A day in the life of Marie

It is not uncommon for me to get questions from people back home about what exactly it is I do. Mondays are pretty cool, which considering how much I used to dread the beginning of the work week, is quite a statement.

Monday mornings I wake up and drag myself out of bed sometime between 8 and 9. (Note: I have decided that any hour that starts with an "s", such as "six" or "seven" doesn't actually really exist. These are more theoretical hours that while technically pass us by, shouldn't ever really be noted as people should be sleeping through them.) After having a quick bite to eat and getting myself ready for the day, I go catch a maxi taxi to the "barrier" of the city. At the edge of the city I board another maxi-taxi. As I am typing this, I thought to myself, "Hmm, maybe you should post a picture of this," only to realize I don't have a picture of a maxi-taxi. This is something I will remedy shortly. This second maxi-taxi leaves the city of Galati and goes along a straight road and stops at various villages it passes through. This maxi-taxi doesn't have a schedule or anything, it leaves when it is full of people. When I say full, I mean each and every time I get on one of those things it could be in competition for "the most people you could possibly fit into a passenger van and still be able to move the thing forward." You don't pay as you get on but rather as you get off and the driver knows how far you have ridden and thus knows how much the fare should be. When you get to where you want to get off, you need to announce your stop to the driver and he will pull over.

The village I go to every week is called, Sivita. (Prounounced "Shee-veet-za) The difference between living in a large city like Galati, and a small village like Sivita is simple; running water, stores, and central heat. For those of you who are now thinking, "Those poor villagers! Someone needs to show them how to improve their lives!" stop. It is not uncommon to see a house that has to pull water from the well that has a satellite dish on the side. Its also not uncommon to see someone driving a horse with a cart while talking on a cell phone. For more "village" pictures, please see: http://picasaweb.google.com/mariemines/TantaSVillage These are pictures taken not of Sivita, but the village next door, Tulucesti. This is the village where my good friend, Tanta, is from.

As for the school, it is for grades one to eight and has less than ten teachers. The building has recently been renovated from funds received from EU sources, however, there is still no central heating. Each class room has a wood burning stove they rely on for heat through the winter. There is also no running water or bathroom in the school. To take care of such matters, one gets to visit a shack on the side of the school guarded heavily by no less than eleven stray dogs who aren't going to bite you, but will be happy to accompany you inside the shack. Once you are in there, all it is is a hole. Literally. A hole in the ground. Good luck ladies.

I suppose I have painted a somewhat grim picture but then you get to the students. They are darling sweethearts who always smiling and are happy to see me. It is really cool, when I come it means they get to stop working on their grammar lesson and play games. So it is not uncommon when I walk into a class for the whole room to actually erupt into a cheer. I think that is going to be a hard transition for me when I go home. I'm gonna walk into a room and say, "What? No cheers?" ;)

The activities I have with the kids are usually simply vocabulary lessons with an activity to reinforce the meaning of the words. Like for example, today we talked about weather. So I drew a picture of the sun, rain, snow, etc, and they had to come label each picture correctly. And then if they are good we usually wrap up with a game that has nothing to do with anything, its just fun. And we all enjoy it. Today we went outside, (my excuse was, "We've learned about weather, now we need to go and enjoy the beautiful weather outside) and played friendship tag.

Sometimes it is frustrating as my Romanian is extremely limited and their English is the same. Most days I have a teacher, Ani, there to help me. She has been an absolute delight to work with. I think it is people like her who are responsible for the progress Romania has made. She is a very positive person and very intelligent. But for the days when she isn't there, me and the kids struggle through. They make an extra effort to understand what I mean and like the saying goes, "If God had intended us to all speak the same language He would not have given us ten fingers."

Coming home from the village is interesting. I walk out to the main "highway" and stand by the side until either a maxi-taxi returns to the city or some kind stranger offers to pick us up. Before everyone hyperventilates about me hitch-hiking you need to understand, it is not the same thing here as it is in the states. Safety isn't really a concern when riding with a stranger here. When you hitch a ride with someone, you typically give them about half the price as a train fare would cost (unless you get a really nice person who just lets you ride for free. It happens from time to time). But mainly it is a sort of privatized transportation industry that everyone just understands the rules and costs. Since most people here don't have vehicles and the trains and not even the maxi-taxis go everywhere or often enough, people just rely on other people to get around. Personally, I think it is really cool. Anyways, the maxi-taxi or person will typically drop you off back at the barrier and lately I have been walking back to the center of the city where I live, about a 45 minute walk.

So there you have it. A day in the life of Marie. I keep meaning to take my camera with me and do a sort of "photo journal" in the city of Galati. Hopefully that will be coming soon.

Until then, Peace out!