Election time.

Presidential elections in Romania are being held next week (November 2 to be precise), and I have to admit, I have more than a bit of curiosity about what's going to happen.  There are election posters plastered everywhere in Lupeni (it seems a peculiar aesthetic to me, but often people will put up 20 of the exact same poster, side by side, creating a strange sort of wallpaper across their businesses' front windows... all the same blank stare and half-smile of some politician, over and over and over again).  There are huge banners draped across the main street, sometimes two different ones fighting it out at opposing angles on intersections.  (Unfortunately this includes a banner right in front of our apartment, featuring the notorious and slightly bulbous mayor of Lupeni endorsing the current prime minister, Victor Ponta, in his presidential bid.  I have to say, it's not the most beautiful thing to see out our window first thing in the morning.  Oh well, at least it's been foggy lately.)

The posters are interesting to me for a lot of reasons, but mainly because I'm not sure how much popular support they really represent.  The other day I stopped in at a sandwich shop next to the office, where we've slowly been getting to know one of the employees.  As I waited for my lunch, I asked her about the Ponta signs that were blocking the daylight, covering the entire shop window.  "Are you voting for him?" I asked.  "Oh no," she replied.  "I'm not sure who I am voting for yet, but probably not Ponta."  Quizzically I looked at the posters and then looked back at her.  "So why do you have all the Ponta posters up then?"  "Ahh... trebuie," she said -- trebuie being a word that basically means, "I had to."

I've told this story to a few Romanian friends and none of them looked surprised.  Things like being pressured by the local mayor's political party to put up posters supporting that party's candidate, which strike me as pretty undemocratic and fraudulent, don't raise a whole lot of eyebrows among our friends.  Not that they like it -- but it just seems pretty run-of-the-mill.  Last night we had a bunch of friends over for dinner, and (instigator as I am, whoops) I asked about the election.  In the course of the conversation all of them mentioned things like "poor people being bought off" (or not even bought off, just given one free meal!) in exchange for a vote in a particular direction.  They weren't convinced that any of the candidates -- and there are a lot of them -- were above tactics like this, though they had tentative hopes about a few of the people running.

The one candidate who seems to be inspiring the most cautious optimism, at least among my friends here, is the current mayor of Sibiu, Klaus Iohannis.  His motto is "Romania lucrului bine facut," or "the Romania of things well done," and I have to admit, I find his website and campaign promises more interesting than some of the others I have seen -- not that I have done as much research as I should, since I can't actually vote next week.  (Lame excuse, I know.)  Plenty of people have plenty of legitimate questions about Iohannis, so I'm certainly not trying to say he's perfect.  But I find him promising, and curious, because in talking about him with friends, plenty of people have also said something along the lines of, "Well, he's German, so that's good."

I find that so incredibly interesting, and a little troubling.  To make sense of it, let me explain something really quickly -- Romania historically has had a number of German kings, and many little pockets of Saxons, including in and around Sibiu -- people of German ancestry who brought much of their culture with them and lived in ethnic enclaves within Romania.  Today they are mostly integrated, and you certainly hear more Romanian than German on the streets of Sibiu (though if you only spoke German you could probably get along okay there too).  There are other similar ethnic groups in Romania, most notably the Hungarians -- but unlike the Hungarians, with whom there is still some tension, it seems that the Saxons have always been admired.  The German villages in Romania are cute and tidy, and I have heard Romanian friends say many times, "Well, the Germans can keep their towns clean" -- as if it's something in the blood, or inherent to Germans -- and by association, apparently not inherent to Romanians.  This sucks.  I get it -- I understand where this disappointment and apathy comes from, or at least can guess at a few of its historical sources. But this sort of diminishing of their own history, culture, and national potential that so many Romanians demonstrate, and which appears in SO many forms (brain drain, adoption of Western holidays in place of Romanian ones, low voter turnout, civic disengagement, moving abroad)... it makes me so, so sad.

It makes me sad for two reasons.  One, in the last year I have traveled to a lot of places (nine countries, to be exact, and that's not counting layovers).  And not one of them -- including the United States -- is perfect.  To believe that they are, or even that they are significantly better than here -- is a lie, and bound to disappoint.  They may be fighting different battles, but each place has its own battles to fight.

And two, I love this place.  I love living here.  I am happy here.  Sure, it has its hard moments, but life in Michigan had plenty of hard moments too.  And so I don't like hearing people say that Romania sucks, and I feel a lot of weight about the decision to possibly leave here and go back to the US.  I know that we cannot, by staying, necessarily ascribe value to this place.  But I also wonder if leaving reinforces the message that life was better -- is better -- somewhere else.

I've wandered off the topic of elections by now, I suppose, but in my mind all of this is related.  If Klaus Iohannis wins, I hope and pray he really claims his Romanian-ness and helps people love and believe in a Romania of things well done.  If Victor Ponta or any of the other candidates win, I hope they can also help Romanians feel pride in their country, optimism about the future, and some measure of trust in their own agency.  

That's my prayer for this election.

IMPACT, round two.

We've started our second year (our first full year) of IMPACT this month, and it's already so much better than last time around.

We joined our IMPACT club as leaders in early March 2014.  At the time, the club -- which had traditionally been a club for high school students -- was trying to recruit new members, as its numbers had dwindled.  But somehow they got confused and ended up promoting their club to a class full of fifth graders, who then all showed up.  We started helping as leaders just two weeks before the fifth graders arrived, and the leader who we had come to replace left shortly thereafter -- and so it was chaos, this crazy time of transition in which most of the older members left, exasperated at having their club overrun by a bunch of 12-year-olds.  (And understandably so... some days we felt the same!)

Thankfully, three fabulous junior leaders stuck it out and stayed with us through the painful transition.  The kids, hyper and dysfunctional as they were, did a project that we were really proud of.  And by the time we took a break for the summer, I was almost sorry to see them go.

So in September we had our kickoff, after two months of quiet, and it was wild and fun and encouraging and discouraging, all wrapped into one.  Now we've settled into the regular weekly rhythm of meetings -- every Wednesday from 7 to 9, some Mondays too when we need them -- and it's about the same.  It's almost all the same kids, and we know them better, and they know us.  I care about them more than I thought would be possible... it's just fun to be with them, and I am thankful for that.

And we're better leaders, too.  We have fallen into a better rhythm of meeting ahead of time with our junior leaders, face-to-face instead of just planning over Facebook messages, and that works better and lets us feel more prepared.  Last week the kids made maps of Lupeni representing all the things they thing are strengths and weaknesses of the community.  Tonight they'll do skits acting out the things they think are problems as a way to try and analyze the problems' causes and effects.  After that we'll choose one of the problems and build a service-learning project off of it -- we'll keep you posted on how it goes!  And on Saturday we're heading up to the ropes course, with fingers crossed for good weather, to spend a day bonding as a group.  Or that's what we're hoping for at least.

It just feels less frantic this year.  We still make mistakes in Romanian, and Jack and I still debrief every meeting all the way home, including a lot of, "Um, let's not do that again."  The kids still have attention spans of about 3 minutes before one of them punches another or interrupts or makes a rude joke.  But we're making progress, slowly but surely, and I don't fear going anymore... in fact, I actually look forward to it.

So here's to IMPACT... and to us growing into it as we enter this second year.

A few pictures from the first meetings of the year:

The bistro.

Some of you might know about my secret dream of opening a local food cafe in Lupeni.  I'm a little obsessed with the idea, though still in the dreamy-wouldn't-it-be-great way, not the getting-down-to-business way.  We'll see if it progresses.

But!  Those of you who have heard me ramble on about my love for little restaurants will understand my excitement about this new arrival in Lupeni: the Passage Bistro!  (I know, the name is weird.)  It's a small little restaurant that just opened last week in an old children's clothing store that had gone out of business, and it's about halfway from our apartment to the office.  It's smoky and plays Kiss FM music videos too loudly for my taste, but I am still thrilled that it's here.  (And only in small part because they serve fabulous eggplant salad and warm naan-like bread for an amazingly cheap price... though yes, that's part of it.)

The Bistro is exciting to me because it's a sign of hope.  It's a sign of investment in a community that so often has people shaking their heads in doubt at its future prospects.  I am not one to think that micro-business and economic growth are the magic tickets to a flourishing community -- but after living here for the last year and a half, I have become a firm subscriber to the idea that economic opportunities are an absolutely vital part of holistic and sustainable community growth.  So many kids have told us that their goal is to move away someday, and when we press them on why, it almost always comes down to one thing: there aren't jobs here.  (And it's boring.  But I think those two usually go hand-in-hand.)

So the Bistro is, to me, this tiny, smoke-wreathed, noisy beacon of hope.  The food isn't amazing, and it's not the coziest place I've ever seen, but it's a bit more modern than the other two restaurants in this town of 20,000 people.  It brings the total options for a date night up to three.  (Woohoo!)  It, along with the Chill Lounge that opened last year (yeah, the names, I know) are these little enterprises that bring people together over food and drink and offer them somewhere fun, something to do, somewhere to work, somewhere to go.

The Bistro also seems to be sparking some good ol' capitalist competition, which is kind-of fun to observe.  There are a few places in town that aren't restaurants but do serve delivery lunches -- the "meniu zilei" (menu of the day) brought to your door in a styrofoam takeout container.  Usually they contain soup, four rolls (!), a hearty main course of meat and potatoes or some equivalent, a small side salad, and a little dessert.  The price range is usually around 12 lei, or about $3.50.  It's a popular thing at our office, and probably elsewhere too.  The companies leave printed leaflets in apartment stairwells with the week's menu and a phone number, and you can call and have them deliver any time of day.

Well, recently the Bistro's meniu zilei flyer also arrived in our office stairwell, and soon there were flyers from other companies posted next to it.  And then, next thing you know, they're both offering "economic portions" for those who don't want such an enormous lunch.  (The current race for bargains is between Noemi, which offers a smaller lunch for 8 lei, including dessert, and the Bistro for 9.50 with no dessert.  I am watching to see if the Bistro ups its game and cuts its price next week... or adds dessert...!)  I'm not hoping for some sort of race to the bottom, and I can't imagine that the companies selling their lunches for such tiny sums are making a big enough profit margin to pay their employees fabulous salaries, so this is certainly not the most perfect case study.  But regardless, it's fun to watch, and exciting to see these sparks of entrepreneurship in a town that so desperately need them.

Plus, it's a good reason to go out for lunch.