ma cheama Rachel? cum te cheama?

I am finishing my first of the 10 weeks of PST or Pre-service training. Me and my forty “colegii” spend 4 hours in the morning on language and 4 hours in the afternoon mostly learning about Romania and the Peace Corps.

Most of my time is spent repeating, mauling and otherwise becoming acquainted with the language.Language learning has taken on a survival aspect as an action as simple as buying a bus ticket requires me to speak. Right now I am doing that with what little Romanian I have acquired and embarrassing hand motions. I only knew the verb for “to be” until yesterday and it is exciting to finally do something in Romanian instead of simply being. I can now open and close, go and come, and even speak!

My Romanian teacher does not speak English in class so when new vocabulary is introduced, we play charades until someone guesses the correct word in English. I am surprised at how much I understand and can haltingly say after just one week. While my vocabulary is limited I will spend a lot of time perfecting hand motions.

One afternoon we observed three different English classes at the local middle school. One of the classes was taught by a Romanian volunteer and the other two were taught by Romanians. In a beginner English class taught by a Romanian teacher, the students were learning about was, has and had. The word "oasis" was in one of the sentences they had for homework. The teacher asked," what is oasis."

a brave student raises his hand, "a drink?"

Another student adds, "a club?"

The teacher responds, "yes, it might be the name of those things, but it is also a band, da?"

And that was the end of the quest for the meaning of the word "oasis."

Life is glorious.