Just a quick note of thanks to everyone who has dropped a line recently. I am having a little birthday party for myself that will include such luxuries as gin and tonic and tortilla chips. And it is finally sunny here, so might get to go swimming tomorrow! Aaaaah! I’m 23. Stay tuned for a surprise very soon…. Byeeeeeeeee.

Well I’ve now been at my new site for about two months. The way Peace Corps works here is that I have to live with a host family for two months before moving into my own apartment. I wasn’t thrilled about this, considering that I’ve been living with host families for the past 7 months, but things have turned out well. My new host family is quite well off and live in a brand new house (six months old.) I call it the “American Dream” house, because it is detached from others and has plenty of green space around it. And the family used to live in a soviet style block apartment, so this new house is a huge upgrade.

I am thrilled with my new site. Again, the city is called Tirgu Mures, and is absolutely beautiful. I had been waiting since the beginning of summer to go swimming, and it wasn’t till a few days ago that I go to do so. I went to this place called the “Weekend Complex” where they have two large pools, tons of snack bars, and music pumping throughout the whole place. And to most of my guy friends reading this, yes, the women were dressed (or not dressed) in the European sunbathing style…

But I think my host family (great people, more later,) wanted to show me that not all of Romania is like Tirgu Mures, so this weekend we took a trip up to the far northern part of the country, bordering Ukraine. We stayed with the family of one of my father’s co-workers. To begin with, just to get to their house was a feat in itself. When there was paved road, it seemed as if it was paved by a narcoleptic schizophrenic. We are talking major pot holes and strange grooves in random places as if somebody had come out with the intention of doing something, but lost interest after gouging the road a bit. So, sitting in our little Ford Fiesta, I felt like poor Frogger. After the 20 minute ride up unpaved roads, we came to the house. Now, let me first say that these people were quite hospitable. But truthfully, the living conditions there were as if time had stopped in the 19th century.

The kitchen did not have a gas stove; it was a cast iron affair heated by wood. There was no running water, and the pit toilet made those in Uzbekistan look like what you’d find at the Four Seasons. The stream outside the front of the house was littered with garbage, mostly plastic bottles and bags. All in all, it was a very unsanitary lifestyle, and quite frankly, a bit sad. But I could tell I was in for something like this before we even got there. See, the further out we drove, the more peoples’ clothing began to change. Here in Tirgu Mures, people dress in Western style clothing, women especially wear practically nothing. But up north, there seemed to be two styles of clothing, Romanian traditional, and the “ideal Communist man,” outfit. The former, see picture below, is quite charming, and the later, in typical Communist/Soviet style, is devoid of any colors other than gray and drab green. All the men there wore hats.

Before we left, we were invited over to the neighbor’s house for lunch. They had cooked some chicken in an outdoor grill and set up a small table by a large stack of hay in the backyard. It was delicious peasant food – greasy hearty and flavorful. They gave me tuica (swee-ka,) the traditional Romanian drink, and a beer. As I sat there in a bit of a buzz, surrounded by the stack of hay, chickens in the yard, Romanian women in traditional clothing and my host family, I felt very lucky, lucky to be able to be there and enjoy the moment, but also lucky that it would be but a moment and not a lifetime.

The previous evening I had had a discussion with my host father (in Romanian mind you,) about life before 1989, under the Communist dictatorship of Ceausescu. He was telling me all about how food was rationed and that each person was granted one kilo of beef for a month – this in the 1980’s. We spoke about transition, and how urban life and rural life was so different here in Romania. He had traveled to the Netherlands, and mentioned to me that the differences there were far less pronounced. When we returned to Tirgu Mures last night, I felt like I was re-entering the 21st century. My host father is a smart man. I’m not sure what he does, but he runs some business and has made a name for himself. He is enjoying the fruits of a Capitalist society and does not seem to be too guilty. But he’s not oblivious, and is troubled on many levels. Like the new jobs that are being created here, for instance. He understands that for the price of one American worker a company could have 12 here, and that the jobs created are mostly unskilled, meaning that the creative classes will continue to leave the country. And he realizes that within the country, the rural places will stagnate, as the best and brightest move to more cosmopolitan locales, leaving the rest behind.

On the ride back to Tirgu Mures we encountered a traffic jam in a little out of the way town. As we rolled by, a saw a man lying dead at the side of the road. Before returning to the house we stopped by the village where my host parents grew up to say a brief hello to the grandparents. Our timing wasn’t so good, however, as 8:00 PM is when the cows come home, seriously. About 200 cows were coming back from the pasture, walking down the middle of the street, breaking off one by one as each reached its respective domicile. My host sister mentioned, “stupid cows,” and I said back, “is it the cows, or is it us?” We all laughed. At the grandparents’ house there was a pear tree which had just ripened. We went around back and picked a pail as the late August moon hung low in the hazy night sky. The bats swooped overhead, sightlessly seeking their prey, and the cow in the shed munched quietly on its hay while being milked. We turned on the headlights and drove back towards the lights of the city.

End of PST2:

So, I’m officially a volunteer, again… Yesterday was the big swearing in ceremony in Brasov. I was particularly touched when both the CD and PTO mentioned we four Uzbek transfers during their speeches. Afterwords I took my gazda out for a drink, and then continued drinking with my friends… I had my first Long Island iced tea for a very long time, and then we headed to a Mexican (or at least as Mexican as you get in Romania,) restaurant where I had the very Mexican dish of pineapple chicken with mashed potatoes. We split a bottle of wine between the few of us, and then afterwords headed to another bar for digestives. I had my first grasshopper, again, in a very long time. After that we went to a bigger place where most of the group had gathered to celebrate. Considering that fact that this group is pretty sectarian, it was good to see everyone enjoying themselves. I paid like $4 for a Mohito, which was absolutely delicious. As we were trying to flag a cab to get home, a cop decided to be a jerk, so there was a little altercation which included, at one point, me screaming that he was a fascist communist pig. But we made it home, and this morning my friend and I made scrambled eggs; it was the best we could do considering that there aren’t really diners/pancake houses in this town. Come to think of it, they don’t even really have pancakes in Romania, though they do have almost everything else.

Funerals: I haven’t really been to one, but in Romania, no problem, because they come to you! The town I’m living in is kinda a mix between modern and provincial. When there is a funeral here, there is a big procession through the streets. At the front are people walking with some holding a large wooden cross with something draped over it. Then there is a band, mostly guys with big old tubas and horns, which plays a rather morose marching melody. Then comes the dead guy. He rides in a box with a plastic or canvass top, face showing, on the back of a flatbed truck, surrounded by flowers. As the procession moves down the street, people come out from the houses along the road, mostly standing by the gate or leaning out the window, and pay their respects by watching for a few minutes. It’s really surreal, especially how you hear the music before you even see the front of the procession, so you know it’s coming…

About nine in the evening last week I was walking back to my house from the bar/internet cafe (one place.) Behind me I could hear the clop clop clop of a horse trotting down the road. As it got nearer I could also hear the jingle jingle of the bells hanging from its blinders. It was pulling a wooden cart, which is common here, that was piled high with hay fresh from the field. A few young teenage boys were sitting atop the hay, talking and smoking a little. As the cart passed I got a deep smell of the hay which was absolutely beautiful and I stopped to watch the cart and the hay and the boys move down the street.