Environmental Projects in Romania

This is extremely frustrating: working with the new tools in blogspot.

However, it must be done.

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I am adding this entry, with great pains (I had to delete and reconfigure earlier entries to have enough space to alter my closed blog) to compile environmental work I was involved with while in Romania.

I had to learn how to compost due to necessity, and after I saw results, I promoted it throughout my community: mayor's office, schools, neighborhood, and even to family and friends in the USA. My grandparents and mother still compost to this day.

 I learned that things like: paper, bread, fruit peels, and even hair can be great compost.

We built compost structures at every school in the community and educated students on their usage.

 I met people who worked with waste management in Austria. Austria is really ahead on how to manage waste in a sustainable manner. It was a great exchange. They came to consult Romanian communities because both countries have to follow strict EU regulations. 

 I was introduced to a plastic company, that said that if people in our community would collect and consolidate our trash, they could turn the waste into recycled plastic bags. It was a step in the right direction. I took samples back to my community and presented them to the mayor with several small project proposals.

 

When I realized that while people smiled and encouraged my grand ideas (they really weren't that grand or unattainable, they were very grassroot) they weren't keen to actually participate or to help me instigate them. 

I found enthusiasm and hope working with the children and sometimes (sometimes) the teachers in the community. I initiated several projects working with children such as small camps during the summer involving environmental stewardship mixed with: first aid training, leadership, technology, and water sanitation. All of these projects were funded with fundraising, local sponsors, or community donations.

 

 Peace Corps says that the strongest deters/emotion volunteers face after their service is the feeling that they didn't make a change in their community. That their 2 years of drive to help others have a better life was a waste. I know I made changes in my community. I know I tried my hardest to advocate and teach others on maintaining a clean community for children to live and play in. Like all the returned Peace Corps volunteers, I wonder if I could have tried harder. 

I don't have the resources to measure the changes before and after I was there, but what I can measure is how much I've changed and how much I've learned from my work in Romania. 

Those 2 years weren't a waste, it was a giant lesson on appreciation and acknowledgment.

Romanian stray doggy recycling

Romanian chicken (probably dinner) standing in underdeveloped sewage system

More developments in Mastacani!

There's a site: http://bcmastacani.blogspot.com/

and I LOVE IT!! and Mihaela submitted this slideshow she made and won a small scholarship! Hurray for her! I love how she is continuing to develop the community =)

Goodbye to the country life and to Mastacani

I am back in San Jose, on USA soil. Whew. It was a long journey and tiring. 

After I woke this morning, I continued reading my travel book and it's a fictional novel about characters who live in English court and it's from the viewpoint of one particular character who discovers that she doesn't like the pretense and intensity of courtly life but she prefers the harder but simple and rewarding life that of a farmer. 

While reading that, I thought about my last 2 years in Mastacani. - While I would never want to say I was living like a peasant/farmer life there was poorer than my life in the techcenter of the world in CA, in the USA, but it's true that once upon a time, I'm sure the ancestors of the people living in Mastacani were peasants to the Romanian royal family.- I also found it more real and rewarding. 

Now though.....it feels like I was living in a storybook. The cold and hot, the change and hardship and beauty is something that is harder to fathom when surrounded by this industrialized cookie cutter world of the US.

I'll miss my vegetable garden. I tried making a deeper ditch to hold the water, like how I saw Croatians do when I was traveling with my family in August 2009.

Sadly, they weren't grown enough to be harvested before I had to departure.

I had to separate Kiki from Nemo. They're both about one year old now (so about 7 human years [Each year x 7 = human years]) and just starting to be more in love than just kitten fighting. I'm a bit sad over this, but I had to take my kitty with me. They both grew up together romping in the countryside, chasing birds and taunting dogs and running up trees and have always been together since childhood. 

Again, I couldn't leave her behind though and I do think she'll be happier being a city cat and be happy to be with me. Otherwise, I'd have left her with Nemo and in the country. 

Goodbye to co-workers at the mayor's office. I had lots of fun being there. It was like hanging out in a cafeteria or detention hall than a workplace often times. Which is all part of why that world seems so easily fictional now.

There were good and enthusiastic kids out there. To me, they seemed in general so self assured and self aware. I hope they all find happiness and stay healthy. I envy their childhood environment. Mine was very restrictive due to the nature of where I lived. I was never allowed outside to play with the other children and my surroundings was nowhere near as rich. While partially, it was my parents' decision, I acknowledge the dangers of my neighborhood too. 

Beautiful forest areas, animals, frogs, small streams and big meadows. Full seasons of snowy winters, leafy falls with warm wines and apples and pumpkin pie deserts, spring full of flowers (which children were forever giving to their teachers). *sigh*.... Maybe not moneytary, but they are rich in other ways.

And the freedom to do what I wanted almost whenever I wanted. I was just lucky that what I wanted to do was also what Peace Corps also wanted me to do.

I wanted to invite Jeanelle to my village to see the place and play with the kids, and it happened. Kids brought Easter left overs to share: Eggs, cake, soda, and etc... and we had a great time. 

I'll miss the support from teachers too. Usually, they were 100% behind me when I wanted to do something with their kids. 

I often didn't feel comfortable imposing, but I wish I had utilized that authority more often. 

There's more I miss of course, but it's best not to dwell. 

It was a great experience, a memorable one. 

For a girl who spent her childhood engrossed in her books, to get away from the mundaneness of suburban life, it was an adventure.

The cat's in the cage, and the destination's been reached. It's time to start living this life, and put the book away. 

Maybe in the future, I sincerely hope so, I'll be able to visit that world again......

As of now, I am a bit confused. Which world do I like better? Does it matter?  In actuality, if I could choose, which one would I choose?   ?

Ce face Obama? (What is Obama doing?)

Every day Vasile would ask me this, all last year.
I would reply: Face bine (He's doing well), E obosit (He's tired), Are nerv (he's angry), danseze (He's dancing), etc...

During the campaign, before, after, night and day, he'd always ask about how Mr. Obama was doing.

SO, while I was visiting the PC office, I saw this "almost bobble-head" Obama on a shelf, and I exclaimed! It would be hilarious if I gave this to Vasile. Obama doesn't know it! But Vasile is his biggest fan.

Vasile btw, is the Mayor's secretary's husband. He's duty is to be a chauffeur to the mayor. And he raises rabbits. Big white and brown ones. Bunnies sell for $5 for a baby and $20 for a big bunny at the market now.

Anyway, I presented Vasile with Obama, I made introductions, and I took their picture together.

Now I get to ask Vasile "Ce face Obama?" every day now.
His responses go like "Are manele sus, asa" (He's dancing with his arms raised like this), "Face plaja in masina si e alb" (He's tanning himself in the car and loosing his tan), and now Obama is Spring cleaning at his house this weekend.

The people love him here, and it's not cause I'm talking about him all the time. They tell ME what's going on with him.

Language barriers...still

So Tina, my neighbor told me immediately when I got arrived home to my apartment yesterday, that a lady of age 42, got a sponsor. She said "o fata a fost sponsorizat." Which...means, a girl was ..I thought "sponsored."

Romanian is a latin language, if I don't know something, I can usually get clues from the roots. Economy = economie, crisis = crisa, foundation = fondatie, etc...

So, after a 10 minute conversation of me asking who sponsored that lady and for what? A marathon? college?....and Tina telling me that she didnt' know why that woman was sponsored. I finally just nodded and gave the *that's cool* shrug.
____________ the next day after work____________
Someone drops me off at the main road and I see my neighbor standing with 4 other momish looking ladies at the entrance to the cemetery. I asked them "what are you doing?" and they answered "we're watching" and I asked "what are you watching?" and they answered "other people watching a burial, " and I go "oh, another person died? or is this the same body I saw 5 minutes ago?"

Turns out that they were watching the sponsored lady of 42 years old get buried.
Clockwheels turned in my head and I understood that "sponsorizat = suicide" at least that's what my neighbor meant (I tried to google translate suicide and it does not = sponsorizat!).
So ...the lady committed suicide..and I asked why, and they told me it's because she's a concubine.......

Which I understood to mean she's an adulteress, or a slut, or a prostitute...and at the time I didn't want to assume the air that I was judging her (she was dead and needed respect, not judgment).

The ladies see my all too familiar face of confusion and tell me that her boyfriend of many years (she's not married to him, so she's a concubine?..odd choice of words) would beat her all the time, so she hung herself 2 days ago. She had no kids.

Which made me recall my meeting last week of a brother-in-law who was caring for the 3 children of his sister-in-law who's husband also drinks a lot and was taking a liking to electricuting his wife (while drunk) with smashed but plugged in light bulbs, on the head.

It's a touchy subject here, a very sensitive one, but it's scary and I would never ever ever stand for any kind of domestic violence. I actually have had guys here, young guys my age tell me that they of course would beat their spouse or girl friends to have them behave!!!

That's a dealbreaker! Not all guys are like this! here! lots of them don't hit any women or children! Granted, the domestic violence in my village (that I've recently been aware of) have all been under the influence of alcohol. eh.

So....my day: got a shipment of wood because it's started snowing (again) and the truck got stuck in a pit of mud in my yard, so we spent 30 mins shoving the car out of the mud and using my new wood blocks to prop the wheels, then I went to teach Chinese for 2 hours at a school (only 5 kids showed up..oh well) with my clothes splattered with mud, then I went to the mayor's office to find out that I got stood up...and my person didn't think to call me and save me the journey thorough the snow, and then I got dropped off and met the ladies...then went home to start my fire, and clean clean clean cause there's mud EVERYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYWHERE!

I saw 2 funerals today, one in front of my work and one next to my house (I live..300 meters from a cemetery). It reminded me of when our co-worker Vicktor died. He had a stomach ache at age 60, and he thought he'd fix it by drinking a shot of very strong Romanian whiskey (tuica) and then he vomited blood and didn't make it to the hospital and he died. I saw him Thursday at work, and he died on Saturday, and we had his funeral on Monday.

I kissed his cold dead hand and forehead, cause all my other co-workers were doing it too. He was a co-worker, but we weren't that close, but it's sad he died while I was there. Here I got to participate and observe a full on Romanian funeral. His co-workers were his family, so ergo, I was a part of his family during his funeral. Not a lot of pictures were taken by me because I felt uncomfortable doing so. Just a few in his memory:




There's never really a boring day in Mastacani. My story went on a tangent...but it's because there's so much to share still, that I want to share, but that I haven't shared yet.

Recent blogging = FAIL

I'm sorry.

I will try to get ALLLLLLL my pictures and stories up before I get back to America.

I will be leaving Romania for good at the end of April/beginning of May.

There's so much to post, and still more to do.

-Cynthia