BACK from trip with Katie!!

So:
1 international conference, 4 countries, 3 castles (we tried to get 1 castle/palace in every country, but due to wet laundry...), more than 7 ice creams, 8 rolls of toilet paper, 1 night in a hostel, 2 girls traveling by train, 4 times at McDonalds, 1 Japanese pond, a gAzillion! forks, plates and spoons, 2 colds and 1 strep throat, over 80 hours on the train, AND MORE!

Just wait for us to get the pictures up!!
In the meantime, I just got back from the airport today, and my electricity had apparently gone out = fridge smells like dead meat, and I've got 9 teenage chickens, and my garden became a small jungle (I couldn't see the cat or find my chicks...or my bike).

Ciao for now!

Bad Romanian day

Morning started: Going to work at the Primaria (mayor's office)
-chain of bike got tangled and I was dragging and huffing and rearranging the chain all the way to work.
- 4 dogs chased me on my bike on my way home from work.
- my project with my organization suddenly became "my" project and I was "informed" in the "it's not you, it's us": there's no help in funding it...and I realized I have to do everything myself to keep it working: research costs, printing, distributing, etc...

After that fun, I had to go to the city to get some stuff done, and here's what had to get done:
1. Pick up a muffin tin from a girl, a muffin tin that was bought in the capitol of Romania and has had to travel between 5 intermediates to reach me.
2. Pick up 3rd book to the Twilight series form a lady.
3. Print out 200 copies of our local newspaper to distribute in my village.
4. Pick up a package delivered to the city post office.

How many items got done? => 0
-Muffin tin girl was out of town
-Book was inside a closed building
- All the employees got the day off and I found out the morning of on my way there.
- I arrived 10 mins late and my plea of "I live in a village and this is a far ways go travel," did not melt the icy heart I faced.

Ergo, I went shopping, for food cause that's comforting and I wanted to make the trip worth something.

Then I got home from my long day: 1/2 at the Primaria and 1/2 in the city and realized it was too late to buy gas for my stove...
Then I had to get wood ready for warmth, and I got a nice deep splinter in the middle of my palm while trying to shove wood into the soba.

At that point, I realized I was having a bad day...and then I took a hot hot shower, and decided to just watch a movie and have a downkey evening,
then sleep.

Oh, and I was afraid that my chicken of 2 weeks old in the fridge would go bad, so I attempted to cook it and it wasn't charred black!! I was surprised, and so my 11pm snack was an okay ending to my day.

Chinese New Year - In Romania '09

So there aren't any flattering pictures of me..but what can I do.

FIRST: Apology for having thus far 1 entry for Feb. and Feb is almost over! and I will now attempt to make it up. Try...

Here we go: Quick and messy...

Nancy and I in the restaurant with jellyfish salad before us. I could tell it came from a packet, but I was still suprised it was offered on the menu!

Emily and I organized it like Tuesday of that week: Friday night dinner in the city. There were 9 present: 6 PCVs, 2 mormons from the US, and 1 Romanian =)

It was a fun and yummy experience.

It was a very fulfilling meal and I spent a whopping 40 ron that meal...which is a lot BUT is probably the equivalent of $13 (which is not bad at all in terms of USD!!).

I personally ordered: a tea, a sizzling beef plate, rice, rice bread, and shared in dessert.

And we were all so curious about "Fried Milk" or "lapte prijita" so we had to get it.

It was "Year tall cake" [nian-gou] with sweet condensed milk. I was happily surprised!!

Eating this cake represents: growing the next year; in wealth, health, height, all things you want to grow.

FOR THE TWO WEEK HOLIDAY I:

I wore my small jade charm on a red string, and tried to eat all sorts of traditional foods: cabbage, mushrooms, chicken, I bought a 5 lb fish...sweets, mandarin oranges =)

It was a big fish, the smallets of the bunch called: [nov-lak] and it was 21 ron for 2.5kgs. I bought it in a box in someone's backyard, who lives 3 houses away from the Primaria.

I DID get sick the first time I ate it, Not cause it was unfresh, but cause I fried the fish in 3 month old cooking oil.

I learned: do not reuse frying old that's 3 months old, "by doing." Poly's motto still applys even after college!

I also used my special gift from Charm. The thing is so light and precise in my hands. Like a good sword.

Okay, fun travel stories I need to share

Unfortunately all these stories (true stories) are without pictures, but I hope you find them amusing, or me.

STORY 1: TAP DANCING DRUNK MAN
..."When standing at the usual bus stop, this time with two other volunteers coming to help with a project, a local old drunk man sees me and decides to come up and greet us.
He goes up to Nils and claps him on the back like they're pals and he mumbles stuff to Nils, which Nils doesn't understand and he talks to Emily and Nils for a bit and Nils and Em nod their heads and pretend like they are Romanians too.
The guy then turns to me and talks to me a bit and asks the usual questions "Where are you from, where do you work, etc..." and I tell him I'm going to the mayor's office cause I work there. He says he's going there too. Then he tells me he knows martial arts. I told him cool and I asked from where did he learn it. He blabberd something like: "from oNoaew, ihgo-nasgh-owe," and I didn't understand him. He then demonstrates his moves by doing "handpuppet-sign language" at me and asking me if I understand...yeah. He then kinda goes in to hug me (I'd already shifted my purse from my right shoulder to the left to free my small but ready arm just-in-case) and that caused Emily and Nils to larch forward a bit in worry, but he didn't actually end up hugging me. He'd wanted to whisper drunk language to me.
What was I thinking?: He's a drunk old guy and I'm sure one good push or clog would tip him over.
Anyway, then he says his goodbye and he walks away. SERIOUSLY, DURING the whole entire SITUATION, I had to BITE my cheek for BURSTING OUT LAUGHING! I snorted/chocked a couple times, but Nils and Emily were here to see a traditional Romanian celebration (Wednesday, at our Intercultural week project) and they were more freaked out and worried that I was. I had turned my back to the guy to finally catch my breath and apologize to Em and Nils, and the guy then makes his goodbye by walking backwards on the main asphalt highway and then trying to do "Karate" as his farewell but he more or less gave us a tapdancing show instead.
I was a bit freaked out that he'd get hit by a semitruck but luckily ongoing traffic saw him and evaded him as he made his exit.

Nils, Em, and I then saw our taxibus come and we loaded on and got seats. I turn and tell Em I'm sorry and that's not normal on the way to work, and Nils watches the old guy chase the taxibus...cause he's missed his ride. Sucks for him, twas a 40 min walk...but he'd maybe sobered up by the time he got there. "

STORY 2: All ASIANS ARE NINJAS
.."So I was on my way back to Romania after being home in the US from before Christmas til New Years day. I was going back with the optomistic mood of "whatever happens, happens," which is great for traveling long distances for a long period of time.
What did happen was that I met another volunteer at the airport and we took our last flight together and arrived in Bucuresti. What then happened was the my baggage never showed up, and I'd realized that my SIM chip in Romania was in my lost luggage.
Luckily, either Lufthansa, or the Bucuesti airport has the survice of delivering lost luggages to your home =D So while I helped this PCV tug 1/2 her baggages back to her home, mine would be driven to my doorstep (when they were found of course).
We saw that the earliest train left at 7pm and that would mean we'd arrive in Galati at 11pmish. She lives in Galati and I would need to arrive in Galati before 6pm to catch a maxibus back to my site (which was not going to happen). I didn't have my phone to ask a friend if I could crash over, but luckily the PCV offered to let me stay at her place = 1 problem solved.
We managed to evade creepy pushy taxi drivers (one offered to drive J and I all the way to Galati for 100 RON [Not horrid cause our train ticket would cost 54RON each] but he basically tried to steal J's luggage in his hast to distract us from using other forms of transportation and load us in his vehicle. We then managed to find the autobus station where a bus would drive a load of people from Bucuresti to Galati for 30 RON per person =) We left at 5pmish and got back at 9pmish.
Then we navigate the city and end up at the gate of J's home.
She lives in a small house behind a large house of a retired couple. There is a large metal gate in front of the home. J had left the key with them so she wouldn't leave it in the US by accident. She calls and calls and they don't answer their phone. We yell and scream and we get no answer. We know they're home....we knock on the gate...and soon I ask J "have you ever jumped a fence?" She said no she's never tried. I told her now is as good as a time to try. She debates..and finally ask "well,,,have you?" And my oh my have I!
BUT this wasn't my home and I didn't know the people, so I wasn't sure if it was appropriate. It was icey outside and cold and we were both travel-worn and frustrated, so I did it. J gave me a hand in getting over, so I manged to get over safely; no landing on anything of the spikes as I hurled over.
I landed sturdily on both feet and I jog over to the door and knock loudly!
An old man answers the door and he is appalled and shocked and upset. "How did you get in!?!" he questioned? "Who are you!??!" I hastily try to present myself as an associate of J's as quickly as I can! "Sunt prietena cu J!!, suntem prietene!!" "J, Jaaay!!"
When I finally gesture enough for him to go over to the front gate and let J in, he's no longer shocked but upset at J for letting me surprise them like that. After he lectures J in how to properly come home: calling for instance instead of having a friend break in, he then asks "Cum?! (How?!)" meaning how did you get in? and I responded simply and innocently "Am sarit (I jumped)" *bates eyelashes*
He then laughs and pats me on the back and asks for my name, and where I'm from, etc...
When he's out of earshot I whispter to J "We just probably reinforced the stereotype that all Asians are ninjas huh." "Yeah...probably." "Oh well."
*shhhhh*

I am back! It is cold!

I am back! It took a day and 1/2 for me to get back, and here I am. It's snowed while I was gone. I thought it was cold in SJ! no no no. It is cold here. I am wearing it all and I am cold outside! yay for fires. My laptop is working!! Hurray!!! The old computer is a lump of metal...I need to figure out how to get my old files and pictures off it because all my old pictures are on there, even though a good amount are on my blog =D Ergo, blogs are good cause you guys can read it and I can save my pictures. No I don't want to use picasa. Thanks. Anyway! I hope everyone had a fun Holiday season! Mine was busy, so it's good to have a bit of time to get things together before the week starts tomorrow.

MERRY CHRISTMAS! CRACUIN FELICITI! HAPPY NEW YEAR!! ANUL NOU FERICITI!! SARBATOARE FERICITE!! HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Miercuri - Romania

So the plan was this: I would find PCVs (Peace corps volunteers) to do a presentation the other days for the respectful countries, but the school: the students and teachers would be in charge of introducing Romania. Which we did on Wednesday and I tried to invite all the presenters and any PCVs in our vicinity.
Parents, grandparents, and family who didn't have work came too!!


Traditional food grandmothers had made: sarmalute (s-ahr-mah-loo-zeh), placinta (plah-chin-tah), and cozonac (koh-zone-nak). One is rice, meat, and other veggies mixed and slow boiled overnight, one is a pastry with milk and cheese with flaky pastry cover, and the last is sweet bread cake. All of it was great!! The best I'd tasted. The flowers weren't edible, they were Fall flowers.


The teachers made a power point presentation about Romania's tradition...and I tried to focus and understand really! Mihaela of Romanian, Geanina of History, and Lili of 2nd grade.
Look at the audience =) and we were guests of honor: The mayor, Emily, Myself, Dan and Nils. The 4 of us are PCVs and the other 3 live near me.

Kids in traditional costumes.

The kindergardeners got out and they came to watch.
Here's the mayor with his cute son.


Here's the mayor's daughter singing. She's the one on the right and the best English speaker in the school. She's also great at Romanian singing. They recited a long poem first, and then they sang about 6-7 songs, and danced the hora to a few of those songs, and later they just danced without singing.

Mihaela taught the poem, the Romanian teacher. The Biology teacher choreographed and taught the singing and dancing.

The biology teacher made me smile cause she's like a ballet teacher, like any that I've known. She has the right attitude and character, and I myself have been in studios and classes from when I was 5-through college, dancing.


Great performance!! Here's some short footage.




There's also the PE teacher, who loves to dance =)
I like this picture to the right =)

That's the director's arm and a few other teachers got in the picture.
The next one grandmothers and parents got in the picture too. Too bad I don't know how we'll get a copy to them.

Next, here is where we ate all that traditional food!
I'm glad the kids got to enjoy the food, and they enjoyed.
We were spoiled, look at our table! We had mamaliga too, which is corn meal boiled, that's the round cheese thing.

I ate only 5. I like these a lot, it has rice!

Here's a picture with the teachers really invovled, and I admire how into the project they got. Sometimes I hear about how teachers don't care, and so I was happy to see how each person ran off with their own ideas on how to make Mihaela's project better. From left to right: Director/4th grade teacher, Biology, Romanian, PE, English/French, Chemistry/Physics, History/Technology, 2nd grade teacher.
Here a teacher goes from 1st-4th grade with the same group of students, and the kids have subject classes from 5th-8th grade.

Article I wrote about my flood relief trip, with tweaks

COMING into the office on a rainy summer morning, I was a bit confused when people told me there was a "situatie de urgentie," near us. From only being 3 months at site, and ungifted in the acquiring of new languages, I somehow got the report that: over the hill, 1km away, in our comuna the river had flooded and people were evacuating their houses and there were cops dropping bags of sand to stop the water.

Me, being a PC volunteer partly for the quest for adventure, I wanted to get some pictures of this crazy event that was unfolding so close by.

After putting in a few good hours chatting with the ladies at the office, being fed a couple snacks and candies, I hoped onto my village transportation, and pedaled that supposedly 1km to see this "urgent situation."

Well...I spent 40 minutes pedaling and I didn't ever find any disaster, but I did get caught in the ridiculous down pouring rain and had to stop at 4 magazines on my way home, of which I was thoroughly drenched to my under chilotes at the first magazine.

Later, I did find out, that I'd misunderstood and that the flood was never 1km away, and that the areas that were affected were further than I would want to reach with my bike.

When the email came out for volunteers to help with flood relief, I saw my photo opportunity arise again. Well, besides that, back in 2003 I'd flown to New Orleans to help with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and I've also had 4 years of experience with event coordination, which is surprisingly very similar to the organizing needed in these type of situations.

Nevermind that people were supposedly camping in tents, there may not have been a lot of aid food, and hopefully they had at least some hygienic material and clean water, I wanted to go!

I contacted the PCVL in charge, Eric, right away, and then settled back to what us PC volunteers do...to wait. What felt seriously like a month later, which was in actuality only a week, Eric called me back and said he didn't have much planned, but another PCVRO volunteer and I would be the first ones to go on this trip. We were to be the guinea pigs to check out the situation, or canaries.

Dan and I finally got in contact 3 days before he was planning on leaving, and we got a general plan of where and when we were going. "What" was ambiguous and we both knew to expect that.

There is that saying: the one where you make a whole bunch of random plans over a stretch of time, and then all those plans all happen to want to take place within the same week.

Yuckily, Oana's site visit, my birthday, and this trip all decided to be on the same week. After long emails and contemplation, I finally was able to get some two of the events to work out, and I chose to ditch the birthday plans. Two volunteers on the West side, who live in cities were going to come join me and Nils and Emily for a tour on our side of the country, and dinner, and a ride through our village on a horse drawn cart. I asked our cleaning lady if she would do it, and she had agreed. Our cleaning lady is de bomb! and is a cherished friend now. In my new plan, Dan would leave on Monday, and I'd meet up with him on Wednesday, after my site visit Tuesday. Oana was going to do Emily's site visit Wednesday morning, and she'd offered to take me up north 3 hours with her chauffeur. Yup! Our program managers get chauffeurs, because they're super important people. =D Actually I asked, and Oana said it's because PC vehicles have diplomatic immunity and so specific people have to be licensed to drive them. Instead of a lonely and scary ride from my point A to B. I had great company and a chauffeur for 3/4 of my trip (and it was free!).

We made a name to introduce ourselves as: Sin-Sin-Oct-tea-Oa-Nah ...not as funny now, but in the car it was hilarious. It stemed from the fact that Octavian and Cynthia were long names (longer than Oana) and we had shorter nicknames people called us. Anyway...

At that station from Bacau to Piatra Neamt, I got to the station 2 MINUTES before the train departed! Oana talked really really fast to the ticket lady and we ran across 5 train lanes! where I jumped onto the train which did not have doors. Yet still I didn't arrive to Doljesti until Thursday afternoon because traveling took a lot longer than I'd expected.

In Piatra Neamt the Red Cross allowed me to sleep over at their organization Wednesday night, where I spent the evening on the internet chatting a bit with friends and family, reading emails, and then occupy myself with learning how to do this "fantasy football thing." I'm way loosing right now, and no idea what I'm doing, maybe 5% knowing.

As soon as I hopped off the maxi taxi at Doljesti, I stepped into the Primarie and asked for the Mayor. Dan had SMSed that the Mayor knew to expect me and would know what to do with me.

He wasn't there, so a lady at the office dropped me off at the Catholic sisters' home. Dan was staying with the Catholic priests' at this point. He'd spent a fun first night on a couch in the Primarie, but was relocated on day two to a room at the priests.

Dan and I met in between the sisters' and priests' dormitories and for the rest of the day he introduced me to people he kinda knew (Dan and I did not hug or touch during our whole stay, and at the end we did give each other a good'ol American hug. Why? All the priests and nuns!) Most of that first day we waited around for an opportunity too help, Dan had heard a rumor that we could help hand out Aide food to people...but it never happened. Besides the waiting, Dan and I walked from one end of a village to the other, and we did talk to a few locals, some begged for money when we tried to be nice, but I would have none of that. We're foreign, ergo we have money to give them. Bah! We are PCVs, we shed blood, we give sweat! But we do not give you money. I thought this, didn't say it out loud.

The village we were in was 1 of 4 villages that comprised this majority Catholic community.


The reason Dan and I walked from one end of the village to the other end was actually for a purpose: to find these Red Cross Tents we were told about. Dan heard from Eric, our PCVL, and I'd heard about it from the Red Cross volunteers I'd met in Piatra Neamt the night before. There were supposed to be about 40 large white Red Cross tents that people were sleeping in; which we never found!!!

Dan and I thought we were going to sleep near or in these tents for the duration of our stay. We'd brought our own sleeping bags! and tents! flashlights, etc...!

What ended up happening though was that for the duration of our stay, Dan and I got our own rooms (WARNING: there were bedbugs at the Sisters' dormitory!! Cynthia got eaten all over! )

and we ate with the priests for every meal, and we even got GIANT bowls of ice cream while I was there! The head priest kept pressuring me "you're sure...? Are you sure? You know you want some...," until I most definitely gave in! I love ice cream! I can't hold out more than 3 minutes. 5 flavors both nights, where mocha with walnuts was my fav. I think I'm skinnier now than from when I started...and I have no idea how that is so. We ate fried crap again too. "crap = carp (it's pronounced crap, really).

I learned something on this trip, something Dan knew from his experience, but failed to warn me is: to always bring clothes for a formal occasion. He had his collared shirt, but all I had were camping/hard living clothes. We went to church every evening, and while I was told it was okay, I still felt self conscious about how inappropriately I was dressed.

The next day, I felt was more productive due to: I met the Mayor for the first time, Dan and I got an interview with a newspaper (refer to link on the toolbar on the left), and Dan and I got to help deliver aide food to the people on the streets with the church.

It was a fun day, and I got a good amount of pictures to show for it. The locals were all too happy to pose for pictures. The priest actually yelled at the old lady to drop her aide food and pose with her husband, and he waddled over and grabbed her all close and cute.

Here's what I and the other volunteers drank while handing out aide food: Cappy. It's aide drinks, aka: Romanian gatorade. (Triathlon joke, if you don't get it, don't try).

And here is a picture I don't look good in, but a lady who's house was out of the range of the flood water, gave me a rose in thanks for being there. Dan is male, so while he got all the credit and macho grunts, I got the flower =p

Then it was Saturday morning, and Dan and I made our goodbyes. Him, because he started teaching English to high schoolers Monday, and me, because I'd been gone from my site for almost a week, and I wanted to be around for when the primary schools started. On the last moments of our stay, the Mayor had made us promise to say goodbye to him. He said he would cry if we left without seeing him first, so of course we met up with him! He apparently has been Mayor for 12 years, he has a great sense of humor, calls Dan and I beautiful people, and he has 2 teeth. I didn't ask him about it, even though the head priest kept prompting me to do so. We met up with him at the building supply deposit, in the rain, while he was distributing building supplies to the people constructing their homes before Winter arrives.

In the rain, he announced to a crowd of wet people, waiting for supplies, that we were volunteers who had come to help them and that they were lucky that we were there and that we cared. In his enthusiasm, he got a few facts wrong about us, but the people were riled by the Mayor's speech and someone asked to use my camera to take pictures for us. Dan got the Mayor's number so that he could come back on his weekends to help, and that was that.

This trip was a nice break/transition from my summer schedule to my fall schedule. It was new, and I did get to help people and meet a different part of Romania. Even though Dan and I both discussed that we didn't feel like we did too much on our stay there, like my program manager, Oana, told Dan, we did make a difference just by being there and letting the people that we wanted to be there and we cared.

p.s. Carute (caruta plural) here are different. Their horses have a random tube handle on their cart, and their carts are narrower too.