An evening at work

This evening I went to the Sport High School to help a P.E. teacher translate some English language documents into Romanian. Yes, strange to say, I can help someone translate back into their own language. :/

While I was there, Maria arrived from a trip to Iaşi. Iaşi is the largest city in our region of Romania. Maria took her "work" car, a Ford Focus station wagon, to Iaşi for a tune up.

She has begun a second multi-year contract through the World Bank which has master teachers train teachers in rural areas. The trainings are about new methodologies, such as cooperative learning, brainstorming, and comparisons. She was a bit grumpy because the car needs something expensive done and she isn't sure if her company will pay to get it done.

She asked if I would go with her tomorrow to the city of Bacau, south of Suceava. I have some Peace Corps paperwork to do, but I'd rather spend the day with Maria. I haven't spent much time with her for the last few months. We always have good ideas together.

She'll pick me up in the morning at 7:00, her husband Costel driving, and get us to the train station. I don't know when I'll be back. This is common here: we never know, when we leave the apartment, when we'll be back. Could be in an hour, could be the next morning at 6:00.

Tonight Dennis will leave for the city of Baie Mare, over the mountains and to the west. He'll be on a night train where the seats turn into bunks and there are 6 bunks to a compartment.

In Baie Mare he wants to find and purchase more Romanian mineral samples. There was a lot of mining in that region and apparently lots of people have mineral collections. He has some nice specimens from there already, but he wants to get more before we leave.

He will also visit with some of our colleagues: Tod, Derrick and Carol. We really enjoy the young people we're serving with. What wonderful youthfulness!

Obviously I'm feeling a LOT better. Yay!