Primavara A Venit

As I sit in my room at the tail-end of a long day, listening to "Beautiful Otherness" by the Nottingham, England-based group, Bent, I feel a pleasant feeling of contentedness. Today was a good day, finishing out a fairly good week.

My Fridays are always a bit easier to swallow than the other weekdays. While I must rise early, my eight o'clock class eighth-form class is both the beginning and end of the school day for me. Despite an epic battle between my alarm clock and my dreams, I managed to get out the door in time. On my way to school, ignoring the frost and biting breeze, I observed the year's first bright red squirrel bounding down a tree on some dangerous mission, its strangely long ears and scraggly tail bringing a smile to my face. I seem to remember hearing a bird slamming its beak into some nearby tree, as well. Ah, so spring my finally have arrived! Indeed, small buds were even beginning to push forth on the tips of small tree branches.

The rest of my Friday mornings are spent teaching English to a group of adults at a local social services organization. Teaching this group is extremely fun for me -- partly because the "students" are much more engaged and interested in their studies, but also because I have the opportunity to socially interact with people who are not younger than me. A fringe benefit that is worth noting, is that I am not restricted by any National Curriculum, and can thus teach pertinent material at whatever pace is most appropriate. Teaching English outside of the classroom has rapidly become my preferred mode.

This Friday class is relatively new. Today, it tripled in size to an impressive head-count of nine. Among the new attendees was a priest, who I hadn't seen in town before. At the end of class, I asked him which church he was with, and he informed me that he is actually the priest at a nearby monastery. I told him that I have been on the edge of my seat to visit some of the monasteries around my town, and he immediately offered to show me around his.

After a short 10 km drive, we stepped through a great iron gate and onto the modest monastery ground. In fact, we entered the convent, for this was home to a devote group of women, and the only men were the two or three priests and some helpers (such as our chauffeur). The priest explained the history of the 200-year-old community and convent, including the Soviet decades in which the churches had served as a sport center and a night club.

The monastery was practically destroyed during the Soviet period, but it received official support again in 1994. It wasn't until 2003 that work began to restore the main church. The project, supported by local communities and the larger church, was finished a year later. This smaller church was not as badly damaged and will wait for the relatively minor repairs it needs. Seeing both of these churches, hearing the history of the monastery, speaking with the priest, and seeing some few aspects of daily life among the women -- all of these were exceptional treats for me, and I look forward to further conversation with the priest.

It seems that the coming of spring may bring budding social opportunities, in addition to furry squirrels, flowering trees, and (hopefully) warm weather.

To experience...

Adapting to a new community is difficult, no matter where in the world you find yourself. Something makes you different, and that difference is often more of a hindrance than a help, when it comes to integrating into a new neighborhood or city. For me, that something is that I am American, and that I'm just not from around here.

What does that mean? It means that I don't fluently speak Romanian or Russian, and that no significant proportion of the families in town share my surname. It means that the closest thing I have to friends in town are the 10-year-younger students who attend my English classes. It means that I can't drink the well water, because I didn't develop a resistance to Giardia when I was a young child. It means that I drink my wine occasionally, and generally only in sips. And sometimes, it means that I spend a lot of time in my room, reading or typing emails or blog posts, because "becoming a part of the community" is going to have to wait until either the temperature goes back up, or my metabolism slows down enough to allow a protective layer of sub-dermal fat to develop so I don't chill to the bone when I decide to go say "buna ziua" to random people on the streets.

But I find that the town I'm in has a way of infiltrating me, making me feel warm and fuzzy, despite the frozen water-vapor that appears before me at each exhale. Sounds wash over me as I walk to school or the community center: the sounds of bells and chants spilling out of the church, like fog, slowly filling the valley; the muffled accordion playing cheerful melodies for the children inside the gradiniţa; the clicking of scoundrel dogs scampering across the pavement behind me. Autumn, come almost to a close, still strikes me with colorful, impromptu art installations -- sometimes at the tops of trees, sometimes at their feet.

Am I still happy here? I have to ask myself this question a lot, especially after a bad day in the classroom or unprompted social drama from my fellow volunteers. I came here for change, and to do something meaningful (again... for a change). While my happiness fluctuates pretty wildly, and the challenges are often frustratingly insurmountable (can I use an adverbial modifier on this absolute adjective? Why not.), I have to admit that I am still happy. The preconceptions I had before coming over were all completely overturned, but I'm still experiencing change. And with that, hopefully growth, as well.

Weekly Posts

I had a request to start posting more regularly, and more frequently. Fair enough. Fridays, being my least busy day of the working week, will be my goal. (Even nominally attempting to post regularly to weekend days is a joke, as they are, consistently, up in the air.)

I'm going to shoot for a post every Friday. I'll set a loose deadline for about 2:00pm, my time, but I am not going to be as strict about the time. I have a lot of ideas for posts just sitting in my head, collecting dust with all the other unexpressed musings. Keep your eyes open for Friday posts.