Well, it has been two and a half weeks now at site and it's been pretty interesting. There have been ups and downs, good days and bad days, and some travel in the meanwhile.
My train ride to București and then to Vaslui was decent, despite it being extremely hot that day. It was so hot in fact that the train was forced to slow down so as to guard against issues with the rails or overheating (or something, I'm not sure). When I called my counterpart and told her of the delay she sounded worried: "Oh Goddd, Ohhhhh Godddd", in true Mihaela style. Turns out the Maxi Taxi I was supposed to have taken had already left and I was still forty-five minutes from Vaslui. Thankfully, Mihaela has some connections; her colleague, a French teacher who lived nearby, met me at the station around 6 pm. Since she spoke very little English, we struck up a conversation in Romanian (to the best of my ability, of course). I had dinner at her house while I waited for some recently graduated students to pick me up and drive me to Negrești. We waited ... and waited ... and waited. In the meanwhile I watched "Bute", a famous Romanian boxer (and current national hero) knock a French guy out in the fourth round. As I continued to wait I played some Call of Duty Three with her six year old son, and chatted with a young English teacher from the school who had stopped by a couple hours after I arrived. The students finally showed up as 11:30 rolled around. We packed my things in the car and headed out. The rest of the night there was nothing really of note besides the drunk barely conscious man laying in the road outside of town. It was OK though, he was breathing and the cops showed up to take care of him.
Now that the "move to site" story, a particularly infamous genre of travel stories here in the Peace Corps, is out of the way, I can move on to life in Negrești. To understand the first week I should explain two things: first, my counterpart and chief contact was not in town for the first week, but on vacation. Second, there was not (and at the time of this writing is still not) an apartment prepared for me. In fact, at this point no apartment has even been selected much less tuned up. Thus I am staying in the student dorm in a one room studio, a decent solution but made worse by the lack of storage space for clothes and cooking items. My oven doesn't work, either. Anyway, the first day I did nothing, with no Internet and only my kindle and the discovery channel. Liviu, a colleague English teacher here at the highschool invited me out the following day for beer and food in town and at his parents house. I had a great time. The following three days were awful; I was bored, disconnected, and bothered about my living situation. I decided to take a mini vacation in the north and see Melissa in Suceava.
This turned out to be wonderful. We spent five days together in her beautiful city. She has a very nice apartment with some great supplies left from previous volunteers. That weekend, Sara and Theron Labounty, a married couple in our group, traveled north to spend time with us. I made my Dad's sauce which was a hit. That night we went out to a beautiful monastery with Melissa's wonderful community contact family. After the monastery we went to their cousin's restaurant, ate some great pizza, and watched some modern Romanian folk music. What a treat! Two days later Melissa and I went to the ruins of a castle from the 15th century (I believe) built by THE Moldovan King and supreme local hero Ștefan cel Mare (Stephen the Great). This castle (a 10 minute walk from her apartment) was partially restored and had seen many battles. It was pretty unbelievable, something I would never have the opportunity to see in the states. When I returned to Negrești I started to hang out with Florin, the philosophy teacher here at the highschool. Firstly, he is a super cool guy. He has been making every effort to help assimilate me into the community and I appreciate it greatly. He is also my tutor and I have been taking Romanian lessons with him for about a week now.
With Florin I have had a number of opportunities to be introduced to local people, like the Art teacher or a History teacher. We have been to play table tennis and some soccer. People are starting to find out who I am and why I am here. I meet someone new nearly everyday. The most common reaction is first interest and then laughter when they find out I am here for two years, as in, why would you want to be here for two years; I brush this aside, I'm not sure I could truly understand their feelings anyways. One day, Florin, Gabi (the IT teacher) and I went to Iași, a major city northeast of here. There were some beautiful churches and some old architecture, but I wasn't blown away or anything. I hope to spend some more time there later in the year. I was supposed to travel to Maramures in the north of the country but I hurt my neck and back from sleeping the wrong way (something that happens not all the time but too frequently nonetheless). Instead, next week I will be going to a camp being run by a fellow volunteer in Bistrița county.
I have good feelings about my time here so far. Everyone in the community has been very warm and happy to meet me; good vibes all around. The future looks great from this vantage point, however low on the mountain my rocky outlook may be. And I say rocky only for the reason of my apartment situation, which is still disheartening, especially since the process seems to be dragging along despite all the effort my counterpart has been putting forth. I would really like to settle in and get comfortable in my new home instead of staying in this transitional, spirit dampening housing. Așa, asta este. Such is life. Talk to y'all soon.
