I need to apologize before I start writing this. (How's that for an introduction, eh?) I volunteered to blog this week about homestays, but that's not what's most exciting to me right now (not that it's not exciting; on the contrary, I feel more and more at home here every day, and am definitely excited about my plans to teach my host mom how to make American food this weekend [by which I mean chocolate-chunk oatmeal cookies... very important American food!]). But the point of this disclaimer is that I'm going to write a timely blog post about the thing which is most on my mind right now; that is, what it's like to be a Protestant learning about Orthodoxy in Romania. But because I promised to write about homestays, and because I have a very overactive conscience when it comes to keeping promises, I'm going to post a blurb I wrote a while ago. I hope that suffices for a glimpse into life on a Romanian farm. Let me just say: it's really awesome.
My home in Romania!
My first impression of my new home was one of utter joy. I’m dead serious. I could not have imagined a more beautiful place to live for six weeks. Ah. The honeymoon stage is wearing off a little, now that I’m sitting here shivering in a very, very cold room… but anyway. Welcome to the farm!
We have lots of chickens!
So. I met my host father and little sister at the Impact building yesterday; they were kinda shy since neither of them speaks much English. We then drove out of Lupeni up the road to Straja in the car with our nearest neighbor (I don’t think my family owns one). He dropped us off at a wooden gate, which my host father untied and swung open. Carrying my stuff on our backs, we walked through a huge garden and small horse pasture, then through another gate and towards the house. Picture the most idyllic little European country farmstead you can imagine, and that’s my family’s home. There are chickens running around outside, and haystacks, and apple and pear and plum trees, and horses and cows near the house and a bunch of sheep way up the mountain, and when my host mom hangs the laundry out to dry she uses a big branch to pull the clothesline down so she can reach it, and… aaahhh. It’s awesome. I like this type of agriculture a lot. It makes me nostalgic for the days before Iowa turned into big mass-production agriculture… not that I ever experienced that… but anyway.
The kitchen
My family is small: my host father (Florin) and mother (Andreea) and a seven-year-old little sister (Mădălina). They live in the house Florin grew up in, which is small and square: a tiny little hallway connects an itty-bitty bathroom, a kitchen, a sitting room (which is my bedroom), and a living room (which is where everyone else sleeps). I feel a bit guilty, to be honest, taking over a whole quarter of the house, and sleeping on the pull-out couch in a room all by myself while Mădălina sleeps on a couch in the same room as her parents. I’m keeping my clothes on two chairs and a little table in the corner of the room, and make and unmake my bed every morning and night; everything is a bit cramped and kitschy, but it’s cozy and I like it. I have internet access (hence the ability to post this), which is a totally-unexpected perk: I didn’t realize how nice it is to be able to contact people I love who aren’t in Romania with me.
I’m tired, so that brings me to the end of this post, though I have tons of other stories I could share (like breakfast. Guess what I had for breakfast? This huge plate of cartofi (potatoes) and sausage and homemade sheep cheese… food is love here, and apparently I am well-loved, ‘cause my host mom just keeps feeding me, and feeding me, and feeding me… good thing Mădălina and I climbed all the way up to the top of the farm three times today!). But more of those another time. Noapte buna.
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