Village Life

Romania is really neat. We all here feel like we've already been here for 3 weeks just because we've seen so much! Last night we actually saw the cows come home. There are a lot of animals here in the village, and the gypsies identify with me because of my dark skin and b/c i'm also part of a persecuted group. Too funny.

I like the Romanian language and i am learning bits and pieces - I think the romanians are impressed by the fact that i am already speaking. And, I'm getting good practice in because you have to say hello to every single person as you pass by.

I don't know if this project is really about the internet, which makes me nervous because that's what i said i came to do, and i can't tell if the subject has changed because we already realize now that people don't have the internet. But i feel like the whole time the study was always going to be about doing an ethnography of village life (which i don't care about) since the whole internet thing just hasn't come up a lot. Basically, the only people who have internet is...me - right now, using a laptop and a mobile phone to dial the modem and the phone keeps cutting off. I'm living at the Emanescu trust house, and the village of Viscri has about 400 people in it - it's actually a UNESCO World Heritage site http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/596 and Prince Charles owns a house here. The village is ethnically mixed, made up of Saxons originally from Germany, some Hungarian Gypsies, some Romanian Gypsies who want to identify as Romanian, not Roma, and the Romanians. Basically, the town is Saxon in its structure and architecture, but there are very few Saxons (25) still living in the village, so there's an effort to preserve the Saxon culture, but for who? There's also an effort for the village to make money, so they knit wool into socks. Of course, I had to buy a pair.

The food is excellent, so fresh. I was at first a little worried that the romanians think that "vegetarian" means "mushrooms" because i spent the first 2 days eating more shrooms than i have in my entire life. But the food here in the village is awesome and we have a different kind of vegetable soup with every dinner. The air is so fresh and the food is so fresh, my skin is starting to glow. In other consumption-related news, last night i drank too much wine palinca, the twice-distilled, oft used as "medicine" plum alcohol at dinner. It really wasn't a fair fight, and I was very hungover this morning and had to sit out on the morning interview with the metalworker. It really wasn't a fair fight.

The people in the group are friendly and we're already working hard on doing 3 interviews of village people a day - but the interviews are not about...the internet! I have been lucky enough to shadow the village nurse as she went on rounds visiting people with newborn babies or chronic diseases like diabetes. What seems to be emerging is that the villagers think their lives were a little better during communism and now they're really struggling and nervous about recently joining the Euro Union for a lot of different reasons (like what will happen to them, their culture, etc). The biggest news this minute is that some French dude saw a girl in our group this afternoon, has fallen in love, and now has come tonight with a horse to take her for an evening ride. I guess that's how they do it in the country?