In an effort to bridge the gap between providing continued language learning opportunities for Volunteers and actually paying for them with our limited budget, the staff at Peace Corps Romania came up with the idea for Volunteer sponsored “Language Weekends”. The idea is that Volunteers from within a given region could descend upon one Volunteer’s village and then could study a particular topic related to the Romanian Language. This helps to keep travel and lodging expenses down because Volunteers as a whole would cover shorter distances and crash on each other’s floors. One of the first experimentations of this idea took place during the last weekend in November at my site in Valea Călugărească when a total of thirteen Volunteers came for a visit.
Ahead of time we sent out a survey to the folks in our region to figure out what topic we wanted to focus our language training around. Overwhelmingly the votes nominated Romanian Food as the topic of choice. From there we secured a host country national language instructor; luckily a trainer we were already familiar with from Pre-Service Training in Târgoviște. Then we decided on what food we would actually want to learn about and hopefully cook. The selection process vetted lots of submissions but the most interest fell to Ardei Umpluți (Stuffed Peppers), Sarmale (Stuffed Cabbage Rolls), Zakuska (Red Pepper Spread) and Clătite (Crepes). As a bonus I threw in Vin Fiert to welcome my weary travels as they arrived.
The other big question was “Where is everyone going to sleep?” I am fortunate in that my housing is bigger than average, but there is certainly no way that I could sleep thirteen people in anything that resembles a civilized manner. Fortunately, my school’s generosity played a huge role here. One of our school buildings used was a dormitory or student hostel. The top two floors still serve this function today and the bottom floors are classrooms. In fact, when I came to visit the school during the summer I stayed in one of these rooms. Upon my request, the Director authorized the necessary adjustments to one of these rooms to accommodate eight people. With beds fully made and access to hot showers, it wasn’t the Ritz but it was very comfortable by Peace Corps standards.
The weekend was setup in a simple way. Volunteers would arrive on Friday afternoon or evening; I had prepared a hearty vegetable stew ahead of time so that we could relax together the first night everyone arrived. On Saturday morning I prepared scrambled eggs with ham, coffee and had cereal available for those vegetarians in the crowd. After breakfast, our Language Trainer drove in from Ploiești and held a lesson instructing us on the finer points of Zakuska making. Fortunately, I have my own classroom, so accommodating everyone in an appropriate educational setting was easy. After the academic lesson (all in Romanian) we headed for the kitchen. Since my kitchen isn’t big enough for thirteen people and an instructor our teacher came up with the idea of separating us in shifts, where everyone had their own task within the recipe to complete. In the meantime another volunteer came up with the idea of setting up Skype and broadcasting video of what was happening in the kitchen over the Internet to my laptop and projector in the living room. Once we finished the Zakuska we broke for lunch; for which I had prepared a pie-less chicken pot pie recipe earlier in the week. After lunch we went back to the classroom to learn how to make Sarmale and repeated the process, heading back to the kitchen to carry out what we had just learned. After battling with some stubborn cabbage we managed to come up with a Sarmale-like concoction. With generous helpings of Smăntăna (Sour Cream) on top and some local fresh bread on the side we had the makings for a great dinner. My neighbor Nicu, in the form of his homemade wine, provided the merriment for the evening.
Sunday followed the same basic model where we made the Ardei Umpluți with a few extra lessons learned: buy enough peppers for everyone and be sure to make enough filling. No matter, Zakuska and bread from the day before satiated our appetites just fine.
In the early afternoon on Sunday my guests started to pack up for their journeys home. Everyone got to take a jar of Zakuska home with them and some fun memories. Admittedly my house required a thorough sterilization that afternoon, but all the clean up was well worth it. My colleagues even showed their appreciation by presenting me with a brand new wok and a bottle of Featească Neagră. In the end, in my opinion, the language weekend had been a great success, we even learned a little Limba Română.
As always, pictures are below.
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