Over The River And Through The Woods

The week started clear but very, very cold -- around freezing most days. Our main errand this week was heading out to Grandma and Grandpa Negru's place to drop off new eyeglasses for the both of them. Since we had Gagi around, we were able to go by car, which is a little faster than going by train and bus. It involves shooting around the outskirts of Bucharest rather than driving through the middle.

Grandma and Grandpa seemed to be in fine spirits. The new glasses worked pretty well. Both of them seemed mostly concerned with whether or not they could read their Bibles and their Orthodox calendars. I suppose if I were 90 I might feel the same way. I mean, really, what's the next big thing that's going to happen in your life at this point? Exactly.

Since then, we've been in fairly constant snowstorms. Some days it snows heavily, others not so much, but there's snow every day. The sidewalks and streets are covered again, which is OK for now because it's all powder, but is going to be hell once things freeze into ice again. We've gone out on occasional errands (food for Grandma Gomiou and the cat) but have mostly been battened down inside the house.

Gagi and Tania left town for the weekend. It's the seventh anniversary of the death of one of Tania's closest friends, and Romanian tradition provides that the closest living survivors conduct certain rites and ceremonies on the anniversary. You light candles and give away food and gifts to the poor in the name of the person who died. The recipients of the gifts have to use or eat them -- giving them to someone else or throwing them out is considered extremely bad luck. They also ritually ask you about the person who died, what they were like, what their death was like, etc. Tania took a couple days off work and cooked up a huge pot of stuffed cabbage leaves ("sarmale"), and they loaded the car with that and some other stuff they bought, and braved the snowy roads to Constanta (the dead person's home-town), because you're supposed to light the candles at the graveyard.

Io and I have spent our week mostly teaching ESL classes and hanging around the house. Teaching ESL has been a pretty interesting experience. You have no idea how many things are confusing about English until you start teaching it to someone else, and particularly when they start asking questions like "Why?" or when to use one word versus another. Is there any reason I say I go to the movie, but that I go to work, and that I go home? If there is, I don't know it. So far our students have been game, though, and it seems to be going fine. I whipped up a batch of metric chip cookies for one set of students and promised them all there would be cookies at least once a month. That's the kind of value you get from America. F YEAH!

Other than that, we mostly hung around the house and waited for Gabriel to be born. Less than four weeks to go!

Pasta and Io's delicious home-made bolognese sauce. YUM!

We also had a sober afternoon yesterday, because it was the third anniversary of the death of Io's close friend Mike. Although we're not close enough to do the anniversary rites at his cemetery (thanks again, INS), you're allowed to light the candles at the church and give away food to the local poor. This is the structure for candles for the dead at Io's local church. (The other side has similar vestibules with "Vii" signs, for candles and prayers for the living.) I didn't want to take any photos of the actual rite, but Io lit candles for Mike and then we gave food to some local gypsies, who went through the ceremonial questions even though they had to come out to the cold and snow to do it.

And now, we're just preparing another ESL class and waiting out the winter. It's a cold and difficult time all around, but spring will be here soon.