Last of June in Rasnov

Blogsite entry June 30, 2005


This past weekend I and ten other volunteer trainees traveled to Comenesti, a small city on the border of the Transylvania and Moldavia regions. It was about a four hour maxi-taxi ride through some very interesting terrain. Northeast of Brasov the land is flat and fertile with mountains in the distance surrounding the plain. After traveling about an hour and half past corn and potato fields we began to gain elevation and soon were climbing a mountain pass.

It occurred to me as I traveled that Romania is at once one of the most beautiful countries in the world and one of the ugliest. The beauty is in the countryside, in the hills and mountains and the pastoral nature of the country, the churches tucked into the curves of the hills and the uncluttered views of the geography. The ugly comes when the cities appear. Concrete apartment buildings line the pot holed streets. Drab buildings, usually five or six stories high, the blocks, as they are called, have no appeal. Each apartment usually has a balcony, many as drab as the common areas of the structures, but others alive with blooming flowers and decorations. The architecture of the structures built before World War II is must more interesting then those build afterwards.

Romanians generally have a great love of beauty. Nearly every courtyard and cemetery plot has planted annuals and perennials, and there is a lively market for cut flowers. But beauty seems to be a private thing and does not extend to the communal areas. This is a generalization and there are some attractive public gardens in Brasov and such, but little attempt is made at sprucing up the common areas.

Comenesti is famous (in Romania) as the birthplace of gymnast Nadia Comaneci. We went there to help with a habitat for humanity project building four houses. I’m not sure how much help we really were – when I’m the expert on construction it shows the body of corporate knowledge is rather feeble – but we did manage to put up siding and insulation, paint window framing and haul lumber. Mostly though, our presence seemed to encourage the soon to be homeowners. They seemed to appreciate our help.

This old man worked as hard as any of the volunteers on Saturday, even staying for an extra 90 minutes after most of the others had knocked off work, but I must admit that the young people then went out to dinner and party, while I stayed back at the bunkhouse and went to bed. Unfortunately, I could have put in a few good hours of work on Sunday morning, but H for H refuses to do work on Sundays so our efforts were limited to one day.

It seemed a little strange that in this world of Peace Corps, where we are paid (at least enough to cover basic expenses) to be volunteers, we had to pay our travel and food expenses to volunteer for the habitat project. I think those of us that went, though, thought that our million lei cost was worth it.

Yesterday (June 29th) Nancy and I got our first clue as to what we will be doing the next two years. According to the plan I’ll be working with an agricultural organization that promotes and does research into organic methods of farming. Nancy will be assigned to an environmental organization with her talents directed to a money generating aspect of that group. She’ll not work directly with the environmental side, but will be assisting with setting up and co-coordinating the income producing portion.

Peace Corps continues to be secretive about where exactly we’ll be going. They are planning a ceremony and site naming next week when we travel to the mountain resort of Sinaia. From what hints that we’ve been given though, it looks as if we’ll be in a suburb of either Cluj or Timisoara. Nancy will work in the main city while my position is in the outlying town. Either city would be fine with us as they have the reputation along with Brasov as being the nicest cities in Romania.

Next week we go to Sinaia for a few days. Along with the naming of our sites, we will meet our ‘counterparts’ – the people that will be our main contacts at our organizations. We hope that our counterparts have much patience and speak English. After we spend the weekend in the resort we head out on our site visit. We’ll travel with our counterparts to site and examine first hand our work situation. We’ll also meet our next Gazda family. We’re required to stay with a host family when we first get to site. It’ll be another 8 weeks once we get permanently to site before we move into a place of our own.

We are currently in week 5 of the ten week training session. Counterpart conference and site visit will take up most of week 6 and 7. We’ve been working hard at our language skills but they remain weak. We have a ‘test’ next Tuesday and I’m afraid that it will show us deficient, but we’ve been assured that PC will not send us home if we fail. At least not yet.

Latest News from Rasnov

Mulberry Street

The first book written by Dr. Seuss was “What did you see on Mulberry Street?” It is the story of a young boy who was asked by his father what he had seen on Mulberry Street that day. The only thing the boy could recall was a horse and wagon – remember this was written in the 1940’s when there were still such things on American streets. However, in the boys imagination the horse and wagon gradually turned into a circus wagon filled with all sorts of fantastic creatures.

Any day along Strada I. L. Caragialie we can see the horse and wagons, they are called carutsas. We also see a circus of all sorts of interesting things. The street was named in honor of a Romanian playwright and it is the street along which our Gazda’s live. It is an avenue where all the homes front right along the street. There is space only for the house front, a door way and a garage door, but behind the gate there is a surprisingly large but narrow yard and home. Most gates are shut so what lies behind remains a mystery, but some are open revealing well maintained courtyards with roses, peonies and such.

Because all the homes front along the street it gives the impression of a channel through which sail not only the horses with their wagons and the previously mentioned cows, but also cars, buses, bicycles and pedestrians. It’s just less than a mile from our hosts house to the center of town and the school where we have our language lessons, so we walk the channel a couple of times a day. And every trip there is something unusual to see. Perhaps it’s a carusta loaded three haystacks high with freshly cut grass and on top of the grass are two riders and a dog all being pulled by a single grey horse, or it might be homeowners washing down the front of their houses with the garden hose, or it might be the parade of a marriage ceremony complete with four piece band. There is always something fantastic – to us anyway – happening along Caragialie Street.

The cemetery in town is also an interesting place. We’ve told our language teacher that we hang out there and she believes we’re crazy. Truth is, the cemetery is a short walk from the house and our Gazda’s family plot is there. Each plot measures about ten feet by 8 feet, most of which is dirt. Every plot is tended by the living relations and it’s almost a competition as to which caregiver has the most flowers or the most interesting combination of flowers growing in the plots. Nancy and I walk over to the cemetery to water the begonias planted their by Betty.

Added to the strange beauty of headstones and annuals and perennials is the backdrop of distant mountains, rising up from the level valley. I’ve taken pictures, though, as you can see, I’m still unable to download to the blogsite. I’ll send some along via email.

We’ve still not been told where our final destination is yet. It’s all very secretive, but we should know more in a couple of weeks, then we go visit our site. There is a rumor concerning one situation that has a hot tub and a refurbished apartment waiting. We’ve put our name on that list, although the only real requirement we have is not for a hot tub, but for hot water.

June 12 th

June 12, 2005

The first week that we’ve been in Romania the weather was perfect, neither too warm nor too cool. There had been one day of rain, but mostly sunshine and fair skies. For the last five days it seems as if we’re in Seattle. Ploua, ploua si ploua. The temperature has been cool to go along with all the rain.

It’s interesting to watch the group dynamics. Early on the team of 62 happy volunteers functioned smoothly, but gradually individual personalities have begun to splinter the group into multiple segments and as we’ve been given community projects to complete, the splintering has amplified. I think the rain has contributed to the process. We have taken on four new folks. They come from the program in Uzbekistan. They had been four months in that country, gone through the necessary language training and been assigned to post, but the government there refused to extend their visas so they’ve been reassigned and have to again go through the language training.

We’ve had one volunteer return stateside of a medical condition. He developed a hernia toting his luggage. He hopes to return after treatment, but I remember how sore I was when I underwent similar treatment. He won’t want to lift any luggage for a month, at least.

For those of you wondering about the scenery here in Transylvania go rent the movie cold mountain. It was filmed in this area. The funny story about that is our Gazda father, Celu, who is 71 years old and has a car almost as old as he is, was the driver for Nicole Kidman’s three bodyguards. When he told us the story we asked him if he was in the movie, he indicated that he was not but that he got to meet Ms. Kidman up close and personal.

As you can tell from the lack of pictures I still haven’t been able to download to the blog. I have downloaded to the email so if I haven’t put you on the picture list, let me know via email and I’ll send you some.

This morning Nancy and I attended our first Orthodox Church service. The outside of the Basicila is non-descript, like a thousand other churches but inside the ancient and exotic (to us) surroundings were an enchantment. It was a very high ceilinged place, something that isn’t appearent from the outside. The walls are covered with pictures of the saints and in the narthex there are places to set candles. The candles are a little longer than a pencil and about as thick and are sold in the church itself. It’s proper to purchase at least one and then light and place it in an area of for either Jesus, Mary, the departed or the living.

Back inside the church it’s standing room only, unless your family has a ‘seat’ in one of the wooden chairs. There is someone canting almost continually during the service and people come and go and as they do, they place flowers in front of a painting of a favorite saint and lean down and kiss the picture.

After being in so many classrooms with terrible acoustics, it was a pleasure to hear the choir as they responded to the chanting at appropriate intervals in the high ceiling chamber. The choir did a better job with the responses to the chants than they did with the hymn – we knew the melody from the Lutheran Hymnbook but not the words. After service we went back to the church, it’s just two doors down from our Gazda’s house, to take pictures but there was a wedding going on so we left with the camera unused.

Why the Romans Stayed

June 6,

We’ve been in country now for almost weeks. The sights and sounds and smells and tastes are all still new to us. Gradually, though, we are becoming adjusted to a different life style. Small things mean a lot. Our Gazda, which means host family, went out and bought a shower curtain. Now we can wash standing up. There is hot water and nearly all the comforts of home. Betty, our Gazda Mom is always reading with food.

And such food! I can’t remember all the names, but the stuff is good and there’s plenty of it. Last night we had a treat – home made French fries. They were excellent, along with the traditional Romanian dish of Mammaluga and Samatana – sort of a cornbread with sour cream. Our vocabulary is still limited but includes lots of words for the foods.

Rasnov is a medium size city on the outskirts of the larger Brasov. While it may have 20,000 people it doesn’t have much a city center. Our home is in the older section of the city. In Romania the older sections of towns are much better than the newer Communist constructed sections. We’ve got a private room but we share a bathroom with the rest of the family. That hasn’t been a problem, and now we have the aforementioned shower curtain.

Should anyone have reason to send us snail mail – mail only, no packages yet – the address is

Tim & Nancy Hulings
Peace Corps Romania
16 STR. Negustora, Sector 2
Burcharest, Romania

The history and language of Romania traces back to the Roman era. Rome occupied this portion of the world in the time before Christ. All around Romania the nations speak either Slavic, Germanic or Hungarian languages which are most difficult to learn, but Romania has a Latin based language that has many similarities to French. It’s still not easy to learn, but at least Nancy and I have a basis from our High School French classes over 40 years ago.

The reason that Romania has the tie to Latin is this. When the Roman soldiers were ordered to return home at the end of their service they chose to stay. The Dacian women – the natives – had their particular charms. It’s easy to see why. I have been here nearly two weeks and have seen exactly three ladies under the age of 35 who have been overweight. The women are neat and trim and stylishly dressed. The style can seem a little strange to me, baring a good deal of skin on some ladies, but overall the impression is of a swank female population.

Now let me try and add a picture or two.

Cows Coming Home

Our house -- I should say our Gazda's house (Gazda means host family) in Rasnov is in the older part of the city. Now, that's a good thing. The older parts of cities and towns in Romania are the sections created before the communists started building cinder block apartments. The house has been in the family at least three generations and we've a seperate bedroom to ourselves. There are family chickens and of course a watch dog -- Toby. Celu and Betty are the parents. He's 71, she's 51. Both are exceptional good hosts, showing us continued patience in helping with the Romanian.....

Every day at 7 pm sharp, the cows come home. Not to our house, but all along the street people open their gates to let the cows in. They come without direction for they know the way. It's really something to see the animals walking up the street by themselves, each cow going into its own place. In the morning they walk down to the common pasture, but we've always been sleeping when that happens.

Still haven't gotten on with pictures, but maybe soon.