Ashley Lauren: Viaţa în România la TRM

(Life in Romania at Tanner Romania Mission)

Well as I wrote in my last post I am currently living and working in Nicoresti, Romania at Tanner Romania Mission. The mission is split up into 4 separate houses. Casa Hannah is where the 8 children with the most severe disabilities live, Casa Rachel houses the 12 boys, Casa Elizabeta is home to the 8 girls, and Casa Miriam which is where Tata Bruce and Mama Sandie live. As I mentioned before I live in and work at Casa Elizabeta. My 'workdays' are Monday through Friday from 9am-5pm giving me the weekends to myself to do what I like in and around this hopping village...basically means a taxi trip to Tecuci 20 minutes away via car for pizza in the park or wandering through the markets, a walk to the semi-nearby store or post-office in town, or a bike ride up to the vineyards that overlook the village or down the main road (the only gravel road) 8km to a line of tents selling fruit to buy watermelons-Last weekend I went with Kirstie, the other volunteer here, and having the intentions of buying only 1 watermelon for 3 lei (about $1), I accidentally ended up with 3 for that price! It was all laughs until we realized we had to bike them all the way back to Casa Elizabeta...but I still think it was well worth it and we are still enjoying those watermelons (and have even gone back for more since...4 more in fact).

Having been here for 2 weeks now I can honestly say that while I was feeling useless and frustrated at first, I am now truly enjoying myself- loving waking up every morning knowing that there are 8 girls upstairs awaiting seeing me come through the kitchen to say 'Buna Dimineata' with my funny accent (Good Morning). Other than almost constantly laughing and joking around with the girls trying to get a smile or good laugh from them, our days are filled with chores and sorts of work. The motto here is 'nu manca, nu masa' (no work, no food) to encourage the girls to remember nothing in life comes free and mostly I think to give them stuff to do to pass the days. We have been hanging and taking down the laundry almost daily, sweeping falling leaves from the paths in the garden (Yes! falling leaves!!! As a Californian girl this is my first experience of true seasons!), picking the last of the produce from the garden to jar and store for winter such as peppers, onions and grapes, gather and crack bundles and bundles of walnuts (I am thankful we finally finished this task and my fingers are sufficiently sore...), go on walks to the other houses or to the local store so that they can spend their money on candy or a shirt or shoes (each of the girls gets a wage according to what her work duties are, for example 2 of the girls work in other houses helping with the cleaning a few mornings a week so they get paid much more than some others) as well as throwing in some fun when all the chores are done. Adina loves to play school and have me teach her English words, she is helping me very much to learn Romanian and is always correcting my pronunciation...Virginica loves to sway on the swings for hours at a time and always welcomes company to hum along with her or whistle. Rodica and Cataline love to get out of the house and walk down the dirt road a few km and back to the corner to pick flowers for the Romanian house woman on staff working that shift, and also to sit in the living room listening to music on the TV. Tina is always asking me to take pictures of her around the yard, I have had to limit her to a certain number of pictures every few days as I already have more pictures of her than I know what to do with. Anca goes to school for a few hours every morning but when around and in good weather she is quick to start us all on the seesaw in the front yard and to ask many questions as her English is very good (she is the youngest at only 16). Maricica is one who I know I can always joke around with as we take turns 'tripping' each other in the yard and hiding behind corners to pop out and scare each other, whenever I get her good she just repeats "why me? why me?' so I finally got Adina to teach me that in Romanian so whenever I see her I just say 'De ce ma, de ce ma?'. And lastly, but certainly not least is Marianna who taught me the alphabet and to count in sign language as well as some animals my first few days and loves to have her hair braided and to listen to me talk about my family and friends, but recently has been introduced to the world wide web. Mama Sandie asked me to teach her how to type and open her up a facebook account and email account two days ago...after some initial hesitation and the slow process of learning how the computer works, I haven't been able to get that girl away from the computer and even then it is only for food. She LOVEs typing and being able to communicate that way as she understands both English and Romanian very well and I would guess is fluent in each but due to her disability is unable to talk. I have never in all of my life seen anyone so excited after typing their first words or writing on someone's fb wall for the first time, it was and is awesome! Well those are my girls whom I have been loving getting to know and can't wait to get to know them even better in these coming 5 weeks.

I guess that is all the exciting bits I have for now. It has been very nice to be settled in once place for a while and to have my backpack stored under my bed for a bit, as well as continual (in good weather) internet access-such a blessing.

There should be more stories coming soon as I leave for a quick 1 night trip to Constanta on the Black Sea coast tomorrow just after midnight for my two days off with Kirstie (should be quite the adventure including a train, a minibus taxi, rainy weather forecast, and a beautiful beach so far) and Halloween is around the corner thus all the kids are a-buzz with what they want to be and talking about costumes, and also tomorrow is the October birthday celebration. Because there are so many kids, they celebrate all of the birthdays of a month at once having one bag party(the first Saturday of the month) opposed to having a party for each individual on that specific day....though the house that the child lives in will celebrate as well on their actually birthday day. Unfortunately they do not celebrate volunteers' birthdays here so I will not get to have a 'seat of honor' tomorrow...but I hear there will be cake and games for all...

Some pictures of what my life has been-

Casa Elizabeta from afar on one of my many walks with the girls, surrounded on all sides by cornfields. Yes, Casa Elizabeta is in fact painted blue and gold, perfect for a UCLA alumnus: