HOT HOT HOT ! -- July 23, 2007

Well, here I am in the middle of the biggest heat wave in Eastern Europe in over 50 years! It’s been over 100 degrees every day, and isn’t letting up anytime soon. You can imagine me from Alaska, a beautiful area where it never gets above 80 degrees on the hottest day in summer. I’m suffering! With the incredible heat lately, and the unbelievably hot, stuffy, and smelly bus torture to get out to the new office, I haven't even wanted to leave my apartment lately. They say the heat wave will last for at least another week!  I absolutely must go find duct tape today, and tape mosquito mesh on the windows so I can leave them open.  I'd almost rather suffocate than be bit by bugs all night.  The itching is so bad it wakes me up. 

But I’m so excited! My first care package arrived, from my dear friend Jo in Oregon. She sent zip lock bags, hooray! Unbelievably she even sent corn tortillas and many spices for cooking. I know there are some more surprise boxes on the way, you have no idea how thrilling it is to see that package notice in my mailbox! Of course it does mean waiting until the two hour window of opportunity on Tuesday or Friday when they allow international packages to be picked up, then standing in a hot, sweaty line for an hour before they open every box and go through each item. Fortunately they have gotten to know me now, and I don’t have so much difficulty convincing them to give me my package.

I went on July 10 with some coworkers to visit the town of Rovinari. It’s flat there, and much more industrial. Rovinari is a huge energy producer with giant electric plants, about half an hour south of us toward Craiova. I have been asked to explain where these towns are located when I post photos and discuss them, so from the previous entry, Tismana is about an hour west of Tg-Jiu, in rolling hills, south of the Carpathian mountains. North and east of here there are hot springs and nice monasteries, but I haven't been there yet. Soon I'll feel confident enough to go to the bus station or stand on the street corner and catch buses or maxitaxis by myself and just take off to see new places. It might be better in a way, because I wouldn't be in a hurry to return. My language tutor Camelia said that perhaps the nuns at the monasteries would be willing to let guests spend the night. I don't know how to find out about that, but I will.

My CED group, nine of us, will be attending the last days of the mid-service conference of the group before ours (they've already been in Romania a year), which will be on the Black Sea for a few days in August. I can't wait to go to the seashore. Our Program Manager wants all the CED volunteers to meet and network, which I think is an excellent idea. We need to share information and develop a support system. This is all more difficult than I expected.

I bought my air ticket to visit Peter and his family in Germany! I’ll finally get to see my new baby grandson Janek. By luck, I heard about a promotional offer from discount airline Blue Air for a new route to Germany. Unfortunately they fly to Stuttgart, which is about two hours west of Munich. On this end, the flight leaves from Bucharest, five hours east of here, where the airport is located outside the city to the north. I don't mind riding a bus or train for a while to fly for just three hours. A bus or train trip would take more than 20 hours! Funny, it doesn't look so far on a map, does it? This airfare costs just one euro each way, then another 100 euros-plus-a-bit in taxes. Quite a deal, even with the commuting cost and hassle to the airports. I don’t know if this might be too long to visit Peter’s family, but I'll have books to read and can always walk the streets, looking in windows. Maybe take granddaughters Mimi and Zarah with me. Judith says Zarah is a little nervous about my visit but Mimi is wildly excited. Zarah doesn't even know me, I'm a complete stranger to her, but she wants to because Mimi loves me. I really feel the need to see family, and to get to know these children.

It was interesting to finally meet the owner of my apartment, Emilia from Canada. She is a lovely, bright lady and I liked her a lot. She doesn't speak English, either, since everyone uses French in Montreal, but she has moved far away from most of the cultural mores under which she grew up. She didn't mind the fan staying on when they came over in the heat of the evening on Friday (Romanians are afraid of "current", or any draft at all, you'd be surprised how many educated adults have cotton in their ears to keep it out!). They stayed several hours, sorting things to store or remove from the apartment, but I haven’t seen them again since. She’ll be here for three weeks, and I expected she’d want to spend a night or two here with me, sleeping on the couch in the living room.

I went with Camelia to the University for the last student intakes on Saturday, so I could meet some of the teachers and the Dean of her department, where I’ll volunteer for my secondary project.  The Department of Letters and Social Studies includes Romanian-English, International Relations, Public Administration, and Communication.  Perfect for me, and very nice people.  I’ll participate in the student interviews on July 30, when they select from all the applicants the ones with the highest scores on entrance exams and the ones with the best interviews. I’ll be helping with classes when they begin in October.

Camelia and her husband Florin just bought a brand new little Ford, and they got their first bank loan to do it.  They love taking road trips, although she has yet to learn to drive.  Romanians are absolutely forbidden to drink and drive, so that means whenever he drives anyplace, Florin can't have a drop of alcohol.  In so many ways Romanians are more lax than the U.S., so it is surprising that in this aspect they are much more strict than we are.  I went with them on a picnic Saturday afternoon, to a river some distance away, with friends and Camelia's parents, who live with them in their bloc apartment.  The picnic was wonderful fun, especially since it's 40 degrees C here in the city (above 100 degrees F) and miserable.  The mountain river where we ended up spending the day was still very warm, but shady, and the river was cold.  We took two carloads totaling ten people, and fortunately the new car has air conditioning.  I love this family!  Florin cooked up a storm on his charcoals using a little grate.  First he grilled a huge platter of marinated boneless chicken, then yellow peppers, then big grilled mushrooms, and later in the day mici ("meech" -- ground meat mixture shaped like links, a tradition in Romania).  There was tomato salad, watermelon, treats, lots of beer, wine, water, and juice for the three pre-teen boys.  Everyone played badminton, dunked each other in the water, and made plans for their big three-week road vacation to the Danube Delta for later in August.  The day reminded me how much fun it is to be with close friends and laugh all the time, like they do. 

After we had stuffed ourselves several times over, we all drove up the mountain past a couple of Ceaucescu's big dams (the nightmare communist dictator who tried to rebuild the entire country) to a big old "chalet" at the top.  It's falling apart, but is still impressive for being so far from anything.  It has 20 dorm rooms with baths, and a big dining hall.  But now there's no electricity or plumbing anymore.  A family was living there, believing they can rebuild it as a tourist destination.  I was correct that it was built as a "canteen" to house the dam construction crews, and bake bread for them.  People here do love bread!

This was the most fun weekend I've had since I came to Romania.  On Sunday I finally got to go to the gypsy market.  It is enormous!  Literally hundreds of sellers with mountains of clothes, and shoes, bedding and curtains.  Florin is the best shopper I've ever seen!  He can find appropriate items, bargain for everything, advise whether it fits just right and looks good, and he has fun doing it.  Amazing.  When he says "no", you wouldn't dare buy it!  I managed to get five shirts past his approval, although I need to do a little remodeling on a couple of them.  Craziest of all, for $4.00 I got a big bag of lovely wool yarn and some knitting needles!  What was I thinking?  Hopefully I'll be glad to have a project to do during the winter.  Everything totaled under $20. 

I've been testing recipes for the Pofta Buna (the Romanian term for Bon Apetit) cookbook for the Peace Corps volunteers in Romania. It’s fun but unfortunately I don’t have enough people to eat everything, so my freezer is getting crowded. I guess I need to invite friends over to eat up stuff so I can make some more.

Love to everyone! Think of me sweating while I sit in front of a fan, what a lovely image! But these are better! Picnic July 21 with friends (many moe pictures on the photo site):

Emilia's Visit to the Apartment, sorting treasures:

Visit to Rovinari, with the mayor, the basilica, a sreet view of the powerplant:

Settling in this new home ! -- July 7, 2007

After a month of sleeping on the couch, last weekend they finally delivered the long-promised mattress for my bed, and I could sleep in the bedroom for the first time! What a lovely feeling!. Unfortunately I don't have sheets that fit the bed, so hopefully I can find some. So, anyway, I finally took pictures of my apartment, and will post them on the photo website. It's a pretty nice place, and I'm managing fine. The photos below show my wonderful Romanian language tutor Camelia and her son Manuel and husband Florin. I'm so happy to know them, they are just terrific people and good friends. The next picture shows my coworker Ileana and Tony from Tismana. When we went to Tismana this week I got some pictures there, one with the Mayor and another with the Principal of the school. There are many more pictures of the town on the photo site, too. I didn't get to see the impressive monastery outside town, but was invited to come back and stay with Principal Mihaela for their big festival the middle of August, so will go see it then.

Romania is a beautiful country, and even this small area has a lot of variety. I can only imagine the cultural differences throughout the country and am excited to eventually go visit them. Transylvania is north of the mountsins, and has lots of German and Hungarian influences and architecture. Moldova has incredible painted monasteries and a very different culture. With all the economic and political changes going on now, this is really an exciting time to be here. I love having an apartment, and getting settled in a neighborhood where I'm making friends. Nonetheless the wanderlust hits hard sometimes. We're not supposed to leave the country for the first three months after we're assigned to our sites, but I haven't even traveled around inside Romania much yet. Some PCVs are gone literally every weekend, mostly visiting each other. I will go to Germany in August to see my beautiful new grandson Janek. My son Peter is in Kenai for the commercial fishing season, he left when Janek was only three weeks old! Sometimes I wonder what in the world I'm doing caught here, when my kids and grandchildren are growing up without me. I keep telling myself it's only two years, and I was in Barrow for that long, too. I tell myself, as long as they are all healthy...

I'm so happy that my friends and family are putting together packages to send to me, with books in English, cooking supplies, and other surprises. I can't thank you enough! It's surprising how you can get used to doing without stuff.

I walk for miles every day, usually carrying a heavy backpack, and most evenings my feet really hurt. The agency office was moved much farther away, it's actually too far to walk very often, so I imagine I'll be on the hot, sweaty buses more than I would like. Good thing that now I can often work from home. At last I got my legitimatie this week, and took it straight over to the public library, thinking I could finally get some books. To my surprise they only had two books in English to check out, so I got them both. And now I can finally get a mobile phone contract, so I'm making progress. This week the owner of my apartment is coming to visit from Canada, and wants to stay here with me. I'm hoping it'll be fun.

My Chacos sandals leave definite tan lines! Good thing I'm easily amused...

Copyright © Kristin in Romania