Alanica Fara Frica

My apartment took a major step towards completion as a permanent residence today with the addition of a full stove.  Before I only had a table top two-burner, but now I have four burners and an oven.  The most impressive thing is that the city of Reghin actually paid for a brand new stove for me… I have to say that I am a little surprised it happened.

Another pleasent surprise is that my project is starting to develop further.  I am moving ahead on a design project to replace the old fountain in the center park with a small stage area for events.  I also hope to design a new fountain that will be located in the center of the park.  If anyone has any experience in fountain design, please share.

Also, here’s a little Romania culture tidbit.  Last week, there was a birthday in the office. This person holds a pretty high ranking role in the office so all employees came down to the center courtyard for food and drinks, all of which supplied by the birthday guy.  Whenever it is your birthday, you are expected to supply food to others.  Also, if you go out for drinks, guess what… you’re buying. 

As you many have already noticed, I’ve started the long journey creating a unified website.  I’ve matched the blog and photosite in common themes that I have found through the gracious online programming community and I will be slowly personalizing the pages to be uniquely my own (oddly enough I decided to use the design themes you see now around 8:28pm tonight… ya see, it is a magic time).  Hopefully I will have a home page soon and a more full site.  Make sure to keep checking in as I am now pretty settled and have more time to write more contemplative posts, as opposed to my earlier ones, where I just breezed through the things I have been seeing and doing.  Please leave comments, they keep me motivated to continue to spend the hours developing this site. 

-alanica

This is a picture taken from my balcony.  As you can tell by the little tree in the 5 feet of grass inbetween the parking lot and the steel factory (looks nice for a steel factory, doesn’t it!), fall is here!  Reghin has had a nice fall so far, the rain hasn’t come to hard yet, although it did rain me out of a hike this past weekend.

I was about to write how I am celebrating the begining of fall but now that I am about 5 lines into this post, I am realizing that fall has been here for quite some time.   Oh well, the leaves are really getting going now anyway.  Many have wondered how one living in Transylvania celebrates halloween.  Well let me tell you…  uh… I got nothing interesting.  Transylvania actually has little/no connection to halloween, vampires, the undead or anything else scary.  Us volunteers will be celebrating of course, I don’t want to go into the creepy details of it all, but I can assure you… funny costumes are involved (because we all know Halloween is about having the funniest costume, not the scariest).

If you would like to learn about the history of how Bram Stoker decided to base his fictional Dracula character on the very real prince, Vlad Tepes (sorry, he’s not a vampire) then read this paper I found online.  It is good but a bit long, so I did a bad job of paraphrasing it below:

So, like, there was this dude named Vlad III Dracula Tepes (tze-pesh).  He was a prince in the region of Wallachia, the south of current Romania.  He was born in Transylvania, the northwest region, during the mid 1400s.  He didn’t like dishonest people or invading turks and punished them by impaling them.  Its pretty gruesome so I’ll let you read about it in that paper.  He was known to impale, like, 30,000 people at a time.  Pretty nasty.  Bram Stoker used his name for his vampire cause he liked it and it wasn’t widely known at the time.  He also moved him back to Transylvania cause he liked the name. 

So there you have it.  Transylvania has its rep cause Bram Stoker liked the sound of it.  It is kind of a creepy name though.  Say it real slow and deep.  TRAN-SYL-VAN-IA.  Creepy.  But as some of you who have seen in my pictures, Transylvania is a beautiful region where the only thing creepy or scary are the… I’m almost afraid to say it…

public bathrooms.  MOAW-HA-HA-HA!!!!

In other news, I have uploaded many more photos to my photo site and tweaked some settings so that you don’t have to login in to comment.  Feel free to leave me some note about a place you have been, a pretty scene or that you think my butt’s gettin big.  You can also send pics as E-Cards to friends and family to spread the wonderous word of ME!

-alanica fara frica

So this week I started getting some projects rolling at the office.  Basically everyone (the Peace Corps and the Mayors office in Reghin) told me to “do something that you see fit.”  I had plenty of ideas of what I wanted to do / thought I was capable of doing / saw what needed to be done, and they all pretty much relate to design ideas for the parks here in town.   Coming up with project  proposals isn’t the problem, executing them has proved to be a little more difficult.  I have little knowledge of how to best implement my ideas. 

For example, one project I am working on is designing a permanent structure in the central park for the flower sellers to sell their flowers in.  Right now they are just under some umbrellas.  I have drawn up a design but don’t feel I can move foward until I speak with the sellers themselves to find out their needs.  But we don’t want them to know I’m working on it until we know it is going to happen, and we don’t know if it is going to happen untill I show some final designs and building plans and budget to the city council and they approve it.  It seems very easy to get things done in public administration if you just totally leave the public out of it. 

I also hope to change the space around the broken fountain in the central park into a small stage area for events.  Water has not ran through its veins since the Communists were in power (1989).  The need for the change is something I have noticed and think would be nice.  Although, I have only lived in Reghin for about… 2 months.  What do I know?  When I ask around the office I hear “that would be nice” and “how much would it cost.”  I don’t get very favorable responses when I ask if it gets built, is the city prepared to use that space. 

I’ve decided just to move forward with all my ideas and turn them into graphics.  Once I have tangible documents, I can begin to peddle them around the office and get some excitement about them.  Once that is in place, hopefully I can push for some sort of public involvement events so that the projects can be tweeked to be more valuable to the city, and so the Mayor’s office can get a little more face time with Ionut C. Public. 

It differs from projects I worked on in school and in firms stateside because we were trained to get as much information about what we should do before we started drawing it up in plans.  The problem seems to be that I have too much control over these projects and the only checks and balances over my proposals are going to be the will of the Mayor and city council and the budget.  My job is to fit a few more stakeholders into the process to make sure that not only can these projects be done, but should they.

-alanica fara frica

Some of you may have seen the news that Romania and Bulgaria will be entering the EU on January 1st.  There is more about that in this article from the (english language) Bucharest Daily News.  The 150 volunteers here will be the only ones in europe operating in a European Union country.  There was a lot of speculation about what that means for the Peace Corps here.  Most thought that we could be the last group.  Now it has been confirmed that there will be another group in February and another in May.  They also told us there will be other groups coming after that, but probably only to teach english.  Realistically, it is unlikely that the PC will continue to be bringing in new groups after a few years just because of the rising cost of living.  Romania will not be switching to the euro for at least 5 years now, but prices of everything from housing to milk will be rising.  Fortunetly for myself and other volunteers, the EU brings with it billions and billions of euros to invest in modernizing Romania’s infrastructure and social programs.  Hopefully I will be able to take advantage of this in the next two years.  Needless to say, this years new years party is going to be exciting.  Right now I am located in the EU accession office for the city of Reghin and they are talking about organizing a party in the town square for new years. 

Again, I must apologize for how long it has been since I posted last. A lot of internet fraud comes from Romania so it can be difficult to access certain pages from Romanian IP addresses. Alright, enough nerd talk. I have been a busy Alanica since we last spoke. I now have my own apartment, a nice studio apartment on the edge of town. I have a big balcony with a wonderful view of a parking lot and a steel factory. The apartment is owned by the mayors office and they are responsible for furnishing it, which… of course, means that I have lived there for three weeks and still dont have any drawers, shelves, chairs or even a full stove. I only have a table top 2 burner. Oh, and my fridge lacks a freezer and smells like rotten fish. I am promised all the issues will be solved soon, but right now it is certainly livable. It has been remodeled in the past few years and isnt stuffed with junk from the owners grandma, like other volunteers’ apartments. I am keeping busy working on the place, installing shelves in my pantry, a shower curtain, laundry lines, etc.

I also recently got internet at my place. So I should be able to be more responsive to emails now and hopefully post some pictures soon. I havent posted any since before July 4th. That will change, although I make no promises for when. I also have bought a guitar from the guitar factory, Hora. It is a very nice handmade instrument that I purchased for the equivalent of $70. In the states a guitar of similar quality would cost 5 times as much. They also sell mandolins and violins. If anyone is interested in and instrument, it’s only a 17 hour flight away! So I have been finding ways to keep busy living on my own (the first time!).

I have also made some friends with some kids in town, all high school kids. There arent too many people my age here, there is no college so they all go to Targu Mures or Cluj Napoca. But I am happy to meet high school students because I know I will be using them as an asset for some of the work I will be doing in the future. Maybe you are wondering what kind of work that will be? Well, so am I. I have been coming to the office for about 3 weeks now and I havent really gotten the ball rolling on any projects yet. It is slow going, but I dont want to push anything to hard this early, I am just sitting back and observing. Observing the needs of the town, and observing how things get done in the mayors office. I dont want to jump into anything without having a good idea how long the fall is.

If you want to send me any postcards or letters or peanut butter, send me an email and I will send you my address.

Pace, (peace)
alanica

Sorry I haven’t posted for a while.  The last two weeks of PST went by very fast.  Most were anxious to get to site and get out of training.  We were also trying to spend a lot of time with other volunteers since many of us were going to sites where we would have no sitemates (me).  We had a nice ceremony for our swear-in event and had a great party afterwards.  I think I was actually most excited that I got to wear my grandfather’s old suit for the first time.  I have a few pictures, but unfortunetly I will not be able to post any pictures until I move into my apartment in September and get an internet hookup there.  I know I owe pics from as far back as July 4th.

 Now I am in Reghin and I am settling into life here.  The mayors office is closed in August so there is not much for me to do but walk around and get a feel for the town.  I am staying with my second gazda here and I actually get to live in a house.  Probably the only month in 27 that I will not be living in a bloc.  The first morning I woke up there I went to the kitchen and found a small chicken walking around, looking for its breakfast.  Ah, Romania…

First I must appologize for being out of contact for a while for those who have tried to contact me.  I have been travelling around the country checking out the region of Transylvania.

My site for the next two years is going to be the town of Reghin in east-central Transylvania.  It is about 30km north of Targu-Mures and 100km east of Cluj-Napoca, the second largest city in Romania and home to most of the college students in the country.  I got to visit both cities on my recent trip.  Reghin is actually about 36,000 people and is set along the side of a hill, at the edge of the Carpathian mountains.  I will be working for the Primaria (city hall) there.

Reghin’s claim to fame is the violin and guitar factory, which is the only one in the country.  It has a quaint main street along their central park and a forest at the top of the hill.  It is mostly Romanian, but has a about 10,000 Hungarians and a few thousand Roma (gypsies).

I met my counterpart, Camelia, on thursday, who is the person I will mainly be working with in the city.  She works in the Financing and Economics department and speaks the most English out of the 70 city workers.  I will actually be working in the Urban Development office, but no one in that office speaks english, so I will have to become fluent in Romanian real quick.  In the mean time, I will be doing a little traveling and studing of the language and city so that I can have a good understanding of the town by the time I can easily work with the Urban Development office.  I will also probably be helping Camelia in the finance department helping to find new grants and funding sources from the upcoming accesion into the European Union.

I have also posted loads of new pictures at www.828pm.com/photos There are pics from PST in Ploiesti, Brasov, Sighisoara, Reghin and I addem more from the Habitat for Humanity trip.  Check them out and if you want to leave any comments, you have to register (really easy).

I have also changed the name of this blog page for, hopefully, the last time.  My gazda mom always calls me Alanica Fara Frica and I never knew what it meant until today.  Little Alan Without Fear.  It is actually used to refer to someone more foolish than heroic, but… whatever.  It’s probably true anyway.

Our presentation to the city went great.  The head of the urban planning department liked our design that we presented with one of the students.  There were certain elements of the plan that they agreed were important to discuss with city officials.  They are planning a presentation where some of the students we worked with will present to the city council.

On the weekend I went to the town of Sighisoara (pronounced Sigishoara).  It was a beautiful, historic town of about 30,000.  It was the hometown of Vlad the Impaler who the character Dracula was loosely based on.  I spent the whole day on sunday relaxing by a pool with some volunteers from group 20 (I’m in group 21).  Check out the pictures at www.828pm.com/photos.

Today we had a 4th of July party at the school with PC staff and our gazda families.  It was great to grill out and listen to some classic American music that I, of course, got to DJ.

Tomorow is the big day where we learn our permanent sites.  I have no idea where I am going to go.  Don’t know if will be a big city or a small town.  During my site interviews I focused more on the type of job I would do and not where.  All I know is that I will probably be working at a mayors office which tends to mean that I will be in a smaller city, possibly around the same size as Sighisoara.  Well, I’ll let you know as soon as I do!

I have a cell phone.  I can watch Desperate Houswives on the TV at my house.  I can manage my website, watch movie trailers and listen to NPR on the internet.  I can go to the beach, go skiing or hiking.  I’m working on a project designing the central park for the mayor’s office.  Not quite the Peace Corps experience many of you thought I was in for.  You probably thought I would spend all my time here digging ditches. 

Well…

This weekend I was digging ditches.  About 30 volunteers went to Pitesti to work with Habitat for Humanity.  We dug a trench for a water main pipe around 3/4 of the house.  We had a fun time and it was nice to do a little manual labor.  I was also glad to get out of Ploiesti to the slightly nicer city of Pitesti.

Great news!  Instead of me akwardly trying to write about the experience at habitat, you can see it pixel by pixel.  I have finally set up a photo portion of this site.  Check it out at http://www.828pm.com/photos  I am slowly uploading pics from here and the states.  You can add comments to them, send e-cards, download full files, rate them, create favorite lists and even upload your own photos to the site so I can see what is going on in your life.  I know… it rules.  Soon I will be connecting this blog and the photo page to a more unified website, but I wouldnn’t have high expectations of it happening very soon.

Now I must work to finish our graphics for our park design.  We present it with one of the high school students to the office of Urban Development.