Exploring my Neighborhood (Part 1)

Getting to my site has been a pretty overwhelming experience. I have a little studio apartment so I have been able to keep somewhat busy cleaning and getting it set up, but moving to a new place where I don't speak the native tongue and only know two people in town has been challenging to say the least. However, I have been very lucky to have really great Peace Corps neighbors. There are two volunteers in my area, Megan and Monica, who are third year extendees. They have both been amazing, inviting me to see their sites and sharing their knowledge and experiences.

Monica invited me and Vicki (another new volunteer in my group) up to her site which is about 30 minutes away because her town was celebrating it's 600th year! Most short distance local transportation in my region stops at 7:00pm so Vicki and I visited Monica for a sleep-over. We took a maxi-taxi up in the afternoon and explore the piata and grocery stores in town to buy provisions to make salad, roast veggies, and bake chocolate chip cookies. Monica showed us how to make the Romanian approximation of chocolate chip cookies, it involved cutting up some chocolate bars, but it tasted very close to those at home and was delicious!

After dinner and baking, Monica took us to see her town and the little fair. At the fair there was a booth making Kürtőskalács, a traditional sweet bread from the Hungarian region of Romania. The bread is roasted over coals so the outside is just done and the inside if doughy. After it's baked the bread is rolled in cinnamon, nuts or coconut. It's then knocked off the roller it's baked on and wrapped up. When eaten warm, it's quite delicious!

After walking through the fair, Monica then took us to the abandoned Armenian church in her community. I guess there is a caretaker in the town that looks after the beautiful old building and once every year or so an Armenian priest comes to give services in the church. My understanding was that all the Armenians that lived in the community fled the area during the Communist era.
After looking at the church we walked back to the fair and saw some traditional Romanian music and folk dancing (I posted a little video of the dancing on Facebook).

The next day we went with Monica to visit a Catholic orphanage that she has been working with. The orphanage had 18 children, ranging in age from 2-14. Many of the children have parents, but the parents simply can't provide for them, so they have given them to the nuns to look after. Some of them get to see their parents occasionally. Others do not have any parents and the nuns are looking for families to adopt these children. The facility was very well maintained and very warm. In the same compound there was also a kindergarten, the nuns had quite a passion for their work with the children. It was a lovely visit.