TravelStream™ news feed for member uzbekland_okie on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/uzbekland_okie en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Fri, 09 Jun 2006 14:19:28 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/romania/1140887280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/romania/1140887280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/romania/1140887280/tpod.html Fri, 09 Jun 2006 14:19:28 -0400 From Uzbekistan to Romania with the U.S. Peace Corps...where will I go next!?

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Beograd, Serbia and Montenegro

February 23 - 26, 2006
Destination: Belgrade (Beograd), Serbia

What a great city! Caroline, Kylie and I set off for Serbia by train from Romania in the middle of the night, which is always an adventure. We tried to sleep thru most of it, but the trains aren't usually sleep inducive. When we finally arrived we decided to just walk to our hostel and boy was that some uphill hiking! We ended up staying at the 3 Black Cats hostel in the Old City Center which I totally recommend b/c of location and the cool staff. It's a small hostel, but we met some really cool people that were staying there and had some really interesting/enlightening conversations. Over the 4 days alot of people were in and out and we only met one other American...but he seemed a little shady if you ask me. He was totally interested in the work I was doing overseas but didn't want to divulge ANY of what he was doing. Creepy.

I was pretty impressed with Beograd (yes, we pronounce it with an 'L', but they don't...and this is how they spell it). It was more westernized than what I expected and they still use a lot of cyrillic there, so I was able to read and understand the street signs in getting us around town. Now, in many of the touristy areas they do have the english version as well, and with maps you are fine anyway. I found the people there to be friendly and helpful. It was very interesting learning about the Yugoslavian history and I actually went to a Military Museum and yes, did see artifacts from the NATO attacks on Serbia (Yugoslavia). And, yes, that included remnants of US Military planes, bombs, and Army gear. Now that was weird and freaky to see.

I was impressed by the shopping district downtown, the 4-level International bookstore, the restaurants, and the museums. I found the best chocolate ever at a Chocolatier downtown - wish I could remember the name - because they had Red Pepper flavored Dark Chocolate. AWESOME. talk about an interesting twist to chocolate!

So when you go to Beograd, you must the Beograd Fortress and Kalemegdan, now the Military Museum is inside the Fortress but I wouldn't rank it very high as practically NONE of it is in English. They do not have english versions on tape either. It was just a walk thru museum and no tour guide accompanied us. However, when you are walking past the ice skating part in that area and you go under the bridge leading you toward the exit, there is a small military pin shop that is fabulous for getting memorabilia. The guy working in there speaks english and can tell you the history on any of the thousands of pins he has. He also has a great collection of old Yugoslovian money and postcards.

We had some really fun times in Beograd, they have great nightclubs, with awesome music where we danced the night away. They actually had a great Jazz club too called the Sinatra bar that we really enjoyed. There was one night we were chased out of one of the bars by a drunk trying to hit on us...it was kinda freaky. However, some locals actually tried to assist us by stopping him and talking with him for awhile but he caught up to us as we walked up to some twenty-somethings and asked them if they spoke english and then if they would just pretend to know us till we could get rid of him. It worked!

One of the first days we were there we met a girl, Britta, from Denmark that was staying at our Hostel and doing some solo travels around Europe. Well, she was really cool and so she joined us for the rest of our trip and the four of us had a great time meeting other new people, having great conversations, and checking out the city.

I hope to get back there some day and do some more traveling outside the city. Many of the people we met were traveling back and forth from Beograd to Kosovo and doing a comparison and historical reflexion of the two cities. I'd love to do that too...and see more of the countryside and coastline, which is just breathtaking.

The girl that we met from Denmark, Britta, she ended up going back to Romania with us and doing some traveling there. Her and I stayed with another PCV in Timisoara, RO for a few nights so I could show her around that city. Then she went on to catch up with Kylie in Craiova and do some traveling with her. And ya know...that's what traveling is all about...meeting new people, learning about different cultures, and creating lasting friendships! Here-Here to a great trip!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/romania/1140196860/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/romania/1140196860/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/romania/1140196860/tpod.html Fri, 17 Feb 2006 13:42:41 -0500 From Uzbekistan to Romania with the U.S. Peace Corps...where will I go next!?

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Resita, Romania

HELLOOO!!!
I know I'm horrible. I have not sent an update in like, FOREVER, and some of you have no doubt started a search out in my name...and then others of you are like me wrapped up in ourselves to much to remember the last time...
ANYWAY, either way I'm back....to say Hello and let you know what's new in my world! First off, i'm no longer a twenty-something. I am actually a thirty-something now and quite looking forward to the decade ahead of me! This past Christmas, as most of you know, i was able to go home and visit the family and a few friends and REALLY had a great time! It was sooo wonderful getting to catch up with everyone and amazingly, the culture shock wasn't too bad. But good God those gas prices are incredible! Ahhh...but driving again was wonderful...moonroof open, Sting CD blaring, cruise control on, singing at the top of my lungs...ahhhh.
I arrived back in Romania on New Years Eve at 3:30am. It was an incredibly long flight, filled with delays and foreign men hitting on me...and it took about a week for my body to get re-adjusted to the 8 hours i lost. It was made up for the fact that that day my friend Jamie, who's a PCV in Moldova, was also arriving in Bucharest to meet up and stay with me for a week! We had a great time. That night, for the New Years countdown we went out on the town and we were warned in advance about the crazies out on the streets letting off fireworks on their own, and at each other. Is my cousin Jimmy or Michael reading this?? We did this once as kids and regretted it. So, anyway we had to dodge a few near-misses but we got to our restaurant and had a great time hanging out and watching the official fireworks at midnight! Jamie was able to stay until that next Friday when we went to Baile Herculane a resort town in southwestern Romania full of hot mineral water baths/springs! We had a great day at the spa for less than $20! We even got massages in that package! It was AWESOME. In fact one of my organizations here is wanting to open up a Youth Hostel and Summer Camp for youth in that town to promote tourism. I've already started doing the grant research with them.

The week i returned to site I found out that my Counterpart *Dana* (who is my closest work colleague who helps me with all official business in town) is moving to Spain! *gasp* We were working non-stop up until she left at the end of January trying to get everything lined up and in working order for all of the organizations. It has a been a crazy time with work, as I've been trying to train new people to take over Dana's role and most of them are inexperienced professionally and with volunteering! However in between all this craziness in January my good friend Mary was able to come visit me, which was wonderful. We always have a great time together and it was great to have some support during all this change.

So, February comes along...i realize that i still haven't updated my log and yet, life is still moving quickly here. The first wknd in Feb. i took my BROKEN computer to Bucharest to have a new hard-drive installed...yes, i still had it under warranty, but NO i did not lose anything! Thank GOD! Anyway, so from there I went to Pitesti, a city north of BUCH for a Poker Weekend with the ol' crew from Zarnesti! My training town buddies were all meeting up that weekend and so i joined them for a weekend of fun and food and then followed it up by us all going back to BUCH on Sunday night to watch the SUPERBOWL real time at 1:30am at a Champs Sports Bar in the Marriot Hotel! It was super cool! The next week was busy again, now back in Resita and preparing for all kinds of activities coming up soon. However, as last Friday was my Bday I HAD to spend it among friends in Craiova. Craiova is a cool city of about 140,000 on the way to Bucharest via the train route from Timisoara/Resita and PC has 3 volunteers there. Kylie and I had fun dancin' in the clubs ALL NIGHT long and i couldn't get enough of my Smirnoff and Coke...since they actually HAD Smirnoff Vodka. It was great to spend my birthday with Kylie, she was awesome and especially cool since she is also another kick-a*s 30-something!

Let's see, so that brings us to this week, which has been very busy preparing for a Seminar we have coming up the first week in March. Hence, my still being at the office at 8pm on a Friday night. See, my friends, my day might not start till I roll out of bed at 10am, and drag my butt into the office at 12...but most days don't end until 8 or 9pm. So there. That's my life, for now! Next week I'm going to Belgrade, Serbia with Caroline and Kylie for a weekend of culture and fun. Get this, it will cost me the equivalent of $30 to take the roundtrip train ride and $39 for a total of 3 nights stay at the Hostel! You should really think about getting out to Eastern Europe sometime...travel is cheap...if your not worried about traveling "in-style". You will definitely enjoy the scenerary more if you venture to travel like a local! Next month I am hoping to meet up with Jodie and a few other friends in Prague where we would stay at our friend Liz's, brothers house!!! Hopefully that will work out. I asked the local travel agent guy today how much a bus ticket (roundtrip) would cost for that trip, his answer? 66 Euro...or $79!!! The trip would be 15 hours, but for that cost, i could manage!

Okay, so I'm leaving something critically important out here. It was so great having so many friends around this past month, and weekend travels, and I can't wait to go on these upcoming trips, it has helped me thru a very difficult time emotionally! With this said, i should tell you...I've been having some health problems since last year...no i'm not dying, and no it's not the Bird-Flu...but the doctors here no longer know what to do with me b/c their treatment isn't working. My medical case is being referred to PC Washington medical dept. and I think it is only a short matter of time before I have to say Goodbye to Romania and return home. I don't want to talk about the details on this publicly, because my health is personal, however, most of you are very close to me and I would talk about it offline. Most health problems are difficult for the Medical Team to treat for PC Volunteers, due to the nature of our lifestyle and physical and emotional hardship of living overseas in very unfamiliar environments. Once back in the States most problems are taking care of or at least managed with no great impact on their future careers and lives. With that said, I'm doing everything possible on my end to keep my spirits up and my mind focused on what i need to be doing. I could, of course, use some support and encouragement...and always love hearing from all of you!

I WILL keep you informed if/when I do leave. However, in the meantime I wish you all the best in whatever is going on in your lives at this moment. Even thou i haven't written much lately, as always, you are always on my mind....think Willie Nelson's song...hehe

Take care and much love to all!
Amber
(of course, i didn't mention the weather did I! The weather is CRAZY here in Romania. We have snowstorms, and then lot's of rain, and then it's pretty and sunny again. Apparently this is not normal. Normal is winter lasting for 2-3 months...not the back and forth business we are having now. However, boy when it's cold it's REALLY cold...or maybe that's cause I'm out walking in it alot! Either way, when I've been on the trains this year, during the winter season, and it is snowing the sights are absolutely breathtaking!)
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/romania/1132855380/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/romania/1132855380/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/romania/1132855380/tpod.html Thu, 24 Nov 2005 06:00:15 -0500 From Uzbekistan to Romania with the U.S. Peace Corps...where will I go next!?

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Resita, Romania

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I hope this finds you all doing well and in good health. I'm at the office this morning, as no, PC Volunteers do not get to take off on American Holidays. No big deal thou, as I'm leaving tomorrow for a Thanksgiving celebration that several of us volunteers are putting together. I will be traveling to Zalue, which is a city in the northcentral part of Romania. I'm making No-Bake Cookies to take with me, and everyone has to bring something to accompany the large amounts of Turkey and mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce that I'm sure we will be having! There will probably be around 50 people there and my journey will take about 11-12 hours. yes, i know....ouch. Oh well, we just get used to the travel times. I'm sure if I were to be driving it would only take a few hours.

Anyway, so life is going well here. Luckily I have been able to continue my City Hall project, which is going great. We finished our interviews with the Directors and now we are going to start on some of the staff employees. The responses and feedback we have received from the interviews so far is helping us to figure out what type of training is needed. If you remember, the problem brought to our attention was customer service, but as we expected, it goes beyond that.

The work with my colleagues has been very good lately as it seems more trust is being built and an atomsphere of collaboration is being formed. The Cogito organization I work with focuses on college age students and they have had a lot of recruitment activities lately which have involved movie nights, a caving trip, and trips to Baile Herculane which is a hot-springs resort town very near here! I'm enjoying getting to know these volunteers better and they are helping me with my language barriers.

I'm finally in my own apartment! I moved last week and love having my independency again. I love being able to cook for myself again in my own kitchen, sing in the shower, turn up the music and dance in my room! When I look out the window i see the hills on both sides of the small valley this part of town is in and just love my view. It started snowing Saturday morning and continued thru Monday. It is getting very cold here and I can't imagine how much colder it is going to get. I'm so glad my heater works.

Last week the Minister of Youth was here from Bucharest to check out our Mansarda youth center, in which they (the gov't)are a partial sponsor. Most all of my colleagues were out of town so it was up to me, one other colleague, the regional Director of the National Authority for Youth, and the vice mayor to host this Minister and his accompanying staff. It was pretty cool showing him around the center and he was very impressed with all that we have done and are doing now. kudos for us! Now that he has "blessed" the center we are hoping the computers will arrive soon for the computer lab section of the center. Oh, that would be 9 computers, by the way. (Wow, huh?)

When i was living with my gazda (host)family here I met a neighbor who was always asking me to come visit his family's apartment. The neighbor's name is Mihai (Mike) and he speaks English very well. I had not gone to visit him yet and of course started to feel really bad about that when last week he walks up to me and say's "Amber, i have a business proposition for you!" and I said, "Mike, you know I am a voluteer and am not allowed to make money!", he said, "oh no, I it's more like a trade. You will come visit me and my family and speak english with us, and I will give you guitar or piano lessons. What do you think, are you interested?" I told him that I was interested in visiting his family even without the lessons, and that I promised to come see him soon. So, this Sunday I decided to finally pay them my overdue visit. His family was so endearing. His 3 grandchildren were there, who all spoke a little english and were full of questions. They asked some, then I asked some. I learned that they are a Christian family and were very eager to play me some Hymns that they knew. That's when the fun really began, for the next few hours, these kids played Hymn's, classical masterpieces, roaring 20's music, and several pop songs for me and some were even turned into singing and dancing routines they had mastered!! It was so cute. At one point I had to get up and sing and dance with them! We had such a lovely time together and I promised to return after the holidays. Mike and his wife are a retired couple and live very modestly, but like my gazda family, music is their passion. Mike has taught his grandchildren all of this music and I learned that he even composes music too! So impressive.

Well, I have to go for now. I hope you are all having a lovely Thanksgiving with your familys and are thinking about what you are thankful for. I have to say, that when you are so far away from family and friends and life that I have known for 29 years, I think often of the things that I'm thankful for. Of course, I'm thankful for you!

Happy Holidays...and as always...stay in touch!

Peace and love,
Amber
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/romania/1130930640/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/romania/1130930640/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/romania/1130930640/tpod.html Wed, 02 Nov 2005 14:11:40 -0500 From Uzbekistan to Romania with the U.S. Peace Corps...where will I go next!?

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Resita, Romania

Hello All! It's October 31st...Happy Halloween!! I've been thinking about each of you a lot lately and have wanted to send out an update. I thought maybe I would send out a more personal update and tell you what's been going on in my world and show you some of what I've been learning here. I want to have time to send individual emails out but have a hard time doing that b/c my days have been rather busy lately. Of course, this is a good thing! I think I get a little overwhelmed at the amount of personal emails I want/need to send since I don't ever get to talk to any of you but I think about you often and miss our conversations. With that said, here's me and my current feelings/trials/tribulations/experiences...

To start off with...God how I miss everyone. Lately the motivation and will have been a difficult struggle for me, as I sometimes ask Why am I here again...? The struggle comes from adjusting to site, having a basic understanding of the language, slow advances with my organizations, and difficulty making friends. I hate that I even question why I'm here sometimes, when I know deep down exactly why I'm here. Of course I say "here" and part of me still associates that with Uzbekistan. I do wish I was still there and I have to say that my heart is still there, in some ways. However, happiness is definitely a state of mind, and when that state is constantly in flux it's hard to not only feel like yourself, but to be open to what is good around you. I have slowly been making progress with my organization(s) and have slowly been making friends too. The language classes are coming along, but for some reason I'm not quite as motivated with the Romanian language as I was with Russian. I guess I feel like Russian was going to serve me more in the future and was more interesting. Romanian just seems very backwards to me and so complex grammatically.

I know I should not really think in terms of how something will serve me since learning the language is really about identifying better with the people and culture in which you are living. For example, I really learned this lesson yesterday. I was with a group of Romanian friends over the weekend on a caving trip. We had to hike there and hike back (over large hills, mud and forest) which was probably over 25 kilometers (~15 miles), and the cave adventure itself was very physically challenging. Well, most of the people speak some varying level of English and all want to practice with me. As an aside, that is what makes it difficult to "make friends" sometimes, b/c some people only want to talk to you for this reason, and not b/c they are really interested in you or being friends...or some just want to "be friends" with you so they can say they are friends with the American. Anyway, so I am making some friends and learning to tell the difference in the aforementioned problem. As we were hiking back to Resita yesterday one of the guys was mentioning to me that he's met some really cool people on this trip and has learned a lot about them from all the stories being told over the weekend. As he said this, I was of course happy for him, but felt a twinge of pain with his words since I experienced this on a much smaller scale. That's where not having fluency in the language hurts you.

See, I didn't get to hear all the stories this weekend, just pieces of the stories, in addition to the one-on-one conversations people had with me, in English. Not to discredit that, b/c I had some really great conversations, but not knowing the language well makes you miss out on a lot of cross-cultural exchange. I know that I have only been here 5 months now, and I have to be patient but it is a challenge right now when I so long for deeper relationships with those around me. I was talking to some other volunteers lately about socializing and several of us had similar experiences when it comes to even knowing what to say sometimes around the new people we meet. See, I have a whole new appreciation for friendships back home. By default, we as Americans have much to talk about just by the mere similarity in home country, language, history, current events, family life, cultural norms, entertainment, god the list could go on. Most of you know that I've never been shy about striking up a conversation with strangers, either. I'm pretty outgoing by nature, so this new shyness and loss of words really sets me back. I have to really search for something to say quite often now as many times you are not in just a one-on-one situation but there are several other people around you and so asking the deeper or more personal questions I can think of aren't appropriate at that moment. The life experiences of those around me are very limited, most can't even tell you if a nearby city is north, south, east or west and many learned how to speak English from watching American movies. And if most of the movies (American) that you can watch here now are crap, then I can only imagine what it was like in the past. Of course, to be fair, they do know geography outside of their region, and can tell you where certain cities are w/in their country or internationally, but they do usually have a very backwards view of America and usually redefining that view for them is one of my first tasks, since I don't have to wait long before it's brought up in conversation. This of course is something that I really like, b/c it has to do with the showing the real face of America that is not Hollywood, or political. Just reality, as it exists on so many different scales in our country.

I've mentioned the project I'm working on with the City Hall, right? Well, I just recently was able to start with the research phase in trying to figure out why the City Hall has an image of bad customer service (is it external/internal/or both) and also figure out what needs to be done to improve employee morale. So, I'm conducting my first round of interviews with the various Directors and it was really cool after each meeting they would then want to ask me so many questions about our systems of government in America. What is provided by the federal gov't, how does it work, how does our healthcare system work, what is the poverty situation like and what does the gov't do to help. All kinds of really good questions are being asked by these people that I'm interviewing and I really enjoyed being able to answer their questions and learn about their systems at the same time. For example, I just learned that the government here automatically pays for your college education in country. Now, you do have to be accepted into a school and it is a competitive application process, but you will be able to go granted you can afford to live in the city where the university is, if not in your hometown. I'm learning that in small towns like Resita, where we have a small university, most kids do not want to go to school here b/c of corruption in the school and lack of qualified professors. Most go to school here b/c they could not afford to live in a bigger city (on their own) or could not afford to be away from the family and needed to stay and work part time in order to put bread on the table. There does not seem to be much prestige or reward from going to a small university, like we have here b/c employers in Romania view it more as little more than a H.S. Diploma, which gets them practically no where. Especially in a country where there are few professional opportunities to begin with outside a few big cities. So many young people want to leave Resita (and Romania) but see little hope in that ever happening. And it seems like the ones that do leave are the ones we most need to stay and be part of a positive change movement.

I can see that maybe one reason I'm here specifically is to try to redirect energy and focus on what can be improved around them. Find ways to encourage people to stay. I would love to start programs here that deal with the poverty situation in Resita, or the stray animal over-population problem, or help find more economic/professional opportunities for people here. This city has a lot of positive points and I feel it has much undiscovered potential. The youth here are pretty amazing and I think they are definitely the key to Resita's future. Many wonderful programs already exist here too, like Save the Children, a Handicapped Association, an At-risk Youth organization, and so on...but we need more dedicated people and more ideas and a positive vision from the city as a whole to create more interest and involvement locally.

Another problem that exists is that b/c there are so few opportunities for good jobs here in Romania, most people that do go to University are never able to use their degree even if they worked hard for it. Even if they have a desire to start a professional career most have to fight really hard to find the opportunities and make a lot of sacrifices to get there. On the other hand some people just look at University as something to do before they get married, never having any real expectations to use their degree. From this you can see that the problem is not only in lack of opportunities but in that some people don't even see a reason to look and therefore aren't motivated to try.

My profesoara de limba Romana (Romanian language teacher) has been telling me a lot about the school systems here (secondary and H.S.) where again there is much corruption and lack of appropriate training. Cheating is tolerated and often overlooked, the teachers are often not trained well and lack any repore with their students, many teachers do not try even try to engage the youth. On the other hand teachers are paid very little, are asked to take on more hours w/o getting paid for this extra time or expected to cover other teachers shifts w/o compensation. The school directors are often hired based on politics and not qualifications and they generally provide little support to the teachers in terms of disciplinary issues with the children/youth. However, at least money for schools is usually available and supplies are generally not a problem. I actually don't know if that is universal (about money), but at least it sounds true here in Resita.

Okay let's get away from the topic of schools for a moment! I will finally be moving into my own apartment next week, after many delays. (Update 11-2-05: Nevermind, another delay...won't be until the 15th) anyway...I'm still very excited. It's a one-room apartment where the living room will also serve as my bedroom, and then I have a bathroom and kitchen. The apartment has only been used for storage for the last few years and so needed a lot of repairs before I could move in, and this has been the reason for the delays. It will undoubtedly be (modestly) beautiful when I move in and will have a new bed/couch, shower stall, paint, rugs, chairs and who knows what else. Even when I saw it before any renovations I liked the feel of it. It is on the 3rd floor of a 3 story apartment building, just down the street from my gazda (host) family. My building has a card-key entrance which is a great security feature, my landlord is really nice, and the other tenants I've heard are very nice and non-intruding. Of course, my move into this place will be really easy since I have relatively little, but PC has given us a moving-in allowance in which I will be able to buy all necessary items.

This past Friday I received a lovely large box from my parents, which included clothes, my black leather jacket(!), DVD's, books, gifts for me, and a gift I asked them to get for my host dad. My gazda family is a retired couple whose combined income is less than what PC gives me for my monthly living allowance (not even including rent). This is a sad and very difficult situation for them, they really struggle a lot and are raising 2 grandchildren. My living with them has really helped them financially these past 3 months. I've learned that one of their favorite past-times is music and cards. My host dad can sing beautifully, play the piano, and play the harmonica very well. He has played his harmonica on several occasions, but I noticed that it wasn't a very good one. I asked my parents to find a good one and send to us here. Well, in last Fridays box that harmonica arrived and at his grandson's b-day party Friday nite I was able to give it to him. It was such a moving experience seeing the expression on his face as he opened up the harmonica box. He was speechless at first and I saw tears in his eyes, it turns out this was the model and brand he had wanted for a very long time. This family has little other than spirit to bring happiness to each other, money and the lack of it is brought up quite often. For example, our main meal each day is usually soup, and on Sundays a big meal is fixed and leftovers are what we eat in addition to soup until the leftovers are gone. Food here is very expensive and with them raising two grandchildren (whose parents are in Italy working) they focus all time and attention on enriching the children's lives as much as possible. They were able to buy a very old piano for the grand daughter last week, who very much enjoys playing. She had been playing on a keyboard, but now they will probably sell it...hey maybe I should buy it...hum...good reason to learn how to play, eh?? Anyway, the harmonica was not just a gift for the grand-dad, it was a gift of music for the whole family, as he is so excited to have it he is playing for them with new life and enthusiasm which everyone can enjoy.

This is just a few of the stories and a little bit of the culture I have seen here so far. The everyday can get quite challenging, but that's no different than living anywhere. I'm looking forward to coming home for Christmas and seeing the family again. I will go for now, but hopefully will send an update again before I leave in December. Take care and keep in touch...

Just a quick update before I send this!...Okay so now it's Nov. 2nd and I didn't send this yesterday b/c overall it was a really bad day. Short version: my language prof. won't be able to work with me most of the remaining year due to her schedule at school, my City Hall project partner is about to leave for a few weeks for a project out of the country, and now yet another delay in moving into my own apartment, oh and a few other jabs here and there that I can't find a way to tactfully mention.

So...with that I take a big deep breath and think to myself, I'm not going to just survive my way thru two years and let the little things bring me down...I will rise above it and move forward. No little pity parties for me! And so on this new day of blue skys, nearby rolling hills with trees's filled with red, yellow, orange, brown and green leaves that surround my city and oh yes, yellow smoke in the air from the nearby factory....another day begins in Resita.

My love and warm wishes to you all,
Amber
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/romania/1123165620/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/romania/1123165620/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/romania/1123165620/tpod.html Mon, 19 Sep 2005 10:55:32 -0400 From Uzbekistan to Romania with the U.S. Peace Corps...where will I go next!?

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Zarnesti, Romania

Another chapter is closing and a new one is beginning. I have just passed my Romanian Language proficiency exam and am at a level that I'm satisfied with...which just happens to be higher than where I finished in Russian.(!) Friday is our swear-in ceremony and I have so many emotions and thoughts that run thru my mind from such a similar time in Uzbekistan. I remember the feeling of patriotism I felt that day...proud to be representing America and how I felt such a sense of accomplishment for having passed such an arduous training process. I remember the nervous feelings of excitement in preparing to depart for site and the sadness of knowing I wouldn't be seeing my friends everyday from that point on. It was so hard to move out of my host families house, b/c I had really grown close to them. It's strange having so many of these feelings all over again. The last weekend before swear-in in Uzbekistan I went hiking with my friends in the mountains, as you have seen pictures of this....this time I went camping with my friends in Romania this past weekend, the weekend before swear-in! The town I've lived in during training is wonderful and I will definitely have a hard time leaving. The friends I've met here are great and we all hang out as much as our gazda's (hosts) will let us! Unlike Uzb. we do not have a curfew here, so there are many late nights...but you will be happy to know there are really no true bars here to hang out at, so it' s usually at someones house! We had our last poker night on Monday, Thursday night will be our last night out at the pizza place...the closest thing to a bar we have in Z town, and Saturday will be our last big party at Autumn and Allan's gazdas house. *sigh* I will miss the other 16 volunteers here in Zarnesti very much...as out of the 65~ or so trainee's living around Brasov, these are the ones I was able to get to know the best.

I love the peacefulness that exists in this town. I love sitting on my balcony and watching carutsa's (horse drawn wagons) go by with huge stacks of hay from a long days work in the fields near the magura (hills). I love the sound of the church bells ringing for just about any occasion in town....funeral, wedding, change of the hour. I love watching the wedding parties leave the church down the street from me and in procession the wedding party will walk out onto the street with a band accompanying them and proceed to take over the street and in a world of their own dance to Romanian cultural wedding music. I love the bunica's (grandma's) hanging out their windows waiting for the next person to walk by to strike up a conversation with. I love walking down the street and exchanging the "Buna dimeanatsa", "Buna ziua!", or "Buna Seara" that is the respective Hello for morning, afternoon, and evening and the fact that everyone is polite enough to say it! I love the sound of my host mom yelling to me "Ambherrr, hii la masa!!" (Amber come to the table!) implying dinner is ready....and usually I really love her meals. However, lately Forest and I have been cooking some in our kitchen here and have been trying to make some non-fried meals, usually pasta, but somehow something always does get fried! Anyway, I digress, but wow, how I long for baked foods. In this respect I can't wait to have my own place at site. But as I say all this, part of me wants to cling to my life here in Zarnesti and only leave kicking and screaming...but the other part is excited about the next new adventure just around the corner...

So, what do you know about my new site? It's a city of about 82,000 and the name is Resita (prounounced "Reshitsa" in Romanian) and it's located in the Southwestern corner of the country very near the Serbian border! I'm only a few hours away from Belgrad, which I hope to visit. Resita is very beautiful and I know I'm going to like it there. It's nestled in a valley, surrounded by hills and not far from the mountains. The city itself is very photogenic and I'm looking forward to attaching pictures to show you. The organizations I will be working with center on youth activities and development and I know the vice-mayor is already interested in having me conduct some human resource development seminars with the city employees. Anyway, in a nutshell, I have my work cut out for me! I will tell you more about my job after I get to site and my objectives become clearer. Back to the town and region...I will be living in a region where I can go mountain hiking, biking, rock climbing, canoeing, caving, see amazing cultural festivals, visit neighboring countries like Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria...all in a days trip! I know, it's a rough life...and I guess I'll take the burden of living it...ha! So, I'm definitely thrilled about my new city, region, and organization and assuming no problems with Visa's...I should have plenty of stories to tell over the next 2 years. Speaking of stories, I have to tell you this one...

So I mentioned I went camping this past weekend, right? There were about 10 of us on this trip and we only had 3 tents between all of us. Anyway, so we arrived late afternoon, set up camp, started the fire and cooked dinner, during all this one of our Romanian friends Danny came by on his dirt bike and since I would never break PC rules I didn't take a ride with him...ANYWAY. We actually had marshmallows (can't spell this!) from Switzerland so we were glad to have picked up chocolate bars and Romanian style gram crackers earlier and we were all able to make....you guessed it....smores! It was awesome...we ate smores and then sat around the campfire for the next several hours just hanging out, talking, playing silly games, looking up at the stars...it was great. I have seen more stars since I've left the states than I have in my life leading up to that point. It's amazing. So we finally all decide to crash around 1am and retreat to our tents. About 1:30 roles around, and I'm almost asleep and we start to hear some drunk Romanian man walking down the road singing at the top of his lungs some crazy song. Keep in mind that there are no houses around here. Well, I thought this was a little spooky especially when he stopped right outside our camp area and just stood there for what seemed like 5 minutes and gave us our own little serenade! It totally freaked me out, b/c my tent was closest to the road I thought this could be some singing axe murderer who was coming to pay us Americans a visit. Okay, so yes I get spooked easily, and yes, he did go away, BUT he started to come back later but then turned around again. For the rest of the night my only concern became the bugs crawling over me...hoping none would bite! Luckily only mosquitos got me....the usual!...okay so that story was much funnier when I was thinking of it...but you all know I can't tell stories worth a flip!

Well folks, for now this is all I have for you. I hope to be able to add more pictures very soon. My internet access has been extremely limited and as I always say, I hope it will improve when I get to site. Gee, have you heard that line before? Wish me luck in getting to site, I already need to replace one of my luggage pieces...so I'm gonna have to break down and buy a new large duffel in the next few days, argh. Oh, and by the way, we don't have "visa problems" here in Romania...thank god.

Much love to everyone, take care...and as always: Keep in touch!

Amber
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/romania/1127110020/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/romania/1127110020/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/romania/1127110020/tpod.html Mon, 19 Sep 2005 06:13:27 -0400 From Uzbekistan to Romania with the U.S. Peace Corps...where will I go next!?

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Budapest, Hungary

Hello again, this is a continuation of the last entry...however since I'm updating you on my last 5 weeks, I thought i would separate it into two blog entries.

Okay so I was back at site by Tuesday morning (August 30th) and considering I was leaving for Hungary the following Saturday morning and there was still a lot of planning and preparation to do to get everyone and everything ready there was little time for rest. So you ask why was I going to Hungary? One of my organizations, Bike Attack, was sending youth, which are actually young adults ages 15-25 to an International Youth Exchange in a small village in the south of Hungary called Dravafok. This exchange included participants from Hungary, Romania, Greece and Spain and involved cross-cultural awareness and activities, re-textiling workshops and learning how to make various types of ethnic instruments. These types of exchanges are becoming more prevalent across Europe to bring opportunities to youth who have had limited travel/knowledge of other European cultures. Most of the sponsoring organizations are very interested in the European Union integration, which Hungary is a new member and Romania has a projected integration date of January 2007. I went with this group of 7 youth from Resita since they are some of the youth I will be working with a lot during my time here in Romania. This opportunity gave me the chance to get know these volunteers better and to serve as a group leader. One of the perks of going on this exchange included staying in Budapest, Hungary (the capital) for one night on the way there and back! Now the capital is actually in the north of the country, so we had to take a train Sunday morning to arrive in Dravafok. But first we arrive in Budapest late Saturday afternoon, by train, and find our way to the Yellow Submarine youth hostel which was luckily located in the heart of the city where all things touristy are found. That evening we met up with the Spanish group and went walking about the city and found the Parliament building (the largest in Europe), located on the beautiful Danube River which provides a spectacular photographic setting! The Buda Castle, The Citadel, and beautiful museums and churches all sit on hills along this river across from the Parliament which provides a great lookout point for the city. This is really an amazing city, quite modernized compared to what I've been around the past 8 months, and had a good transportation system, good restaurants and even shopping malls!!!! Holy cow was this cool. I just had to exchange a little money while I was there and break down and buy a few things on my "I really need, but how the hell will find it" list. Well I did this on the way back so I wouldn't have to carry any extra bags with me to Dravafok! Let me just say all the landscape, people, sites, everything was just beautiful. You should really put it on your travel agenda if you ever plan a trip to Europe, but of course you have to go to Romania first or you will have to deal with a guilt trip from me! Just remember that my traveling in Romania is quiet different than what you would have to face, since I am living on a PC budget, I don't travel in style. However, even traveling in style is really not expensive for the average American traveling thru Europe, it just is for me!

Okay, so back to Dravafok, it was said that we would be staying in a renovated castle while we were there, which was true, however it's not at all like the Peles castle I saw in Sinia, Romania which I have attached pictures of. This is a huge house, shaped like a castle, but with no bells and whistles except for the ecological friendly kind. You see, this is now a bio-farm or should I say "ecological farm", so there were no chandeliers or beautiful paintings on the walls or ceilings, just pictures of the surrounding countryside. I was spending 10 days here learning all kinds of new skills, and trying not to think about the fact that I had no access to internet, radio, news, or TV and a limited amount of credits on my cell phone. Of course this kind of predicament has been getting easier for me with time and experience! However, the fact that I had/have been intensely paying attention to the devastation surrounding Hurricane Katrina that it was killing me not knowing what developments were happening while I was away. I try not to stay in my own "bubble" being here (well, Romania) where I am so disconnected at times from what's happening at home and around the rest of the world. I don't want to come back in two years and not have any idea what has been going on, I simply care too much about everyone and everything back home to live in ignorance of the world around me. So, again I say back to Dravafok: the workshops were really cool and meeting new people from abroad was a lot of fun. Every night we had new people showing up from Budapest who brought their instruments along with them and we would jam out. The only truly difficult part of this exchange was that it felt like we were in mosquito hell the whole time. The farm does not get sprayed with pesticide since it is an ecological site and therefore we just had to put up with it and I was glad I brought repellant!! Thursday of that week we all went on a day-long hiking excursion down to the Drava River which is on the Croatian border. Well, we had to track thru swamp, forest and unkept cornfields just to get there. It was insane. I felt like I was at the International Mosquito Convention actually did a few times! Anyway, so after a tiresome journey we finally arrive at the river where we had been told to bring our swimming suits b/c we would be able to swim. Well, hah! Not even. The spot we were taken too didn't have any type of bank where we could even get into the water, there was a boating dock that was being built on one end and I walked over to it and stuck my fingers in the water for a few seconds just to see how warm/cold it was and a snake lunged out at me from the water!! I had to jump back really quick and don't know how I managed to not get bit! This was not a small itty-bitty snake either probably slightly smaller than a rattle snake. Yes, Amber can run quick when she has too!! Lucky for me it actually stayed in the water, but I wasn't spending much time looking back. The walk back that afternoon/evening to Dravafok was excruiciating b/c we didn¡¦t really get to take a very good brake when we arrived at the river since the conditions were so unpleasant. Our feet were blistered and our muscles were aching by the time we got back at dusk and we all had a ton of new red bumps all over our bodies. While I was at the exchange I found a creative side that I never knew I had, I made a flute, a pair of slippers, a really cute (designer-looking) purse, a sling-back backpack, a mans belt (made out of recycled bicycle tire and bike parts!), and bracelets. I learned how to dry fruits correctly, make jam, became educated on different types of apples that you can¡¦t buy at the market but are 10x better, learned a ton of new games, how to build an outdoor oven, and spent time learning a little Greek, Hungarian, more Spanish, and then a few cuss words in Romanian (so ashamed of that last one). We learned about each others cultures and stayed up till all hours of the night jamming out to really awesome ancient Hungarian music played by our new friends w/ their non-conventional instruments. I spent a lot of time reading too trying to catch up on my International Newsweek magazines that PC sends us each week. We left last Tuesday morning for Budapest and spent the afternoon there doing more sightseeing and me at last getting to make a mad-dash rush thru the mall to find a few needed items. God I could have spent all day there if I had time¡Kbut oh well. Another trip to Budapest will not be far off!

Here I am back in Resita at last and would like to say that I will have very limited travel again anytime soon. I really need to spend time here now getting adjusted to site, however I¡¦m already being asked by both my PC colleagues and by officials in my county to conduct various classes that would require travel and I also need to schedule a dental appointment in Bucharest¡Ka 12 hour train ride away. Some of my PC colleagues in Cluj Napoca, and in another city (can't remember the name at the moment) are asking me to put on some business and HR classes for their community, some local county school officials are wanting me to do seminars on community volunteering, I met with the mayor the other day and he is interested in having me conduct some HR seminars for the city employees of Resita. I'm trying to schedule time with the UN Refugee program now for me to make another visit soon with the refugee's which means I need to break out my Russian lang. manuals again and practice. I also had promised my host family back in Zarnesti that I would come visit in Sept. or Oct. and I don't want to go back on that! So, have you noticed that all that I have mentioned now does not actually involve any of the ongoing projects/activities with my organization? Yikes! This Thursday is European Car-Free Day "Ziua Europeana fara masini" and our organization is putting on the event in our city which includes sectioning off an area in the city that cars will not be allowed to drive in. It's quite a popular section too, but we have the mayors support. We are having an afternoon long event to educate people in our community about driving alternatives, environmental hazards of driving and provide entertainment/activities too. Lots to organize.

I'm also in the process of trying to find an apartment for the 2 years I will be here, I'm living with a host family right now, but that is only temporary. I really am looking forward to having a place of my own and can begin cooking for myself again. I do a lot of that now too, b/c I'm on such different schedules with my host family, but its quick meals, nothing to write home about! Last night I started looking for jogging paths in my community so I can get back into a good habit, and along with my fellow site-mate (Clint, another new PCV) we are finding the good bars in the city. Yesterday morning I went to the outdoor clothing bazaar (mainly all second-hand stuff which is laid out on tables and on large pieces of cloth on the ground. I found a nice pair of Espirit jeans for the equivalent of $3 U.S. and two shirts and one sweater that were all beautiful and like new for the combined total of $2 U.S.! and then a really cool black skirt for .20 cents! I have a feeling this is how I will be doing most of my clothes shopping here since new clothes are out of my budget. I was very happy to receive a box from home this past week from my family that contained some of my old clothes and a few new J.Jill items too! My family rocks. The most wonderful thing has been smelling the clothes and the towels they sent that smell like home. It's the closest thing I have now to touching and/or holding my family and I almost don't¡¦ want to use or wear any of it b/c I want the feeling of them being next to me to last as long as possible, and for the smell to not go away. The other day I was feeling particularly homesick and a little frustrated with my job when I decide to go home and fix some lunch, when I got to my gazda my host dad, Fani, started to pull out his old vinyl records and we ended up spending the rest of the afternoon going thru them and listening to all kinds of world music from the 60's, 70's, and 80's¡Kincluding a little Kenny Rogers! I love Kenny, he is one of my all time favorites so this was an especially wonderful treat that brightened my day and reminded me of the times when I was a teenager and I would come home from school after a bad day, my dad would somehow instinctively know and would have something cool to tell me or show me or had bought me a little something that day. He would always know how to raise my spirits again! The magic of fathers will always mystify and amaze me!

On that note I pause the journal of my experiences and will go jogging now as classical Georg Friedrich Handel, the Water Music series starts playing on the record player in the living room of my gazda family and a smile again permeates my face. The sound is simply beautiful.

I will again try to update this blog with pictures but have had troubles with this. I have so many pics and it will take me awhile to get caught up. When I move to my apartment I will send you my new address as I want to set up a PO Box and don't really want to advertise to the worldwideweb my actual address.

Love to all, peace to you¡Kmy thoughts, encouragement, and best wishes are always reaching out to you, my friends and family!

Amber
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/romania/1125481740/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/romania/1125481740/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/romania/1125481740/tpod.html Mon, 19 Sep 2005 05:59:12 -0400 From Uzbekistan to Romania with the U.S. Peace Corps...where will I go next!?

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Resita, Romania

Hello! I know it has been awhile since you received a quality, yet entertaining update from me, so, I thought now would be a good time to try! Now, before you go getting your hopes up that I have stories of conquests with Dracula (not yet anyway) and/or that I have met my future husband (sorry to disappoint you mom)....I do have adventures to share involving snakes, gypsies, and refugees!

As you are aware by now, I'm in Resita, Romania which is located in the Southwest corner of the country, close to Serbia. Resitas' population is around 80K and I am slowly discovering the people and the culture. I have been at my site now since August 9th, just a little over 5 weeks living with a very nice host (gazda) family. However, for 3 of these weeks I've been on business travel. My first week at site was pretty much a blur of running from place to place with my organization and meeting new people, taking care of PC business and managing to meet a few new friends. That weekend several of us went to a huge Jazz Music festival in a village near the mountains called Garana and camped out all weekend...out in the rain and enjoyed jazz music from musicians all across Romania, Europe, and the a few from the U.S. including two-time grammy nominated Stanley Jordan. Yeah, it was pretty cool and a little surreal hearing one of the bands play a classic song about Route 66...ironically the road I practically grew up on that runs thru the center of my hometown, Yukon. Needless to say I was dancing and singing along and just lovin' it! I met several of the youth volunteers I will be working with while I was there and started getting to know a few of them which was awesome. Okay, so I get back to Resita and another week goes by in a blur of activities/meetings/establishing residence (to stay legal) and getting my computer hooked up online at the office (woohoo!) and figuring out how to buy food with the small budget pc gives you...and the food here is soo expensive!

That second weekend was pretty low-key as I was preparing for a week stay just outside of my site with volunteers from here and around the county, which I left for the following Monday morning. The best thing about that following week was that the organization I was working with happened to also be directly involved a very huge organization called the U.N. Refugee Program (wow, huh?!)...so anyway here's where my life started to get a little exciting and my arms fill with goose-pimples and my eyes get teary from the overwhelming emotion that comes from what I'm about to tell you. You all know where I was evacuated from at the end of May, right? Well, you might know some people from that country had fled to neighboring countries as a result of all the atrocities and civil unrest that were going on at that time. As fate would take it's course, here I am in Resita while just a month and a ½ ago 450 refugee's from Uzbekistan land in a major city only a few hours from me. And, as fate would continue taking it's course before you know it I'm face-to-face with the Director of the U.N. Refugee program here in Romania discussing plans to work with the refugee's and next thing I know I am in a car on my way to the camp to meet with the refugee's....just me and them and all that I can recall of my Russian lang. and Uzbek. Lang. skills! It was a very touching, moving experience as we discussed what they had been thru, their hopes, their families left behind, and what they need now. They were very open to me since I had lived there and was familiar with their customs and could talk with them. They have invited me to come work with them as they need to learn English and learn skills that can help them seek work eventually. You see, most of these people were from farming communities and have very minimal education, or they are from communities where they may have worked selling food/odd items in the bazaar or had a stand on the street. After speaking with one of the program directors again I've received permission to continue coming back and working with them, and I am extremely grateful for this opportunity. If I could work with them everyday I could, but we are going to try to set up a plan that will bring me there once every week. I'll keep you updated on this, as I am very excited about what doors this may open up in the future.

That following weekend I went to go visit my very good friend Mary (who traveled with me here from Uzbek. P.C. program) in Baia Mare. This is in the northwest corner of the country and is not too far from the Ukrainian, Slovakian, and Hungarian borders...anyway, they just had to separate us dam*it. Getting there proved much more difficult than anticipated, but at least it was cheap. Due to the flooding across the country, the railroad lines were out in a few areas along my route so after 12 hours which included 3 trains, several delays, gypsies, and a bus ride I finally arrived safe and sound in Baia Mare to get some mutual, much-needed, TLC! Okay, so I know you want to hear about gypsies, not the long conversations with Mary...so...as I was sitting in one of my connecting train stations (Oradea) in one of the café/bar to wait it out, I had set down across from a decent enough looking gypsy fellow who had his teenage son with him. We strike up a conversation about the plight of Romania (everyone's fav. topic here) and I get to hear about how his wife is now in Arkansas (no, not Arkansas, Romania, but the one in the U.S....haha) and he thinks she is a prostitute and how he is raising his son all on his own. At first, when I set down and started talking to them I got the impression that they were on their way back to Timisoara. Then it changed to Satu Mare, which is in the same direction of where I was going, opposite from Timisoara. I made it a point to explain to him throughout the random conversations we had over the next hour that as a volunteer, I too live with very little...since he loved to talk about how Americans have soo much and Romanians have nothing. He wasn't offensive in any of this conversation, just typical of what I have heard from others before. So anyway, we board our over-crowded train and slowly start our way to the next connecting station (!argh!) He had told me before how him and his son seldom pay for their train tickets, so when the conductor comes by to collect the tickets he just talks his way out of it...he had told me this while we were still in the station. So, anyway, we are on the train talking and he makes a show of asking his son for the money to buy the tickets from the conductor and the son pulls out...guess what...an empty wallet. He then makes a show of saying how his son is irresponsible and what are they going to do now that they can't buy a ticket....while looking at me. This is going on and i'm thinking....C ya! They were hanging out with me all this time to get me to try and pay their tickets...which of course if they had planned to buy them to begin with they would have done it at the station with all the time we had to kill. So, the conductor comes along, collects my ticket, then turns to them...and as my gypsy friend starts trying to look pitiful at me and says "gee, what am I going to do?" I gracefully make my exit to the next wagon over as he starts trying to weasel his way out of his predicament and as I join an old Romanian couple in their train cabin! After that I made friends with the conductor who helped me get to the right bus when we arrived at our next connecting point! And as for me and my new gypsy friends...la revedere! (good-bye!) After that I made much better choices for people to talk to on my journey...like a handsome Romanian man in his 20's who works in Italy, unfortunately he was a newlywed. Upon finally making it to my destination at 1am I preceded to have a wonderful weekend with Mary. Baia Mare is beautiful and quiet a developed city which at times it was very hard to visually see the need for a PC volunteer. However, looks are usually deceiving, as even thou it is rapidly becoming the financial center of Romania, it has pressing issues with street kids, handicapped kids and the environment. My trip back to Resita was a 17 hour overnight sleepless journey that left me thinking I've got to find a better way to travel in this country!

If you want to hear more...keep reading into the next log. That's where you will find my adventure thru Budapest, Mosquito Forest, and my confrontation with a snake!

Love and Peace to all of you!
Amber
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/romania/1120297320/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/romania/1120297320/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/romania/1120297320/tpod.html Mon, 04 Jul 2005 10:37:31 -0400 From Uzbekistan to Romania with the U.S. Peace Corps...where will I go next!?

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Rishnov, Romania

Hey Everyone,
Just wanted to upload some pictures of Romania. I am a week away now from finding out my permanent site and I'm nerve-wracked! I keep wanting to take more pictures, but it's been raining alot lately and so you know...I want you to see this place when it's most beautiful. Anyway, I am doing well, the transitioning process is coming along and I'm not so much in a state of shock anymore about my sudden departure from Uzbekistan. I have been trying to keep up with the political developments in that country. I get shivers down my spine as I here about the dwindling situation there from news reports. I still find myself crying over both the friends I've had to leave behind there and what future awaits them. My heart, hopes, and strengh are always reaching out to them. They are in a tough situation and unfortunately they have very censored access of news information...if you would even call it news. I've tried to stay in contact with my counterpart, but I think even that is being filtered and she is not rec'ing my emails. The feelings that rush over me to know all this and what is really happening is heartbreaking and frustrating.

I'm doing well transitioning to the new language, although my head always registers responses in russian which is totally annoying! I really like my language facilitator and am starting to catch on more. Can you believe I am already at the half-way point of my training? The friends that I have made here are really great and i'm having a wonderful time hanging out with them. My host family is still too cute and I love giving my host dad hell all the time! He is a hoot and loves the banter back and forth, especially when it's in front of the extended family and friends!

Okay, so i really just wanted to give you a quick update and upload pictures. I hope you are all doing well...please keep your updates coming..i love em!!

take care,
amber
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/romania/1118035920/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/romania/1118035920/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/romania/1118035920/tpod.html Fri, 10 Jun 2005 01:35:00 -0400 From Uzbekistan to Romania with the U.S. Peace Corps...where will I go next!?

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Brasov, Romania

June 6, 2005 (I was not able to send this on the 7th, so I'm sending this today, June 10th)

Wow, what a whirlwind. Here I am in P.C. Romania with a whole new host family, language, colleagues, and environment! I am typing this to you now with the hope and expectation that I will be able to access the internet tomorrow while in Brasov. Currently I am living in the small town of Zarnesti (the phonetic is "Zarnesht"), which is breathtakingly beautiful, nestled in the foothills of the Piatra Craiului National Park. I live in a house (log cabin), with some modern conveniences like a kitchen (minus microwave and dishwasher, of course), bathroom (with bathtub/sink/mirror/american style toilet!!!), no landline phone, but my host family has a cell phone, no A/C (but that's what windows are for), and TV (cable, baby!). I have a host mom, Monica, host father, Gheorghe, one dog, 2 cats, and many cocks and chicks. My bedroom is on the second floor and is cute as a button, and I have a door outside my room that goes out on to the large terrace overlooking the mountains. I will doing a lot of studying, reading, and working-out here. My host family is wonderful, and they live modestly, they are so cute, laughing away downstairs at the moment, and are taking wonderful care of me and helping me with the Romanian language. The romanian language is a romance language and is the closest to classical latin...to me that means it's not Cyrillic, so YIPEE!

Okay, so I arrived here on June 1 and spent the night in Bucharest with the other 3 Uz 18 volunteers who joined the Romania program. On June 2nd, PC bused us to Brasov...a large town in the Transylvania region where our training headquarters is located, then off to our sites. Mine (Zarnesti) is 25 Kilometers away. I am hauntingly close to the mythic dracula's castle in Bran. Actually, this country is full of castles, mountains (including the Carpathian mountains), intriguing culture...oh and borders the Black Sea.

I am so happy to be here, if not still a little confused and in a state of culture-shock from the events of the past week and a half. This program is very different than most PC programs in that we have more conveniences than most other PC programs. For example, eventually I will have a cell phone, as most all PC volunteers here have one at the request of our PC staff. Yes, this means you will be able to call if you so wish. However, we have many problems to address in this country and it looks like I will be working in the much needed NGO sector of "environment". There are many ecological problems here that are systemic of their past communist regime and the ever-growing tourist industry.

Lets see, remember how I would refer to my Uzbek group as UZ 18, well, here I am part of the 20th group...but don't know if they call it Rom 20...or what. Doesn't sound as good, does it?! There are about 65 volunteers in this group and I think we have around 200 volunteers in country...but don't quote me on this. I am slowly meeting the other volunteers, but the ones I have met so far are really cool. Of course I miss my UZ volunteer friends like crazy...here's a shout out to a few of you...Tamar, Jenny, Jamie, Lucas, Kjestine, Tricia, and Michelle (UZ 17)...and any other UZ friends who have found this...I miss you all and hope you are doing well!!!

I haven't mentioned the food in Romania yet, it's awesome. My host mom is an incredible cook and I have had the best homemade soups, salads and meals since I left the U.S. In fact my host mom just brought me a small plate of cheese and asked me to taste it and let her know if I want it on my sandwich for tomorrows lunch! Her and my host father don't speak a lick of English, but we are slowly communicating better. My host father actually speaks a little Russian, so the first few nights we were translating our dialog from Russian to Romanian and vise versa! Talk about crazy. Anyway, so the cheese, wine, fruits and vegetables here are great. Since we are a small family the meals are modest and so thankfully they don't gorge me with food. Most volunteers here are being fed monstrous meals and are pressured to eat it all. I'm lucky.

I'm also lucky to have a close friend with me here (Mary) to go thru the rigorous training all over again. We were both interested in this program when PC Uzb. was telling us of our post UZ options. I am so glad we are both here together, as NGO volunteers, and she even lives in the same town with me. We will definitely be each others life-line in facing the first 5 months again...and of course, beyond this too! Have I mentioned that when we all get to our sites, after training is over, we will only have to live with a host family for 2 months instead of 3? I am very happy about this. Of course, if I am placed in a rural area there is always the possibility that I would have to live the whole 2 years with a host family if apartments or houses to rent are not available.

I will be serving a full 27 month term here in Romania, as the new volunteers here only arrived 1 week before us. Additionally, I am able to keep my current status as "volunteer" and not trainee. Which means I'm accruing all the perks of volunteer status and did not lose anything from what I earned during my Uzbekistan time. Okay, so that means more to me than to you, but I don't want to explain right now b/c it's getting late and I have to be at the train station by 7am tomorrow. We have our HUB tomorrow, which is where all the group meets and has lessons together, which is in Brasov. The city of Brasov would literally make your jaws drop when you see it. I will be taking pictures, trust me...it is so beautiful that it doesn't look real. When I first saw it last week, I could only describe it as a picture perfect movie set...of what I imagine some Swiss Alps town to look like...and I was just waiting for the director to yell "CUT!" and the props to fall down and the extra's to go home. Difference is that everything was real, and I kept pinching myself and saying "where the hellll am I?!!"

So, I hope your not bored with me already and at least a few of you are still reading my log. I hope, as always you are doing well. I also hope you understand that since arriving to site in Navoi, going thru all the transitions there, and then being kicked out of country and now in a whole new place...that you will cut me some slack in not having written too many personal emails in the last month. I apologize, really I do. Don't take it personally, and by all means, don't stop writing me whenever you have a break in your crazy schedules, too.

Much love to all,
Amber
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/uzbek19/1117309440/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/uzbek19/1117309440/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/uzbekland_okie/uzbek19/1117309440/tpod.html Sat, 28 May 2005 16:16:28 -0400 Adventures of a Peace Corps volunteer in Uzbekistan...come on in, relax and enjoy the ride!

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Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Because this blog is public, I should include the following statement before I continue:

(Disclaimer: All the opinions or statements in this email are solely my own and are not necessarily those of Peace Corps or the U.S. Government.)

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I'm sending you my last update from Uzbekistan. On Tuesday night of this week I received a phone call from our directors office in Tashkent that we have had no luck getting our visa's renewed (they expire June 1st). We were instructed to say our goodbye's, close up all of our business and gather all of our belongings and arrive in Tashkent by Friday afternoon. Well, if that wasn't enough I came down with strep throat and was running a high fever from about Wednesday till Friday. Needless to say I needed a lot of help in getting everything together. It was very difficult to leave site not being able to see any of the projects we've been working on come to fruition. Saying goodbye to everyone was excruciating because they are all very upset with the powers that be for allowing this to happen to us. Also, it was very difficult leaving volunteers behind that are from early groups, whose visa's have different expiration dates. They are so worried about their future here, as well. It's been a very sad and trying time to say the least.

When I arrived in Tashkent on Friday the PC medical officer took me directly to the International Clinic and I got my antibiotics and all the good stuff and am now feeling much better, physically that is. Emotionally, leaving the country is really sad and many of the volunteers are taking it very hard. We do have options thou for direct transfers to other countries, as an NGO volunteer I have the option of Azerbaijan, Moldova, Romania and as of today other options have been announced such as South Africa, Jamaica, and Armenia. I have my list of favorites and have already turned in my request list...with Romania at the top. When I was going thru the application process to join the peace corps, and researching different countries, Romania was a country that I was very interested in volunteering. I should be finding out within a few days, because either way we have to leave the country on June 1st . If I do get to go to Romania I will be going straight there and will be starting the training program on June 3rd with fresh-off-the-plane newbies from America! I am somewhat excited at having the opportunity to immerse myself in possibly 2 different cultures and learn another language as well. Not to say that I've learned Russian, because by all means I'm still a novice! But I plan to continue studying it either way. Anyway, I know my last update to you included that long wish list and I hope that none of you have sent anything yet...but hopefully you are all procrastinators like me and didn't jump right on it when you saw it ;) All letters will be forwarded back to my home address, however, any packages that have been sent they cannot forward and therefore, I've designated them to a very dear volunteer friend in Navoi, Michelle, who took me in under her wing when I arrived and will be very grateful for any goodies. Anyway, just wanted to let know the details, just in case you had already done something.

Okay, so I really think I am taking all of this considerably well, I mean, yes I'm a little stressed and yes, the thought of another 3 months of training is mindboggling, but I know it's worth it. I know that my heart has truly been touched by many people here in Uzbekistan and I have also affected the lives of many people here. There has been an exchange of cultures with lots of clarifications and zapping of myths...on both ends. I believe in the ideals of Peace Corps which is spreading peace and friendship...and I know that it works. The volunteers out here are dedicated and put a lot of work and effort into their communities and with over 100 volunteers being in country at any given time, a lot of good work is being done. The events that have led to us being evacuated should really not be discussed on a public blog. However, I hope that most of you follow the news well enough to know at least a little and understand that no, I am not in any physical danger. For those of you who don't have a clue what's going on, we'll sit down for coffee some day and I'll explain. I'm leaving a country whose government has blocked it's people from any news information at this time by TV or by internet, so since you do have this access I hope you at least pull up Google, put in two key words, "Uzbekistan, Andijon" and start reading.

I am sad to go, but excited at what work awaits me in a new country. It's still really hard to believe this is happening, but it is also hard to believe that I'm sitting in a plush hotel room right now...that I managed to get all to myself thanks to the strep throat...and will be going to the health spa downstairs Monday am for a 50 minute massage which will only cost 10,000 som, the equivalent of about $10 and then for a pedicure which will cost me 8,000 som, or $8. Then maybe I'll layout at the well kept Olympic size pool...or should I sit in sauna or Jacuzzi...am I in Uzbekistan??? I didn't even know they had this stuff here!!! Anyway, my point is that I do get a few days...at PC expense, to relax, unwind and mentally prepare myself for another major transition before I have to go. It has been great being with my friends here again and we have really needed each other for support and encouragement as many have decided to just return home. Others are confused and still trying to figure it out. We are all trying to help each other in whatever way is needed. About 10 of us tonight, mostly NGO volunteers, were somehow invited to the country directors house for dinner and that was very pleasant and he has a wonderful wife and a beautiful house. We had a tasty Mexican meal and lively conversation.

So, are you convinced yet that I'm okay? I'm good. I really am and yes I still miss all of you and future vacation plans will still be planned. So, anyway, I will continue to update you as I can. Please feel free to drop me an email whenever you want and I will do my best to get back to you as soon as I can.

Love to all,
Amber
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