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Published: January 10th 2009
Dear All,
Happy New Year! And belated happy holidays!
I will skip the obvious "it has been ages" and get to what we are here for - all the juicy gossip you have been craving about the where and when and how of America's finest redheaded couple who used to be volunteers in Romania, specifically Odorhei. That is correct - used to be for you who are out of the gossip loop, we are RPCVs. Unlike all those others who get to say the R before the Peace Corps Volunteer means Returned, in our case it means Retired as we have not returned. Alecia and I are solidly ensconced in our lives in central Transylvania and are working hard on our endeavors. Since we last emailed, Alecia has set up a small fruit experiment to test the export market for dried blueberries and other wild mountain products. This project is currently on hold as it is winter and if there are any berries to be gathered one would have fierce competition from hungry bears. In February we will travel to Nuremberg and the world's largest food show to see if there are any buyers. If there are, great - the
game goes on. If not, it was a great experiment and we have had some amazing blueberry muffins. Alecia is also teaching some English after discovering she enjoyed working with adults and occupies the rest of her time with consulting and various other pursuits.
Chris continues to work with the Community Foundation and has served as Executive Director since this summer. The work at the Foundation continues apace and there have been some great moments in this exercise to re-build philanthropy in this community. This year the Foundation raised and distributed about $40,000 in support to a range of local initiatives. The coming year will certainly be challenging as the Romanian economy slows and philanthropy slows with it. If you are interested in following the Foundation's progress and you are not already on the enewsletter list, please reply to this email and we will get you signed up. Chris is also senior consultant to a national program to encourage more community foundations and traveled to Montreal in November to represent.
In other news, Chris and Alecia traveled home for the first time in years to join the Worman family as Scott, Chris' brother and Erin, Scott's long-time better
half, got hitched. In a repeat performance of the Minneapolis to Maine via NM, MO, GA, MA and PA pre-peace corps, we flew into Boston and then stayed with Alecia's parents before trekking across Canada to pick up our stuff in MN, then drop it at Chris' parents place in MO before heading to the wedding in NM with a brief engagement in TX to visit Chris's sister April and the niece and nephew. It was a heck of a trip but we thoroughly enjoyed eating our way across north America, voting, and visiting. For those of you we missed, we will try again next time when we hope the schedule is a bit less complicated. While we were in the States we also received a happy email that the biogas project had begun producing methane. So our experiment has come to fruition and the house is now cooking with methane sequestered from manure. We hope to expand this project over the next few years as it holds great potential for rural areas in this part of the world, not to mention environmental benefits...
For Christmas we headed up to Maramuresh in northern Romania and had a great time
with some volunteers and their families. Afterward we headed to Budapest for the New Years. Budapest is a lovely city and we had a great time exploring and making new friends. Highlights included the synagogue, old Buda hill and an afternoon at the restored Turkish baths. On the last day we headed out to western Hungary where we visited Pannonhalma. This venerable establishment is where Catholicism took root in Eastern Europe and the hilltop fortress still functions as a monastery and school.
So, that is about it for us. Since we moved into a house we have a ridiculous dog and a guest apartment beneath our own. If you are every interested, it is an interesting region and we would be happy to share it with you.
Again, hope you had a happy holiday and all the best for the new year!
Chris and Alecia
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