FALL HAS FALLEN
I have been seriously slacking in my journal writing duties so I appologize one and all. It is fall here in all it's glory. The leaves are a million and one colors. The hills that surround Valcea have lit up in reds and yellows. It makes me a bit whistful. I like this season changing experience. Though the more leaves that fall the nippier the wind wacks my cheeks. I have forgone shaving (because i know that you are dying to know my personal hygiene) my legs look like a mans. It's kinda liberating. School is moving along..trudging along...i am getting desperate for lesson plans. With my 11th graders I am putting together a haunted house. We are going to charge students to enter and hopefully make enough money to go on a trip or do something special. They are so cute because they get so excited about everything ( that is except school work) and they remind me of myself in highschool. They are a pretty tight knit group. I had them all over to my house last friday night to hang out and we played charades ( they LOVE charades). We were so loud I thought for certain that my neighbors would complain but they didn't make a peep....Oh yes i think that I have finally befriended the mean dog that lives on the bottom floor of my bloc. Every time i see him i feed him and practice my romanian greetings. I seriously must look like a dufus, but it has worked. Now he wags his tail at me and yesterday he even got close enough that I could almost pet him. I didn't of course, | am still a little weary.
I went to Brasov this past weekend to visit with two fellow PCVs, Tara and jackie. It was good to see them. It's wierd what a strange bond being out of country makes with fellow Americans. Mom said that the war talk is at it's height at home. I don't even want to begin to talk about that. I have been talking to my kids about how they feel and they are pretty complacent. Angry and complacent if that's possible. They say that they have no say in anything but that they continually see Romania being used as a pawn. US troops might be stationed in Romania. What can I say to that? They asked my why the US always uses violence and war to get it's way? I didn't know what to say. ...
As for new ideas, Leslie a fellow PCV who teaches at a Hungarian school wants to start a secondary project with me. We want to bring our Romanian and Hungarian classes together to discuss prejudice and stereotypes. If this is successful we eventually want to organize a trip to Poland to see Auschwitz. it is a pretty ambitious undertaking but we are starting to work on the figures for how much it would cost and then we have to raise the money.o sa vedem (we shall see).
anyway peoples..i must go to tutoring. I think of you all often and miss your faces.
lots of love
nina