I would first like to say that this blog is the sole responsibility of the writer and does not reflect the opinion of Peace Corps or staff.

The culturally relevant point of the Halloween ball came in two parts. The first with two men from America the second with my bosses from Peace Corps.

My position at the Halloween ball was to help people fill out little bits of paper with information for the door raffle. On occasion someone would arrive who had better English skills than Romanian ones and would thus be easier for me to talk to than the two Romanian females who were also helping. After most the guests had already arrived I was casually hanging out by the table when a man who obviously spoke no English came up to the table and asked "so, what am I doing here?" I told him. He looked at me and said "that's not a Romanian accent." We exchanged greetings and I came to find out that he was there working on the Nicholas Cage movie. For the purposes of anonymity we shall call him Ryan.

We talked for a little while just about what I'm doing here for Peace Corps and How the movie was going. Another man came over, also with the movie, and I introduced myself to him telling him I was in Peace Corps, his response, verbatim was this: "What are you 23 24?"(first time I've been low balled in a while)"you'll get over that." Ryan recoiled in horror, "Jesus, come on he's doing a good thing." "well money will win out in the end." We continued discussing this for a couple minutes. Then Ryan asked me another question I was not ready for. "So, you think these people have a chance?" "excuse me?" "Romania, think it has a chance?"

Has a chance at what? Beating the U.S. in Science and Math education? Winning the world cup? Fielding an american football team? Brining Michael Jackson back from the dead? I didn't know what that was supposed to mean. But I responded the only way I knew how.

"Romanians are nothing if not resilient. They made it through communism, they've adapted well to technology. I have met more generous and kind people here in 18 months than I had in my whole life in the U.S. They in large part have a hunker down mentality. Just ride out the storm until something better comes along. I think when the new generation takes control of the Government things will be a lot better."

He responded "We've met a lot of good people to but just looking at this country makes me think it's beyond repair."

"Where have you been?"

"We've been in Sibiu, the Transfagerasan Highway and spent last week in Hunedoara. hunedoara is a sh*thole. I have never seen an uglier city in my life. But we had to shoot at the castle." I told him he was in the good part of the country. If he thought Hunedoara was bad he doesn't want any part of places like Barlad and Tirgu Neamt. We spit-balled for a little while about home made wine and Tuica and then they made their exit.

Throughout our conversation I got the overwhelming feeling that they thought of themselves as greater than the people they were sharing the country with. Ryan, for his part, seemed simply curious, making fewer generalizations and giving Romanians credit for what they are good at... wine and tuica. The other man, crazy hat, shared no such sentiment. He looked at their time here as a waste and saw no cultural or theatrical value of any kind in Romania.

A little late on I ran into two of my bosses from Peace Corps. I told them about the story. Their reaction was exactly what I thought it would be. "Ignorant, closed minded jackasses who wouldn't know beauty if it smacked them in the face" One of my bosses ranted for a little while about fighting that sort of bigotry and them not understanding what the world is really like and so on. This rant, was almost as bigoted and prejudiced as the one I had endured from Mr. Crazy Hat. They have been fighting for people from other countries for so long that they sometimes forget the American perspective. They are defacto world citizens because they have spent so much more of their adult life helping people from countries that are not their own. Their perspective has changed to side with those they serve, rather than those with whom they share a homeland.

There are two kinds of people in the world; those who believe and those who don't. Those who believe are steadfast in their opinions. They have dug their foxholes and are bunkered in for the shelling of those who believe the exact opposite that they do. Once in a while launching their own mortars and calling in air strikes. There's a war going on between those who believe. Crazy hat and boss lady would stand for days just shooting it out with one another, while those like myself and Ryan are much more apt to see both sides of the argument. We don't believe strongly enough either way to walk into a recruiters office and sign up. We observe and we digest and we move on, often without making a judgment.

There are some good things in the world, there are some bad things. Everything else is a shade of gray. Absolute right and Absolute wrong can almost never be found in the trenches. You make decisions, you make judgments and you move on.

I don't know if Romania is going to make it. There are obstacles, serious obstacles that require serious diligence and creative thinking. I do know this, the Romanian people are a time tested one. They will be here long after the countries around them shrivel and split and break apart. I have no doubt they will find a way to keep on living. The definition of "make it" is as flexible a standard as anyone could ascribe. They will live. Will they "make it" in a Hollywood sense and become a world power? No... But they will live and live well.