Volunteer Stories
Interested in what it is like to be a volunteer? Volunteering in Romania?
From community development to community health, Peace Corps volunteers are making real differences in the lives of real people. Click on a real life story link below to learn more about he experiences of Romanian Peace Corps Volunteers.
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Agentia Judeteana Pentru Ocuparea Fortei de Munca
County Agency of Employment for the Workers (translated)
Working for the Employment Agency was a little stressful at first since I landed in the typical volunteer scenario; no counterpart to work with and no one from the agency knew why I was there. The main office in Bucharest applied for a volunteer for the county office in Mehediniti with no clear direction of what to do with a volunteer.
So there I was sitting in an office with three other people staring at me and I staring at them for the first couple of months and getting to know each other. At the same time I slowly but surely started getting involved with the community and started networking. I also started expressing interest in working with the Roma community within my organization.
In the community, I was able to visit different schools, talk about the differences between omanian and American kids, teach about American holidays (Halloween was the easiest to capture the kids mind about all-you-can-eat candy), performed a couple of school exchanges via web-cam between classrooms, help out the church every once in awhile by volunteering and had a bbq meet and greet dinner event. Other volunteer events/projects, friends. I used my poor Romanian to get the kids involved at first, laugh at me, then correct me but they stayed attentive.
Because my organization knew I wanted to work with the Roma community, they started taking me on trips to the surrounding villages. They had to go there to take a census of people needing social assistance. This is where I actually first started talking to the Roma communities. The agency then signed me up for a European Union conference (all Romanian of course). I probably understood about 15%, however I ended up meeting a Roma representative that lives in the largest Roma population in the Mehedinti area. Using my broken Romanian, we started meeting and talking about creating a project together. My new found Roma counterpart and I organized a three day Roma tour and invited four other Peace Corps volunteers to learn about the Roma and the Roma to learn about the Peace Corps. This was a chance to experience the Roma community in-depth.
The Roma tour proved to be successful and through it I started working with one of the Roma communities closely. Things were going well but then my Roma counterpart was leaving for Italy for 3 months. His son ended up staying and I started working through the community through him. I started to frequently visit the school and the community to see what was needed and to see what I can do. After seeing the kids and talking to the community, it was apparent that a hygiene/medical clinic was seriously needed. Currently trying to develop the site for a future volunteer.
My organization (Employment Agency) then invited me to a Roma conference where I ended up speaking to the Roma community from Mehedinti (hopefully not offending anyone in my broken Romanian). From the meeting, another Roma representative brought me to the mayor’s office where they promised me donated land for the hygiene/medical office or any project that we saw fit to help the community.
I continue to visit the community and continue to learn a little moreeach time and hopefully getting closer to accomplishing a project with the community working together.
More pictures can be seen at www.travelwhsteve.blogspot.com
Steve Manio
U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer
Drobeta-Turnu Severin, Romania Grp 22
Home from Here
One blustery day in November 1989, Dorel Jurcovan stood in line several hours for a 1/2 kilogram of meat – just over one pound – his family?s ration for a whole month. Ration lines were a way of life in communist Romania. Waiting, more waiting, for 5 eggs, less than an ounce of butter and a half-gallon of milk.
Night fell in Timisoara, and still he had no meat, so he began to ask about the slaughterhouse and delivery truck – how could they be sure meat would arrive? Other people around him suddenly were nervous and moved away. One man uttered, “It doesn’t matter. Look, I want to go home from here,” meaning the alternative was to be hauled off to jail for challenging authority. Dorel eventually received a piece of meat the size of his forearm, but most of it was bone and fat. “I was so furious when I got home,” he recalls. “I just shouted – not at my wife or daughter – but shouted, ‘If we can’t ask a simple question, we are just doomed. Our lives have no meaning.’”
One month later, when anti-communist protests erupted in Timisoara’s streets and main plaza, Dorel was right in the middle, even circulating his secret writings to Western journalists covering the drama. Fueled by TV reports from nearby Yugoslavia that the Berlin Wall had come down and change was engulfing the rest of Central and Eastern Europe, the December 1989 Revolution rumbled across Romania and into Bucharest, leading to the toppling of the government and the Christmas Day executions of evil dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his equally hated wife, Elena. Dozens of students died in the melee, martyrs for freedom, though many believe a simultaneous coup d?etat engineered by Romania?s Securitate, KGB-like secret police, actually toppled Ceausescu. Nonetheless, communism was dead in Romania.
Today, Dorel is a successful, 57-year-old businessman and an inspiring, yet unassuming figure. Another Peace Corps Volunteer and I met him recently – he?d asked us to come to his restaurant and talk business. His story was so amazing that I went back another night to have him tell me more. After six months here as an economic development Volunteer, I can tell you that this country needs more people like him.
A nuclear physicist by training, he spent many years working for the Romanian state?s Research Institute, specializing in semiconductors and machine circuitry. “Before the Revolution, I had no idea about starting a business,” he says. “I had zero knowledge of accounting, economics or marketing. I didn?t even know my salary. My wife took care of the finances. I was just so focused on my job, the technical aspects of it. But I eventually realized that I could be my own master. Economics is like a game of chess. There are rules but you just have to have common sense.”
Fortunately for him, his writings surfaced after the Revolution and he received letters from around the world, including one from Norway in June 1990 inviting him to an economics symposium. He and his wife, Luita, daringly packed up their old car with food and clothes headed northwest, with just enough money to buy gasoline. They encountered the kindness of strangers along the way, as well as the excitement of crossing the border for the first time and seeing new countries.
“When we got there, it was paradise for me. It was incredibly beautiful. These people seemed so rich, their houses so big, but they were nice to us. For the first time, we were treated like human beings, like normal people. I made great connections, new ideas. It was so exciting for me. Everyday was something new, like I had a new life.” Dorel and his partners were already importing floppy disks and started a computer training business. They tried many ideas in the next three years, some of them unsuccessful, but came to the conclusion that “people eat.”
They opened up 3+1 Pizzeria, so named after original partners plus a new one, on a busy street in central Timisoara. Pizza as we know it did not exist in Romania before the Revolution, so people gobbled it up – and still do. His little restaurant, smaller than some living rooms I?ve seen in America, cranks out a few hundred pizzas daily. Ironically, because of seemingly endless red tape and widespread corruption, he believes it is harder to start a business now in Romania than it was in the years immediately after communism.
A long this journey, he sought out American and other Western books, devouring “One Minute Manager” and other self-help business guides. He befriended previous Peace Corps Volunteers, and another American development worker, who’s now in Mongolia, has been a steady and trusted mentor for him. His daughter, Ioana, now attends law school in San Francisco. He has great affinity for America.
But it is Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography, which Dorel has read countless times in the past 30 years, that guides him daily – in his marriage, friendships, the restaurant and his work in international development. He especially likes the 13 personal improvements that Franklin wanted to achieve, and carries a similar list in his appointment book.
“If you understand Benjamin Franklin, then you know how people in the United States think even today. More honesty than other places. A strong work ethic – this notion does not exist in Romania. Have you ever even heard the words ‘work ethic’ in Romanian?”
In 1994, Dorel was the grateful recipient of a grant to visit the United States as a businessman from a developing region. “I didn’t believe that I was going until the plane’s engines started,” he remembers. “It was a big moment for me.” He traveled to several cities, met with a number of business people and consultants, but also toured scores of pizza restaurants, where he specifically observed processes and equipment. He likes to show off his kitchen’s ventilation system, which is modeled after one he first saw in America – he took copious notes and measured it with his arms and footsteps. Naturally, he remembers his first impressions at the airport in Philadelphia, a city he was excited to see because of Mr. Franklin.
“The guy who greeted me was so nice, but I was suspicious of him. We were taught to be suspicious, because if you weren’t, you could lose your life. I thought about it later, what a wonderful feeling it is to always trust people, to always have trust. But you only have that when you are free.”
A Little While Longer At Outward Bound Romania (OBR)
For those of you who don’t know me, I am a Peace Corps Volunteer at Outward Bound Romania. I’ve been here two years and my contract for service is supposed to expire this July. I requested an extension and now I’ll be staying with Outward Bound for another 5 months. In most ways, this was an easy decision. The hardest part was making the decision to stay in the dark and cold of winter. My toes were hoping for a new and warmer place to live while the rest of me wondered how I could leave Romania and live without zacusca (a fabulous spread for breads, not the name of my cat!). Eventually I decided there were lots of things happening at Outward Bound that I wanted to watch continue to grow and flourish. Besides, I am only now beginning to feel like I understand how most/some/a few things work here. Basically, it just didn’t seem like the right time to leave.
I feel like a walking index of Frequently Asked Questions of the American Volunteer. The most common question is: “How do you like Romania?” I like it a lot. The response to that is almost always, “Really? What do you like?” I like the people, the natural beauty, the more relaxed pace of life (before you take that the wrong way, keep in mind Americans tend to work hard, play hard and leave our relationships with our families and friends to somehow survive on very little attention.) and yes, I like the food. I am especially fond of the fresh produce and zacusca. “Don’t you miss your family?” Yes, I miss them a lot, especially the longer I am here. However, I haven’t lived with or near my parents since I finished high school so living in Romania mostly means I can’t talk to them on the phone every week. I do (as many of you have heard a few billion times), miss my dog a lot. Her email writing skills are non-existent. People also want to know if I find it difficult to live here. Mostly, I don’t. However, one of the most difficult things for me at first was that Romania doesn’t seem so different from the United States. Sure, it looks different and the standard of living is different but hey! there are washing machines and televisions and cars here. When I first applied to Peace Corps, I thought I was going to be living in a village of 200, somewhere in the wilds of some small, unpronounceable African country. I thought I would have to ride a donkey to the “big” city of 1000 and I would have to build my own mud hut. Here, I can watch American movies on television and eat Snickers candy bars.
But life IS different here. I’ve learned to have more patience, ask for help, worry less, read a CFR train schedule, trust in maxi taxi drivers, tax my brain with problem solving games, be more flexible and eat salty cheese. Mostly, because the approach to work and challenges is different, it’s been an opportunity for me to learn how to adapt and find new ways to make things work. People communicate differently here – they say less and I don’t always understand the meaning in between those few words. I’m learning but I’m still often confused.
What do I think of Outward Bound Romania? Wow. It took me a while to really absorb the concepts of Outward Bound. Add to that trying to understand a different culture and languages, I often felt overwhelmed. Now that I’ve been here for a while, I can really appreciate how extraordinary Outward Bound Romania is for surviving and thriving for 10 years. I am impressed with the range of courses that can be offered – reaching out to minorities, disadvantaged youth, other young people and adults. I can also now better appreciate the unique value of an Outward Bound experience in Romania. Participants have the opportunity to test themselves and find within confidence and skills they didn’t know they had. At first, this seems like a nice thing. In Romania, I think this has incredible value as the country moves towards a future that will undoubtedly include a more global focus. People in Romania have great intelligence and strength. What often seems to be lacking is the belief they possess these attributes. I am happy to see that Outward Bound Romania helps people identify and recognize these elements within themselves.
The biggest reason I wanted to stay is because of the people at Outward Bound Romania. They have taught me so much – about the country, the languages and the cultures. With a great deal of patience, they have helped me learn about Outward Bound, how business is done in Romania, how to get things done here (like paying bills), and how not to worry all the little details. With this experience, I will never be the same. My life will always be richer and fuller because of the things I have seen and done and because of the people I have become friends with here.