Feeling hot, hot, hot!

So today was our second day of classes and it was a bit of a whirlwind. Well, actually, only the morning is a whirlwind and then when the afternoon comes and the sun is high in the sky, the hours seems to go in slow motion and the heat seems to get more and more unbearable with each passing second. But back to the morning...

We have 3 hours of language classes in the morning and it is...umm....VERY INTENSIVE. I think that in 6 hours of language class (3 today and 3 yesterday) we have probably covered what most entry level foreign language classes cover in 3 or 4 weeks. YEAH....IT’S THAT RIDICULOUSLY INTENSE!! Haha!! But I think that you will all be pleased to know that I’m doing quite well with the vocab and grammar that we’ve learned so far and I’m not having too much trouble....but we’ll see how I feel on Friday I guess.

In the afternoons we have 3.5 hours of classes that basically teach us about any and everything related to either Peace Corps, Romania, TEFL or some combination of the three. Needless to say it gets a bit daunting after two hours in an 80-degree room with 45 people in NO air conditioning and poor ventilation. But we get like two or three breaks during the afternoon and everybody goes across the street to the piata(pee-yacht-zuh) which is the outdoor market, and we all buy water, ice cream, candy, etc.

Our classes are held at a middle school that is still in session at the moment so every time we walk in and out of the building, children flock to stare at us, point at us and, on rare occasions, speak to us. Most of them yell “HELLO!!” and are very excited to see people who speak English. All of the boys are excited to see a black person and they talk about how they love hip hop, especially snoop dogg. They like to rap and dance and show how cool they are....it’s quite a show! The children here are all very friendly and energetic and when they have their breaks inbetween classes, it’s not at all uncommon to hear them running and screaming through the hallways and apparently the school administration has no problem with this. So today when they were on break I took a few snapshots of them, just to give you all an idea of what the school is like here.

Life with my gazda is going great; they make me lots of good food and they’re trying their best to teach me Romanian despite my brain’s inability to understand 95% of what they try to teach me haha. But from talking to other people in my group, I am very lucky to have a family that has a house, pets, a car and internet. So I’m definitely counting my blessings and thanking God everyday for taking such good care of me. Well that’s it for today I think. Oh!! And I was SUPER HAPPY today because I found my iPod!!!! it was inside a shoe(Yeah, don’t ask me how that happened, just be happy I found it ok)!!!! Liz gave me her USB cord and I’m charging it right now; I can’t explain to you how happy I was to find that thing....I really did think that it was lost forever.

My Gazda!

Ok, so today was my first full day with my Gazda Family(Host family) here in Romania. Yesterday I got here at about 3pm and on the way to the house my Gazda Mom(Host Mother), Carmen, turns to me and says “Oh yes, we are having party today for my mother. She has birthday today; so we have birthday party with whole family.” Uh, yeah....needless to say I was REALLY anxious and immediately broke a sweat and was totally freaked out! Haha!

So we get to the hosue and there are about 15 people hanging out inside and outside, drinking and smoking and talking and laughing. All of the older women were in the kitchen cooking and talking and the men were outside talking and drinking vin (veen) which is homemade wine. We were told at our training sessions to accept any and all food that we were offered because it is a sign of respect and appreciation so of course I accepted each and every glass that was offered(I think they thought it was funny that I just sipped it but as a member of PC we aren't really supposed to drink). The food here is really quite good and I’ve enjoyed trying all sorts of different meats, cheeses, salads, sauces, etc.

My Gazda Grandmother (Host Grandmother) is really cool; she just turned 82 and she has a great sense of humor! The word for Grandmother in Romanian is Mamaia (pronounced like the fruit Papaya except with an M instead of a P). She is always talking to me in Romanian and it seems to be no issue to her at all that I speak only English. She’ll just talk to me and talk and talk and I just try to follow her hand gestures.

I really like my house here; my Mamaia has a garden with tomatoes and cucumbers and legumes...she also has beautiful flowers growing out front. My room here is great; it actually made me VERY proud of the way I packed! I have exactly the right amount of stuff to fit in my room. I have my own room and a nice queen size bed and a wardrobe. At some point, I’m going to try and post the pictures I took of the house and my room. Oh, and Fram, my dog, is such a cutie! Suzi is the cat and she has lots of attitude but deep down she’s just a softy.

Tomorrow’s my first day of language classes and Carmen took me to the school where I will be spending 8 hours a day for the next 10 weeks. It is a 30 minute walk away which actually makes me happy because I was really worried about excercise options. Running in public is a bit taboo here since women do not usually wear shorts nor do they run/jog so it’s nice to know that I’ll be walking for an hour a day.

TV is really big here, just like in the USA so I’ve had lots of fun watching TV with my Gazda....even though I haven’t the slightest clue as to what the shows are about haha! But I was very shocked to see that they have MTV, CNN, Comedy Central, Animal Planet and National Geographic. It was a very pleasant surprise when I found channels that had English speaking people. Well enough for now. This is getting long. Please keep the emails coming! It really makes my day when I’ve got an inbox full of emails!

love and prayers!

Monica

IN ROMANIA

Well, I'm FINALLY here. I'll try and give a quick overview of how my travels went, but I actually have to be in the hotel restaraunt in 8 minutes for dinner so this probably won't be as in depth as I would've liked.
So the flight from JKF to Munich was miserable and hot and crowded and of course I got stuck in the middle seat of the middle section of the plane. but the cool part was that the plan had two floors and a lot of us got to go down to the lower level and just hang out and talk and enjoy the nice air conditioning they had down there. So we get to Munich and we had like a 1.5 hour layover. I can't really tell you much about the flight from Munich to Bucharest because I fell asleep before the plane even took off...yeah....i was ABSOLUTELY exhausted in every sense of the word. Then we landed in Bucharest and were greeting by a big group of PC(Peace Corps) staff and volunteers who helped us load the bus and head to Ploiesti(ploy-esht). I can't tell you much about the bush ride since I fell asleep before we left the airpot and didnt wake up until we got to the hotel. I'm sitting in the hotel lobby right now using their wireless internet so that was a very pleasant and welcome surprise.
All in all I'm happy, but I'm sooooo tired that all I want to do is sleep. Oh and the 'fishbowl' affect has already taken place and almost every person who i pass on the street or in the hotel looks at me as if I'm the first black person they've ever seen (and I'm 99% sure I AM the only black person they've seen). so I've already had lots of stares and pointing fingers and hushed whispers...but oh well. its not really that bad.
but i've got to run!! dinner is starting now!!!
love you!
monica

A Rude Awaking

So, this morning we were all supposed to meed downstairs in our hotel at 8am. So lst night I re-packed, organized, laid out my clothes and was basically ready to just get up, shower and get on the road. Well, when I went to bed, I somehow DID NOT set an alarm!(but I didn't know this at the time)
So this morning at 7am I awoke to blasting sirens and a weird robotic voice saying: AN EMERGENCY SITUATION HAS BEEN DETECTED IN THE BUILDING. PLEASE EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY. And it played over and over and over and over again and all the guests filed out of the building down onto the streets. So after standing about and watching the fire dept. come, we were told the coast was clear and we could go back in. Well it was at that point that I realized that I hadn't set an alarm and I just told myself that the fire alarm was just God's way of making sure the EVERYONE got up on time to make it to the bus! I kinda picture him up there saying, "Wait a minute, I got you this far, you better not miss this bus child!" haha I told some of my friends that and one of them was like "Wow....I'm amazed...you really can find the silver lining in ANY situation can't you?" And I guess I never really thought about it but maybe he's right....

Well anyways, I just wanted to share that story of how my last morning in USA started with a pretty rude awakening but hopefully that isn't an omen of how the rest of the trip will go.

xoxox
monica

FrUsTrAteD!

OK my level of frustration has just reached an ALL-TIME HIGH today. I just feel like the list of things to do keeps getting longer no matter what I do. It doesn't matter how much i clean, organize, pack, re-pack, throw away or keep I still have more crap to do. It's just too much. There's just too much to do and I'm to the point where I'm just like "Forget it...whatever. Just get me on the plane."

This whole endeavor has gone from somewhat exciting to a royal pain in the you-know-what in a matter of like a day. I'm so sick of looking at lists and looking at the volunteer handbook or the welcome book or the PST packet or whatever other pile of paper I've been given. If there's something that i need for this trip and I don't have it by now, then oh well. Too bad. Because my patience and my energy are gone and I'm done. Just get me to the airport so we can just get this over with. I'm so sick of waiting/preparing let's just get this started already! Geeeeez!

6 days til departure

I leave for PST in less than a week and it still doesn't even feel real. I can't tell if I'm just in severe denial or if there's just so much going on that I'm too distracted to really take in how ridiculously life-altering next week is going to be.

I'm pretty much packed. Everything that I want to take is laid out next to my luggage....now all I have to do is find a way to put in all IN my luggage! I don't know... I keep procrastinating because it's like, once i put those clothes in those bags, it's real. It's happening. I'm leaving. And ya know, maybe I'm just not ready for that yet. Maybe i need a couple more days....
It's weird because the way I'm feeling about leaving is THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE of how I imagined myself feeling. Yes, I'm excited but I'm also like 3,459 other emotions and they're all going through my brain and my heart at the same time. It's confusing, to say the least.

But I'm off to bed now. Gotta wake up nice and early so I can finish up my packing/organizing/cleaning.

besos.