Oatmeal cookies

I would love to be able to make oatmeal cookies, but unfortunately it's hard to find oatmeal and brown sugar doesn't exist here = (

I've got eggs, white sugar, and I can get raisins.
I haven't looked for baking power, but it must exist here right?

I'm just saying. =p

How are movies back at home? Wanted, Iron Man, Prince Caspian, Indiana Jones...sounds good this summer.

Okay, off the computer I go.

Name days in Romania

There are holidays where it's people's names, and anyone who has that name...it's like their birthday, but "name day."


You give them a present, you call them and wish them "La Multi Ani" (I wish you many years) (Really roughly translated is: At Multiple Years).

Yesterday was: Constantin, Maica and Elena Day.

The mayor's, my counterpart's name is Constantin Ivan (I think Constantin is his middle name), so he had a small lunch party and I got him a packet of coffee and kisses on his cheeks. Here's most of us who work in the Mayor's office =)

Did I forget to mention that Romanians do the kisses on the cheeks here, left right, right left, it doesn't matter.

I think I've never mentioned either that Everyone here has a Godmother or/and Godfather and that you take their name (you are named after them when you as a baby are baptized).

The naming here does confuse me. There's not enough name days for everyone's name, but I see the advantage of having a name day. However, if people take their godparent's name when they're baptized, and you can be the godparent of more than one kid, that means a lot of people are named the same.

I think 1/3 or 1/4 of all the women I've met have been named: Mihaela. Very beautiful name, but it's way popular here.

I have 2 godmothers, and that confuses the Romanians...Good times.

Journey through the hills

After we walk past the gypsies, we are on a path through hills and...


We see people harvesting honey.






















We see sheep being herded.






We see lots of beautiful nature here in Mastacani.



I then taught the kids how to use my digital camera, and we made some beautiful pictures....=)

I usually look terrible in pictures, but I think I have to admit I looked pretty (personal opinion).

You can ask: Cynthia, exactly what have you done for Peace Corps thus far? Looking at these beautiful photos, you seem to be integrating and people of Romania look happy with you.

The answer I'd give you: I've done nothing to deserve their generosity or really to deserve this site, but I love it.

For every new person I meet, they always ask if I'm married, and when they find out that I'm single they tell me I need to or I will meet a Romanian boy and we'll get married and I can stay here.
While some people may find this kind of hassling an invasion of privacy, I see it as You Romanians are so unbias towards the Chinese and to Americans that you would openly accept me as one of you.
I find it amusing, funny, cute, and sweet.
Until it starts to interrupt my lifestyle, I'm going to keep being amused, as the people here try to hook me up.

Nature in Mastacani (and class)

This is the school I've been spending most of my time at.

I decided to stay and watch a history class here, and I think since it was one of the first warm days here, we had class outside.
I know their curriculum is more difficult than the US, so I'm assuming that the Biology and History classes can't always be this much fun. They made me a garland of flowers =)
The 7th grade and 6th grade class.

Rroma (gypsies) do live in my community

I saw darker skinned and slightly dirtier kids, in the classes, but they weren't ignored by the teachers or seriously segregated.


This Monday and Tuesday I decided to take a walk, and I saw some kids playing outside and I just said I wasn't up to anything and I just stood there and tried to talk to them.

They asked if I wanted to go into the padure (forest) [pah-duir-aiy] with them, and I said sure, so we went on this path that led from our neighborhood into some hills.


On our walk we passed gypsies living onto the side of this road (I didn't take any pictures of them). Their clothes were drying on the grass and bushes, some were taking baths naked in the river in the trees over there on the right. They lived in tents built next to parked vans on the grass. They had outside stoves, there were lots of scrap metal everywhere...
It was really awkward walking past them with my group of kids. They kept waving me over to them, but I told them I'd visit them in the future...I wasn't sure what to do.

I am here as a Peace Corps volunteer = love and accept everyone, but...I was a small shock to see people living in a community public area.
I think it's like seeing a few families living in a public park in the city, they aren't supposed to be there and the situation is awkward.

I asked people if it was okay for me to associate with the Rroma in this community and the advice is "we like the Rroma, but be careful and don't carry valuables with you."

I am still trying to integrate in the Romanian community, but I will give everyone a fair chance with no bias, so I plan on going to sit and talking with the Rroma here in the near future. Their lifestyle is interesting and very unknown to me.

Fresh milk from a cow

Today I pasteurized my own milk.

A lady at the school gave me a stickler of milk from her cow, and I took it home and today I boiled it. About 3 people told me to boil it first, and I'd been warned by PC about it too. No boil = diarrhea =p *and for the lactose intolerant person that I am, that would be double worse. I'm not totally intolerant, just partially.

Oh-my-gosh, waiting for milk to boil is way more stressful (and exciting) than waiting for water to boil.

p.s. I get a toilet, I got ride a horse drawn cart, and I get fresh milk and eggs and veggies!
I'm not in the most exotic place in the world, but this place is beautiful and serene and I like it. It's only week 2 1/2 ...really? It's felt waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay longer, but I'm still liking this place.

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.