Orphanages

Romanian is unfortunately often remembered for two horrors; Dracula and orphanages. After the fall of communism, over 100,000 children resided in state-ran institutions, which often did not give children the emotional support to grow into healthy adults. Having heard of horrible conditions, I wasn’t sure what to expect this September when I would start volunteering at two orphanages. Romania has made large strides in changing institutionalized facilities into smaller “family” like homes. The staff, facilities, and children that I’ve met so far are all wonderful, yet I can’t help but to feel sad thinking about these places.

            My first impression of the orphanages was how quickly the children accepted my colleague and I. We were greeted with hugs and then immediately pulled away by several different hands trying to show us around. It was the unstructured times like these that I personally felt the most connected with the kids. However, majority of the time was spent trying to lead games and an evening bible study. The language barrier was a huge hindrance when it came to trying to facilitate meaningful activities. As sweet as the children are, the brother-sister relationships and the rough-housing that follows often took place during our time with them. Children would get upset at one another, and I felt unable to help them communicate with each other when I couldn’t even communicate to them in their language. Seeing the frustration within the children, and not being able to do much to help them cope was definitely challenging for me to come to terms with.

            It all leads into that despite visiting the children on a weekly basis, so much of them was still a mystery. Probably one of the most frustrating things when working with the children was the inability to get to know and fully understand them. To talk with them, and to truly listen to them was nearly impossible. Realizing all this really crushed me. At the same time, I realize that my time spent there was not a lost. Even though I can’t fully understand them, I can still love them. I really believe that our patience, kindness, and goofiness didn’t go to waste. I like to think that our time spent with them was a gentle reminder that they are important to us. What makes me sad about the orphanages in Romania today is that the children have to really fight to be known and receive quality time with an adult. They grow up in a safe environment with loving people around them but even all of that doesn’t compare to the attention one needs from parents.

-Jenna King

Fall 2012 

The train out...

After three hours of sleep, a half-eaten bowl of cereal, a broken jar of mayonnaise, and seventeen people frantically boarding a train that was reminiscent of the McAllister family running through the Chicago airport while leaving their youngest “home alone,” we are finally on our way to Bucharest and eventually home. The view outside of snow-covered mountains and ice-cold rivers reminds me of how much I will miss the beauty of the Jiu Valley. Add to that the concrete remnants scattered across the landscape, which used to serve a purpose perhaps during communism, but now serve only as a reminder that this world is constantly changing and constantly forgetting.

It is the combination of these two that offers the distinct feel that pervades every aspect of the country and its people. I noticed this feeling the moment I first arrived in Romania, and in some ways I even expected it. Romania is often explained as a land of contradictions, a place where the old and new exist side-by-side. On one hand, there is an element of purity, of nature where people still depend so directly and visibly on the land. People such as my host-family grow their own fruits and vegetables and tend their own livestock, while working full-time jobs in the city. On the other hand, signs of modern industry, supermarkets, and an obsession with pop music show that globalization is living up to its name.

It becomes apparent after studying Romania’s history that this land of contradictions is in many ways a product of its communist past. The former dictator pushed for a premature modernization that forced many into industries while leaving others on their farms. In this way, the society appears to be fragmented.

But it is not. In some unexplainable way there is a synergy to these two levels of society. I cannot put it into words– It must be experienced. It is what makes Romania’s culture so unique and it is one of the reasons that makes me sad to leave.

Home Again, Home Again...

The weekend following Thanksgiving was a blissful time—meals made together, a Saturday night talent show, and the glorious mountaintop view from the Cabana where we stayed in the nearby town of Straja. Still, throughout the weekend, there was an air of the ever-looming days to come in December.

The return to the homeland.

Friday and Saturday were filled with re-entry workshops, multiple questions, time for reflection, and a whole lot of preparing responses for those who only felt obligated to ask us about our time in Romania. We basked in the fun and the fellowship of the weekend, foregoing the MULTIPLE, multiple projects we had coming up, gradually allowing the realization to sink in more fully.

How could we begin to feel out going home? What was there to feel, exactly…or really, how could we feel it all at once?

Throughout the following week, dinner conversations in Apartment Jane (the name affectionately given to our humble abode by Becky, Lyric, Charlotte, and myself) touched more extensively on these thoughts. We each spoke of how different life had become here over such a short span of months, especially after no longer living in the homes of true-blooded Romanians.

What I myself have best came to understand as Romania has felt all the more distant since moving into the apartments. This is not to say I haven’t enjoyed my time here—that would be completely disregarding such an amazing highlight of the semester. But not being forced to speak an awkward Romenglish…never having to refuse a second slice of white bread...straining to try and remember as to never forget…this doesn’t feel like life in Romania.

Yet I realize that for the past three months, I’ve washed my face with Romanian water; I’ve lived off Romanian produce, gorged on Romanian chocolates and pastries; my now-broken-in hiking boots have only known Romanian soil, and several Romanian dogs have been named; America has become the new foreign nation, and Romanian money no longer feels like it belongs in a Monopoly game.

We’ve lived a portion of our lives here, and those days are ones that can never be relived on American soil.

When having to picture the home you’re coming back to after a long trip, it’s important to know what’s waiting for you. Yet, our home in Romania was always waiting for us, and no degree of foreshadowing could’ve made known everything that was in store for us. We come to realize that full comprehension only comes from comparison. Romania will be made fully Romania when it is no longer closest in proximity—although we may fear forgetting, it is only upon our return that we will fully have it back.

On Giving Thanks

Each week, one of my colleagues and I pay the equivalency of about 70 American cents to ride in a large white van stuffed with passengers to our neighboring town, Uricani. We climb up a set of crumbling steps to a large clementine orange cement square of a building- the Uricani Primary School. Before even opening the door, we hear the excited shouts of around 30 middle schoolers drifting out through an open window. We take a deep breath, and submerge ourselves in the chaos that is IMPACT Club Clever.

This week, the club’s meeting starts out with an activity about creative problem solving. Each kid is handed a slip of paper and asked to write down a problem in their life. Then, everyone puts the slips back in the middle, takes a new one, and writes down a possible “solution” to the problem they’ve read. The students begin sharing the problems they’ve been assigned:
Math is hard.
I have a test in school next week.
Or my personal favorite…. I don’t like cheese.

I think that my jaw may have quite literally hit the floor at this point. My mind was racing:

You don’t like cheese!? How about the fact that most of you live in two room apartments with 5 or 6 siblings? Or the fact that that entire space will be heated all winter by a small space heater that can only run an hour or so at a time? Or the fact that if anyone in your family getssick because of this cold, you won’t have the necessary money to pay the bribes your doctor demands for treatment? Or the fact that you live in a country where the upcoming election results will be determined entirely by corrupt men with big bucks to spend?

My thoughts snap back to what is going on around me, and I hear a girl reading a problem: “I don’t like ciorba (Romanian soup).” As a solution she suggests that her friend sneak lots of sugar into it when her mom isn’t looking. All of the kids break into laughter, and once again the chaotic joyfulness of the group stops all further activity for a bit, despite the leaders’ best efforts to regain control. 

Such joyfulness in the face of adversity is a perfectly convicting reminder to truly be thankful for all of the blessings in my life, both today and everyday. There is incredibly beauty in everything that surrounds me- a fact which remains true whether I travel to Iowa, Romania, or the ends of the Earth.

Tiny Moments

           Tuesday August 21^st,  I was informed that the host family I would be temporarily adopted into had, to my great delight, would involve two younger brothers and one sister about my age. Her name was Rebecca, she was seventeen years old, and she speaks English very well. Growing up with three sisters myself I was completely use to having a girl around and was incredibly thankful to learn that she knew English. Looking back I laugh at how nervous I was at the thought of meeting my host family.

            My hands shook slightly as I dressed after repeatedly and frantically cycling through the few outfits I had brought, my girl brain going into overload as I attempted to find an outfit that wasn’t too dressy or too casual. One that made me appear sweet and pretty, but also intelligent and friendly. Of course it didn’t say any of this, but I was about to meet the people who would take me into their home and after feeling very out of control this was one little aspect I had complete control over.

            All the students sat in a neat little row of chairs in the front of the room as families entered and filled the rows of chairs; they as the audience and us as the main entertainment on stage. I tried not to look at them in fear that I would wonder which one was mine, focusing instead on a conversation with another student which we were both paying half attention to. Names began to be called as students were paired to their family, each one awkwardly receiving a kiss on the cheek, a gesture we were not yet accustomed to, and giving an equally awkward kiss to them. I snapped out of my stupor as my name was called. A delicate looking girl with long brown and red hair swayed up to the front and smiled as she kissed my cheek. Continuing with the tradition of the other students I awkwardly stood there; my instinct was to hug her as greeting, so we stood there for a second in a half-hug cheek to cheek until painfully pulling a part.

            I hauled my overly stuffed hiking back pack on as she grabbed my other two smaller bags and followed her to a car outside where my host dad was waiting to help load my things. We drove to an apartment block, dragged the bags up several flights of stairs, and entered my new home. Rebecca escorted me into our bedroom and after getting slightly settled in my host mom bounced into the room and went straight for a tight embrace and kiss, which I am proud to say I was getting the hang of. She pointed to herself saying “mama” and nodded her head encouragingly a few times before saying it again at a louder decibel. Over the next few weeks she and I would continue to talk to each at increasingly loud levels even though we both knew it didn’t actually make a difference. A few times we would just both smile and laugh at how loud we had gotten. It seems like such a small, almost insignificant memory. But it is memories like this that make me stare into space and smile at nothing. Those tiny moments that take up a fraction of the day and add up until you’re looking back at the past three and a half months and realizing that all those moments have been adding up to where you are now.

Finding a Suitcase Heart

"They should tell you when you're born: have a suitcase heart, be ready to travel." –Gabrielle Zevin

This will be my last blog, because in less than a week, I'll be flying back across the Atlantic. Part of me wishes that I could continue traveling through Europe, and continue having this great adventure that I feel like I've been on these past few months. At the same time I am eager to reach the Boston airport, where I know I will be minutes away from my friends and family, not to mention my favorite coffee chain.

Throughout the semester, I've been on a journey to understand the purpose of travel, or more so what it means to stand in awe wherever you may be.  I admit, more than once I've grown nervous that trips and vacations hold no other purpose than to shop and eat in a different location. I've feared that the smallness of the world had made it loose its shine, and made me question my desire to explore its corners. Upon confessing this to a good friend, he asked me if I had ever seen a shepherd leading his herd through the streets back home. After scoffing at the fact that I had indeed not made some unique, existential discovery, I decided to spend more time looking back on the times I have stood in awe this semester.

I stood in awe when I saw the Parthenon standing before me on Fall break, as I reflected on the history that was made under my feet.

I stood in awe at the Black sea in Constanta, as I saw wild dolphins swim in the neighboring inlet.

I stood in awe at Ellie Wiesel's childhood home in Sighet, as the first novel I ever read about the Holocaust came alive.

And I stood in awe the other day, looking up at the mountains in Lupeni, as lo and behold a farmer lead his heard of goats right outside my apartment door.

I'm still not sure if I understand what it means to have a suitcase heart, but I long to stand in awe of both new and old places and faces, and I’m starting to understand that the world is as big as I want it to be.

-Jenny

"Days Enter Us"

I dislike blogging.  Perhaps that’s why it took 3 months to place my first post here.  Although, on second thought, maybe I do not actually suffer from a unique distaste for blogging but rather am overwhelmed by the inability to condense all of the thoughts and experiences running around in my head into coherent, yet still poetic, sentences.  Life here seems to be slower, yet each experience rich with lessons and meaning.  One would normally deem that excellent fodder for a multitude of blog posts, but I have found it a struggle to reflect on one thing long enough before the next one comes along and requires my attention and thought.  First world problems…

This semester has been full of epiphany moments like the ones described by Opehlia Dahl in Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains:  “[T]here’s a point where you realize the world has just been revealed to you.  It’s like realizing your parents are both good and bad.  It’s sort of, Oh no, things will never be quite the same again.”  Like the day I summitted Mount Peleaga and looked out to see all of God’s glory covered in green and gray hues.   Like the evening one of my youngest IMPACT kids walked me home and was the companion I needed that day.  Like the day I heard the songs of an Orthodox choir reaching, soaring up to the heavens, proclaiming the name of our God.  Like the day I danced with my host sister in our kitchen and felt truly at home for the first time. 

These moments have embedded themselves deep in me, in my memory, my heart, and in my mind, even when I am not completely aware of it.  And now, as I see the end of our time in Romania drawing to a close, I look ahead to the transition “home” and wonder how all these moments will play out.  How will it change the way I live and think and interact with the world around me?

I hope that I will tend a garden and buy from the farmer’s market.

I hope that I will walk or ride the bus when I can.

I hope that I will share whatever I have with those around me, regardless how small.
I hope that I will consider the soul of the mountains and walk out into nature more. 

I hope that I will remember the hospitality I was shown, and open my arms as widely.

I hope that I will still feel the power of a smile that crosses languages and offer it to others.

I hope that I will recall that my home is wider now, crossing oceans, continents, languages, customs and that I will treat all those in it as my brothers and sisters. 

Taking the maxitaxi

          “Go big or go home,” my fellow student Jenna King likes to say, “and since home is too far away, we've got to go big.” With this in my head, I stepped out of my comfort zone with a giant leap one Friday afternoon in October. Alone, I climbed onto a maxtitaxi heading for Petroşani, the biggest town in the Jiu Valley, armed with instructions on how to find someone who would lead me to my first IMPACT club meeting. My big girl pants were on and I was traveling out of Lupeni on my own for the first time – without program director Kadie Becker, without my fellow students or anyone else I knew. I slightly remember being enamored with the natural beauty of the Jiu Valley, but I was definitely more concentrated on counting the number of stops the maxitaxi made as well as the knots in my stomach. I had been told that someone would find me when I got off in Petroşani to take me to my IMPACT club. So I walked off my ride at the right number of stops, determined not to show any fear on my face. A friendly voice called out my name as I walked off the maxitaxi, and I was greeted by two New Horizons Foundation employees who took me to my meeting (which turned out to be a very pleasurable experience, despite my fears).

           The ride home to Lupeni was much more enjoyable than the earlier ride. I remember taking in the scenery with fresh eyes, my soul filled with relief and awe. Summer still clung to the trees of the valley and the air was still warm. A few flowers were still blooming and the fruit trees were still laden with their produce. Brightly colored clean laundry hung in balconies in each town we drove through - Petroşani, Vulcan, Aninoasa and Lupeni.

           In early November, the ride to Petroşani was full of more life than I could comprehend. Autumn had come in full force after fall break; red, yellow, orange and gold leaves covered the sides of the valley. The natural colors complimented the red slate roofs and the vibrantly colored Romanian homes which filled the spaces between the towns in the valley. I was getting more comfortable with my IMPACT club, I felt at home with the student group, I had just returned from an amazing vacation in Greece, and like the trees, I was full of life. The sun had just entered the golden hour before sunset and illuminated the autumn colors of the trees on the hills and mountains on both sides of road towards Lupeni.

        Today, a gloomy and frigged December day, was last time I took the maxitaxi to Petroşani. The autumn colors of the hills had been replaced with steel grays, blues, purples, whites and browns as snow covered the ground and matched the gray color of the sky. The mountain tops were hidden by the low hanging winter clouds, and the natural hues of the valley matched the drab colors of the old factories and mines between Lupeni and Petroşani.

        Each of these rides have been a rest from the world as I stared out the window of the maxitaxi for 45 minutes each way to Petroşani and back. October, November and December showed me different seasons of the Jiu Valley and of myself as well. I can't understand the ways I've changed yet, but I know that I have gone through many changes in these past months. On my final ride, the colors of the sky matched the colors of my heart as I said goodbye to my favorite part of the week and started a week full of painful goodbyes. I had just said goodbye to my wonderful IMPACT club and had my last cup of crappy vending machine coffee. I am still in the process of figuring out how to say a good farewell to Romania – the people, the places and the part of myself I will leave here. This next week will be a rough journey of finding ways to say "ne vedem" - until next time. 

Silent Words

This semester started out with so many ideas inspired by a desire to make the most of being here and trying to remember all of it. The ups and downs, happies and crappies, roses and thorns; however you like it. One of the ways I thought to preserve these memories was to blog.

Obviously that didn’t go so well.

I sit here, wrapped like a burrito in multiple layers as one of two heaters in the apartment warms the room. Apartment Lucy to be more specific; which is also dearly loved by three amazing women whose names three months ago I was still trying to remember and now am proud to call my sisters. The idea of having to say goodbye to them a week from now brings sad and bitter tears to my eyes. I am humorously reminded of the stages of grief and realize that I am in denial, but at least I can accept this.

How am I going to say goodbye to everyone? This question has been littering my thoughts the past two weeks and frankly it is quite draining, because I don’t know.  About any of it. I don’t know how to leave like this, or if we’ll keep in touch. I don’t know how to spend the little time I have left, I don’t know what to say to everyone who has impacted my life this semester, and I don’t know how I’m going to be able to walk away from them. Realistically, we will all arrive at the airport and have to look each other in the eyes as we give one last hug and kiss on the cheek, a tradition we have all grown very fond of, and force the word “goodbye” out of our mouths. Yes, that is how I will literally say it. Those are the concrete actions I will robotically carry out, but that word and those gestures can’t possibly encompass the true nature of the moment. The moment when silent words are what will mean the most and time is our only enemy. I will wave and smile one last time, and I will not look back because it will hurt too much to have to look away again.

I guess some will read this and smile, thinking to themselves “oh it’s so nice she was able to get so close to them”, others might roll their eyes feeling I am being overdramatic; and yet there are a few out there who will read this and  understand what I mean. What all of it meant. Not just this short reading, but what it is about. Falling in love with a land and an adventure and feeling your heart tear at departing from it. Letting complete strangers in and developing unexpected bonds, but being beyond frustrated that knowing over time you will forget each other.

Maybe that is what evokes such strong words, knowing that I will forget. The feeling of stepping outside and seeing the mountains every day, the quirky moments shared between friends and even strangers, and what it was like to live with nine unbelievable men and woman in an adventure of the unknown. I will not forget all of it, but I will forget; and this is what fuels my sadness and my anger.

One day, years from now, I will look back on this time and I will remember something. Perhaps it is in that moment that I will find what made it so hard to say goodbye.

Notes from an Intern

 For the semester, one of my colleagues and I have taken up internships in the New Horizons Foundation's office in Lupeni. Our official job title lists us as “English-Language Communication Assistants”. This position primarily consists of taking materials that where originally written in Romanian and have since been loosely translated into English, and perfecting them to be concrete and comprehensible materials for native English-speakers. Why is this important you might ask, if New Horizons is a Romanian organization, therefore with a Romanian audience? Well, because NHF is such an easily replicable organization, IMPACT groups have begun to spread within the United States. By improving the quality of materials in English, it’s hoped that the IMPACT program will become increasingly accessible and adaptable, and hopefully flourish on an even greater scale. One of the things I personally find so cool is that a community does not have to work to fit itself to an IMPACT club; rather, the IMPACT club adopts to fit the needs of a community. And really, shouldn’t this be the way all good deeds flow?

I originally wanted to intern with NHF to see community development work at an up close and personal level. From what I observe on a daily basis, NHF works as an umbrella and a resource for their clubs across Romania. They do not follow the details of each club meeting, nor do they force clubs to pick certain projects that they see as optimal. This might allow room for messing up; a club might have ups and downs as a group, or might have a project that is a total flop. However, I get the sense that this is ok, because all the while club leaders and members were using their minds and energy to see what their community's needs were. And that is one of the biggest things a development organization can hope for, because changing one’s mindset to think beyond oneself is the only way we can breach the barrier of selfishness we each have, and begin to heal our communities as a whole. If my work to bring new materials to the table can help this along, well, then I consider my internship a success.

For more information on NHF or IMPACT check out: www.noi-orizonturi.ro