No time to explain, Luni - China

I am doing a project this week, where I wanted to wear a traditional Chinese shirt. On Thursday, I got the idea and I said it outloud in the teachers room: "I should go to Galati and ask a waitress for her shirt, because Chinese waitresses always are wearing a traditional outfit." A teacher heard and said I could stay the night at her place in the city and she would go with me to ask (yay for Romanians thinking it's crazy for me to do things on my own, I was glad for the company because...you'll understand as you continue) the restaurant.
When we got there that night, I asked for the boss who was indeed Chinese, and AHH! I spoke like 1/2 in Chinese and I kept throwing in Romanian words like "acolo, bine, pentru, noi, and a few other" instead of just using Chinese. I had long pauses where I thought, and moments where I gave up and just spoke in Romanian. That = Uh-oh when I go home to my CHINESE family!
In my defense, it has been 6 years since I've used Mandarin (we speak mostly cantonese at home, still...), now I have a larger understanding of why Romanians are sometimes hesitant and eager to speak English after learning it and then not using it for 5-15 years.

I also did get to borrow a jacket and shirt for free =), and they fit me like a latex glove! Crazy!

Power point intro: stating school was working with the mayor's office and Peace Corps on this project. I don't know if I had to get permission, but I was the Peace Corps rep in this case.
The director made the presentation and the kids watched. (Power points are still new to all, the teachers and the kids, I heard they got all this technical stuff just last year from the government: new flat screen computers, a digital canon video camera, printers, copier, a projector and lap top, they also received about 15 computers last month and another copier that's huge and we don't need it: I don't know where all this stuff is coming from, and PERSONALLY I think extra technology should be spent on stuff like better heating! a place for kids to play when it rains, board games for when it rains, enough books for the whole class...ink and paper for the teachers to use!?).


The history teacher made a short intro. I had initially suggested that children do a bit of research about each respective country (example China) and then the PCV would do their presentation. The teachers agreed among themselves that the kids would talk too slow and at that point there wasn't internet on the computers and there's no books on other countries (according to the teachers). Hum...

Me making my presentation, in my costume.

I gave them a copy of the Chinese horoscope, but I didn't have enough copies of the details about the different animals. oh well.


I made potstickers: pork, chinese cabbage, green onion and flavoring stuff. I made a soy sauce and garlic sauce and I think I killed the kids with it by accident. It's my favorite sauce with pot stickers, but it may have been too much of a "gateway" food for Chinese cuisine.

To be safe, I had bought Romanian cookies, and super luckily! One of my favorite cookies from my favorite lady vendor switched from pictures of cell phones to chinese fans! So I got enough of those for the kids, and they liked them.
Here's a full picture of my costume. Eh...not really traditional, or flattering, but it was red and eh.

Beachy excitement in Ro....but first: boys I talked to robbed me...

What they stole: my $140 sunglasses (they were broken and unfixable, so I didn't care about them that much), my wallet with more cash than usual, my CA ID, my Romanian ID, all my credit cards and some numbers and cards, my Keys!, and my Hp sd reader and my camera's extra battery.

Set up: I was playing and teaching golf to the kids in the community. It was actually a headache because the girls responsible for helping me didn't show, and WAAAAAAAAAAAAaay too many kids were there. I was frustrated, I was tired, and I was holding on, but definitely ignoring children at a point.

I had, seriously! about 40 kids with me, just me! no one else really older and responsible (well I had this one 14 year old girl, but she was really quiet).

Anyway, we were setting up, and I had some older boys come and play, and I knew them, so that was okay, but Other boys saw us and then started pushing and beating up one of my students! He's a little slow, but he tries really hard and he's a sweet kid (like Forest Gump). I told that bigger (15 year old? 16?) to leave my kid alone. I told those boys on their bikes to move out of the way of our game. They were up to no good, they were taking our home made golf clubs, and swinging at things and at some littler kids.
They said that was public area, I told them that they can stay here, but move out of our course.
I was frustrated with the, AND I had to say this all in Romanian...gar.
They wanted to play, I said it was only for our students (I really wanted them just to leave).

Later as I help my kids with the game, those bo...I didn't see this very well, my kids caught them doing it, the boys dug through my backpack (which was about 10 feet away from me, and not far from my little kids, but they're little) and stole my stuff and fled, on their bikes.
I had my boys on bikes tear after them, NOT to stop them, but to see where they went.
My boys found my keys, and my pack of 1/2 eaten gum.
I called the local police (no one responded), I called the police police but they don't understand English and hung up on me 2 times (I was told they Do understand English, but apparently not), and I had a girl explain the situation, but they told me to call the local police.
I then had some girls Go to the police station, but it was closed (the police don't live in the village, and they apparently have closing hours).
I called my counterpart (the old mayor) and he told me to call the police.
My counterpart then called the mayor, and him and 2 cars with men in them, went after the boys.

I waited...and they kids watched the boys flee and the mayor and them not going in the right direction.

People have told me that: the mentality in Romania is that there will be a crime going on, and people around it will pretend it isn't happening. This is what I was told.

Today, many adults witnessed what was going on, but only the kids were running and chasing the TEENAGERS who stole my things. These kids grew up here, and everyone knows them.
People told me to go to their houses and speak to their parents....I will tomorrow, but I'm going to give them a chance to give stuff back.
I told the locals Who Live near those boys, that if they SEE my stuff on the Floor, to Please give it to the Primaria, because I don't care about the money, but I do care about that other stuff.

Especially my hpdrive, because without it, I can't load pictures on to computers here. My computer's disk driver is broken, and all the computers here are too old to have scan disk readers.

Even my counterpart told me: why did you call me, what can I do? (I though: you have a car, and you know the people here, you can do a lot more than I can) He did call around though, and he did come out to pick me up and then drive me home.

The most important things: my cellphone was on the strap of the bag, so it was missed, and my camera was with me, and my keys were found, so it's okay. Everything else is not AS difficult to replace.

I've frozen all my accounts and stuff, cause even those those boys are young, it's better to be safe. I've heard those boys have a record of being not good, and ....they're gypsies....which is really not good for the stereotype (I'm not sure all of the, but some of them are).

Asta este (that's the way it is).

I didn't broadcast it, but I did tell some people that this has happened to me before Once when I was in HS and someone stole my wallet out of my locker, and in College (even though 98% of the time it's soooooooo safe at Poly that I actually deserved to be stolen from at the incident at Poly). I told them this so they hopefully won't feel more pessimistic about their people, so they know that it does happen everywhere.

This incident just happened to be outright revenge, than subtle theft.
My kids (my sweet kids) and I are going to go out and look for my stuff tomorrow, and ...I'm going to limit the size of my class so I can keep a better eye on things.

No pics =(...

Let's see what happens tomorrow. I'm going to the Police station tomorrow, and again, it's not that bad really, I'm just sad (which is way normal for having my stuff stolen). I have my telephone, and the keys to my house. I'm not supppppper attached to material things) thank goodness! I don't feel like I am at least ( I won't admit it at least, to myself).

Everything else will take some time to replace, but they're replacable, EXcept the flash drive and the pictures on it. That I'm attached to, so I hope I can find it tomorrow.

Anyway, I was at CONSTANTA last weekend, and it was beautiful and fun, and I have pictures..I loaded them on my computer yesterday, so they're TBP.

goodnight.

Clasa copiilor mare (Older kids' class)

I said I turned the class of my older kids into a survivor like manner using things they learned in class with me. Recently we've done less of this stuff though, but I'm going to try and get it to work this Wednesday. My class has grown yet again, but thank goodness the kids were better behaved today. Maybe because it was Monday, maybe because I had an older girl (18) who helped keep order, but thank you!

We've been having classes for many weeks now (4?3?5?) and I try to make a joaca mare every Wednesday (the large game), where they can win points, and stuff.

Here were the two groups we made in the older class. We have the Bajourii de Padure (Peonys of the forest) and Florii de tei (Your flowers). People are way into flowers here, because not many kids in the US would pick flowers as a mascot or name, but kids do it a lot here, and the boys too. They sewed the material themselves! These are my two group seful (bosses) [chef-ul].

Here we did a bit of telephone seredes with animals. They had to mime 4 animals, and then .... (whot whot WF lake visits!!: my previous volunteering life where we played Lots of telephon seredes, AND there used to be a Chinese television show centered around telephon seredes too! Of course I had to do it here in Romania!)

they had to uncover their guess under these 26 animals to find a colored sticker. Then...

They had to run through a course of chairs every time with their sticker, and they had to collect 4 stickers to open a box with a puzzle.

Then, they had to assemble 5 questions with 5 responses to get an image. They had to make these symbols and they had to use all the bodies in their group to make that symbol to win! First group to finish won!

Unfortunately, one puzzle was way harder to display with the bodies than the other. Oops. The other group had to think for a bit too, but they were able to help figure it out (backwards, but they got it).

So that was an example of our game days. I have to use quiet a bit of Brain Juice for these! I hope/think they like these activities.
We'll seee Wednesdays. The easiest project to do is to show them an English movie, because it's in EnGlisH, so it's educational.
I have a very large spread of experience in my older class because some of the younger kids don't want to leave, no matter how much I hint, so I try to do the best I can. Up until today I know this class was way too easy, so I'm working on finding the balance still.

Recycling Education

Under the spindled web of games, laughter, and happiness I weedle out of these children, there is a purpose to all of this.
A selfish purpose you can assume, and you would assume correctly!

But of course!

I've told these children that to have even more fun in this class! I need something from them, not their soul, but trash.
I need them collect stuff they may normally throw into the street or leave in their backyard to burn into pollution and bring them to class to use for "art" projects.

Examples of what I asked them to bring: popsicle sticks from their ice creams, empty soda and water bottles, magazines and newspapers, toilet paper rolls, and empty boxes (ALL WASHED AND CLEANED FIRST!)
I can't stand for dirty trash =p

Why? To kinda work on recycling. It's hard here to recycle, or to even throw away trash.

Example:

• I feed left over meat and dairy to neighbor's cats and dogs.


• I dump left over veggie material and decomposables into my compost pile


• I have a few bags of plastics I don't know what to do with.


• HOWEVER! Before I had a compost pile I threw it in the trash, and now I have 2 bags of trash juice stuff in my apartment and it's been here for 4 weeks, but I can't bring myself to burn it....and I don't think it will burn anymore.

But in my class, it can't hurt to show that we can utilize trash stuff, and to store it and not leave it on the streets.

I WAS SOOOOOOO HAPPY WHEN KIDS BROUGHT STUFF! AND THEY STILL ARE AND A GOOD AMOUNT!!

The librarian got creative and built a flower thing with scraps of colored paper from the "trash bag" (I made for class) and a soda bottle. I think I'll let her teach a class on how to make it, though I'm not sure what we'd do with it after, cause would a mom or dad want it?

Cynthia's summer classes: Limba Engleza

So in order to find something to do (due to change in mayor, and ending of school, and not knowing what projects I can help with here)...I made summer school. How? I'm not sure still, it just happened. I made a flyer and translated it, and I put up maybe 5 or so, on a Friday 2 weeks ago.

I kept my expectations way way way low, expecting no one, but just in case I took my neighbor with me in case too many showed up and a pack of cards in case no one showed up.

Now it's the end of week 2 and my class has grown from...

• First Monday: 4 younger kids, 3 older kids
• First Wednesday: 6 younger kids, 5 older kids
• Second Monday: 8 younger kids, 6 older kids
• Second Wednesday: 14 younger kids, 8 older kids
• and some kids go to both sessions, which I'm not a big fan of, but I won't tell them to leave (I tried to nicely, but they want to stay). It's hard to plan lessons to cover a larger range of learning levels I'm finding out, and it's hard to keep order with lots of kids, especially young boys running around, but they're pretty good.


• I'm surprised I'm not scared to teach kids at all, and I am pretty serious there, but they like it, and I try not to play favorites even though the little kids try to kiss up. =)

My classes are Monday and Wednesdays only, and it was 9-10, 10-12, 12-1, 1-3, and 3-4 for different age groups the last group being adults.

Now it's: 9-12 for the younger kids, and 1-3 for the older kids Luni si Miercuri. This gives me more time to plan these activities.

I teach them short phrases in English like: "How are you today?" "My name is____" "I do like____" "I do not like____" "I am_____" "This is__color___."

In my younger class of kids I think 7-12?

We make shapes with our bodies, I made them make the whole alphabet. What does this spell?

Surprisingly, I'm teaching similar stuff in both classes, not cause the older kids haven't learned English, but they don't speak it or seem to know how to recognize it (which is my impression).

They understand enough to make sure they can understand me!!

I am surprised we understand each other!!! I have no translator!

I made Wednesday: Joca Mare Ziua= Big Game Day

Where we use a few things we learned in a Survivor competition way (and I've only seen 1 season!)

I gave them A-Z of all the animals. I let them cut off the letter from the animal, and had them memorize them.

I shared my culture by handing them chopsticks to pick up the wad of animal papers.

I set them into 2 groups where a person crab crawled with the wad of animal on their belly.

I had them match the letter (in order) with the animals, and them they had to write sentences on the board: 3 sentences: I do like cat(s), I do not like snake(s), etc... to win!

I'm cruel, but they had so much fun!

They came back!

Journey through the hills

After we walk past the gypsies, we are on a path through hills and...


We see people harvesting honey.






















We see sheep being herded.






We see lots of beautiful nature here in Mastacani.



I then taught the kids how to use my digital camera, and we made some beautiful pictures....=)

I usually look terrible in pictures, but I think I have to admit I looked pretty (personal opinion).

You can ask: Cynthia, exactly what have you done for Peace Corps thus far? Looking at these beautiful photos, you seem to be integrating and people of Romania look happy with you.

The answer I'd give you: I've done nothing to deserve their generosity or really to deserve this site, but I love it.

For every new person I meet, they always ask if I'm married, and when they find out that I'm single they tell me I need to or I will meet a Romanian boy and we'll get married and I can stay here.
While some people may find this kind of hassling an invasion of privacy, I see it as You Romanians are so unbias towards the Chinese and to Americans that you would openly accept me as one of you.
I find it amusing, funny, cute, and sweet.
Until it starts to interrupt my lifestyle, I'm going to keep being amused, as the people here try to hook me up.