Community Activity

Couple of brief updates:
(pictures are coming)

Community
Friday, Sept. 7 - Organized a small gathering with a small group from the Catholic community and my sitemates (two other volunteers in Severin). I wanted to introduce them to some of the people in Severin. We bbq'd mici (the pork type - burger links) and fish. We were definitely struggling with the Romanian type charcoal at first. We used pig fat called 'slanina' to grease up the grill... it was interesting and worked pretty well (since there was no Pam around).

Since it was getting a little chilly we all ate inside and spoke to each other, mostly in Romanian as there was really one other person who spoke English and had to translate at times.

Before this bbq, I got to know them a little better as I attempted to make them a spaghetti dinner before this, it came out OK, realizing a little late needed to make for 14 people, my sauce was a little thin but there was more than enough spaghetti, could've used a little more meat.

I've been also meeting most of my neighbors, as my 'bloc' knows me by now. All the kids will run to me as I come in through the back way and want to try to speak English at times. Hard to break away at times but it's fun and they are all super nice to me.

Work
Work is definitely picking up, as I've met with one of the Rrom (Gypsy - note: using the word Gypsy they don't mind as much but they do not like to use the word 'Tigan' pronounced 'tsee-ghan' as it has a derogatory connotation to it). We had a small meeting with other 'activists' for the Rrom population and we are going to start defining a project how I can learn as well as try to help.

The unemployment agency is in great need of a company car to travel to the county to visit the communities that require social assistance. I will be visiting more of these in the future with the unemployment agency as well as the Rrom representative group.

Cooking
Must say, since there are no real fast food places around me, I've been forced to do a lot of cooking which I am slowly but surely getting the hang of it. Instead of guessing which meats or sausages are the best, I just talk to the ladies in the market and ask which are the good meats?