RomanianFun's Xanga

packing?

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:57:28 GMT

When I left for Romania and Peace Corps, I'd been packed to go a solid week before leaving. It is now less than 24 hours before I start my long journey back home, and I'm not packed at all. And I'm blogging instead.

I am drinking coffee however. And for whatever reason, I'm in the mood for an all nighter. So, I'll put all my valuables into 2 bags and call it a night...day...whatever time I finish.

Saying goodbye is so hard. Sometimes I try to philosophize myself out of it and convince myself that "good"bye can't be all bad. Maybe it's not, but it's certainly not all good either.

What helps me though is thinking of all the good times. Lately that's where I've been trying to steer my conversations and thoughts .."remember the time when....". Its kind of fabulous to do so because then the other person remembers things too, and you end up laughing a lot.

Last weekend I had a bbq at my place. Pretty good turnout and I think I got all of the existing traditional cultural memorabilia in my city as gifts from the Romanians in attendance. Such beautiful things. I'm having them shipped to me, so in 3-6 months (boat is the only affordable option for me right now) I'll get to relive my days in this region. I spread it all out on my bed today and got this overwhelming feeling of.... love and appreciation and joy. I've been so emotional lately that sometimes I start crying... but anymore I don't know if they are tears of saddness to leave, or tears of happiness that I've had a good 2 years.

Here are some pictures.

Here are American buddies at a BBQ the night before. The people that own the shop outside of the apt saw us and turned on the radio in his car for us to dance to.

All the sitemates:

Mmm...waiting for delicious meat:

No Romanian bbq is complete without 2 liter plastic bottles of beer.

Receiving presents is always a good thing too:

I've collected quite a few balloons over my 2 years here. We made good use of them.

There was lots of silliness had by all:

Like posing for what would be the cover of an awesome 80s cassette tape (note the shoulder pads)......

Over the past few days, I've been on many a juice date. Here are some collegues from work and I. I suggested making a funny face...but I guess I was the only one who took the request seriously

Well, I'm not sure when I'll post next. I can't wait to see everyone Stateside. I can't wait to get life updates and hang out with everyone. Life has been very good to me. I can't wait to see you all!

Ok, now it's time to actually pack.

Daily Life, Projects, Randomness

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 18:47:17 GMT

My doorbell just rang. My elderly neighbor just hobbled herself over to my front door, rang the doorbell and handed me a napkin with a Romanian dessert inside. She blew me a kiss, said “sa fii sanatoasa (to be healthy)” and walked away. I said “aww multumesc (aww, thanks)” and closed my door. When I opened up the napkin, I found a piece of Romanian pastry called “cozonac” and 2 pieces of chocolate formulated on the pastry to make it look like a smiley face. This is why I find myself on the verge of tears all the time now.

I just came from spending the afternoon with some friends. She used to work at the military high school but has been on maternity and baby leave (here you get 2 years off to take care of the kids), and he is working on getting his Masters. They have 2 kids – one baby and one child with autism. Unfortunately I haven’t been over their house as much as I would like, but this afternoon I just popped over there and together we went to the local fish farm (and when I say fish farm, I mean lakes, but also rabbits, horses, chickens, dogs..the whole works). I got to eat fresh trout and mamaliga (corn meal mush) and I really enjoyed playing with the kids and breathing even fresher air than I get from my own house.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon at the same elderly neighbor’s house. I didn’t understand exactly what the picnic/bbq was for, but it had something to do with celebrating an anniversary of someone that had died. I was offered all the regular Romanian dishes: borsch, vodka, wine, sarmale, bread, cozonac. We chatted about the english language, and I understood a lot of what was said. The neighbors pointed out that I’d been here 2 years and still was not fluent in Romanian. What to say? I tried. I try to pride myself on understanding what they were saying to me.

That’s how day to day life has been. In the midst of trying to get packed and to finish up last minute projects, I’m trying to savor the random moments of living in a different culture. It’s harder for me to think about leaving here than it was for me to leave America. I’ve always known that I’ll come back to America. I will try very hard to come back here, and I think I will at some point, but I know that life will have moved on for me when I do come back, and with the rate of change happening in Romania, life will certainly have changed here too when I return. It’s hard to say goodbye.

Oddly I find myself seeing a lot more negative things about living here as well. If I psycho-analyze myself, I’m convinced that I’m seeing things this way so that it’s easier for me to leave. There’s a restaurant worker here who constantly rips off foreigners. There’s a pack of dogs here that harasses everything that moves. I’ll stop now before I get on a roll. Every place has annoying things about it after all. I’m lucky in that despite these things, I’ve found people I care about here who also understand the annoyances.

A few weeks ago I went to a large university city with the hopes of trying to sell the extra horn I have here. Let me tell you, traveling across Romania with a large instrument is definitely material for a novel. Everywhere I went, I carried this large horn with me. Hitchhiking was completely awkward. I had to just push myself into a large car/van that took about 10 people, and ignored people who said the horn was too big to ride with me (I proved them wrong by setting it on my lap for the trip….it was still rather humorous for me however). It was exciting for me to meet other horn players in the university town. I soon discovered that I know almost no Romanian words for music terms, so conversation was difficult. The people I talked to were excited that I was from Indiana since good horns are made there. I also learned that they play the same repertoire here in Romania as I was brought up on in the states….Strauss, Mozart etc. It was really cool for me to be around musicians again, and it does make happy to go back to the States where I’ll hopefully have some more opportunities to play (although now I realize I really have to get back to practicing to get my lip back).

On my train ride to the university city, I shared a compartment with another musician, who, when he saw my horn, called it a trumpet and wanted me to immediately get it out of the case and play it. Unfortunately (or, actually, fortunately for me), I was only on the train during the night hours, so no such musical opportunity was available (I was secretly glad since the traditional music the brass players play here is fast and high …. And I gotta be honest, I’ve never attempted it before). The other musician did proceed to get his violin out at 430 in the morning and almost hit the conductor in the eye with his bow. The conductor however continued walking passed him until another rather uptight lady in my compartment stared the conductor down and silently convinced him to yell at the musician to stop playing.

The train ride back was just as entertaining, although for completely different reasons. A rather drunk man wearing a shirt with the American Navy emblem on it had a seat in my train compartment. The train was quite full so at least I had company with the man. Well, I have to say that I’m not proud of this, but I do have a habit of simply playing the “I don’t understand Romanian” card when I’m around someone that I don’t want to have to speak to or deal with. The man started to talk to, and I said in english that I was from America so I didn’t understand him. LOL…… little did I know that this man was one of the few people I know with a huge American spirit. He broke out every English phrase he knew and said things like “America good! Bush Good! Romania ::made a rather painful face::.” I laughed and tried to tell him that Romania was good as well, but to no avail. Later a woman came by selling beer and pretzels and he bought more beer and instructed the woman that he wanted “something to eat” as well. The woman sold him pretzels, but instead of eating them, handed them to me. I said I didn’t want to accept them, but he insisted, pointed to his open mouth, emphasizing that he only had 3 teeth and so therefore could not eat the pretzels. Fair enough. I took the pretzels.

He left the compartment for awhile, then came back, and handed me a 100 RON bill (about $25, but a lot of money for me). He said he wanted to donate it to America. I didn’t accept it, but was amused by his generosity. Later he said that he needed to call someone, but he didn’t have a phone. Well, given the fact that he’d been drunk this whole time and at least didn’t do anything inappropriate to me, and in fact was quite nice, I took him for at least being a descent guy and dialed the phone number for him. He starts speaking to a woman on the phone, and another woman in the compartment straightens up and says that she knows the man. Apparently she is a psychologist in one of the cities the train is going to and had the man as a patient. They’d both been sitting together the entire time, but she didn’t recognize him until he started talking to people on the phone. Romania is such a small small world.

A week after my cross-country attempt to sell a horn, I attended the wedding of my tutor and her now husband. Here are some pictures. Weddings here start at about 8 pm and continue until about 5 am in the morning. There were about 5 courses of food, lots of alcohol, lots of circle dancing, and I even danced with the local celebrity/DJ.

Circle Dancing for many hours!

Me and the local celebrity DJ

The person who taught me Romanian! Ce Frumoasa! (How Beautiful!)

The cake! (oooo sparklers!)

Many many many many courses of food!

Did I mention the food?

Ah yes, the most important ingredient. They literally just put all kinds of alcoholic beverages on each table and people just served themselves.

Thomas’ friend Katie was in town for these festivities as well. Together, Thomas, Katie (composers), Betsy (who recently acquired a talent for percussion out of household instruments), and I created our own band. Here’s a sample of Atari Safari. I’ve also attached “Demented Carousel” – but I’d recommended only listening to it in small doses. Note that Betsy and I switched places and she played horn and I took over on percussion and random squealing for that chart. An unforeseen quantity of alcohol may or may not have been imbibed during the production of these pieces.

Last weekend one of my friends came back into town and we completed our last team building in Romania together ::moment of silence::. I think that this was probably the best one yet. We looked at our strengths and interests and brainstormed about possible projects, played some great icebreakers, heard mental health users’ stories, played a rousing game of teambuilding jeopardy with fancy prizes, and learned about and practiced active listening skills. Not to mention enjoyed 2 BBQs, s’mores, and walks in the wilderness. Here are some pictures from the festivities.

Collage activity. I like this woman's collage -- she included a watch to emphasize that it's important to live "each and every minute".

No one had ever played the icebreaker where everyone has a famous person taped to their back and they have to find their partner. It was a huge hit!

Jeopardy and fantastic prizes. My vote was for my counterpart, also playing the role of host, to be called Alexa Trebescu (the Romanianized female version of Alex Trebeck. I was amused at my own joke, but no one else got it). (or...maybe more likely, other people got it, but didn't find it funny...). Note also the spectacular prizes.

Cool cartoon created by a group describing the services provided by Orizonturi.

Roasting marshmallows/making s'mores -- the american influence . I'd like to note that I made the fire almost all by myself .

Barbequing chicken and pork products -- the Romanian influence .

Taking time out for a photo opportunity.

Julia and I went for a walk and encountered our own teambuilding challenges along the way. Challenge number 1: cross a raging river by walking on 2 narrow planks.

Mission Accomplished!

Mission number 2: Take picture of us and a cow while making ridiculous cow moo-ing faces.

Attempt 1:

hmm.. 50%. Mooing faces, but the cow has disappeared.

Attempt 2:

Ah ha! Here is the cow...but where are we?

Attempt 3:

oops, I got distracted....I'm thinking...where'd the cow go again?

Attempt 4:

SUCCESS!

Following the teambuilding, Julia and I went on a pilgrimage to the see the grave site of the best Romanian ever to live – Stefan cel Mare (Stephen the Great). We had perfect weather and made it to Putna without a hitch (quite literally. The public transport options were quite nice). The museum was even open, even though it was a Monday and usually museums in Romania are closed on Mondays. We got to see nice Byzantine burial covers, a priest gave us a free book and icons, we attempted to get a ride on a horse drawn caruta (unfortunately we were offered one ride, but it was from 3 rather drunk men who were also offering to sit down with for a coffee – coffee doesn’t really mean coffee here when a male asks a female for such). We got to ride on a train that was only one wagon long. Here are some pictures.

The resting place of my hero - Stefan cel Mare.

The Putna monastery is much larger than any of the other painted monasteries in the region. The monastery has been destroyed and rebuilt several times. At one time it too was painted on the inside, and supposedly covered with gold on the outside, but because of all the destruction, right now they are in the middle of repainting it.

Legend has it that one time this bell was rung and it's chime was heard all the way in a city several hundred kilometers away.

On to the sights and sounds of the train we took:

Us with the book the priest gave us:

Short train

The city we were in is so far north and so small that they gave us the non-computerized train tickets.

ooo, train toilets....

We returned to my site and enjoyed our ciorba radautana – the best soup in the entire world. Think Creamy Garlic Chicken Vegetable soup. It’s basically amazing – no other word to describe it.

Finally, just yesterday I got word that the grant that the new volunteer, my counterpart, my coworker and I had all worked on about a month ago WON! We’ll receive about $4000 to start up a blogging club with mental health users. We’ll receive 2 years worth of internet, a computer, a webcam, and a digital camera; we’ll train mental health users in using the equipment and in writing about their daily lives. Following this they will report weekly to write a blog. I write “we”, but, I guess it’ll be my coworkers, the new volunteer, and my counterpart. Very strange for me, but so exciting and I’m really happy to be going out on an “up” note. Here's a link with the official announcement! http://globalvoicesonline.org/2008/06/28/public-health-projects-to-use-citizen-media-to-empower-community-voices/

Two more weekends left in my town. Still some adventures left here in Romania, and even more to come in Egypt, Paris, Rome, and Dublin. I’ll keep everyone posted.

Can’t wait to see you soon!

May events

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:04:02 GMT

Hey!

May started with the American population in Camp Mo increasing by one. In Romanian, the new volunteer is described as my “succesor” (meaning the person coming after me) which makes me feel a little like royalty; the new volunteer was quick to correct me that it also made it sound like I was dying royalty (because you can’t have a successor without the first one getting the axe…). I’ll take all I can get J.

One random day we went to the local high school with my counterpart. We ended up learning how to do the traditional cultural dance in the area. Here’s some pictures.

The first weekend she was in town, we went to one of my colleagues’ summer houses and had a truly international pancake feast where we made Romanian clatite, American pancakes, and waffles bought from the big German supermarket. My colleague has relatives in Canada who sent over real maple syrup. It was a delicious cross cultural experience.

ooo, pancake flipping!

This month we also finally wrapped up all of the volunteer projects associated with the training volunteers in advocacy project started at the beginning of the year. One group of volunteers composed of teachers and students from 2 local high schools coordinated an anti-violence talent show (since violence in schools can cause mental health problems). The other group that I helped coordinate included volunteers and students from the local environmental school who planted a garden at the psychiatric hospital. Everyone worked hard and I’m happy that now he have a much larger volunteer force. We also officially wrapped up the entire project by having an awards banquet for all of the participants.

Here are some pictures.

I feel like there are all sorts of results that occurred through this project. We measured before and after attitudes toward people with disabilities and got statistically significant increase in positive attitudes. Almost all the volunteers reported that they felt more socially responsible. 250 students and 12 teachers learned about mental health problems through one of the concrete projects encouraged in this project, and that project inspired other students to want to speak out about violence in schools to other schools in a similar fashion. The foundation’s club is now open an extra day of the week and promotional material has been produced – that project was completed mostly by mental health users and shows that people with mental health problems can fulfill a civil responsibility. Students and teachers came together to inspire more than 20 students to write essays, create slideshows, and videos about anti-violence; more than 15 students from the local high school spent an afternoon creating a garden at the psychiatric hospital. The projects have inspired talk of more students visiting other high schools in the area to talk about mental health and other topics; it has also sparked ideas of having monthly meetings about important topics in the community that affect mental health; it has also gotten orizonturi’s name out at the local level; one of the volunteers now has a part time job with the hospital; one of the volunteers trained in the first session assisted us in the second session, showing sustainability of the trainings. The volunteers trained spoke in our focus group of feeling an increase in civic responsibility, self esteem, and understanding towards people with mental health problems. I’m very proud of the volunteers, my coworkers, and myself. It sounds hokey, but this project shows that when people come together, they really can make a change.

Meanwhile, election season has been in the air here, and everyday cars with loud speakers, decorated in the colors of it’s party have been driving down the street shouting political slogans. It has also meant an increase in random Romanian advertising. Here are some pictures from the campaign trail.

Here is a totem pole devoted to politics....

They like to use photoshop here. Notice any feet missing?

This guy is not only running for office, but also taking the election as a chance to advertise his summer house bed and breakfast. He also details the jobs of his wife and son….

Here is a campaign poster from the New Generation Christian Democrats. The leader of the group is Gigi Becali, the biggest “schmeker” in Romania. Buys people out, wants to rid Romania of the Hungarians, Homosexuals, Rroma, and probably any other minority and/or disadvantaged group you can imagine. I do think it’s funny that in the picture it looks like Jesus is running for office

however.

This past weekend I went to my friend’s site where we built a bonfire and burned a lot of the Peace Corps papers we don’t need anymore. We also burned a random Walmart shirt and danced around the fire in protest. Here’s some video. Other events included walking across the crooked bridge in her town, eating sloppy joes, and hiking/hitching up a hill.

We went shopping in her town and had a rather unusual experience. We went to the meet counter and asked for 300 grams of meat. However, when we saw that it was rather fatty, we thought that we should probably ask for 200 more grams, leaving just 100 or so grams with the seller. When asked for the 200 more grams, she yelled at us and told us it wasn’t possible to give that to us. ::sigh:: Luckily, another of us volunteers was not in the area at the time, so we commissioned her to go and ask for the meat for us. Apparently we were found out, because when the volunteer returned with the meat, she reported that the seller harassed her and stated that what she did nu e frumos (wasn’t nice). All well. Woot for Kristen for taking one for the team.

My trip there ended when I returned to site and started walking toward my house at 6 in the morning. Usually the dogs in my town are rather friendly; now, however, they are fierce! As I was walking home, one followed me, barking. Usually in this situation I just keep walking calmly thinking they are more afraid of me than I am of them. This dog’s bark, however, was a calling to his entire posse of dog friends, and 5 seconds later I find myself surrounded by 4 members of his doggie chain gang. I think fast and throw 2 imaginary rocks at them. This confuses them, but when they figure out that I’d actually thrown nothing, they start barking and following me again! Luckily I had the book Speaker for the Dead with me, which I’d been reading on the train. I threw the book at them and again, momentarily they start walking away. I realized however that I would like to finish the book, but when I walked back to pick it up, the dogs come after me once more!! Finally the second time I threw it at them they ran away, but sheesh!!

All in all, things are going a-ok. I’m in the midst of doing paperwork to finish up this grant, trying to sell the extra horn I brought over to Romania, and writing my Description of Service (DOS) (the official document that describes what I’ve been up to for these 2 years). It’s really hard to leave here. It’s really hard Not to leave here too.

I’ve learned a lot about myself, about people, about group dynamics, about motivation, about food, about cooking, about traveling, about making fires, about Romania, about friendship, about balloon animals, about home, about relationships, about trust, about society, about change, about bureaucracy, about flexibility, about hospitality, about alcohol in many a form, about fiction books, about taking pictures, about missing people, about adaptation and transition and how sometimes what is good for you isn’t always pleasant – but sometimes it is.

When I really think about it, I feel as though I’ve had many a life within a relatively short lifespan. I’ve worn the student hat, the French horn player’s hat, the occupational therapist’s hat, and now over the past two years, I feel as though I’ve been wearing the Peace Corps Volunteer’s hat. It’s nice to have such a large wardrobe. I just wonder if I’ll be dressed appropriately wearing my metaphorical Peace Corps attire into American culture. Maybe the solution is to accessorize….

busy procrastionating

Sat, 03 May 2008 17:08:23 GMT

Well, I really should be doing something....planning for the future. But, alas, it's so much more fun to look at pictures instead.

2 weeks ago I went to the Republic of Moldova and the my groups Close of Overseas Service conference (COS). It was a lot of fun to reflect and celebrate with the other volunteers. Here are some highlights.

Here is Peace Corps Romania Gr 21 in May 2006

And here we are in late April 2008. We look so much less formal and excited, huh? Some of the transylvania crew made the sign that says "Mission Accomplised" (in Romanian, the s with a comma under it makes the sound "sh").

For your perusing pleasure, here are some more before/after pictures. The conference was in Sinaia, home of a place I visisted accidentally too many times during training. Here is a picture of 2 of Peace Corps buddies, circa July 2006, after accidentally spending the night in Bucharest at a sketch hotel followed the next morning by missing our stop back to our training city and ending up in Sinaia. We look happy anyway:

Here we are after 2 years of working in the field, showing off just how much we've culturally immersed ourselves...

Oh my....

The conference was swell. For every minute spent doing things like this:

There were an equal amount of opportune minutes doing things such as:

Taking ridiculous pictures with green birds...
Riding the regular little hotel elevator with friends

going out for drinks

kung fu fighting and tug o' war

The Republic of Moldova was a lot of fun. If you are ever interested in staying there, I highly recommend checking out this website: http://www.marisha.net/. We ended up staying in a "hostel", which was actually an apartment flat; and sense there weren't any other guests, my 2 friends and I had the entire apartment to ourselves for the price of just a bed. Plus they take care of tours, bus tickets, anything we could ask.

The first day we were there we went to the world's largest winery:

While this looks like it's a rather large barrel of wine it's actually ::SPOILER ALERT:: a secret passage way to a fabulous restaurant. It kind of reminded me of the Price is Right, where Bob Barker opens up a secret door to a BRAND NEW CAR. While anti-climatic in comparison to a new car, still rather stupendous if you ask me.

We were allowed to stay basically as long as we wanted, and the supplied us with more than enough wine for us to "taste". We cut ourselves off before having too much.
We literally had to Drive inside the winery. Every street looked like this.
History lesson. It was explained to us during the tour that Gorbachev wanted to rid the Soviet Union of it's alcohol problems, so he wanted to get rid of all the wine at Milesti Mici and (for whatever reason) replace all the space with vodka instead. Well, the people that worked there couldn't bring themselves to ridding it of it's wine, so they found a secret passage way (seen above) and hid the wine instead.
The next day we went with our tour guides Boris and Natasha (could I make that up if I wanted to?) to check out Orheii Vechii. There is a monestary built into the walls there. Here are some pics that don't really do it justice:

This is where the monks slept. Notice our head coverings.
Here it is from far away.
The wall outside of the monestary that you can put coins in for good luck.
A deep valley with a river running through it. I climbed around it and (get this) didn't fall even once.

On our last evening there, we walked around the capital city and just relaxed in the apartment.

We were all duly impressed by the icecream from a bag found at the local grocery store.

Ah yes, the most important reason I visited Moldova - to have a snap shot with all things Stefan cel Mare si sfant.

Ok, so maybe we have taken the bunica scarves too far. This one was at least in the privacy of our hostel. We are eating and showing off the ultra cool Russian soldier in an egg candy. Happy Easter, ey?

All in all, a fabulous trip and a great way to forget that soon enough the Balkan adventure would come to an end, and a brand new American adventure is awaiting just around the corner.

Rewind and Fastforward...

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 09:11:31 GMT

Leaving soon for Gabi and Mihaela’s to learn more about cooking easter food. I learned to roll saramale yesterday in all it’s glory. I’m gonna miss it here.

I got my old aspirationa statement in the mail from the country director. It was written around May 15, 2006, just before I left for Romania. Here’s what it said:

Expectations (for Peace Corps):

Provide education and resources for a safe and healthy experience.

Provide education and resources that allow me to learn the language and culture of Romania, and enable me to share my culture and ideas with others.

Strategies for adapting to a new culture:

Patience with myself and others

Staying physically, mentally, and socially healthy

Learning the language, culture, and history of Romania

Sharing myculture and language with others

Stating my personal mantra “do what you know how to do, and learn the rest along the way”

Personal and professional goals:

Learn the Romanian language and culture

Coordinate and design projects for children with special needs and their families

Use the knowledge and skills I have obtained in occupational therapy, music, education, and the American culture to teach and encourage people to help themselves and others.

Several people have asked about my motivation for joining the Peace Corps. In considering joining, I realized that during my life, I have been happiest when helping others, working with people with disabilities, being creative, and going outside of my comfort zone. I believe this assignment will allow me to do all of these things. Thank you for this opportunity!

Reading this makes me feel pretty good. I think I met my personal and professional goals, at least minus the part about working with children with special needs (My project assignment was different than what I was originally told in America). It also reminds me that I don’t think I’ve changed as much in my outlook on life as much as I think I have. I still would agree with everything that I wrote above; I think now, having lived through the experience, I could add more concrete things I could do to help myself adapt, but the things I wrote are a really good start. If I were to do Peace Corps again, I still believe my main reason for doing it would be that I’m happiest doing this kind of stuff – going outside my comfort zone, learning, and working with people. I think now, having had the experience, I’d add that I’d like the opportunity to make friends who have a different way of looking at the world, to get to travel to places I’d never previously heard of, to experience fast days and excruciatingly long hours, to meet volunteers of all ages and ethnicities from across America, and to be challenged to change the views and stereotypes that I didn’t even recognize I had.

A new chapter will begin soon, and I think it’ll be another adventure.

What are my expectations:

Family and friends have changed since I’ve last seen them – so I will probably need some time to adjust

I have changed since last time I was in the states – so family and friends may need some time to adjust too

Things will not be how they were when I left; yet things won’t be completely different either

I will have a difficult time adjusting to working a 9-5 job

People will be interested in my peace corps story for about 5 minutes

I will be “homesick” for Romania

Strategies for adapting to a new culture:

“Go with it”

Journal about the differences and the emotions and changes I’m experiencing

Call peace corps friends when something random happens that other people might not get

Keep in touch via email with friends here in Romania

Be patient with myself and others

Do what I know how to do and learn the rest along the way

Read up on occupational therapy stuff concerning my job

Laugh

Realize that transitions are hard no matter what, but they also don’t last forever

Get in contact with people from school and old friends

Take pictures

Visit my sister and new nephew

Personal and Professional goals:

Share with audiences about my PC experience

Improve my english

Use some of the knowledge about culture and looking at a bigger picture in my job as an OT

Raise my future kids with an understanding of other cultures

Start living a more typical life, at least for a year while I figure out some direction

Take a service vacation

Continue to make service a part of my everyday life

Take acting classes to improve my confidence in speaking (and to improve my odds at another life-time goal -- to one day appear on Sesame Street ..... I could be the first french horn playing guest they'd ever had)

Woohoo!

PS pictures and details to come soon about COS conference and the lovely Republic of Moldova trip

Upcoming Happiness!

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 22:32:34 GMT

Hello!
Well, I'm going to leave in just a few hours to go to COS (Close of Service) conference. It's located in a city that I accidentally visited 3 times during my training...so it'll have a little bit of a full circle effect . Last chance to have everyone in the group get together, so I should have some good times.
I keep freaking myself out about leaving. It's odd. I haven't felt this kind of being scared of the future since being in college. All well - it passes quickly and I know that I really will be ok. Plus, there is still a lot of fun to be had here, and lots of fun to be had in America; it's too early to stress.
After conference, I'm trekking (and by trekking I mean taking a train) to the Republic of Moldova. Apparently they lift the train up off the tracks at the Ro-Mo border. During Communism, the USSR wanted to secure it's border and slow anyone trying to get out or in down, so they changed the size of the railroad tracks. Pretty interesting huh? More tidbits and I imagine pictures to come when I return.

COS date!

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 13:06:53 GMT

Hey there!

Just today I acquired my official date of ending my service in Romania. July 19th I will transform from a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) into a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV). Woo hoo for acronyms. I'll travel around for a few weeks (Egypt, Paris, Rome, and Dublin) and make it back to America August 7th. Can't wait to see everyone!

I'm realizing bit by bit that I'll miss it here. This place really has been "home" for me. I keep retyping this sentence because I'm not sure of the best way to put what I mean. I see people outside now, preparing for Orthodox Easter, and I feel so good saying "Buna" to them. Today I walked back to my place with my philosophical neighbor and listened to her talk about the importance of respect for all people. Earlier this week I became closer with a volunteer that went through our volunteer training, and I was invited to her house to share in some great cheese, soup, and potatoes. The volunteer's mother-in-law was such a great bunica - she kept telling me to "eat, eat" while making the charades motion with her arms... Things at work continue to go well.... I'm hanging on and doing what I can with the latest projects, and I feel involved, even if it just means being a connection between different parties (which, I guess is what PCVs tend to do anyway).

This latest project is something cool I think. After the volunteers from the grant completed a 4 week training in mental health advocacy, they had to come up with a project to do on their own. It takes initiative and creativity on the part of the volunteers, and I think that I'm lucky to get to work with such people. My group is creating a garden outside the psych hospital and will involve volunteers from the community, my org, the hospital, and schools to put it together. Another group is going to coordinate a plays with students at the local schools to highlight violence among teenagers. These projects will get my organization's name out there, bring community members together, and bring attention to some important ideas that the community should be concerned about.

I know there's that Margaret Mead quote,"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."....it's been quoted so often that sometimes I think it loses it's power. But, from this experience, I'm finding that she's so right. When people come together, change does happen.

When I lived in America and started my first job as an OT, I'd think to myself how much I loved my job because I got to see people "come alive". I got to see people that, because of illness or tragic happenstance, suddenly could not do the things that were important to them. Over time, with the help of a therapeutic team, I'd get to work with a person to help them go from being comatose to being able to get dressed, make a small dinner, and laugh again. I'd think to myself, it really is like seeing sparks which slowing grow and spread into a wild fire that results in a person making progress, and maybe even spreading their own spark of encouragement onto others. Now with these volunteers, I feel like my NGO, other community groups, and the people involved in it are "coming alive". It feels good to be a part of a positive change and right now I feel like all of our sparks are combining.
Well, anyway, that's all I have to say right now. I'll be out of town for a bit now, but I'll write more and include pictures from COS conference and Moldova (home of Stephen the Great money!) in a few weeks. I hope this entry wasn't too sappy or "chicken soup for the soul-ish". I'm happy that it's spring and that I see good things happening around me. Woo hoo!!

PS. Ok, also exciting news. There are a ton of second hand shops in town, and if you have a good eye, you can find good, sometimes designer, clothes for really low prices. The other day I found a jean skirt for 40 cents! That's right, a Romanian Leu. Low prices for anyone in this country or in America. I bought it, mostly because I wondered "what other time in my life will I be able to buy an article of clothing for less than 50 cents?"

America Bound!!

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 11:52:43 GMT

I....just....bought....my....ticket........to......AMERICA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Every week the price was creeping up...so I thought I'd better hurry up and buy. The night of Thursday, August 7, 2008, I'll step foot in the Chicago . Woo hoo!!

In other news...thought I'd change the look of the blog. Oh, so, techno, yea?

Things here are going well. I have discovered that I know nothing about tree or plants, in English or in Romanian. The newest set of volunteers we have here that are part of that project with training volunteers in mental health advocacy are going to start a garden at the hospital, and this morning I heard all kinds of plant and environmental Romanian words ..... I have a feeling that even if they were translated for me, they'd still be a foreign language to me in English, given my experience in horticulture. ya learn something new every day.

In other news, I also bought train tickets to the great country of Moldova. I'll be there just a few days after our Close of Service Peace Corps conference next week. The Peace Corps Close of Service (COS) conference will be the final chance for all of the volunteers in my group to see each other, so it should be a great time. Follow that with a trip to Moldova (home of a great winery, another arc de triumph, and stephen the great's face (stefan cel mare, my romanian hero) on all of the money), the next week or so should be great fun.

The weather is getting nicer and with these changes come a new volunteer to visit and take my place. Woo hoo! Unfortunately she's visiting at the same time as our COS conference, but I'll get to meet her in May.

Now I really can literally count down the days to being in America!

Amsterdam and mental health in schools

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:02:19 GMT

Happy Spring!!
So, once again, it's been too long since my last post. Here's what I've been up to.
At the beginning of March I went with 2 other volunteers, Carol and Todd, to Amsterdam. Here are the highlights. We ended up on the road (or on a train, bus, or airplane) more than we were actually in Amsterdam. Nonetheless, it was still nice to hang out, see some museums, and enjoy good Mexican and Indian food.
Sorry for the pics, I still can't figure out how to turn these things on Xanga. Boo!

Here I am, self-portrait style, just before entering the Van Gogh museum. For more information about the life of Van Gogh, see http://www.vangoghgallery.com/.

Dalbe made the trip as well, although pictures weren't allowed in the museum. Here is Dalbe with a postcard from the museum, entitled "The Potato Eaters". Van Gogh was enamored by the simple, hardworking, country life, so he painted a picture depicting these "potato eaters". I wish you could see it better in the post card, but if you look closely, you can see that the faces all have a potato resemblance to them. . It was like the original Mr. Potato heads. This was Van Goghs first commissioned painting, however, sadly, it did not sell all that well.

This is the staircase to our hostel room. There were a lot of really steep staircases actually...

Here are my travel mates, Carol and Todd. Check out the cool dock and buildings behind them.

Here's something interesting about all the water in Amsterdam. At one time, the powers that be would measure the traces of marijuana etc that was in the water, to have a count of just how much of it people were smoking. From what I read, although Amsterdam is liberal in many ways (legalization of marijuana, one of the first countries to allow gay marriage, legalized prostitution), there are more video cameras there than of most other places in Europe. Brings up an interesting question about what is freedom and privacy.

Amsterdam also is home of the Anne Frank house. For about 10 Euro, you can walk through the same secret Annex that Anne Frank and her family lived in during WWII. This is a postcard showing the real life bookcase covering the entrance to the secret annex, with your friend and mine, Dalbe. It was interesting speaking to other Romanians about visiting the house. As I understand it, not too many people here are aware of Anne Frank.

The month of March was a lot of fun for me. As part of the volunteer training that we started in February, the newly trained volunteers were assigned to perform some kind of small volunteer project. The group of volunteers I worked with included high school students, a psychologist, myself, another Peace Corps Volunteer, and people that had experienced a mental health problems. The high school students all were assigned a mental health topic and were given period of 5 minutes to explain the topic to small groups of high school students. Then after 5 minutes, everyone moved on to another student in round robin type fashion. People who had had experience with having a mental health problem also spoke. Also as part of the program, they put together a blog with pictures and descriptions of what the project involved: www.orizonturiblog.blogspot.com. Check it out. Sorry, it's in Romanian, but you can click on the picture, and it speaks a universal language. We all worked well as a team, and together we visited 5 schools and influenced about 200 students total. Woo hoo! Also as part of the "practicum" portion of the training, another group of trained volunteers made a pamphlet advertising the activities that Horizons is doing at our new social club, as well as opened it up to the community for an extra day. Now the social club is open 3 times a week! This is a lot of progress, given that when I first came to C-lung, we didn't even have a club yet! Change is happening, right before my eyes!

In general, life is going well here. I'm planning on buying my plane tickets back to America this week - planning on being back on or about Aug 7. I feel really happy here....feel like I have a place here...and yet, I can't wait to go back to America, reunite with old friends and family, and finally meet my new nephew. Right now, I feel pretty similarly to how I felt 2 years ago, just before I left for Romania. I love where I am now, but can't wait to see where I'm going.
Peace

Busy Winter...

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:21:49 GMT

Hey everyone!

Sorry for so few updates - time is just flying by. Here are some pics and updates on the world of mental health in peace corps romania .

The hospital I work with just completed a month long Anti-Stigma campaign. We went in a bus twice a week to neighboring villages and towns to pass out information about mental health, provide mental and physical health screenings, show off our "wall of fame", full of famous celebrities who also have a mental health history (check out www.nami.org for a list). It's been a busy but productive month. Here are some pics, as well as you can check them out at http://www.anti-stigma.ro/caravana_galfoto.html.

After most of the places we visited, we'd all celebrate at a local restaurant:

Here is the priest passing out promotional material:

My landlord and now nurse collegue meeting with a participant.

Many of the kids also received CDs with famous Romanian fairytales retold so that the "enemy" in the story learns a valuable social lesson and is accepted by others, rather than being shunned for being an enemy.

Here are the pamphlets that we passed out:

Here are my collegues at the very first caravan:

Here are some pics of me in action:

Passing out flyers - note the Wall of fame in the background.

Trying to sell raffle tickets and coffee to the local police officer.

This is my favorite and least favorite picture of all. I've come to the conclusion that I'm pretty certain most of the people I met thought I had a mental illness - my Romanian is passable, but it's relativly uncommon to find a person that "kind of" knows Romanian...add that to the fact that I kind of look Romanian, and people are confused because they can't understand exactly what I'm saying, yet they think I'm Romanian.... enter Romanian with some kind of mental health problem preventing me from knowing Romanian....

Anyway, I think this picture clarifies my point. I'm trying to explain to them the g ist of what we are doing in their town, yet the man looks confused, and the woman just looks disgusted. ....

Also in the works lately has been the start of the "training volunteers in mental health advocacy" project that is funded by the Peace Corps and USAID SPA grant my organization and I wrote earlier in the year. I'm happy to say that we had 17 people show up to the first training, when we were only expecting 10 -- a great "problem" to have more interest in your project than you intended! Here are some pics:

Lots of Icebreakers and teambuilding games, so that the volunteers would bond with eachother:

Yes, even homework - but useful homework where participants make flyers for our org and write thought provoking journal articles about mental health.

And lots of small group exercises - here the participants are putting together a role-play involving alcoholism.

Next month the real fun starts, where the now trained volunteers must complete a community mental health project. More to come on what happens in later blogs.

Finally last weekend I traveled with 2 of my collegues to a city on the Ukrainian border. We visited their psychiatric hospital and NGOs, and did a short training on occupational therapy sensory activities. It was a great weekend, and we are hoping to come back later in May. The information they learned was based on information I got from COTI in Cincinnati, and the sensory tools that were used in the training (and were given for the residents at the hospital to use), were dontated before I left for Romania by Xavier's student occupational therapy association. Here are some pics:

Here is a warm up exericise we did ...

We started the session by having people chart how alert they are over the day. Then we talked about and used sensory tools to help a person self-regulate themselves.

Using your muscles and sense of touch...

Alerting and relaxing smells....

Oral motor and muscles...

And you thought the wheelbarrow was just for kids.....

Here are some of the beneficiaries that will benefit from the training.

That's all from me for now. I'm off to do some more traveling in the next couple of weeks, but I'll keep you posted when I return.

Peace out.