Usually when you start out in a Peace Corps tour

... especially when you’re the first one in your site, it takes a little
time to get some work/projects going.

  I am no exception to this rule and after being here in Nadlac for
almost 2 months it is still a process to get things rolling. The results
of it all is that I end up with some quantities of  free time on my hands.
The Peace Corps has three goals and the second and third goals are
to share cultures. So what better place to share cultures than at the
local coffee shop.

  Every morning between 9 and 10 I head out of the house to the
regular low budget coffee joint which you can see in the first picture.

                

  The proprietor is a lady whose name is Radi. Every morning
she suffers through my not so good Romanian and for her it
gets worse as I am trying to learn some Slovakian. Every
morning it is ‘ o cafea, ve rog’ (a coffee please, in Romanian)
and now it is ‘prosim si yedenu kavu’, which means the
same in Slovakian.

  This time of the year school has started and I am left daily with the
‘pensioners’ or what we call in the States ... retirees. You can see my
three coffee drinking buddies in the third photo. From left to right is
‘The Colonel’, Stefan and Michel. We are basically the regulars that
are there every morning killing time.

               

  One of the great things about having time to sit and drink the coffee
is that you get a chance to really get to know someone. Stefan (the
guy in the middle) worked in TV during his career. Michel drove big
trucks and ‘The Colonel’ was exactly what the name implies. He was
a Colonel for 32 years and he is a very educated man. He showed us
the fourth picture. He is in the middle with the sunglasses and behind
and above him is the head of defense from Czechoslovakia. Looking
again at the picture you can see to the left of the Colonel is the head
of defense for Romania and to the immediate right is the equivalent
for Slovakia. The person to the right of the Slovakian is a military
representative from Russia. The Colonel was translating between
Romanian and Slovakian. The picture dates from 1984 during the
Ceaucescu era.

               

  The final picture is of a lady that happened to be there during the
photographing. Her name is Maria and she was excited about
having her picture taken and kept wanting to see her picture in the
viewer of the digital camera.

               

  I have to say that it is fun to hang out with these guys and they are a
wealth of knowledge. After I post this blog I promised to print out a
copy so that they can see the it. Radi the owner says that she is going
to tape it on the wall.

  So far I can’t say that I have been saving the world but I do hope
that I can make these people a little famous around the coffee shop.