How Are You?

How many times a day do you think you ask the question, "How are you?" I'd estimate at least 20: every phone call you make, each coworker you see, and don't forget the barista at Starbucks.

Well, after being in Romania almost a year, you would think I would be proficient at such a simple question. The problem is that the question "How are you?" literally translates to "What are you doing?"

It's an acceptable answer to say that you're doing well, but it is much more common for people to explain exactly what they are doing at that moment. For example, people will tell you they're at work (while you're talking to them in the teacher's lounge), they'll tell you they're talking (meaning to you), and they'll even tell you they're in the bathroom if you happen to meet them while washing your hands. I still haven't figured out what I'm supposed to say in response to their answer..."Wow! That's funny, I'm in the bathroom, too!"

For a while I thought of the question as an equivalent of "What's up?" In the States the most common answer to that is, of course, "Nothing!" But, here you're met with blank stares or open shock, as if to say "How could you be doing nothing? Did you stop breathing?"


Then yesterday, the inevitable happened. I asked someone "What are you doing today?" expecting them to tell me their plans for the day. But what response did I get? "Good!"

Pugs in Pașcani

Sorry, this post isn't about the Pug dog, but a local graffiti artist (or criminal depending on your viewpoint). I've seen the tags all over town for a while & decided to head out for a photo shoot the other day. It's tough to represent a city in photos, but here is a bit of Pașcani through one lens on one day.

Mărțișor: The First of March

Mărțișor from Our Students

Today Romanians celebrate the beginning of spring with the holiday of Mărțișor. It is an ancient holiday based on a legend about the beginning of spring. On this holiday people exchange small trinkets with red and white ribbons. The trinkets provide good luck and ward off evil. The colors signify the unity between contrasts: summer and winter, cold and hot, light and dark.

Ladybugs are particularly lucky!

Handmade from paper

Hand crocheted

The Legend of Mărțișor (thanks to Raluca from the Peace Corps Romania office for providing this)
Legend has it that hundreds of years ago an old woman by the name of Dochia had a daughter-in-law whom she hated. One cold day in late winter, Dochia gave her some black wool and told her to go to the river in the mountains and wash it until it was pure white. The young woman was afraid of her mother-in-law. So she went to the river and spent hours washing the wool in freezing water. For all her efforts, the wool remained pitch black. The young woman began to cry. Suddenly, a man appeared before her. He told her his name was Mărțișor. "Why are you crying?" he asked the young woman. After hearing her story, Mărțișor said he had magic powers to help her. He gave the young woman a red and white flower. He told her to wash the wool one more time and then take it home. The young woman put the flower behind her ear, washed the wool, and carried it home on her head.

When she got home and looked at the wool, she was speechless. The wool was white as snow. Old Dochia couldn't believe her eyes either. She had been sure her daughter-in-law would never be able to wash the wool white. Suddenly, she noticed the flower in her daughter-in-law's hair. "Where did this come from?" she asked. "It’s still winter." The young woman then explained how Mărțișor had helped her. Old Dochia started jeering at her daughter-in-law. She did not believe a single word of it but thought instead that spring had already come to the mountains.

Old Dochia owned a herd of sheep and decided it was probably time to take the animals to the spring pasture in the mountains. She took a dozen sheepskins to keep herself warm on the way. It was a warm and sunny day when old Dochia set off but freezing rain started in the mountains when she got there. Old Dochia changed her coats one by one as they got wet. When she had to take the last coat off, Mărțișor suddenly appeared before her. "How does it feel to be standing here in the freezing rain?" he asked. "You didn't think it was too cold for your daughter-in-law to wash wool in the river all day long, did you?" He then told old Dochia that he was responsible for the weather changes that had caused her so much trouble. Mărțișor disappeared. Old Dochia was left alone in the mountains. The sheep wandered away. The old woman froze to death and turned into stone. All of this had been the work of Mărțișor. It was after old Dochia turned into stone that spring finally came.

Very Superstitious

One thing that is most interesting about living in another country is that we can clearly see superstitions everywhere. There are a few superstitions that Americans have in common with Romania (such as a black cat crossing your path and spilling salt), which I find to be very intriguing. I wonder where these belief systems come from and how they live on. Another strange thing we have noticed is that Romanians from different parts of the country do not necessarily agree on these superstitions, even to the point where they are completely opposite.

• The most prominent one is curent - basically everyone we have met believes that this is science. It's a breeze that can cause everything from fevers to toothaches. Here's a great article from The Telegraph that explains it much better than I can: Where Draughts Are Truly Dangerous. The  article fails to mention that you can prevent the dangers of curent by putting cotton in your ears.
• Depending on the part of the country, a woman can't leave the house after her baby is born until:
• the baby is baptized
• for 7 days
• for 7 weeks!
• If you break a drinking glass or break a dish, it is good luck
• If you step in dog poop, it is good luck
• If you leave something at home and go back for it, it is bad luck
• If you see a priest on the street, it can either be good or bad luck depending on where you live
• You should put red on a baby after baptism
• Breaking a window is bad luck
• Spilling pepper is bad luck
• Instead of crossing your fingers for luck, you hold your fists tightly
• If your right palm itches, you will give money away. If your left itches, you will receive money (or opposite depending on the part of the country)
• If your right eye twitches, someone is saying good things about you; if your left eye twitches,  they are saying bad things
• If your nose itches on the outside, you are in conflict with someone; if it itches on the inside, you've got good luck
• If you hiccup, someone is talking about you
• Breaking the heel of your shoe is bad luck
• Putting your clothing on inside-out is bad luck
• If you put your bag or purse on the floor, you will lose money
• Women who sit at the corner of a table will not get married
• You should have money in your pocket on New Year's Eve to have a prosperous year
• You have to wear red underwear on New Year's Eve
• On New Year's, you should eat garlic, fish, lentils and grapes
• Finding a horseshoe is good luck, and so is hanging one over the door of your house, but you have to hang it like a "U" so that the luck doesn't fall out
• Giving an even number of flowers is bad luck, because you give an even number at a funeral
• If you give a wallet as a gift, you should put a small amount of money in it so that the recipient is prosperous
• If you have a headache, someone may be speaking ill of you. You should light a match and use it to make the sign of the cross. Then put the match out in a glass of water. Do this three times. Then throw the water out. If the matches are thrown out with the water, the person wasn't actually speaking ill of you. If they stay in the glass, you have cursed the person speaking ill of you
• Many horses have red baubles hanging near their faces to bring good luck
• If you sweep under a girl's feet, she won't get married
• If the bride steps on the grooms foot on their wedding day, then she will wear the pants in the family
• If a boy wears a necklace, he'll marry an old woman
• If you refill a woman's glass of alcohol before she is finished, her children will stutter
• For a funeral procession in the country, you put drinking glasses and buckets in the wells for children to throw coins into
• If your bucket comes up empty from the well, you will have bad luck
• If a woman walks barefoot or sits on something cold, she can freeze her ovaries and won't be able to have children

Voroneț Monastery

Some of the most sublime features in our region of Romania are the painted monasteries of Bucovina. Back in July we visited the Voroneț Monastery, built in 1488, during the reign of Ștefan cel Mare. The exterior paintings were done during his son's reign in the mid 1500s. The west wall is the most amazing, in its nearly perfect state of preservation. The paint itself is only a fraction of a millimeter thick, and the beautiful blue color cannot be exactly reproduced to this day. The recipe for Voroneț blue and the explanation for its preserved state are both deep mysteries. Some might even call them miracles. The west wall tells the story of judgement day. You can see the white, Christian Romanians going to heaven, and the dark-skinned Islamic Turks being judged harshly. In fact the monastery was built to celebrate a successful battle in the region. There are many parts of this fresco that I do not understand. There are animals who look like they have eaten humans, with body parts hanging out of their mouths. There are people dressed in something like a mummy wrap in square boxes or boats. There is a scene with an octopus and a whale, with a giant human holding a large ship. There is also a curious mixture of astrology with zodiac symbols across the top of the scene. This single fresco seems rich enough in its symbolism for a PhD thesis. Something to do after the Peace Corps?

Fieni

The computer I use to edit photos has been out of service for a while, but it's back in business. Now I just have a backlog of over 6,000 photos to go through. For those of you complaining that I'm not taking enough pictures, it's definitely not that. The problem seems to be just the opposite! Here are a few new ones from our trip to București and Fieni. We were welcoming our fellow volunteer Jon back from a trip to the U.S.

 

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas! Some of our best experiences included:

Christmas Morning in Pascani

1) Christmas concert performed by 30 local priests.

Colinde by the Priests

2) Visits from volunteers Stephen, Anthony, Abby, and Aran.

3) Carolers on Christmas Eve, including two groups of Theron's students.

12A Stops by to Sing

4) Anthony's spaghetti sauce, which ended up feeding all of us for a week.

5) Decorating our Christmas tree with popcorn garland made by Theron and Anthony, and ornaments made by my 3rd graders. (The 3rd graders win.)

6) Christmas "breakfast" at the Judele's house including pork roast and sausage, fresh from the slaughter, and lots of homemade alcohol starting at 9:00 a.m.

Anthony, Theron, Stephen, Lucia, Sarah, Mădălina & Cristi

7) Traditional Moldovan Christmas meal (including răcitură, a meat jello) prepared by one of Theron's counterparts and her husband.

Răcitură!

8) Party for St. Stephen's Day which is the name day of Theron's principal's husband. "Name days" or "saint days" are like second birthdays based your name and the Orthodox calendar.

9) Seeing mini "parades" of people in traditional costumes playing traditional music, or in goat and bear costumes dancing.

A Christmas Parade

10) Knowing that New Year's is celebrated for three days and we still have two more weeks of vacation!