September 8, 2008: Tibi, Part Two

Dear Friend,

This morning’s breakfast was another amazing one. I woke up to the smell of something sweet, but began to fear there were more giant mushrooms on the way. I took my shower in my usual autopilot mode, trying to prepare myself for the first day in a week of classes. I would be continuing my Romanian language course and also participating in an Experiential Education class taught by Daniel. The EE course I really don’t have to take, but because most of what we’ll be learning will prepare me for our backpacking in the Retezat, Daniel figured I wouldn’t lose much by showing up.

After the shower I braced myself and entered the kitchen. To my surprise, I found Tibi tossing pancakes in a frying pan, pancakes the size of my hand. He turned and smiled at me, saying cheerfully “Pancakes.” I was equally excited. These pancakes were indeed large. There was a plate of some already made sitting on the table. They looked like flour tortillas, just as thin too. Tibi also had a smaller pan going with smaller pancakes. There were also plums, bananas, and the unleavened bread biscuits I had made sitting on the table, with the blueberry spread, honey, and some cream cheese. This was going to be a very delicious breakfast.

After everything was set, Tibi went and grabbed his party kazoo and alerted Alex that it was time to wake up. We all sat down, I prayed, and we dove into our meal. Tibi and Alex showed me how to eat these pancakes, as there was no syrup. You spread the fixings on the pancake, cream cheese and blueberries for me, then roll it up kind of like a tortilla and eat it that way. The pancake itself was so sweet, without the help of cream cheese and blueberries, that for a moment I thought I was eating a donut. This was utterly amazing and all together something any good mother would never allow her children to eat for breakfast. Ours was balanced, though, with plums and bananas, so we were doing pretty well. During our meal the bells at a nearby church were ringing almost nonstop, and I wondered what the occasion was.

After breakfast Alex wanted me to teach him how to do Boom-Chicka-Boom. He was leaving to go home today, so this would be the last time to show him. Tibi also enquired after my CD wallet, and he, Alex, and I got into a little conversation about movies and music. Alex wrote down the titles of the movies I had soundtracks to, with the intention of downloading them after he returned home. Romania is one of the downloading capitals in Europe, so this didn’t sound all that farfetched to me, especially after having watched a pirated copy of Amazing Grace the other night.

It was soon time for Tibi and I to head over to the Fundaţia office, where I would have my language class. The entire two and a half hours of language studies was somewhat awkward because we were all still rather lost in translation. It wasn’t the Romanian so much as the clashing of two cultures. At least, that’s how I interpreted it. I also felt I understood a lot more than the others, but felt it rude to point this out at every chance. This made for a frustrating time. Iuliana is a very good teacher, and I think each of us is trying our bests. We just each work in different ways, and that sometimes muddles us all up. The good news, though, is that we’re learning new stuff everyday, and Iuliana is very patient with working with us. Now we just have to try and retain the new stuff we learn each day, so that each new day we can move on.

Experiential Education began with a hike. We ended up retracing the steps I had taken with Tibi and Alex just two days before. We stopped by a small clearing near the river, where Daniel assigned us to cooking and camping groups. The first group includes Andrew, Chelsea, and Hollyann. I’m in the second group with Anne, Stacey, and Solita. Daniel then began assigning principals of the “Leave No Trace” handbook to each group. Each group was then supposed to perform skits for each principal and present them to the others. This was, in turn, supposed to help us retain this information more. I really hate skits, for reasons it would take too long for me to get into, but I played along anyway.

The “Leave No Trace” principals are actually quite simple to remember. They’re principals used for all kinds of wilderness expeditions, but especially for long term trips. There are seven:
Plan Ahead and Prepare
Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces
Dispose of Waste Properly (this was an interesting one to discuss, ever hear of a “cat hole?”)
Leave What You Find
Minimize Campfire Impacts
Respect Wildlife
Be Considerate of Other Visitors
You can find out more about each online, I would assume, they’re very well known. Anyway, we did skits for each of these. When we did number seven, Dana was just riding up to us on his bike so we used this as an opportunity to exhibit how guideline number seven can be broken. Dana really didn’t know what to do, but was amused all the same.

We then went to Dana’s house, where the girls would have a meeting with Brandi and Janelle about “girl matters” while backpacking. Andrew and I hung out with Dana and Daniel and touched on things we already knew about. The details of this conversation I will leave out.

I returned to Tibi’s flat before he did. Earlier in the day he gave me a key, so it wasn’t difficult to get in. It was a challenge, the lock was temperamental, but it wasn’t difficult. About twenty minutes later Tibi arrived. For supper we had grapes and some kind of pretzels, I can’t think of what else they would be called. For dessert we had, obviously, some of his homemade ice cream.

I found out why the church near Tibi’s flat had been ringing its bells nonstop. It was an Orthodox Church. Every day in the Orthodox calendar is a saint’s day, but today must’ve been a special one. I found out, and reported to Tibi during supper that it was Mary’s, the Mother of Jesus, birthday. He threw up his hands, as if he had known this all along and had forgotten. He then began explaining to me that he was not Orthodox.

For some reason, this tripped something in Tibi. He began opening up to me and telling me about his past. He hadn’t always been a Christian. He had found Christ soon after his divorce. His wife had left him to go to Italy and start a new life. She had taken their two boys with her. When this happened, he felt he could no longer go on. He said it was the first time he had found himself on his knees, asking God why this had happened to him. This was when he found Christ. Eventually he had stopped drinking and smoking. He was beginning to pick himself back up. Even his friends were amazed by his transformation.

He doesn’t see his sons as much as he would like. His wife’s marriage to an Italian eventually failed and she returned to Romania to start a new life again. Tibi tries to be a part of their lives, but it’s difficult as he his here in Lupeni and they are in another part of the country. It’s difficult for him, therefore, to be the influence in their lives he wishes to be.

This spurred on conversations about marriage, divorce, the selflessness and selfishness that makes or breaks a marriage, and the need to have Christ in one’s life in order to make it all work. Tibi and I agreed on all of these points, and Tibi himself mentioned how it’s important for a person to be a servant in a marriage. He had mentioned earlier, when talking about his present job with New Horizons, that when you are working for others you stop thinking only of yourself. I took that to mean when you’re working for others as an occupation, but it could also mean when you’re working in name of others, or for the sake of others. When the intentions of your work are the betterment of someone else, you do stop thinking only of yourself. That’s what marriage is, or how it’s meant to be.

It was a wonderful moment of true brotherhood spanning countries, cultures, and even age. Tibi is at least ten or eleven years older than I am. It was certainly a blessing to have this time alone with him and share our experiences with other. He asked about my own experience with my parents’ divorce, which I had mentioned earlier in my stay. This also preempted the conversation about needing selflessness in marriage.

There’s a certain finality, though, to our meals, because Tibi thanks you for eating with him, then sets to clearing the table. The conversation was probably over by this time, as silence was beginning to set in. He must’ve also remembered my doing the dishes at the cabană in Straja, because he asked if I’d like to do the dishes as if it was a hobby of mine. I didn’t have the heart to say no, and there weren’t that many to wash, so I set to washing the dishes. He strode around putting things away, then told me of a game he wanted to show me after I was finished. I only hoped the game wouldn’t take too long, as I did have work I needed to do before the end of the night.

When I was finished, I sat back at the kitchen table. He handed me some pieces of black construction paper, cut into different shapes, mainly triangles. He then told me to form a square using all of the pieces. He said it took him a full half hour to figure it out. I had done this once before, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember. He got me started by putting the two largest triangles together, then left me to figure out the rest. I actually managed to make up the square before he came back, I made sure of it, and he was delighted to see it hadn’t taken me more than five minutes to figure it out. He then showed me a book he owned that showed pictures of different things, animals, people, tools, and the corresponding pattern you would use to make the object using the shapes I had used to make the square. It was his intention to use this game with some of the younger IMPACT club members. We spent a couple more minutes making other shapes. With each shape, Tibi became more delighted and fascinated by the game.

As we were putting the game pieces away, Tibi mentioned he liked to draw as well. After putting the game away, he returned with some of his drawings. He said he was still trying to perfect his hand, but a lot of the work he showed me looked really good. He mentioned he enjoyed how relaxing drawing was for him, but didn’t like drawing took up precious time, precious time I assume he would rather use doing more “productive” things. He gave one of his pictures as a gift, a picture of the Prodigal Son returning to his father. I found it very meaningful, given our conversation, that he chose this one to give to me. It’s certainly something I’ll always treasure.

He looked at me with his big smile after this and announced it was time we both went to bed. He did. I’m still up, thinking and wondering on the day I’ve just finished. It’s was raining awhile ago. The time has come for me to end the day. Each day I move closer to Retezat, and each day I move closer to kicking my internship into full gear. I grow ever anxious, wondering what awaits me there in the city. Sweet dreams, friend.

Blessings.
Kailen