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Published: December 29th 2007
Happy Holidays!
Well, we once again find ourselves tardy on the blog front. So, we would simply like to make a short note of what we have been up to and present you with our favorite pictures from the late summer, fall and the holidays.
The glossy overview:
This summer we were blessed to have friends and both sets of parents, Alecia and Chris brothers and Erin (Scott, Chris brother’s fiancé) here. We had a fabulous time with everone traveling around Maramuresh (famous for its wooden churches), Bucovina (famous for painted monasteries), and Szekelfold our little corner of Transilvania. Highlights included introducing everyone to local cuisine, taking some good hikes in the summer meadows and trying our greenhorn hands at goat milking.
Chris and Alecia spent time with friends too, including Mark (the other boy flautist from LU) and Martha (his wife) and Galen, one of Alecia’s dancing friends (with whom we hiked in the Carpathians - see photos).
As summer came to a close we traveled first to Estonia and Sweden, where we spent some time on tiny Kihnu island doing a restoration project with the Estonian Fund for Nature. Later in the fall we traveled
to Bulgaria’s Rila mountains for a conference. Following this, Chris and Alecia also spent some time in the Danube Delta biosphere reserve, eating delicious fish and watching some gorgeous birds. Including pelicans.
Somewhere around this time, Chris became the first American to win a national NGO (that’s international speak for ‘non profit’) award for the 2% community Campaign he ran in the springtime.
The fall brought a lot of work on a rural biogas project, building a training center, numerous trainings delivered on marketing and fundraising, and thinking about what comes next.
The holidays were mostly in the area with some time spent with friends in Sighisoara and New Years will hopefully be in Arad. Then back to the grindstone.
For the curious amongst you, Christmas here is not so commercial - quite low key in fact with an angel bringing the gifts. Santa is relatively new in these parts. Otherwise the big commotion is about the traditional pig slaughter. Romanians gather around at the holidays and off their favorite porcine friend to make sausages. This is quite traditional but frowned upon by the E.U. Some animal rights folks think the stabbing of the pig is
vulgar and would rather have Romanians electrocute it. A couple of follow up questions from me: first, which is worse for the pig - being raised in someone’s backyard or being raised in a corporate farm? Second, does it really sound like a good idea to have a bunch of festive Romanians playing with high-voltage in the half-melted snow? Who are we trying to kill here anyway?
Happy and Merry from Chris and Alecia
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