Just after visiting my first commemoration of the dead ceremony at the local Romanian Orthodox biserica, the bunica, who literally lives, works, eats and sleeps in her bucataria, gave me a plate of homemade goodness, a lovely bunch of garden...
A first ever for Campia Turzii, Romania, my students from two middle schools presented the play after hours of rehearsal, costume selection, and set design. I directed it and as a Peace Corps Volunteer in my second year now, it was a sweet way to...
A long hike up to the stana where George and his family tend the sheep (over 400 of them) for many in the village of Brusturoasa, Romania. He invited myself and a friend to see how that delicious commodity, "branza in coaja de brad", is made. ...
Myself and another volunteer (who just finished her service along with two Hungarian ladies- now friends) spent time to teach and entertain over 40 children for a summer camp in near St. Gheorghe. We had such a great time, but after all the...
One of the true wonders of the Peace Corps is how the lives of two people from a world apart can become so intertwined in such a short amount of time. In August 2005, this man – my counterpart – arrived at a Peace Corps conference to escort me...
They say there are two things you don’t want to see made: laws and sausages. Having seen both processes, I can say truthfully that sausage-making gets a bad reputation. Here, the patriarch of Istrate family packs some freshly ground pork from...
As part of Easter festivities, the residents of Cudalbi, Romania color eggs and compete in bouts of egg cracking. One participant issues the challenge by raising his egg and announcing, “Christ has come.” Accepting the challenge, the other...
Ștefan cel Mare stands as the preeminent hero for the Moldavian region of Romania. He successfully repelled the Ottoman Empire. He built a church or monastery in commemoration of each military victory. The Pope even declared him to be a...
Here are the sweets before the party this March 1st which I made for my Romanian and Hungarian colleagues to share with me and commemorate the miliestone of Peace Corps birthday. Twenty of them came and helped me decorate, too. We also had...
After an English lesson about our solar system, campers used everyday objects to make a 3-D model for a team competition. This veteran Peace Corps Volunteer just loves science and on this day, we learned about the weather, astronomy, and anatomy,...