IST (In-Service Training) = Checking of volunteers' sanity after 6 months

There were some volunteers who thought this whole thing was boring and a waste of time. I on the other hand needed this "vacation" and it was fun...though jam-packed busy.
Again here was our schedule from 9-6pm every day
(but really more like 7:30am-9pm or 11pm every day =) )

We had language classes (grammer and different topics about Romania), meetings about grants, about how to get along with people, etc... But there was an underlying theme I observed in all of this: everyone made an emphasis on how "well we were doing" "how we were going in the right direction" "how blah blah blah"
It was great! I felt so proud of myself, I needed to pat myself on the back after every conversation with a staff member, BUT I think that was one of the points of IST: to make the volunteers not feel down about not communicating well, not knowing what they're doing in their new organization, not having made real friends yet, etc....
So: seminars, skits, dancing, etc...


My buddy Emily made a WHOLE BOOK by herself to help those of us still struggling with language. It's topic oriented and very cute and purse size. She's using it to fundraise for a student organization too!

Here are some volunteers with our name tags, discussing a a topic to present. Next picture is of counterparts who came to the conference. In order: Nils', Emily's, and then both of my replacement counterparts: the mayor and a lawyer.

We were at a hotel with 8 floors, so I took some morning pictures from the 7th (the 8th had a satalite dish and the door was chained shut). My eyes look crazy, but the background is pretty so oh well. I'm sure my eyes don't really look like that normally.


We ate sooooo well at the hotel!!! Yum!! Great service too! and oh! the Deserts, I didn't take pictures of them cause I was busy scarfing the sweets. Breakfast, breakfast, lunch, and for dinner we didn't eat at the hotel so we got money to eat where we wanted to.

That's buddy Jenn there copying language notes after class. =)

Most nights I went out because this was the first time I saw most of my colleagues from PST (about 5 months ago). Some people didn't eat out at all and saved the extra money. I'm a saver too, but when I am out to have fun I like to have fun. This food is Hungarian and it's called prnounced: Gooh-lah-sh. It's a zesty soup with beef stew chuncks and potatoes. For dinners that week I tried Hungarian and Italian.

List of Complaints as of Today:

So....I admit, I am a bit frustrated about a couple things, but there are lots of happy things too: like this full box of semi-melted Trader Joes chocolates next to me.

At first my bathroom ceiling in was leaking. It war resolved by the person upstairs putting a stopper in the pipe leaking.

Next the pipe under my sink started to flow and go all over the floor, and when people came to fix that the shower was leaking.

After that, the people upstairs and my landlord determined that the old water system must be stopped and that my hot water boiler is not working because of this old system, so men came last week: 7 construction men, and put new piping in and took stuff out. They kindly left dirt, wood grains and platic everywhere for me to clean up.

That same evening I noticed a leaking on the kitchen floor. I called my landlord and told her...and they said they'd fix it the next day. 8 days later...it's softened the frame of my kitchen door and it's seeping into the hall. I'm using towels to soak up as much as I can, but...I did what I could. I've told them every other day the whole week: my landlord and her husband. Ground in kitchen = "water bed" floor right now

Other topic: I have a Peace Corps conference next week called: IST or In-service Trainging where I'll be attending workshops on how to make me a more effective volunteer, a language test to see if I've grown more fluent, etc... It's from Monday - Saturday and on Friday and Saturday our counterparts are invited to attend.
This is exciting for me! To see other volunteers after about 5 1/2 months of being seperated, BUT it's really not all that exciting in terms of listening to presentations about Everyone's experience, reassurance from our staff, blah blah blah.
Fun part is: my countpart was ..more or less forbidden to attend the conference with me because the Mayor of the village doesn't want him to go. He wants to go, which is super flattering! I was the only person in our group with a Mayor as a counterpart (in the US I didn't really think much of mayors...but maybe cause I'm from the huge city of SJ) Anyway, you may all remember that my counterpart WAS the mayor, and now is the vice-mayor. It's flattering...but from what was a nice PC week has turned into a political situation. The mayor wants to go, or someone else to go, my counterpart wants to go cause I think it's personal and partly political, ...and the Mayor next door is joking now that he wants to go too.

1 week of this, with me trying to be diplomatic too, I tried!!! and I didn't insult anyone, but I didn't settle the issue either. PC is telling me to be flattered and take this funny..it is, but I also feel like a trophy right now too. (Asian trophy, trophy wife, trophy American...really I'm flattered but...)

Other complaint: My bug bites, I really think they were bed bug bites are not puffy, but they're big and bold and obvious on my body, they are also dry and they itch. On top of that, I think I have a food allergy too cause every day more spots appear on my body: maybe 3-7 every day: on arms, legs, back, neck, eyebrow, etc... For the bug problem, I bug bombed my bedroom and hall, switched rooms for 2 weeks, and sanatized Everything. For food allergy problem, I have been taking allergy medicine and I have been eating super plain foods: boiled potatoes, boiled carrots, PB and J sandwhiches, PB and J sandwhiches, Butter and J sandwhiches, and coffee. I did that for about 6 days and quit after I didn't get better. I have an appointment with our doctor at IST now.

Anyway: housing complains, work complaints, health complaints...yeah, don't get me wrong, still Love Peace Corps and my work and the people here. I'm just a little fed up with some things. Oh! and it's pretty cold and I have wood, but they're not chopped! cause the mayor and vice mayor are too preoccupied to get people here to chop it for me to use!

Going on vacation to a hotel in Mierciurea Ciuc next week...I hope all problems will be over when I get back!

I also have this bottle of Must [moo-st] I got as a gift: it's wine before wine and tis' tasty. I didn't know it existed and it's really popular here. If this bottle looks familiar, people re-use water and soda bottles here for milk and wine.

Day at the beach - Constanta

So it's about a 4-5 hour drive from my site to the beach. If I were to go by myself or with other volunteers, or friends and family from the state, we would use public transportation and it would take longer.
This is a channel that the communist Dictator had all the intellectual people manually build. His goal was to have it connect to Bucuresti (the capital of Romania) but the revolution happened, and the Dictator was held to trial and "put down" before the channel could be finished. It's pretty close to being done, but my guides told me that it's unsure when or if it ever will be "completed."

Here's a ship with the city's name. It's a landmarking item. This next picture is Not Only a landmark, but also a lighthouse for ships.

Here we are at a beach restaurant where I got a iced coffee drink and ice cream and food. My travelmate's sister works there and she's a manager.
While I was sitting there, sipping on my frap (no starbucks, but it's an iced creamy coffee flavored drink) I felt like a horrible spoiled volunteer. YES. (it's okay though, I've been back to my site for 1 month, and Life HERE all but made up for it: with the lightning and no water and no electricity and stuff). I don't know if African serving volunteers get to spend a weekend at the beach drinking fraps and sunbathing for 2 days for free. =/

On beach was more secluded, and the other is where we stayed and it's where Bush went to visit.

No such thing as "Topless Beach" in Romania because ALL beaches CAN be topless beaches. I took this for the umbrellas, but there's a picture of the thong swim suits and a person preparing to be topless. Men wear speedos a lot too.
Me being silly, I did go swimming 3 times!! The first day in the warm water! and the 2nd day I went swimming once and I found large seashells to give to my kids in the village as prizes. They cut up my feet!! But I lived, they were shallow.

Here's picture of us: my counterpart, my tour guide, and my counterpart's wife, and me =D

I tore off the pink flower after that trip.
If you're wondering: yes we do have, I think 2 or 3 volunteers stationed there.
P.S.S. If you're wondering how much this cost me, it was almost free, which worries me. Why? I think the intention is honest, but I know I'm kinda being ...bribed in a tiny way because my landlord has this son...and he lives there in that city, and I can't be mean to him or totally ignore him now can I.
We didn't see him there, he was away, but he did call me every day while we where there.

Site visit this week

I will be gone from Miercuri noapte (Wednesday night) pana (until) Duminica (Sunday) because we are going on site visits this week.

Ergo: I won't be able to go online for a while.

It may be like real Peace Corps now, or what I expected of Peace Corps.
I know, expecting anything is bad, so I will work on un-expecting for my site visit.

Tomorrow we meet our "counterparts" the person who will be our "in," maybe our friend, definitely our interpreter and anchor at our new sites.

I don't have any expectations because I don't know where to begin: male/female, young/old, typeA/typeB??

I have told my gazda family that I'm leaving town for a few days and our language classes have been canceled this week though our profesori (plural professor) gave us plenty of tema (homework) to keep us writing Romanian.

It's nice to have this break from language class, but also kind of a bummer because there are things I don't understand about making correct sentences.

I remember in 1st grade our teacher telling us that "nice" isn't a real word and that people don't use it anymore. She said that "kind" is a more proper word. I've always felt shy about using the word nice since, but here in Romania people use it all the time!
Was my teacher right? I still hear the word being used until now...?