Sinaia and site visit

Last Thursday all but one of the 67 Peace Corps trainees were sent to the mountain resort town of Sinaia to meet our counterparts from the various organizations that we will work for the next two years. Our final destinations were kept secret with only hints as to where and with what group we would be placed.

The one member of Romania 20, as we are known, that did not get to Sinaia received a transfer to Ghana. It’s unusual for a transfer to occur, but Donna is a fine representative for Peace Corps, and she had been promised Africa by her recruiter and she had received numerous slurs and innuendoes from Romanians as she was the only black in our group – nearly the only black in all of Transylvania. We all hated to see her go, but glad she will continue with Peace Corps.

Counterpart conference is a big deal for Peace Corps staff. We stayed in a very nice hotel, ate good food and attended three days of meetings and such, but it was the matching of organization to volunteer that was the highlight. Neither the counterpart nor we knew to whom we were matched and Peace Corps staff built upon the mystery.

It turned out that Nancy and I will be working in the largest city in Transylvania, Cluj. It’s not pronounced Clug, but soften the j and draw it out a little. It’s reported to be one of the nicest cities in Romania, with a University, a botanical garden and lots of Theater and such. We traveled there for a short stay and initial introduction to our work assignments. Nancy will work for the equivalent of the Romanian Audubon Society with the aim of helping fund raising and merchandise sales. So I’m sure that you’ll all want to order your copy of the guide to Eastern European Birds, translated into Romanian. Or at least a Tee shirt. Every one in her office (8 folks if I counted correctly) is young and speaks English.

I am assigned to the Romanian Organic Farming Association, known as BioTerra. Be careful how you say that. The office staff consists of two young ladies – Zsuzsa & Eva – and the director Emri. Their first language is Hungarian, but they all speak German and Romanian and will use that last language when I’m in the office, and the ladies speak English. They’d like me to help in establishing markets for the organic products. It is not a field that I am fully qualified for, so I will be drawing upon contacts for information.

Our homr for the first two months of our stay starting in mid August will be a two room plus bath downstairs apartment in the small village of Luna de Sus. Luna de Sus is the town where I will be working. It’s 12 kilometers (about 8 miles) from Cluj. The name of the town means Moon Overhead, or Top of the Moon. The name is the prettiest thing about the town. Outside of town the countryside is gorgeous but the first and lasting impression of the town itself is mud. Only one street in town is paved, all the others are rutted and gravelly. But we were lucky. While we had mud to deal with many parts of Romania have been severely flooded. It was envisioned that Nancy would commute into Cluj to work, but as we can not drive and the bus schedule is inconsistent, it may be better to find an apartment in Cluj and have me commute to Luna.

This is the third flood this year, first in the west in the spring, then in the south of the country and now on the eastern slopes of the Carpathians. The city that I had helped with the Habitat for Humanity project was hard hit. The houses that we worked upon were on high ground so no fear of them being bothered, but much of the rest of the area was under water. Several of the volunteers were delayed in returning from site visit to Brasov. The last three are not scheduled to arrive until later tonight – 36 hours behind schedule.

The pictures included are of the area just beyond the limits of Rasnov and the king’s castle at Sinaia, Peles Castle. As it rained the entire stay at site, there are no pictures yet of Cluj, but I’ll have two years to take some. It’s about a five hour fast train ride (the slow train takes forever) between Brasov and Cluj and the countryside is amazingly pretty. Fields of hops and grapes and sunflowers and corn line the way. The country is mostly rolling hills, many topped with trees. The Communists had a policy of moving the country dwellers into the city to work in the factories so much of the countryside has a population density similar to Wyoming. I had heard or read a reference to Romania as the next Tuscany, and surely it could be so. My job with the organic farmers should allow lots of travel and I’ll collect and send pictures as they are taken.