Reverberations

Reverberations

Yesterday evening Nancy and I and friends strolled to the Reformat church here in Cluj to hear a baroque concert of trumpet, violins and organ. The night before, we listen to our final Friday night performance of our season pass of the Transylvania State Philharmonic. Both concerts were excellent and remind us that when we leave Romania later this summer we will miss the availability of great, live, affordable classical music.

Sitting in the Hungarian Reformat (Calvinist or Presbyterian) Church was a particular treat. The church was originally built by order of one the most famous of the Hungarian Kings, Mathias Corvin back in 1500. This king, born in Cluj, has many ties to Transylvania history and pride. His statue, depicting him astride a larger than life horse and being hailed by his followers, is a regular meeting site. Meet you by the horse statue,” and everyone knows where you mean, even though there are two such statues – the other of Mihai Vitazul, a Romanian hero.

The Reformat church is not the gothic Roman Catholic cathedral that dominates the central city, but was built 150 after that and is much more ‘German’ looking in its appearance. It’s a large space, with a very tall, arching ceiling, and the walls are of heavy stone. The large organ is along the back, west wall, of the church up in the choir loft. The metal pipes are shiny bright for the first 6 meters and then, as they must be much more difficult to clean, or perhaps they are of a different metal, more tainted and muted in their coloration as they rise to the ceiling.

We’ve learned to sit nearer the front of the church on pews that have their backs to the side walls so that we can turn and watch the organ. During organ concerts which are often held in the church, there is not much to see, for the organ just sits there as the music comes out, the organist hidden behind the keyboard. But it is from the loft that the trumpets and violins joined with the organ for this recent concert, so there was activity to watch as we listened to music of Bach, Handel, Albinoni and others. What’s more we could watch the sunlight as it brightened the glass windows and illuminated the loft.

These windows, as appropriate to a Calvinist church, are without image or decoration, but rather an alternation of frosted glass and honey colored panes in a geometric pattern. The windows are long and narrow and during the day offer a muted light to the church. As I’ve mentioned the stonework of the church is massive and remains cool throughout most of the summer. It also has the acoustical effect of bouncing the sound of organ and instruments to mellow them. During last night’s concert when one violin played it sounded as two. When two played, it sounded as six. When both trumpets and violins played along with the organ, the sound was huge, reverberating off the walls and down to our seats.

Nancy and I have less than a month left in Cluj and we hope to take full advantage of it, but we also hope that the reverberations of our time here will remain with us – what we’ve done, what we’ve seen, what we’ve heard and the people we’ve met - will echo in the stonework of our brain to remind us of our adventure here.

Nancy and Friends in a Field of Wild Flowers

Oana

Growing Up and Other Thoughts

Growing Up and Other Thoughts


This past week Nancy and I had the opportunity to take part in a presentation on diversity during the training of the latest Peace Corps group to come to the country. We were accorded expert status on age diversity issues. These were trainerees with only two weeks in the country and they were all excited and curious about just about everything. It seemed a little strange to me to realize that it was exactly two years ago that our group had been in the same stage of curiosity and excitement. Now we are within six weeks of our check out date, preparing to take a slow journey home.

One of the preliminary tasks to that check out was to undergo a physical examination and dental check up. This took place in Bucuresti and we passed both segments. One thing about the physical, is that should we decide to reapply for another stint of Peace Corps duty, we’ll not have to redo that portion of the application process – good for six months.

While we were in Bucuresti we met with Oana. Oana is the young lady who was our gazda ‘sister’ while we were doing our ten week training in the town of Rasnov. She was then in high school. Now she’s finishing up her first year at university and we were both taken (I would say enchanted but that might give the wrong impression) with her progress in becoming a delightful young lady. She is an example of all that is right with Romanian young people. She is intelligent and natural, attached to her family, but understanding that there is a wide world surrounding her.

We hope to stop in Rasnov before departing the country to say our good byes to Oana’s parents, Celu and Betty. They acted the perfect host to us and we’d like a chance to talk with them about our experiences over the last year. We visited with them at New Year’s 2006 so it’s been nearly a year and a half since we’ve seen them.

Perhaps some of you remember a posting I did a little over a year ago about planting strawberry plants in the little garden that sits in front of our apartment block. One of the neighbors pointed out that the children would just steal the berries should any manage to get ripe. I said that was my plan. Last year, no berries matured but this year I’ve been watching as two dozen berries slowly turned red. I am pleased to report that I did not get the chance to taste them. They were harvested by the local children. I am not happy to report that several of this year’s flower plantings have been stolen as well – impatiens and pansies dug right out of the ground. I don’t mind the loss of the strawberries, because that is sharing, but if whoever stole the plants wanted to enjoy them all summer long they could have done so by leaving them right where they were.

There is a small flower bed alongside an apartment within an easy walk from ours. It’s a full bed with lots of fine flowers, none of which were a variety that I had planted, but the remarkable thing about this bed is the barbed wire that surrounds it.

The pictures accompanying this blog posting are of Oana and of Nancy and friends on her birthday. Every year I try and take her somewhere out of the ordinary. This year was a caruta ride out to a wild flower meadow. The day was perfect and the scenery awesome.