HABITAT FOR HUMANITY IN ROMANIA

PROLOGUE:
I went ....I was at Nancy's place (come to remember) to talk to a couple of her English classes about how it is to be a "young" American and to talk about fashion and food and films, etc...
It was fun. Anyway, on my last night there I got a confirmation from Melissa that Habitat for Humanity Was organizing a volunteer program for foreigners (non-Romanians), and I was to be part of the pilot group.
So I told Nancy and Dan, and saw their enthusiasm and envy, and asked Melissa if there was more space, and Nancy concluded that bringing me to her village equaled a week's worth of work, so she decided to not teach the following week and come with me instead.
We then told Dan that if Nancy wasn't going to work, and if I wasn't going to work, then Dan really didn't have a reason to go to work too. He said his colleagues hate him anyway, and there was someone on call to sub for him, so after too little reassuring, he decided he wanted to come too.
WE HAD A BLAST!! ONE OF MY FAV. VOLUNTEERING EXPEDITIONS EVER!

We stayed at a "sports hall" so a gym, and unfurnished gym besides lockers. We slept on relatively inflated mattresses and we had a boys' side and girls' side too. We were 6 PCVs. Oh, and we paid our own way there = true altruistic volunteers (you never know).

These were the houses we worked on building. We were working on 3 townhouses. (Where's Waldo? the pork)

We were going to work with lots of fiber glass...but first. So we were to be "foreign" volunteers from another country, to come assist this Habitat branch with building houses with families that applied. The families were also there building the house (a requirement as part of the program). Besides the coordinators, the people spoke no English, but it didn't hinder our work.

We had to go through a quick training program so we didn't hurt ourselves and each other with Mihai (in the blue). He was a quick man but a strong and organized leader.

So, the boys really wanted to wear the jumpsuits...so we let them. I wore the clothes on my back, goggles and a face mask. Ouch! to the fiberglass after our work was done for that day. And DOUBLE ouch! when I had to put the same clothes back on for another day of working! and then the 3rd day too! (I didn't bring that many change of clothes, and where do we wash them?, oh well).
We were well fed. Melissa organized us breakfast and we had fresh milk from the cow kept out back.

We were hard at work, discovering where out talents lied. I failed at stapling to the high ceiling (I am short), but I excelled at cutting dry wall (thanks Mom! for having us practice all our own home remodeling!).

We met another volunteer from South America who is currently studying in Romania (why? I don't know, but okay) and we're facebook friends now.
We worked pretty hard, with few breaks, but Melissa was always making sure we took our brakes: drank some water, ate some snacks =D We agree that Melissa is the larger, older, whiter version of me, because if I were her I'd be doing the same thing; amongst other reasons, but I had a worry-free time having her watch over us.

We got along great with the future house owners. There was a bit of awkwardness at first at figuring how we would all be working together, but we all had the same goal so it became fun.

And what's a Cynthia's Blog without the mentioning of what we ate?!?
On our first night, Melissa hosted us and we had a cooking party! Italian-American =pasta, garlic bread, salad, and ice cream!

During our stay there, Melissa claims the families were actually ...demanding?/were insistent that each of them would be given the opportunity to host us.

We had lunch in the empty houses, and the families brought in food from relatives.

We were invited to people's relatives or current residence to be served dinners. I ate sooooooooooo many stalks of onions and garlic. Apparently that's a different tradition that my region. You can see the stalks of onions in this picture. They dip it in salt, or in soup: sip of soup, bite of onion, sip of soup, and repeat.

I had caffeine to help me blog AMAP today! I am writing at last!!
Here we are at dinner!

While we were at this home, they mentioned they had a cow, and someone? maybe me? It could have been me..because I would ask something like this, but I don't remember cause it's been 6 months. Anyway, that we'd never milked a cow, so we all went back there and tried to milk the poor dear. I did better than some, but this was still my first time and I didn't get much out of Steaua (Star - the cow).
There was some GREAT foods!
Someone even served giant tubs of ice cream! I'd never eaten ice cream served after dinner in tableware before that night. Someone also made something like BBQ sauce on chicken, but it was made with tomato sauce and red peppers? Crazy.

See how much I enjoyed the food? We enjoyed the food?

On the last afternoon, we had a large BBQ where there was lots of meat served and beer, and someone kept stealing my pear juice and replacing it with a draft of beer, but in a joking manner because we'd bonded that much and it was okay.
We got diplomas for our hard work (my first and only diploma in Romania), and we took some fun group pictures.

Oh, and the kids there liked me. Like I mentioned, we slept at the sport's hall, and that means we were sleeping in the middle of school grounds. Yes, they were curious kids and I gave them my yahoo messenger ID. Can you find me among them? 5 points to you if you can do it within 10 seconds.

So that was that.
My type of Volunteering: to do something good for others, being well taken care of and loved while working, and having a unforgettable experience with old and new friends =D

I dedicate this blog to Dan and Nancy. I'm glad I convinced you to play hookie (in a responsible manner) and I'm sure you guys thank me too. We were so hard core.

Oh, and special thanks to the families that let us use their showers to clean ourselves, which was nice because we didn't have an alternative way to stay ungross (sweaty, itchy, powdery, yucky) otherwise.

Daily life...these days

So, different than last year, but similar.

I've been busy lately planning for my trip with my family starting next week. We'll be caravaning through Europe: Italy, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, and then Romania.

I've been good though since my last trip with katie (blog is under construction, but almost ready to be posted ;) ). Mostly, I've just stayed at home. All the other volunteers in my area have gone back to the states to move on with their lives...so it's not like I have anyone to visit anyway. Anyway, I'm sad and happy for them, but I know they're more sad and scared than anything else. The US sounds like a scary place, and for them: a place where we have to make decisions for the future again. Here we're in limbo, and we don't have to really think about "later." Yet.
Anyway, this was the only picture we took at our "good-bye" luncheon. Emily and Nils took off (from my group) and Nancy and Dan took off a week after (from an earlier group, and they finished their 2 year service). Em has a fetus in her, and Nils got accepted into his dream job and got a 1 month notice, so they had to leave quickly.

Oh well. Meanwhile, in the village....

I cleaned 1 of my sour cherry trees of its cherries, and I spent 9 hours in total pitting them, and removing any worms while watching movies, then boiling them in sugar until they became jelly. *sigh* and out of this giant thing, I got 5 small jars. It was fun...but I can't say I think it was worth the loss of sleep.

We remember the corn maze I made? The corn is done!! and so so sweet!! yaya!!!

Now the chickens. By the way, I'm not running around in the forest with kids so much now because I somehow obligated myself to a whole bunch of weeding, feeding, watering, greaving over my yard, which is rewarding in itself, but takes my time away from the community too.
So anyway, chicks are crazily well behaved! They go right to their bed at 9pm fixed! Every single evening, rain or shine, early Summer or late Summer. All by themselves!!

Unfortunately, you see how those chicks have grown too big for their coop? Well...the little dudetta: Bandita died because enclosed spaces over Summer heat = chicken mites, chicken worms, and etc...At the autopsy at the vet she said my chicks had it ALLLLLLL. *shudder*

So I got little pills I had to jam into every single beak, pesticide to soak their coop in, spray for their little bodies, vitamen suppliments, etc... It was actually pretty cheap too: less than $10 for it all. So now I was down to 8 chicks.

Oh..I was wondering what those grey dots on me were. LUCKILY, THEY DON'T LIVE OFF OF HUMANS! They may get on us, but in 10 days they die. This one is grey because it didn't have any blood inside it. I am mite free at the moment =D, But of course I have at least 15 mosquito bites on me. I put spray on, but...I live in a swamp. I think my itch tolerance has gotten stronger.


A SAD, BUT ONE DAY COULD BE PUBLISHED IN CHILDRENS' BOOKS, STORY:

There once was a special chicken. He wasn't a rooster yet because he couldn't crow yet. He was more special than he knew. When he was just a little chick, he slept nice and comfortably next to a warm light bulb next to his brothers and sisters. He lived in a yellow world, where sometimes a giant being would come and supply him water to splash in, and food for him to peck at. Unbeknown to him, the giant being was part of even gianter being: a human. This human was responsible for 10 little chicks, and for what would happen to them when they would be grown, she didn't know, but for the moment she would clean and feed them and keep them warm and secure. Days passed quickly and the chicks began to grow and have more energy. Word got out that this human had small chicks. In the human's home world, not many people had chicks. One friend asked the human to pick the best female and male and she would adopt them. So the search began.
One morning, our little chicken woke up to see an elastic around his little foot. At first he found that he waddled a little strange because one leg was heavier than the other. There was also the problem of being tangled with small branches if he didnt' lift his foot correctly. Eventually, he got used to having it with him. He later realized that he wasn't the only one with this new assessory, but it wasn't the future hens, but all the future roosters that got it. However, all of them were different colors. His was green, the big bully's was red, the fatty one's was blue, and the boring dude's one was yellow. The red chicken loved to show off his nice band and how it matched his crest. As he grew larger, the band ceast to exist, and he gave no more thought to it. As he grew larger, he also realized that the hand that fed them, was actually part of a whole being, much much larger than the hand. He also realized that his yellow world was a place he was later free to leave. In this green and brown world there was lots of stuff for him to peck and consume. He quickly learned that not everything green was edible. The human tended to throw rocks and hard objects at him and his family when he pecked at her vegetables too. At first it was fun, but later he learned that the human was really aiming at them and he stopped entering in the forbidden area.
And that was his life. He hopped out of the coop in the morning, ran to the Human when she woke up to accept breakfast, bathed in the sandy spot in the yard, and sat in the shade and slept during the hottest part of the day. This he did every day.
Of course there were moments in his life where he had to deal with some loss. When he was just 3 weeks old his first brother died due to a heart attack (he was afraid of cats, and he had a weak heart). When he was 2.5 months old his baby sister died to mites and worm infection because she was too small to hop onto branches to sleep like the older sisters and brothers. She stayed sleeping in the coop and the bugs got her in her sleep. Verde, is what he was named due to the color of the band on his leg, greaved over her for a long time and vowed to never let the mites get him as they got her. To this day, Verde sleeps on the high branch available, and sometimes on top of the coop.
And this was the way that Verde thought life would be. The human would always be there to give him his breakfast and late lunch. His days would pass by eating bugs and napping in the shade, and his nights would pass next to the warm feathers of his close family.
What he didn't realize was that the decision had been made by the human that she couldn't keep 8 chickens anymore. She had initially wanted just 3 chickens for fun and for eggs. She had bought 10 because she was told that the majority would die.
Now she had 8, and she had not 4 males and 4 females, but 5 males and 3 females.
That was going to be a problem. Males started to fight when they matured, and on top of that, 8 beaks to feed was a lot of beaks.
There was still that decision of which male and which female were to be adopted. Over the months, the chicks were being observed and finally the decision was made: Verde would be kept because he was the most behaved, the smartest, and the most curious. Jackie was named and enlisted to be adopted because she was the most "bad-ass"- hands down. All the females would be kept because they could be utilized to produce eggs until they could breed no longer. Their eggs would be stolen from them to make omelets, and they would never be allowed to raise any of their young because the human had no need for new chicklings. This would be the life of the hens once they were no longer chicks. The males, there only needed to be one. Verde will be this chosen rooster, as long as he stays in the human's favor. That leaves 4 young males to be made into dinner, and soon, because eventually they will grow into cruel agressive angry jealous and dangerous males that will claw and gorge at each other until one by one they'll die.
None of them know about their future yet, but they may have a hint of what's to come. Starting last week 1 of the heavier males was turned into dinner.
The human didn't know if she had it in her to do it. Would it give her nightmares? Could she stomach it? Would she tremble? Would she change her mind? Was she an animal lover or a cruel hearted giant raising creatures, plumping them up only to consume them when they were ripe for the picking? She was born in the city and her chickens were bought in styrofoam and seram wrap.
We'll....it was done, and there were no nightmares.



Watch out Verde, keep being a good bird, the sweet bird that runs up the human every morning, every time he hears her footsteps. Females birds, keep being mean to the human because she's gonna eat your babies one day.
Better question yet: will you realize what's going on Verde? can you save your brothers? would you save them?
_______________________________________
The featured stars of this story:

No worries: Jackie and Verde are still alive today. Jackie is Amanda's adopted girl. She has one white left streak on her right wing, and Verde loves me. He's always aproaching me to see what's up, and he's called Verde for now because he has the green rubber band on his leg. Verde = Green. Dude, what do I name him? He does respond to Verde at this point.

Well, what do you think of this story?

Happy 4th of July!!!

It's a new meaning this year (because those of us overseas, in general, are feeling a new sense of pride this year).
I didn't host a giant bash, but I did go out of my way to organize a small BBQ that involved Bull's Eye BBQ sauce on ribs (which were hard to find, but we found some) and hamburgers =)
We also got some watermelon because WATERMELONS ARE AMAZING IN ROMANIA!

Preparation of meat outside.

Bogdan the Great was in charge of the grill because he's Great at it (apparently an expert on the grilling of all foods and clatites too). We took the table outside and it was nice.

I cut my hair again cause my bangs were bugging me and I messed up =(
I look ugy, but oh well, it will grow out.

I remembered I had something in my apartment, that would be awesome and American and perfect for a 4th of July BBQ = marshmallows!
The older people were confused, but the girl: Simona was a pro cause she had seen it done hundreds of times on TV. =)

I like Dan's marshmallow campaign picture: "Only you can prevent marshmallow fires."


Yes, this hamburger was the first for many of the guests. You can see the apprehension in Bogdan's expression, but then he took that bite and he smiled. Maybe in the first picture, it wasn't apprehension, but maybe the hamburger was talking to him.


Nuti seemed to like it too. Here's the close up: beef and pork mix, Romanian tomatoes, and iceberg lettuce with mustard and ketcup. (Buns were hard to find! We found some "American buns" but they were 10x the cost of a pack of bread the same amount!!!)

And we bought a Romanain Watermelon off the side of the road to complete this National Summer celebration.

I also managed to find some ribs and we used some BBQ sauce katie brought me and it's a bit blackened due to the sauce, but it was Yum yum tasty!

Someone came by to visit our table and then decided to nap 10 feet away, then 8 feet, then 5 feeet and then soon....

Then 2 feet away... (the chickens decided against attacking the humans and tried for the unguarded grill).

Silly cat. He was very friendly to all my guests though. He's a very agile cat too, and Dan doesn't have very swift foo

Then we cleaned up and we were all done. Dan left a bit early to catch his ride (which we found out he missed, but VERY LUCKILY he did make it back to his place before mid-night).
He's leaving for the states very soon (within 3 days), so I'm glad he could make it here to visit before his trip home.

HAPPY FOUTH OF JULY!! Hope you guys all had great weather!!!