August 29, 2008: Language

Dear Friend,

The morning hikes to the cross are definitely going to whip me into shape. The seven of us did it this morning. Andrew and I lead the group and didn’t stop until we reached the cross. I thought my lungs were going to explode out of my ribcage. I was so winded by the time we reached the top. I think everyone felt about the same, once they made it to the top themselves.

We started our language lessons today. Iuliana is our instructor. She is twenty-four, we eventually found out, and has a rather cheery disposition. Janelle told us Iuliana (pronounced Yu-li-ana) was very nervous about teaching the lessons. It went alright, overall, I would say. I mean, we were just starting out, and in all actuality I don’t think any of us really knew what we were doing. Iuliana made the comment that I sound very Romanian, and wondered whether or not I had Romanian relatives. She also called me a şmecker (schmecker) at the end of class, which essentially means that I’m really good at getting out of things. She called me this after I got out of repeating some words. It had been the end of our three hour class ten minutes ago, so I felt okay with ending lessons then. It was all in fun, though. Şmecker isn’t necessarily an insult.

I had purchased some Romanian language CDs before coming over, so I had a little heads up. Romanian is a romantic language, similar to French, Spanish, and Italian, and is rooted in Latin. There are some extra letters, though. Ş makes an sh sound, so the word and in Romanian şi sounds like she. Ţ makes a ts sound, so the word for thank you in Romanian mulţumesc sounds like multsumesc. Then there’s â and î, which are two forms of the same vowel sound that doesn’t exist in English but are used frequently in Romanian. The mispronunciation of this vowel could lead to some unfortunate consequences, so I’ll advice you now to not even bother trying to pronounce lemon. I’ll tell you about it later.

Other words we learned today, in our “Romanian Survival Guide,” are Good morning and Good evening: Bună dimineaţa and Bună seara. Hi and Bye are both Ceau. Thank you is mulţumesc and You’re welcome is cu plăcere (the letter c makes a ch sound, while the letters ch make a k sound in Romanian.) We learned a whole lot just in the first day.

It was raining during our language lesson, so there was no training. However, there was a little orientation, so to speak. We packed our backpacks with some stuff, to get used to carrying weight during a hike, and Daniel took us out to the ropes course we would be working at next week. We hiked for awhile on a trail that led us away from the cross and away from the little community of Straja into the woods. The rain had let up just a little bit and Janelle pointed out some blueberry bushes. We spent a little time picking and eating fresh mountain blueberries, until Daniel decided we had dilly-dallied enough.

The rain started again once we got to the ropes course. We took off our packs near a cabin used by Viaţa staff and headed into the woods. There are two kinds of ropes courses: high ropes and low ropes. The high ropes are courses you are belayed with, that is you are high up in the air on the course and connected to someone on the ground via a harness and rope. The low ropes are courses you don’t need a harness for because they’re on the ground. We took time to look at all of them, Daniel explaining each one as we went to it.

Back at the cabană, things went about the same as they had the yesterday. The girls started working on Romanian language flashcards. For some reason, the girls decided it would be fun to start finding alternate names for each other. After awhile, Stacey and Solita started working on alternate names for me, and then poor Andrew entered the room and became victim to it as well. Stacey and Solita were very convinced that the name “Earl” was a good fit for me. All I could think of was the Dixie Chicks song, “Earl’s Gotta Die,” so the change was not at all appreciated. Besides, Earl is not a name for me. Andrew became “Sam,” for some reason. This led to a discussion of his siblings, all of which (except his sister) are named after apostles.

I suppose it was another good day, despite how very little seemed to get accomplished. I think many of us were a little disappointed that we didn’t get to do any training or do our hike to Straja Peak. The language lessons definitely gave us stuff to work with, though. Tomorrow we have Dana’s birthday party to attend, which we’re all supposed to dress up for, I guess. They were going to cook a pig, but that got canceled. Apparently it’s a Hawaiian theme. None of us got the email. Oh well. We’re American, so we’re going to stand out anyway.

Blessings.
Kailen