As a peace corps volunteer, I have signed my right away to drive a vehicle in Romania for the next year and a half.
And Romanians have cars and Gabi has a car that I ride to school in some mornings. But they are their cars and since I can't drive, I can't borrow their cars and no one wants to be an unpaid chauffeur.
So I have refined my thumb-waving skills and rarely travel after dark. And it gets dark at a depressingly early hour, which means that unless I'm spending the night somewhere else, I rarely leave my village during the week.
On Tuesday, a group of 4 mechanical engineering students from America who were doing a semester abroad in France, decided to visit Romania during their week off. So they rented a car and drove around Romania.
And they came here for an afternoon and we had great conversations in our mutually native language and I got to play show-and-tell with my village and then they drove me to the nearby city to meet up with other peace corps volunteers. And it was after dark and then they drove me home after dinner.
For all their fume-belching, asphalt hungry selves, privately owned vehicles are really a wonderful idea.
2.19.2009
2.12.2009
incoming
I don't have an english library to visit so I have made other volunteers' houses into my library...the results are sometimes lacking...but here are a couple of not pitifuls:
Freakonomics:
I don't care for numbers and when I read numbers in books I tend to blur over them. This might be the first time I have actually read numbers. With chapters titled "Why drug Dealers Still Live with Their Moms" and you learn that drug dealers operate on a similar business plan as a the door-to-door sales company I worked for...why not read it?
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle:
My introduction to contemporary Japanese literature. A slow start ended in an asianish take on magic realism. So it was like reading an asian Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Sublime.
MTV.ro. I enjoy these too much.
Sofia, Sofia...
disregard this music video. This is the balkan remix
Oh likey likey
The boy does nothing
Freakonomics:I don't care for numbers and when I read numbers in books I tend to blur over them. This might be the first time I have actually read numbers. With chapters titled "Why drug Dealers Still Live with Their Moms" and you learn that drug dealers operate on a similar business plan as a the door-to-door sales company I worked for...why not read it?
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle:My introduction to contemporary Japanese literature. A slow start ended in an asianish take on magic realism. So it was like reading an asian Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Sublime.
MTV.ro. I enjoy these too much.
Sofia, Sofia...
disregard this music video. This is the balkan remix
Oh likey likey
The boy does nothing
2.10.2009
the big city
I went to the big city for a day during my break
and we walked around a mall and I bought skinny jeans because there's something about stores with changing rooms and clothes laid out for everyone to touch that comforts my consumerism.
And then we were a group of 10 Americans walking around in a cloud of english, but people walking by us on the street, or in the stores - they understand what we were saying.
And it was a university town, so I actually saw large groups of young romanians. I felt like I was an organ-grinder's monkey on a trip to the zoo.
and we walked around a mall and I bought skinny jeans because there's something about stores with changing rooms and clothes laid out for everyone to touch that comforts my consumerism.
And then we were a group of 10 Americans walking around in a cloud of english, but people walking by us on the street, or in the stores - they understand what we were saying.
And it was a university town, so I actually saw large groups of young romanians. I felt like I was an organ-grinder's monkey on a trip to the zoo.
2.02.2009
a raise?
In the fall 2008, an important man in the Romanian government decided that teachers needed more money. Therefore, he drafted a paper that would give all teachers in Romania a 50% raise. The morning after this news was announced all the teachers in my school were smiling...
The same morning after this news was announced all the non-teacher government workers in Romania got in a tizzy,understandably.
So the bill was sat on somewhere in government for a few months and rumors of a strike among the teachers began circulating in November.
"Will you strike?" I asked my colleagues.
"Here, in Vama? no. besides, if we strike, we have to make up for the days we didn't work by working on Saturdays."
And let's be honest, I wouldn't strike either if it would mean working on Saturdays. Some teachers in bigger cities did strike, but nothing seemed to happen.
Before Christmas, the Romanian congress introduced a new bill that would allow for a raise for more than just teachers, but that would only be a 27% raise.
Last night Gabi and I were talking.
"Do you remember when they were going to give teachers a 50% raise?" she asked me.
"mmhmm."
"They just passed the bill through congress. We will be getting a 5% raise now. And after taxes and stuff are cut out..."
Gabi and I decided that she might be getting enough money to pay for the gas to drive to the nearest town.
ok. So some romanians might have a right to their infamous pessimism.
The same morning after this news was announced all the non-teacher government workers in Romania got in a tizzy,understandably.
So the bill was sat on somewhere in government for a few months and rumors of a strike among the teachers began circulating in November.
"Will you strike?" I asked my colleagues.
"Here, in Vama? no. besides, if we strike, we have to make up for the days we didn't work by working on Saturdays."
And let's be honest, I wouldn't strike either if it would mean working on Saturdays. Some teachers in bigger cities did strike, but nothing seemed to happen.
Before Christmas, the Romanian congress introduced a new bill that would allow for a raise for more than just teachers, but that would only be a 27% raise.
Last night Gabi and I were talking.
"Do you remember when they were going to give teachers a 50% raise?" she asked me.
"mmhmm."
"They just passed the bill through congress. We will be getting a 5% raise now. And after taxes and stuff are cut out..."
Gabi and I decided that she might be getting enough money to pay for the gas to drive to the nearest town.
ok. So some romanians might have a right to their infamous pessimism.
1.29.2009
finally
Tomorrow is the first day of my semester winter vacation that lasts 1 week, 1 day.
This has been a commiserating-with-colleagues week about how many days we have left until the vacation.
I will still come to school next week, but not until late morning at the earliest. And my colleagues and I will sit around and shoot the breeze...and if it snows I will go sledding and if it doesn't snow I will read The Grass is Singing and watch Desperate Housewives and Miami Ink on Discovery.ro and whatever other sundry shows end up on Romanian television.
And I will go to a winter festival and drink hot, spiced wine .
And I might even try to figure out how to strum the guitar I recently acquired.
So ready
This has been a commiserating-with-colleagues week about how many days we have left until the vacation.
I will still come to school next week, but not until late morning at the earliest. And my colleagues and I will sit around and shoot the breeze...and if it snows I will go sledding and if it doesn't snow I will read The Grass is Singing and watch Desperate Housewives and Miami Ink on Discovery.ro and whatever other sundry shows end up on Romanian television.
And I will go to a winter festival and drink hot, spiced wine .
And I might even try to figure out how to strum the guitar I recently acquired.
So ready
1.27.2009
independence
When I moved to my village this summer, there was talk of me moving into my host families main house during the winter because then I wouldn't need to use my soba.
"No." I said. "I prefer the independence of living a little separate. I need it."
They just looked at each other and smiled. She has no clue what she's getting into, I'm sure they though.
Well, the winter is just what I would have expected of a normal wisconsin winter and since I've lived through those, I've lived through this one fine.
My plumbing, however has not.
The third time the pipes to my bathroom froze, I realized I had to come to terms with my need for independence. So during the coldest part of the winter (so far) I ended up using my gazda's bathroom for a week and taking bottles of water up to my bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face.
As it started warming up and the bathroom water unfroze, my gazda graciously offered for me to continue using their shower instead of taking a shower in my barely-above-freezing bathroom.
So I said, "The h with independence" and now take luxuriously warm showers in piping hot water.
Sometimes independence is overrated.
"No." I said. "I prefer the independence of living a little separate. I need it."
They just looked at each other and smiled. She has no clue what she's getting into, I'm sure they though.
Well, the winter is just what I would have expected of a normal wisconsin winter and since I've lived through those, I've lived through this one fine.
My plumbing, however has not.
The third time the pipes to my bathroom froze, I realized I had to come to terms with my need for independence. So during the coldest part of the winter (so far) I ended up using my gazda's bathroom for a week and taking bottles of water up to my bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face.
As it started warming up and the bathroom water unfroze, my gazda graciously offered for me to continue using their shower instead of taking a shower in my barely-above-freezing bathroom.
So I said, "The h with independence" and now take luxuriously warm showers in piping hot water.
Sometimes independence is overrated.
1.22.2009
The one with all the layers
During Christmas vacation it was around -15 degrees celsius every night and sometimes in the daytime...that's pretty close to 0 degree Fahrenheit.
The most difficult part of the vacation ending was that I would have to exchange my cozy soba-warmed room for my class-room-where-my-students-can-see-their-breath and I spend the hours leaning against the soba.
In preparation for this daily experience, I start my morning with a pair of tights, over which comes smartwool socks and sometimes the cold even merits another under-layer of underarmor pants before I pull up the final layer of pants...
On top, I start out with a tanktop, then a light sweater over which comes a button-up shirt, just in case I take off other layers and want to look professional. Then comes a a bulky sweater and scarf...
I have not not worn a scarf since October.
Finally the top layer is a coat and hat.
This week has been as warm as 5 degrees Celsius. But by habit I still put on the layers every morning. All this to say that I have been .HOT. this week. And it is amazing.
The most difficult part of the vacation ending was that I would have to exchange my cozy soba-warmed room for my class-room-where-my-students-can-see-their-breath and I spend the hours leaning against the soba.
In preparation for this daily experience, I start my morning with a pair of tights, over which comes smartwool socks and sometimes the cold even merits another under-layer of underarmor pants before I pull up the final layer of pants...
On top, I start out with a tanktop, then a light sweater over which comes a button-up shirt, just in case I take off other layers and want to look professional. Then comes a a bulky sweater and scarf...
I have not not worn a scarf since October.
Finally the top layer is a coat and hat.
This week has been as warm as 5 degrees Celsius. But by habit I still put on the layers every morning. All this to say that I have been .HOT. this week. And it is amazing.
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