Smoke Alarm

>> Saturday, May 30, 2009

I'm kind of jealous of the life I'm supposedly leading.
-Zach Braff

In Bircii there are no "community beautification projects", there are no convenient trash cans placed along high-traffic areas. There are no nice garbage men who come along with big trucks and dispose of waste. Therefore everywhere you look there is trash. This fact shocked me at first, but now after living here for three months I hardly notice. But, there is still one thing that I cannot quite get over. You see, in Bircii there are no burning ordinances.

None.

This poses an interesting scenario that has happened quite a few times recently. I affectionately call it the "choke and gag routine."

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Lovebirds

>> Tuesday, May 12, 2009

For Sale: Parachute, only used once, never opened, small stain.
-Anonymous

Church here starts at 10am and goes till 12pm, it's all in a language that I don't understand and it involves a lot of standing up and sitting down at the oddest of moments. This can be very inconvenient for daydreamers like me. I will wake up from a thought (an English thought, mind you) and realize that everyone else is standing with their Bibles open. I immediately nudge my Bible off my knee and onto the floor. Then I proceed to reach down, grab the Bible, and stand up like nothing happened. Works every time.

Last Sunday I went to church like a good missionary kid. It was a nice sunny day, there was a soft subtle breeze that ruffled my hair as I walked down the road. The birds sang, the cows mooed, the evil geese hissed. All were happy. Well, almost all were happy.

The first thing I noticed when I walked into the sanctuary was that some nice person had opened one of the frosted windows and the back door. I was excited because finally there would be something else to look at other than the interior of the church. Not that the interior is bad, but God's creation is always so much better. As I was contemplating the joys of open windows I happened to look up. I was greeted by a most peculiar sight. There were two birds, a romantic couple I believe, who were flying around at a frantic pace. They were trapped. I felt sorry for them, but there was nothing that I could do. The ceilings in the church are very high so there was no way that I could help the little birdies out. The Romanians just acted like everything was normal and that having birds attend their meetings was an everyday occurrence. The church service started and for the first half hour I contentedly watched the lovebirds fly around.

That's when things got bad.

Plop! A slimy white spot appeared on the pastor's sport coat. The pastor glanced over at his arm, saw what happened and surprisingly didn't miss a beat! I tried to suppress my laughter, but I wasn't too successful. I ended up sounding like a snorting pig, but thankfully I had a handkerchief hidden in the pocket of my coat specifically meant for those kinds of moments. I "blew my nose" and then returned my attention to the matter at hand. Dodging bird droppings. I wished that I would have had the foresight to bring an umbrella to church that fateful morning. You never know when umbrellas will come in handy.

Thankfully I was able to escape without soiling my clothing. The birds also escaped through the open window and everything became happy again. At least, until next week.

-Matthias

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