Patience is a virtue.

Today has not been the day I expected it to be.

I haven’t been at home a lot this week, what with classes and the start of IMPACT and a trip to Tirgu Jiu and Horezu on Friday.  Thus, I had decided that today would be a good day to spend with my host family on the farm, helping to harvest potatoes and playing outside with Mădălina.  But it didn’t really go according to plan… Mădă and I played outside for a while (I’ve gotten really good at hide-and-go-seek in Romanian, by the way), but she lost interest after about an hour and went inside and fell asleep.  Andreea wouldn’t let me help harvest potatoes because she was afraid I’d smash them or something, so that left me sitting with Mădălina, reading 1984 while she slept.  When she woke up, it was with a fever and chills, and eventually she threw up… so I sat and made her paper dolls while Andreea fretted nervously around her, making warm compresses for her head, stewing apples on the stove, dropping lit matches into water and making Mădă take a sip, etc.  (I understood the rest of the remedies, but that one still confuses me... are ashes good for you?)  Our nearest neighbor is sick with the same sort of symptoms, so Andreea thinks it’s “in the air” (the idea of the “current” is just as prevalent here as in Bosnia—the older generation walks around with cotton in their ears to prevent getting sick from it).  I was really sick to my stomach Thursday night and most of the day Friday, but I thought it was just the brânza Grandma had brought into the house.  (I took two bites.  That was more than enough.  And the smell… oh dear…). 

Anyway.  This post isn’t really about anything, other than missed expectations—for instance, I’m hoping to get to skype with Jack in an hour,  but the internet hasn’t been working all day, so that might not happen... welcome to life in a post-communist country, where the water, electricity, and gas all take turns giving out every now and again.  (But hey.  At least it works sometimes.  I’m definitely thankful that the majority of the time, I actually do have a relatively-stable internet connection.)

So today?  And tonight?  Lessons in patience.

And hey!  The internet just came on!  Quick, let me post this before it vanishes!