The Blessing of the House

This morning I experienced my first "house blessing".  I had heard that here in Romanian during Christmas and after the New Year, a priest (either Orthodox or Catholic) comes to the apartments and houses to "bless the house".  I had never heard of this before, and thought it was a pretty good idea-who doesn't want a blessing for the New Year? So I was excited for the day when the priest would come with his bells, incense and blessings for my humble abode.

I soon found out that I had missed him! He came while I was at school. I was disappointed that I had missed out on the blessing and told my mentor so.  She too, had missed the priest and so while she was attending Mass she asked him if he would be so kind as to come back for round two.  She called me up and asked "So you want to be blessed? Be ready tomorrow at eight am.  Oh, and make sure your house is clean, he goes in every room." WIN! I did a quick scan of my home, it was already cleaned, so I simply put some laundry away, shoved my shoes in the closet and was ready. 

At eight fifteen this morning the priest and another woman arrived. He was wearing his long black robe, a cross and a hat and he carried a bible.  The woman with him was carrying the incense burner (sorry I don't know the real name for it) and it looked like this:

They entered the house, and started saying prayers.  After the prayer, he gave me a blessing and held out a cross for me to kiss. I crossed myself (as I saw my mentor do) and kissed the wooden cross.  He then grabbed incense and lit it, carrying it to each room while praying for the house, the health of it's occupants and for a prosperous year. That looked like this:

The house was filled with a beautiful aroma and sounds of prayer and I stood in silence taking it all in. The woman and my mentor were praying with him, but I just tried to understand the Romanian and the process.  When he was done, he gave me a little card with a picture of Mary, Joseph and Jesus and then he was off, on his way and out the door. What a cool experience.

I rushed to school, ready for my 12th grade class but more than that I was ready for this new year. It is hard to believe that I've been in country for almost eight months, and have taught a half a year of school already.  When I'm rushing around, focused on school and projects and keeping in touch with everyone from home and integrating into my community and making new friends, it is nice to have these types of experiences such as the blessing and prayers from the Priest to stop me in my tracks and remind me to soak it all in, don't take a moment for granted, and appreciate all that I am learning here in Romania.

Live your life everyday, remember to soak in the moments, and never forget to make memories that last a lifetime.

Kids say the Darndest Things...

SO I was teaching my sixth grade class today and I had decided to give them a pop quiz to see if they were ready for their final semester test. I figured they had forgotten a few things over the Christmas holiday so I needed to know what to focus on for the review.

Now I have this one little boy in my class, he is precious but he doesn’t ever speak English in class. Mind you, I’ve tried, and I can mayyybe get a word out here or there, but he usually just sits quietly, listening and writing but never wanting to actually speak.  As I was passing out the practice test, he looks at me with huge eyes, like I’m passing out his death sentence. “TEST?” he asks me, looking up in horror.  “Yes, a practice one. Make sure you read the questions carefully!” I said as I continued walking up the aisle with the tests.  The entire class was silent, when I hear “SHIT!!” from my little mute.

It took everything in me not to burst out laughing.  This little boy, 6^th grade, never speaking a word in English then throwing out a curse word in panic as a result of my practice test. I could feel his pain, understood his desperation, but gathered up the strength within myself to hold in my laughter and explain that what he said was a bad word and was not allowed in my class.  He turned around, sighed, and started the dreaded task ahead of him.

Just another day on the job.  :)

Holiday Adventures: Parents, Recas, Timisoara, BUDAPEST!

I’m so sorry it has been so long since my last post!! Things have been amazing here, Christmas, my parent’s visit, and New Years…there is so much to write about so I’ll just start at the beginning!

(PS-PICS OF ALL THESE EVENTS WILL BE POSTED SOON!)

Christmas was gorgeous here, filled with traditions and customs unique to Romania. We were lucky enough to have snow the week before which really added to the Christmas spirit. I spent the time leading up to Christmas finishing classes, cooking with friends, visiting Timisoara with volunteers Ellis and Katie, and preparing my apartment for my parent’s visit!  Lights lined the streets at night and Christmas music was played over the town’s speaker system. The people were killing pigs, making Salate de Beuf (a traditional mayonase salad) and Sarmale, traditional cabbage rolls.  I went to Christmas Eve and Christmas day church which was beautiful.  Fun fact: At the services, Romanian, German, Hungarian, Croatian, and English were spoken!  I spent my Christmas day finalizing everything for my parent’s arrival the next morning.

I had an amazing visit with my parents! We stayed in Recas, visiting friends and even had a luncheon with the Mayor! My parents were presented with a Diploma for being great parents to me and sending me to Recas to help. My mom received a huge bouquet of flowers- my dad, tons of material about Recas including books, pens, notebooks and calendars.  I was so honored that THEY were honored at the luncheon-I have a great town!!

We spend time in Timisoara, the art museum, cathedrals, just enjoying the snow and learning about my city.  We were able to have a wonderful dinner with my counterpart, Vali and his wife before setting off to BUDAPEST for New Years! 

The Beautiful Budapest!

View of the Palace in Budapest

St. Stephen's Cathedral

Budapest was amazing-it is definitely in the top three most beautiful places I’ve seen during my travels. We stayed in Central Pest, right in the middle of the New Years Eve celebrations and activities, which was great.  We took a bus tour of the entire city, seeing the Parliament, Cathedrals, Palace, Danube Delta River, and much more.  It was so wonderful to be with my parents, just us three on vacation. We enjoyed just walking the streets, taking pictures, and eating wonderful Hungarian food and drinking hot spiced wine. Bonus-I also ate my first real hamburger in  seven months=amazing…and I found an H&M clothing store, which was heaven-shout out to Freya. We rang in the New Year with thousands of people on the bank of the Danube, looking across to the lit-up Palace and watching fireworks.  It was a great last night in Budapest and one that I’ll never forget. 

Saying goodbye to my parents was hard after an amazing two weeks, but I’ve decided that I am going home to the US in June for a two week visit, so in less than six months I hope to see some of you!  I’ve now started school again and am busy with my classes and starting some secondary projects. More to come about that later.

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year!

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

This past weekend I was able to spend some time in Timisoara with PCVs Katie and Ellis as well as my counterpart and his wife, Vali and Ionela.  There was a beautiful snow almost all weekend so we decided to go out and take some pictures and visit the Christmas village set up in the center.  We bundled up (it is FREEZING here) and set off.

Bundled up, hanging out in a piata.

Katie and I in the center--in the back you can see the Cathedral.

Explaining to Ellis that this was the start of the '89 revolution. I was showing him bullet holes in the buildings.

I was wearing hiking boots and it was still slick--man down!

ANY meat you could ever need being sold in the center.

La Multi Ani! Goes for Happy Birthday, or any congratulatory saying really.

Walking towards the center of Timisoara.

While we were walking in the center, I was talking to Katie when I heard another couple say in English, "Are those Americans?"  Now finding Americans is rare here in Romania, so I turned around quickly and said "Yes! We are! Are you!?" And sure enough, they were. And not only were they Americans, they were from MY CITY IN THE STATES and they had gone to rival High Schools!  Shocked, I about died when the guy said, "Oh, and I was a Peace Corps Volunteer too!" What are the odds?? Apparently he was a volunteer in the Republic of Moldova and completed his service in 2003, now working for the government.  What a small world.

Another highlight of the weekend-my tree is up and decorated! (Pictures to come soon)

AND

My parents come in exactly 7 days!!!!!!

 

Silent Night

Tonight I went to my school's Christmas concert and listened to my students sing, play music, and act the story of the Nativity.  As I struggled to make out the Romanian words to the carols, all of a sudden one of my students started singing Silent Night in English.  The whole crowd grew silent and listened in awe as her beautiful voice filled the auditorium.  The words almost brought me to tears and I remembered my family and friends back home, preparing for the holidays. But as she continued singing I felt this awesome sense of peace.  It was one of those affirmation moments, those "you are exactly where you're supposed to be, right here, right now" moments that I love so much. They happen to me a lot here in Romania and I treasure each and every one.  They make me feel alive.

Christmas is coming...and I couldn't be happier.

Traditional Christmas Pig Killing-Say What?

So it's been awhile since I updated but I have an excuse! I just got back from 1.5 weeks in Sibiu for Peace Corps training.  After 6 months at site, PC hosts "IST" which is "In Service Training".  All the volunteers from my group got together for courses in Romanian language, culture, teaching, etc.  It was great to see everyone and hear all the stories, and fun memories at site from each volunteer.  The time flew by mostly because we had a packed schedule which kept us busy, but we managed to get Chinese food (my first here!), see some beautiful sites, and drink Vin Fiert-which is red wine heated, with fruit and cinnamon-amazing.

Beautiful Piata Mica-Sibiu

A walk to the Center, Sibiu

I arrived back at site yesterday morning, only to discover I did not have any heat in my house-no bueno when it's snowing and freeeezing.  With no response from the "fix it" man, I dreaded going home after school.  During one of my breaks, I got this text from one of my 12th grade students: "My dad is killing pigs today after school if you want to come! Let me know." Knowing that killing a pig for Christmas is a big tradition here, it was definitely something I wanted to watch so I of course said yes.
As soon as I got to the house where the slaughter was to take place, I was promptly given old clothes to change into-wait...what? I was PARTICIPATING? My heart started beating faster-I was just getting used to the idea of watching a pig get his throat slit, but actually participating? That was another story.  I was also given boots, because "blood isn't good on shoes". Ohh Lord help. I changed, and walked slowly outside, not ready at all for what was about to take place.

The only way to keep warm! Oh-And check out that Pig Slaughtering outfit.

It was freezing outside. A soft snow fell and I could hear the sounds of the fire cracking and a biiig pot of water boiling over it.  The only other sound was that of the pigs in their pen-I felt they knew what was about to come.  Three huge men looked at me and said, "Ready?"  (Ok well it was in Romanian) and off we went.  The men wrangled one pig and tied off his mouth with what looked like a wire, the noise coming from the pig is indescribable, so I won't even try to put into words what I heard.  Before I knew it, the pig was on his side, squealing to high heaven, and before I could cover my eyes the throat was cut and the pig was dead.  Was it really over that fast? Suddenly, the pig started to spasm, moving his legs and making noises but apparently that is normal for the muscles after death, even in pigs. They kept assuring me that he was dead...but uhh. He was moving alot, until all of a sudden he was still. Little did I know this was just the beginning.

The second pig that was killed. Take a look at my face right here...

A second pig was brought out of the pen, and the same thing happened: squeal, side, throat slit, collecting blood in a big bowl, then silence. Until my student's father lit up the blow torch. WHAT? Yeahhh the pigs were then scorched with a blow torch to remove all the hair.  This was a long process until the big was blackened.  It was then our job to scrub the pigs with big brushes to remove the burnt skin.  It was after this process that I was given a piece of the skin to eat, they said it was the best.  When in ROMania, right? It actually was pretty good, if you can get past the idea what you just saw Wilbur alive less than 10 minutes before.

My "Pot 'o Blood" from Wilbur. This would be used later for blood sausages.

Blow Torching the Pig to remove the hair. The shovel is also to scrap the hair off.

Don't worry puppy..you're not next.

He's still concerned.

More fire and hair removal.

Scrubbing the burnt part off.

After the pig was all cleaned up, he was sliced right in half from bottom to top, and off came the head. (not to be throw away though, as brains and other yummy goodness would be cooked up later.  OH but instead of waiting to be cooked later, parts of the ear were cut off for me to eat RIGHT THEN. Again, putting all thoughts of poor Wilbur aside, I ate that ear with gusto.  Actually, it was delicious.

Oh yeah...pig ear. Delicious.

I don't even know what to say here..

The slicing begins...

No head. Sorry to all my queasy people out there. I documented every step.

INTESTINES!

That was one sharp knife.

  The rest of the day was spent preparing meat, in every way imaginable.  I ate heart, liver, skin, ears-you name it. I helped make the sausage, and that "cleaning of the intestines" part I could do without...lets be real.  And even though I had seen the entire process from the killing to preparing the sausage to seeing the brains while still in the pig-I was able to sit down with the entire family and eat an amazing dinner of, well, Wilbur. It was delicious.

Bowl filled with parts.

Oh...cleaning intestines. Best. Part.

Preparing bags of meat to freeze, and making sausages.

Without a doubt, this was one of the best days I've had here in Romania. What an amazing thing to be a part of, I was so excited to be invited to this sort of event and so honored that this family let me participate.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures. :)

Is it really December?!

Wow...time is flying by and here we find ourselves already in DECEMBER!! It's crazy!  I hope you all had a wonderful and yummy Thanksgiving back at home.  We were able to gather up about 14 volunteers and our Romanian friends for a huuuge Thanksgiving meal!  We baked and cooked together and we were able to show our Romanian counterparts what a true American Thanksgiving meal looks like (ok, minus the cranberry sauce...we can't find it anywhere here!) We had a bonfire, tuica (because what would a Romanian get together be without it?!) and just enjoyed spending time together.  Enjoy some pictures!

Most of the gang hanging out after the meal, enjoying some wine and vin fiert (hot wine!)

My crew from Recas! Love these people.

My Counterpart and his Wife

Oh yeah..making mashed potatoes for 50 people. Slaving away in that kitchen. Can you tell!? Haha

We found a heart-shaped potato!

Some wonderful volunteers, Brittany and Susan.