Inside Joke #12 & 35

So every day in the beginning of language class we have to answer the question "Ce ai facut ieri?" or for all of you who don't speak Romanian, "What did you do yesterday?" At first we would respond simply: we woke up at this time, we ate such and such for breakfast, we went to school, and possibly that we helped our host mothers in the garden. Now we are starting to pick up more words and we know more verbs so the stories of what we did yesterday are starting to get more and more interesting. That is to say that we try to make the stories interesting by embellishing them a bit and trying to use new and funny words that we have learned. It may not seem that funny or exciting but you have to do some to pass the time during four hour classes that take place six days a week.

So this is Sharon's continuing story. She went running a few weeks ago and saw what she described to me as a large rock on top of a hill. One night while we were drinking, she express her desire to hike to the rock - later known as the temple mount - and I said that I would like to accompany her on the mission. So one day after school we set out to find her rock. We walk high and low throughout our small village looking for this rock, which was supposedly jutting from a hill off in the distance, to no avail. Sharon proved how miserable her sense of direction was because we were unable to locate the rock that she saw fairly regularly on her jogs. The next day I told our teacher that she was nebuna, or crazy, because she was seeing things.

But just the other day I got a late night phone call from Sharon. She had been out wandering the streets aimless and had another vision of the temple and this time she was sure that she would be able to locate it in the morning. I had no choice in the matter because I knew she probably wouldn't return from such a perilous undertaking alone, so I reluctantly agree to accompany her again. I immediately called Becca because I figured that if there were three of us then would be a better chance that someone would make it home alive to tell our story. It wasn't an easy sell, but Becca was onboard.
We started from the village early in the morning after a hardy breakfast of rice and sugar in boiled milk, and a few cups of black coffee because we had to be as alert as possible. We were bringing our A game. The air was crisp and cold but the ground had thawed from the night's frost so our paced was slowed by mud. But we pressed on through the forested hills. We began to feel despondent because we had been walking for what seemed like hours and we were not getting any closer. Becca had the sneaking suspicion that we were walking in circles and I began to entertain the idea that we weren't going to find the temple on this excursion, and that maybe we should turn back and reorient ourselves, or at least postpone the mission because I felt that we were going to be gone for a long time and that we didn't have the proper supplies. Becca agreed with me but then Sharon chimed in with a passionate plea to stay the course because she felt we were closer to the temple than we thought. A compromise was struck. We would continue for another hour and then we would turn back if there were no positive implications that the mount was near.
I was counting the minutes to the one hour mark when we came across a wand that was resting on a bench along the path. Sharon picked the wand up and held it over her head. She closed her eyes and stood there silently. Becca and I were confused. Clearly this wand possessed some sort of mystical powers but we were not yet sure if they were meant for good or evil. Suddenly Sharon opened her eyes and exclaimed that we were close to the mount and that the wand could lead us there like a divining rod to water. Becca and I needed no convincing for we felt the good intentions of the wand in the air. We would be okay. All we had to do was to follow the pull of the wand. We stepped back onto the muddy trail again. The mount was within our reach.

It wasn't long until the landscape began to change so we knew that we were not walking in circles anymore. We were excited, walking fast that thinking big. The wand would watch over us so we couldn't fail, could we? Then the trail began to turn downward and around a bend. We came upon a rickety old bridge suspended over a seer three foot drop. If one of us fell into the ravine we would be entirely consumed by the muddy stream below. There wouldn't even be a body left to send home to our parents. We decided to take a break and weigh the pros and cons of crossing the bridge. We arrived at the conclusion that the wand would lead us across the bridge safely. So we crossed the bridge without incident and continued on with the journey.

It was at about this time that Sharon began talking about the mysterious trance she went into when she first grasped the wand. She told us marvelous stories of brave men and women who had travel from afar in search of the temple mount. Many had gotten close, but the wand told her that they had all failed for one reason or another. The first group that set out about a year ago came upon poor weather. Sharon spoke of frigid temperatures and howling winds. It wasn't long until we stumbled upon evidence of their misfortune. Sharon and Becca examined the ruins of a makeshift shelter. The sight of the small encampment sent a shiver up my spine as I tried to imagine the horror they endured... the current, oh the current! I wondered what I was doing here. This was a crazy idea. Just because we had a magic wand we actually believed that we could make it to the mount. It sounded like a trap to me, but when I vocalized my concern for our safety if we continued I was out voted two to one. I followed the democratic decision and the mysterious wand obediently further into the wooded hills.

I was beginning to think that it was only a matter of time until we would meet our doom, but Sharon and Becca were full of a cheer and optimism that I could not deny. They seemed so sure of the success of our mission that I tried to suppress my misgivings. A ways away from the makeshift encampment Sharon began to speak of another group of people who passed through this way right after the grape harvest about a year ago to the day. There fate was worst than the others, they had run out of water and began to drink the wine they had brought with them as an offering to tsacrilege. Their sacarilge was apparently their undoing because shortly after drinking their gift to the temple, Sharon recounted, they became too drunk to continue, and one by one they succumbed to thirst on their disorganized retreat. When Sharon was finished speaking, we stumbled upon evidence of this tale. All that was left was a lonely glass atop a small tree.


We walked on and on. The wand began to loose its pull. Each of us took a turn holding the wand and leading the group, but by mid evening it was apparent that the wand was either tired or that its magic was a figment of our imaginations. We became despondent again finally we came upon a ridge that Sharon believed to hide the mount. She instructed us to stay put while she went on a recon mission up the slope to peer over the other side. She disappeared into the brush for a very long time. So much so that Becca and I began to worry. Either she made it to the mount and it was too wonderful for her to leave to come get us or she had met a horrible and unfortunate death. One thing was for sure Becca and I weren't going to go look for her. After all Sharon had gotten us into this mess and now that the wand no longer worked we were concerned for our safety on the trip back. Luckily, when our spirits were at their lowest and were beginning to grasp the gravity of the situation, Sharon appeared from the brush. She was covered head to toe in prickly plants. She was unable to locate the mount. She was extremely disappointed. She kept saying that she knew we were near and that she felt almost like we were standing right on top of it and if we searched a little bit longer we might be enlightened. Nevertheless, she wanted to go home too.

We made haste retracing our steps. The treacherous landscape into the unknown that we had so recently crossed not a couple hours before now seemed warm and welcoming. Our feet were light and our minds were at ease as we walked the winding trails back to our village. We had ventured further into the hills surrounding the mount than anyone who had come before, and unlike anyone who had come before, we were walking out alive. We made it to our village just before dusk. The sun hung low in the sky and the light reflected off the hills nicely. When we reached the fork in the road among the stone houses where we would part ways, we turn toward the hills from were we had just come. There in the distance we saw thdefinitelyount. It definately was not as exciting as Sharon had originally described it, but it was majestic none the less. We realized that we had been standing right on top of it the whole time. Apparently we had made it after all. We just needed some perspective....