Blue 42.. Red 41.. Hut 1 Hut 2 Hut Hut...

June 8 - 10

- - - watch for the audible - - - - Hike ! Nothing better than teaching Romanian kids good ol' American football. They enjoyed it a lot. What they really enjoyed was the celebration dance and special hi-5 (slap high then come around and slap down low) after a touchdown. I think they wanted touchdowns just to do that.

Trying to get that bbq going. Nothing like a good'ol picnic with a bbq (no brats, dogs, or burgers though - would've liked) Mici (burger substitue), chicken, and vegetables were on the grill menu.


Reading more about the EU and how to apply for grants for both the Unemployment Agency and Youth Center. Still trying to make Roma contacts as well. Startied actually writing a small grant for the Youth Center in Severin (I could use an English class myself).



June 18 - 19

Established my apartment !! FINALLY !! and applied for my Legitamatci (legalizes my stay here in Romania since my visa actually expired long ago). When I went to the police station I thought that was going to be my address for the next two years since they were, not quite yelling but talking very loud and literally tossed my passport to the side and chuckled. Talk about running around a ton, getting stamps, paying taxes, waiting in the lines. The worse part is, there are fans right there but no one wants to use them (because of the curent) and it is HOT !!



June 20 - will be heading to Onesti to visit Bryan and check out the unemployment agency.
June 24 - July 1 - Camp America which we will be talking to kids in English and getting involved in small programs with them for one week.

Anyone can check out my yahoo calendar as well, shows where I'll be, dates, b-days, etc:
http://calendar.yahoo.com/travelwh

Gratar Pentru Aragaz!

Humor:
Pictures:
* Every morning I watch a three-legged dog chase cars. And they say I don't learn lessons from my mistakes. Once in awhile a black dog will join in on the 'save the environment by walking or car pool' protest but gets bored pretty fast then leaves but only to return another day.
* Started cooking, this thing is amazing, may have to start taking orders. The 'gratar pentru aragaz' (grill for the stove) beats out the foreman grill and the turbobroiler !! I was cooking mici (meechi) at the time. Tell anyone from Romania that an American is cooking mici on the gratar pentru aragaz and they'll definitely laugh.

Things are slowly coming together (I think).

Unemployment Agency (UA):

The UA needs help in understanding the European Union (EU) standards for requesting funds, basically grant writing. So there are a couple of things I need to learn, unemployment, Romi population, how to search the web about EU regulations, and a crash course in grant writing. Anyone out there have a successful grant I can reuse (I'm sure I can find one somewhere)?

Secondary Project (?):

Possibly found a secondary project in trying to raise funds for a youth activity and resource center. In my grant writing research (which makes it hard because I currently don't have access to the internet on a consistent basis) I hope to learn about accessing funds for continuing education / youth centers as well. Right now, I volunteered to teach basic English there (I know what most of you are thinking, I can hardly speak correctly myself - - as long as I don't need to do sentence structuring we'll all be fine and they'll survive on the streets, not sure if they would survive in a classroom) and in return they will teach me Romanian. Fair exchange.

Apartment:

Hopefully this will come to a close soon, I ran out of sacrificial lambs and down to my last one which I'm saving for when I'm in a pinch.

Quick Language and Culture Lesson:

When making a cheer with alcohol (can't join the cheer unless you have an alcoholic beverage, yes juice and water drinkers are discriminated against). Klank the glasses and say 'Noroc' (no-roke) - can also use it when someone sneezes.

Places visited:

Last weekend I visited a town called Ramnicu Valcea, size is approximately the same as Severin (approx. 108,000 people). It was very clean and impressive for a small town. We met other volunteers there for a bbq. The true adventure was making it from Severin to Valcea... ???

Environment Day (June 5) - Invited to another school

We were invited to talk to another school! This time we briefly talked about us and talked more about how beautiful Romania is and how they need to keep it beautiful. Students were more involved this time since we were asking them about what they thought of their town and how to make a difference in keeping it clean. We were really impressed because the school initiated different interactive sessions with the students; a river clean up, a march on one of the main streets in keeping the city clean, and drawing environment awareness posters. We can only hope the message made it to the public.

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Misc. Update:

The unemployment agency is my primary project, currently working alone (don't really have a counterpart) which makes things a tad bit harder especially if they really don't know why I'm here, but it is not uncommon for a Peace Corps volunteer to be thrown in, just need to be a little patient, dynamic, and a good listener. Slowly (I mean slowly) making some leads in trying to work with the Roma Population, hoping that this will materialize.

Still trying to find an apartment that I can stay at, a project, and a counterpart.

Heading to Ramnicu Valcea with Bryan who also works for the unemployment agency in Onesti (we were trying to brainstorm for some ideas, he works on the local level and I'm more on the county level). Ramnicu Valcea is about four hours east and a little north. We are going to meet volunteers from our group (group 22) and from group 21, and hopefully no rain so we can bbq on Saturday.

More school Pics and a nice write up from Karen

I met more volunteers in the town of Craiova over the weekend. I ate McDonald's for the first time in a month, surprisingly it did not settle well!? Craiova is a pretty big city (population is over 310,000) it has a nice center and is considered a college town.

Karen created a nice write up and I just wanted to post some additional pictures she took as well. She can write (unlike myself).

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“PCRO Diversity in a Severin Classroom”
by Karen Lindquist (Group 19)
Drobeta Turnu Severin

Ah, the waning days of a school year. Just a few more days to hold the attention of 9th, 10th and 11th graders. What can I pull out of my teaching ‘bag of tricks’. Something special, hmm, let’s see, what to do. Ah, I’ve got it! Special guests!

An invite to visit my Colegiul National Traian classes was quickly accepted by Severin’s new Group 22 PCVs, Heather Ferguson, Justin Almeida and Steve Manio. And, my oh my, how those young faces brightened with the announcement: “special guests are with us today.”

While enjoying the stories of enthusiastic PCVs, proudly holding their map of the USA, my TEFL counterpart leaned toward me and said, “look how attentive the students are; they haven’t given me such attention for ages.” Were the kids listening? Who knows. Were they visually attentive? Absolutely. Standing before them was a fine representation of American diversity – more diversity in our small PCV group than these kids have ever previously encountered.

Drobeta Turnu Severin, at least for a brief time, is proudly served by four PCVs. Our merry band of diverse volunteers represents:
· All four PCRO sectors: Education, Environment, Institutional Development, Community Development;
· Two PCRO-PCV groups: Group 19 and Group 22;
· Age Range: from 24 to 64;
· Cultural Diversity: Filipino-American, Mexican-American, Scottish, Norwegian/Swedish;
· Fascinating Physical Features: and last but not least, a few “can’t take your eyes away from” big muscles, big tattoos, bald head, red hair and freckles and those fascinating Asian eyes.

Each PCV story illustrated not only our diversity but a few hard-to-grasp American values and/or traditions. With map held high for all eyes to see, Heather said “listen closely and count the number of states in which I’ve lived”, as she spoke about her round-the-USA life of mobility because of her father’s work with the National Park Service. Americans’ ease in picking up and moving from place to place is such an uncommon practice for Europeans.

Steve and Justin each shared their family story of parents emigrating to America (from the Philippines and Mexico) and in their efforts to ‘fit in’, speaking only English in public. Their offspring now speak English only – and the families’ native language was never passed along. That’s a tough concept for students in a bilingual school where studies are offered in English, French, German and Spanish and every student speaks adequately three or more languages.

Students shook their heads in disbelief when Steve declared that he now speaks more Romanian than the native language of his parents. Having studied and daily put to use their new Romanian language skills, these young PCVs have made a commitment to learn their families’ languages following Peace Corps service.


Pictures are captivating to a young audience and Justin’s laptop computer and Steve’s IPOD were loaded with glorious photos of the United States and world travel sites. End-of-class bells rang and no one moved, no one! How could that be? Aren’t these the same kids who crash their way to the door each day as the school year winds to an end?

One of a teacher’s joys is to observe a classroom full of enthusiastic, interested students – as they closely study new and unusual faces, listen to stories from the lives of others that are so different in many ways from their own, and gather round to view pictures of sights and sites they’ve never previously seen.

And, in the end? Many requests for e-mail addresses and two wonderful invitations – one for pizza (thank you, 11th graders) and one for a day in the countryside (from my counterpart, Mrs. V. to one and all, to the PCVs and her dirigente class of 9th graders).

Now then, if we can just find a few good sources of home-cooked meals for Steve!

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Back to High School

Karen the TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) volunteer in our city invited us (Justin, Heather, and myself) to discuss about who we are and how we grew up to classes in her high school (probably talked to about 6 classes; 3 sessions, 2 classes in each session) .

It was great because it gave us the opportunity to explain how Americans are different and not necessarily just one color and especially the mentality of our parents when they migrated here. They seemed fairly surprised when I talked with a strong American accent and grew up eating hot dogs, hamburgers, and pizza (I know what a terrible diet, but that's what I ate because I wanted to fit in, plus it was hard to explain Filipino foods to other kids at the time - sad I know). Most importantly it gave us the opportunity to start meeting the community (Thanks Karen!).

Justin and I had similar stories to share in growing up which we believe hit home with the Romanian students. We explained how our parents in the 60's/70's did not want to teach us their native language (Filipino for me and Spanish for Justin) in fear that we would not fit in as an American and not assimilate as easily (since at the time there were hardly any asians when I grew up). We said we know more about the Romanian language and about their culture than our parent's culture (which was a little sad). We also shared pictures of our hometown, family, and friends. We expressed Romania's natural beauty as well(can't just brag about our hometowns the whole time especially since we have different problems), which seemed to work and how the word needs to get out about this beautiful country. Seemed to inspire them a bit !

Frankly, being back in high school was pretty therapeutic for me. The only disappointment was not being able to see Justin break a board since he knows karate.

Better Days & Baile Herculane

Better Days
After my Daniel in the Lion’s Den incident occurred, next day was a little better. Still had a group of kids call me ‘Hey China’ but I did the P.C. thing and talked to them for a bit, went well. No guys wearing daisy duke shorts in the gym. Still having an apartment issue. No harassment in the grocery store. I was meeting Justine and Heather to go out and there were three guys sitting on a bench, two girls dressed scantily clad in front of me, who do you think the guys on the bench were staring at? I wish the girls but they were staring at me like I was from another planet. Now I can only think of two reasons why they were staring at me and neither of them are good.

Baile Herculane
Saturday Justine, Heather, and myself took a day trip to Baile Herculane. This is about a little over an hour away north of Severin. Legend has it that Hercules himself bathed in the natural springs that were built by Roman legions following their invasion of Dacia. Pretty soon the story will change to, ‘Legend has it, Heather, Justine, and Steve bathed here’. Wallowing in the ‘Seven Springs’ thermal pool (like a regular pool) was relaxing and a nice break from the city. Hiking back we found a small little nook where we saw a person go down, curious, we followed him and led us to a natural sulfur whirlpool. Ahhh… that hit the spot. We were able to carry a decent conversation with the locals as well and one of the local’s two sons lives in Chicago on Western and Foster. She asked if I knew where that was. I can only smile and wanted to say ‘2400 W & 5200 N and about 15 minutes away from Superdawg’… (in Homer Simpon’s voice) mmm… Super..dawg.

Pictures are of;

• Justine (as Hercules himself) and I in one of the natural spring rivers.
• Couple of dogs waiting with us in Orsova, before they turn into the hounds of hell at night.
• Iron Gate – Hydroelectric power station and on top of the dam is the road that links Romania to Serbia.
• Heather taking a picture with the open doors of the moving train. If you fall off and live, there is no suing anyone or any entity here. You’ll just here them say dumb@!$ and case closed.
• Architecture in one of the old historic bathes.

@*!# dogs ! Close but I live on. Tough day yesterday.

Yesterday was one of those days...

Starts off by looking for an apartment. Thought I found a somewhat decent place but then they wanted 3 months security deposit, which after a long negotiation process was a no-go. Ughh... and the search continues but doing ok...

Go get lunch and have 6/7 boys speaking to me in Chinese, smile and move on. Something I deal with from time to time. Like growing up in Chicago in the early years. Still doing ok...

Working out and a guy at the health club was wearing daisy duke jeans, don't need to say anymore... Still doing ok...

I'm in the grocery store buying some chicken, I'm ordering and the lady asks me where I'm from. I tell her Chicago and out comes three guys dressed in Eminem style clothing yelling, "Chicago is no good, our city is the best and we stay right here!" (using both of their hands pointing down), seemed that they were quite serious. I ask, "You've ever been there?". "No, don't need to, we stay right here" (mind you, just about yelling and attracting attention). Still doing ok...

Now comes the part that almost breaks me...

I thought I almost bit the dust last night. I watched a movie at my site-mates place (Justine and Heather), '300' (about the Spartan's war against Persia (not that very good)) but hey, it's a movie so I can't complain. There are no movie theatres here or any American fast food joints for that matter, no real franchise type restaurants (actually pretty nice but once in awhile you crave that All-American bad food). I was walking back around 11:15pm and it's about a 20min walk back to my place. I was crossing a park (nobody is around and it is pitch black) and out comes about 10 dogs, 8 of them barking and growling loud quickly surrounded me (other 2 on the sidelines for support), 'uggghhh', about 4 were the size of dobermans. Didn't freeze, I just had to slowly get out of their turf but they came real close, within arm's length. I just kept yelling 'Gata!' for some reason which means enough in Romanian. I was able to slowly walk away (have to say it was about a minute but felt forever). I just kept thinking, you know, countries that eat dogs aren't that bad. If you can't control them like in the states, control them in another way.

And life goes on...