My language tutors "mediators"

Here are my language tutors in Mastacani, they were for the last month, and I don't know if they'll stay my tutors for my whole 2 years.

This first person is Lili and she's a teacher for 1st year students (6 year olds) and she's all about rock music, English movies, and she has a (ex-)rocker boyfriend who rides a motorcycle. She's also interested in Chinese culture too, so it's fun to talk to someone so interested in US pop culture and Asian culture. She's only a bit older than me and I have tutoring with her 2ice a week for 2 hour sessions.

This next person is Mihaela and at first I got the impression that she was a very serious person, and maybe even cold. However, after the initial meet she's very smart, and she is serious, but she has a giant heart and she wants all her students to do well (me included). She graduated with a degree in Romania, and while I think she could be a CEO of a company, she teaches kids from 5th grade to 8th grade Romanian. She invited me over to her home for her 3 year old's birthday party last week. My words: she's beautiful, her husbands beautiful, her kid is adorable, and their home is amazing. Her house = modern and classical and I loved it! She is a great host, and always the teacher teaching and correcting me while I try to communicate (she doesn't speak any English) but in the sweetest way. It makes me wish she got paid more for how hard she tries (like in the US, teachers make squat here). She's a perfectionist and the straight 10 student growing up (Romanian grades are 1-10 versus F-A). I get tutored by her 40 mins every day before she teaches class.

This lady on the left is Sorina, and she's not an official tutor, but she likes to explain words and grammer stuff to me sometimes. She doesn't have a lot of time to tutor me. She's the profesoara of English and French while the real teacher at this school is on Maternity leave (women get a 2 year leave here). She's let me help in her English classes, reading and answering questions. She wants to improve her English speaking skills and I am happy to oblige because I enjoy talking to her too. She's a book lover too, and she said she likes classical books, so I'm on a mini quest to find not too difficult classical books for her. She is most likely not teaching in this comuna next year, and she doesn't have internet, so I'll probably not see her after this school year. =(

They're becoming friends, my tutors, and thankfully they take the task of teaching me Romanian very seriously during our tutoring sessions, which I really appreciate.

I'm only supposed to have 1 tutor, but I'm willing to learn from those who can teach me this language.

I rode my 1st Caruti (horse drawn cart) today!!!

I was walking to school for my first tutoring lesson with Domna Mihaela (the Professor of Romanian for kids in 5th grade to 8th).

[Kids from 1st class to 4th class are primary classes, kids from 5th - 8th are in gymnasium]
-I know I didn't spell these exactly correct, but if you want to know more about the Romanian Education system...sadly I think it's better than the American...me not being a professional teacher. From my view, they're style looks more productive, more efficient, more modern than ours.

Kids in primary classes have class 8-12, and kids in gymnasium have class 12-5:30, and it's scientifically known that kids at the gymnasium age learn better in the afternoons.

I sat in on a 7th grade class today and they were learning about Moles, and balancing chemical equations, and stuff I learned in 10th grade Honors chemistry.

Anyway, I was walking and I had flowers to put in the teachers office, it's a special type of pansy that grows only in this region of Romania and I think they're BEAUTIFUL!

They're like the California Poppy which is specific to California in region, but the flower above, called Bajor, is a very nice deep red, and I like deep red. They only grow in the sunny meadow-ish forests around here, not in the community.

I figured they'd look better at the school than in my house, and they teachers are super friendly and welcoming there.
I go there and bug them just about every day, and they haven't started to exclude me from their conversations (I really can't understand most of it right now, and it's even harder to understand when you're eavesdropping), but sometimes they see me trying and they translate for me =)
I hope this relationship lasts, cause I like them at this school.

Anyway, 15 minutes in, I was thinking about...maybe getting a ride from someone I knew in town who drives or *I was hoping pretty hard* that a horse drawn cart would give me a ride.

A mom with her son saw me!!!! and offered me a ride! and I said "DA!"
These carts have brakes, and they stopped and I got on while she said "incet, incet" [uhn-chet, uhn-chet] (slowly, slowly), and she offered me a spot on the bench with them and off we went!!

I still had to walk the last 10 minutes to get to my lesson, but it was fun! Here's my pictures and this boy is in the 7th class at one of the schools.

Here's how a cart looks from afar.

More tutoring tomorrow...I can't remember the last time I've had a personal 1 on 1 tutor for anything. I do hope I learn faster....
I have 3 teachers helping me now = )
Boy am I lucky and they have patience too and 1 teacher invited me to spend a weekend at her place in Galati, which was lots of fun and it felt like hanging out with a person my age in an apartment in the city in the US. (More to come on this experience, but it's late now).

And a drink to: more caroti rides in the future! Poor whipped horses though, but that's their job here. Probably not all people, but I do see some of it done, but mostly to scare the horse into going straight or faster.