Week 2

Hello all, I hope this reaches everyone well, down in nice and warm Australia. Up here it is wet and cold; the snow which has graced Brasov has picked today to melt, today being the day I had to spend about 2 hours standing at different bus stops.

On Saturday it was my room-mate Josh’s birthday, so to mark the occasion we went to a movie, Funny People, yhea I know it isn’t a great film but that wasn’t the great thing about the trip. The cinema that we saw it in was one of those really old cinemas that have a sheet screen and rather than chairs it had couches and tables. Another thing that I noticed was that the cinema hadn’t cut up the film to fit the screen, so not only was it still square, but half the time you could see the boom-mic fall into shot. But it was these little things that made the experience awesome. Following that we went out for another night of clubbing which was good fun, also for all those who are going out on the town, the best 5:30 am pick me up is a quick 24 hrs cheeseburger.

Monday was my first day of teaching, although there was no actual teaching per-say we just planned, Jenny (the other Drama volunteer and I were told that we would be working on a few small plays with some of the schools we are working with, and we also work with a group called black juice which is six year twelve students, we have to work on a self written play, yikees.

On Tuesday I got my first dose of teaching, we were off to a school known only as school 4. The class that we had there was Grade 4 who are best described as... Hyperactive. We then went out to this village known as Prejmere, There were fewer children here but these ones were a little bit better behaved. Now I know that before I left a lot of people asked me who I would communicate with the children, well In most classes all have some grasp of English, most of the TV channels over here are American ones with Romanian subtitles so they pick up a bit (the desk officer here taught himself English through this method), and there is always one in the class who speaks really good English, so anything difficult can be said through them.

Wednesday was the last day of one of the volunteers, Gabriel is from Singapore, so coming over here was a real dose of freedom from all the laws they have over there, so he was really sad to be leaving. We went to Deane’s Irish Pub for the night, we all had a good time listening to music and reminiscing, that we were all surprised when 4 rolled around and we were thrown out. After an emotional farewell he imparted his motto on us, Carpe Diem.

Friday was the last day of teaching this week and was also the day that I got to meet the infamous Black Juice. Black Juice is the group for 17-18 year old locals who are very good at acting, so it was very interesting to see them perform for the first time. I did think that without the equipment and stuff we have in Australia that the quality wouldn’t be as high, but it seems talent will always shine through no matter where you live, they preformed a piece for me which they had put together in 6 hours and not preformed in 3 weeks, and  it was really good. I know have meetings with them 3 times a week, and I’m really looking forward to it.

Tonight we went to a club called ‘Black and Silver’ where we danced and had fun until about 5 in the morning, it was about this time that Ceaclia had the brilliant idea of going to Peles castle. While the others made up reasons such as seeing it and buying Shampoo to go home and sleep, I thought this would be a great idea and ventured off to the train station. Peles castle was the home to the Romanian Royal family until the soviet take-over of power the castle is stunningly beautiful on the outside and breath-taking on the inside. This probably all would have sunk in a lot better had I not been awake for the past 25 hours. It took us an hour on the train to get there, by this time my body was starting to wonder why I was still awake. So we got to the village and started to make our way up the hill, when Ceaclia made a new friend, one of the local dogs had decided to follow us all the way up. So with our new friend in tow we made it up the hill. We spent a good 2 hours looking around, now I took my video camera up with me, but I wasn’t allowed to take footage, so I was only able to sneak this little bit of the armoury room.

By the time we got home it was 1 o’clock on Saturday afternoon, even though normally the slightest sound from my room-mate wakes me up, he could have brought in a ten-piece band and I would have slept through it.

So that’s me for the week. I again hope this reaches everyone well. Now I have to go work out 3 plays to do with the drama group, a short musical piece for one of my classes, then... well who knows what.

Talk soon, Jackson

ROMANIAN WORD OF THE POST:
Pa: This word means good-bye and is more a formality word to learn than one is necessary. However it shouldn’t be confused with Ba which means yes. This is sometimes is hard to discern between, so a lot “what?” and “Huh?” happens.