Gems.

I have a lot of stories from the last week or so.  Some are happy and some are sad, so be warned.  But that’s what life is like here: a strange mix of beautiful and horrifying, of grandeur and gloom, of wealth and poverty, of happy and sad.  It’s art.  It’s real.  Or as a famous British writer once said,

“Travel does what good novelists also do to the life of everyday, placing it like a picture in a frame or a gem in its setting, so that the intrinsic qualities are made more clear. Travel does this with the very stuff that everyday life is made of, giving to it the sharp contour and meaning of art.”   
[Freya Stark]

So here come the stories.

1)  On Friday, I walked with Andreea and Mădălina to school.  Mădă’s school is at the bottom of Straja Road, about fifteen minutes from the farm, so she leaves at 7:30 to get there (and comes home at noon).  I’d never been to her school, so Andreea took me all the way in to her classroom so I could see it.  It was similar to American elementary schools: tidy groupings of desks, a collection of rocks and pinecones and assorted nature-y things in the cupboards, a few spinning globes, bright posters on the walls.  The only differences were the adorable blue-checkered uniforms of the little girls (and the suits of the little boys) and the fact that everything was in Romanian…

Mădălina had been sick the day before, and in that time they’d switched seats, so her friend informed her of her new spot in the classroom.  And suddenly Mădălina, usually pretty cheerful, turned sullen: she had to sit next to a boy she didn’t like!  I almost laughed out loud at the pouty look on her face… but instead I walked over to her and showed her how to build a wall with her pencil case.  Probably not the most mature response, but it made her smile at least…

2)  Friday:  I got ripped off for being a foreigner for the first time today.  (At least, the first time that I’ve noticed.  It might have happened before, but I’m just clueless.)  It was Friday night, and Marit and I were beginning the long climb back up Straja Road to our host families’ homes after an evening out.  We’d been in this strange little bar under a restaurant in town with a couple of the Romanian girls who had worked at Viaţa this summer, drinking hot chocolate and trying to ignore the progressively-louder catcalls and comments of the drunk guys at the table next to ours.  We left rather early, knowing we had a half-hour hike ahead of us in the dark.  Both of us were hungry, so as we walked away from the smoky little pub towards Straja, we kept looking for places still open to sell food.  We shied away from the first two stores (one was swarmed with 12-year-old boys and seemed to sell only Pringles and candy; the other had two women in it, one plucking the other’s moustache… we didn’t feel like braving either of those situations).  Anyway, right before the shortcut, we came across a EuroRiva (these little non-stop corner stores) that had a fruit stand outside.  I bought a big orange… for almost three lei.  Which is, like, a dollar.  Which is probably more than I’d pay for an orange in the States.  It certainly wasn’t a big deal (and it was 10 o’clock at night, so I wasn’t about to say anything), but it was way more than the price marked on the sign.  Oh well.  It was delicious.  I can’t breathe and chew and climb a mountain at the same time, but the juice dripped all over my fingers and it tasted so good… so it was worth it.

3)  Sunday morning Marit and I went to Father Ciocan’s Orthodox church.  It was pouring rain when we left our homes, so by the time we made it to the main road, we were both pretty wet, even with raincoats and umbrellas.  We stood on the streetcorner to wait for Kadie to join us, but as we got progressively wetter and she didn’t show up, we just decided to go alone.  (Sorry, Kadie.)  We kept walking, trying to speed along in our sodden shoes so we could make it to the service on time, passing a bunch of little old ladies in their practical black all-weather shoes, Marit in (now-hopelessly-squishy) flats and me in… hiking boots.  (I was styling.)  We made it on time somehow, and entered the church’s heavy wooden gate at the bottom of the hill.  From there, a winding cobblestone path leads to the top of the steep hill, where the church is situated.  The hill is covered in graves, most of them adorned abundantly with flowers.  It’s really quite beautiful, if a little sad in the pouring rain.  We followed an old woman up the hill (she was also wearing practical non-slip old lady shoes, I noticed) and entered the church behind her.  Unsure of what to do or where to sit, we stood quietly in the entryway—which ended up being a pretty good strategy, because the sanctuary was already almost full, and everyone was moving around constantly anyway.  Having never been to an Orthodox service before, I was pretty lost—people stand, kneel, sit, walk around, etc., at will (or so it seems to an outsider, anyway).  There are three doors in the front of the sanctuary; the priest, who is adorned in a heavy gold and red robe, enters and exits the middle door frequently, all as part of the liturgy.  The murmur of his prayers and chants, in a resonant baritone, were beautiful, as was the accompanying singing of the congregation.  Though by the end of the service I was antsy from standing for two hours, and though the only thing I picked up from the sermon was the phrase “fishers of men,” the music was glorious.  Heavenly.  Sometime I’ll write a better description… for now, on to the next story.

4)  Caving.  Tibi invited us over for lunch at his apartment on Sunday afternoon (hooray! He’s the best cook I’ve ever met!  And I’ve decided that stuffed peppers are my favorite food…), and after that, he promised we’d go caving.  It was still pouring, so we weren’t sure we’d still get to go, but he assured us that rain wouldn’t stop us.  So the six of us jumped onto a maxitaxi and rode past Uricani, getting off in the middle of the countryside.  We then walked about half an hour along this beautiful gravel road, in the pouring rain, all our clothes plastered to our bodies, thunder and lightning ripping up the sky… it was really epic.  Eventually we made it to the first cave, which we ducked into… and within a minute or two we were army-crawling, slithering through the mud in a passage so narrow that it reminded me of the Cu Chi tunnels in Vietnam.  I was filthy and wet and so, so happy.  It was great.  I could write on and on about the craziness of spelunking, but it’s hard to describe… so suffice it to say it was the best Sunday afternoon ever.  And that our maxitaxi driver gave us some very funny looks on the way back home.

5)  Monday afternoon: Mădălina and I had already played volleyball and kickball with her purple flowered plastic ball for a long time, so I volunteered a new idea—let’s climb up the mountain to the top of the farm and watch the sun set over the mountains.  She was okay with the idea, so we climbed through the orchards, skirting wet spots in the grass from the deluge of the past two days, until we reached the top fence, beyond which the horse was grazing.  We sat in silence for a while, watching the clouds billow and shift over Retezat in the distance, and then Mădălina got antsy.  Standing, she pulled on my arm and, with that now-familiar impish grin, asked me if I want to run down the hill.  Hand-in-hand.  With our eyes closed. 

Uh, no, Mădălina.  I don’t really want to break any bones today, I thought.  But I can’t resist her smile, and she usually brings out the child in me anyway, so I agreed.  I cheated, of course, and opened my eyes for fear of running into a tree… but down the hill we ran (more of an awkward gallop for me), giggling the whole time.  At the bottom we fell to the ground and laughed; before I caught my breath she was up and tugging at me to go again.  And again, and again, until the last time, I stopped and sat down at the top.  Pauza, I gasped.  She agreed and flopped down next to me.  Next thing I know, she’s put her pink checkered baseball cap on my head and rested her head on my shoulder.  We’re friends.  The moment is sweet.  And then she’s up again, jumping at me for the hat, and we raced back down the hill, all the way to the house.

6)  I’ve decided that the radio in our kitchen is possessed by the devil.  Seriously.  I hate that thing.  Andreea really likes it, so she turns it on (loudly) every time she’s in the house, but I have often contemplated turning it back off.  (Or taking a knife to the wire… but that seems a little rude.)  Seriously, though.  Why is one of the phenomenons of globalization that all the crappy American music makes it on to every radio station around the world?  And why do DJs have to play the same six songs over and over and over?  If I’m relieved when Lady Gaga’s “Alejandro” comes on, you know there’s a problem.  Sigh…

7)  There’s a family of dogs who live on Straja Road that Marit and I pass every morning and evening on our way in and out of Lupeni.  They’re adorable.  Originally, it was just the mom and the runt of the litter who’d follow behind us, toenails clicking on the pavement and tails wagging.  One day the whole herd was there: four or five puppies, each soft and cuddly and adorable, plus mom and dad, who followed us vigilantly, making sure we weren’t going to annoy their children.  They’ve become a fixture of my walk to and from school now; I’m no longer worried by them at all.  But today… oh, this is terrible.  This afternoon, as I was walking in to school, I saw one of the puppies lying in the middle of the road, still and quiet, with none of the others nearby.  As I approached, I realized he was lying in a pool of blood.  He’d been hit by a car—one of those stupid reckless drivers on Straja Road, I assume—and was dead.  As I gasped and stopped, suddenly I heard his mom barking from behind the fence: deep, angry, sad barks.  I guess mothers mourn in every species.  It was horrible.  Absolutely horrible.  I glared threateningly at every racing car I saw after that…

8)  Recent food adventures: well, for dinner on Sunday night Andreea made spiral pasta with sugar.  It was okay for the first few bites... but after that, I decided I never want to eat sugary pasta again.  Ever.  Then Monday night we had spaghetti—with chunks of ham and onions, in a thin tomato sauce, then smothered in ketchup.  That one was actually pretty good.  And today (Tuesday) I spent the morning making rosehip jam with Andreea.  We poured about a million bags of sugar into rosehip puree and boiled it over a wood fire for two hours, stirring constantly, chatting about everything and nothing as the sun poured in through the open kitchen window... it was heavenly.

9)  This afternoon we talked to Lupeni’s Catholic priest for our Eastern Orthodoxy class to hear what life was like under communism.  We talked for hours—it was after 8 o’clock when we left—but two stories really stuck out.

The first was funny.  At one point he was in a village where the communist leaders were planning to bulldoze down the Orthodox church, and all the villagers were just bemoaning their fate but not doing anything about it.  He spoke to them and encouraged them to do something about it—and not just anything, but to trick the communists.  So they came up with a plan: they hid in the woods around the church with sticks and pots and pans and dogs and anything else that made noise, and when the communists came with their bulldozers, made such a racket that they gave up and left the church intact.  Ridiculous.  Creative.  I love it.

The second story isn’t funny at all.  Skip it if you’re queasy.  He told us about being called to the deathbed Orthodox priest he knew who worked as an informant for the Secretariat.  As he lay dying, this man confessed why he had given in and become a communist spy; the story is appalling.  In the middle of the night, his home was broken into, and he and his wife and son were carted off to be interrogated.  After hours of fruitless questioning, he was given an ultimatum.  They showed him his wife, her head bleeding and her clothes torn apart, and said they’d set her on fire in front of him if he didn’t become an informant for them. 

He signed the papers.

Such is the evil of communism.

10)  Tonight Andreea is working the night shift, and I got back late from class, so Mădălina was already in bed.  Florin and I sat down to dinner (roşii cu sare şi piper, pâine, şi ciorba cu legume… mmm) at about 9 (dinner’s always late here—usually at about 8 pm).  Somehow—I forget how it started—we got to talking about corruption.  Wow.  I’ve never heard Florin talk that much.  Usually my host father is the quiet, gentle type—super nice, obviously kind, quick to smile and easy to laugh, but not one for chit-chat.  He doesn’t speak a whole lot of English, and I don’t speak a whole lot of Romanian, but in our inarticulate mix of the two, we were able to communicate.  And it blew my mind.  Florin, who has never raised his voice, even at the animals on the farm, hates corruption.

It’s all over Romania, very bad, he explained.  In the politics, in the government, up to the president—in the universities, in Lupeni, in the churches—it’s all money, money, money.  I asked him about the mayor here.  A few days ago Andreea and I had walked into town together and she had pointed out a large house under construction along the road.  That’s the mayor’s house, she explained.  One of many.  I understood what she meant—in this place where it costs thousands to build, and where a large portion of the population is still unemployed or barely eking out a living, the fact that the mayor is building one more house is a slap in the face.

Florin continued venting.  Some people have five children, two adults, go into the forest to find food, are very skinny, he said.  No money.  But the mayor, the rich—they have a lot of money.  It’s bad.  Romania is a disaster.

He talked about the churches too, which surprised me.  One pastor, he said, had received some donations from the States—food, clothing, shoes, etc.  And instead of handing it out to people as expected, he brought it to a store to be sold, and received money from it.  Corruption, he said, shaking his head and scowling.  Romania, disaster.

But is it better than it was under communism? I asked.  He shook his head.  Nu, he replied.  During communism, at least it was somewhat organized.  Now it’s just a mess, and the rich get richer while the poor scrape by.  Very corrupt.  His answer surprised me somewhat.  He had just finished telling me about his years in school (in the 1980s) at the end of Romanian communism—how they were physically punished by their teachers by being slapped and smacked with rulers and forced to stand in the corner with their arms stretched above their heads for an hour.  Somehow, when he compared the miseries of life under communism to the economic and political mess in Romania currently, he didn’t think the country was much better off now.

Sad.

I want to see.

It’s been a rough afternoon.  This week has been a good one—full, eventful, busy, and happy.  But today, for some reason, I’ve been in a deep funk.  The weather wasn’t helping: rain and dark clouds have kept me inside for most of the day, except for a hike down the mountain into town this morning to buy bread for my family and study Romanian for a while at the Impact building.  But once I came home I was just… gloomy.  Most of the time I’m pretty happy here.  Some days, though, I’m not.  Sometimes the despair of the Jiu Valley’s history seems to permeate the fog, and I can’t help but breathe it in and feel hopelessly far from home and from everyone I love.  Those days are lonely and hard.  Life here is hard.  It’s Good, and I am still confident that it’s where I’m supposed to be, but on days when the light is dim, it’s hard not to doubt.

But I’ve grown better at dealing with depressing days.  Today, mid-afternoon, I gave up on sitting inside and decided to go running.  (Endorphins help.)  And though I cried while I ran, and stopped and sat for a long time to talk out loud to God and stare out across the valley, it was cathartic.  And then guess what?  I came home and decided to look up what verses I’d put in the card for my apartment-mates this week.  (I wrote a card for every week I’m in Romania and sent them to my roommates to open while I’m gone, so we can all be thinking about the same passages in Scripture each week.)  And here is what it was, from Luke 18:35-42:

As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging.  When he heard the crowd going by, he asked what was happening.  They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.”

He called out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Those who led the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be brought to him.  When he came near, Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?”

“Lord, I want to see,” he replied.

Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has healed you.”  Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus, praising God.  When all the people saw it, they also praised God.

I’ve been praying to see God here.  Some days I do; some days I don’t.  But as I read this story, I was encouraged to keep crying out for mercy.  On the days when it’s bleak and I can’t see anything at all, I’ll keep crying out for mercy and for the eyes to see God.  And I’ll trust in the end of the story.

A Protestant meets Eastern Orthodoxy.

We just finished our first Eastern Orthodoxy class, and I’m left with a lot of questions.  After it ended, Marit and Julie and I immediately headed to one of the cheap little bakeries on Main Street to sit and talk (and eat pastries, yes).  I found myself getting really excited as our conversation flowed, so I figured I’d try to chronicle a couple of those thoughts.  I have the sneaking suspicion that I’ll look back on this post at the end of the semester and smile fondly at my naïveté, but I’m willing to take that.  For now, a few premature thoughts on what it’s like to be a Protestant studying Eastern Orthodoxy.

I would consider myself a Protestant, by the way.  And that’s not just because it’s the Christian tradition I’ve grown up in (that’s definitely how I arrived at Protestantism, but it’s not why I remain there).  I would prefer—in an act of attempted purity of faith, I suppose—to simply call myself a disciple of Jesus, but I realize that my discipleship is steeped in culture and tradition, so I may as well identify that.  I’m a Protestant.  (There, I’ve confessed.)  :)  But there are many things I appreciate about other religious traditions.  I have learned about the greatness of God from people who believe differently than I do: through witnessing the spirituality of Buddhism in Vietnam, through admiring the faithfulness of Muslims in Bosnia as their call to prayer rang through Sarajevo from the mosques, through observing Seder with a Jewish friend… I have learned over and over that God is a God who is much bigger than my preconceived notions of Him, and can be known in ways far beyond my limited experiences with Him.  And I’m thankful for the diversity of my Christian family—for Catholic brothers and sisters and the strength of their tradition; for the ways they have filled much of history with the Gospel; for the strength of their sacraments and the way those sacraments have sometimes changed the world (I’m thinking of how the Eucharist became a counterpoint against torture during the Pinochet regime in Chile… tangent, sorry).  I identify with so many parts of Orthodoxy—its appreciation of beauty and culture and the tangible, physical world; its recognition of the faithful, encouragement of the community, and value of personal piety.  There is wealth there, lots of it.  There is truth there, lots of it.  After all, God is bigger and greater than all I ever knew Him to be. 

But I still identify strongly with Protestantism.  Though it sometimes has sold itself to political agendas, denominational divisions, and lusting after wealth and power (especially in the West, or America [the only culture from which I can really speak, ‘cause though my mom is Canadian, I grew up in the States]), there is strength in its tradition.  I’m painting in really broad strokes, and I know there are lots of exceptions, but in my experience with Protestantism, there is an emphasis on a personal knowledge of God and His Word and a call to daily discipleship that I think is really important.  Personally, I appreciate the emphasis on the authority of the Bible for Christian life.  I need to be reminded, sometimes, of the harder words that Jesus speaks.  I’m all about His promise of life abundant; I love it when He says His yoke is easy and His burden is light.  I resonate deeply with the calls to social justice and to environmental stewardship and to grace and forgiveness and pacifism and all the other rather radical, semi-hippy-feeling callings that Jesus gives to His disciples.  But when He says He is “the way, the truth, and the life” (and I rejoice!), He follows that with the statement, “and no one comes to the Father except through me.”  Honestly, I don’t like that part of His message nearly as much.  But in the Protestant churches I’ve grown up in, I’ve been taught how to hold those two things in healthy tension.  (Which, in my understanding of its implications for Christian life, means far more emphasis on the grace and love and following of Jesus, and far less about the judgment.)  I know that my experiences in the American Protestant Church are, unfortunately, far from the norm.  That saddens me.  And sometimes infuriates me.  But I have to remember that it’s my family—and even if my family is sometimes dysfunctional, it remains my family.  There’s hope for grace and redemption even in the most messed-up families.

All of that leads me to my point.  (Ah, you’re probably sighing. She has a point?  I do!  Hold on just a little bit longer!)  I’m a self-proclaimed Protestant.  But I think we have much to learn from the Orthodox church.  In just one class, a few of those things became apparent to me, so I’m going to put them out there for any other Protestants who are curious to learn more from our brothers and sisters in the faith.  Ready?  Here we go.

First, as Dana explained today, Orthodoxy emphasizes that we can’t have right belief without right action.  It’s like 1 Corinthians 13 says—if I do all sorts of good works and know everything about everything (OK, it’s a Kelly paraphrase), but have not love, it means nothing.  In the Western church, we have a tendency to focus on right belief.  Students at my Christian liberal arts college (myself included) spend a lot of time staying up late debating doctrine.  Too few of us (myself still included) pour as much passion into making sure every single one of our actions is in line with the Truth.

Second, there is a strong emphasis in Orthodoxy on fasting.  The Eastern Orthodox tradition recognizes our materiality as created human beings, and acknowledges the importance of our physicality.  But with that high esteem also comes an increased emphasis on asceticism (a healthy one, I believe, especially in wealthy and consumerist Western cultures).  Self-discipline through fasting and other practices is vital to help us control our passions and reorder our priorities.  The American Protestant Church, I dare say, could use a reminder of our materiality.  If we learned how to see the physical world with spiritual eyes, we might see our abundant wealth more clearly and know better how to use it.

I could go on.  We’re reading a great book (The Spirituality of the Christian East by Tomaš Špidlík).  It sometimes confuses me; sometimes I disagree; other times, I agree heartily and am convicted.  I’ll close with a quote from that text, one which reveals the necessity of living what is revealed to us, and gradually being sanctified (and perhaps, in fact, truly “working out our salvation”) through that life.  Ahem: “The ‘incarnation’ of Scripture presupposes a reaction by the one who is acted upon, a permeation, a perichoresis…..”  Man, that’s exciting.

A little self-analysis.

We were asked to journal about two questions for the start of "official" classes tomorrow (woohoo!).  I'm including my response in this blog because, well, I'm kinda too lazy to write it all over again, and this summarizes how I've been doing lately.  So... here goes.

1.  Describe how you are feeling in your different roles here in Romania? What is it like being a guest? A student? A foreigner? What other roles are you experiencing here?
 
2. Thus far what are attractive characteristics of Romanian culture to you personally and what characteristics are more challenging?

To answer the first question, I first need to figure out what roles I find myself playing here.  (I have the nagging suspicion that naming them and examining them will help me to live them out better, or at least that's my hope.)  I'm currently alone in my host family's house, using the internet only because they're not at home, and marveling at how much more "myself" I feel right now, listening to my own music and openly doing my own thing.  Though my host mom tells me that this is my home and I'm welcome to do whatever I want, I'm still not sure how to fit into my role here.  I often do still feel like a guest.  That's not anyone's fault--my host family has been friendly and hospitable and taken care of me willingly, providing me with my own space (at a high cost to themselves; I take up a whole one of their home's three rooms).  I no longer feel guilty about that--I understand that they wanted me to live with them, and that I'm not really an "inconvenience."  But I do still feel some sort of obligation to them--an obligation to live tidily and in as small of a space as possible, to be helpful in any way I can, to speak Romanian as often as I can figure it out, to go to bed around when they do and not rattle their daily routines, to play outside with my host sister whenever we're both around, etc.  Most of those things are fine; they're the way I would live as a good neighbor to anyone.  I'm still trying to negotiate how to get to know them better, how to work running into my schedule without taking over the shower at an inconvenient time, and how to spend time with Mădălina in ways that don't just involve hours and hours of kickball.  (I do love kickball, but [to be terribly blunt] eventually I'd rather read.)  Overall, it's a really good situation.  I will gladly take the recent, surprising twinges of homesickness for my own family and the ease with which I fit in there in exchange for this opportunity to learn about life in Romania and about myself.

I suppose I'm also in the role of student, though I haven't really felt like it much yet.  I'm really looking forward to starting classes tomorrow.  I am a bit of a nerd (maybe more than a bit) and really love learning, in a traditional school setting especially, so it will be nice to reconnect with the reading&writing&homework-doing side of my personality.  It would be foolish to say I haven't been learning, though--the last four weeks have been full of the study of Romanian culture and of myself, with some big realizations about each.  But I am excited to formalize and put words to some of that.

As a foreigner... wow, weird.  I haven't thought about that one at all.  I certainly feel like I'm in a foreign place, and walking around Lupeni with our huge backpacks on made me feel like a highly-noticeable tourist (ugh, how I hate that feeling...) but overall, life on the farm has felt simply unfamiliar.  Not necessarily foreign.  (Minus the fact that Grandpa continuously laughs at me while saying something about America... but since he only speaks Romanian and chortles so jovially in his suspenders and bowler hat, I have to forgive him.) 

The final role I can identify for myself right now is one that can't be summed up in one tidy label.  It has to do with how I'm relating to people back home.  I've been a bit homesick this weekend, since coming home from Retezat (or maybe the Retezat felt like home and I was just sorry to leave). I had thought that I was immune to that uncomfortable feeling since I've been away from home so much, but apparently not.  I suppose that's a healthy thing, the physical longing for people whom you love, and I've learned what I need to do to deal with it.  (Bible and journal and endorphins, yes; facebook, no.)  Regardless, it's been an interesting balance.  Last year, I felt so rooted at Calvin and in Grand Rapids.  Now the thought of that "home" fills me with longing to go back and re-enter that community, but I also know that when I eventually do, nothing will be the same.  Life means change.  And that's okay.  Just a little daunting sometimes... at least until I remember that the One who never changes is with me everywhere.  There is comfort in that.  And in Him, I better learn how to balance the multiple parts of my life, the many people I love in places all over the world.

I suppose I should move on and answer the second question...

I don't feel like I fully understand Romanian culture yet.  From what I've observed in my homestay, I love the simplicity of life--yet I know that's not inherently "Romanian," that in big cities there are people who live wasteful and technologically-absorbed lives just like in any city around the world, etc.  However, throwing that aside, I'll embrace the rural agrarian lifestyle and call that the part of Romanian culture I personally am loving most.  I also have to admit that I really enjoy the important role of food... and not just in the silly fact that I like to eat.  (Though that's certainly true!)  I love food's centrality to cultures.  I love how meals serve as a universal meeting place, a place where people always gather together to talk and love and be filled.  I love the real, nitty-gritty, physicality of the Eucharist, and how the bread is essential to us both physically and spiritually... on and on.  All of that to say, I guess, that I appreciate cultures that embrace eating and express love through food.  I think there's something really wholesome about that.

But as for the things that have been challenging here, I'm not sure whether to attribute them to Romanian culture or something else.  For example, I find it difficult to connect to my host mom (the only English speaker in the family) on any sort of "deeper" level than simple stories; however, I think that's due to personality and the language barrier more than anything else.  (Though, I suppose, personality is partly a product of culture...)  The cultural acknowledgment of (and seeming apathy towards) corruption is hard for me to wrap my mind around; however, it's still mostly theoretical for me.  I don't live in town, so I don't see it in the same way as someone who lives across the street from the mayor does.  I want to understand it better--I tried to talk to my host mom about voting and corruption last night, but it didn't last long.  I'll keep trying.

Retezat.

We just returned from a week of backpacking in the Retezat.  It was phenomenal.  I love the mountains; I love backpacking; I love feeling my muscles strain as I lug a bag containing everything I need to survive up and down mountains.  I loved it.  I met God in the mountains (I think one always does.  I was constantly reminded of Mount Sinai, as clouds would skim across the peaks, hovering over the mountaintops...)  But rather than try to explain the glory we saw and experienced in the Retezat, here are some pictures and the quote we were given to meditate on all week.  I hope it can give you a glimpse into what I've been learning this past week... and maybe challenge you as well.

 We find by losing

and we hold fast by letting go

We become something new

by ceasing to be something old

I begin to know that I do not need to know

and that I do not need to be afraid of not knowing.

God knows

and that is all that matters.

[Frederick Buechner]

I owe the foot picture to Corrie...

Bucara.

Mountains are steep.

The lake where we ate lunch before we climbed to the summit.

The trail up to the summit.  Um... yeah.  There was a bit of fog.  (And yes, that's a cliff.)

The lessons of one month.

In my first three weeks in Romania, I have been learning, quite simply, this:

"And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our feet and learn to be home."

[Wendell Berry]

The danger of the theoretical: a confession.

"The truly wide taste in humanity will similarly find something to appreciate in the cross-section of humanity whom one has to meet every day. In my experience it is Affection that creates this taste, teaching us first to notice, then to endure, then to smile at, then to enjoy, and finally to appreciate, the people who 'happen to be there.' Made for us? Thank God, no. They are themselves, odder than you could have believed and worth far more than we guessed."                                                        
--C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

I woke up terribly grumpy this morning.  The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was slightly-soggy canvas, a mere two inches from my nose; my back was contorted into a shape that would make the Hunchback of Notre Dame envious.  I was spooning with my giant backpack in the corner of our tiny tent, with one leg somehow thrown over the backpack and the other hidden somewhere underneath Marit’s sleeping bag.  The air was hot and stuffy, the product of three girls with head colds all stuck in the same space for eight hours, and I was miserable and couldn’t breathe.  It was raining.  And 7 AM.  And I had woken up early so I could finish a pile of Romanian homework, left unfinished the night before.  Boo.

But I am learning something from this rotten day.  I got to thinking on the half-hour walk from the Bates’ house to the Impact building, where we had class (in the same clothes I’d worn since the morning before).  Normally I don't mind wearing the same clothes two days in a row, or getting wet, or walking, but the nagging feeling that all this frustration was coming from an evening that was just an exercise in futility made me grumpy.  I found it really difficult to be pleasant in the tent this morning, as ashamed as I am to admit that.  Everything was driving me nuts: the rain, the Romanian, the people, the crowing roosters, myself.  I hate days like that. Thankfully, I ended up walking by myself to class, and as I did, the words of 1 Corinthians 13 popped into my head.  If I have not love, I am nothing. Here is the confession I must make, and the hard lesson I am learning here: no matter how much I may think I love God and my neighbor in my mind, or in my lifestyle, or in my words, or in how I vote, or whatever, if I cannot find affection and patience and kindness and goodwill towards these particular people for the next three months, all that other stuff means nothing.  I walked past a piece of trash on the sidewalk as I was thinking about all this and thought about stooping to pick it up, but stopped myself when I thought, 'Kelly, if you can't love these people enough to not be annoyed by their every action, then don't fool yourself into thinking you're pleasing God by picking up trash.'  (Not that caring for creation isn't important, but cleaning the inside of the cup will make the outside match…)

I could make a lot of excuses.  I could talk about needing personal space and time alone and how it's hard to be with the same four people all the time and how I don't know any of them but Marit very personally (thank God for Marit and walking up and down the mountain together every day and the Real conversations that ensue!).  But excuses will always exist, and eventually we have to stop making them and start living the way we are called to live!  So, for me, here it is.  This is where I am.  These are the particulars of my situation, the very specific people I'm called to love.  This sort of love is something I just have to commit to, even when I don't feel it.  This is love in practice, not just in theory.  After all, love is a fruit of the Spirit, but it's also a verb (thanks, dc Talk).  It's an action and a decision.  I want to make that decision every day, even when it’s hard.  I suppose I could survive this semester by just skimming along, coexisting peacefully with the Northwestern students.  But to settle for simple coexistence would mean a failure of true fellowship and community, and that’s not okay.  It's a cheap and surface-level substitute for the Real, Authentic, often (always?) difficult, but Good life that we are created for.  That’s not the abundant life that Jesus promises—and I want that life abundant.  It’s never promised to be easy, but it is promised to be Good.  So here we go… praxis. Or, in the words of Over the Rhine: I was born to laugh.  I'll learn to laugh through my tears. I was born to love.  I'm gonna learn to love without fear.

How I currently feel about Romanian.

(Yes, these are really my notes.)

In Romanian, apparently, some verb forms have no rules. I mean, there's a loose idea of how to conjugate stuff... but no verbs actually follow that pattern. Sometimes our teacher Andreea will correct us when we're confident that we've followed the steps correctly, shaking her head and laughing.

"That's not right," she'll explain, moving to the chalkboard to write the correct form, adding strange i's with hats and s's with tails to the word.

"What?" we ask, confused. "Why'd you add that?"

"Um, well, I can't explain. It just... sounds better."

Oh right, we think.  It just sounds better.

I really do like Romanian, though. (Even if my sarcasm doesn't always show it...) I even formed my first sentence today! I said, "Rain comes from a gray sky," to my host sister, who gave me an incredulous look before indulging me with a kind, "Da..." (like, duh, American girl, now what?). Living here and being unable to communicate with any semblance of intelligence has been rather humbling, occasionally frustrating, and often really entertaining. But I'm learning. And I'm thankful for the lessons in humility and patience, no matter how much they sometimes sting.

Cows.

Guess what I did tonight?

I drank milk straight from a cow's udder.

Yup.

(I had also chased the three cows down from one pasture to another, eaten cheese made from their milk, and watched them poop, so by this evening I was feeling pretty tight with them.) Now, I have to say, as someone who doesn't even really like milk, I was pretty proud of myself for drinking it. All I really wanted to do was watch Grandma milk the cows. (Oh yeah--I forgot to mention that Florien's parents live in the barn. Well, not quite, but basically. Their teeny little house is attached to it.) Anyway, instead of just milking them with me watching, she pulled out a mug and started to squirt right into it, and then handed to me with a look of sincere expectation. I had already probably offended her by only eating a few bites of her cheese (ugh... that was a struggle), so I couldn't say no... so down it went, frothy and warm, kinda reminiscent of a vanilla steamer at Magpie. I actually sorta liked it. And I think it was a rite of passage of sorts, because as my host sister sat next to me and watched me drink it, I think I saw a new sort of respect in her eyes. Or maybe that was my imagination. Regardless, she held my hand on the way back to the house and taught me the names of different fruits in Romanian, so I think we're well on our way to becoming good friends. :)

At home on the farm.

I currently live on a small family farm in the Transylvanian Alps.

That's so cool.

I've only been here for a day--we met our host families yesterday in the late afternoon--but I am excited for this place and this family to feel like home.  It doesn't yet, but I'm optimistic.  I'll write more about that in a second, but first some pictures, 'cause I'm excited to post them.  This is the most beautiful place I've ever lived.  (Sorry, Decorah.  Well, Seed Savers comes close... but no.  Lupeni has you beat.)

Home!

Well hello... chickens and dogs and cats and horses and cows...

Well, the farm is on the side of a mountain...

We can see all of Lupeni from the top of the plum orchard.

"Big Dog."  (There's also a little dog. The big one likes to sit on him.)

My host sister!

 We spent most of the day frolicking through the farm.  Seriously.

My first impression of my new home was one of utter joy.  I’m dead serious.  I could not have imagined a more beautiful place to live for six weeks.  Ah.  The honeymoon stage is wearing off a little, now that I’m sitting here shivering in a very, very cold room… but anyway.  Welcome to the farm!

So.  I met my host father and little sister at the Impact building yesterday; they were kinda shy since neither of them speaks much English.  We then drove out of Lupeni up the road to Straja in the car with our nearest neighbor (I don’t think my family owns one).  He dropped us off at a wooden gate, which my host father untied and swung open.  Carrying my stuff on our backs, we walked through a huge garden and small horse pasture, then through another gate and towards the house.  Picture Seed Savers or the Kraus farm or (for anybody who’s never been to Decorah), the most idyllic little European country farmstead you can imagine, and that’s my family’s home.  There are chickens running around outside, and haystacks, and apple and pear and plum trees, and horses and cows near the house and a bunch of sheep way up the mountain, and when my host mom hangs the laundry out to dry she uses a big branch to pull the clothesline down so she can reach it, and… aaahhh.  It’s awesome.  I like this type of agriculture a lot.  It makes me nostalgic for the days before Iowa turned into big mass-production agriculture… not that I ever experienced that… but anyway.

My family is small: my host father (Florien) and mother (Andreea) and a seven-year-old little sister (Madălina).  They live in the house Florien grew up in, which is small and square: a tiny little hallway connects an itty-bitty bathroom, a kitchen, a sitting room (which is my bedroom), and a living room (which is where everyone else sleeps).  I feel a bit guilty, to be honest, taking over a whole quarter of the house, and sleeping on the pull-out couch in a room all by myself while Madălina sleeps on a couch in the same room as her parents.  I’m keeping my clothes on two chairs and a little table in the corner of the room, and make and unmake my bed every morning and night; everything is a bit cramped and kitschy, but it’s cozy and I kinda like it.  I have internet access (hence the ability to post this), which is a totally-unexpected perk: I didn’t realize how nice it is to be able to contact people I love who aren’t here.  (If you’re reading this, that’s probably you!)

I’m tired, so that brings me to the end of this post, though I have tons of other stories I could share (like breakfast.  Guess what I had for breakfast?  This huge plate of cartofi (potatoes) and sausage and homemade sheep cheese… food is love here, and apparently I am well-loved, ‘cause my host mom just keeps feeding me, and feeding me, and feeding me… good thing Madălina and I climbed all the way up to the top of the farm three times today!).  But more of those another time.  Noapte buna.

Viaţa.

We’re back! We’ve spent the last week on top of Straja Mountain, working at a camp (Tabŭra Aventura Viaţa) run by New Horizons Foundation. And it has been awesome. Most of the week was spent bundled up in wool socks, hiking boots, pants (sometimes two pairs), at least four shirts, a raincoat, and a bandana, because it was freezing. The Jiu Valley has been covered by clouds for the last week, which means that in the mountains surrounding the valley, we’ve been living in clouds for a week. I loved it. I loved the high ropes course, rock-climbing the side of a mountain, playing all sorts of teambuilding games without being able to speak the language, and loving on thirteen-year-olds who could only understand a few of the words that I longed to say to them. But love is the same in any language.

Man. Viaţa. Awesome.

While I was there, I had this interesting thought. One day, we played a game where the girls had to choose three companions for a long train ride from a list of rather “undesirable” company. Among that list was a gypsy (Roma). When I asked the girls in my group why none of them chose to ride with a Roma person, their reactions were really striking—with pantomimes and Romanian and a little bit of broken English, they communicated thievery and violence, demonstrating their intense dislike of Roma really clearly. I was a bit taken aback, even though I’ve heard over and over again—both in Bosnia and Romania—about the Roma “problem.” As the game progressed and girls told their stories of encounters with these groups of oft-stereotyped people, I began to understand a little more. Many of them had had really frightening or troubling experiences. But I couldn’t help but wonder how many Roma they had met on the street who hadn’t tried to rob them, or if they realized that the way they treated the boy in their school with distrust is probably what made him live up (or down) to their expectations. The issue with how Roma are treated in Eastern Europe is really complicated. It would be easy to blame it on racism, or poverty, or lack of education, or some sort of moral character flaw. But those would all be incomplete (and sometimes really incorrect). The problem is multi-faceted—the Roma population in Eastern Europe often does live in illegal housing settlements; the children are often uneducated; the standard of living is sometimes well below the poverty level; and the group is notorious for criminality (much of it petty crime like pickpocketing, but sometimes it’s basically gang violence).

But here’s what I’ve been thinking about. Jesus calls us to love the least of these. And the models I’ve been seeing and experiencing at Viaţa and in Cambodia and Vietnam and Bosnia have all convinced me that if you’re going to change a society, it has to happen from the inside. And that change is not going to be quick. It’s generational. But oh, what better way to change a society than by reaching its youth? What if Roma youth were invited to camps like Viaţa and clubs like Impact? What if someone made a really intentional effort to create opportunities for education and vocational training for them, while also teaching and building character and showing them the love of Christ? What sort of youth would that create? And from those youth, what changes might be made in the culture of the Roma, and in the attitudes of the rest of Europe? I’m writing this too late at night to be really coherent, but the ideas that keep bubbling out of this experience make me really excited. I wonder. I wonder.

Snippets.

Every now and then I realize just how different life in Romania is from life in the States.  Most of the time I’m pretty comfortable here; most things are semi-familiar—pretty typical life, just Eastern European style.  But in thinking about the differences, I’m starting to realize that there are more than I originally thought.  I like that I don’t really notice them.  They aren’t really important.  But they are snippets of a culture, little glimpses of life across the ocean, so here goes a list of random things that keep surprising me about Romania.

1.  Cell phones.  In the States, it’s really embarrassing for your phone to ring in the middle of a meeting or something, so people keep them on silent or vibrate and try to be sneaky about texting, etc.  Here, everyone keeps their ringer on super-duper-loud (I think it’s a special setting in Romania) and no one seems to have any qualms about pulling it out of their purse in the midst of a meeting and starting to talk.  They’ll sometimes excuse themselves, but not before all of us have bobbed along to the first line of some Bob Dylan ringtone.  It’s strange to me, but I’m used to American etiquette, so…

2.  Caşcaval.  I can’t get over how delicious it is.  In the States, I don’t even really like cheese, unless it’s melted or fried or sprinkled over stuff.  Here, where they serve these really strong, stinky cheeses at almost every meal, I love it.  Mmmmm.

3.  Hot dogs for breakfast.  They pulled this one on us twice in a week at Viaţa, and I’m really hoping my host family isn’t into this Romanian tradition.  I can get used to slabs of salami and stuff (this morning I had bread with salami, cheese, cucumbers, and tomatoes for breakfast), but when we were presented with a plate containing three tied-together hot dogs as our breakfast one morning, I was a little… taken aback.  I ate them, but… well, let’s just say I probably won’t adopt that tradition.

4.  Stray dogs.  They’re everywhere.  Romanians and foreigners alike admit they’re a problem.  Kadie has composed a list of the varieties you see, with the relative danger associated with each, and as funny as the list is, encounters with the scary-Lupeni-street-dog are not so amusing.  Every night we hear them howling (we call it choir practice), and during the day you pass them everywhere, sleeping under benches or prowling behind fences or wandering the streets aimlessly in packs.  Some are really cute, and a few are friendly, but I’m not really tempted to pet many of them.  (Except in Straja.  We kinda adopted one of those dogs.)

5.  Food sharing.  I love this.  In Romania, it’s really impolite to eat or drink anything in front of other people without offering to share.  (This includes tiny things, like an apple or a single piece of chocolate.)   And it doesn’t matter how big the group is.  Even if you have one banana and are in a group of 10 friends, you will pass that banana around and whoever wants will take a chomp.  It’s a fool-proof way to spread germs, I suppose, but I’ll take it.  Bonding.

6.  Kisses on the cheek.  In Romania, women generally greet women with a kiss on each cheek.  I love it.  Sometimes I feel like a mere hug or high-five isn’t sufficient to express the joy of seeing a dear friend, and in the States such affection would be deemed PDA and immediately dismissed.  At Viaţa, I received a lot of happy, sometimes-slurpy kisses on the cheek from overjoyed little girls, and it’s grown on me.  Watch out, my friends.  When I come back, y’all are getting smooched.