New Special Topic Blog

Hello avid subscribers, this is Nils speaking.

I wanted to report to you that I have recently created a new blog entitled Mormon Thinking.
It can be found at:

www.mormonthinking.blogspot.com

For those of you who are interested in topics related to Mormonism, I encourage you to read and participate. If you are interested in learning more, please see the blog.

Keep up the good work,

Nils

Nils' PCRO Swearing-in Speech

Nils' Speech has been posted on Youtube.com.
Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ud604waeiuA
He did a great job, didn't he!

Here's the transcript of his speech in both Romanian and in English. The format alternates between languages... first in Romanian, then in English:

Eu le sunt foarte recunoscător colegilor mei pentru oportunitatea de a mă adresa lor. Aş dori să mulţumesc acelora care au organizat acest eveniment, de asemenea musafirilor care au venit să ne sustină în această zi importantă. Aş dori să mulţumesc în special familiilor noastre gazdă care ne-au deschis casele lor, inimile lor, şi nu în ultimul rând, frigiderele lor, în timpul acestei perioade de tranziţie.
Au trecut două luni şi jumatate de când am sosit în România. De atunci fiecare dintre noi a experimentat diverse schimbări în viaţa lui. Ca să mentionez doar câteva exemple, am învaţat să apreciem salamul, am învaţat tactici pentru a trăi în armonie cu câinii vagabonzi, şi ne-am obişnuit să vedem priviri ciudate. Totuşi, schimbările pe care le-am experimentat pâna acum sunt doar o mică parte din ceea ce va urma. Dacă slujba noastra va avea rezultate bune, vom ajunge să iubim românii ca şi cum ar fii propriul nostru popor şi România ca şi cum România ar fii propria noastră ţară.
România este un loc minunat. Este o ţară bogată în cultură şi în diversitatea regională. Este o ţară care apreciază tradiţiile dar care este constant deschisă spre noi idei şi schimbare. De vreme ce am o căsnicie fericită, pot să spun liniştit că femeile românce sunt foarte frumoase. Oamenii români sunt deschişi, amabili, şi generoşi. Totodată, am fost foarte impresionat de simţul umorului romanesc.

I am grateful to my colleagues for providing me this opportunity to address you. I wish to thank those who have hosted and put together this event, as well the guests who have come to support us on our important day. I would like to give a very special thanks to our host families who have opened their homes, their hearts, as well as their refrigerators, to us during this period of transition.
It has been two-and-a-half months since we have arrived in Romania. Since then, each of us has certainly experienced changes in our lives. To mention just a few, we have gained a new appreciation for salami, learned tactics for living in harmony with street dogs, and have grown quite accustomed to receiving strange looks. However, the changes we have experienced so far are only a small sample of what lies in store for all of us. If our Peace Corps service proves to be successful, we will come to love the Romanians as if they were our own people, and Romania as if Romania was our home country.
Romania is a wonderful place. It is a country rich in culture and regional diversity. It is a country which values traditions but is consistently open to new ideas and change. Since I am happily married, I am also safe to say that the women are very beautiful. The people of Romania are open, kind, generous. Moreover, I have been very impressed by the Romanian sense of humor.

Mulţi dintre noi au venit aici cu noţiuni preconcepute despre ce inseamnă România. Majoritatea dintre noi au ştiut că România se află în Europa, dar nu au ştiut unde exact este Europa. Dar, pe masura ce am intrat în contact cu mentalitatea şi stilul de viaţa romanesc, toate noţiunile s-au schimbat. Totuşi, ne va lua timp să interiorizăm şi să intelegem cu adevărat bucuria de a fi român. Sper că va veni ziua când vom iubi cu adevărat această ţară.
Nu este nimic rău în a avea culturi multiple. Avem marea oportunitate de a înţelege modul de viaţă al românilor. O cale de a aprecia România este să încetăm să comparăm Statele Unite cu România. Avem şansa să dezvoltăm compasiunea noastră şi înţelegerea noastră despre lume în timp ce îmbrăţişăm ideea că vom trăi ca românii în următorii doi ani.
Vă doresc tuturor noroc în munca voastră! Câţiva dintre noi o să aibă nevoie. Să fim binecuvântaţi cu oportunităţi care să ne întărească caracterul şi să ne extindă orizonturile!

Many of us came here with pre-conceived notions of what Romania is. Most of us knew it was in Europe, and a few of us knew where Europe was. As we have been given a taste of the cultural wealth thus far, these notions have changed. However, it will take time for us to fully grasp the joy of being Romanian. I hope that day will come for each of us, and that we will truly come to love our new country.
There is nothing wrong in having multiple cultures. We have a great opportunity to gain new understanding of the Romanian lifestyle. One way to gain real appreciation for Romania is to cease in comparing the United States to Romania. We have the opportunity to greatly enhance our compassion and our understanding of the world as we embrace the fact that we will live as Romanians for the next two years.
I wish you all the best of luck in your new assignments! Some of us will definitely need it. May we be blessed with opportunities that strengthen our character and expand our horizons!

Our First Soarma

Now every country has their little stands of amazingly good food. In Mexico it was this little stand that sold tacos of the most delicious flavors. The day just wasn't done until you'd made a trip to the taco stand. Well, here in Romania, they have soarma (shwarma) stands. This delectable combination of flavors consists of a shell (somewhat 'pita' in nature) meat [the cooking process is described below and available in pui (chicken), porc (pork) or carne de vaca (beef)], french fries, cabbage or lettuce, peppers, this amazing sauce that I have no idea what's in it, various other veggies, and smantana (something more or less like sour cream). The meat is cooked in the similar fashion as the meat cooked and offered at the little stand in Bermejillo, MX with the meat all piled ontop of each other on this big upright metal spear and constantly drenched with a redish sauce of yummy goodness. It is truly amazing. If soarma was a little cheaper, I'd be tempted to have it for dinner every nite!

Here's a picture of Nils and Emily enjoying their first soarma..... yum!

Sorry you can't see the food that well, but it doesn't look quite as good as it sounds with all the juices running and mixing and bite marks.... hence, no close up on the food. Beside us is a lamp post still covered with the mayorial canidate posters from the Mayorial election in Galati, where we ate our first soarma. Picture posters pasted everywhere is still a vital part of campaigning here... it's considerably cheaper than TV commericals :) Now getting all the glued posters off.... that's a different matter. After the elections were over, I observed a few guys with putty knives scrapping away at every lamp post and bus stand throughout Braila and Galati.

Swearing-in Ceremony

Okay, so the swearing-in ceremony was what, exactly 2 months and some odd days days ago and I'm just now posting about it? Oh well...

On May 5th, 2008 the members of Group 24 were officially sworn in as Peace Corps volunteers. The ceremony was held at the residence of the American Ambassador to Romania (a really beautiful place, by the way!). Two representatives from our group were nominated to give speeches at the event, and our very own Nils Bergeson had the honor of being one of them. The other speaker was Melissa Culkin, another marvelous volunteer whom we all agreed could represent our group well. Both did a wonderful job and even gave their speeches in Romanian and in English. Members of the media were present and the ceremony was filmed. Afterward, people from radio stations interviewed a few of us and recorded our responses. I was interviewed, but was too shy to do it all in Romanian (I couldn't anyway despite the best efforts of our language teachers... ). I'm not sure what happened to these, but I did get something important on film.... Nils' speech. It's just taking me forever to load it. So while I work on that, here are some pictures of the event, people, and maybe a short video.....

Here's everyone in Group 24.

Nils and Emily

And a little "Hello" from the new Peace Corps Romania Volunteers! (from the bus ride back to Ploiesti)

"Hello" video transcript:

Emily: Hey!

Nils: Hi.

Emily: This is Nils and I. We just finished being at the Ambassador's house for our, ah, swearing-in ceremony. We're now *officially volunteers for the Peace Corps, and umm....this is the bus. And here are some of the sites...

Nils: Bu-cu-resti

Emily: uh-huh

VAC stands for Volunteer Advisory Committee and is a group of volunteer representatives who work closely with Peace Corps staff to provide volunteer input and ideas. I was nominated, but wasn't selected as a representative. The process taught me a lot though, not only about the other members of my group who had been nominated (all of them very talented and would have done a superb job!) but also about myself. It's important to frequently evaluate why we do what we do, why we're volunteers with the Peace Corps.... what we hope to achieve and how we plan to go about achieving it. I hope that in some small way I can make a positive impact.

An update from Nils:

I thought I would drop another bit of news about how things are going for us here in Braila. We are currently in our new home and city for the next two years, Braila, Romania. I guess some of you have already talked to us since we got here last week, but nonetheless I thought I would tell some about our new home. It is the 10th biggest city in Romania, but it has kind of a small-town field despite the well over 200,000 people who live here. In the past few years 15 supermarket stores have opened up, making it easy for us to buy anything we need. There are also several open markets which are available every day (in some places it's only on weekends that they're open) and provide anything we would need in terms of food, clothing, household items, etc. It is a great place to be. On Sunday we went to the city of Galati, which is about 12 miles to the north. The closest Mormon church is in Galati, but it is very small and generally only 10-20 people attend. There happens to be another Mormon Peace Corps Volunteer who is serving in Galati, Marie. Incidentally, she also went to Westminster College, though she started after I was there. However, we know many of the same people and she lived in the same apartment building I did (on the same floor as a matter of fact). She will be here for 2 more months before going home.

Sunday May 11 (Mother's Day) at Marie's house (another Volunteer leaving in July) along with a senior missionary couple Bro and Sis Bryson, Brother Peterson, a farmer here from Idaho doing consulting near Galati (he's been all over the world), and Cynthia, a volunteer from our group visiting from Mastacani (a small village north of Galati)

Galati is slightly bigger than Braila, and is much more fast-paced, with bigger buildings and everything. They have a big "tower", kind of like the space needle in Seattle or something similar. We have not yet visited that, but are thinking we might give it a try if we get a chance on a clear day sometime. From Galati to the north is a region known as "Moldova" (not to be confused with the neighboring country of Moldova) which consists of everything north of Braila and east of the Carpathian Mountains. There are a few other Peace Corps Volunteers in Moldova that we know, so we will probably get a chance to go and visit the other cities nearby. Also, we are hoping to visit the Republic of Moldova (yes, the other country) maybe early next month. Apparently the capital Chisinau is quite a nice place and I want to visit that, as well as Ukraine in the not so distant future.

The past week we have been getting familiar with our organizations and with our apartment. Yesterday I killed a bunch of flies who lived in our bathroom. We have been buying things we need a little bit at a time and putting them in our apartment, making it more and more comfortable as time goes on. We definitely have room for visitors, with a full-sized futon and space on the floor if we need to get an air-mattress and put one down. So, the time is here to start planning your trip to Romania. I would recommend fall or spring, as the seasons are pretty nice. Although, you might want to bring an umbrella if you come in the spring. If you come in summer, you don't need to pack any clothes, because apparently it is hot Hot HOT. It is on the horizon, and we are bracing ourselves for the next wave of global warming to cook us. Then again, summer is when things really come alive in Braila. We'll see if we can send some enticing photos and stories so that you might want to come in summer afterall!

Catching up on our first Trip to Braila

We have been working hard wrapping up our training.... taking Language tests, finishing up projects, and frankly just relaxing for once! Two weeks ago, we took a trip to Braila (our soon to be home starting next week) and we wanted to catch everyone up on our first impressions before we move there. We were very impressed with the 10th largest Romanian city of approx 218,000 people. The side-walks are wide and clear, trees line the streets, and the city center is filled with plenty of interesting things to see and do!

On the way to Braila from Ploiesti (which means city of rain by the way, and what do ya know.... it's raining here today!) by autocar (one of those tour buses) we had a chance to see some of the countryside. (These are pictures taken from the bus)

Upon arriving in Braila we were shown to our potential house (if we like it, which we do) which belonged to the family of one of the founders of my organization. The organization generously offered this nice place already furnised and ready to go! How lucky are we!!!

So, we were in Braila from Thursday afternoon to Sunday morning and got to see quite a bit of the city. On Friday Nils and I met with my organization (both organization coordinated the schedule so we could meet each organization together... nice, huh!). My organization (CDIMM) is an NGO designed to help small and medium size entrenpreneurial ventures in Romania get the training and technical assistance they need to get off the ground. They have worked with PC volunteers before in 1994 and unofficially in 2006 so they have some experience with the Peace Corps. Everyone at the organization is great and I look forward to learning more in the next few months.

Nils' organziation was our Saturday activity. Pro Democracy is an organization designed to provide education about citizens' rights to vote and encourage youth to involve themselves in local and national politics. They work primarily with youth when it comes to volunteerism and involvement, but their impact reaches far more. Pro Democracy has several clubs and chapters throughout Romania and are becoming more widely-known, establishing for themselves a good reputation. Here's a picture of some of the team leaders from the balcony of their office...

Nils and I are very excited and look forward to providing more insights into this beautiful city! Below is just a bonus picture I really liked that I took from the same balcony of Pro Democracy... the top of a beautiful church (a trademark of the city) across the street. Nils' place definitely has a nice view!!