An Autumnal Afternoon

Sunday, I took the train up to Julie's site and went for a hike with Julie and a couple of her fellow language teachers. We hiked to the top of a hill to see a church and monastery. It was a foggy and rainy day, by the time we got to the top of the hill the fog was so thick I couldn't even get picture of the church and beautiful grounds. By the end of the hike we were all soaked, but we had a great time. Julie and I have vowed to go back again in a few weeks in the hopes of a clear day and some fall color.

This and That

I have finished my second week of school and while I haven't actually taught classes yet I have made a little progress. My school still hasn't finished creating the school schedule, so I don't yet know what my typical week will be like during the year. However, I am happy to report that today I finally got the keys to my classroom. I will need to rearrange the room so students' desk are facing the board and I want to decorate. I am very lucky about the size of the room. It is much bigger than the room I first had and it has a fair amount of windows. When I get it set-up I will take more photos.

Thus far, I only have class lists for three of the nine classes that I will teach. I am hoping that on Monday I will get the remaining ones.

This week I have been adjusting to some of the differences in Romanian and American classes. For example, here teachers answer their cell phones while in the middle of teaching. This happened in at least 5 classes I was observing. Some of it has been unusual, like when a teacher's mother called about an errand to run. Yet, at the same time I understand while teachers have to have their phones on. Our classroom buildings do not have phone lines so if the office needs to contact teachers during class they have to call them or walk across campus to the classroom.

Random note: This week my counterpart told her form class that it is rude to call people between 2-4 in the afternoon because you don't know if they may be napping or not. I think a couple students had called to try to get the schedule for the next day. However, this led me to wonder, does Romania have a siesta time I am unaware of? Further observation must be done!

A Girl Walks into a Room

This is my first week at school and it's been a very interesting experience. At my school, the first two weeks are a day by day affair. Each day the schedule is different, a new schedule is posted for the next day around 11:00am about what classes they will have the next day. Thus today, I can tell you that I know what I am doing tomorrow (well, sort of), but after that it's complete mystery. When the schedule is ready one is posted in the cancelaria (teacher's lounge). Here is a typical scene when the schedule is posted.

The diriginte (form teacher) is then responsible for disseminating the schedule to students. There is usually a line of students outside the cancelaria, who ask teachers to help them learn their schedule. Here is a sample of what a schedule looks like. As a teacher, you have to look for your last name each hour. Then the number above the column signifies which class you are teaching.

Right now there are only four classes per day, but when we have the normal schedule we will have six classes each day.

Tuesday, only one of the classes that I will be helping to teach was meeting so I went to school for only a couple hours. I first went to the room that is to be my classroom, to put some chalk I bought in the cupboard (here teachers have to pay for their own chalk, papers, and xeroxes - these are not reimbursable). Anyway, I walked my classroom and it smelled pretty bad. I looked around the room and saw that in the wall behind the teacher's desk there is hole about 4 feet tall and a foot wide. The hole was not there last week when I was in the room. I should note that I did see some water damage on the paint, but the wall has been there every time I've stopped into school the past month. I didn't have time to think much of this and I walked over to go to the room of my counterpart where we have been meeting the classes before we divide them in the coming weeks.

I asked my counterpart about the wall in my classroom and she didn't know anything about it. After class we went to the building with the administration offices in it inquired about the hole the director, he didn't know about it, but he did inform her that I will not have that room. Instead I will have a classroom in another building. I guess they gave the room I had set-up to the new religion teacher, this was news to both of us.

As of today, I think I know which classroom I will have. The good news is that it is in the same building as the other language classrooms (the other one was in the math building). However, we haven't been able to locate the keys so I have not actually seen the inside of the room. I hope tomorrow we can find the teacher who used to have the room because we think she has the keys. I just hope when I go inside all the walls will be intact!

The Edge of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

Last Saturday, after recovering from the stomach flu (thus the gap in blogging). I was finally able to get out and about. I rode the train up to Ghimes, a town that was once a border between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Moldova, with Julie and Mil. We lucked out and had the first sunny and warm day that we've had in weeks. Ghimes is about a two-hour train ride from my site and is the east side of the Hungarian speaking region of Romania.

The train station and a fruit and veggie stand.

Mil's tutor, Crina, lives in Ghimes and was an amazing tour guide for us. First she took us to a small museum in town. The museum was created by a former school teacher and is two rooms in her home. She has been collecting items from the community to try capture what rural life was like in the past.

There was lots of weaving equipment.

Ornaments from the old school.

A machine used to separate honey from the combs.

Lots of butter churns.

More interesting objects.

Crina then took us back to her house for coffee. She then took us to see more historical sites in town. Below are the ruins of the quarantine site for the town. Crina told us the Catholic priest in town has been working to preserve the site and had recently built structures to try to prevent deterioration.

There are also memorials for community members killed in World War I and II.

The final stop on our tour was the ruins of one of the Austro-Hungarian border watch towers. We climbed the hundred stairs up to the top. I can't imagine what it would have been like to climb these extremely steep and dark stairs at night.

The climb was worth it because the view was beautiful!

The view of the Romanian Orthodox church on one side.

The Catholic church and cemetery on the other side.

Crina told us the above path was one a cannon route. They pulled cannons up to high points on the hills.

We also could see a potato harvest in progress.

We had a great day and look forward to many more adventures this autumn.

Romanian Revamp

Last month, I moved to my site and I have spend the past month trying to make my studio a little more homey. I was lucky enough to have my landlord paint the apartment about a week ago so I thought I would devote this post to a little before and after of my space.

Here are my "before" shots:

Also, as I cleaned I had to combat a few spiders.

Here is my finished product. As is typical in many Romanian apartment, the first thing you see when you open my apartment door is the refrigerator.

Here is my petite kitchen. The table functions as my sole counter-top and dining table!

It's important to have extra liters of water in the bathroom as the water gets turned off in my town with no warning for days at a time. The water works to try to help flush the toilet.

Here are the "after" shots of my repainted and reorganized abode:

The First Day at School, well, sort of...

A Romanian School Crossing Sign

The first of September is supposed to be the first days for teachers to go back to school, but at my school this was not the case. Students who did not pass their end of year tests last year had to re-take tests and this meant that no teachers (except those giving exams) could go into the school. My counterpart and I tried to do an errand at school on Monday and were refused entrance at the gate because we weren't involved in the testing. So the first of September came and went and I did not go to school.

However, today we finally got to go! I was excited at the prospect of meeting other teachers and getting copies of the English textbooks so I can start lesson planning. Today was just a day where teachers could do work if they wished so there was no official schedule. The student schedules have not been made yet, so no teachers know which classes they will be teaching. I was looking forward to meeting the two new English teachers that will also be new in my school this year, but they were not at school today. No one has met these teachers yet as teachers are assigned based on test results, especially my counterpart, who is the head of the language department. While I did not get to meet two of the teachers that I will be sharing classes with; I was able to meet a few of the 100+ teachers in the school. It was nice to meet a few more people in town (now I just need to be able to remember all their names).

Before we left school for the day, my counterpart and I walked over to the building that houses the language classrooms to get copies of the English textbooks for me. A woman ran up to us and stopped us just before we entered to let us know that the whole building had just been fumigated so we could not go in. Thus, I will save getting my books for next week. We can't go to school tomorrow because of more exams. For now, I'll be happy for a three day weekend!