We have good news to report: we should be receiving our permise de ședere in the next month, allowing us to stay in Romania legally for the upcoming year. Yippee! For those of you who read Jack's post about our visa saga, you'll know that this is a big relief. We were late in applying, due to the computer failure last time we went to file, but it doesn't matter -- now everything is set, and we can stay. Hooray.
Visa day number two had its own fair share of adventures, though. Getting a volunteer visa in Hunedoara county requires a day in Deva, the county seat. The only bus to Deva from Târgu Mureș leaves at 6:30am and gets there at 10; the only bus home leaves at 6:00pm and gets back at 9:30. So there we were, again, at 6:30 in the morning, this time on a 20-seat maxi-taxi for the long morning ride. Thankfully, there were no drunken conversations this time and we'd downloaded a few episodes of Car Talk and This American Life onto our iPod to keep us a bit more entertained during the long, winding road in the dark. I had been fighting off a stomach bug all weekend, so the bouncy, curvy, breakneck-speed trip over Romanian roads was not something I was really looking forward to... but NPR helped, as NPR is wont to do. :)
We got to Deva and waited a few minutes for our colleagues and friends from Lupeni to show up, and soon they did, with Ilie beeping the horn of his little red car to get our attention. The first stop was the police station, where we climbed two flights of concrete steps to the immigration office. The immigration office is a frosted glass window in a dingy concrete-floored room that boasts a table with benches and one of the ubiquitous Romanian coffee machines, which for 35 cents squirt out a hot cup of coffee or hot chocolate into a little plastic cup. Ibrian (the hero of the day, our FNO colleague who walked us through every step of the process) tapped on the window, spoke to the guy behind it, gave him our passports and a a few other papers, and then we waited. After a while, whatever needed to be done was done, and we were off again, back down the concrete steps and past the smoking police officers in the entryway, to our next stop.
Next was the national bank, where we paid for some stamps, which are apparently part of the process. It was quick and clean and simple, a striking contrast to the police station. After the bank we went to the other side of town to the insurance building. On the way, we walked through a demonstration of cops and children that we couldn't figure out -- there were about 100 school kids and 200 uniformed cops milling about a city square as "It's Raining Men" blasted from the loudspeakers. We weren't exactly sure what to make of it... perhaps law enforcement appreciation day? Anyway, they'd moved on to "I Need a Hero" by the time we gave up trying to understand and just left.
The health insurance building was packed. It's a huge, sprawling place, with multiple floors of long corridors with crowded offices. The office we entered was surprisingly empty: two workers in one room, each busily typing at computers, looked up when we entered and helped us file for the obligatory Romanian national health insurance. We chatted in Romanian for a while with the friendly clerk, who was curious about why young people from America are moving to Romania when so many young Romanians want to move to America -- a good question, we agreed. After we finished there, it was back down the hall to another tiny office, this time to pay another lump of money for health insurance. After that was accomplished, we squeezed through the crowd, back down the stairs, and out to the street, where the cops and children had now gathered more formally in front of the statue in the square, though it still seemed like nothing was really happening.
Then we walked a ways further, to a mysterious building where I'm not sure what they do. Something official. We stood in line to get a little paper from a lady in an office, which directed us to go stand in an even longer line to pay a huge wad of money to a lady in another office. I think this was for our visas, officially, because it was a lot of money. We pulled it out of a paper envelope and I felt like my mom.
And then it was back to the police station, where it was time to Fill Out Forms. Lots of them. We only had one pen, so Jack and I took turns writing over and over our name, our parents' names, our address in Romania, and so on... but it was fun to talk with Ilie and Ibrian and Gretchen and to laugh at Jack's passport picture (taken when he was a sophomore in college, before the long hair and beard... he hardly looks like the same person). Then it was time for pictures and fingerprints. This involved standing in a closet that smelled rather funny, while the men in the immigration office attempted to make a camera work and take your picture through a window in the wall. It didn't work for a good 15 minutes while I stood in the dark closet, watching, listening to the staff complain that nothing ever gets fixed around here when they request it, how are they supposed to work under such conditions and so on... it sounded really familiar, actually (except it was in Romanian), and considering that the man we were talking to now was the same man who had helped us four hours earlier when we first showed up, I figured he'd been having a long day. But eventually the photos were snapped, the fingerprints were taken, and the signatures were signed. And then we were done.
Well, almost. The immigration office requested a paper they've never asked for before from FNO, so that has to be brought to Deva next week sometime. (It happens often here.) But after that's taken care of, we're done. And in three weeks, we'll head back to Deva -- this time maybe from Lupeni! -- and pick up our permise de ședere.
Thanks be to God.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
A little bitta love.
Our dear friends. Thank you so very much. That's a sentiment that's very hard to just communicate with words on a screen from us to you, and you know that, and we know that, but we try anyways. Because we really cannot stop thanking you. You, who keep us alive. You who let us eat. You who let us stay warm at night under a roof, between warm concrete walls. You who keep us company with your emails and skyping and prayers when we are lonely.
God is not the only One keeping us alive here. You are too. THANK YOU.
Aaron Weiss, the lead singer for one of my favorite bands (mewithoutYou) said, after a really great concert at Calvin, that he often screams and yells and dances while singing because "...how could you ever be happy enough or how could you ever be sad enough about this world we live in?"
So. THANK YOU.
We have a request for you, which I hope it works. Hope it gets a response. Because it's exactly that. We would love to hear from more of you. Perhaps it's a bit selfish to ask? This is like Kelly asking me to hug her when she needs a hug and I didn't realize that. I never used to think that that would ever happen, but it does and that's life.
We're not writing this blog to be famous. Or even to be validated as people. Jesus validated our lives very well when he bought us back from sin BEFORE WE REPENTED. More joyful yelling. But, in the same way that ya'll are, along with God, in the business of keeping us alive over here, we need a little validation on the blog too.
THANK YOU to ya'll who have read the blog. THANK YOU when you tell us you read it and had a similar experience or you think we're good, thoughtful writers or that you love us. In a new place where it's a bit difficult to even walk out the door, it is SO GOOD to hear from ya'll when we write.
THANK YOU for doing it. This is just a heartfelt plea to keep it up and to start if you haven't yet. Don't worry if you think it'll sound stupid. We love you, you love us, it'll be lovely. I pinkie-promise.
And don't even think about apologizing or feeling guilty. There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, and none from us. This is about love, not guilt.
We are so looking forward to hearing from you.
God is not the only One keeping us alive here. You are too. THANK YOU.
Aaron Weiss, the lead singer for one of my favorite bands (mewithoutYou) said, after a really great concert at Calvin, that he often screams and yells and dances while singing because "...how could you ever be happy enough or how could you ever be sad enough about this world we live in?"
So. THANK YOU.
We have a request for you, which I hope it works. Hope it gets a response. Because it's exactly that. We would love to hear from more of you. Perhaps it's a bit selfish to ask? This is like Kelly asking me to hug her when she needs a hug and I didn't realize that. I never used to think that that would ever happen, but it does and that's life.
We're not writing this blog to be famous. Or even to be validated as people. Jesus validated our lives very well when he bought us back from sin BEFORE WE REPENTED. More joyful yelling. But, in the same way that ya'll are, along with God, in the business of keeping us alive over here, we need a little validation on the blog too.
THANK YOU to ya'll who have read the blog. THANK YOU when you tell us you read it and had a similar experience or you think we're good, thoughtful writers or that you love us. In a new place where it's a bit difficult to even walk out the door, it is SO GOOD to hear from ya'll when we write.
THANK YOU for doing it. This is just a heartfelt plea to keep it up and to start if you haven't yet. Don't worry if you think it'll sound stupid. We love you, you love us, it'll be lovely. I pinkie-promise.
And don't even think about apologizing or feeling guilty. There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, and none from us. This is about love, not guilt.
We are so looking forward to hearing from you.
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Little victories.
Some days I get tired of learning Romanian. I seem to hit these plateaus where I make the same mistakes over and over again, and despite learning what I did wrong and why, when the same type of sentence comes up later, I mess it up again. And again. Of course, these tend to not be the same mistakes that Jack makes, which is one of the reasons it's a good thing we're here together -- but it also tends to drive me crazy when he gets it and I don't. (How's that for a confession?)
But! I'm learning to look for little victories in other areas of my life when I feel like my Romanian is foarte, foarte rău (that means "really, really bad," in case there was any doubt). So here are the list of little things that made me smile today -- our mundane, daily victories.
1. We put out a trashcan fire! On our way to the bus stop, we noticed a trashcan smoking wildly, and though other people obviously noticed it too, nobody was doing anything about it. (To be fair, very few Romanians seem to carry a water bottle with them, so there was probably little anyone could do.) We had full Nalgenes in our backpacks, so we stopped and Jack dumped his into the smoking can. The haze soon dissipated and we went on to catch the bus.
2. We ran mile repeats! For those of you who have been worried about the amount of tasty Romanian treats we've been consuming in the past two months, this should be good news... we can still run up hills. And today we did, and it felt great.
3. We taught a bunch of Romanian tweens how to play telephone pictionary! For those of you who don't know, this is our favorite game in the world. It's a mix between its two namesakes, so players write a sentence and then pass it around the circle, alternating between depicting it with drawings or with words, so that the original sentence gets hilariously distorted by the end. We went to help our Romanian tutor Ramona with her English class for a group of preteen Romanians, and they seemed to like it a lot too. Victory.
4. We spoke a lot of Romanian at dinner... including an hour-long conversation with a rather lonely gentleman who asked if he could sit down with us, since the rest of the tables in the restaurant were full. We heard a lot about his life, listened to him lament the linguistic imperialism of English, and talked for a long time about Canada, even touching on the Mounties. Weird. It felt surprisingly normal, as far as conversations with strangers go. Oddly enough, there was also a basketball team of Americans from Georgia and Florida in the restaurant, which surprised and delighted me -- though it's always funny to rediscover how easy it is to accidentally eavesdrop in your native language! Oops.
So, mundane and small and maybe not blog- or journal-worthy. But sometimes on days when it's cloudy and you have a stomachache and you simply can't remember how to properly use an indirect object, it's the little victories that speak as testaments of grace.
But! I'm learning to look for little victories in other areas of my life when I feel like my Romanian is foarte, foarte rău (that means "really, really bad," in case there was any doubt). So here are the list of little things that made me smile today -- our mundane, daily victories.
1. We put out a trashcan fire! On our way to the bus stop, we noticed a trashcan smoking wildly, and though other people obviously noticed it too, nobody was doing anything about it. (To be fair, very few Romanians seem to carry a water bottle with them, so there was probably little anyone could do.) We had full Nalgenes in our backpacks, so we stopped and Jack dumped his into the smoking can. The haze soon dissipated and we went on to catch the bus.
2. We ran mile repeats! For those of you who have been worried about the amount of tasty Romanian treats we've been consuming in the past two months, this should be good news... we can still run up hills. And today we did, and it felt great.
3. We taught a bunch of Romanian tweens how to play telephone pictionary! For those of you who don't know, this is our favorite game in the world. It's a mix between its two namesakes, so players write a sentence and then pass it around the circle, alternating between depicting it with drawings or with words, so that the original sentence gets hilariously distorted by the end. We went to help our Romanian tutor Ramona with her English class for a group of preteen Romanians, and they seemed to like it a lot too. Victory.
4. We spoke a lot of Romanian at dinner... including an hour-long conversation with a rather lonely gentleman who asked if he could sit down with us, since the rest of the tables in the restaurant were full. We heard a lot about his life, listened to him lament the linguistic imperialism of English, and talked for a long time about Canada, even touching on the Mounties. Weird. It felt surprisingly normal, as far as conversations with strangers go. Oddly enough, there was also a basketball team of Americans from Georgia and Florida in the restaurant, which surprised and delighted me -- though it's always funny to rediscover how easy it is to accidentally eavesdrop in your native language! Oops.
So, mundane and small and maybe not blog- or journal-worthy. But sometimes on days when it's cloudy and you have a stomachache and you simply can't remember how to properly use an indirect object, it's the little victories that speak as testaments of grace.
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Visa day.
The alarm on our phone is kinda cute. It begins with just one little "ding." It's silent for a second, then it goes, "dingdingding," a little bit louder. It waits again, and goes, "dingdingdingdingding, a little bit louder still. I don't know what it does after that; I've never let it get far enough. What began so innocently has become a noisy clamor, a curse to my tired ears.
The day has begun.
Oh, by the way -- it's 5:10 when the alarm rings. We pull on clothes, use the toilet, eat some bread (not toast, there's no toaster in the apartment) with jam, double check our bag, and we're out the door by five 'til 6:00. We need to take a taxi to a little bus station to catch the 6:30 bus to Deva, the county seat of Hunedoara county, the county in which we will live after April 19. We need to get our visas to stay in Romania, a long but relatively harmless process, so we've been told. But we'll be there all day. It's a 3 1/2 hour ride. We've been in Cluj for the past two days for some really great meetings, but travel takes its toll. We're tired already, and it's 6 am, and we have a long day ahead of us.
We arrive at Autogara Voiajor without problems, and wait for 7 minutes in the cold. The bus comes. It's smaller than a usual inter-city bus, kinda cute some might say. Kelly made the reservation over the phone for our ride, so as we get on, I say "Kelly" to the bus driver, expecting it to be written "Cheli."
It's not there. The driver asks, "Unde mergeți?"
"La Deva." Then I see. We're first on the list, and Kelly has been written "Cheua." What a strange name to Romanian ears, Kelly.
There are two major cities between Târgu Mureș and Deva: Turda and Alba Iulia. We arrive in Turda at about 7:30, and an older gent gets into the seat in front of us. Looking back, I should have smelled the alcohol on his breath, but it really wasn't that strong, and he wasn't breathing in my face. Yet.
30 minutes out of Turda, he turns around, taps my shoulder (I'm reading a collection of Thomas Merton journals), and asks me it the river we can see on our left is the Mureș river. "Yeah, I think so," I say to him, and he then says something, probably explaining that he was just curious. It was too complicated Romanian for me to understand yet. He turns back around, and I keep reading.
Half an hour more passes. We're nearing a 15-minute stop in Alba Iulia, and as we pass the big, concrete sign denoting that we've arrived in the city limits, this guy turns around again, taps Kelly on the shoulder and asks, "Are we in Alba Iulia?"
"Yes, we are."
"Good, good..." and then more Romanian that I didn't catch. Then, he stood up, presumably because he's had quite a bit to drink and this stop will be some sweet relief for him. The bus, being smaller and faster than most buses (cuter, some might say...), was also more agile. As such, our inebriated friend had a lot of trouble balancing and began to get thrown into the passengers alongside him and in front of him. They were 50 or 60-year-old women, the strongest personal and cultural institution existing in Romania, and they were less than amused. We breathed a sigh of relief when we got to the station and got a break.
When Kelly and I got back on the bus, we realized that the girl behind us was speaking on the phone in English with an American accent. As soon as she hung up, we turned around and asked where she was from. She's a Peace Corps volunteer in a very small town, and she was taking a trip to see a friend. As she was telling Kelly about how opposed the Romanians she'd met were to spicy food (the lady our age in the back of the bus was watching -- I'm pretty sure she knew her country was being slightly dissed by an American volunteer), our inebriated friend turned around and told me "Îmi pare rău, n-am știut că ești străin" (I'm sorry, but I didn't realize that you're a foreigner). He was very sorry that he'd assumed that I spoke and understood Romanian.
I said, "No, no, it's fine, I understand you." He still seemed a bit embarrassed that he was trying to speak with me, so I reassured him that there was no harm done and I could speak Romanian alright.
My reassuring worked; his embarrassment disappeared quite quickly. The bus left Alba Iulia at 8:55, and passed through Simeria, the town right before Deva, at 10:00 sharp. For the entire duration of the trip, this guy unloaded himself to me. In Romanian, which he had been so sorry to use at first. Here is what I remember from our conversation: He spoke Hungarian, Romanian, Italian, and I think another language. He worked for an old restaurant owner in Italy for a few years, tending the grass and taking out the trash, etc. His name was Ernest (Ernő in Hungarian -- he showed me his ID). I had a beautiful wife. Is she Romanian? No, she's American. Oh, you're from America? Yes... (I thought I'd already told him that.) He wondered if I thought Romanian women were beautiful, like that girl sitting in the back! Isn't she beautiful? Look at her (the same girl who I'd been sure heard the slight cultural diss). No, I'm not going to look at her. Why not? Oh, your wife will get jealous? I'm not going to look at her because I love my wife. Oh, oh, okay... Did you know that an army helicopter crashed in this field a few days ago? No, I didn't. Yeah, it was bad... I'm Hungarian Catholic, how about you? Reformed. Good, good... you know, Jesus...
I couldn't follow him at this point. The words were too complicated and I was very quickly losing interest in talking with Ernő, but he kept right on. Kelly remembers him saying something about the first man created being a wolf. He got my full attention again when he said something about kissing Kelly's hand and everybody on the bus started laughing (they had already giggled that a drunk guy was talking with an American, but had long lost interest).
"Sorry, what did you say? I didn't understand you."
He didn't repeat to me. He tried to pass the joke to the guy across the row from him, and then started talking about his wife to that guy. I slowly returned to Merton. When we got into Deva, Ernő stood up again, but his new conversation companion said, "Nu, nu, stă jos" (Sit down). I replayed Ernő being told to sit down in my head for the rest of the day. He could be limited by someone. Not by me...
We stumbled off the bus in Deva, and Ernő's new companion said to us "Doamne ne ajuta..." (God help you) with a little laugh. At least I had had an hour conversation in a language that I've been learning for only two months. Not so bad... We waited for our FNO companions (they were driving up from Lupeni) in McDonalds. I told Kelly, "I think my social skills are all spent for now." And it was only 10:20.
Ibrain from FNO found us, and we walked to a car containing Grați (the friendly, big-city-girl IMPACT coach), Ionuț (the friendly, quiet IT guy) and Gretchen (the American artist-social worker doing her practicum with FNO). Grați had IMPACT business to do, so we took her spot in the car and headed off to start to get some visas.
After copying some documents, we walked into the County Police Station, up the stairs, to the window for foreigners. Ibrian took our passports to the guy, and they talked for five minutes or so. Ibrian came back to us, handed us our passports, and said, "I'm sorry, but we can't get you visas today."
What?
"The system has been down for a few days, and they can't enter any new names, so we'll have to come back another day, probably next week."
It was not a pleasant turn of events, but I wasn't very surprised. These things do happen, after all. Ibrian said he was ashamed to be a Romanian when things like this happened. We assured him that it was alright, there was nothing he could have really done, we weren't angry. But the fact remained that it was 11:30 and our bus back to Târgu Mureș came at... 6:00 pm. Oh my.
So, we began the process of what us Americans call "killing time." An awful phrase, really. One cannot "kill time" any more than one can "have time," but it really does seem to us that we're in charge of what we do with the time given us. A terrible mistake.
But nonetheless, we killed ourselves some time. We went to a shopping center to look around. Kelly, Gretchen, and Ionuț went into the tea shop and enjoyed the smells immensely. I got pissy about rampant capitalism, as I am wont to do when I'm in a bad mood and am made to endure a mall.
We went to a little museum next. I had a better attitude about this one. There were some taxidermied local animals (including buffalo), some Austro-Hungarian artifacts, some Dacian artifacts, and some local art. I'd recommend this museum to anyone who takes a trip to Deva, but I cannot remember how to get to it.
Oh, and it was raining most of the day.
The Lupeni crowd left at 2:30, with the promise of seeing us again pretty soon (woo hoo!), and Kelly and I said, "Now what?" We found a semi-fancy Italian restaurant and decided to have a semi-expensive lunch. It was really, really good food. And I was really, really grouchy. And she was really, really tired. When I'm tired, I don't really want to talk, but Kelly hates not talking during meals. An impasse. We talked a bit, but without much heart or conviction. Such are some conversations.
We very slowly walked back to the bus station. It was 4:00. Two hours to go. I sat down and almost instantly fell asleep.
I woke up 40 minutes later to the lady next to Kelly sneezing profusely. She apologized for her nose. I realized that I was in an infinitely better mood than before; the blessed siesta of Deva. Kelly turned to me and said, "Can we leave? The air in here feels sick."
We left, and went to the other bus station, the one our bus back to Târgu Mureș would come to. Kelly took a walk. I read Merton. I tried to find a bathroom, but the door into the station's shop seemed to be closed. I asked some guys my age who had been standing there, "E inchis?"
They shrugged. It must be closed. The one asked me, "Unde mergeți?"
"Târgu Mureș." I had to repeat myself. Our city is hard to pronounce. I asked them where they were going too.
"Sibiu." Another successful conversation, this one not stressful. Kelly came back, and the bus showed up 10 minutes later. It was crowded with students coming home for the weekend, and a little bit cold. There were no drunken conversations happening that I was aware of. There were, however, some guys who all seemed to work together in the back of the bus and they looked to be ignoring or laughing at a darker skinned co-worker. A joke from the day? Or blatant racism? I didn't ask.
The roads back were quite bumpy. (Kelly says this is an understatement -- she was afraid of losing teeth.) I think we almost hit a few people walking along the road in the dark (common practice here). We had a few near accidents due to passing vehicles and our "cute" bus avoiding potholes by swerving into the other lane. I stayed in a good mood the whole way back. The blessed siesta sustained me. Kelly watched the landscape in the dark and slept. We arrived in Târgu Mureș at 9:35, waited 15 minutes for a bus, and were back in Otilia's apartment by 10:05. Visa day was over.
We think this was our most "Romanian" day yet. Hopefully next week it'll be just as good.
The day has begun.
Oh, by the way -- it's 5:10 when the alarm rings. We pull on clothes, use the toilet, eat some bread (not toast, there's no toaster in the apartment) with jam, double check our bag, and we're out the door by five 'til 6:00. We need to take a taxi to a little bus station to catch the 6:30 bus to Deva, the county seat of Hunedoara county, the county in which we will live after April 19. We need to get our visas to stay in Romania, a long but relatively harmless process, so we've been told. But we'll be there all day. It's a 3 1/2 hour ride. We've been in Cluj for the past two days for some really great meetings, but travel takes its toll. We're tired already, and it's 6 am, and we have a long day ahead of us.
We arrive at Autogara Voiajor without problems, and wait for 7 minutes in the cold. The bus comes. It's smaller than a usual inter-city bus, kinda cute some might say. Kelly made the reservation over the phone for our ride, so as we get on, I say "Kelly" to the bus driver, expecting it to be written "Cheli."
It's not there. The driver asks, "Unde mergeți?"
"La Deva." Then I see. We're first on the list, and Kelly has been written "Cheua." What a strange name to Romanian ears, Kelly.
There are two major cities between Târgu Mureș and Deva: Turda and Alba Iulia. We arrive in Turda at about 7:30, and an older gent gets into the seat in front of us. Looking back, I should have smelled the alcohol on his breath, but it really wasn't that strong, and he wasn't breathing in my face. Yet.
30 minutes out of Turda, he turns around, taps my shoulder (I'm reading a collection of Thomas Merton journals), and asks me it the river we can see on our left is the Mureș river. "Yeah, I think so," I say to him, and he then says something, probably explaining that he was just curious. It was too complicated Romanian for me to understand yet. He turns back around, and I keep reading.
Half an hour more passes. We're nearing a 15-minute stop in Alba Iulia, and as we pass the big, concrete sign denoting that we've arrived in the city limits, this guy turns around again, taps Kelly on the shoulder and asks, "Are we in Alba Iulia?"
"Yes, we are."
"Good, good..." and then more Romanian that I didn't catch. Then, he stood up, presumably because he's had quite a bit to drink and this stop will be some sweet relief for him. The bus, being smaller and faster than most buses (cuter, some might say...), was also more agile. As such, our inebriated friend had a lot of trouble balancing and began to get thrown into the passengers alongside him and in front of him. They were 50 or 60-year-old women, the strongest personal and cultural institution existing in Romania, and they were less than amused. We breathed a sigh of relief when we got to the station and got a break.
When Kelly and I got back on the bus, we realized that the girl behind us was speaking on the phone in English with an American accent. As soon as she hung up, we turned around and asked where she was from. She's a Peace Corps volunteer in a very small town, and she was taking a trip to see a friend. As she was telling Kelly about how opposed the Romanians she'd met were to spicy food (the lady our age in the back of the bus was watching -- I'm pretty sure she knew her country was being slightly dissed by an American volunteer), our inebriated friend turned around and told me "Îmi pare rău, n-am știut că ești străin" (I'm sorry, but I didn't realize that you're a foreigner). He was very sorry that he'd assumed that I spoke and understood Romanian.
I said, "No, no, it's fine, I understand you." He still seemed a bit embarrassed that he was trying to speak with me, so I reassured him that there was no harm done and I could speak Romanian alright.
My reassuring worked; his embarrassment disappeared quite quickly. The bus left Alba Iulia at 8:55, and passed through Simeria, the town right before Deva, at 10:00 sharp. For the entire duration of the trip, this guy unloaded himself to me. In Romanian, which he had been so sorry to use at first. Here is what I remember from our conversation: He spoke Hungarian, Romanian, Italian, and I think another language. He worked for an old restaurant owner in Italy for a few years, tending the grass and taking out the trash, etc. His name was Ernest (Ernő in Hungarian -- he showed me his ID). I had a beautiful wife. Is she Romanian? No, she's American. Oh, you're from America? Yes... (I thought I'd already told him that.) He wondered if I thought Romanian women were beautiful, like that girl sitting in the back! Isn't she beautiful? Look at her (the same girl who I'd been sure heard the slight cultural diss). No, I'm not going to look at her. Why not? Oh, your wife will get jealous? I'm not going to look at her because I love my wife. Oh, oh, okay... Did you know that an army helicopter crashed in this field a few days ago? No, I didn't. Yeah, it was bad... I'm Hungarian Catholic, how about you? Reformed. Good, good... you know, Jesus...
I couldn't follow him at this point. The words were too complicated and I was very quickly losing interest in talking with Ernő, but he kept right on. Kelly remembers him saying something about the first man created being a wolf. He got my full attention again when he said something about kissing Kelly's hand and everybody on the bus started laughing (they had already giggled that a drunk guy was talking with an American, but had long lost interest).
"Sorry, what did you say? I didn't understand you."
He didn't repeat to me. He tried to pass the joke to the guy across the row from him, and then started talking about his wife to that guy. I slowly returned to Merton. When we got into Deva, Ernő stood up again, but his new conversation companion said, "Nu, nu, stă jos" (Sit down). I replayed Ernő being told to sit down in my head for the rest of the day. He could be limited by someone. Not by me...
We stumbled off the bus in Deva, and Ernő's new companion said to us "Doamne ne ajuta..." (God help you) with a little laugh. At least I had had an hour conversation in a language that I've been learning for only two months. Not so bad... We waited for our FNO companions (they were driving up from Lupeni) in McDonalds. I told Kelly, "I think my social skills are all spent for now." And it was only 10:20.
Ibrain from FNO found us, and we walked to a car containing Grați (the friendly, big-city-girl IMPACT coach), Ionuț (the friendly, quiet IT guy) and Gretchen (the American artist-social worker doing her practicum with FNO). Grați had IMPACT business to do, so we took her spot in the car and headed off to start to get some visas.
After copying some documents, we walked into the County Police Station, up the stairs, to the window for foreigners. Ibrian took our passports to the guy, and they talked for five minutes or so. Ibrian came back to us, handed us our passports, and said, "I'm sorry, but we can't get you visas today."
What?
"The system has been down for a few days, and they can't enter any new names, so we'll have to come back another day, probably next week."
It was not a pleasant turn of events, but I wasn't very surprised. These things do happen, after all. Ibrian said he was ashamed to be a Romanian when things like this happened. We assured him that it was alright, there was nothing he could have really done, we weren't angry. But the fact remained that it was 11:30 and our bus back to Târgu Mureș came at... 6:00 pm. Oh my.
So, we began the process of what us Americans call "killing time." An awful phrase, really. One cannot "kill time" any more than one can "have time," but it really does seem to us that we're in charge of what we do with the time given us. A terrible mistake.
But nonetheless, we killed ourselves some time. We went to a shopping center to look around. Kelly, Gretchen, and Ionuț went into the tea shop and enjoyed the smells immensely. I got pissy about rampant capitalism, as I am wont to do when I'm in a bad mood and am made to endure a mall.
We went to a little museum next. I had a better attitude about this one. There were some taxidermied local animals (including buffalo), some Austro-Hungarian artifacts, some Dacian artifacts, and some local art. I'd recommend this museum to anyone who takes a trip to Deva, but I cannot remember how to get to it.
Oh, and it was raining most of the day.
The Lupeni crowd left at 2:30, with the promise of seeing us again pretty soon (woo hoo!), and Kelly and I said, "Now what?" We found a semi-fancy Italian restaurant and decided to have a semi-expensive lunch. It was really, really good food. And I was really, really grouchy. And she was really, really tired. When I'm tired, I don't really want to talk, but Kelly hates not talking during meals. An impasse. We talked a bit, but without much heart or conviction. Such are some conversations.
We very slowly walked back to the bus station. It was 4:00. Two hours to go. I sat down and almost instantly fell asleep.
I woke up 40 minutes later to the lady next to Kelly sneezing profusely. She apologized for her nose. I realized that I was in an infinitely better mood than before; the blessed siesta of Deva. Kelly turned to me and said, "Can we leave? The air in here feels sick."
We left, and went to the other bus station, the one our bus back to Târgu Mureș would come to. Kelly took a walk. I read Merton. I tried to find a bathroom, but the door into the station's shop seemed to be closed. I asked some guys my age who had been standing there, "E inchis?"
They shrugged. It must be closed. The one asked me, "Unde mergeți?"
"Târgu Mureș." I had to repeat myself. Our city is hard to pronounce. I asked them where they were going too.
"Sibiu." Another successful conversation, this one not stressful. Kelly came back, and the bus showed up 10 minutes later. It was crowded with students coming home for the weekend, and a little bit cold. There were no drunken conversations happening that I was aware of. There were, however, some guys who all seemed to work together in the back of the bus and they looked to be ignoring or laughing at a darker skinned co-worker. A joke from the day? Or blatant racism? I didn't ask.
The roads back were quite bumpy. (Kelly says this is an understatement -- she was afraid of losing teeth.) I think we almost hit a few people walking along the road in the dark (common practice here). We had a few near accidents due to passing vehicles and our "cute" bus avoiding potholes by swerving into the other lane. I stayed in a good mood the whole way back. The blessed siesta sustained me. Kelly watched the landscape in the dark and slept. We arrived in Târgu Mureș at 9:35, waited 15 minutes for a bus, and were back in Otilia's apartment by 10:05. Visa day was over.
We think this was our most "Romanian" day yet. Hopefully next week it'll be just as good.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Székelys and ethnic protests.
Yesterday there were demonstrations in Târgu Mureș. There haven't been ethnic riots here since 1990 or so, but tensions between Hungarians and Romanians have been on the rise for the past few years, and so yesterday was a big day: an estimated 10,000 ethnic Hungarians (if not more) from all over the country came to Târgu Mureș and marched on the center, rallying for Hungarian autonomy in what's known as Székely land.
Jack and I weren't quite sure what to do about the demonstrations. We were in the same part of town for an English language church service, and we were curious to see -- though also wary of the possible dangers. I've attended my fair share of protests in the U.S., and they've never been scary, but this had potential to be different, and we were very sobered by that fact. Otilia, our host mom, was terrified to go outside yesterday afternoon, and bought two extra loaves of bread just in case the city closed down. She said that in the 1989 revolution and ethnic riots that followed in 1990, shops were closed for a few days, and she wasn't allowed to buy bread from the Hungarian owners of the few bakeries that remained open -- she had to send her husband, who spoke a bit of Hungarian, to try and fool the owners into letting him buy bread. She was afraid the same could happen again, so there in the cupboard they sat, visible markers of her fear that the past is repeating itself: two giant loaves of freshly-baked bread, just in case. She said that twenty years ago the streets were blockaded so no one could get through by bus or car -- only on foot, and even that was dangerous, with the hoards of people, many of whom were from out of town.
It's the out-of-towners who made the people we talked to nervous. In Târgu Mureș the population is about 50% Romanian and 50% Hungarian, and they seem to co-exist quite well, though of course tensions flare to the surface occasionally. But Târgu Mureș is also seen as the central city for the Hungarian population of Romania, the majority of whom live in three districts: Mureș (where Târgu Mureș is located), Harghita, and Covasna. In these districts there is actually a Hungarian majority, meaning that in some small isolated villages there, children grow up speaking only Hungarian, unable to communicate in Romanian at all. These three provinces form the so-called Székely land. There have been calls in the past from Hungarians in these districts for them to be autonomous -- either self-ruling or connected to Hungary (despite the fact that none of them are geographically on the border). These same nationalistic demands are echoed by the Jobbik party inside Hungary (Jobbik is an extremely nationalistic, anti-Roma, anti-Semitic, "Hungarian purity" party that has gained much power in the Hungarian Parliament in recent years -- some call them neo-Nazis. They would love to have "Greater Hungary" back, which includes Transylvania and parts of Slovakia... but that history deserves its own post). Inside Romania, these demands for autonomy largely come from the Székelys, a subgroup of ethnic Hungarians who actually did have autonomous regions from 1952 to 1968, which were then abolished by Ceaușescu. Our host mom Otilia adamantly declared yesterday that Hungarians are good people but that the Székelys are dangerous and troublemakers -- an interesting opinion to come from our gentle hostess, who also believes adamantly that people's common humanity should matter more than their nationality. The demonstrations were supposed to bring in Székelys and Hungarian nationalists from around Romania. It was a bit scary to consider the prospect of angry out-of-towners descending upon a city we have grown fond of, unconcerned for its wellbeing. Hungarians from Târgu Mureș love this city too; they are good neighbors and active citizens and have to live here once the protest is over. But those people who come in from out of town and don't have the same concern for this city, its welfare and its inhabitants -- that can be a bit scary.
So yesterday we were on the lookout, curious as to what we'd see. There had been police and jandarms (soldiers in the Romanian army) patrolling the streets the last few days in higher numbers than usual, especially in the center. We woke up Sunday morning to overcast, rainy skies and a sense of foreboding throughout the city -- and yet life seemed to go on as normal, despite the common knowledge of what was to happen in the afternoon. The police presence and the sense of wariness it created make me wonder what it must have been like to live here under Ceaușescu's authoritarian communist rule... but that's another post as well. However, they seemed well-prepared, and we were praying hard for peace and productive conversation and understanding between the Hungarian demonstrators and any Romanian counter-protesters who showed up.
The march was supposed to start at 4pm and arrive in the center by 6pm or so. Jack and I got to the center around 6:20, wandered for a while without seeing anything other than a hundred or so jandarms with helmets and nightsticks at the ready, and a small group of Romanian 20-something guys with Romanian flags draped over their shoulders, loitering and waiting for something to happen. We ended up eating dinner at a restaurant downtown, watching, waiting, wondering. And at about 7:15 they arrived: a huge line of demonstrators walking down the street through the center, waving Hungarian and Székely flags, carrying torches, singing patriotic anthems and chanting "Székelyföld! Székelyföld!" (Székely land) or "Autonómiá!" (autonomy). It was a bit eery to see the Jobbik flag mixed in among the flags of the Székelys and Hungary -- nationalism is something I can start to wrap my head around (though being from the American cultural melting pot, even that is hard for me to really understand) -- but the fascist, anti-Semitic, anti-Roma, extreme nationalism of Jobbik sent shivers down my spine and makes me, quite frankly, angry.
But for the most part, everything seemed peaceful -- at least until the time when we left, around 8pm. The huge parade marched to the end of the center, gathered in a crowd around the Cultural Palace (a beautiful monument of Hungarian architecture), sang patriotic songs to the accompaniment of a brass band, and then slowly demonstrators walked away, boarding the enormous line of buses (at least 50) which would carry them back across Romania or Hungary to their hometowns. When we left, the line of people was still marching through the center, with no end in sight -- it really was a huge demonstration.
We took the maxi taxi back home, catching it from a stop outside the center, since the roads through the center were blocked off by police and full of demonstrators. As we boarded the maxi, a few older men who had been at the protest got on as well, carrying their Székely flags proudly in hand. It was an interesting ride home, as the Hungarians on the maxi taxi talked openly but the Romanian speakers kept silent. We all got off at the same stop, neighbors in Tudor -- but how strange it is to think that some of our neighbors want autonomy from this city, want legal and political freedom from the community of Târgu Mureș which seems so healthy and inclusive and well-functioning. It was a bit disturbing, to be frank, particularly after seeing the Jobbik influence at the march. But we got home safely, and today the police officers on our street corner are gone. Life is back to normal... whatever that means.
We're praying that in the later hours of the night, yesterday's demonstrations remained peaceful. We haven't yet heard otherwise, so we are optimistic about the civility of the whole affair. But more than that, we even dare to pray that these demonstrations may have been productive and somehow led the conversation in the direction of reconciliation and peace. Maybe it's a crazy thing to pray, when we know full well that resentment, hostility, and violence so often win the day, and that things are so unlikely to change -- but we believe in a crazy God who already defeated death and evil and is coming back to restore all things, so we dare to pray for this now. And we'd love to have you pray with us.
Jack and I weren't quite sure what to do about the demonstrations. We were in the same part of town for an English language church service, and we were curious to see -- though also wary of the possible dangers. I've attended my fair share of protests in the U.S., and they've never been scary, but this had potential to be different, and we were very sobered by that fact. Otilia, our host mom, was terrified to go outside yesterday afternoon, and bought two extra loaves of bread just in case the city closed down. She said that in the 1989 revolution and ethnic riots that followed in 1990, shops were closed for a few days, and she wasn't allowed to buy bread from the Hungarian owners of the few bakeries that remained open -- she had to send her husband, who spoke a bit of Hungarian, to try and fool the owners into letting him buy bread. She was afraid the same could happen again, so there in the cupboard they sat, visible markers of her fear that the past is repeating itself: two giant loaves of freshly-baked bread, just in case. She said that twenty years ago the streets were blockaded so no one could get through by bus or car -- only on foot, and even that was dangerous, with the hoards of people, many of whom were from out of town.
It's the out-of-towners who made the people we talked to nervous. In Târgu Mureș the population is about 50% Romanian and 50% Hungarian, and they seem to co-exist quite well, though of course tensions flare to the surface occasionally. But Târgu Mureș is also seen as the central city for the Hungarian population of Romania, the majority of whom live in three districts: Mureș (where Târgu Mureș is located), Harghita, and Covasna. In these districts there is actually a Hungarian majority, meaning that in some small isolated villages there, children grow up speaking only Hungarian, unable to communicate in Romanian at all. These three provinces form the so-called Székely land. There have been calls in the past from Hungarians in these districts for them to be autonomous -- either self-ruling or connected to Hungary (despite the fact that none of them are geographically on the border). These same nationalistic demands are echoed by the Jobbik party inside Hungary (Jobbik is an extremely nationalistic, anti-Roma, anti-Semitic, "Hungarian purity" party that has gained much power in the Hungarian Parliament in recent years -- some call them neo-Nazis. They would love to have "Greater Hungary" back, which includes Transylvania and parts of Slovakia... but that history deserves its own post). Inside Romania, these demands for autonomy largely come from the Székelys, a subgroup of ethnic Hungarians who actually did have autonomous regions from 1952 to 1968, which were then abolished by Ceaușescu. Our host mom Otilia adamantly declared yesterday that Hungarians are good people but that the Székelys are dangerous and troublemakers -- an interesting opinion to come from our gentle hostess, who also believes adamantly that people's common humanity should matter more than their nationality. The demonstrations were supposed to bring in Székelys and Hungarian nationalists from around Romania. It was a bit scary to consider the prospect of angry out-of-towners descending upon a city we have grown fond of, unconcerned for its wellbeing. Hungarians from Târgu Mureș love this city too; they are good neighbors and active citizens and have to live here once the protest is over. But those people who come in from out of town and don't have the same concern for this city, its welfare and its inhabitants -- that can be a bit scary.
So yesterday we were on the lookout, curious as to what we'd see. There had been police and jandarms (soldiers in the Romanian army) patrolling the streets the last few days in higher numbers than usual, especially in the center. We woke up Sunday morning to overcast, rainy skies and a sense of foreboding throughout the city -- and yet life seemed to go on as normal, despite the common knowledge of what was to happen in the afternoon. The police presence and the sense of wariness it created make me wonder what it must have been like to live here under Ceaușescu's authoritarian communist rule... but that's another post as well. However, they seemed well-prepared, and we were praying hard for peace and productive conversation and understanding between the Hungarian demonstrators and any Romanian counter-protesters who showed up.
The march was supposed to start at 4pm and arrive in the center by 6pm or so. Jack and I got to the center around 6:20, wandered for a while without seeing anything other than a hundred or so jandarms with helmets and nightsticks at the ready, and a small group of Romanian 20-something guys with Romanian flags draped over their shoulders, loitering and waiting for something to happen. We ended up eating dinner at a restaurant downtown, watching, waiting, wondering. And at about 7:15 they arrived: a huge line of demonstrators walking down the street through the center, waving Hungarian and Székely flags, carrying torches, singing patriotic anthems and chanting "Székelyföld! Székelyföld!" (Székely land) or "Autonómiá!" (autonomy). It was a bit eery to see the Jobbik flag mixed in among the flags of the Székelys and Hungary -- nationalism is something I can start to wrap my head around (though being from the American cultural melting pot, even that is hard for me to really understand) -- but the fascist, anti-Semitic, anti-Roma, extreme nationalism of Jobbik sent shivers down my spine and makes me, quite frankly, angry.
But for the most part, everything seemed peaceful -- at least until the time when we left, around 8pm. The huge parade marched to the end of the center, gathered in a crowd around the Cultural Palace (a beautiful monument of Hungarian architecture), sang patriotic songs to the accompaniment of a brass band, and then slowly demonstrators walked away, boarding the enormous line of buses (at least 50) which would carry them back across Romania or Hungary to their hometowns. When we left, the line of people was still marching through the center, with no end in sight -- it really was a huge demonstration.
The line of protestors extended down the entire center, and they just kept coming...
At the end of the marching route was a crowd of protestors: this is only a small glimpse.
Marchers demanding autonomy.
We took the maxi taxi back home, catching it from a stop outside the center, since the roads through the center were blocked off by police and full of demonstrators. As we boarded the maxi, a few older men who had been at the protest got on as well, carrying their Székely flags proudly in hand. It was an interesting ride home, as the Hungarians on the maxi taxi talked openly but the Romanian speakers kept silent. We all got off at the same stop, neighbors in Tudor -- but how strange it is to think that some of our neighbors want autonomy from this city, want legal and political freedom from the community of Târgu Mureș which seems so healthy and inclusive and well-functioning. It was a bit disturbing, to be frank, particularly after seeing the Jobbik influence at the march. But we got home safely, and today the police officers on our street corner are gone. Life is back to normal... whatever that means.
We're praying that in the later hours of the night, yesterday's demonstrations remained peaceful. We haven't yet heard otherwise, so we are optimistic about the civility of the whole affair. But more than that, we even dare to pray that these demonstrations may have been productive and somehow led the conversation in the direction of reconciliation and peace. Maybe it's a crazy thing to pray, when we know full well that resentment, hostility, and violence so often win the day, and that things are so unlikely to change -- but we believe in a crazy God who already defeated death and evil and is coming back to restore all things, so we dare to pray for this now. And we'd love to have you pray with us.
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Here we are.
I have long held that ministry and the life of a missionary is not glamorous as we devote our lives to sharing in God's glory. The latest manifestation of this truth is in that Kelly and I have realized that if we don't have a specific life-giving event for about a day, we sink into a depression, and we begin to question why we're in Târgu Mureș when we really came here to be in Lupeni and work with FNO. We don't have that many friends here, and we have to make plans in advance, so we spend a lot of days and evenings just doing homework or making food or listening to Car Talk. It's fine, but is no replacement for good community. So why are we here? "Suntem aici doar să învățăm românește," is what we tell folks who ask us why we're here, if we're missionaries or working with orphans or what. We're just here to learn Romanian.
We've found that that isn't quite true.
Besides students, we're mainly companions for folks here--some new people for the Michmerhuizen boys to play with, CRC people for Steve and Jan to talk to (and them for us to talk to!), and English speakers for Daniel and Maria Edwards to be friends with. It's funny how necessity speeds up how quickly you get comfortable with people.
We also provide company and two young people for Otilia to mother now that she is the only one of her family left in this house. Sometime it really bugs us and makes us feel like children and that our well-deserved independence isn't being fully realized here. And then we say, "Oh, what Americans we are," and get on with it (though, this can take a day or a week to move on from sometimes). But it is good to live here, and to be her companion for three months. She asked us a week or so ago if there was any chance that we could do our work that we came to do in Târgu Mureș and not have to leave and go to Lupeni in April. We kind of looked at each other and explained that the FNO office is in Lupeni and VIATA is on Straja, so we have to go. We were called to Lupeni, to do specific work for them...
Which we were. And we are. But we are called above all other calls to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit wherever we are. And through the discernment of the faithful community around us, we are in Târgu Mureș until April. Sin is so great that even a call from God can be used as an excuse to not be present and thankful in our circumstances and loving to the people around us. Resentment builds too easily when we're not present, and resentment sucks the love out of our lives. And considering that we came to these people on a specific call from God, it doesn't do well to represent our Creator and Caller by being sullen about being where we are. I think that everyone else really loves it that we're here (or is at least pleasantly tolerant of us).
We thank God that we are honest with each other and have talked through our emotions and can call each other out when we're sinking into resentment.
I'm not worried when we feel unhappy about being here, because I also feel unhappy that Jesus is not back here on earth, bringing the Kingdom in full. Call me a pessimist if you like, but I'm truly unhappy that we have to experience the "not yet" of the Kingdom. Now, I am totally thankful that Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to counsel and guide the Church in this in-between time, and I am totally thankful that the Holy Spirit has led Kelly and me to give company to Otilia and Daniel and Maria while we're not doing FNO work or rock climbing in the Jiu Valley.
If the sounds a bit like some Lenten longings, your ears are attuned. A dear friend has suggested that we approach the three months in Târgu Mureș as a fast, as a time of Lenten longing, to be in Lupeni, and for the Kingdom to come fully. Nothing makes the "not yet" of the Kingdom more real than the "not yet" of something else, whether that be food in your belly, being married AT LAST, or being in a place you love with people you love doing work that you love, that you were called to do.
Please understand that we are content and peaceful in Târgu Mureș. We have tasted the life in Lupeni and long for it, so that makes it difficult to stay fully present here. In The Hiding Place, Corrie is worried that her aunt complains about living with them and longs to be back in her last governess job with "those wonderful children." Her mother tells her that when her aunt was at that job, all she longed for was the previous job and "those wonderful children." She tells Corrie that happiness is not something that emits from your circumstances so much as how your heart is attuned to receive those circumstances. Corrie and her sister Betsy manage to find joy in a flea-infested barracks at a forced labor camp by being thankful in all circumstances, just like the apostle Paul says.
Pray, friends. Not just for us, but for yourselves, your families, your neighbors. I think a lot of problems would begin to be solved if folks decided to be present and accept their circumstances, and be thankful in spite of not having all their wants and dreams satisfied RIGHT NOW. Reach out to God who is right with us in every circumstance. Just affirm His presence, and those circumstances suddenly seem brighter.
We've found that that isn't quite true.
Besides students, we're mainly companions for folks here--some new people for the Michmerhuizen boys to play with, CRC people for Steve and Jan to talk to (and them for us to talk to!), and English speakers for Daniel and Maria Edwards to be friends with. It's funny how necessity speeds up how quickly you get comfortable with people.
We also provide company and two young people for Otilia to mother now that she is the only one of her family left in this house. Sometime it really bugs us and makes us feel like children and that our well-deserved independence isn't being fully realized here. And then we say, "Oh, what Americans we are," and get on with it (though, this can take a day or a week to move on from sometimes). But it is good to live here, and to be her companion for three months. She asked us a week or so ago if there was any chance that we could do our work that we came to do in Târgu Mureș and not have to leave and go to Lupeni in April. We kind of looked at each other and explained that the FNO office is in Lupeni and VIATA is on Straja, so we have to go. We were called to Lupeni, to do specific work for them...
Which we were. And we are. But we are called above all other calls to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit wherever we are. And through the discernment of the faithful community around us, we are in Târgu Mureș until April. Sin is so great that even a call from God can be used as an excuse to not be present and thankful in our circumstances and loving to the people around us. Resentment builds too easily when we're not present, and resentment sucks the love out of our lives. And considering that we came to these people on a specific call from God, it doesn't do well to represent our Creator and Caller by being sullen about being where we are. I think that everyone else really loves it that we're here (or is at least pleasantly tolerant of us).
We thank God that we are honest with each other and have talked through our emotions and can call each other out when we're sinking into resentment.
I'm not worried when we feel unhappy about being here, because I also feel unhappy that Jesus is not back here on earth, bringing the Kingdom in full. Call me a pessimist if you like, but I'm truly unhappy that we have to experience the "not yet" of the Kingdom. Now, I am totally thankful that Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to counsel and guide the Church in this in-between time, and I am totally thankful that the Holy Spirit has led Kelly and me to give company to Otilia and Daniel and Maria while we're not doing FNO work or rock climbing in the Jiu Valley.
If the sounds a bit like some Lenten longings, your ears are attuned. A dear friend has suggested that we approach the three months in Târgu Mureș as a fast, as a time of Lenten longing, to be in Lupeni, and for the Kingdom to come fully. Nothing makes the "not yet" of the Kingdom more real than the "not yet" of something else, whether that be food in your belly, being married AT LAST, or being in a place you love with people you love doing work that you love, that you were called to do.
Please understand that we are content and peaceful in Târgu Mureș. We have tasted the life in Lupeni and long for it, so that makes it difficult to stay fully present here. In The Hiding Place, Corrie is worried that her aunt complains about living with them and longs to be back in her last governess job with "those wonderful children." Her mother tells her that when her aunt was at that job, all she longed for was the previous job and "those wonderful children." She tells Corrie that happiness is not something that emits from your circumstances so much as how your heart is attuned to receive those circumstances. Corrie and her sister Betsy manage to find joy in a flea-infested barracks at a forced labor camp by being thankful in all circumstances, just like the apostle Paul says.
Pray, friends. Not just for us, but for yourselves, your families, your neighbors. I think a lot of problems would begin to be solved if folks decided to be present and accept their circumstances, and be thankful in spite of not having all their wants and dreams satisfied RIGHT NOW. Reach out to God who is right with us in every circumstance. Just affirm His presence, and those circumstances suddenly seem brighter.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
The maxi taxi.
Today, for those of you who have never had the opportunity to experience one for yourself, I am going to introduce you to the maxi taxi. It's a daily fixture of our life in Romania, so I figured it deserved a mention here.
In Târgu Mureș, there are two options for public transit: the bus or the maxi. Autobuzuri are like public buses in any large city in any country. Maxi taxis, however, are different from anything I've seen in the States. A maxi taxi is a large van -- think 15-passenger size -- that's been outfitted to seat 16 people and hold another 20 standing in the aisle. They're not usually that full, but sometimes they are. Oh, sometimes they are much more full.
For instance, once Jack and I rode the free maxi taxi to Auchan. Typically it costs 2 lei per ride, which is the equivalent of about 60 cents in American dollars. However, a few of the enormous international supermarket chains here have free maxi taxis for customers, which roam the city picking up anyone who wants a free ride to the outskirts of town, where these monolithic shopping malls are. We had heard that you could buy tortillas at Auchan, and we were curious, so we got on.
Big mistake. Notice how in the picture above, there are a few people sitting down, looking pleasantly out the window, and you only see one person standing with his or her rear squashed against the window? That's nice. But in some maxi taxis at some hours of the day -- and in the free maxi taxis at all hours of the day -- the vehicle is standing room only, so upon boarding you are suddenly face-to-face with a complete stranger who is only inches away, while another stranger is unfortunately smooshed between your rear and the window. It's bearable while you're moving, because even the jerkiest of gear changes are softened by the mass of humanity swaying back and forth, all smushed together. The American pop music on the radio, the smells of everyone's breath and laundry detergent... it's a unique, but not necessarily altogether unpleasant, experience. But when someone has to get off at a stop, it's not so nice. It seems inevitable that at least one of the people who needs to get down at each stop is standing in the far back of the maxi taxi, and you can only imagine the chaos of trying to make your way down the aisle and out the door of a 15-passenger van with 37 people in it. Sometimes I think it would be easier if we'd just lift them up and crowd-surf them to the door, but I don't know how to offer that suggestion in Romanian yet.
Yet the thing which has interested me most about maxi taxis and the culture associated with them is the method of boarding. Typically, when a maxi comes to a stop, the people who are exiting get off first and leave the door open for those boarding; the last person on then pulls the door shut behind them. But just because the people getting on the maxi taxi wait for those getting off to step down doesn't mean they leave room for them to do so. Romanians generally have a much smaller personal space "bubble" than Americans, so people stand closer together in line, when talking, in a crowd, and so on. (Often I have been waiting at a store counter, thinking I am next, when a Romanian will cut right in front of me without realizing -- certainly not intending to be rude, but to them I didn't appear to be in line.) This translates to maxi taxis too: exiting one is like pushing your way through a mob, since people rarely leave a path for the departing riders to walk through, instead crowding immediately to the door. At Auchan, catching the maxi taxi back into the city was like being part of a swarm of pigeons swooping in to freshly-thrown bread crumbs. (If you've never seen pigeons dive-bomb bread crumbs, it's astonishing. Try it.) Jack and I simply stood back in amazement and had to laugh to ourselves a bit -- but then, of course, we joined the throng and stood wrapped tightly in each other's arms among a swaying, sweaty, crowded mass of humanity, all the way back home.
I love riding the maxi. I really, truly do.
In Târgu Mureș, there are two options for public transit: the bus or the maxi. Autobuzuri are like public buses in any large city in any country. Maxi taxis, however, are different from anything I've seen in the States. A maxi taxi is a large van -- think 15-passenger size -- that's been outfitted to seat 16 people and hold another 20 standing in the aisle. They're not usually that full, but sometimes they are. Oh, sometimes they are much more full.
For instance, once Jack and I rode the free maxi taxi to Auchan. Typically it costs 2 lei per ride, which is the equivalent of about 60 cents in American dollars. However, a few of the enormous international supermarket chains here have free maxi taxis for customers, which roam the city picking up anyone who wants a free ride to the outskirts of town, where these monolithic shopping malls are. We had heard that you could buy tortillas at Auchan, and we were curious, so we got on.
Big mistake. Notice how in the picture above, there are a few people sitting down, looking pleasantly out the window, and you only see one person standing with his or her rear squashed against the window? That's nice. But in some maxi taxis at some hours of the day -- and in the free maxi taxis at all hours of the day -- the vehicle is standing room only, so upon boarding you are suddenly face-to-face with a complete stranger who is only inches away, while another stranger is unfortunately smooshed between your rear and the window. It's bearable while you're moving, because even the jerkiest of gear changes are softened by the mass of humanity swaying back and forth, all smushed together. The American pop music on the radio, the smells of everyone's breath and laundry detergent... it's a unique, but not necessarily altogether unpleasant, experience. But when someone has to get off at a stop, it's not so nice. It seems inevitable that at least one of the people who needs to get down at each stop is standing in the far back of the maxi taxi, and you can only imagine the chaos of trying to make your way down the aisle and out the door of a 15-passenger van with 37 people in it. Sometimes I think it would be easier if we'd just lift them up and crowd-surf them to the door, but I don't know how to offer that suggestion in Romanian yet.
Yet the thing which has interested me most about maxi taxis and the culture associated with them is the method of boarding. Typically, when a maxi comes to a stop, the people who are exiting get off first and leave the door open for those boarding; the last person on then pulls the door shut behind them. But just because the people getting on the maxi taxi wait for those getting off to step down doesn't mean they leave room for them to do so. Romanians generally have a much smaller personal space "bubble" than Americans, so people stand closer together in line, when talking, in a crowd, and so on. (Often I have been waiting at a store counter, thinking I am next, when a Romanian will cut right in front of me without realizing -- certainly not intending to be rude, but to them I didn't appear to be in line.) This translates to maxi taxis too: exiting one is like pushing your way through a mob, since people rarely leave a path for the departing riders to walk through, instead crowding immediately to the door. At Auchan, catching the maxi taxi back into the city was like being part of a swarm of pigeons swooping in to freshly-thrown bread crumbs. (If you've never seen pigeons dive-bomb bread crumbs, it's astonishing. Try it.) Jack and I simply stood back in amazement and had to laugh to ourselves a bit -- but then, of course, we joined the throng and stood wrapped tightly in each other's arms among a swaying, sweaty, crowded mass of humanity, all the way back home.
I love riding the maxi. I really, truly do.
Monday, March 4, 2013
Marțisor.
March 1st was Marțisor, the Romanian holiday celebrating the coming of spring! It's a delightful little holiday, and for those of you still battling blizzards in the American Midwest, I'm sorry to rub it in -- but spring seems to have sprung here. It's sunny and fairly warm, and today I even saw flowers poking their heads above ground.
Historically, Marțisor has always been marked by the giving of little talismans or decorative brooches or bracelets, usually red and white and often with a little bead or stone or decorative ladybug charm or some similar festive springtime icon. It's tradition to wear the red and white string all month, on your wrist or pinned on your jacket, and at the end of the month to tie it to a tree, thus (as the legend goes) imparting on that tree health and vitality for the upcoming year. Now people buy and share Marțisor bracelets and tassels with their friends (though it's mostly women and children who do it). The few days preceding Marțisor in Târgu Mureș were fun, as white tents popped up all over town with vendors selling fresh flowers and Marțisor trinkets of every variety.
We bought one for Otilia and Jack surprised me with one too, which I already have forgotten to wear every day... oops. Clearly I'm not a true Romanian. But I'm excited to tie it to a tree at the end of the month, and I don't think I'll forget that part! In the meantime, here are a few more pictures, which I did not take -- but they give a good feel for what the Marțisor decorations are like. If you're interested in learning more, the Wikipedia article on Marțisor is actually pretty good... check it out! And a happy coming-of-spring to you.
Historically, Marțisor has always been marked by the giving of little talismans or decorative brooches or bracelets, usually red and white and often with a little bead or stone or decorative ladybug charm or some similar festive springtime icon. It's tradition to wear the red and white string all month, on your wrist or pinned on your jacket, and at the end of the month to tie it to a tree, thus (as the legend goes) imparting on that tree health and vitality for the upcoming year. Now people buy and share Marțisor bracelets and tassels with their friends (though it's mostly women and children who do it). The few days preceding Marțisor in Târgu Mureș were fun, as white tents popped up all over town with vendors selling fresh flowers and Marțisor trinkets of every variety.
The centru of Târgu Mureș, filled with Marțisor booths.
The lovely Marțisor pendant Jack gave me...
We bought one for Otilia and Jack surprised me with one too, which I already have forgotten to wear every day... oops. Clearly I'm not a true Romanian. But I'm excited to tie it to a tree at the end of the month, and I don't think I'll forget that part! In the meantime, here are a few more pictures, which I did not take -- but they give a good feel for what the Marțisor decorations are like. If you're interested in learning more, the Wikipedia article on Marțisor is actually pretty good... check it out! And a happy coming-of-spring to you.
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