the mountain. I estimate I went 25 kilometers, about 15 miles. A good day's work, and a symphony of birds and flowers. Everybody has fruit trees in bloom in their yards. Really, most of the trees that people keep are fruit trees. We are very practical here. And in the park, flowers that I would call "the gentian-y thing," "the penstomen-y thing," "the phlox-y thing," and "the phacelia-y thing" were blooming a grand time.

Of course the hike ended in Greci with Angelo's patiserie where I enjoyed some ice cream. So glad it's ice cream season again. Yes, it goes away in the winter. Since then I've had another wonderful pizza and scrabble night with Aurelia and Gabi, more Junior Ranger and translating, setting up appointments with schools, learning a bit of Russian for my upcoming vacation to Ukraine, and thinking about my next lessons. And yes, planning my next hike. What joy to have spring and a walk in the woods. Reminds me of last year in the gorge just south of Dad's house and all that was in bloom there. With luck this year I'll avoid a poison oak outbreak on my face (ugh). And so far, no allergies. Maybe nothing blooming that bothers me, but I've also been diligent about rinsing my sinuses well after being out there.

Anyway, here's a round-up of what I found out there:Above, "Making Fires in the Forest is Strictly Forbidden" and below, "Good Forests for all the People"I'm not sure who this little guy is. So many birds twittering around all over the place, and I forgot my bird book. But I can say with much confidence that I now too have great tits. Photo below by someone else

I Ate My Lunch Outside

Now that spring is really here, things are hoppin’—mostly with my friend Mary and her orphan groups. Here’s a round-up of our weekend, then a look at my walk in the park yesterday. First up: a visit to camp on Friday. One of my park ranger colleagues here has me investigating four-five day camps. I met with him and one of the school directors about this idea. I was confused for many reasons but I told him I would find out more about ways to do this. So, thanks to folks stateside, I came up with some good written resources that explain not only activities that we can do, but more importantly, camp structure, rules, and preparations. Also, last Friday, I went with Mary and six of her older and more dedicated kids down to see Mr. Dinu in Dunavăţu de Sus, a small community on the edge of the delta. Mr. Dinu runs a summer camp for kids from all over. He has dormitories, an industrial kitchen, a basketball court (I humorously shot some hoops with the boys; I did as well as they did), and a rope-style obstacle course. He also has boats, and we helped get them out of storage for the winter (for the record, Mary supervised and I watched birds; it seemed OK to play the older woman card on this one, I’m amusedly ashamed to say). And we grilled mici, cause that’s just how it goes. Delish. We got lots of work done for Mr. Dinu and Mary will send him lots of kids over the summer. I talked to him about Peace Corps and told him to whom to talk to get a volunteer for their school and he gave me information for my guy about setting up camps. So win, win, win, and win. And I gave my park guy all the info. We shall see.It may look like Mary and I are just sitting around, but she really busts her ass for these kids.The work crew and the adorable Mr. Dinu, far right. Saturday I prepped for Sunday…which was a field trip with about 24 of us, Mary’s folks—a nice age blend of her kids—out to see a museum and a monastery. After the cultural activities, we were true Romanians and made a barbecue in the woods. Ironically, my activities were about Leave No Trace, but these woods near the monastery are pretty heavily impacted already. Anyway, while a few of the young men were making the fire and setting up, we did the activity about how long it takes garbage to break down. It’s a fun activity, not sure how much they learned. There were more activities in my little booklet but Mary had also brought things for them to do. They kicked the soccer balls around and made drawings with markers, and basically had good fun in the country. Finally we had a wonderful feast of mici, tomatoes and cucumbers, and cookies. Mary really throws a great party. And no one misbehaved, except the bus driver who we felt spent too much time with the teenage girls and offered them cigarettes. Honestly. I hope we do this again because it was a lot of fun and I at least got a little message in. Above, Eliza; below, Mihaela and Adriana.Grillmaster Daniel and girls making some drawings.This little dog followed us down from the monastery and was very sweet and mostly clean, and he was very keen on getting the mici and needed to be corraled.This is a video of Cristi and Colin doing a dance called the Penguin. Partway through, the soccer ball rolls in, just out of camera range. Colin kicks it right into my stomach. That's why we start laughing.
Then yesterday, Tuesday, I went out to the Macin office and passed off camp info to my colleague. Then I went for a walk in my park, the first time in months. Walked up a trail, up to a nice rocky area overlooking the sheep pastures below. I had a snack and decided it was nap time. Hadn’t had my eyes closed too long when along come the park biologist, our current French intern, and two visiting herpatologists from Leicester, England. They were out looking for tortoises…well, really any herps. They asked if I’d seen any tortoises, and I said no I’ve never seen one here. Really? So I headed off with them off-trail down the hill, and in the next hour we found 11 of them: we weighed them, measured them, tagged them by writing numbers on their undershell in black marker, and made notes about them. I found one all on my own. You can imagine how fun this was for me. This is just a color palette of lichens that I liken.That little plastic tub contains a scale. They weigh about five pounds, dense like a bag of flour.I hope tomorrow, Thursday, to get back out for another field day in the park. We are expecting rain for the weekend, so I might as well plan deskwork for those days and go have some fun while the sun shines.

Wow. Really?

I don't know about all that. But it's an incredibly nice gesture. I'll take it.

Canyon Country Dreamin’

photo of Bryce Canyon by NPS superstar, Kristin Gibbs

Ten years ago this month, the 24th to be precise, I started my national park adventure by showing up to work at the entrance booth of Bryce Canyon National Park. The job itself kind of stank, trapped in a booth taking money all day, sometimes getting yelled at. But the park, the people, and the land hooked me through the cheek and took me for a ride. I will, I’m proud to say, never be the same.

I recently read an article in the NYTimes about the beauty, literally, of a window seat in your jet airliner. The author mentions the obvious views of the Manhattan skyline and other delightful approaches. Then he talks about the trip west to Los Angeles, a flight I know well: “Watch American history and geography unroll below you: the snowy agricultural grids of the Midwest, the jagged Rockies, then the vast and seemingly uninhabited deserts that resemble nothing so much as images sent back by a Mars orbiter.”

Well, let me sing the praises of Mars, because it’s a different experience when you are familiar with Mars and can identify Navajo Mountain, and the canyons of the Escalante, and the Waterpocket Fold. It’s even more exciting when you see Powell Point, a place you’ve stood, and identify Boulder, Utah, by the way the two roads into town meet uniquely at a something between a Y and a T and you fly along over the Hogback where I braved a trip with Loretta in that horrid little truck. And there’s Kolob Canyon at the north end of Zion. And suddenly there it’s gone and we’re in the basin. Or then there was a time on a slightly more southern track where the pilot actually banked a bit so that both sides of the plane could catch a glimpse of the Grand Canyon. Hey, I laughed to myself, aren’t scenic overflights of the canyon prohibited?

The seemingly uninhabited areas of the Colorado Plateau are, in fact, the stuff of human legend—from Mormon pioneers and John Wesley Powell’s crew to Everett Ruess and Ed Abbey’s band of rascals. Our Martian landscape alters humanity when humanity it finds and bewitches armchair pioneers alike. Much of it is now preserved, not without controversy, as parks, monuments, and wilderness areas. One man who was altered, bewitched, and driven to capture the region, Wallace Stegner, wrote that “We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in. For it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope.”

Stegner has done as much as anyone in giving me a frame of reference into which to place this landscape with its greatest earth on show, its mythic rivers, its hard-bitten history. I don’t think I could live in Utah again, but I can never not live with a piece of the Utah landscape within me. This is where I found my environmental calling. On those slickrock outcrops, with the sunny summer smell of ponderosas, I broke in my park-issued hiking boots and was myself broken open by the flash flood of a new life. Stegner wrote, “Environmentalism or conservation or preservation, or whatever it should be called, is not a fact, and never has been. It’s a job.”

Stegner died many years ago now, at the age of 84, from a car accident in Santa Fe. I'd heard he was struck by a bus, but that appears to be simply another piece of western mythology, the kind that Stegner worked so hard to understand and reframe. But I digress. It’s not for the soft, out there. But nor is it for those who have abandoned wonder. I would suggest you do more than drive to the edge and look in. I might prescribe a full-blown leap. I know I’m the better for it.

Paşte Fericit

In other words, Happy Easter. I’ll start with the activities and move into food, from which I’m still recovering. Easter is a big holiday in Romania, some would say bigger than Christmas. Often the Orthodox Easter falls on a different day than our Easter; it depends on the timing of Passover and the equinox and full moon. This year Passover was early and the Easters coincided. And Easter sunday was perfect weather here with many trees and shrubs in bloomforsythia, magnolias (tiny ones), and fruit trees.

My Easter church activity was midnight service. Around quarter past 11 on Saturday night, Mary and friends picked me up and we drove over to Speranţă, the large orphan home. Fifteen children ranging in age from probably five to thirteen were waiting for us. The day had offered up hour after hour of thunderstorms, and as our group walked up the street to the church, the rain briefly returned. Fortunately it did not last. We attended a small wooden Orthodox church. They are unusual in my town, as most of the churches are dramatically large and of cement block construction. The service was held outside, in front of the church. Before the service, all kinds of bells were rung, and we could hear them from nearby churches also. We all stood around the table holding our candles as the priest chanted and read. The congregation sang a bit too; I hummed a long best I could. The service was very short—about a half an hour. The kids behaved very well and we all had a nice time. We walked back to the orphanage and Mary passed out eggs and slices of cozonac. Most of the time at least one of my hands was occupied holding the hand of some bright faced beautiful child.

Easter Sunday I had dinner with Mary and six of her older kids, the ones now in their twenties. Saturday we’d gone over to the house and helped to make sarmale, but with grape leaves instead of cabbage. I prefer these. I think they taste delicious and they are easier to roll up. Daniel, the young man who lead our efforts, is a cook by occupation so I doubt he needed our help. But it was fun and perhaps I’ve bettered my technique. Actually, however, the sarmale was but a small part of our Easter feast. I brought deviled eggs. First course was ham and salami platters, a coarse pate of lamb which was out of this world, green salad, salata de boeuf, olives, eggs, and bread. After we had digested this for a bit, the sarmale came out. Finally, later, we had fried pork and mashed potatoes with pickled vegetables. Well, not finally, I should say. We ended perfectly with fruit salad with whipped cream. Oh my. Between courses we played some games and told stories. These people are so nice to be around. This core group came up together in the orphanages and they are truly family. I can’t understand much of what they say when they get going, but they laugh a lot together and are warm and friendly to me. These are the success stories—the kids that somehow pulled it together and went to university or got jobs and are now productive and happy. Mary can be rightly proud in her role in shaping their lives. And I’m lucky to have found them.

Windmills and Fruitcakes

Progressed on my projects this week. Today having some down time—had lunch with my American friends and went to the pricey grocery across town for tofu, avocado, and some predictably dreamy blue/brie cheese. Splurged for Easter (or any other good reason we can think of).

But to get back to why I’m in Romania. I had hoped by joining the Peace Corps I could learn how to live a life more of service. It has come to my attention in the past few years that I am here (perhaps you too?) to love and serve others. That’s it. Nothing else required; well…maybe have fun along the way, be the light, use my talents, etc. Just because I have my marching orders, though, doesn’t mean I’m any good at this. In fact, I would suggest I have much to atone for, and that’s not a bad thing. So, when I sit down to write my “What I learned on my Peace Corps summer vacation” paper, I want to say that I learned how to take my good life at home and make it better with service.

I am now ten months into my time in Romania. I’ve certainly been on the roller coaster of emotions, celebrating small successes, chocolating my way through many frustrations. In Romania I have a toilet that flushes, hot water for my shower, a washing machine, and stores with delicious food. I use the internet every day. In many ways, Romania does not appear on the surface to be much different. But as I’ve written before, Romania suffers a crisis of civic engagement. We have very little of it. People are not invested in the government, don’t participate in social clubs and activities, don’t socialize with their neighbors, and children are not taught to collaborate or to be empowered. We volunteers tilt at the windmill of Communist hangover.

But the other day, riding home on the bus from Macin, staring out the window as I usually do, it came to me: I am extremely motivated when I go home to be an active community member wherever I land. Much more than I’ve ever been before. I know—I need to go to Romania to figure this out? Can’t I just emulate the Bright Girls? But I know it like I’ve never known it before as the key to all service. Really: join a club, vote, have people over for dinner. Regularly. Even us introverts.

So this is the beginning of planning the next step. I’ve got 17 productive months ahead of me here in Romania and I plan to enjoy them as much as I can. But I also feel motivated to start thinking about where I go from here. And the mindset with which I travel.

And really, must now put down the dreamy cheese (STEP AWAY FROM THE CHEESE) if only so I can move on to the cozonac, the holiday bread with nuts and fruit and cocoa.

Plastic Bag

I'm hoping this weekend to do a real post about a moment of light I had recently about why I'm here in the Peace Corps in Romania. But you'll have to wait for that one. Meantime, I came across this video. It's so weird and beautiful and has Werner Herzog, which in itself says so many things. And yes, it's about a plastic bag. If you have 18 minutes, it's a wonderful way to spend it. And ultimately, it's pretty dang important.

Oops, not sure why it's not fitting in the frame. Click here and see it.