Well for starters, I am the biggest slacker ever. I had this awesome experience a week and a half ago and I am just now getting around to writing about it. I'll try to make up for my laziness.
So I have this incredibly awesome friend here in Galati named Tanta. (Pronounced, "Tan-za") She is a university student I met about a year ago and has become the reason I have been able to do half the stuff I have done here. She is an intensely talented artist and so therefore due to the efficiency of the educational system here in Romania she is studying engineering. Tanta lived in a home with her sister run by the Romanian Orthodox church (aka: a home for young girls run by nuns and priests) for quite a number of years. She is extremely religious and even though she decided to join the Mormon church last year, she still keeps in touch with her old friends from the past.
The reason I am giving the background here is so you can understand what prompted this whole trip. So in the past, Tanta has gone up to this monastery in a resort area called "Durau" to help them prepare for this minor Orthodox religious holiday, the day supposedly Mary announced her pregnancy with the Christ-child. This monastery hosts many Orthodox church officials and people for religious ceremonies and meals. We are talking about hundreds of people here and if anyone knows about how labor-intensive traditional meals are, you'll understand the preparation it takes for an event like this.
So Tanta decided to go up to help make preparations for this big holiday. One thing that is unusual about this monastery is that they actually run a hotel. As far as I am aware, this is the only one in all of Romania that does this. Tanta called up her friends at this place and made arrangements for us to stay there, (for free, way to go with the connections Tanta!) with meals and everything in exchange for helping them. Friday came and we began our journey. It is never an easy task to get from point A to point B in this country. Even though we were only going about 250 kilometers (that's roughly 150 miles) it took us about ten hours to get there. We left at seven in the morning and had a two hour stop in the beautiful town of Piatra Neamt. We had the chance to walk around, visit the town square (way cool), see the museum (simple and small, but neat), walk around the outside of the zoo (appalling), and have some lunch, I could already feel the fresh mountain air hitting my lungs.
That first night I learned that there are services every morning, and every night, sometimes in the afternoon as well. These services usually last two to three hours, but on Sundays and special occasions, can last six. Oh yeah, also, there are not any chairs in an orthodox except around the perimeter of the room for the elderly; everyone else is expected to spend the entire time either standing or kneeling. Women are to have their heads covered while men are to have theirs uncovered, and women stand on the left while men stand on the right.
Oh yeah also of note is that the Orthodox Easter is not the same as the Catholic Easter. (For those of you who don't know which one you celebrate, if you are in the States, they pretty much go off of the Catholic Easter; that's just when everyone else celebrates it.) If you are wondering about why the different dates for Easter, or even just how the date is decided for Easter, please see this link
http://www.oikoumene.org/en/resources/documents/wcc-commissions/faith-and-order-commission/i-unity-the-church-and-its-mission/frequently-asked-questions-about-the-date-of-easter.htmlSo right now we are in the 40 day period before Easter called "Post" (fast). Again those of you who are familiar with the Catholic religion will recognize this period as Lent. For those not so familiar with it, and as it is a little different than Lent, I will explain. For the 40 days before Easter there is no eating dairy products, no eating meat, and to be 100% honest, other things that they abstain from that I haven't any clue about, so we will leave it at that. Suffice it to say meal times at the monastery were very interesting. The food was incredibly excellent and there wasn't anything there that I didn't absolutely love, but I have never seen potatoes prepared in so many different ways. The soup was also always a bean "ciorba", which taste good, but poor Tanta had to deal with my after-effects.
The next morning we woke up and went to services. Following these my protesting knees took us back to the room to prepare to go hiking. The monastery is located at the base of a mountain. At the top of this mountain, on one of the very peaks, there are four Orthodox monks who live by themselves. The only way up and down this mountain is by foot, there are not any roads that go here. It is so intense. All the food, provisions, everything, that these monks need for living is carried up on their backs. It took Tanta and I about four hours of hiking to get up their. I put a bunch of pics online on my picasa account, you can see them by clicking on the link under "see all my pics".
When we got up there, the Priest invited us to the table and we were served this awesome completely natural tea and delicious soup, but again, bean ciorba. After we finished eating the priest talked to us for about three hours about religion. He was asking about what I believed and the basic tenants of my faith. It was an interesting exchange. It was hard for him to accept the idea that our beliefs weren't really all that different. (Coming from a "world religion" perspective. I mean, both believing in Christ, both believing in the Bible, etc etc) It was also difficult trying to answer some of his very direct questions without insulting him or saying that I thought his beliefs were wrong. He very earnestly was trying to convince me that joining the Orthodox faith is the only way I will redeem my soul. As a Peace Corps volunteer I am not to proselyte or promote one religion over any other and that can sometimes put me in very sticky spots. At the end though I think it was okay. We went to services that night and again the next morning and I think they were satisfied with that. One thing I observed was that it was very difficult on Tanta. She had, at one point in time, seriously entertained the idea of actually becoming an Orthodox nun herself, and so when we were there and people were telling her what a big mistake she had made- people she loves very much- it made her pretty sad. I think all in all, this experience has definitely taught me to try to be more accepting of the decisions people make, no matter how much I disagree with them. Tanta has been incredible about their comments not interfering with their relationship. She is an awesomely incredible lady. Anyways, continuing,
the next morning she and I headed down the mountain. A lot of the trail was completely covered in a slick sheet of ice and heading down was not fun at all. For a lot of the way, we just put one foot in front of the other and sort of "skiied" our way down. That wasn't so bad, but it played havoc on our knees. Its a week and some later and I am still walking like an old lady.
When we got down we discovered preparations for the coming holiday were full on. We walked into the kitchen to discover this:
What you are looking at is pots and pots and pots of sarmale, stuffed cabbage leaves. This is a delicious traditional meal composed of a mixture of vegetables, rice, and typically pork. As we are in “Post”, our sarmale is vegetarian, but it is still oh so good. When I walked into the room and saw the tables and tables of it, I nearly passed out in the excitement of it.
Tanta and I however, got put to work elsewhere. The main formal banquet tables for the head priest people (I hope there isn’t anyone reading this who is bothered by the fact that I have no idea what the official terminology for these guys are) had to be set and all that jazz. So Tanta and I folded the napkins all pretty, apparently an absolutely necessary preparation for this feast. But the following picture is of us with one of the really sweet nuns we worked with, and the head “mother” of the convent.
The next day was the actual holiday and there were so many people, it was crazy. The church was so stuffed, there wasn’t any room to actually kneel. This was the day that Tanta and I were heading home so we were walking around, chatting with all the nuns, saying goodbye. I was surprised by how many nuns were more just wondering around, doing their own thing while this big huge ceremony was going on, but it was great to chat with them. In this process we had some of the coolest experiences. One of the nuns took us up to the bell tower and let us watch them ring the bells and bang on the wooden planks. (It is part of the service.) I had the whole thing on video on my camera, and then like a dummy I went and erased it. But it was cool. Afterwards, we went and chatted with another nun who inducted us into the sisterhood.
Officially she could get into a lot of trouble by doing that, but I guess they are pretty low key there. By doing this though, apparently Tanta and I are now required to some day actually become Orthodox nuns. I’ll let you know how that goes.
After all this we got some lunch and then caught our bus back to Iasi, where we could then forge on to Galati. The entire experience was absolute amazing and I am so glad I got to go there and be a part of it all. The nuns were so sweet. What I didn’t mention already was my interaction with these ladies. My Romanian still really isn’t very strong…. Let’s be serious. My Romanian doesn’t really exist and so all communication either went through Tanta or they were very simple. Given this, many of the nuns didn’t even bother learning my name, they simply called me “americanca”. (the American girl) It was cute. When Tanta and I were leaving, many of them made me promise I would return, and even bring friends and family if it was possible. I was really touched with how sweet and sincere they were.
So to sum it all up, I can’t wait to become an old granny so I can sit around and tell these experiences to my grandkids. “You’re grandma used to climb mountains and stay in cabins with monks…” It’ll be great. All these events make me realize just how life-impacting my decision to join the Peace Corps is. I am here doing things and meeting people I never ever could have dreamed of. I don’t want to wax too sentimental here, so I’ll just say to all you back home thinking how cool it would be to able to come and do the same sorts of things, eat your heart out! ;)
Love to all! I am heading to Paris next week so there should be more on my blog soon.
Peace out!
M
