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