Christmas In Comanesti

Winter is here. It's been snowing on and off for weeks. All of December was cold and snowy until the week before Christmas (Craciun.) Last week was warm and all the snow (zapada) melted. Instead of a white Christmas, we had a slushy Christmas. This weekend was sunny and almost all the snow was gone when I got back to Comanesti yesterday. Today I woke up and the ground was white! It snowed all day and once again the town is quiet and peaceful, covered in a blanket of snow.

I spent Christmas in Onesti with Marta and Vicki. We had a quiet relaxing weekend. There is a tradition for carolers to go door-to-door singing traditional Romanian carols (colinde.) We had a wonderful dinner of squash and pasta and some sarmale from Vicki's counterpart. We exchanged small gifts and played a round or to of Bananagrams. It was nice to spend the holiday with some friends but it was a completely different experience from American Christmases.

With one more month of the first semester to go, I've gotten into a comfortable rhythm teaching at both of my schools. My middle school students are adorable and very eager to learn. My high school students are very intelligent and clever. Over the last few weeks there have been many Christmas celebrations. One of my 10th grade students has just published a book of poetry, so we had a small reception for her and I was gifted with a copy. I will sit down with my Romanian-English dictionary and read some of them.

The first week of December I spent in Sibiu. We had Peace Corps In-Service Training. All 41 volunteers from Group 27 met in Sibiu for a week of sessions on Romanian, programming and teaching. Vicki, Mil, Marta and I went to Sibiu a day early to be able to see the city and do some shopping. The city is adorable and the architecture is gorgeous. It was wonderful to see all my friends again and catch up. There was an area of the large market (Piata Mare) filled with a very large Christmas tree and little booths selling Christmas wares. We were able to find some nice restaurants and enjoy some vin fiert (mulled wine).

There was a "Carnival" celebration at the high school with different musical acts, culminated in a performance of the traditional bear (urs) dance of the region. There are larger examples of this for New Year's (Revelion) so I'm looking forward to that this weekend. Last week there were carol programs at the middle school and in each of my classes at the high school. I'm amazed at all the talented singers these schools have. I've been learning some of the Romanian carols such as "O ce veste minuata" and "Dum Dum sa-l nastum." They are wonderful.