There's A Nip In The Air

And frankly, it’s been quite warm. This just must be the time of year for all mother dogs to bear more friendly vagabonds for if Gaylord Focker were here…he would not only be milking the cats.

Additionally, this past weekend was the Romanian Orthodox Easter, Paste, which is their most important holiday and they go all out. Ladies of the household spent all last week preparing and cooking food for the weekend, which included butchering baby lambs (on the kitchen table) and creating a delicious pig organ meatloaf. I unfortunately did not get to experience either but we still ate past the point of consciousness on Sunday.

According to my Gazda, these are the typical order of events. On Thursday, if you hadn’t already, you better have dyed your eggs red. However, in recent years it has become more common to decorate them more radically. On Friday, people went to church with flowers to mourn the body of Christ. It was actually quite interesting because each biserica (church) had a large table set up to represent the coffin of Jesus. At the big church at the center of town there was a crazy long line around the block of individuals waiting to put their flowers on the “coffin” and then go under the table to the other side. We did not attend that service but I was able to observe the process on my way home from school. Saturday evening at midnight was when the big church service was. We went to the big church in the center because they had a big outdoor service with several speakers and even a big screen. I couldn’t believe how many people were out and about. Usually the streets of Ploiesti are empty by 9pm but here it was 12am and the entire population was out and about. Everyone brought a candle to the service and afterwards would walk home with their lighted candles. It was actually a pretty neat to see the streets illuminated by several candles. We only stayed for about 45 minutes or so but the service went to 4 or 5am, which I was really disappointed that I didn’t get to experience. Yes, that’s a straight up lie. Sunday was pretty low key for my Gazda family with just the 3 of us. We ate, drank, played games and were merry. Everyone got Monday off as well; even we didn’t have to go to school. I’m not sure if there is any special meaning to Monday’s holiday or if it’s simply a recovery holiday. Nevertheless, many Romanians spent the day relaxing or out at the park. We walked around at the park and went to the outdoor Zoo. Now I’m not much of an animal lover but that was the saddest zoo I have ever been to. The lions and bears were in fairly small cages on pavement. It didn’t appear that they had any food or water, except for some occasional loafs of bread. I was positive the lions were dead but my Gazda sister assured me they were just sleeping. Now, they didn’t really have the barriers between animals and visitors that we are used to. I swear it was the largest petting zoo I’ve ever seen. I’m surprised I did not witness an attack from the beavers, ostriches or red-ass monkeys. Either way it was quite disturbing, and I wish never to return.

On Tuesday I had my final language competency test, which consisted of a 30 minute conversation in Romanian with an Instructor. I have been ill about this since before I even left home, especially because we had to reach a particular competency level or they threatened to send us home. I don’t know the actual results yet but I did for sure at least get the minimal level required, so I will not be packing my bags. Well, not for home any ways. On Monday May 5th we have our swearing in Ceremony at the U.S. Ambassador’s residence in Bucharest, and our transformation from trainees to actual Peace Corps Volunteers will take place. Then on Tuesday I’m off to my new home in Campulung Moldovenesc!

P.S. Last night for dinner I thought I was given raw ground beef. However when I took a bite it tasted vaguely like liverwurst, so I just kept on making my way through this dish. It was not until half way through that it occurred to me that this indeed was the pig organ meatloaf my fellow volunteers have been discussing. That second half of the loaf for some reason did not go down quite as well.