To go a little deeper into what SolveNet is, SMART, in conjunction with partners in Moldova, Armenia, and Ukraine, is pushing the development of local policy making infrastructure, civic engagement platforms, and cross-border cooperation.
It has been fascinating learning about the dynamics of the region through the project, and about the perceptions of civic engagement. The basic theory behind civic engagement is that through the development of a platform whereby laypersons can become an active part of the policy making process, government enactments will ultimately become more representative of the needs and desires of the people.
Outside of work, my Romanian lessons have been proceeding well. I am understanding far more of what I hear around said around me. I am over halfway through the instructional book I brought with me. Alex continues to be the perfect tutor. We have finally reached a point where the language has ceased being Romanian words with mostly English grammar, and onto being something, according to Alex, which actually sounds like Romanian. I have discovered that Romanian often communicates ideas using very different structures than found in English. For example, a lot of verbs which are very straightforward in English, are either impersonal, requiring a dative case object, or reflexive, requiring a reflexive and often enclitic pronoun in Romanian,
Another challenge has been Romanian word order. I am having great difficulty fully grasping the rules. Like English, Romanian often uses a subject-verb-object syntax. However, there are situation, such as when an accusative case pronoun replaces the object, where the syntax becomes subject-object-verb. There are also other times, such as in certain subordinate clauses, when the subject follows the verb.
Learning Romanian has also helped me to understand how Romanians use English. I can see at times when they say something in English that, while comprehensible, is improper, it is often because they apply Romanian grammatical structures to English.
As a general note, I've discovered how much people open up if you can just speak a few words in their language. Almost everyone I have met here speaks English. A lot of people are hesitant to speak in English at first because they think they their abilities are lacking. However, I have very rarely had trouble with comprehension. I have discovered that people warm up quite a bit and are much more willing to speak after just saying simple likes like bună ziuă (good day/hello) or multțumesc (thank you) in Romanian.
I've had the opportunity to eat at a few more restaurants here in Galati. First a Turkish restaurant.
The interior was made up to look like a cave. The food was quite good, and. I was happy to have lamb and spicy peppers, two items not found much in Romanian cooking. The check came in the above decorative box.
Next was a Lebanese seafood restaurant on the Danube.
The setting was really nice. Perfect for a slightly cool evening. I had octopus, which was as good as any preparation of of it I have had before.
For desert one night I was taken to the restaurant on top of the tv tower, from which you can get a great view of the city. Galaţi looked a lot bigger from up there than it feels from the ground.
This weekend its off to the Black Sea Coast. I am staying Mamaia, a resort town adjacent to Constanţa. Then its back to Galaţi for a day, at which point I will be leaving for a few days in Munich, Germany. Among all of this I need to make it a point to get work done, so it'll be an exciting week.
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