Forward Ho

Hello everyone,

Well, after yet another needlessly long pause, here I am. And as usual, much has transpired since I last wrote. As those of you who've seen the latest photos will know, life in western Romania continues to demonstrate just how diverse, joyful, and wholly unpredictable it can be.

Our park renovation project continues to progress, if sometimes in fits and starts. June 1st was especially busy with park-related activities: my colleagues Victor, Andreea, Silvia and I started the day by taking part in the celebration of Romania's "Day of the Child" at Recas's local school for children with special needs. We held a drawing competition as part of the festivities, intended to get the kids thinking about what they would want in a town park -- and they happily threw back at us a horde of great ideas and beautiful drawings, for which we happily awarded lots of prizes and candy in response. Activities for children are, aside from being important in general, a great first step in approaching a broader issue in the community. Kids can be a formidable motivating force in any community!

The second important event of the day was our first major public meeting regarding the park (see photos). Not exactly a fully public meeting, we intended this forum as a meeting of specific community representatives, and so we sent out about 25 personal invitations to the Fire Department, the Police Department, various local churches and community groups, local business owners, and other sectors of the population. Though we received only about a 50% attendance rate, we still had to view it as a success: it was, after all, an opportunity to gather together a body of local citizens to discuss issues important to the community. Organized as a public "workshop", the meeting sought to answer a variety of our questions about what people do and don't want in their park, and what they would personally be willing to do (donations, labor, maintenance, etc.) to make it happen. One group even put their design ideas to paper, and began to visualize various possibilities for the park layout. My colleagues and I really envisioned this meeting as the first (rough) template for a series of public meetings in the future about any number of topics, and we were extremely pleased even that it took place at all. Now we can move forward with the project knowing we have the public on-board.

Another important event in June was a trip I took to Odorheiu Secuiesc to consult with fellow volunteers about a future conference center two of them want to build. Nestled in the Carpathian foothills of Transylvania, Odorheiu sits in the heart of Hungarian culture in Romania -- like the Banat region in which I live, Transylvania was only transfered from Hungarian to Romanian control after World War I. In fact, many in this part of the country still consider themselves Hungarian rather than Romanian, making for an interesting political situation. In any event, the organizations with whom two friends of mine volunteer want to build a small barn structure to house a center for conferences, art openings, a community library, and various community events. And they had gathered a few of us PC volunteers with design experience to brainstorm design options with them. Sitting on a hillside overlooking a beautiful agrarian village just outside town, the building site is spectacular and will one day accommodate a terrific community resource (we hope). Do take a look at the pictures, and I'll let you all know how this project progresses.

The other big news of the moment is my upcoming trip through the western Balkans, for which I leave in a few days (and with the other John Moore, among others). A few of us plan to travel through Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia, and Hungary, before swinging back into Romania from the north. All will be seen by land (bus, train, etc.) and none will be reserved ahead of time, so keep your fingers crossed and wish us luck...we may be getting to know park benches rather well! I have to say: Much has been written recently about the benefits of "slow" travel (i.e. by some means other than flight) and I fully agree: after a year of traveling on Romanian trains and buses, I have come to appreciate the rich, experiential nature of traveling overland -- wherein all of the delays, complications and hangups really ultimately make for a fuller, deeper understanding of a country and its people. When you have the time and flexibility, I highly recommend going by train, bus, ferry, bike, wagon (though not possible everywhere), or horse. Your sore backside will continue to remind you that you are truly alive! But more about all that when I return.

Perhaps I'll end with a kind of a proverb (which I love to dole out, not always follow):

My continuing work and experiences here with the Peace Corps only serve to further reinforce the belief that a little patience and flexibility will take you a long way in life. I, like everyone else, love to impose my own rules on a situation, my own time-frame, my own understanding about what needs to happen and why -- only to be disappointed when those standards prove to be insufficient or irrelevant. While we all should continue to harbor a core of belief within ourselves about what is possible (in ourselves, in others, and beyond), we should also be willing to accept the fact that the mutable world in which we all live doesn't read our rulebooks. We are constantly modifying our expectations of time and place, and this is not a bad thing, as the destination at which we ultimately find ourselves is often far more wonderful than we ever could have imagined before, on our own, with our old expectations. This lesson reaffirms itself everyday for me.

Hope everyone is well.