It's a Girl!!!!
Disclaimer: The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps. The United States government doesn't specifically approve of kindness to animals. That said it doesn't disaprove either. Please refer to previous statements made on this issue.

Meet Belladonna. Today I put the kitten in her cardboard box, grapped my English/Romanian dictionary, my notebook and the box her flea medication came in and went to the vet, mostly because my kitten was in need of name. We learned that Bella is a little girl and too young for her vaccinations which she'll get in a month. The vet gave me eyedrops and vitamins and didn't charge me at all for her time. She saw us only briefly without an appointment but there was no one else in the waiting room.

I'm sure she gave me a lot of other good advice about raising a kitten which I probably didn't understand, but I was able to get my questions answered with the vocabulary I have and gestures. The dictionary didn't leave the bag. I also learned that there's no need to repeat the flea treatment I gave her yesterday as long as Bella is an indoor cat - which she is - so my Romanian listening skills are better than I thought.

Now, I will try my best to avoid being one of those people who's forever posting cute pictures/videos of their kittten, but I make no promises and I feel slightly justified in that this kitten is too cute for words.

The Kitten, plus
Disclaimer: The contents of this blog are my own personally and do not in any way reflect the opinion of the Peace Corps or the U.S. Government.

Just when I was starting to think she wasn't going to call and I must have misunderstood my gazda mother, she called me last night at quarter to nine. I said I'd be right over to pick up the kitten, although it could have waited til morning.

She greeted me with a big boquet of flowers from her garden and a zuchini the size of a baseball bat. And in a cardboard box, a little black and white kitten so small it's tail still comes to a point. She instructed me to take it home right away and wash it with shampoo, which I did, and only afterward while drying it off did I discover I didn't just get a kitten. My kitten has fleas.

I was planning on leaving the kitten in the cardboard box in the kitchen overnight anyway. And He/she's not getting out of the kitchen until he/she proves effectively litter trained. Despite the quarentine I was still up all night basically waiting for morning so I could go out and buy a flea shampoo - and after two more baths this morning I am tired, hungry, and had one unhappy kitten on my hands.

Later I'll be returning to the pet store for an anti-flea medication which gets in the bloodstream I'm told. You just can't tell a cat that you're bathing it in the sink for it's own good. And on top of that, today had to be a day when we have no hot water in town. So I boiled it's pillow case it spent the night with last night. Washed everything I was wearing and scrubbed down the little feline. Poor thing. I haven't even had it 24 hours and I feel like all I've done is been told what a bad mother I am for making it suffer!

When you inquire as to the name of the cat, I have to be honest and say it's too young to know if it's a boy or a girl. But I have a feeling it's a boy and in that case I feel a little funny about it. I've always imagined that if I had a cat it would be a girl. Maybe it's because all the dogs I've ever had have been boys I think of cats as girls and dogs as boys. But we'll see. I have two names picked out and soon I will let you know.

In the meantime we've graduated from rice boiled in milk to canned kitten food and so far she/he approves because there is quite an appetite there. When she'/he's not sitting in the corner of her/his cardboard box sulking and crying because I made it get wet.

The Frugal Gourmet (Laura gives up food shopping)
Disclaimer: The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.

I have put a limit on my grocery shopping - no more. I am not spending any more money on food until I use all the food that is currently in my apartment. This limitation comes on the heels of the realization that I spend far too much money on food. So, no more.

I think it will take until November to eat all the food I have, but it is difficult to keep up with the fresh vegetables in the fridge. Also, I have to make a few exceptions. I'm allowed to purchase a few additional staples, bread, milk, buttter and eggs. Also popcorn. I don't expect I'll run out of popcorn, but I wanted it stated there anyway.

Exempt from this vow is going out to eat, which I only do on special occassions like when someone comes to town to visit (unfortunately I have a popular town where at least two of my friends have to come to pick up their international packages) and any money I spend going out to eat while I'm out of town. Mostly I'm concerned about spending too much at the market and grocery stores. But if my friends come and visit me and they want something to take back to my apartment to prepare and they buy it - that's fair too. (like if I offer to make my favorite spinach and sun-dried tomato pizza but I don't have any motzerella cheese, spiniach, mushrooms or zuchini, because let's face it I'm not going to run out of garlic.)

Also, this deal doesn't include any food given to me that I bring home without paying for. For example, I went to visit my second gazda last night and she gave me a bag of tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, a block of parmesean cheese and two jars of jam. I didn't ask for this, but graciously accepted her hospitality. What I could really use is eggs... (why oh why did I only buy six eggs?!)

The other thing that must come up is the definition of "all the food in the apartment" - that is not until I'm eating mustard with a spoon, but until I can no longer reasonably and creatively fashion meals out of what I have - without breaking in too much to the pickles, tomatoes, peaches, zacusca and plums I have personally canned for the winter. As I have been known to make a meal out of rice, butter, garlic and dried herbs, we will see.

Tonight's menu looks like an onion and pepper, tomato omlett (which would be better with mushrooms, but I'm not buying mushrooms!) and potatoes as I had finally made a dent in my 3 kilos of potatoes when my gazda gave me another sack of potatoes.

Regardless this is going to get interesting, as I can not buy any more eggs, milk, or butter until next month as I have already over spent the money I allow myself to spend each month. However, if I make it til next month I'll have lots of extra spending money not wasted on food to spend on coffee and cigarettes, or more likely - on the new kitten I may or may not be picking up tonight. You never can tell what's going to happen when you make plans with someone so we'll see. I've never been a cat owner before so this will definately prove exciting!

As it stands I have 1 leu left to spend and I'm off to the piata to see if that will get me a loaf of bread. I'll try to provide frequent updates on how I'm doing with pledge.

Habitat for Humanity Euro Blitz-Build '07 Photos

Disclaimer: This site is my own and does not represent the opinons of the Peace Corps or the U.S. Government. Photos courtesy of Tabita and Daniel Sandulean whose house I worked on, and my friend Lisa who put her pictures up on a webpage where I could steal them. (Sorry, I didn't take any pictures of my own.)

This photo, courtesy of Lisa is the construction site at the begining of the week. Foundations and piles of wood.

This is just part of our hard working crew on the Hungarian house. Every house had a flag fora different E.U. country.

Me, applying wet cement to the styrofoam screwed to the wooden walls. This was a fun job as no one would let me stand on the scafolding and I got to do most of the bottom half of the house. I also got a lot of cement dripped in my hair. :)

Over the cement went this white acrylic compound that looked like oatmeal and tasted...delicous. No joke though, I don't think my jeans will ever be the same...

Check out that long pony-tail! I guess no one got any pictures of me working with a hammer on the roof!

This is Tabita, our homeowner. She and her husband Daniel plan to move in to this house in early October.

This is a traditional bread for the house blessings we did at the end of the week. The priests came to bless each house and each family.

This picture of Lisa's almost does justice to the amount of mud there was. Almost.

A finished bedroom minus the floor. Oh, it doesn't look like much now but a lot of work went into that insulation and drywall.

A "completed" house at the end of the week.

27 houses mid-week in various stages of getting their roofs on. (well, don't count them, this is just one side of the road.)

(Ok, can I just say right now I have no idea what's up with Blogger? Why are some pictures bigger than others? Where did my font menu go? Why is it SO HARD to post pictures in the order I want? This, ladies and gentlemen is why I don't have a nice professional looking blog. Anyway, I just had to vent. Thanks for listening!)

The Weary Traveler
Disclaimer: The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.

As of Tuesday morning at 1:30 a.m because my train was late - I'm back in Deva. I left September 1st, and traveled for 12 hours to Suceava and then hung out at friends apartment for a few hours before another 3 hour train ride to the city of Radauti where I participated in the Habitat For Humanity Euro Blitz Build. 27 new houses were built in 5 days. One for every member of the European Union.

When I signed up for this trip I thought it would be fun to see another part of the country - Bucovinia, not Moldova as I erroneously stated previously, and that it would be good to get out of my town for a while, see my friends from my training class and do some manual labor for a change. I also worried that it would be too hot and I wouldn't have anything to wear. All of these things were good and fulfilling reasons to go to Habitat and my worry about not having anything to wear would come true - but not for the reasons I expected.

We stayed in a school "dorm" which was a large room with 8 cots in it. I wish I 'd known pillows and blankets were provided. Individual shower stalls were in the shower room at the end of the hall across from the latrines (which smelled like one) and there was also a "sink room" which was a room full of sinks. I guess the toliet seats and shower curtians had been purchased for us. We had been warned before our arrival that there were some problems with the housing but it was definately functional. Not bad for a Peace Corps volunteer - and I forgot to mention that we didn't have to pay. Other Habitat volunteers coming from the United States or Europe had to shell out something in the hundreds of euros for the honor of working on this project, so there were really no complaints from the Peace Corps volunteers. Except it was interesting that one shower controlled the temperature for all of them. It was a gift to have hot water available to us though. For some, it was too hot.

Along with not having to pay the Peace Corps volunteers weren't included in breakfast or the shuttle service to the build site - so we had a 40 minute walk to look forward to each morning and evening. As we got progressively more and more tired through the week it began to be an hour and 20 minute walk, but closer to the end of the week we were also able to hitch rides with the shuttle vans since it was likely we were soaking wet with rain and covered in mud, cement, plaster, or fiberglass insulation.

Some volunteers didn't stay and work the whole five days. That never occurred to me, but it would have been nice, since building a house is a lot of hard work. It was especially for me because I was on a team with 5 middle aged or older men, three Romanian high school girls, two women who were around intermittently but didn't show up until day 3 and me. So I threw myself into every task with a fearless vigor in order to prove my mettle to these guys and earn my right to swing a hammer. The second morning I defied a fear of hights and helped assemble the roof (this mostly involved lifting and grabbing sheets of that wood that's made of glued together wood chips and holding them while people who could reach nailed them down) until noon because after climbing down I doubted I had the strength left in my arms to haul myself up the ladder again or could trust my hands to grip a hammer without sending it flying off the roof. Also defied, fears of chainsaws and trucks...

The third and fourth day it rained. We got soaked. I brought only 1 pair of work pants, and 1 pair of boots. I was also out of socks and underware. Soon everything I brought with me was soaking wet. That last day I didn't relish the though of walking an hour in wet jeans without undies, but luckily a friend came through for me and lent me a clean dry pair, which made pulling on those cold wet jeans all the more bareable. Luckily the sun came out that day and my pants were mostly dry before noon.

I didn't mention that the first day Sunday - after the opening ceremony I ate some bad mushrooms and was sick with vomiting and on the toliet all night. I was actually feeling gross earlier Sunday since I hadn't eaten all day - except coffee. A lot of coffee. Therefore, after and hour and half of sleep on the train Saturday night and probably about four hours not spent in the bathroom Sunday - I slept in until 10am on Monday and missed raising the frames of the houses. That's as long as my sick spell lasted (thank God for my "emergency Amodium" in my personal stash) and I was able to work hard for the rest of the week, but I was not a happy camper Monday lunch time when they told me the caterer's forgot to prepare a vegetarian option.

Out of the darkness of limping around Radauti for a week in wet socks, wet boots, and going commando, covered with mud, there was a bright spot. I discovered: Hot wine. Hot red wine on the menu in this cool old fashioned bar called, in a combination of Romanian and English, URSO BREWERY which means "Bear Brewery". Hot wine is delicous and heated with just a few cloves, and you add your own sugar. It's just thing after a day of wandering around a muddy construction site in the rain hoping for someone to give you a job more dignified than "Wash these tools, or go find me a ..." (These things I did, however, but only for Harry our House Leader. I don't know where Harry was from in the U.S. but he was a nice guy and a pleasure to work for).

It was a good experience working on the Habitat Build and at times a lot of fun. At times it was a freezing cold, wet, pain in the ass, but I was never unaware that I signed up for this. I wanted to be there. I made friends with the homeowners who's house we were building Tabita and Daniel, and promised to come and visit them the next time I'm in the area. I hope to. They expect they'll be able to move in around October 1st, since at the end of the week I have to say our house was in pretty good shape! We had the roof on, the three layers of the exterior done except for the sanding to get ready for paint, and inside the insulation, drywall and joint compound were done, the doors framed and hung and the windows up and ready. The only things that still needed to be done were installing the fixtures like the toliet and sinks, and kitchen cabinets, the rest of the electrical wiring, the sub floor and the floor. So, ok, a lot still has to be done, but it was 5 days and we had put a house where before only a foundation stood!

After all this on Saturday September 8th I was quite ready to go back to Deva. We were all tired bruised sore and I was sorely missing dry clean clothes, my own bedroom, and a hot bath (although the week held plenty of hot showers with the rain and the messy sate we returned from the work site in. I don't usually shower every day). But a return journey home was not in the plan. We had to go to Bucharest on Sunday where Peace Corps had a hotel reservation for us. On Monday we had a Doctor appointment for the first of our HPV vaccines. So that meant Saturday we had to find somewhere to go to spend the night.

Turns out my closest friend by proximity (she's two hours away and we do a lot together) had come down with the flu by Friday night and wasn't feeling up to travel. We spent all day Saturday with two volunteers stationed in Radauti seeing if she would feel better enough for us to take the train to Suceava. Eventually I left with a bunch of other volunteers on a free Habitat shuttle to Suceava and let Dru spend a more comfortable restful night in Raudati. I accompaniend the gang to Dennis and Holly's where 9 volunteers were sleeping over in a two person apartment, one more was supposed to show up with his parents but their flight got canceled. It was estentially an all night party, but I'm not sure how long the hosts were up. I was thankful for an excellent Itailian meal a the local restruant that I splurged on, and a corner of the couch as I had to be up at 6:30 to get on the train to bucharest.

By 2:30 we were in Bucharest, 3:30 at the hotel. By five I was showered I spread my damp sink washed clothing around the room to dry and by quarter to six asleep. Dru was feeling better and we were both hungry so we explored Bucharest eventually finding some moderately priced traditional Romanain cuisine with a lot of vegetarian options.

The next day we raided the library in the Peace Corps office PCV lounge, recieved our vacinations, and ditched our bags long enough to search out a Thai restaurant in Bucharest at which to spend our Per Diem money on lunch. We ended up treking around for quite a hungry-have-to-pee while, but the trip resulted in the purchases of new handbags, backpacks, and sneakers for everyone but me (I'm set in the shoe and baggage department). Eventually we stumbled upon an Indian restruant and abandoned our hopes of Thai food. It was a delicous, filling, and expensive (but well worth it) lunch - and not too far from the Peace Corps office. Afterward, it was only my sitting down to chat with our program manager and not watching the time that made us nearly late for our train. A short sprint and three metro stops later we were in pulling out of Bucharest and thankfully heading home - after an eight hour train ride.

But I made it back! So far the weather in Deva has greeted me with cold and gloom, but I even made it out of my apartment yesterday - an accomplishment in the pouring rain, after a hot (well, warm) bath and two loads of laundry. Now, I'm about to put a pot of soup on the stove and celebrate that by the cold and the rain Autumn has come to Deva, but thankfully, I don't have to leave again until the begining of October.

Does this ever happen to you?
Disclaimer: The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.

I'm the first to admitt it. I have not been working on my Romanian language like I should be. Every time I say to myself "today I'm going to study Romanian" something in English comes along to distract me.

However, I do have one friend whom I speak to mostly in her language although she knows a good deal of English. We use both languages, but the fact that I can communicate with her at least somewhat effectively most of the time in Romanian does make me proud.

Then she called me today because she couldn't remember the name of a website I told her about. She asked me to spell it for her over the phone. And I realized, we don't have a common alphabet.

I struggled to remember the Romanian pronounciations of the vowels - something I haven't thought about for at least four months. All I could think was that "i" is called "e" but that's not helping me here.

She was saying it's "F" as in "Philip?" and I was struggling with "No, 'f' as in....frog, brosca? Damn!
As though she could hear my thoughts she said "Laura, use names. F as in Philip...?

"A" as in Anca, "N" as in Nico, "P" as in Popescu, "O" as in Otilia (her name, thankfully or I would have been stuck for an "O") and "P" as in Popescu incodata. Punct COM.

Funny how I can translate "dot" into Romanian but there's no need to for the COM.

The Light of the Moon
Disclaimer: The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.

It seems memorizing dates wrong is my thing lately because most web pages I've read lately call tomorrow August 29, the anniversary of Katrina. Although Wikkepedia confirms that the hurricane was formed August 23rd and lasted in various degrees of strength until August 31st and since it made several landfalls in different areas how can we give it but one day? Is this humankind trying to force nature to fit into our narrowly defined determinations and definitions?

Anyway, tonight August 28th is in the U.S. and it Romania the full moon, so please if you can join me in praying for good luck, strength, abundance and hope on the Gulf Coast and for all those still recovering from Katrina and the losses she caused. The full of the moon can represent abundance and regrowth as we send postive energy to those who need it. And if you don't read this blog until tomorrow you can join me tomorrow night too, because then the moon begins waning and thusly it is an appropriate time to reflect on loss and damage.

Anniversaries, Three
Disclaimer: The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.

TOMORROW, August 24th is my mom’s birthday so, Happy 57 Mom! I hope it feels good to be 57 and I hope you call me at ten to six in the morning on my 57th birthday to remind me how good it is to be 57! Interestingly – to I don’t know, no one, no one finds this interesting - but there’s some controversy in my family over my parents birthdays because for some reason I always thought my dad’s was the 23rd of June and my mom’s was the 24th of August and then last year when I told her I couldn’t remember if her birthday was the 23rd or the 24th and she emailed me “they’re both the 24th” - I, then, for some reason thought, My God, I memorized my Mom’s birthday wrong! And then rememorized it as the 23rd – which is wrong. So I was right before and then I spent a whole year thinking it was wrong. So apparently I’ve been dabbling in not knowing either of my parents birthdays, but I suppose it’s ok because everyone who knows me knows I can’t remember numbers. And like I said it’s not that interesting!
Hope you have a good birthday, Mom!

Another anniversary which deserves much less fan fare is the 22nd of August which was my 6 month anniversary in Romania! It doesn’t feel like that long. Probably because the first three months were of training and the last three months were on site. Probably it’s also because of the three care packages I’ve received since moving to Deva filled with all the comforts of home. Or maybe it’s because I have a razor sharp memory and can turn to my friends and say “remember that day in training when you said “ ” and I said “ ” recalled with absolute clarity that makes PST feel like it was yesterday. Plus the fact that the first two months I was at site I still lived with a host family so it’s not like I’ve been “living the life” all that long.

However, there are still some friends I haven’t heard from since I left. Some of you have never emailed me in six months! What did I do? Are you pissed off at me? Are we still friends? In that respect six months is a long time. But I’m not talking about you if I haven’t emailed you - if I haven’t emailed you shame on me, but I think I have. I email a lot of people. I email people I met one time. I email people I don’t even know. Hell, since I’ve been in Romania I’ve even gotten back in touch with people from high school and college who I haven’t talked to in years! But if I haven’t heard from you, don’t be a stranger. I miss you, I really do and I want to know what’s going on in your life. Chances are I sent you a postcard too, even though maybe you never got it. Why don’t you email me to find out?

For those of you keeping score, this means I’m 3 months into my two year service because the first three months were training, right? So for three months in, how’s it going? Not bad. Things are just starting to happen. They’re happening slowly, but that’s to be expected, but more on that later.

August 25 – the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Let me just say before I could finish this part of the post I had to go and clean the toilet. I wanted to get my thoughts together about what I was going to say and some things if you’re going to think about them you may as well be looking at a toilet while you think about them.

Earlier this week my counterpart at my organization said something about how when a community goes through a tragedy it sometimes makes people act more like a community and care for one another. That’s when I started talking about hurricane Katrina. (Talking? Me? I know!)But I talked for probably about an hour just trying to describe the enormity of the situation to this Romanian woman. How much damage was done, how much work there is to do. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around it, yet get someone whose whole country is the size of Oregon to imagine a storm that touched three states.

In a lot of ways I would rather discuss hurricane Katrina with Romanians than Americans. Romanians are eager to understand, and curious about the situation. They don’t have any preconceived notions that New Orleans “deserved to be punished” for anything. All they know is New Orleans is a city in my country, and when I tell them about Mississippi and all the damage that was done there that wasn’t on the news they say “why?”
I try to explain to them that New Orleans had a unique history and culture. It’s where the Africans, Spanish, and French came together and mixed and it was a place that had its own ways and music and food and language until recently and now all that may be lost. That’s not something some Americans understand. I have little patience for the “they shouldn’t even rebuild” “what did you think would happen with a city below sea level” knee jerk reaction of some Americans who don’t take the time to appreciate the richness that was there but see the disaster as a moral issue or worse – a financial issue.

As I talked about Katrina and all the problems it created for so many people I felt monumentally sad, but not just because of what transpired or how the aftermath was handled. I thought about my experiences in Mississippi both times, and the time I spent in Louisiana in 2005. I had good experiences working on the Gulf Coast. I made friends that I’m still in touch with now that I hope to keep in touch with. Looking back, I have many great memories of my time in Ocean Springs. It was a wonderful experience and I’m glad I had it, but I have a hard time finding where I did any work?
Who did I help? What did I do?

And that’s when I realized for the first time how hard it was for me to leave my volunteer position in Ocean Springs Mississippi. It wasn’t hard at the time because it was Christmas and I wanted to go home and I wanted to see my friends and nothing was going on at Camp Victor anyway, but now I feel sad that I couldn’t stay and continue. Why did I leave? Wasn’t there enough work to do? Why did I come to Romania when there are people at home who need food and care and support?
They still need someone to rebuild their houses and they still need people to listen as they describe what happened that day two years ago when the worst natural disaster to ever hit the United States hit their town. (And I’m not just saying that, it was declared by the people who declare these things…the disaster people).

I’m sorry I had to leave and come to Romania because there is still work to do on the Gulf Coast. And almost more important than the work is the understanding that needs to be shared. Whenever I talk to Romanians about the storm I say the same thing I said to the people I met on the coast “in the north, where I’m from, people still don’t know what happened. Some people think, it’s six months…a year…two years…it should be cleaned up by now.”

In many ways I wish I could still be working on the Gulf, but my path brought me to Romania. I’ve always wanted to do the Peace Corps and now was the time. Delaying it wouldn’t have helped me and maybe it wouldn’t have helped the people of the Gulf that much either, but I don’t know.

I could say I came to Romania with a job to do – but in some ways it’s harder than that because I’m still figuring out what that job is. There are challenges here I need to prepare for, and things I need to learn before I can return and help anyone. So, I still think Peace Corps is the right thing for me right now. But I can’t help but feel bad for all the work that still needs to be done so this part of my country can heal.

And maybe that’s all I can do right now – from several thousand miles away I can say to the Gulf Coast of the U.S.A. I miss you, and I’m still thinking about you.

This angel is part of a mural on the outside of the building at Camp Victor, Ocean Springs Mississippi where I stayed as a volunteer October 1st 2006 - December 15, 2006.

(Not Quite) There and Back Again

Disclaimer: The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.

Lately I always seem to be on the wrong side of indoors during the rain with kilometers separating me from a hot cup of ceai (ceai here refers to "tea" in Romanian and "chai" the type of tea - which I'm almost out of ! Send more mom! Please! Make it Stash in the Red box!)

Last Monday I bought myself a bike. I miss my bike at home and putting into storage was one of the hardest things I had to do to get ready for the Peace Corps. So with the rest of my settling-in allowance I bought myself a red and sliver bicycel and it comes with a light and one of those carriage things in the back too. It's a very nice bike, but I think it deserves a better rider than me. For one thing I don't really know how to switch the gears. I just turn until the awful grinding crunching noises stop - Sorry bike! That's the only instruction I ever got in my life on switching gears. Further more I think it's a little short for me. I have to lean over too far to grip the handle bars and that puts a lot of weight on my hands - after the little adventure I'm about to share with you my hands were red and bruised from gripping the handle bars whereas I'm much more comfortable sitting up straighter with my hands lightly resting on the handle bars -rather than closing around them.

But its a good bike and as we're just getting to know each other I planned a ride for the Tuesday after I bought it. I wanted to go to Simeria, the next small town over which is only 3 Kilometers away. THat should be no problem, right? I'll also say that for being surrounded by large hills leading up to the Carpathian mountains, Deva the town is surprisingly flat - all the better for biking in my opinion. I pictured myself peddling along a vacant one lane road toward Simeria where I've been before in a Maxi Taxi. So I downloaded a yoga class for cyclists to do upon my return and headed out the door my bike in one hand, helmet on my head.

However, memory plays tricks on you and the road to Simeria (once I found it) isn't exactly a vacant one lane road but a four lane highway - which becomes a two lane highway but still - it was full of traffic - including Semi trucks which pass VERY close to you.

I must say, although I once rented a bicylce for one fabulous day in Florence, Italy, I've never really appreciated how difficult it is to ride a bicycle in a different culture where you don't know the rules of the road. In the United States I was never a master of bicylce saftey. I did a lot of stupid things, and I usually ride my bike on the sidewalk - it's how I get around. Deva is blessed with a lot of wide, SMOOTH, sidewalks, for walking but Romanians don't know what to do when someone rides up behind them on the sidewalk on a bike. They don't get out of the way. But I am too scared to take to the streets with my new bike. Eventually I did, though nervously, praying that once I got out of the city and started heading toward Simeria there would be less people staring at the big girl with the tiny red bike wearing a helmet. (I'm the only one I've ever seen in Deva with a bike helmet.)

This was not the case. There was ridiculous traffice between Deva and Simeria yesterday on a Friday afternoon. And I said I found myself peddling along a four lane highway thinking about all the death machines that were sneaking up behind me - silently I might add, praying that the shoulder was not too soft to send me spinning and the mud not too muddy. I realized the seat on my bike could be defined as some Post-Vlad-Tepest torture device. But that's not totally fair to the bike seat. There's also the rocks and many bumps in the shoulder and unpaved sections of shoulder. All I can say is "oh, my aching Sits bones." (Sits bones is a yoga thing).

In between Deva and Simeria is what looks like another town. A town with trecherously narrow sidewalks. Riding here is like riding a bike through an obstacle course - and not meant for someone with my depth perception or sense of panic. It was comforting to get onto a "sidewalk" sepearated from the dangerous "machine" (cars-plural) by a little fence, but this town's sidewalk was narrow, bumpy, and obscured by lumber trucks, huge piles of asphalt, and what appeared to be a ridge in the pavement actually upon closer inspection opened up and revealed itself to be a flight of stairs going down - I presume to hell. This town really made me miss riding Grayson, my Trek bike back in Fargo North Dakota, which I can't say is pedestrian friendly but is at least nowhere near as pedestrian endangering.

Once I made it through this challenge section of the course it was me versus two lanes of opposing traffic. Not so bad if I stayed on the shoulder and prayed - but then there was the whole issue of Semi's pulling on to the shoulder and turning (blindly) back onto the highway. I will admit it. I'm not a man. There were several obstacles too scary for me - I dared not try and manuever. I just got off the bike and walked around them. A

It was about this time as I walked my bike passed a traffice jam (between Deva and Simeria - ?) and up a hill and over the railroad tracks that I realized the wind was blowing something fierce. Into my face. I'd already postponed my bike ride for two days because of the two day flu - and another several hours because of a morning rainstorm. I have been concerned lately about my sedentary lifestyle which leads me to spend most of my day sitting in front of the computer - other than my daily yoga practice. I really wanted to go to Simeria and back. Until now I had been set on my goal. I'm going to do it - no excuses. And although there were times that my biking slowed considerably, I probably kept my heart rate pretty high for this whole adventure. But now -feeling like I'd risked death numerous times already with Me Versus Traffic, I noticed the sky over the purple shaded hills on the horizon behind me darkening. I smelled rain in the air. I'm sure I wasn't far from my destination, but nevertheless - more than halfway to Simeria I turned around.

As soon as I turned around I felt better. It was probably because I was coasting down a hill as I watched the lightening in the hills that I thought I could race the storm home. But I was in the middle of road construction when the rain hit. The only thing I cared about at that point was the fact that I was much closer to Deva than before. I was in fact, joyful, as I pettled my way down the now-familar streets as the rain came down. Thinking about getting caught in the rain on my camping trip, I kind of laughed a little. Then I remembered that THAT was nothing more than a consistent gentle summer rain. I was biking in what soon became a torrential downpour. I took comfort in the fact that I was back in the city, and my bike has a light on it - though it wasn't dark enough to actually help me see, it made me feel good to think people might be better able to see me - and I journeyed on. By now I'd reached the "Pothole" level of the obstacle course. Many roads in Romania have knee deep potholes in them - if you're not careful you could fall into one and ne'r be heard from again. But when the potholes are filled with water they are INVISIBLE! Once again rather than steer my new bicycle friend into danger, I climbed down and soaked a pair of shoes walking us around several would be dangers.

Have I mentioned this entire time I was thinking of nothing but the glass of iced tea I'd put in the freezer for myself before I left the house? That iced tea was calling me home since before I turned my bike around and headed back to Deva and as I pulled up to my apartment building my throat was the only part of me that was dry. I brought my bike inside the door only to hear my neighbor open her door to see what was going on in the hallway. I can't imagine what she thought when she saw her American neighbor carrying a 10speed bike up the stairs and soaking wet. I heard her say "oh my god. Go inside and take of your wet clothes! NOW!" I said. "I'm wet. Yes. Yes. I'm fine." and brought my bike into the apartment where I enjoyed several freezing cold glasses of iced tea - followed by a dry towel, a 10 minute yoga session and hot bath.

Even though I didn't make it to my destination - turned back shy of my goal - and got caught in the rain AGAIN - I didn't die on the side of the road, so I'm calling this adventure a sucess.

And for the record, next time I ride to Simeria I'm looking at a county map and trying to find a way to get there hopefully along back roads.

Watch This!

Disclaimer: The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps. This post has nothing to do with Peace Corps, or sadly Romania and I'm sure the U.S. goverment as an entire entity would never get together and deign to form an opinon on this post or this documentary. But you should see it!

I found this documentary This Film is Not Yet Rated by Kirby Dick, on this webpage: http://www.tv-links.co.uk/listings/9/5383

I've been wanting to see it for a while as I read about it in the Winter 2007 issue of Bitch Magazine it's something I reccommend you all see. It's about the process movies go through to get their ratings. Great points made about sex, voilence and interviews with Kevin Smith and John Waters.

No surprise, the ratings board slapped with an NC-17 to so be prepared to watch the out takes of other movies rated as such in a side by side comparison with movies rated R and PG 13.

I Finished It!!!!
Disclaimer: Spoilers, trying not to be!

Rest in Peace
Rapier, Romulous, "Dora", C.C., DB, the auror and the owl.

Also S.S. - a prince to us.

Camping (and not the kind that involves dressing up in costume)
Disclaimer: The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.

Last weekend went camping with the local branch of the Red Cross here in Deva with whom I've been doing some volunteering outside of the organization I was assigned to. Orginally the trip was supposed to be four days but it was shortened to three due to rain and it included a training in emergency first aid - in Romanian.

Day one included setting up camp - which I was not allowed to help with. After a lunch fit for a king of fried egg sandwhiches I brought along for the trip and a tomato, everyone not involved in the elaborate process of cooking a huge meal over a camp fire settled down for a nap under a tree in a meadow alongside a stream. It was a picturesque scene from one of my many daydreams - however when lying in bed pretending you're in a meadow it's easier to sleep without things crawling about under you. I very much enjoyed the shade and smell of the grass, but I did not sleep outside. It was a bit disappointing, because I also didn’t bring a book in English because I didn’t want to be rude or distracted from the opportunity to speak Romanian with people. Camping with people who didn’t want me to do any work would involve a lot of waiting.

This is the meadow where we had our first aid training which was accompanied by the grazing of some cows with a local farmer looking on.
The second day was to be a hike I almost didn't go on because I did't really understand the trail guide and I expected it to be the equivalent of climbing a steep hillside. I'm glad I did decide to go on the hike because it was actually just walking down a country road and I got to see some beautiful landscapes. We were just outside a town called Brad which is 31 Kilometers north west of Deva.

Everything was so beautiful and almost out of another time. Frequently walking down this road you'd be passed by a horse and cart or a farmer with a few cows. We often stopped for a snack of wild blackberries. It was just like all the hiking trails I took as a kid where I always pretended to be an animal or a character in a story on a journey, only now I could more easily believe it. I could have been a wandering minstrel or a traveling rouge. It was hard to believe that this was just a road in front of somebody's house, passing somebody's farm. I half expected to see a naked Paul Bettony stride around the corner at any moment.

Can you tell why I felt I was at the begining of a quest hiking down this road? I said I feel like I’m in Lord of the Rings walking down this road and many people agreed. Someone said “but we don’t have the music.” “It’s ok,” I said, “It’s playing in my head.”

I really admired the people I was hiking with because even when we started out it was drizzling a little. We even remarked upon that as we walked. How it felt good and added to the “olden time” quality of the excursion to just dismiss the rain. To say, hell with it, I’m getting wet. It was sprinkling intermittently and hard to tell the difference if it was rain or sweat. I will say, that if I was being wimpy even my camera was pain to carry, but luckily my Romanian friends insisted on carrying my water bottle and the jacket I wasn’t sure I wanted to bring on the hike.

We walked down the country road for 10 Kilometers (about six miles) then went off the road, down a hill, across a river and up another hill (this is where the climbing comes in) where there was no trail to see a cave. This was explained to me by one of my new friends who speaks very good english. She didn't want to see the cave that apparently you have to crawl into on your stomach because she is calustrophobic and she nominated me to stay outside with her. I was fine with that since getting to the cave (up the hill) sounded like a little bit more than I was up for.

I am becoming aware of the limitations of my camera. Despite my flash it was not this dark out. By the time we crossed the river it was raining in earnest. Not raining hard but raining steadily heavy drops. We who didn't want to see the cave so we waited under some trees for the rest of the group to come back. Again I was reminded of how often I’ve listened to the rain indoors and imagined myself to be a fox curled up in a hollow log, or asleep on some dry pine needles under a sturdy tree. However, this experience served to show me how silly this daydreams really are. When it rains in the forest, you get wet. Very wet. It wasn’t cold until we stopped moving and sat under our trees, but there was no doubt about it – we were saturated. Including the Red Cross jacket leant to me because I forgot my sweatshirt – and I had been so cold the nigh before I slept in the jacket in my sleeping bag. Not a chance of that again. The jacket wouldn’t be dry again for a long time.

When the others did come back it was decided that most of the group was continuing on to see another cave. Those wet-and-not-interested-in-caves like me went back to camp, where I crawled into my tent. Dried myself with somebody's hand towel they leant me. Put on every piece of dry clothing I had brought with me, and was given three swallows of ţuica because "it warms you," whence I promptly fell asleep for four hours and when someone came into the tent to see if I was Ok, he spoke English to me and I answered half asleep and drunk in Romanian.

After a while it stopped raining (thankfully or I wouldn’t have been able to leave my tent wearing every dry piece of clothing I had including my pajamas under my clothes) and I was able to warm myself by the cooking fire and eat a vegetarian dinner of bread, zacusca, tomatos and cheese – also hot cocoa and mint milk).

I feel like I was always the first in bed on this camping trip, while others stayed out till 4 am sitting by the campfire talking and playing music. Granted I wasn’t always the first one asleep. The second night however rain forced my tent-mates to join me sooner than usual and I had a peaceful – and surprisingly not so cold night of listening to the gentle rain and being thankful that for now at least I was dry.

The next morning I walked back down the trail to take some of the pictures I missed the day before while keeping pace with the group. I ate wild blackberries from the roadside for breakfast and drank of the cool refreshing stream water.

Sunday I also got to peel and slice potatoes for an amazing lunch of samale – and there was some sarmale fara carne (with out meat) my favorite Romanian dish, made special just for me! When I couldn’t possibly eat any more I was told to bring the whole pot home with me and just give it back to the Red Cross another day!
After lunch we packed up the camp and I was a little disappointed because at this point I was so in touch with nature – and also so dirty, I would have welcomed a little nude bathing in one of the clear deep pools in the stream we passed on our hike. I would have been so there if I’d only brought a towel! However we were soon on our way home and I got to take a long bath in my apartment followed by a hot cup of tea and soft mattress underneath me. Although I really enjoy the campfire, the sound of rain, the smell of the grass, and my time in communion with nature I think living in that grassy meadow by a stream is best left in my imagination.

Druid Laura

Virtual Tour of My Apartment

Disclaimer: The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps. The government maintains no official position on the cleanliness or messiness of my apartment.

Before
So I know I mentioned to some of you and in my last post the cleaning spree I went on upon moving into my new place almost three weeks ago. Once again not to take any thing away from the previous tennant or say he had "unclean" living habits, or anything - whatever - as long as he was happy. I'm just posting the before and after photos so you can see the results of my two-weeks work at carpet beating and scrubbing, new toliet seat installing, dusting, and furtiture rearranging - all this to take this place - and make it mine!

this is the opposite side of the front door - you try to get blogger to put your pictures in an order but what can you do?!
Like most Romanian apartments my refrigerator is in the hallway. This was the first thing you saw when you walked in the door.

this is the bedroom
also the bedroom complete with a lot of fake flowers but the door goes to a balcony so I can't complain.

was the living room set up


Ok, it won't let me write where I want, but this was the kitchen. All the dishes were clean when I moved in. Note the broken cabinet doors and the carpet - in the kitchen....

What the hell is this? That's right. This is the painting that was on the wall, painted by my landlord or my landlord's father of a Polar bear eating a guy - look at it closely - if you dare.

After

And now bask in the cleanliness and the girliness of the way I rearranged things. Notice no halway carpet anymore.

A fresh table cloth in here made a lot of difference. Also I took down those broken cabinet doors.

The kitchen began feeling cleaner as soon as I washed the curtains. The curtain in here doubles as a mosquito net since the kitchen is the only big window without a screen. I'm really lucky to have a kitchen of this size - with counter space. A nice big clean kitchen - complete with plants - makes me happy!

not a lot different in the bedroom other than i moved my stuff in, dusted and made the bed.
my new living room arrangement. This huge carpet, and the smaller carpet in the bedroom are the ones I beat and washed by hand on the balcony. The others - I threw away.

A picture of my computer showing me The Daily Show!

A picture of my incredibly awkward bathroom with half a meter of space between the sink and the washing mashine, and giant pipes with paint peeling off them in the shower. But hey, it works so I'm not complaining. I know there's no before picture to compare the bathroom to, and this is a hard bathroom to clean and have it look clean. I'm not saying the bathroom was dirty when I moved it because it wasn't. I'm saying the toliet seat was broken. So I bought a new one. Periwinkle blue. That thing on the sink is my Peace Corps water filter.

So what do you think of my apartment?

Fac curat (I clean!)

Disclaimer: The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.

Somehow my blog never seems as cool as I want it to be -I wanted to write this post when I was finished cleaning and settling in to my new apartment and post the before and after pictures, but as I still have the windows to do, and I'm hoping some guests at my Peace Corps apartment warming party will take things the former tennant left me off of my hands - those pictures will have to wait until after the weekend.

A few quick words about the former tennant (in case any of you readers who stumble accross this know him). I'm not intending to disrespect his living style in any way. He told me (he is an American and another Peace Corps volunteer who recently returned to the US) that he liked things "man clean" that is clean on the surface, but not nessecarily undereneath or behind. He wasn't thorough about his cleaning habits - and that's fine because from what I've been told about other male PCVs and their bathrooms his apartment was better than most in it's degree of cleanliness. Honestly.
Really, he's a good guy and I can say nothing against him.

But it's amazing the quanitity of dirt a person can live with for two years. I moved in on July 9th and spent 3 days that week cleaning nonstop. I've finally got things to about where I wanted them - but that said I've been planning this Cleaning (and I use the captial) for months. I think it's because after living with two different hosts for 5 months it's time for me to mark out a space of my own, and to really claim my territory I need to scrub it within an inch of it's life. Or maybe it's because in my two months on site so far I've accomplished absolutely nothing for my organization and I just wanted to take on a project where hard work would produce tangible results.

So I swept the floors (about four times.) Don't think dust bunnies, think dust Stegasauruses. At first I was thinking I would move all the furniture and sweep behind and under it. Some of that I managed, but the furniture for communist bloc style apartments is meant to go up against a wall and never be moved and I could potentially kill myself trying - so as far as my broom fits under the peices that I'm sure haven't been moved in 40 years, I swept.

I dusted, and mopped (the wood floors too. Twice.) I cleaned the fridge, scoured the oven and washed the curtains. I bought and installed a new toliet seat and I killed most of the mold in the bathroom. (I originally intended to scrub the floors with a brush but I now think that would be less effective than mopping them. However I don't think my mop was intended to work this hard because after I mopped the wood floor in the living room twice because I wasn't satisfied it was clean I started finding peices of my aparently suicidal mop on the floor.)

Then I beat the rugs. Oh yes, I beat them. A vacuum cleaner is an extravagance a Peace Corps volunteer can't afford and besides the cheap ones about 200 lei that I could splurge on, I'm told break rather quickly. So the big rug I beat for almost two hours. (Two of the rugs I decided weren't worth the trouble and I put them in the hallway and the landlord took them away) but the other two I beat the hell out them and then I washed them on the balcony last Saturday morning using carpet shampoo, a scrub brush and a special pour-water-off-the-balcony-onto-the-carpet-and-hope-the-downstairs-neighbors-don't-notice technique. (I'll probably never wrestle a wet carpet of that size alone again. I don't know how much it weighs wet but keeping it from falling off the balcony into the mud I created below was a task!)

Some things I learned about rug beating (other than it's a pain in the ass): 1)You'll never get all the dust off the rug so you have to give yourself a time limit like I'm beating this rug for 1 hour and that's it. 2) If you're not careful on the downward swing your nuckles make contact with the carpet. It takes about two times to break the skin off. If you don't adjust after that you will bloody your kuckles. I haven't figured out how to avoid the blisters from holding the baton.

After that I scrubbed the bathroom with tea tree oil, vinegar and baking soda - my favorite all natural earth friendly cleaning products. Low environmental impact - gaurenteed to disinfect your wounds all while stinging a great deal, but hey, I didn't get an infection!

As I said, now I have the windows to do and then I'm having guests over for a apartment-warming party slash rummage sale benefiting the Gender and Development committe. Soon I'll post the pictures of my new place and then I'll fill you in on what else I've been doing in June and July!