Semafor

Happy Birthday, Mom!!

Sfantu Gheorghe has one four-way stop light and I can be found there at least once a day, waiting with my fellow pedestrians for the light to change. Sometimes it takes 30 seconds of waiting, sometimes 2 minutes, but it's always a pause in my walk that I enjoy. The streets are so crowded and everyone is either hurrying by, nearly knocking me out of the way or is teetering along, dependent on a cane and left well behind within a second, that I hardly get the chance to see a face let alone wonder about the mind within. I love to walk, especially quickly. My mind never works better than when I'm swiftly walking alone with no particular destination. It gets lost within itself and tells stories and comes up with bizarre scenarios and gets thoroughly into its own thing, all while deftly maneuvering around slow moving or motionless objects, dodging rapidly approaching obstacles, leaping over man-holes left ajar, and changing directions with such dexterity that contact with the wobbly toddler, the little old lady, and the pile of dog poo were completely avoided. It gets into a hazy zone of surreality, a mixture of walking and mental talking, and doesn't quite emerge from it until the pattern of left-foot-right-foot is broken. And this nearly never happens until arriving at the stop light. It's a relief, almost. A break. From thinking and walking. The obstacles and objects I had been planning my route around morph once again into people and the white background noise returns to conversation, despite the fact that I still can't understand it. Faces appear across the street, awaiting the same signal as myself and I take full advantage of this brief moment where it's ok to stare fixedly at a stranger, to wonder what their life is like and to question why they are buried so deeply in their jacket. And to not mind that they are staring back, wondering why my brow is furrowed and why I'm wearing such strange shoes. It's a moment that can't occur while walking or otherwise doing things - it's a moment that belongs solely to a stop light and to the pedestrians waiting patiently at its side. It's a moment I sometimes wish wouldn't pass. Then the light changes, legs are put back into motion, the faces you were staring at start to blur by and become simple memories. We could stop eachother. In the middle of the intersection, we could introduce ourselves. I could put out my hand to shake and ask them why they look so worried. We could go get coffee and become friends and not be strangers staring at eachother from across the street anymore. But that would take too much effort and would spoil the beauty of a stop light.

Breath

I've noticed that the longer I go without posting, the harder it is to do. Partly because things start piling up that I'd like to put on here and it seems like too much to do, and partly because I feel like I have forgotten how to put together a decent sentence. So bear with me. Or is it bare?

Things that have been going on:
1. Thanksgiving. I spent the holiday with other volunteers and a few Romanians in a small city called Campulung Moldovanesc, which is pretty far north and near the Ukrainian border. We ended up going through three turkeys, four pumpkin pies, five loaves of bread, and all the mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, and candied yams to match. We spread it out over two days and had Thanksgiving 1 on Thursday and Thanksgiving 1.2 on Saturday. And kinda on Friday. It was excellent and I didn't think about missing home on Thursday until we turned out the lights to go to bed and everyone grew real quiet with sleep and I suddenly realized that Thanksgiving was just beginning back home.

2. Romania's National Day. On the 1st of December in 1918, the three regions that now make up Romania were finally, after centuries of battles, united, and the first of December has since been honored every year. The holiday is kind of like our 4th of July; it's the celebration of being a part of a country. To enjoy the festivities, I traveled from Campulung Moldovanesc to Ploiesti (an eight hour trip) with Suzie, the volunteer placed there. We attended the traditional military parade, featuring lots of armed vehicles and face-masked soldiers, followed by lunch at her counterpart's recently remodeled apartment. If your memory is sharp (and if I ever mentioned it on here), you'll recall that Suzie's counterpart was also my group's counterpart for the practicum and that Ploiesti is the city where we all spent our first 2.5 months of training. It all seems so quaint now.

3. Christmas Craft Market. This past Friday through Sunday (5th-7th), I helped out at a craft fair that was put together by two nearby volunteers. The market was in a tiny village called Nagyaita (Aita Mare in Romania...Big Aita in English) in my very own Covasna County. I was blessed with a front seat maxi taxi ride both on the way there and on the snowy trip back. Just when you begin to not notice how beautiful it is here, you get the front seat. Awe is swift to return. My task for the market was to paint little faces and hands and it was thoroughly enjoyable until all they wanted were scorpions and spiders and something on each cheek and each wrist. Then it started getting a little annoying. I also bought a felt purse for only 25 lei and a bunch of hand made Christmas cards. I'm all about handmade lately and this market was the place to find it. Oh, there was also a pig-sticking, which is a tradition here this time of year and it involves a pig...and a sharp stick and results in lots of meat for everyone to eat. It is actually something illegal according to EU standards because it's considered inhumane, but people still do it for tradition's sake. Luckily I was painting faces when it happened because, as much as I love learning about Romania, I don't think watching an animal die would do me any good right now. I'm a pansy and I feel a bit ashamed to admit that the pork I had for dinner that night was delicious.

4. Drama Club. We're meeting tomorrow (Saturday) to run through the skit three or four times and to hopefully get something presentable ready for the show on Thursday and Friday. It's gonna be good, darn it. And hopefully fun for them as well. It's been a pain in the arse to work on a play with variable actors, but I'm learning. Next time around, it's monologues.

5. Quasi American Corners. I met a librarian here recently who worked with a volunteer in the past on an American Corners project. I say quasi because it's not officially recognized by the embassy and it's really just the current volunteer talking with students about America. The volunteer he worked with left three or four years ago and it was fun watching him pull out all the old materials, brush off the dust, and get excited about restarting the project. Yesterday (Thursday) I gave my first presentations in the quasi American Corners to two classes. I talked with them about Thanksgiving and then we compared and contrasted Christmas traditions, which I'm pretty sure was a learning experience for both sides.

Here are some differences:
1. December 6th. This day is considered Saint Nocholas' day and the children carefully polish their boots and place them by the front door so St. Nick can come around during the night and fill them up with small wrapped presents, fruit, and candy. We don't do this, but I'm willing to bet that the tradition of our Christmas day stockings, which aren't hung here, originated from the boots. Oh, and if a kid is bad, instead of getting candy, he or she'll get a silver painted stick to be beaten with.
2. Christmas music. I have yet to hear a Christmas song in a public establishment. I miss it.
3. Shopping. Nobody died here in shopping stampedes. Nobody goes nuts over the next Wiitendo. No lines outside of Macy's at 5am. All good things.
4. December 25th. Not sure how exactly it will go, but so far I know that Saint Nick does not come on Christmas day because he came on December 6th, so the angel comes instead (not sure what that means). This is the day for exchanging gifts with family members and friends and my landlord has kindly invited me over. It's a day that I'm looking forward to with both curiosity and apprehension. Kinda hoping to skype with family on that day, too. I'd like to see my little brothers open their Christmas presents and maybe share a Christmas hot chocolate with my mom.

K, this is all I can coherently do for right now. Time to sleep.

Pick a card, any card

Thursday seems to be the blog day as of late.

There's a wonderful craft shop here that I go to at least once a month to buy a little hand-made trinket or a gift to send home. There are three reasons why I love this craft shop dearly: 1) the stock is mostly made up of the works created by local artisans from the Sfantu Gheorghe region, 2) the shopkeeper is just about the nicest little old lady I've ever met, and 3) it's magical. Yes, magical. From the moment I open the door and walk inside, Romanian suddenly decides to make sense and for some mystical reason, I can actually understand about 75% of what the sweet little shopkeeper says. And if that's not enough, I am miraculously able to say things (very simple things) in Romanian that are comprehensible, at least to my little older lady friend, even if it does sometimes take a couple of tries. I don't even know her name, or the name of the store for that matter, but she is one of those ladies and it is one of those places that I know will tug on the heart strings five years from now, even if I were to leave tomorrow. I know this because thinking about it right now, thinking about not having the option to go buy a scarf that was knitted by a little local bunica, or not being able to go practice my lousy Romanian with someone whose personality makes me smile for the rest of the day, already does tug on the heart strings. There's something she always says to me as I'm leaving the shop, which I never really understood until today. It means something along the lines of "thank you for supporting our community". Well, that's why I'm here, but I think the shop and its keeper do far more to support me than I do to support them. Buying stuff is easy, even on a volunteer's budget, but making an outsider feel welcome and comfortable? That takes far more skill. Maybe it even takes a little magic.

And all is good

I know my posts on here have been fairly down lately, and I apologize for that. I'm not providing a very accurate image of my life here right now because the majority of it is surprisingly nice, knock on wood. I think part of the sorrow that's been coming out is due to the fact that I only update at night, when I am feeling my lowest. During the day, I am as happy as a clam, but after about 8pm on evenings when not much is going on, I get down and all I want to do is type out my blues. I've actually been resisting the urge lately to jump on here every time I'm feeling down because I don't want to give everyone the impression that my life here is bleak and difficult, but I don't have many other means of relief. It's getting too cold to jog, I can't find a piano to play for the life of me, I'm tired of turning plastic bottles into flowers and spiders, I am unable for some reason to focus on any book, and I don't want to live a life of pestering people on gmail chat. So I type.

On Tuesday, I handed out the roles for the Christmas skit the drama club is going to put on. Last week I had only 11 people show up, this week I had 15...it's hard to prepare a play when the participants vary so much, but everyone who was there this Tuesday said they were dedicated, so we'll see. Actually, I need to write two more scenes so everyone will be able to have at least two parts. They're surprisingly, wonderfully into it and I bless the day that I mentioned my (minimal) drama experience to my tutor. This week was particularly fun when I put them into groups of 4, gave them each a line (four lines for the whole scene) and then asked them to perform the scene without actually saying the words, so they had to pantomime. It was great to see what they came up with, clever kids that they are.

Another fun moment happened when Dan, a very kind man at my agency who has been coming to the English hour, proudly held up his pencil and said "This is my chair!" after the this/that these/those lesson. He's never had English classes before, while most of the others have, and he's generally pretty quiet in class, but he tries. He was so proud and sure of himself, it broke my heart to tell him the truth. "Sorry, Dan. That is a pencil, not a chair. But it is yours." "Oh...this is my PENCIL!" he then points at his chair "this is my CHAIR!" he says with a smile as he lightly punches the air in victory. I love people.

just out of reach

I don't like my last post. It's a Debby of a downer, but that happens once in a while.

My tea arrives. Finally. Something to focus on. I pull it in towards me, scoop up some honey from the little pot, then watch it slowly swirl down into my drink, forming a little layer on the bottom of the mug. A treat for later. There are three other people at the table with me and they are deep in conversation. Their faces light up with humor at something said, they lean forward, backs stretching in towards the speaker as a confidential detail is quietly described. Hands fly through the air to provide additional explanation, air is sharply inhaled as they gasp at something too bizarre to believe. Laughter erupts and faces turn red as they try not to laugh too loud, suddenly embarrassed. A happy silence follows, with little sighs of comfort and memory. Everyone is reflecting on something, it seems. Something funny from the past, a funny person they once knew, an embarrassing night out on the town, perhaps, when a few too many tsuicas were consumed. I can only imagine. One of them glances at me and hesitates; I know what's coming. "Uh, it was a joke", he says in English and then proceeds to explain the joke to me, in English. It takes about twenty seconds to tell me the five minute ordeal I had just witnessed. The joke ends abruptly and the speaker looks at me expectantly, waiting for me to get it. It's not funny. To me, it's not funny, but I proceed to make the sounds and gestures that resemble laughter and everyone politely joins in. It goes on far too long, I think, this fake laughter, but we all fear what we know will follow. Slowly, silence ensues. It's not the satisfied silence from before, instead it's a silence endured with sideways glances, oddly stretched smiles, and tangible attempts at resuming some sort of conversation. I take a sip of tea, trying to maintain a smile. My hand shakes slightly, tea drips on my shirt, it’s not sweet enough. I take a napkin from the table and busily dab at the spot on my shirt and as I dab away for what feels like decades, someone discovers a suitable topic and gratefully breaks the tension. I resume my role of the clueless observer, wishing deeply that I could understand, and wishing that the honey was not now on the other end of the table, just out of reach.

Tomorrow

The future always appears brighter than the present (I seem to be stuck in the tenses lately, my apologies). It's a curse of optimism and an inability to accept the possibility that things could get worse. When looking at the future, you often assume that it will be better than today and you've been taught to think like this since elementary school. Teachers pep you up with phrases like "when you go to college", "when you get married", "when you have your own house", not with phrases like "when you're smoking a pack a day", "when you get divorced", "when you're staring at your reflection in disgust", giving you a false sense of future brightness and refusing to admit that parts of your life could potentially suck. You grow up envisioning your adult self as being shrouded in happiness, surrounded by opportunities, thinking things are going to be great. And then you get there and you realize, though it's not awful, life just isn't the shiny little nugget of wonderment they had made it out to be. It's disappointing. Life is disappointing.

Or is it me? Am I doing this right or am I failing at making this little nugget shine?

Tomorrow I'm going to wake up, turn on the computer, and check the results. But no matter how great either candidate may seem, I'm not going to expect much. I'm learning.

Ramble with me

I have a very clear memory of being 15, standing in the locker room after PE class, and discussing the future with my friends. We were talking about when and how we thought we would die. One girl said forty-three from a car accident, the next girl said thirty-one due to a faulty parachute, and I said seventeen. I didn't know how I would die, but I was convinced that I would not live to see what life beyond seventeen years was like. It meant graduating. It meant college and the eventual "real life" and career. And I was incapable of fathoming that, of seeing beyond the high school walls, and I took my inability to envision as a sign that this world would soon reject me and end what had been a rather favorable childhood. I truly believed it. Then 17 came and went and nothing too horrible happened and I started making more and more complicated decisions - going to college, moving to Eugene, moving back, graduating, choosing a job, signing up for the peace corps, and setting foot on the plane that brought me to where I now sit. I've been thinking about the seventeen year old me alot lately. We have both been confronted with the most difficult adjustments in my life so far, and not much to picture as an outcome of our actions. I am yet again faced with the inability to see myself on the other side of something. Now instead of highschool, it's peace corps. It's tomorrow, it's next month, it's mid service training and close of service and my eventual return home. I just can't picture it. Six months ago, when our country director was telling us what to be doing before our In Service Training, I had a hard time listening because I couldn't picture me in Romania, let alone alive, for IST. Not that I saw myself dead, I just couldn't see me being a part of it. Being here has made me appreciate the passage of time and how eventual it is. Six months have gone by while at site. My tutor's baby waves and smiles at me now. My friend's pregnant stomach is tripled in size. The sheets I bought are fading and the plants my landlord gave me seem to have new blooms every day. And IST is over. Things that I couldn't remotely picture just 6 months ago are going by without hesitation and even though I'm an adult, I'm pretty sure I'm going through another stage of growing up. As a kid, Christmas would never come. Now I can't slow it down and can't decide if I'm happy or sad that it's going by so fast. I remember waiting for the day when applying to the peace corps wouldn't sound like a good idea, and on that day I would retract my application. When I think about how delicate my decision to join was, I'm surprised I'm here and surprised that the future is simply fabricated out of the little ideas that we have and decide to put energy into. But I'm even more surprised that I can't picture doing anything else right now. I'm set for the next 1.5 years, but beyond that, who the heck knows. Currently, I can't picture myself beyond the ripe old age of 29.