Churches and Booze...

Well it’s been a little over 2 weeks … but before I fill you in on anything else, let’s start with the beer. First of all, it’s cheaper than water and usually sold in two liter plastic bottles. Oh, and it’s fantastic! The popular brand in our group is Urs which is Romanian for bear which leads one to hear the phrase “I feel like going bear hunting” in a much different context than I’m used to. There are a handful of other Romanian brands that do Eastern Europe justice as well as Holsten (from Germany and my personal favorite) and the solid standby Hienken both of which are usually on tap and no more than a dollar fifty. Beer is also something that is offered to me nightly with dinner by my host family, much like the French who will have a nightly glass of wine. The only problem I’ve encountered with the beer (and all beverages for that matter) is that they don’t drink it particularly cold. This is due to a fairly prominent belief that drinking cold things will make you sick. So ice cubes, much less the frosted glass, don’t exist in this country (expecting ice cubes trays in the next care package, mom). The other beverage that is offered to me nightly is Tuica (Soi-ka) which is a brandy made from plums. Because my host family gets it homemade it usually comes in a two liter soda bottle. This caused quite the comical scene the first time it was offered to me because I actually thought it was some kind of soda (and happened to be quite thirsty) and slurped down the strong liquor in two gulps. Apparently I made a lovely face. I have actually grown very fond of Tuica and will usually have a few nips with my host dad after dinner. I hope that satisfied your curiosity Dad ;).

But enough about the booze... I’m starting my third week of training and though the last 7 days haven’t been the easiest I can’t imagine being anywhere else. The language classes have been intense and at times stressful but for the first time in my life I feel like I’m actually learning a language (except when I feel like I’m not getting it at all). One of the great parts of training has been what they call Practicum, which is basically our student teaching. We were split into groups of five and sent to Romanian middle and high schools around the town to observe Romanian English teachers teach English then we progressively teach more and more of their class over the next few weeks (that was a weird sentence).  I have to say that our group got an awesome school. We got two amazing teachers to follow and I had an awesome time teaching my first English lesson. The best part about the whole experience happed today with a field trip one of our mentor teachers planed. She invited all her English classes and any of the volunteers who were interested to hike to a monastery on top of a hill outside of town. We left this morning at 10 am with a group of about 12 volunteers and maybe 30 students and had the absolute best time. I have a whole new group of 11-13 year old Romanian friends, we got to see some epic views of the city and saw some beautiful Orthodox artwork.

So all in all, Romania has been pretty fantastic so far, don’t get me wrong there have been some pretty hard days and there are probably more to come, but the good exponentially outweighs the bad.

Now, off to conjugate some verbs...

We Made It!

The first time my hand has been held so that I would safely cross the street since I was 10…

After sitting through 7 hours of meetings and 2 Irish pubs (across the street from each other) in Philly, one lost passport, one found passport, two misplaced laptops, and almost getting stuck in Munich, all 39 of us made it to Bucharest. We were met by a lot of happy faces and several Peace Corps banners to the massive relief of all 39 of us. After a 2 hour bus ride we arrived in Targoviste.

After sitting through a day and a half of more meetings, more paper work , huge meals 3 times a day, and dancing to reggae music in an Irish pub (those things are everywhere) we met our Gazda (host family who we will be living with for the next 3 months). Needless to say most of us were pretty nervous.  There’s that whole speech about how we’re integrating into another culture and they will probably have a lot a differences and blah blah blah but the fact of the matter is, moving in with people you have never met is nerve wracking anywhere in the world.

I was extremely relieved when I was introduced to a shortish blonde woman with a smile on her round face and her eight year old son (who absolutely loved the picture book about Alaska I brought for the family) named Cosmin. Right now it’s only been 24 hours (this might actually be too good to be true) but I can’t imagine getting a better host family.

I’ve basically been adopted by this family. The mother, Lucretia, keeps telling me how I’m her new daughter and insists on holding my hand as we cross the street (and that if I continue to not wear socks in ‘cold’ (70 degree) whether I will catch my death of cold). Cosmin is hysterically goofy and slightly mischievous (as every 8 year old boy ought to be) and talks to me non-stop in Romanian. The father is tall, swarthy, good humored, and always ready to refill my glass of beer. And then there is my new sister who is 22 and gorgeous, petite with dark features and incredibly sweet.

As far as I can tell they are a pretty typical middle class Romanian family, all living on top of each other  in a two bedroom (and remember I have one of those rooms) apartment. Ever since I realized both the kids (remember one of them is 22) sleep in the living room at night I’ve been trying to figure out why they would let a stranger into their home. Peace Corps can’t be paying them all that much and its only suppose to cover my food and extra utilities. I’ve broken it down to these possibilities or some combo of them. Part of it is the hope of the family learning English by being around me, that comes up a lot (how I will teach them English). I think there is also some prestige that goes along with hosting an American (and who doesn’t want something to rub in their neighbors’ faces?). And the biggest part I believe is that they understand that I’ve left the comfort of home and America (the leaving America really confuses them) to learn about their culture and most importantly help them in some small way and this is their way of showing that they appreciated that.

Wow, I haven’t even started my first day of training and I’ve already become extremely sappy and idealistic. Thanks Peace Corps !