plină de viaţă

One week until Christmas in Romania, and on my heart is gratitude. I just returned from saying good-bye to the last North American I will see in this region until next year. A colleague walked me back through the dark streets to my apartment, and as we tossed snow glittering gold under the yellow street lights, I would not have chosen to be any other place. Though I will ever be a foreigner, nearly half a year here finds me less a stranger. All the relationships I've formed with Romanians have woven me into this place, and among the threads, I have found a home.

I wish you could come for a moment and see through my eyes, see all these images that run past the edges of language. I wish you could come with me for an hour, hear your own footsteps echoing down the stairwell, receding as you push open the heavy red door, falling silent as you step out into a different world. Today, you would see bright blue sky -- finally, after cold days of rain and heavy clouds that have sent children scampering to school under small umbrellas and thick hoods, clinging to their mothers' gloved hands. There's a school outside my window, a gradinita , or kindergarten, with white-rimmed windows. Pigeons often roost on the red-tiled roof or fly in patterns nearby, glinting grey-white when there's sun. A cement path leads up to the front door of all those years of education and cuts through a red fence that runs around the property's perimeter, separating the school from the apartment blocs. When I wake, I often go to my window and look out through the...

The series of unfortunate events that transpired this morning has already been righted! Well, mostly. Robi may be the Romanian modern-day version of a super-hero, as he has kept me from demise more than twice. He's a professional rockclimber and fix-anything guy who knows how to put real zest into " ceau, ceau ." Many of you will remember that I came down with food poisoning in the Retezat mountains two years ago, and because two others and I were too ill to trek out, Robi came careening over the narrow mountain road in his red Dacia to collect our limp frames and take us home. Seeing him emerge at Poiana Pelegii with that Dacia was one of the most blessed sights I'd seen, and even while listening to "Bette Davis Eyes" play on a repeat track of five songs over that three hour drive, Robi seemed to have plucked us from the hand of a wasting disease called cascaval cheese and sausage. When Daniel told me that Robi would be coming around noon today, I knew the ...

Though I try to avoid the Monday mentality, some Mondays do seem to have a mind of their own, regardless of the mindset we choose. Just to give you some perspective into my glamorous Eastern European life, here's a small anecdote from the past 24 hours: Late last evening, the neighbor immediately below me in this stairwell came tapping at my door with a problem. Something from my bathroom was leaking into hers, and after investigating first mine and then following her downstairs to examine hers, we decided that a small pool of water on my bathroom floor was the culprit. It's an area that nearly always stays wet, but after sponging up the water, I hoped the problem would be resolved. My neighbor below was indubitably hoping the same, though she must have doubted my capacity to fix a single thing upon seeing me standing perplexed at the door in my bright purple knee socks with obnoxious pink hearts on the side. This morning, I woke up with a start-the-day-right kind of resolve, b...

You exhale desperation, murmur syllables like a sigh. Tears cut a path down your cheek, breaking at your feet upon ground parched for compassion. I beg you, tell me the story sliding down your face. Cum te numesti? Nicoleta , you say, startled to be no longer a beggar but human, fitting into a plastic bag the weight of your griefs. The handles dig into your hand with each step, reminding you that this is all you have -- this and a child to feed, he your only crumb from the family scattered behind. I hug you good-bye but am suddenly turning back, pulling from my bag a loaf of bread and two pears. My hands are all that can speak to you. Again I pull your life into my arms, willing upon it mercy for this road of unforgiveness. I glance back to watch you, but you are already staring after me, holding your white bag. You wave and keep looking over your shoulder, like one peering through the dusk after fading light -- but no longer are you alone in the dark. Someone knows your name.

My dear family and friends, buna ziua from the other side of the ocean! As if writing this blog were not difficult enough, I'm now fantastically behind. The events of a month ago seem to have already happened in a slightly different lifetime, but my! how much I have to tell you! Since it remains impossible to capture or express all that has been happening when so much comes tumbling forth from each day, I must again hope that a smattering of images will bring you alongside me. I will be posting some updates over the next week, but for those of you who were constructing all sorts of wild speculation as to my activities in this intervening time, take a look at the link below: http://www.new-horizons.ro/about_us/staff.asp?page=4 This is real , which still seems unreal! But I could not do this alone. So many of you reading this blog are faithfully partnering with me in this journey. Your presence in my life is a precious, daily gift. No matter where I climb, you are standing with me. ...