Our First Clue...

Our first clue should have been the horses running from the beach. My last trip to the delta was a winner by any count--perfect weather, good friends, a wonderful boat tour, and a last meal of grilled herring. But I confess we were more than a bit put off by the nasty, swarming horse flies on the beach. We were told it's the season now for them, followed by mosquito season in July. Fortunately for me, I was trained on Assateague to not let a few (dozen) bites get in the way of a good time.

Oh, Sfantu Gheorghe, you are so wonderful. I will miss your sleepy, sandy streets, your lovely and swimmable Black Sea, your wealth of water birds, your lack of easy access which keeps it all so natural, your wandering cows, your end-of-the-world charm. Thank you for taking us in this one last time.

Wild horses covered with flies, running away from where we were going. Hmm.

Above, me with Kate, mother of my friend Aurelia; below, walking home from the beach our first evening out.

On our boat tour with Dimitru, our very safe and professional tour guide: with David, Veronica, and Shaneka. Below, one last pelican.

Cutest.Train.Ever.

This past weekend we had my last meeting with our Peace Corps Gender and Development Committee. Lots of great projects coming up this year and I wish them well. We met in a small town out in the country near this week's GLOW camp. Coming home, I learned I could take the train a bit closer to home than I thought, and we do like trains. I didn't know, however, until I got to Marasesti that this was my chariot to Galati. Just two cars.

I'm done here in Romania in just about a week. Before I go I will post a couple of pictures of last week's sublime delta trip with some of my favorite people and, with luck and insight, a preliminary summary of this whole experience. Although I may just lose my mind instead, if my discovery last night of the milk carton in the cupboard with the coffee is any indication.

River Towns

I have lived on the Susquehanna.
I have lived on the Charles.
I have lived on the Hudson.
I have lived on the Virgin.
I have lived on the Owens.
I have lived on the Danube.

In case you had any doubts, this last one is not wasted on me. I have lived on the Danube.

Remembering Elena Bonner

The world has lost a great fighter for human rights. Yelena Bonner has died at the age of 88. You can read about her life and struggles in a good NYTimes obit. I saw Bonner speak at the opening of our National Park Service GULAG exhibit in Boston a few years ago. Not as celebrated as her Nobel-winning husband Andrei Sakharov, Bonner nonetheless left a legacy of standing up to injustice in her Russian homeland. I wish her daughter Tatiana and other family members peace as they put to rest this giant of humanity.

Sweet Summer Rain

With the weather heating up and kids finishing school this week, summer is upon us. Other local indications include the pretty girls in their summer fashions, the return of the man-capris, and the re-opening of the ice cream stands. Romanians too like their strolling ice cream--just not in the cooler months.

My new favorite harbinger of summer is tarator, a Bulgarian yogurt soup. It's quick, easy, cheap, and nutritious--so you can see why it's become a favorite. Serve it with something bready and cheesy if you like. Or be continental and whip up an easy omelet with some green onion and Bulgarian feta cheese. I might get sick of eating this every day until I leave, but I haven't yet.

Gather your ingredients: 400 grams or 16 ounces of plain yogurt, skim or low-fat milk, 2-3 garlic cloves, 4-5 small cucumbers, dill, salt, walnuts.

Begin by mixing in a bowl your yogurt and about a cup of milk. Recipes on the internet call for water to thin the yogurt, but I've found the low-fat milk makes a nice consistency that doesn't separate in the refrigerator.

Add your minced garlic cloves, peeled and diced cucumbers, and chopped dill. I use this much dill.

Stir it all up and check the consistency. Add milk if needed. Add salt to taste. I don't know if this is traditional, but I like some salt.

Let it rest to incorporate the garlic. Either overnight in the refrigerator or on the counter for an hour.

Serve as is in all its summer goodness, or if you have some walnuts you can chop them and sprinkle on top. Enjoy!

If I were the Pioneer Woman, I would take a picture of the soup in a dark red fiestaware bowl that would show off the white and green soupy goodness. Asa...

Practicing Not-Looking-Away

In the town of Sighet, up north, I visited both the childhood home of Elie Wiesel (before he, his family, and the entire Jewish community were deported to Auschwitz) and the Prison Museum (in the early days of Communism, a notorious prison for political prisoners). Crimes of the Holocaust and post-war Communist oppression are intertwined here in Romania; no one was spared.

I won’t go into the details of what I saw at the museum. It tells a sadly familiar tale of man’s inhumanity to man. But I was struck by a particular thought of why I feel it necessary to keep going to these places. Partly it is to bear witness. As I looked at the pictures of faces lining a long hallway, I was compelled to look deeply and say to these murdered masses that for today, for this one moment, they were not forgotten. I do believe that this has value.

But more I feel that it is necessary for each of us in this world to stand up, when and if we can, to injustice. How do we do this? How do we teach our children to do this? I was struck that the first step we must each take is to practice not looking away. It’s a small thing, you know, to go to a museum and read about some atrocities. But by looking into the faces, I felt a responsibility. By facing the unspeakable truth about who we are as a species, we perhaps pull aside the veil and see what is this complex human life. And then I hope we are better prepared to fight the demons.

I don’t know if I’ve explained it well. But it struck me that I don’t want to be a person that hides myself away from the troubles in the world. At the very least, as Wiesel exhorts, bear witness. And more, seek to understand. So, I practice.

And of course I fold a paper crane.

“As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our life will be filled with anguish and shame. What these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs.”
Elie Wiesel (From his Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, 1986)

Touring Maramureş

In the far northern corner of Romania is the county of Maramureş, famous in Romania for its deeply held traditions and exquisite artistic expressions. Specifically, this zone of rich wooded mountains and small scale farming is known for its wooden churches and one spectacular cemetery.

I paid a small fortune for the benefit of my guide, Dan--rather an institution among Peace Corps volunteers. We pass his name around and save our pennies for his inimitable services. He is a professional tour guide from the area with a car and perfect english. For twelve hours he drives, guides, wanders one around fields, and basically extols the virtues of his native land. Those virtues are many. Simply driving through the countryside one is awed by the landscape and the lives of its inhabitants.

So here, in a very small dose, is the tour.

Our first stop was the wooden church of Budesti. We went on Sunday purposefully to experience a service in progress. Visitors don't seem to bother the parishioners, in fact the opposite; women encouraged me to come in and take pictures.

Above, our last stop--another wooden church, this one in Sapanta. Below, a typical wooden gate with intricate carvings.

We stopped along the way to look at a working mill. It is attached to a 100-year-old thresher that still operates, and a grinding wheel. Water also runs from the mill to cool a palinka still. Palinka is a double distilled liquor made from plums and/or apples. I've tried it--it burns the mouth, perhaps an acquired taste. I prefer the single distilled plum tuica that we have down south.

Some beautiful Maramures scenery.

Haying is its own art, as it is in much of the rural parts of Romania. Above, a typical rack for hay. Below, a covered hay storage unit unlike anything I've seen elsewhere in the country. My guide Dan waxed poetic about the loveliness of a night spent sleeping on the hay pile, able to look out at the stars. One can assume this experience is improved by a pretty girl and a bottle of wine, although that was left unspoken.

Above, the road home over the mountains. Below, welcome to the Merry Cemetery.

The Merry Cemetery in Sapanta is famous country-wide. In general, Maramuresans love color. Back 80 or 90 years ago, a young artist got the idea to sell individualized grave markers to villagers. Today his work is continued by two apprentices. Each painting depicts the deceased engaged in his or her livelihood, or perhaps tells the story of their manner of death. Although it may be easy to view the cemetery as an overhyped tourist attraction (many tour buses there), I found it to be an inspiring and truly unique expression of folk art.

We also fit in a visit to the Prison Museum in Sighetu Marmatiei, commemorating the victims of Communism, and a stop at Elie Wiesel's house in the same town. But I will post separately about that. Maramures is a celebration of vibrant culture and living traditions. No need to bring it down today.

How to Make Romanian Lemonade

We like our lemonade here in Romania and I thought I had a couple of good recipes to share. Then I went on a rambling country tour with a local guide and now I have a third. So in reverse order, here is how we make lemonade in Romania.

Number One, the elderberry version.
This is the recipe of our grandmothers, the country ladies who may still go out and gather the flower heads from the elderberry bushes. I don't have an exact recipe, although you can find them on the internet. I hope to play with the recipe a bit when I have ready access to elderberry flowers. Also, my tour guide told me to dry the flower heads, but my friend Jenny says she's used them fresh and the recipes online seem to use fresh.

10-12 elderberry flower heads
8-10 liters of water
1-2 pounds of sugar
3-4 lemons
yeast, Brewers is best but baking yeast works too (use less)

Boil your water and add it to the macerated lemons, sugar, and flowers. When it cools a little, add the yeast. Ferment up to 5 days, then strain, refrigerate, and enjoy.

Number Two, the Aurelia Version...variations on a theme
Elsewhere in Romania, outside of grandma's kitchen, it's common to find fresh-made lemonade with the additions of lime, ginger, and mint. This is an approximation of Aurelia's homemade lemonade. I'll be making this a lot in the future.

1 liter of boiling water
3-4 lemons, chopped up
A good chunk of ginger root, chopped
A handful of mint, chopped

Steep the ingredients for a good long time, mashing the lemons to extract the flavor. Sweeten with sugar or honey while it's still warm. To serve, dilute with flat or bubbly water over ice.

Number Three, Personal Lemonade
With the abundance of lemons in this life, it's handy to develop one's own recipe for making lemonade. Here's what works for me:

10 liters of staying present in the moment
3 parts patience and flexibility, available at the Peace Corps store
4 parts love and laughter, reflected every day in the children's faces
Handful of compassion, oh go ahead and throw in another handful
Mix it all up in the loving embrace of family and friends, sweeten to taste
**Importantly, let go of needing ingredients you don't have. This is enough!
Shake on a liberal topping of forgiveness, include enough for yourself.

Serve regularly at dance parties and scrabble games.

We Built a House

In the end, our efforts paid off and we built a house for the Petrus family of Beius, Romania. I say we. This was a wonderful collaboration of Peace Corps volunteers and their friends and family from the states, PC staff, HFH affiliates in the states, Romanian volunteers, and our incredibly professional and motivated Habitat affiliate in Beius. And of course, the Petrus family themselves who worked hard by our sides all week.

The reason we did this project was to celebrate 20 years of Peace Corps in Romania and 50 years of Peace Corps worldwide. But even more, personally, it was an opportunity for each volunteer to commemorate his or her own experience as a Peace Corps volunteer. So much of what we do is abstract; we don't see the results of our work. To build a house, a tangible result, was extremely satisfying. And we had a great time working together, side by side with old friends and new. For those of us completing our service in the next month or two, this build was a particularly sweet closure on our service.

As promised, here are a few more of the pictures from Day 2, plus a few from the last couple of days. The local Habitat crew will finish up with the windows and doors, the wiring, plumbing, and trim. In the next couple of months, they will connect the house (and a few others being similarly built this month) with the city services. And the family should be in later this summer.

I leave this project behind with such gratitude for all our participants, whether they helped out with time and sweat, money, or simply with warm wishes and prayers. Thank you all.

The outside of the house was lined with styrofoam and then stuccoed.

The styrofoam is held on by tacking it to the plywood. The "tacks" were nails put through bottle caps.

Below, PCV Amanda stuccoing her styrofoam.

After the stucco was done, we tiled the roof. The Habitat staffers did the high elevation work and we moved the tiles.

Above, Holly displays a tile with the name of a donor painted on the underside (in this case, herself!). Below, one of the donations I secured was from the Habitat affiliate in Chemung County, New York--where my Dad volunteers. Big thanks too from me to cousin Becky and my Mom! Your tiles are somewhere on that roof too.

Oh, hey. There's Becky's.

Above, Justin and his paintbrush. Below, Melody and Mary Ann being their wonderful selves. So great to see you ladies!

Marta sands the ceiling and walls after the spackling dried.

We also made signs for our hometowns and to thank our hometown affiliates. Kind of a fun side project.

And of course in the end the house was dedicated.

Me with Alina Petrus and her nice sons, Claudiu and Alin. Below, the night's entertainment at the super dinner celebration thrown for us by our Country Director, Sheila.