Hearts and Other Polygons

I was just beginning to think that Romania, as beautiful as it is, doesn't really vary a whole lot visually and, in all honestly, was starting to get a bit boring. Not the people, not my time here, not the culture, just the landscape and the scenery. Even so, it was a very beautiful boring that I could stare at through the train window all day - like watching the clouds changing shapes and sizes. Clouds are all pretty similar, fairly fluffy and some shade of white, but watching them slide across the sky, spotting an occasional heart or dinosaur, is never a disappointing way to spend an hour or two. But after you've seen a couple of clouds, you've seen them. Just like after you've seen a few tree speckled rolling hills dotted with quaint, pastel painted cottages and their little wisps of chimney smoke curling into the sky, like a postcard you wish you could step into, you've seen them. And after you've seen a few centuries-old, boldly painted and Jesus adorned churches, you've seen them. I don't want to say "you've seen them all" because each location and each church is unique and who am I to lump them all together? They've just gotten redundant enough now that I know what to expect and as much as I love staring out the train window, little surprises me. Then, like finding an impossibly detailed replica of starry starry night in the clouds above, I take a trip to the Danube Delta. Instead of a train, my friends and I board a tiny seven person boat, and where the tree and cottage dotted hills once filled the view, our gaze is captured by the open waters lined with lush beaches, reed-roofed houses and subdued boat docks. The grazing cows are replaced by rare species of birds and the incessant roar of the train engine is completely absent, as is nearly all sound. How silent a group of people can be, especially as they carefully approach a floating sea of pelicans. Hundreds of them bobbing gently, quietly with the waves. All sound is gone, except for the quiet lap of water against the boat, the occasional stifled sound of awe and the light swish of wings taking to the air. Romania still has more than just hearts and other polygons to show me and I'm glad I still feel like looking.

Whew!

My name appears in a local news article. Craziness! My sister comes tomorrow. Awesomeness!

The Pancake Date

This is my 101st post on here. Cool.

Tonight marked the occurrence of my first pancake date. It wasn't really a "date" in the traditional sense because it was with my friend Anca, her husband and their daughter, but I like how the phrase "pancake date" almost rhymes, so I'm sticking with it. Despite having lived here for a year and a half, tonight was the first time ever that I invited people into my apartment and prepared food for them. This might seem surprising, but considering the fact that I can not recall a single time when I did such a thing for friends in the states, it's pretty status quo for me. I just don't invite people over, and I particularly don't cook for people, unless it's with them (I secretly love cooking with people). I don't know how to cook and have little desire to learn. But, I can do pancakes. I really like Anca and her family. They have invited me to their home countless times and shared their food with me, they've taken me on hikes in the mountains, on trips to Brasov (where Anca's mom feeds us copious amounts of goodies) and on strolls through the city, they've played ping pong with me, taught me how to paint eggs, helped me run part of the drama week and written an article for the local newspaper about me and the Peace Corps. All of this, and the most I've done to reciprocate has been to produce a bag or two of cookies at dinner time. It's tough, even for a non-entertainer introvert who relishes an empty apartment and a silent phone, to take in so much kindness without doing something more significant than cookies in return. Well, tonight was the night. My little mediocre pile of pancakes and sticky saucer of "mock syrup" hardly make up for what Anca, Doru and Dodo have done for me, but it's a start. A start that I was nervous about all day, but will remember for a long, long time.

On a side note, pancakes are called clatite here and are cooked super thin and rolled up with jam or chocolate in the middle, more like the French crepe than our puffy version. The family was very curious about the process that goes into making and eating American style pancakes, so it turned into a pleasant little cultural exchange, as well.

Trust in Strangers

Every time I see an unattended yet occupied baby stroller, I feel slightly disturbed and wonder how on earth a parent could trust all these random people milling about to leave their child alone while they idly browse the second hand racks. A stroller parked in the middle of a busy Monday morning sidewalk, with tiny hands and feet flailing about inside, and no parent anywhere in sight...it's something I've never witnessed before and something the movies use to create an atmosphere thick with suspense. I fight the urge to label this action as bad parenting because it has become apparent that the definition of good parenting depends on which country you were brought up in.
In elementary school, my mom and I followed the advice of the local news station, which faithfully and thoroughly and redundantly reported on every possibly-abducted child case, and made up a "code word" that I would request from strangers in the event that they tried to coax me into going with them. The word was, fittingly, "muffin". One afternoon, my mom couldn't pick me up from school and asked a friend to fill in. We had arranged this beforehand and she told me to use the "code word" and I, thrilled at the opportunity to use the "code word", waited anxiously at the designated corner until a white jeep pulled up in front of me. The passenger side's tinted window slowly rolled down to reveal a nice looking lady with sunglasses, curly hair and a baby seat in the back, but I was skeptical. "What's the code word?" I asked as sternly as my seven year old voice could handle. She pulled her sunglasses down to reveal her eyes and whispered "muffin", followed by a kind smile. Feeling a bit disappointed that she actually knew it and I didn't get to ask for the "code word" from anymore strangers, I opened the door and got in. I still didn't feel totally convinced, though. What if this stranger had somehow overheard the conversation with my mom? What if the person who was really supposed to pick me up was tied up and gagged in the back? What if this was the CIA? My rising panic didn't ease until I reached my front door and the nice lady with the sunglasses was driving off down the street, concluding the one and only occasion in which I put "muffin" to use.
As silly as this story seems to me now, it has a grim undertone and strategies and fears like this are becoming more and more dominant in American parenting, and those fears are by no means unfounded. When a parent feels the need to create a code word that may prevent their child from being kidnapped, some sort of societal innocence has been lost. And each time I pass by a baby sound asleep in a stroller without a parent nearby, I am at first startled out of habit, and then I am envious. Envious of a society that is still capable of one of the deepest forms of trust. Your government may be corrupt and your neighbor may steal your money and your spouse may be out on a date, but your children are safe.

Conscience Cleared

Remember the mountain bike that was going to take me to all the lovely nearby villages around Sfantu Gheorghe? Well, I haven't touched it since discovering the fatal faulty back brake and the sinister swing of the cute little handle bar basket, and that fact has been eating at my conscience. Having a potentially perfectly usable bike chained up and gathering dust during the summer months when so many other volunteers (not to mention locals) could use one just seemed flat out selfish, so I sent out an email a week ago looking for any takers. Surprisingly, only one person out of nearly twenty responded (slightly clearing my guilt, slightly) and yesterday she claimed her prize and my title of "evil bike hording monster" was renounced. I feel much better. Another thing I won't do in Romania: become a biking pro. Eh, whatev.