After the first year of service, I moved to a new apartment that had been occupied by a former Volunteer. She had left in one of the closets a few blankets. Another Volunteer in Arad and I decided to bring those blankets to a very poor family that...
My school held a celebration dinner for International Women's Day, March 8th. Women's Day is a big deal in Romania. I enjoyed the dinner and dancing, after which a friend took this picture showing me and students in traditional costumes. My...
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,...
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...
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...
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...
I was teaching Conversational English in two high schools, one was Colegiul Baptist. This picture was at the teacher's cafeteria of Colegiul National Elena Ghiba-Birta in Arad, the then director of the school Doamna Iegariu poses for the camera in...
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...
As a Peace Corps volunteer, I took part in the annual Somlyo pilgrimage. "Ave Maria" echoed through the high mountain valley as it has every Pentecost for 440 years. Horsemen in wool Hussars uniforms, cardinals in jewel-tone robes and peasant...
Peace Corps volunteer Ferris Badge and I took on an additional project of teaching preschool. My primary assignment was in the high school, and Ferris worked with an eco-club. With our most advanced class, we ended every session singing the Barney...
The four Peace Corps volunteers in my little Romanian mountain town of Balan teamed up for a middle school English club, "English Friendship Club," as named by the students. We hosted weekly meetings and a once-a-month themed party. In February,...
I took this photo in the fall of 2003 at the annual dance festival and competition that takes place each year in Giurgiu, Romania to celebrate the harvest.
In August 2007, a group of Peace Corps Volunteers across Romania converged on Sovata, Ro., in Transylvania for a week-long journalism camp. Here Volunteer Matt Zdon helps students prepare articles for the camp newspaper.
This is part of the market portrait photos. (This all began early after I started to work for an orphanage as an arts and crafts instructor/ English teacher. I would buy my fruits, cheese, vegetables and bread at the local "piața" or market. In...