First Impressions

I'm finally here!! Through visa complications, delays, more delays, funding delays, and project rescheduling due to said delays, I am finally in Romania. There were moments where I had serious doubts it would happen, but because of massive amounts of patience with everyone involved, I made it.  Tomorrow I meet some of the kids for the first time. They range in ages 7-14, and I am anticipating they are going to be a blast. 

The little I have seen of Romania so far has been a very interesting mix of the old and the new. Air conditioning and open doors are seen as evil by many Romanians, because of the draft monster, which they blame any form of illness on. Including my current cold. However all buses; and many houses and offices have these magic machines that blow out cold air, even if they don't use them. It has been interesting meeting people my age who talk about the fall of communism, and the almost instant increase in available goods, that happened when they were 6 or 7. To have such clear memories of a distinct regime change has been fascinating to listen to. 

 The best way that I can describe Romania, on first impression, is well used. Everything is used until it can not function anymore. In America, we are the ultimate consumers and will exchange things well before it needs to be replaced, but here, you run every item you own into the ground. It can be masked as decay, but really the Romanians are simply good stewards of their resources. It makes sense why there would still be horse and buggies, pitch forks for farming, and washing done in the streams. Why would they buy a car when they have a perfectly good horse? Why get a tractor when they still have a good back and a pitchfork? What is the point of a washing machine? The stream is outside and it doesn't cost anything. We think the economy runs on money, but really, it runs on time. If we had more time to walk to the store or into town, cook dinner at home, wash our clothes in a stream, or whatever task we have deemed to slow for our daily lives, think about how many of our "magic machines" in America would be obsolete.