The first trip home.

The sun's not up yet, but I am... so rather than lay in bed tossing for two hours, until the normal hour when the rest of humanity will wake up, I think I'll write what's on my mind.

We're in Iowa!  It's cold and snowy, and my body is clearly not yet adjusted to the 8-hour time difference from Romania, but it is Good to be here.  We arrived in Chicago on Thursday afternoon and drove home to Decorah with my mom and sister, finally completing our journey at 10:30 PM (Iowa time) after leaving our apartment in Lupeni on Tuesday morning at 10:30 AM (Romania time).  It doesn't usually take quite that long to make the journey, but ours was augmented by a 19-hour layover in Zurich, Switzerland (which we made the most of by eating cheese fondue and delicious chocolates, though very few of the latter because they cost an astonishing $130 per kilogram!).  It was nice to break up the trip, and Zurich was like a dream straight out of a Disney movie, particularly after the noise and chaos we had just left in București.  The part of the city we saw was all cobblestone streets, adorable upscale shops, delicious smells, and bikers with cute dinging bells.  No blaring horns, no trash, no whiffs of sewage and rot and cows as we walked down the sidewalk.  It was lovely -- though even after a few hours there, I started to wonder if I would get bored living in such a wealthy, clean, orderly place.  (Okay, I'm sure there are social issues and poverty in Zurich... the point is just that the city is so gosh-darn cute!)

Anyway.  Eventually we got back to the airport (one more moment of gushing: the trains from the Zurich airport to the city are so fast and so silent -- it was like floating!  Anyway...).  Then another 10-hour flight, then a 6-hour drive, and then we were home.

Zurich was great fun, but Iowa is better.  :)

So far the transition back has been pretty smooth.  I'm currently most astonished by toilets, which flush in America with one quick little push of a lever -- whoosh! -- and a powerful burst of water cleans everything out.  In Romania, at least in our apartment, you hold the button down for as long as you want water to run -- and the flush isn't nearly as powerful, and sometimes takes multiple pushes to even get started.  Perhaps this is too much information, but it's true -- so here, a couple times a day, I just laugh as I realize I'm standing there like a fool, holding down the flusher when I don't need to be.  So that's nice.

It's also just quiet here.  Decorah has always been a quiet place -- it's a small town with lots of trees, little traffic, and no major motorways close enough to send much noise pollution.  But compared to life in Lupeni, it is blissfully silent here.  Lupeni is a small city, but between the frequent honking of Romanian drivers, the coal trains whose horns echo through the valley several times a day, and the street dogs who have choir practice together every night, it's loud.  Sitting in my parents' house right now, the only sounds I hear are the clicking of my fingers on the keyboard and the gentle hum of the heater in the background.

Oh yeah -- heat.  That's also been nice.  :)

Mostly, though, I am just glad to be back for a few weeks.  I am excited to catch up with people, particularly my family in these first few weeks we have in Decorah.  I'm excited to have time and space to think and process, to repent and adjust, to think over all the things I've learned and experienced in the last year, to make commitments to the future.  I'm excited for weddings and dinners and game nights and church services and parties.  I'm excited for hamburgers and Christmas cookies and cheddar cheese and pizza with lots of sauce.  I'm sure in January I will be ready and excited to go back, too, but for now it is just Good to be back, in this one of the many places I now call home.

A few thousand words.

We've been neglecting the blog lately -- probably because we come home so soon to visit that it feels silly to be typing the stories we'll soon tell in person.  (!!!)  Plus, life is FULL here right now.  The weeks before a long trip always feel that way -- packed to the brim with "one last dinner together," "one last hike before it snows," "one last weekend" -- and thus we're too busy spending time with people, saying temporary goodbyes, to write.  I think that's probably healthy, in the grand scheme of things -- though it does leave our blog woefully empty.

But I have been taking pictures.  And because the old adage says a picture's worth a thousand words, well... hopefully this will make up for our lack of verbiage in the last few weeks.

This man.  Have I mentioned lately how incredibly thankful I am for his friendship and his love and his faithfulness 

and the millions of ways he makes me laugh?  Oh, what a gift God gave me in my husband.  I am so grateful.  

(Also... check out the beautiful fall foliage!)

 Halloween... we dressed as Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox.  And then we sang karaoke with the study abroad students... to Katy Perry.  We're awesome missionaries.  heehee.

November has proven surprisingly warm and beautiful, after a miserably cold start to autumn... so we've done a lot of playing outside, enjoying the sun before it sets each day... at 4:45 PM, I might add.

Jack's birthday party, surrounded by loving and wonderful Romanian friends.  

I AM SO THANKFUL FOR THESE PEOPLE. 

 We went to the opera in Cluj as a surprise for Jack's birthday.  We rarely dress up, so it was fun, even though we've decided that attending the opera is not our favorite pastime.

A lot of weekends this fall have been spent on Straja, leading groups through the ropes course. 

This weekend was with IMPACT leaders from around the Jiu Valley.  

Okay, I guess I only took pictures of the fun things.  :)  In reality, much of our time is spent the same way it has always been -- working, cooking, sleeping, cleaning, slowly getting to know other people over the course of conversations at the grocery store and earnest, eager dinners together.  But it's good, and steady, and beautiful, and we are doing well.  And I promise to tell you more about it when we see each other... in person! 

Day of the dead.

I can't believe it's November.  We're coming to the States this month!  That's crazy.  Anyway...

November's beginning is marked in Romania by Ziua Morțiilor, or Day of the Dead.  Unlike the spooky death themes of Halloween (which Romanians don't really celebrate), Ziua Morțiilor strikes me as a beautiful way to honor and celebrate life and acknowledge death as part of what it means to be human on this planet.  In Romania, Ziua Morțiilor is festive, at least in Lupeni.  Everyone comes to the cemetery carrying armfuls of flowers, clutching candles in their fists.  There's an abundance of cakes (heaping platters full!) and bottles of țuica (a strong, homemade Romanian plum brandy).  Extended families gather in clumps around the graves of deceased loved ones, passing the treats, decorating the tombstone, remembering and mourning and laughing and celebrating.  It's beautiful, and fragrant, and fascinating.

I'm sure it's not all light-hearted.  Just like in the States, the debate rages here too about what it means to celebrate death -- death seen as so antithetical to life, to the holiness of God, to the way things ought to be.  We have some conservative Pentecostal friends here who don't observe Ziua Morțiilor because they believe its treatment of death is un-Christian, who are afraid that it makes room for the devil, who are concerned that it dismisses the seriousness of eternal consequences for your life on earth by simply treating death lightly.  But I can't say I agree.  Of course, death is horrible.  Of course, it's not the way things are supposed to be.  Of course, the promise of the new heavens and new earth and the promise of no more death is a far better promise to look forward to than the reality of our mortality.  But what I like about Ziua Morțiilor is the way it doesn't let death have the final say.  On this day, grief is turned into joy as people remember the love and friendship of those who have gone before.  On this day, the cemetery is not a somber place of grief, but a place of community and remembrance.  And on this day, we can remember and celebrate the goodness of life, and look forward to the day when death will be no more, when tears will be wiped away, and when -- I hope -- we'll join in singing and laughing and passing the cake, celebrating with our God who has overcome the grave -- and even somehow made it beautiful.

This mountain's on fire.

It is 10:00 PM on a Sunday night, and the mountain across the valley is on fire.

We can see it from our apartment windows -- a long swath of orange flame, flickering in and out of view because of the thick billowing smoke.  It's pitch black outside, a clear night sky so we can see the stars, except for the bright orange flames. 

It's kinda creepy.  And kinda cool.  And slightly worrisome -- although since it's near the top of the mountain, I don't think we have too much cause for alarm yet.

Or maybe Gondor needs us... 

Grinning toothless accordionists... and other thoughts from church.

Finding a church in Lupeni has been hard for us.  However, in the last few months, Jack and I have settled in to Biserica Bethel, a small Pentecostal church on the outskirts of Lupeni.  We chose it because it was small, because it was friendly, and because, unlike another church we visited, it didn't have any enormous paintings of Bermuda in the front of the sanctuary (I think it's meant to symbolize heaven, but still, it weirded me out).  We also chose it because there are a lot of Roma (Gypsy) people who attend Bethel.  In the States, one of the things we treasured most about our church community was its intentional commitment to racial and ethnic diversity, united in the body of Christ.  We didn't want to worship at a church where Roma people were excluded, or where we heard derogatory things said about them -- so that left us at Bethel.

Most of the time I like it there.  Occasionally there will be a service where there's just too much prophesying and speaking in tongues going on for my comfort, but that's the American Midwestern evangelical/mainline Protestant in me.   I appreciate that this church prays actively for the sick and those out of work, and that people from the church spend a lot of time visiting with and praying for those who are bedridden or ill.  There are a lot of people who don't have work in our church, and they're transparent about their needs.  They are kind and friendly and welcoming to us, and we've met many wonderful people.  And I am thankful for that.

Mostly, though, I like Bethel services for one thing: the singing.  See, the worship style for the service we attend usually includes a long "open mic" portion, where anyone who feels led can get up from their seat, go to the front of the room, and lead worship -- singing, reciting poetry, reading Scripture, whatever.  It's spontaneous and sometimes hilarious, particularly because the instrumentalists (a few guitarists, a 10-year-old on drumset, an old toothless accordion player, and a new person on keyboard for every song) always try to catch the tune and play along, which often means the first verse or two of the person's song is accompanied by a cacophony of instruments trying desperately to pick out the right key.  But despite the discord, I like this part.  It feels so Romanian.  The songs that are sung are often exactly what you'd expect in "stereotypical" Eastern European music -- part warble and wail, part toe-tapping rhythmic chorus, punctuated with shouts of "Ai! Ai! Ai!" from members of the congregation.   Some of the people who lead us in song have amazing, beautiful voices.  Others don't.  But it doesn't matter, because if the song is familiar, soon their voice is drowned out by the enthusiastic voices of the rest of the congregation... plus that amazing accordion.

The kids usually lead a few songs too.  They're SO CUTE!

This week was especially jubilant.  A middle-aged man had just committed to following Jesus, and he was baptized this Sunday evening in the river which flows just behind the church.  It was pretty abrupt, actually -- suddenly in the middle of the service, everyone stood up and put on their coats and traipsed outside, applauding and singing, to cheer and love and encourage as he was dunked in the Jiu.  There were lots of hugs and photographs, words of encouragement and promises to walk with this man as he joined the family of faith.  At the same time, the church was celebrating the birth of a new baby into the family, praying blessings over the child and his parents, promising to raise him in the family of faith and walk beside him.  It brought tears to my eyes to see this newly-baptized older man towering over this tiny little baby held in his mother's arms, the two of them side-by-side in the front of the church, surrounded by loving people of all ages, all promising to welcome them and love them.  And then the guitarists and accordion player got started again, bopping to their own beat, fingers flying across keys and strings, grinning and stomping, toothless and all -- and we were singing, and clapping, and there was much rejoicing.

It was beautiful.  And for the first time, it really felt like home.

Fără limite.

I'm staring out the window on a gloomy, misty October day, thinking about running.  Or rather, thinking about how I wish I could go running.  My body has been suffering from a lack of exercise lately, a lack of exercise induced by long weeks of meetings and cold, dreary weather and a lethargy that takes over my willpower just as the fog sinks deep into the Jiu Valley.  It's fall, a time that for many years of my life has been marked by cross country season and long runs in crisp, cool air.  But here, for some reason, it hasn't happened.  It's hard for me to run often in Lupeni.  Maybe it's the street dogs, maybe it's the stares, maybe it's the fact that there are few routes to take that don't involve running up mountains.  But as I gaze out at the rain and low-hanging clouds today, I'm feeling antsy.

The reality is that there's not much to do in Lupeni.  Our entertainment options are limited to three restaurants, which serve semi-decent pizza and traditional Romanian food, accompanied by pop music and thick clouds of cigarette smoke.  There are a few bars and betting parlors and one dance club, none of which we have tried.  There are a couple parks, which are always full to the brim on warm days.  But that's about it.  We usually make meals and share them with people, play games, watch movies, or go for hikes when we are looking for something to do.  And for the most part it's fine: we are busy, we rest well, and we are mostly content.  But as this fall chill rolls in, I'm a little worried that this winter will make me stir-crazy.

And we're not the only ones.  Most of the IMPACT kids I talk to are astonished that we moved here.  They can't wait to move away, either to big cities like Cluj and Timişoara, or out of the country entirely.  They think Lupeni is boring and hopeless.  The mountains are beautiful, they'll admit -- but they don't really like it here.

So what to do?

Well, one of our friends here, Felipe, is obsessed with rock climbing (to put it mildly).  There are some nice outdoor climbing spots nearby, and in the summer we spent plenty of Saturdays climbing together in Uricani.  But in the winter, it's cold and snowy (heck, it snowed here on October 3rd, so we're not just talking about the winter!)... and climbing in the snow is not so fun.  Felipe has been bringing IMPACT kids climbing with him too, and they also have loved it.  So a few months ago, he decided to try and open a climbing gym in Lupeni.  With help from other FNO staff, he's found a building, gotten the support of the organization that oversees that building, put together a plan for renovation and construction, and now is raising funds to build it.  Eventually he hopes to turn it into a self-sustaining business.  It's a sweet project, and one that I'm excited to watch unfold.  There's a community of climbers here, some of whom struggle to find steady employment, and a climbing gym would give them a place to work, a chance to develop business skills.  There are a lot of kids who have expressed interest and willingness even to pay a small fee to be able to come and climb.  And quite frankly, there's a huge need.   Lupeni doesn't have a community center, it doesn't have a YMCA, it doesn't have anywhere where kids can go hang out and engage in constructive activities -- particularly in the winter.  If the climbing gym goes well, it could potentially expand into a much larger community center (the building is huge -- but that's far down the road).  And for me personally, the thought of getting to climb in the winter?  Well, it helps me feel far more optimistic about the dark, cold, wet, and snowy months ahead.

If you want to pledge money to the Fără Limite Sală de Căţărare (Without Limits Climbing Gym), please donate here.  We -- and the youth of Lupeni -- would be really grateful.

Street dogs and euthanasia.

As previous posts have mentioned, Lupeni's street dogs are a less-than-savory part of life here.  There are hundreds of them, statistics show that there are somewhere around 200 attacks per year, and plenty of people are scared of them, recoiling and jumping back when one comes close.  It's not nice.  So in response, some IMPACT kids and New Horizons Foundation staff were working on getting a city-wide sterilization program going.  They've spent the last few months on the project, working hard on getting cooperation from Lupeni's notoriously-corrupt city officials and gathering public support through round table discussions, press appearances, and community meetings.  They finally found a public building which they could use as a temporary shelter to house the dogs after the procedure was completed, got commitments from vets from all over the county to come and help, and in mid-September, they started rounding up dogs.

 Graţiela, our fearless NHF co-worker, with local authorities in the soon-to-be shelter.

 

IMPACT kids worked hard to clean up the building 

and make it an appropriate shelter for housing dogs post-surgery.

IMPACT kids after cleaning up the shelter.

 But things didn't go according to plan.  Ideally, the county was going to send dogcatchers to Lupeni with special equipment, and they would go neighborhood by neighborhood to round up all the dogs.  The leaders of the project had already talked to animal-lovers in each neighborhood, asking for their support and assistance in luring the dogs with food, etc., so that the dogcatchers could take them away.  But it all went much slower than expected, with only about 40 dogs captured in the entire first week.  The city hall also restricted access to the shelter, meaning that none of the IMPACT kids, NHF staff, or animal lovers who had purchased food for the recovering animals were allowed in to see them.  And then the dogs started disappearing.

It's still not clear what happened to those first dogs, but a few days later we learned that the city hall was changing its policy.  In Bucharest, Romania's capital, legislation had been pending for years to allow local authorities to kill street dogs -- an approach that was illegal, except in cases of attack.  However, recently a four-year-old boy was tragically killed by street dogs in a public park in Bucharest, and that terrible incident was enough to turn the tide.  The legislation was passed -- and suddenly Lupeni's city administration decided they were going to enact it.  Their policy changed from sterilizing to euthanizing, and we were no longer sure what to do.

So after discussion at the NHF office, we withdrew our support from the project.  We wanted to do a sterilization campaign because statistics show that sterilized dogs are less aggressive, less likely to attack people, and also because mass sterilization would slowly diminish the population of street dogs in Lupeni (if done properly).  Plus, we recognized that many people love the street dogs -- they feed them, play with the puppies, and have a lot of fondness and affection for them.  Euthanizing them all was not a solution we could support.  But unfortunately, that's what the city hall decided to do.  So we sent out a press release and withdrew from the project.

I was gone last week in Cluj at meetings, but when I returned home on Monday evening something already seemed different to me.  And it's true: the streets are emptier.  The city hall is slowly capturing and killing the street dogs of Lupeni.  But there are dogs left, and I'm sure there are dogs who will escape the round-up.  Currently the city hall is paying people 20 lei (about 6 dollars) per dog, so citizens of Lupeni who are in need of cash are helping with the efforts.  But the biggest, scariest dogs aren't being taken -- the risk isn't worth a mere 20 lei -- meaning that the project to make Lupeni safer is actually leaving the least safe dogs free.  And we've noticed that the dogs are changing territory.  I don't know if they're scared or trying to run away or what, but there are new dogs in new places, which is weird -- usually they stick close to their territory, and there's a type of security in that.  I'm not sure what the new big white-and-black dog behind the office is like, and that makes me more nervous.  At least before I knew what to expect.

Yet in some ways, it's a victory -- people will be safe from attacks, children can play outside without fear of being bitten, we can go running without paranoia.  Plus, the advocacy efforts of the IMPACT kids really did make people pay attention, and now something is being done about the problem.  But in other ways, it makes me sad -- and I don't even like the street dogs!  But I did like seeing the roly-poly puppies on the train tracks, and I didn't mind the friendly ones who curled up to nap in the sunshine in alleys and by dumpsters.  It makes me sad that hundreds of animals are going to die simply because a problem has been left unaddressed for so long that there seems to be no other efficient, cost-effective way to deal with it.  It makes me nervous that this disregard for life and well-being carries over into other areas of the governance of Lupeni.  It makes me angry that the city hall waited until now to do anything at all about the street dog problem -- and now, they take the "easy" way, the way that is gruesome and sad even if it ultimately accomplishes a good thing.

"Uniți, salvăm Roșia Montana!" A few thoughts on democracy.

This past weekend, Kelly and I were in Cluj on IMPACT business/seeing friends business, and there was a protest that we wanted to, at the very least, check out.

From what we've heard, there have been many protests like this in Cluj, as well as around the country. The tagline is, "Salvați Roșia Montana!" Save Roșia Montana, a command to many.

It's interesting. On the internet, I see a lot of little questionnaires asking me to "Say DA to Roșia Montana!" Say that I support blowing up the mountains to get at some gold. Make a lake of cyanide to give a hurting economy jobs for a period of time. Show that I want the Romanian government, from what I know a decently untrustworthy entity, especially when it comes to money, to make a deal with a big corporation to "develop" a possible UNESCO World Heritage site.

Wouldn't it be nice if these things were clear-cut, like the movies I grew up watching, and the stories I read? Where good and evil are spelled out from page one, and when they fight, it's obvious who's winning? Evil is deceptive. Evil is almost good. Evil is almost so good that you go for it, and only after you can't take it back do you realize it's evil. I guess this is why Jesus said for his disciples to be as innocent as doves and as cunning as snakes. Still have hope, but not stupid hope that "it'll just all be alright in the end." To try to trust the people involved, but not after they've proven themselves untrustworthy. To know the times, find the factors, try to understand the people involved. It's complicated, especially in a decision this big. I hate that it seems like one has to choose between jobs for a community that's 80% unemployed and blowing up mountains to get at gold and leave behind a lake of cyanide. One of our friends said he wasn't going because it was too complicated of an issue and he couldn't give his allegiance to either side. I agreed with him for a long time.

Well, on Sunday in Cluj, a crowd gathered in the big square, Piața Unirii.  The Square of Unity.  The leaders led us in chants like, "Uniți, salvăm Roșia Montana!" (United, we will save Roșia Montana!), and "Educație, nu cianura!" (Education, not cyanide!), and "E România, e țara noastră, și nu vrem cianura voastră!" (It's Romania, it's our country, and we don't want your cyanide!). Their main thrust was that Romania will solve its economic problems by being educated, not by blowing up mountains. They were saying that a lot of false information about the project was going around, and that if everyone knew the truth, they would for sure want to save the area. A guy mentioned that it was so important in the "uniți, salvăm Roșia Montana" yell that we were saying WE will save the mountain. Not just the rich folks, not just the government, but all Romanians participating in saving the mountain as well. Democracy in a fine moment, especially knowing that in the past, the government took care of all the big decisions, and punished the people if they tried to get involved.

It made us glad to see the people taking part in their democracy, the system living up to its name. In Lupeni, most folks still need a lot of persuasion to be involved with any decisions and projects outside of their own home. Even for something like addressing the hundreds of street dogs that bite a hundred or two people every year, the community didn't really get behind the sterilization project that FNO tried to accomplish in conjunction with the town hall and the resident wealthy philanthropist. And the project fell when, after two days of bringing dogs to the old shelter and sterilizing them, a third went missing, no one was allowed in the shelter except city hall members, and the mayor told our colleagues that he wanted to kill the dogs now, not waste money sterilizing them.

FNO left the project because we don't want to kill dogs. We want to treat them with some sort of dignity, even though they bite people and scare kids. We wanted to walk the line between the people that hate the dogs and want to never see them again (they have to deal with it until they die or get adopted), and those who still love the dogs (they can say goodbye to the ones they love in a natural way, or adopt them). But the city hall just wants to kill them, and since they control the shelter, they got to make the call. I don't know if FNO could sidestep the city hall to continue sterilization, but if we did, there would be some sort of nasty response, I'm sure.

I just wonder how it could be different, if the thrust to do something came from the people, the governed, the alleged citizens who should have a say in their democratic government. The project began from an IMPACT club, and the kids put up posters, did a press release, and were going to take care of the dogs as they recovered from being snipped. I don't know if they plan to try to continue the project in any way. I hope so. I hope they realize their say in decisions, like people have with Roșia Montana. I hope that we can see a democratic country living up to its system of government's potential. It's especially odd to write this as our own US government is shut down over our Congress' inability to agree on a budget. How can we, as US citizens, participate in this decision? Would our calls and letters and emails outweigh the money they get from special interest groups? Even though many districts are drawn according to partisan lines these days, can we, the people, find it in ourselves to say that we will vote you out if you don't compromise in order to make decisions that are for our good? Can we convince the president to not give up on talking with the House Republicans, even though their talks seem to go nowhere, and they fight every three months on a budget?

Democracy exists for the people to be involved in for their own good. For our own good. And in this age of global trade and communication, everyone's good. How do we realize it, whether we live in a small town in Romania or in the biggest city in the US? How can we participate, together, in making decisions that affect us all?

Saving Roşia Montana.

Most of you who read our blog don't live in Romania, so you probably have never heard of Roşia Montana.  (Let's be honest -- I do live in Romania, and I hadn't heard of it until a few weeks ago.)  But you should hear about -- so please read this post.

Roşia Montana is a small community about halfway between Lupeni and Cluj.  And I do mean small -- the area is home to only about 3,000 people.  It's located in the Apuşeni Mountains, and hosts some amazing biodiversity.  It's also the oldest documented community in Romania and is in the process of being considered by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site because of its historical and cultural importance.

Roşia Montana also sits on top of gold.  For many years (since the days of Roman rule, in fact), gold mining has been part of the local economy, usually on a relatively small scale.  But apparently, there are hundreds of tons of gold and over a thousand tons of silver estimated to be extracted, making it potentially the largest gold mine in Europe. The unemployment rate in Roşia Montana is, according to sources I've seen, at 80 percent.  That's oppressively high -- and large-scale mining would certainly provide jobs.

A few years ago, a Canadian corporation called Gabriel Resources made a deal with the Romanian government to buy and start mining gold out of Roşia Montana.  The deal would make a lot of money for the Romanian government and provide a lot of jobs.  But here's the catch: in the process, it would dig out the valley where Roşia Montana sits, thus booting most locals out of their homes; flood another nearby village with a cyanide-poisoned lake; and completely destroy four of the surrounding mountains which are home to such famous biodiversity.

Just a sidenote for those of you wondering about the cyanide: apparently, when there are "fine gold-bearing rocks" (thanks, Wikipedia), it is common practice to grind the rock, mix it with a sodium cyanide solution, and thus separate the gold from the stone.  Unfortunately, this leaves behind the cyanide, which is usually stored in man-made lakes, where there is always high risk of leakage into the groundwater and rivers and streams.  It costs 1.5 million dollars a year to control this waste -- and Romania has a bad history with cyanide waste management.  In 2000, there was a huge cyanide spill from another gold mine near Baia Mare, in northeastern Romania.  The dam holding back the contaminated water broke, causing what is known as the worst environmental disaster in Europe since Chernobyl.

Romanian public opinion is divided over Roşia Montana, and understandably so.  The Romanian economy is struggling, and any promise of foreign investment and jobs is a promise filled with hope.  But over the last few years, more and more Romanians (including many people from Roşia Montana) seem to have decided that the cost and risk is not worth it -- plus, they are angry about the way the government has handled the whole affair.  There have been growing protests, with thousands of people taking the streets in big cities like Bucharest to protest against what they call foreign exploitation and environmental and cultural degradation. 

The more I learn, the more I think I agree.  Living in Lupeni, another mountainous mining community with high unemployment, I can feel the tensions of the Roşia Montana debate in ways I never could before.  But even so, I can't imagine how it would be worth it.  The risks -- the loss of homes and livelihoods, the loss of species and habitat, the risk of water contamination stretching far beyond the limits of Romania, the secretive dealings of the Romanian government with this multinational corporation -- it can't be right.

Most "Western" news sources aren't carrying anything on the Roşia Montana controversy (which, by the way, is currently being stalled by legislative red tape and public protests).  But here are a few articles for you, and a video made by some IMPACT kids and other European youth (cool, huh?).  Please read them.  Please pray for wisdom and transparency on the part of the Romanian government.  Please pray for the voice of the Romanian people to be heard, and for justice to be done.  Please pray for Roşia Montana.

Roşia Montana: Is it worth it?

 

 Helpful articles to read for more information:

• "The Revolution Begins with Roşia Montana"
• "Gabriel Resources CEO Threatens Legal Action"
• "Miners Blocked Underground Refuse to Come Out"
• "Romanians Mobilize in Protest Against Roşia Montana"

Weddings.

Last weekend, there was a wedding at the Pentecostal church across the street from our apartment.  Jack and I often sit and watch the comings and goings of this congregation from our balcony on the fifth floor -- they meet every evening for worship, and we know many of the attendees, so it's fun to wave at friends as they leave the service and we sit outside eating dinner and, occasionally, drinking beer.  (Heathens that we are.)

But anyway.  The whole church thing is a matter for another post.

So, last weekend was a wedding.  We knew the groom a little bit, but we had forgotten that Saturday was his big day -- until we heard the horns.  See, just like funerals, weddings in Lupeni also make a lot of noise.  A lot of noise.  Before the wedding party and guests arrive at the church, they make a few trips through town in their ribbon-festooned cars, blaring their horns as loudly as possible.  It's impossible not to know when a wedding is happening (or two or three, distinguishable only by the various colored ribbons and bows on the cars of the various parties).  You can also tell where the bride lives, as the entrance to that apartment building is adorned the week before the wedding with pine boughs.  It's beautiful and smells delightful (and makes a nice change from the usual stairwell aroma).

I love this, too -- the fact that weddings are occasions of such joy that the whole neighborhood, and in fact, the whole city, gets to hear about it.  (Many times.)  Lupeni is a noisy place all around, with the prolific street dogs and the coal trains that come roaring through town at all hours of day and night.  But this cacophony of joyful horns is a sound I don't mind -- the sound of promises being made and supported by a raucous, enthusiastic "amen."

Beautiful.

Funerals.

Last week, there was a funeral every single day in Lupeni.  I know, because I see the marching band from my desk in the office.

Marching band? you may ask.  Yes.  A marching band.

I haven't yet attended a funeral in Lupeni.  But from what I have observed so far, it seems that the funeral service and the burial in the cemetery are connected by a long parade through town, accompanied by a marching band.  The band, which contains trumpets and clarinets and tubas and a big bass drum, marches slowly in front of the hearse.  The hearse is flanked by pall-bearers, who wear colored bands on their arms and carry enormous funeral wreaths.  Following the hearse is the crowd of mourners, dressed in black, walking slowly to the beat of the big bass drum.  The most bereaved walk in the front, and in the back are usually some stragglers who are chatting and maybe even answering phone calls.  It depends. 

The music is slow and rhythmic.  I would use the word 'stately,' but it just doesn't fit -- there's something almost comical, or at least heartwarming (and not at all stately), about the slightly discordant caterwauling of the clarinets and the strange, repetitive melody the band always plays.  It doesn't make you want to cry.  It doesn't make you want to smile.  It just is -- a slow, steady, honest tune which gets caught in your head, which you find yourself humming while you weed the garden hours later.  It reminds us that death is real, and sad, and a part of life in this broken world, but that it's not the end of all things.  The song is simply too practical for that -- it marches on, slow and steady, with moments of sadness and a groaning tuba followed by moments of smiles, the squawk of a trumpet.  That's how life is, right?  And I think it's appropriate, actually, to be remembering mortality as a community this way, all of us reminded of each other's fragility and sadness and hope through the honest, straightforward strains of the funeral march.

Everyone notices funerals here -- the parade takes up half the street, and cars have to sneak by guiltily, or hover awkwardly behind the walkers until they can turn off the main road.  And that seems right to me too -- that we would all be aware of each other's loss, even as life goes on.  The funeral march goes right by the cell phone store, by the kids playing in the park, by the maxi taxi stop and the street dogs fighting there.  Everyone notices.  Everyone gives deference.  But life goes on.  And that seems right -- because death and loss should be noticed and cared about by communities, even if it takes a marching band to herald it.  But death and loss don't have the last say, and neither does the funeral.  Eventually the music fades, and the parade passes by, and life goes on.  I return to my desk and resume work --glad that death isn't the end.

The first day of school.

Yesterday was the first day of school in Lupeni.  At church on Sunday night the kids were bemoaning the fact that it was their last night of freedom from homework -- but they seemed excited, too, at the prospect of returning to their friends and the rhythms of a new school year.  Fall has already hit Lupeni -- it's cool and cloudy, and the trees covering the mountains are rapidly changing from green to muted bronze and rust and yellow.  Summer is over.  It's time for school.

Apparently it's a Romanian tradition to buy flowers for your teacher on the first day of classes.  All weekend flower sellers were perched on sidewalks and street corners, selling bouquets in crunchy silver foil for 10 lei a piece.  They've disappeared now, just as abruptly as they came.  But yesterday the streets were full of kids walking to and from school buildings in their clean new uniforms, holding parents' hands and clutching tightly their bouquet of flowers.  Little girls wear blue-checked pinafores with white lacy collars; little boys wear tiny black suits and sometimes ties.  The older students don't have uniforms, but they were decked out too, everyone in their very best for the start of the year.

It made me nostalgic for my own first days of school -- lunchbox clutched in one hand, the obligatory picture by the front door, then walking off to explore my way through hallways and schedules and new teachers and old friends.  It's funny how some things are so universal.  So for all of you who are at the beginning of a new year:  Spor la şcoala!

10 students and 6 other folks in the wilderness.

Kelly simply cannot stay out of Retezat National Park. This is the second time she's been there in about a month, but this time I got to go with her.

The students who study here in the fall always go on a 5 or 6 day trip in Retezat for bonding-and-introduction-to-outdoor-educational purposes. And we got to go with them. 

The first mountains...

Our intrepid heroes...

Lake Bucura.

Lake Bucura from above.

On the big peak! We climbed Peleaga on a wonderfully clear day.

Some tired people on top of a very big mountain.

"How big?" you ask?  Big enough to see the smoke from Târgu Jiu, 40km away.

On the way down from Peleaga, it's really beautiful.

They still love each other...

...and are still going strong!

Look at those muscles!

What a group.

Mountain goats!

See you next time, Retezat.

The street dog project.

As you've probably read in previous posts, Lupeni has a bit of a street dog problem.

Well, "a bit" is an understatement.  Lupeni has a lot of street dogs -- some of them adorable, clumsy puppies who waddle around the sidewalks to the amusement of people passing by; others the nasty, mangy type with snarling teeth and matted fur who bark aggressively at anyone who enters their territory.  The other day, walking home from church in the evening, we counted 32 -- on just the main road on our usual Sunday evening walk.  There are hundreds of them, and every year lots of people get bitten.  When I was a student in Lupeni in the fall of 2010, my host mom was attacked and bit on her thigh quite seriously.  The ensuing rabies shots and other treatment added to the trauma so much that she now carries a tazer with her, just in case.

But!  Some of the IMPACT kids in town have decided that this is their next project: to try and contain the problem.  They spent time this spring doing hundreds of surveys (which you can read about here), spent the summer slowly processing results, and now are organizing and petitioning local officials to create a shelter and fund a mass sterilization campaign.

And it's working!  Slowly but surely, even the notoriously inefficient and corrupt town hall of Lupeni is paying attention.  In the last week, some of the IMPACT members and our fellow staff member Gratiela have been interviewed on local television, held a round-table meeting with local officials and wealthy benefactors, and have secured a space to use as an animal shelter.  Next comes the cleanup and finding vets (and funding) to do the capture and sterilization campaign, so there's a lot of work left.  (Any vets reading this and want to volunteer your services?)

But still.  I'm pumped... and so, so proud of them.

Larisa, Gratiela, and Rebeca talk about the IMPACT 

street dogs project on local TV.

Ping-pong and thunderstorms.

Sometimes life is just poetic and laughable and beautiful, and last night was one of those times.

Our friends the Trifan family have the most beautiful homestead I've ever seen.  They live in a neighborhood perched on the side of a hill, overlooking the Lidl grocery store and the far end of Lupeni.  Their home is slightly ramshackle, covered in colorful painted handprints and a wild mix of lime and white paint.  The Trifans have nine kids, eight of them boys, who range in age from 29 to 16.  Their small plot of land boasts an amazing garden, fertile and green, vines crawling everywhere and trees heavy-laden with fruit.  Every time we visit, it seems, Papa Trifan fills our arms with something else: a bag of cherries, perfectly red and ripe, just-plucked from the tree; a towering bouquet of lilacs in purple and pink and white; a handful of summer apples, green and tart and crisp; a whole pizza topped with egg and sheep cheese and corn, baked in their wooden outdoor oven. 

It's what I've always imagined the Secret Garden to be like, actually -- a wild, glorious place that keeps surprising you with new spots to explore.  Plums and pears falling with a thud onto the unmown grass, beans creeping heavenward along spiraling vines, tomatoes glistening blood-red in the sunshine.  It's beautiful.

Tucked in the middle of this lovely place is a cement slab with an improvised light fixture dangling precariously from wires overhead.  This is where the Trifan boys play ping-pong, often inviting all their neighbors or friends from church to join them as they play late into the night.  The ball often ends up in the garden, and we have to scramble after it, careful not to trample plants, but it's fun.  We sit on home-hewn wooden benches and make commentary, oohing and ahhing at the antics of the players.  Everyone is welcome, even those without any skill, and the game is often interrupted by 2-year-old Daria climbing onto the table or sending her toy truck under the feet of the players.

Last night, Jack and I went to play at about 9pm.  We could see lightning in the distance, and it had rained for most of the day, but we were eager to spend some time outdoors and went anyway.  As we started playing, we heard thunder, and the lightning got closer -- but we played on.  Thunderstorms in the mountains are astonishing, by the way, and I missed plenty of shots because I was too busy watching the storm.  It was dark by that time, but lightning would flash out of clouds behind the nearest peaks, throwing their outline into sharp relief.  Thunder echoes when you're in a valley, and it seems a lot closer when you live in the mountains.  But suddenly, it really was right on top of us -- thunder and lightning only seconds apart, loud and ominous, with dark purple sky.  "Should we keep playing?" Jack asked.  "Yeah!" I replied.  "Maybe just to 11?"  The score was 6-8.

But before we served the next point, the clouds ripped open and the deluge began.  The few spectators had already left, more sensibly attuned to the imminent cloudburst than we were, so the four of us playing shrieked and quickly folded up the table, carrying it inside a shed.  We were soaked in seconds -- the rain fell in hard sheets, thunder and lightning pounding the sky.  We stood in the shed and watched, munching on apples Papa Trifan had handed us earlier.  Eventually the downpour slackened to a hard, steady rain, and we decided to make a run for it.  Ten minutes later it had slowed to a drizzle, and Jack and I headed home, hand-in-hand, sopping wet, and happy.

20 kids in the wilderness.

A week ago, I returned from a backpacking trip with 20 IMPACT kids from the Jiu Valley.  We had taken them to Retezat National Park, one of Romania's amazing natural treasures which happens to be just 30 minutes further down the valley from Lupeni, for a week "off the grid" -- without facebook or cell phones, beds or showers, cars or maxi taxis.  We took them into the wilderness to learn about ecology and develop an appreciation for nature, and to simply have fun.  And it was great.

 Picking wild blueberries at Buta!

Teambuilding games...

Stories about Retezat from Pex, our trail guide.

 Sheep and donkeys and shepherds... a common sight.

The first few days of the trip were lovely, though it took a bit of time for our group to settle in to life together.  But eventually, with lots of intentional conversations and fun games and time together, the two "cliques" which had developed among the kids seemed to settle down and the group united.  When we weren't hiking we played a lot of teambuilding games, listened to stories about the national park from our trail guide Pex, discussed Leave No Trace principles and learned orienteering with a compass and map, and had a lot of fun with charades, story-telling, and a squeaky plastic pig toy named Porky.  One day we spent the morning picking up trash from the camping area where we were staying.  Because the outhouses have been so poorly maintained, visitors generally go to the bathroom in the woods, behind every tree and rock they can find.  Almost all of them leave their toilet paper behind, as well as various other nasty things: sanitary wipes, tampons, kleenex, plastic bags, candy wrappers.  The kids were appalled, and spent a few hours picking up these unfortunate reminders of humans' impact on the natural world.  Some of them were angry and pessimistic that the situation will look just as bad in a few weeks, but others thought maybe their efforts to clean the area would discourage others from dirtying it.  Either way, I was so proud of them and the selfless, dirty work they did that day.  And that night, as I sat amongst some of the girls in their tent before bedtime, they were talking and dreaming of ways they could help educate people so that this won't keep happening.  And that made me smile.

 The whole woods was like this...

 

 After the cleanup: so proud of these kids!

On Wednesday we did the long summit hike from Poiana Pelegii to Lake Bucura to Peleaga Peak, the highest point in Retezat National Park (2509 meters, or 8232 feet).  The summit hike is fascinating.  From Lake Bucura to the top of Peleaga, the landscape is what I've always imagined the moon to be like.  There is little vegetation, and most of the time you're picking your way gradually through fields of large granite rocks.  It's steep and dangerous, and unlike parks I'm used to in the States, there are no guardrails or warning signs to dissuade unprepared hikers.  I guess the landscape is imposing enough to do that itself.  But we made it safe and sound, victorious and happy at the top, and slowly headed down the other side to settle down for some well-deserved lunch before heading back to camp.

the beautiful Lake Bucura

We made it to the top!

And then it started to rain.

We had planned to spend Thursday at camp, learning about first aid and playing various games, having a talent show that night, and then hiking all the way out of the park on Friday.  But Wednesday, as it poured and poured and poured, we started to re-think our plans.  By the time we got back to camp from the summit, everyone was soaked, even though we'd brought rain jackets with us.  At camp we made the unfortunate realization that about half of our kids' sleeping bags had gotten wet in the rain, and that some of them didn't have warm, dry clothes left either.  Thankfully there was a mountain rescue lodge at the camping area, and they offered to let ten of our shivering kids spend the night inside.  The rest of us changed our socks, wrung out our clothes as best we could, and settled down for another night in the tents.  Wednesday night there was a huge storm, with thunder and lightning roaring and rattling through the mountains right above us, trees swaying ominously in the illumination of the lightning flashes.  By Thursday morning the rain had slowed to a drizzle, but it was still falling, and by now even the kids whose tents had stayed dry were feeling cold and damp.  We decided to hike out a day early, rather than try to endure another day with so many of our participants being inadequately prepared -- and so Thursday morning we packed up our still-wet tents, shaking the raindrops off as best we could, and put our packs back on.  We made the hike out in about 7 hours, with rain following us for about half the time.  Thankfully, the kids were troopers, and most of them didn't complain at all.

In fact, my favorite moment of the whole trip happened as we were approaching the end of that long hike out.  One of the girls, Carina, had been really struggling under the weight of her backpack.  She was tiny, short and petite, and for most of the hike our guide Pex had actually been carrying her pack as well as his own.  But in the last hour, Pex had to turn around to head back up to the mountain rescue station, leaving Carina with her own pack.  Various kids from the group had taken turns carrying it in addition to their own, passing luggage around every fifteen minutes as they got tired -- but in the very last thirty minutes, the path becomes narrow and steep, and Carina was stuck carrying her own pack.  And she was exhausted.  So then, as I'm watching, the other smallest kid on the trip, 13-year-old Cosmin, who's also skinny as a stick and whose voice has yet to deepen, reaches out and takes her hand.  "Come on," he tells her.  "You can do it."  And so the two of them labor together down the steep, muddy hill, while rain pummels them and their backpacks practically push them over with the weight.  At one point, Cosmin slips and falls, cartoon-style, flat on his back in the mud, but gets right back up again with help from Carina.  And then -- miracle of miracles! -- another girl, who had been whiney and complaining the whole trip, whose own pack was light and yet still kept stopping and begging for a break -- she saw Cosmin fall, and she decided to help too.  And for the last fifteen minutes, the three of them worked together, hand in hand, slowly making their way down the last hill, out of the mountains, in the rain.

It was beautiful.  So, so beautiful.

We got home Thursday night around dinner time.  Everything was wet and needed to be aired out, and after setting up ten tents to dry and sending off twenty jubilant, exhausted, soggy teenagers, I was glad to be home and take a warm shower.  But it was all worth it, and lovely.  We're having a reunion and thank-you party for Pex tomorrow afternoon, and I'm excited to see the kids again, this time in cute jeans and flip-flops, cell phones in hand.  It will be different, and I'll probably lament some of the distractions.  But after taking them into the wilderness, I think something did change.  I guess tomorrow we'll see.

At Lake Bucura

 At the summit of Peleaga

All this from one Sunday morning.

I want to tell you about Lupeni.

Now that we've lived here for four months I feel like I can give a better answer to the question, "How is life where you live?" We're still very new here, babies almost. But we're learning.

When I woke up this morning, the mountains across the valley from us were covered in a cloud bank all the way down to the river. The sun was shining on the cloud, making it golden in the light at top and blue in the shadow at the bottom. There was a cold wind coming through our windows then, but the air soon warmed up as the sun rose more and more.

I walked along the street and had to step around garbage lying at the base of many of the garbage cans. Often when garbage goes into the bins, it comes out again either from dogs or the poorest folks in town looking for something to eat or discarded treasures. I remember dumpster diving in Grand Rapids being a fun and fruitful activity, but in Lupeni, it holds sadness and guilt for me. I wonder, when I bring a bag of what Kelly and I deem trash to the dumpster, who will find something useful or nourishing in it. Can I just give it to you without discarding it first?

I saw our friend Ilda sitting where she usually does with her tiny son, Cristi. We met her there, on the steps in front of the building by the meat market, when she asked us for food or money, whatever we could give her. We bought some bread, and continued to for a while. Now when I see her, we wave, ask each other how/what the other is doing (When you ask, "Ce faci?" it can mean either). She always tells me, "Pe aici." ("Around here.") I wonder what else she does in a day. We usually have a nice little conversation and I don't even know how to end them other than simply saying, "Okay, bye..." She never asks for food or money anymore, and I never know if I should give her anything or not. I'll ask next time.

At Mamma Mia, the Italian/Romanian restaurant, even at noon on Sunday, the TVs are on to KISS TV with the latest and greatest hits. At this point, cigarette smoke and beer smell don't bother me much, but I don't think I'll ever get used to loud club music in my ear while I'm just trying to have coffee with some friends. I always wonder if anyone actually likes the music, or if that's just how things are and that's that. Perhaps next time I'll ask that too.

When I walk back along the river, I see all the fire pits on the banks from yesterday's barbeques. There's a lot of beer bottles and paper left behind, a kind of revolting match to all the trash that washes down the river anyways. Again, does anyone like that the trash is there? Some of it would take a large effort on Lupeni's part to truly solve, but I think that if everyone who had a barbeque by the river cleaned up after they were done, even the trash from upstream would disappear.

My hope in societal change for the good of the people in this world and the world itself is in constant need of being renewed and sustained. I thank God for IMPACT kids who get annoyed by the trash and pick it up and make some trash cans on site to try to contain the debris in the future. I hope that those searching through our discarded rubbish in order to survive care about the ground around the trash can just as much as its contents, but to judge them as petty or uncaring of the earth is, I think, more damnable than throwing the trash on the ground in the first place. How much trash on the ground could we avoid by sharing even a little bit of our wealth with those folks who have to search for their next meal? How many more little friendships, something that Kelly and I are always looking for here, could spring up from giving a loaf of bread? Our friendship with Ilda is not based on us giving her material things, a type of relationship that I avoid heavily at this point in my life. Sadly, I often avoid it out of fear of someone depending too much on us more than respect for that person's dignity. I know that not every loaf of bread will lead us into a relationship of mutual giving, but I don't want to be too afraid to try.

It's interesting how life is so complicated at noon on Sunday morning. It tires me out to face the complexity, and worshiping God with our friends reminds me that it's okay that things don't make sense or are too much for me to think about solutions right then. Not that I forget the things that make me sad. It's just that it's so much better to see them with His help, knowing His power is made perfect in weakness and that He leads us from despair to hope.

Almost everywhere I look now, I see things together that I never used to think go together: the beauty of the river and barbeques and the ugly of the trash on the banks. The anger at messy city streets and the desire to somehow help those who put the mess there. The discontent at the way things are and the peace that they are being made new again. This is what it's like for me to live in Lupeni for now.

Tongues.

It's amazing to me what effect the tongue has on our lives. Many times the tongue is mentioned as a danger in the Bible, difficult to control and liable to hurt folks around us. It also allows us to swallow food, pronounce words, and taste wonderful flavors.

Lately, my tongue has been a stumbling block for me in that it's used to pronouncing words in American English, and it's a bit of a stretch to get it to do the acrobatics that Romanian requires of it. Normally, it's not too much of a problem, but there are certain words and letters that give me grief. Mainly, it's the letter "r."

When I say an "r" in English, I barely use my tongue. It's at the bottom of my mouth, and I pull it back just a little bit. No heavy work. In Romanian, I press it against the back of the roof of my mouth and hold it fairly stiff, or trill it a bit. Not a sound I'm used to making very often. I thank God and my teachers that I started speaking Spanish early and was at least made aware that "r" can sound like that, but I'm still not used to it. Especially when it's shoved in between "t" and "u" like in "pentru" (for), "patru" (four), "centru" (center), and various other words. When I pronounce "t," my tongue is pressing hard at the front of the roof of my mouth and my lips are pretty open. Then, it has to move backwards quickly and either push or trill on the back of the roof of my mouth. Finally, I push my lips into a circle and bring my tongue back even further and down. It feels like my tongue has to do a long sprint to say simple things like "grupa patru" (group number four) or "pentru tine" (for you).

Perhaps I'll get better with more and more practice. I hope so, because when I speak a lot of Romanian, I find that my tongue actually gets tired by the end of the day and I really can't pronounce words correctly without taking a lot of time to slow my poor tongue down and give it the time it needs to complete its fancy tricks. I wonder if speaking in tongues ever includes the Holy Spirit making our tongues do things that we thought were physically, rather than liguistically, impossible.  

Bats in the belfry.

I was sitting at the dinner table in the hotel restaurant after a long day of meetings in Romanian, lost in thought, when Anda plopped down next to me and said hello.  Anda is an IMPACT leader from Cluj-Napoca, a high school biology teacher who is passionate about the subject she teaches, the kids she works with, and the potential for these youth to change the broken systems she sees all around Romania.  She’s amazing and inspiring and delightful to talk to.

She’s also into bats.

So we talked about bats for most of dinner.  Being a biologist’s daughter myself, I find science an interesting topic for dinner discussion regardless of its grossn factor, though my interest in bats is admittedly tainted by an experience as a 13-year-old of having a bat fly into my room at night and dive-bomb my head… an experience which ended in me racing, shrieking, out of my room while my dad caught the bat in a butterfly net and put it overnight in the freezer.  But that’s another story.

Apparently Romania has over 30 species of bats, many of which are endangered.   Part of the problem is that many of these bats spend the summer in inhabited buildings, especially churches.  Anda said it’s mostly pregnant mother bats who then raise their “adorable babies” (her words, not mine) in the belfries and attics and steeples, migrating to caves or other locales to hibernate when the weather turns colder.  The presence of these bats should make us grateful, she reminded me – after all, they eat all sorts of pests, helping protect our crops and save us all from more mosquito bites.  But because they eat so much, they also poop a lot – and their guano accumulates in the attics of beautiful old Orthodox churches, slowly seeping through and ruining the intricate icons painted on the ceilings.  It smells, it ruins that which humans are trying to preserve, and bats simply scare people – and thus, many times, they are just gassed.  Entire colonies are killed at once, Anda said, and because bats reproduce very slowly (apparently they only have one baby per year), a colony which is gassed will never, ever recover.

So Anda and her team of fellow Romanian bat-loving biologists have made this their summer project.  The work is three-fold.  First, they do on-site assessments of the churches and other buildings with bat infestations, figuring out what remodeling work will need to be done to protect the building’s treasures and inhabitants without removing or harming the colony of bats.  This often involves laying new layers of insulation in attics, changing ventilation systems, and so on.  They do the assessments themselves but hire local workers to actually do the work, thus putting money into local economies and giving local residents expertise in this domain.  Second, they do the science – that is, they monitor the bat population all summer: counting how many bats fly in and out of the belfry, timing their arrival in the spring, tracking births and population changes and all sorts of other data.  It’s an important part of saving these endangered populations.  Third, the biologists do public education.  They bring school kids into the attic and let them touch a bat and see how cute it is; they talk to priests and explain the importance of the situation; they hold meetings with congregations to discuss misconceptions about bats and the necessity of their work.  And before they finish, they empower a team of locals to continue the work: to keep learning, to be a support, and to watch the bats with sympathetic eyes as they swoop into town each year with the arrival of summer.

Cool.