Language barriers...still

So Tina, my neighbor told me immediately when I got arrived home to my apartment yesterday, that a lady of age 42, got a sponsor. She said "o fata a fost sponsorizat." Which...means, a girl was ..I thought "sponsored."

Romanian is a latin language, if I don't know something, I can usually get clues from the roots. Economy = economie, crisis = crisa, foundation = fondatie, etc...

So, after a 10 minute conversation of me asking who sponsored that lady and for what? A marathon? college?....and Tina telling me that she didnt' know why that woman was sponsored. I finally just nodded and gave the *that's cool* shrug.
____________ the next day after work____________
Someone drops me off at the main road and I see my neighbor standing with 4 other momish looking ladies at the entrance to the cemetery. I asked them "what are you doing?" and they answered "we're watching" and I asked "what are you watching?" and they answered "other people watching a burial, " and I go "oh, another person died? or is this the same body I saw 5 minutes ago?"

Turns out that they were watching the sponsored lady of 42 years old get buried.
Clockwheels turned in my head and I understood that "sponsorizat = suicide" at least that's what my neighbor meant (I tried to google translate suicide and it does not = sponsorizat!).
So ...the lady committed suicide..and I asked why, and they told me it's because she's a concubine.......

Which I understood to mean she's an adulteress, or a slut, or a prostitute...and at the time I didn't want to assume the air that I was judging her (she was dead and needed respect, not judgment).

The ladies see my all too familiar face of confusion and tell me that her boyfriend of many years (she's not married to him, so she's a concubine?..odd choice of words) would beat her all the time, so she hung herself 2 days ago. She had no kids.

Which made me recall my meeting last week of a brother-in-law who was caring for the 3 children of his sister-in-law who's husband also drinks a lot and was taking a liking to electricuting his wife (while drunk) with smashed but plugged in light bulbs, on the head.

It's a touchy subject here, a very sensitive one, but it's scary and I would never ever ever stand for any kind of domestic violence. I actually have had guys here, young guys my age tell me that they of course would beat their spouse or girl friends to have them behave!!!

That's a dealbreaker! Not all guys are like this! here! lots of them don't hit any women or children! Granted, the domestic violence in my village (that I've recently been aware of) have all been under the influence of alcohol. eh.

So....my day: got a shipment of wood because it's started snowing (again) and the truck got stuck in a pit of mud in my yard, so we spent 30 mins shoving the car out of the mud and using my new wood blocks to prop the wheels, then I went to teach Chinese for 2 hours at a school (only 5 kids showed up..oh well) with my clothes splattered with mud, then I went to the mayor's office to find out that I got stood up...and my person didn't think to call me and save me the journey thorough the snow, and then I got dropped off and met the ladies...then went home to start my fire, and clean clean clean cause there's mud EVERYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYWHERE!

I saw 2 funerals today, one in front of my work and one next to my house (I live..300 meters from a cemetery). It reminded me of when our co-worker Vicktor died. He had a stomach ache at age 60, and he thought he'd fix it by drinking a shot of very strong Romanian whiskey (tuica) and then he vomited blood and didn't make it to the hospital and he died. I saw him Thursday at work, and he died on Saturday, and we had his funeral on Monday.

I kissed his cold dead hand and forehead, cause all my other co-workers were doing it too. He was a co-worker, but we weren't that close, but it's sad he died while I was there. Here I got to participate and observe a full on Romanian funeral. His co-workers were his family, so ergo, I was a part of his family during his funeral. Not a lot of pictures were taken by me because I felt uncomfortable doing so. Just a few in his memory:




There's never really a boring day in Mastacani. My story went on a tangent...but it's because there's so much to share still, that I want to share, but that I haven't shared yet.

Hobby for Winter - not sweaters, FIRE!

So I need to burn wood for warmth.







And it's different because it's not the fire nor the coals that keep me warm, but this stone ceramic thing that gets hot from the wood and stays warm for about 1 day and 1/2.



I go into the shed and take large logs and small pieces back into the apartment and do the fire. Lighting it is easy, but keeping it burning is harder.
My neighbor showed me using paper and cardboard. Other neighbor showed me using a paste of gasoline, ash, and woodshavings.

I see this as a Winter hobby =) How many ways can Cynthia start a fire, using what tools to start it. Also a: what can Cynthia cook in her soba fun too!!

Due to smoke, the neighbor upstairs and I have to light the fire at different parts of the day and I got evenings!! It's night at 6pm now =( No more riding my bike =(
We fell back an hour this Sunday so there's a 9hr difference now between here and California.

Pretty fire....
-an exothermic reaction, combustion, oxygen, blueness, cell walls, mitochondria...

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.

Wwarmth for Winter..or now

So the mayor had delivered to me 2 horse carts of wood. (sorry for being so quick about this, but my hands are very very cold and I want to go to bed). I think it's about 3 meters cubed of wood.
They unloaded the trees and then worked on chopping it into smaller chunks.
My neighbor's brother in law came to help with his chainsaw, which I imagine made the work so much faster. I was just wandering about in my yard while they worked.
Here's the finished work. NOW I need men to come and axe them into small enough parts that I can shove them into my SOBA for warmth. I have no idea how to start and warm a room...it's not like a fireplace. Something about using woodshed and gasoline...takes 2 hours to get a room warm??
Here's me collecting 6 bags of saw dust...I thought my neighbor was telling me to Add, to continue, but she was telling me: Enough, that's too much. *sigh* It's been over 5 months...but oh well, it was a l