Six months.

Today is July 9 -- and six months ago exactly, we were landing in the Bucharest airport, hesitatingly gathering our mound of luggage and searching out the face of Steve Michmerhuizen, a smiling West Michigan expat who we'd never met before.  He greeted us warmly, finding us easily in the small crowd of arrivals, and ushered us to a hotel amidst the bitter cold Romanian night.  That first 24 hours in Romania remains a blur: dinner in the heart of Bucharest, a long conversation with Diana (who has since become our supervisor and friend), and a night of deep, exhausted, dreamless sleep before a long drive across the country to Lupeni.

It seems so long ago that we were dragging our tired selves up the stairs for the first time to dear little Apartment Lucy, unpacking and arranging and cleaning and hanging things on the wall.  Our three months of study in Târgu Mureş also seem like ages ago -- the first hesitant meetings with our fabulous language teachers, the long evening walks up the city's immense hills, the many hours of flashcards and vocabulary practice in miscellaneous cafes, the Sundays full of church and friends and way too many crepes.  And now we've been in Lupeni for almost three full months, and work with FNO is starting to feel familiar, and life is slowing from the frantic excitement of everything new to the calmer rhythms of life in a place that's becoming home.

Yet at the same time, it feels like not long ago at all that we were giving tear-stained hugs to my mom and sister at the Minneapolis airport; those tears still surface now and then and remind me of the heartache of leaving.  It seems not so long ago that we were building snowmen with the Bradford girls on the retaining wall that Jack helped Nate build.  It seems not long ago at all that we were eating breakfast at Brandywine, and visiting our friends in East Hills and Alger Heights, and commuting to work via bicycle from our little apartment on Calkins.  We've been gone for six months, and life looks different for us now.  We still grow herbs and tomatoes and invite people over to eat them with us.  We still go running and hiking off the beaten path as often as we can.  We still are married, and happily so.  Six months in, I am happy here.  I feel useful here.  It is beautiful here, and the people and work and natural world around us fill me with joy and purpose, and I am glad we came.  We've missed a lot in six months -- weddings of dear friends, the growing-up of our little neighbors, the transition and healing of our church community, graduations and milestones in the lives of our siblings.  But we've gained a lot, too, as all the stories on this blog and in our journals and our memories now attest to.  

So that's that, I guess.  We've lived in Romania for six months.  That's amazing.  Please keep praying.  We love you all. 

Baptisms and dance parties.

Ordinarily I think of American infant baptisms as short, sweet, and to-the-point.  At least in my experience, the ceremony was always pretty simple: the parents carry their swaddled child to the front of the church, the biological and church family promise to raise the child in the faith, and the pastor prays and dribbles water on the infant's head, after which the startled, screaming baby is paraded through the sanctuary to the sighs and ahhs of the congregants.  Afterwards there's sometimes cake and more cooing over the little one, but in general that's about it.  It's a welcome to the family of faith, a powerful symbol of the way God chooses us before we can ever choose Him -- but it's not usually, in my experience, all that celebratory.  Perhaps I'm just not very sensitive, not having any children of my own -- but it always has seemed to me that the welcoming of a new baby into the family of God deserves a big ol' party, where everyone comes and dances and sings and eats and celebrates the promise and hope of this new life.

Well, on Sunday we did just that.  One of our coworkers at FNO, Andreea, had recently had a baby girl named Teodora (Teia for short), and on Sunday she was baptized into the Orthodox church.  It was an intricate ceremony, one I need to do some reading on to understand.  Romanian Orthodox baptisms involve the godparents heavily, while the parents simply observe -- it was the godmother who held Teodora throughout the entire service, except for when little Teia was taken by the priest around the front of the sanctuary, to bow in reverence before the icons of Jesus and the apostles.  The baby is brought in wearing frilly, fancy baptism clothes, but all the clothes (even the diaper) are removed for the moment of baptism itself, which involves the baby being totally submerged or, in this case, being held over a basin while an entire pitcher of water is dumped over her entire body.  (No little sprinkle-and-dab in this case!)  Then the baby is laid back down and dressed in new, white clothes -- symbolic of the "new creation" that he or she becomes with baptism into the family of God.  Before being dressed, the priest dabs oil on the baby's chest, forehead, ears, shoulders, and feet, symbolizing the protection and anointing of God over every part of the child.  Once re-dressed, the priest carefully snips hair from the child's head as an offering to God, also symbolizing the way that God knows and numbers every hair of our heads; this lock of hair is given to the family and kept as a remembrance for years.  And eventually, the priest takes the baby and brings her to the altar, to the front of the church which is, in Orthodox churches, the holy place, and sets her gently down to rest.  Only after the child is laid gently at the feet of Jesus, symbolically, is the baptism over.  The father swooped in to pick up Teodora, many pictures were taken, and there was much rejoicing.  (Here's a link to a liturgy if you want to read more.)

We headed straight from the baptism to a local restaurant, where Andreea had arranged a party to celebrate little Teia's baptism.  It was decorated like a wedding: white gauze draped the stairs, white cloths covered each chair, and pink bows and butterflies decorated the table.  There was an abundance of food and a DJ, who gently teased people into dancing.  We ate and ate and ate, first full plates of meats and cheeses and vegetables, then -- an hour or two later -- sarmale and mamaliga, the famous, delicious, traditional Romanian stuffed cabbage rolls and polenta, topped with a thick sour cream.  In between we sampled from big bowls of fresh cherries and apricots and nectarines, juicy and delicious, dripping down our chins, and drank homemade wine from grapes and brandy from summer cherries.  There was a beautiful cake, bedecked in pink and purple, sparklers burning merrily on top while we sang the Romanian birthday song to Teia in jubilant voices.  And we danced -- bobbing and twisting, some of us terrible, grandparents holding little Teodora adoringly as they swayed to the music, the younger crowd moving sexily to the beat, everyone joining in the circle and clasping hands for the traditional Romanian hora, little kids spinning and running through the dance floor for the sheer joy of it.  When I eventually left at around 9:30pm, the pork and potatoes and cabbage salad course was still coming, and the music was still playing.  Oh, what a Romanian party: eating and dancing, laughing and teasing, celebrating and supporting and loving.  What a baptism.  What a joyful celebration... a big ol' party.

Welcome to the family, Teodora.

The FNO women, Briana, and Teodora!

The beautiful, beautiful Orthodox church.

Accidental sunsets.

So, yesterday we missed our first train.

It was dumb, really.  My aunt Teresa had come to visit for a few days, and after spending time together in the Jiu Valley she was on her way to Sighișoara, a lovely historic city about 6 hours northeast of Lupeni, where she was intending to visit the internship program for the college where she works.  We had intended to drive her to Deva, the county seat (notorious in our lives for being the city where we have to go for our visas... but that's a story for another post), and then get her on a train heading to Copşa Mică, a tiny town just outside Sighișoara, where she would be picked up by her next host.  But... that didn't happen.

We got to Deva an hour early and decided to eat lunch at a restaurant relatively close to the train station.  The food took quite a while to come, so eventually Teresa and I left to make sure we'd catch her train, leaving Jack behind to take the food to go.  We speed-walked back to the station, rushing so as not to miss it, hoping Jack would also show up before she pulled away.  There was a train waiting on line 1, but we had been told hers would be on line 4, so we sat down to wait.  Just to be sure, I asked a few people on the train if they were heading towards Sighișoara.  They all said no.

The train left, and another train came, this one clearly marked and not heading in our direction.  Jack showed up with our sandwiches, and we sat on the platform and waited for another 45 minutes, feeding crumbs to the pigeons and chatting.  Finally I went and asked the ticket lady if the train was coming soon.  "It left," she said, looking at me askance.  "I saw you walk by and assumed you were getting on it.  It's already gone."  I was a bit astonished, and said we hadn't seen a train on track 4, and the people I'd asked on the first train had said it wasn't going to Sighișoara.  "It moved to track 1," she said.  And then I realized that the train doesn't go on to Sighișoara anyway -- it detours around it, which is why Teresa was getting picked up in a tiny village outside the city.  I felt really dumb.  I thanked the lady and walked back to Teresa and Jack, who were waiting expectantly on the platform.  "We missed it," I admitted.

It's another three hours by car from Deva to Copşa Mică, but we couldn't think of an alternative, so we decided to just drive there.  We were a bit worried about the FNO van, which is beloved but really old and clunky, but it did fine.  In fact, we arrived in Copşa Mică right on time, beating the train Teresa would have ridden, enjoying the gorgeous scenery of Transylvania along the way.  But then it was 6:30, and Jack and I still had to drive home.  We looked at the map and decided to change our route, taking what looked like the most direct path: west through Blaj and Alba Iulia, then straight south from Sebeş, turning west again into the Jiu Valley when we got close to Petroşani.  Simple, right?  Wrong.

As it turns out, the road that goes straight south from Sebeş is the Transalpina.  I've wanted to drive the Transalpina since I was first in Romania three years ago -- it's a famous, beautiful, winding road through the mountains, known throughout Europe as a "must-see" scenic drive.  But we didn't exactly mean to drive the Transalpina in the clunky old FNO van, at the end of what had become a 10-hour drive, in the dark.  Whoops.

That said, it was gorgeous.  Absolutely gorgeous.  There's a huge lake called Oașa partway through the road, and we somehow managed to get there around sunset.  It was breathtaking.  There were low, misty clouds curling their way among the pine-covered mountains; the road twisted and turned below towering stone cliffs; small waterfalls tumbled down out of thickly forested hills.  It was lovely -- a perfect picture of Transylvania.  The road itself was less lovely -- pristine, well-maintained highway for a while, then suddenly punctuated every 800 meters with a 30-meter-long stretch of unpaved, pothole-ridden gravel.  The last 25 kilometers from the Transalpina to Petroşani were a nightmare of potholes and boulders, and took us at least an hour of jolting and shifting and praying and bouncing.  But we made it.  We got home a bit before midnight and collapsed into bed, exhausted... and now we have some beautiful pictures to share. 

Enjoy.

One of the enormous dams along the Transalpina.

Sometimes, when the mountains were lower, there would be farms perched halfway up the slope.

 Lake Oașa

An accidental sunset.

Cows.

So.  The other day I wrote a brief post about the animals we live with here (I omitted the mosquitoes, by the way, but they're also here in force... more on that some other time).  But today, another post about animals, because today they rebelled.

Jack and I were walking home from work, around 6pm, when suddenly we heard the clanging of bells and the bellowing of cows.  From the area around the apartment bloc we live in came a herd of about 8 cows, walking speedily and bellowing fiercely, glowering at we pesky humans walking down the sidewalk.  They crossed onto the road next, and proceeded to strut down it like they owned the place, causing cars and maxi taxis to honk and swerve wildly to avoid them... 'cause these cows were NOT moving.

We watched and laughed until they were out of sight, their bells ringing in the distance.  I have no idea whose cows they were, but they were definitely not being herded.  I kept waiting for some old man to leap up from a nap in the shade and go racing after them, but it didn't happen.  Instead, the cows just strutted off into the sunset.

Oh, Romania.  How I love thee.

Wildlife.

The other evening, Jack and I were walking back home at about 10:30pm from meeting with some new European volunteers (and talking animatedly about Berlusconi and Italian politics, Spanish unemployment and corruption, and the American Congress and President Obama -- it was quite the evening.)  Anyway.  As we were walking back along the main street, we heard the street dogs start to bark.  We looked over at the source of the commotion and saw, to our great astonishment, about 10 unbridled horses, walking slowly out of the dark and mist along the train tracks, grazing on the grass along the city streets.  The horses seemed unfazed by the street dogs, who quickly gave up barking at this strange sight and returned to their slumber on shop stoops and under dumpsters.  But Jack and I stood there in awe, watching these ghostly horses just wander around Lupeni's main street, nibbling delicately at the grass that grows in the cracked sidewalk.  Strange.  So strange.  We have no idea where they came from, whose they are, and where they went.  We had never seen them before, and haven't seen them since.  Strange.

But that's not the only mildly-amusing wildlife we see here in Lupeni.  Our five-minute walk to work from our apartment brings us past a small pasture where there are usually at least 3 or 4 cows (this is in the middle of town, I might remind you), and about twice a week we also pass an elderly man who is tending his flock of goats, which are grazing on the grass behind the flower shop and next to the bridge.  Daily we hear the jingle-and-clap of a horse-drawn cart making its way down the main street, loaded with farmers and their products, cars and trucks weaving around it.  And when we go running, we often have to stop to make way for a flock of sheep which are trundling their way noisily down the road or path, guided by a shepherd, baaing and mewing loudly.  The other day while running we scared a pig wandering down the road, which snorted and sprinted back into its fence when it saw us.  And of course, there are the street dogs.  Enough said.

In other words... we love living here.

The view.

This weekend, to celebrate our first anniversary (!!) Jack and I went to Parâng, just outside of Petroșani, to do some hiking and spend a day away.  It was lovely.  We live in a lovely place.  So here are a few of the pictures... because Romania is absolutely, jaw-droppingly beautiful.

I think Romanian farms are just idyllic.

Like I said... idyllic.

 Farms, again.  Doesn't this make you want to live here?

 Down in the valley, off in the distance, you can see Lupeni, where we live.

You can't see it well, but that mountain has a flock of sheep grazing on it...

Apă.

So.  Today we are working from home, sitting at our kitchen table with our laptops and books and papers, accompanied by a chorus of drills and pounding and cigarette smoke and dust.  Why, you might ask?  Well, that's a long story.

Our first week in Lupeni, there was no water in the FNO office.  No water to flush with, none to make coffee with, none to wash dirty dishes with.  The water gets turned off occasionally here, so the staff was prepared, with big gallons of water stored in jugs in the bathroom for all of those purposes.  But this time the water outage lasted a week, and we soon found out that the reason was because, according to the water company, "No one in the building pays their water bills."  FNO does pay the water bill, though, and has records to prove it.  But for some reason, our water got shut off too -- and apparently, the only solution was to install new pipes that went only to our office, so that the water company could keep track of our water usage independently.  So on our third day of work, the drilling and pounding began, disrupting the entire office and covering the bathroom and various other rooms with a thin layer of dust.  But it worked, and the water is back on in the office again, and we have our own pipes.  It seems wildly inefficient to me (and even the Romanians in our office thought it was a weird situation), and it caused a really unnecessary expense for FNO to have to put in new pipes because of the water company's disorganization or mismanagement or corruption (no one is really sure what the cause is).  But we thought it was over, and that was that.

Wrong.

Over the past three weeks, our bloc administrator has been knocking on our door periodically to come and read our water meters.  Ordinarily we report our water usage at the end of each month so he can bill the apartments in the building appropriately for their part of the building's total consumption.  But the numbers weren't adding up, and he wasn't sure what the problem was -- so he was going from apartment to apartment, reading meters to check that they were working and that no one was spinning them backwards, trying to get to the source of the problem.  Last week he told us something about a leak they'd discovered in the basement, and a day later there were men down there fixing something -- so we thought it had been fixed and the questions would be over.  But we were wrong again.

On Friday we found out that someone in our building has accused us (FNO, Americans, our apartment and all its past occupants, I'm not sure who exactly) of stealing water, cheating so as to make our consumption look lower.  So today we're at home all day, hanging out while two repairmen install new pipes that go only to our apartment.  They have to drill new holes in the walls, run new pipes all the way up from the basement (we live on the top floor), and then run them all the way from the bathroom to the kitchen (which are on opposite sides of the apartment).  It's a mess.  It smells.  It looks tacky, with all these extra pipes running along near our ceiling.  And it makes me sad... and to be honest, a little mad.

I know that under Communism, people in Romania learned not to trust their neighbors.  I know that problems of the commons like this often result in someone getting scapegoated.  I know that this apartment hasn't been permanently occupied for many years, usually only hosting semester students for a couple months in the fall and then sitting empty all spring.  I know that we're foreigners, and involved in the work of an NGO that still confuses many people in this community.  I know all this, so I'm trying not to take it too personally.  But I'm mad that there's no, well, justice, no chance for us to stick up for ourselves, no chance for us to talk with our neighbors all together and figure out what's really going on.  I'm irritated to have to pay the 544 lei to install new pipes when it's not our fault, that we're "guilty until proven innocent," that our apartment is now in shambles and covered in dust and plaster and we have to clean it all up.  I'm sad that the drilling and noise has probably annoyed and inconvenienced our neighbors all day, our neighbors who apparently don't trust us even though we really want to develop good relationships with them... or at least be respectful, cordial acquaintances.

And I (Jack now) am most sad that this accusation happened in such a secretive, roundabout way.  It's like when there's graffiti on the bathroom stall and the whole class gets a slight punishment for it, and then afterwards someone (you don't know who, it could be a few people, it could just be one classmate with a grudge from last year) tells the teacher that you did it. Or maybe not even the teacher. Maybe he told the janitor, and it somehow got over to you eventually that you're considered guilty, but you don't know who else thinks you are, because nobody's going to tell you... it sucks.
Now's our chance to see how grace covers a multitude of sins.

But hey.  (This is Kelly again.)  At least we got the chance to make coffee for the guys who came to install our pipes and chat with them about America.  And the pipes don't look so bad after all, though the styrofoam stuffing in the holes isn't the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.  And we got a day to munch on snacks and work from home, so I'll be thankful for that.  And I know that we don't have it bad -- at all -- so I'll stop complaining about this very small injustice, put it back in perspective, and keep smiling at our neighbors and hope and pray that slowly, slowly, we'll win them with love.