On the Farm

This weekend I went with my gazda parents to the country house where my gazda dad’s parents live. The most significant thing I noticed was the continuity with which they live inside and outside of the house. The stove (aragoz) was in something akin to a screened-in porch, but all the dishwashing was done in bowls outside on a table using boiled well water. I could say that life on a family farm seems simpler, but it is a lot of work. I was incredibly impressed by my 80 year old gazda grandmother (bunică) killing chickens, chasing the dog and pumping water from the well, while still having time to cook meals. My gazda mom was extremely busy the entire weekend as well. There was always something to do and when I tried to help, I was told I was the daughter (frată) and therefore should read the book I was told to bring - I read about 3/4 of it.


I did get to help feed the pigs and chickens - which just comprised of throwing the left over food into the pens - and was barked at a lot by their giant dog – Motu, who really looked more like a lion. They also have a large vegetable garden where they grow their own onions, tomatoes, dill, cucumbers and spinach. They are incredibly self-sufficient. My gazda dad is a beekeeper - or as his nephew put it, he likes to play around with BEES!! - Which proved to be dangerous because on Sunday my gazda bunică was stung three times!

My gazda grandfather (bunic) is wheelchair-bound, so we amused ourselves by him asking me if there are bugs and crows in America. His favorite pastime was pointing at an object and saying the Romanian word, which I would repeat and then say the English word. Did he have any interest in saying the English word? No, I suspect he was just checking to make sure the object did, in fact, exist in the English speaking world.

Another exciting "new" experience was taking a shower that did not involve buckets of water – though it was my first adventure with putting wood in a furnace to heat the water. I don’t think anyone even wants to hear about the toilet situation, so I'll leave it at that. Just another Peace Corps thing I’ll have to get used to.



On Sunday morning (dimineaţă)I accompanied my gazda mom to the cemetery to put flowers and candles at her parents' graves. While there, I had the chance to observe two widows singing what I assume to be an Orthodox mourning hymn. The experience made me both curious and uncomfortable.

This morning I got to observe the English teaching methods of two elementary school English teachers. Everyone in Romania is extremely generous - the two teachers even made breakfast pastries and coffee for us. The 5th and 6th grade children were very energetic to learn - the 5th grade class even asked for out autographs! Last Friday, we got to observe a couple high school classes and it may not be surprising that the high schoolers were much more shy about speaking in front of guests. The smaller children were adorable and since I may be teaching students from 5th grade to high school, it is good to observe a variety of possible teaching tricks - since that is still what I'm most concerned about developing during Pre-Service Training (PST).

Through the Looking Glass

The Romanian word for mirror is oglindă. For some reason, my love of musicals makes me want to call it galinda. After my first few dyslexic attempts, I finally tried to explain The Wizard of Oz to my gazda mom. This task proved to be somewhere between highly unlikely and impossible. My gazda mom’s issues with the “galinda” concept: 1) Witchcraft, in all forms is bad, and intelligent educated people do not believe in it. 2) “In Romania” there is no such thing as a good witch; therefore Glinda could not have been a good witch. 3) There is no good reason to make a film about witchcraft; therefore The Wizard of Oz must not be a good film. After assuring my gazda mom that I did not, in fact, believe in witchcraft, I dropped the subject and was content watching the Eurovision contest. (I decided it would be a really bad idea to bring up the flying monkeys).

Romanian Lessons

This week I started learning Romanian. I’ve always been somewhat of a language dork but I’m already enjoying more (and doing significantly better) than my foray into Chinese a few years ago. The way Peace Corps teaches language is through conversation. Our teachers, who are all extremely talented and knowledgeable Romanian natives, do not use any English to teach our lessons. We learn through pictures, activities and exaggerated pantomime. A lot of their lessons will be useful when I’m planning my own lessons for next year. I even enjoy the homework, even if I haven’t done a worksheet since high school. Today we learned some classroom words like chair (scoun) and paper (hârtie). The most entertaining moment was when another volunteer said she remembers thank you (cu plăcere) as “cup of cherries.”

Obviously, I’m having a lot of fun learning the language. I’m more concerned with the actual teaching component of this whole situation. There are a lot of volunteers that have experience teaching, and even experience teaching English as a foreign for second language. I’m not sure how my tutoring skills with help me with this, but the Peace Corps seems well equipped to prepare well, as long as I take initiative.

Every time I shower in Romania I get better at actually washing all the shampoo out of my hair. Bathing requires my gazda mom to boil pots of water to put in a bowl in the bathroom. Then I stand in the tub and use a large plastic mug to wash. Needless to say, my hair has looked relatively greasy the past few days. I think I’m finally getting the hang of it. I have absolutely no problem bathing this way (although I’m not sure how the boiled water stays so scalding hot for so long). I’m thinking of this as practice for next winter when the water turns freezing right after I take it off the stove.

Life With My Gazda

Saturday morning, the Peace Corps staff put out place cards at tables in a speed dating-type set-up. All the volunteers waited anxiously with our odd-numbered bouquets (even numbers are reserved for funerals). I met my gazda mom, Florentina, and a sudden downpour required us to take a taxi; my two enormous suitcases in tow. For the next eleven weeks, I will be living in an apartment with her and her husband. She is a very sweet lady and is just as excited to be learning some English as she is to help me learn Romanian. We spent a few hours flipping through English/Romanian dictionaries and pointing to objects around the house (casă). I got to practice my Romanian some more by insisting that I was indeed full (m-am săturat) thank you (mulţumesc) after she adamantly served me a large meal only a few hours after the insanely large lunch at the hotel. (I have yet to have a meal in Romania that did not have at least two servings of meat).

Today, Florentina and I walked around the city and she showed me how to get to school tomorrow. We walked through the market (piaţă) at the center of town. Small town markets with stalls of fresh produce, meat and bread is so indicative of the differences between many European towns and most of the United States. I’m excited to go back and explore the market more once my Romanian is better and I’ve learned how to barter. Florentina was excited to explain her “American volunteer” to anyone who questioned my presence.


We walked through the center of town, passing many Orthodox churches (bisericăs) and a monastery. Florentina also showed me the town park with a lake full of frogs (broascăs) and statues of Romanian kings.

My geeky-ness (or twmp-ness, if you will) is coming out, but I'm really excited to start language training tomorrow. Most of the time, I can figure out from context what people are trying to tell me, but I can’t wait to be able to communicate without using a lot of hand motions.

The view from my bedroom window is really gorgeous; you can see beyond the apartment buildings to the hills on the edge of town. As you can see, România becomes beautiful countryside very quickly when you leave town.

Big Changes

One of the most prominent themes in life is change. Change is what makes stories interesting; what makes them, and people’s lives for that matter, dynamic. Although a flight from Chicago to Bucharest (via Frankfort) marks the beginning of a vastly different two-year period in my life, it is not the beginning of my story. It is a change, a major change; in the direction my life is taking. Much change is unexpected, which makes it hard to deal with and react to. But big changes like moving half way around the world to a less-developed country that speaks a completely foreign language are not unexpected.

I’ve been planning and preparing for this major change for nine months, yet I still feel woefully unprepared and a bit apprehensive. I know that my eleven weeks of training will prepare me adequately for assimilating to Romanian culture and teaching English to Romanian children. But even with those assurances in mind, I have yet to really wrap my head around the fact that I am actually, finally in Romania, and will be living here for the next two years.

Luckily, there are 44 other people who are in the exact same boat as I am. We are already on our way to forming a Peace Corps Romania family. I have met quite a few interested (yet intimidating) people. The diversity of our group will be an asset during our training process and beyond into our service.

After a long day and a half of travel, I had some time to explore a few blocks around the hotel. I’ve already experienced the wild dogs that roam the city streets, the adorable park complete with bronze statues of Romanian kings and teenage couples in skinny jeans eating ice cream, and Romanian children who descended upon us “American tourists” asking for money as soon as they saw us. I EXPECT to see all these occurrences again, and many other UNEXPECTED experiences along the way.

Inaugural Post

I'm enjoying my last night at home with some friends. I fly to Chicago tomorrow for Staging and then fly to Bucharest on Wednesday. I will be trying to update this blog with interesting experiences I'm having and people I'm meeting. So please stay tuned!