Culture Matters . . . Finally
The three Russian speakers and our teacher went to the local church for part of our ‘cultural awareness’ lessons that are required by the Peace Corps. Normally, these sessions are akin to torture. This one was great, actually.
First, it should be noted that in Moldova, something like 96% of residents are Eastern Orthodox. That doesn’t say how many are actively participating in their faith, but officially, those are the numbers. After the Eastern Orthodox church, the other 4% is made up of Roman Catholics, Jews, Evangelical Christian, and everything else.
Also, it is interesting that religion is still heavily involved in politics, to the point that there is now a push to have Religion courses taught in all public schools (even though Moldova is the only nation in the former Soviet Union to legitimately elect a Communist government, the term here is far from what it meant twenty years ago and now is basically a different word for the ‘Social Democrat’ that is seen in most of the rest of Europe). Actually, the Church had an impact on the Peace Corps last year: one type of volunteer here is as a Life Skills teacher, and last year for the first time Life Skills teachers received manuals on what to use as a curriculum. However, there was information in the fifth grade book that dealt with child abuse. Some parents complained to the church, thinking it was too much for their little ones to have to comprehend, and the church used its influence on the educational system to get the texts pulled.
As for the church (not the institute, the building) in the village, it has an interesting past. It was build in 1916 and served as a church only for a while - once the communists took over they used the inside of the church as a storage facility and actually used the outside as a set in films - we were told that there are still bullet holes in the top of the structure that were never removed after being put there during a filming.
However, after 1989 the church was allowed to serve its original purpose, and the inside was returned to a copy of its original glory - there are only two items in the church now that existed before it was used for storage, two flags with biblical images that stand near the front of the alter. There was one more icon, one gold covered and rather expensive, but a few years ago it was stolen on a night in which bandits went to all the churches in the local area and stole all everything worth taking,
Since 1990, the church has fallen on hard times, both financial and otherwise. Attendance of church in the early part of the 1990's was so difficult on priests that they went through fifteen priests in the eight years until the current one arrived - he’s been in the village since 1998. He said attendance at church is poor, that at the weekly service they average between fifteen and twenty people (this from a population of about 2500). The two biggest days of the year are Easter Vigil - when they draw hundreds - and the Baptism of Christ, which draws a hundred or so. Even weddings and baptisms aren’t done in the church itself; instead, the priest goes to homes to conduct those services. And financially, things are note easy. Income comes mainly from weddings and baptisms, and it averages out to about 75 dollars per month. Sound bad? Well, that number is actually split among 5 people who work in and for the church, meaning that employees earn fifteen dollars a month.. Needless to say, almost everyone gets a job on the side, even the priest himself.
As for other religions in the area, there are two old ladies who are Catholic - they attend the Orthodox service every week but to not take communion. There are two or three Jehovah’s Witnesses in the area but they don’t try to convert. There are Evangelicals in the area who actively try to convert people, usually using the pretext of food to draw people in (actually, there’s a Baptist camp in the village now. There are rumors of a few other Americans here but as of now, I haven’t seen any). However, once the food is gone people usually stop coming to the ‘information’ sessions. They were even so brazen as to bake cookies and make candies and invite children from the neighborhood into their homes, feed them, and preach to them. Once parents found about this, however, community pressure quickly stopped all such activies.
As for Catholic church’s in the area . . . well, there are really any. In the regional capital of Orhei there is one but it’s under repair and there are not services held there. In Chisinau actually there is a large Catholic church near the opera house, where I hear they have services in Russian, Romanian, German, Polish, and maybe English. I’ll have to check it out next time I’m there.
Notes
- Week one of Practice School is in the bag. Things are going well with the kids, actually. On Thursday we learned animals on the farm, and to describe what animal we had I simply would make the sound that the animal does. At first the kids couldn’t believe it and laughed a little, but they clearly understood what I was trying to convey. It was great also because after me they all had to come up one at a time and make the sound of an animal while the rest of the students would yell out what animal the student was describing. It was great. Because of their skill level, the goal isn’t to make masters of the kids in a week - instead, the goal is to have the kids know more when they leave the classroom than they did when they entered it. I think that every day, that goal has been achieved.
- Russian classes are still going well. We all figured out something key this week - I’ve always thought that Russian grammar was a nightmare, almost impossible to figure out and use. However, this week we’ve all realized that while the grammar is tough to memorize and usage, difficult to navigate at first, once it is in place it really simplifies things. I won’t bore you with too many details, but the bottom line is that the big picture is starting to come into place, at least from a grammatical standpoint. Indeed, about 70% of Russian grammar is in place now - the next three weeks before the final language test is basically a polishing of grammar and an onslaught of vocabulary that we’ll use with said grammar.
From what every current volunteer says too, once we get to sight and away from speaking primarily English all day, our language skills will grow rapidly - by about November or December, we should be basically comfortable using the language in most situations. Only five more months . . . .
- I’ve wondered for the last few years if, when talking about Ukraine, it should be described as the Ukraine or simply Ukraine. Well, now I have an answer. Turns out, "ukraine" in Russian literally translates to"at the edge", so politically under the Soviet Union it translated literally as "at the edge" in terms of being at the edge of the Empire. Ukrainians think that describing their nation as the Ukraine is derogatory, referring to it not as a nation but as simply ‘at the edge.’ They prefer just Ukraine, marking them as real people. In Russian there are two ways to refer to something in Ukraine, one of which is ‘in’ the nation and the other of which is ‘at’ the nation. For years - up to recent times - people have been using the preposition for ‘at’, the one that is negative to Ukranians. Now things are changing, a push is being made to use the ‘in’ preposition, to the point that on political shows they will actually argue over which way to refer to the nation.
But that is for Russians. I will now officially call it "Ukraine."
- My ‘wish list’ has now expanded, but don’t worry, most of the things are cheap to buy and send (did I mention my birthday is coming up in a few weeks. If you send something now, it should get here just in time for the 15th of August):
- A book of mad libs
- Folders, binders, a hole punch
- Simple games like UNO or any fake money, like Monopoly money
- Construction Paper
- Zip-Lock bags, any size
- Dry erase - or any - markers
- A book of quotes
- Maps of Minnesota, Minneapolis, or the United States - should be found free through AAA or any tourist office
- Old magazines - any magazine.
- Food advertisements from the newspaper or take-out menus from restaurants
- Office supplies. Anything from Post-it notes to masking tape to paper-clips are appreciated.
As for the more expensive things (to buy/ship):
- A Teacher’s planning book - they are priceless
- BBQ sauce or salsa, well packed of course. Black licorice would be great too.
- Some sort of indoor/outdoor thermometer.
That’s it for now. Of course, anything big or small is appreciated.
Thank you in advance.
- Finally, I have a new potential destination for vacation over Christmas break - Moscow. That’s right, although I already have plans to travel there a year from now, I just may double up. A week or so ago some trainees and I were discussing Christmas travel plans and a friend of mine said that he was headed to Moscow to meet his cousin. Needless to say, the wheel’s started turning. First, it’s cheap to get there from here - a train ride costs about forty dollars, though it takes 30 hours - a bus is about the same price but only sixteen hours.
Apart from my obvious desire to travel and see friends that I adore, also helping influence my decision is the fact that my friend is a Romanian speaker and that there are few places in this part of the world that are as unforgiving to non-language speakers as Russia - it can be a nightmare, to say the least.
We’ll see what happens. A visa is easy to get from here. In November Peace Corps has a conference which all the volunteers attend - if there I don’t hear of any other great vacation plans, Moscow moves to the top of my list.
First, it should be noted that in Moldova, something like 96% of residents are Eastern Orthodox. That doesn’t say how many are actively participating in their faith, but officially, those are the numbers. After the Eastern Orthodox church, the other 4% is made up of Roman Catholics, Jews, Evangelical Christian, and everything else.
Also, it is interesting that religion is still heavily involved in politics, to the point that there is now a push to have Religion courses taught in all public schools (even though Moldova is the only nation in the former Soviet Union to legitimately elect a Communist government, the term here is far from what it meant twenty years ago and now is basically a different word for the ‘Social Democrat’ that is seen in most of the rest of Europe). Actually, the Church had an impact on the Peace Corps last year: one type of volunteer here is as a Life Skills teacher, and last year for the first time Life Skills teachers received manuals on what to use as a curriculum. However, there was information in the fifth grade book that dealt with child abuse. Some parents complained to the church, thinking it was too much for their little ones to have to comprehend, and the church used its influence on the educational system to get the texts pulled.
As for the church (not the institute, the building) in the village, it has an interesting past. It was build in 1916 and served as a church only for a while - once the communists took over they used the inside of the church as a storage facility and actually used the outside as a set in films - we were told that there are still bullet holes in the top of the structure that were never removed after being put there during a filming.
However, after 1989 the church was allowed to serve its original purpose, and the inside was returned to a copy of its original glory - there are only two items in the church now that existed before it was used for storage, two flags with biblical images that stand near the front of the alter. There was one more icon, one gold covered and rather expensive, but a few years ago it was stolen on a night in which bandits went to all the churches in the local area and stole all everything worth taking,
Since 1990, the church has fallen on hard times, both financial and otherwise. Attendance of church in the early part of the 1990's was so difficult on priests that they went through fifteen priests in the eight years until the current one arrived - he’s been in the village since 1998. He said attendance at church is poor, that at the weekly service they average between fifteen and twenty people (this from a population of about 2500). The two biggest days of the year are Easter Vigil - when they draw hundreds - and the Baptism of Christ, which draws a hundred or so. Even weddings and baptisms aren’t done in the church itself; instead, the priest goes to homes to conduct those services. And financially, things are note easy. Income comes mainly from weddings and baptisms, and it averages out to about 75 dollars per month. Sound bad? Well, that number is actually split among 5 people who work in and for the church, meaning that employees earn fifteen dollars a month.. Needless to say, almost everyone gets a job on the side, even the priest himself.
As for other religions in the area, there are two old ladies who are Catholic - they attend the Orthodox service every week but to not take communion. There are two or three Jehovah’s Witnesses in the area but they don’t try to convert. There are Evangelicals in the area who actively try to convert people, usually using the pretext of food to draw people in (actually, there’s a Baptist camp in the village now. There are rumors of a few other Americans here but as of now, I haven’t seen any). However, once the food is gone people usually stop coming to the ‘information’ sessions. They were even so brazen as to bake cookies and make candies and invite children from the neighborhood into their homes, feed them, and preach to them. Once parents found about this, however, community pressure quickly stopped all such activies.
As for Catholic church’s in the area . . . well, there are really any. In the regional capital of Orhei there is one but it’s under repair and there are not services held there. In Chisinau actually there is a large Catholic church near the opera house, where I hear they have services in Russian, Romanian, German, Polish, and maybe English. I’ll have to check it out next time I’m there.
Notes
- Week one of Practice School is in the bag. Things are going well with the kids, actually. On Thursday we learned animals on the farm, and to describe what animal we had I simply would make the sound that the animal does. At first the kids couldn’t believe it and laughed a little, but they clearly understood what I was trying to convey. It was great also because after me they all had to come up one at a time and make the sound of an animal while the rest of the students would yell out what animal the student was describing. It was great. Because of their skill level, the goal isn’t to make masters of the kids in a week - instead, the goal is to have the kids know more when they leave the classroom than they did when they entered it. I think that every day, that goal has been achieved.
- Russian classes are still going well. We all figured out something key this week - I’ve always thought that Russian grammar was a nightmare, almost impossible to figure out and use. However, this week we’ve all realized that while the grammar is tough to memorize and usage, difficult to navigate at first, once it is in place it really simplifies things. I won’t bore you with too many details, but the bottom line is that the big picture is starting to come into place, at least from a grammatical standpoint. Indeed, about 70% of Russian grammar is in place now - the next three weeks before the final language test is basically a polishing of grammar and an onslaught of vocabulary that we’ll use with said grammar.
From what every current volunteer says too, once we get to sight and away from speaking primarily English all day, our language skills will grow rapidly - by about November or December, we should be basically comfortable using the language in most situations. Only five more months . . . .
- I’ve wondered for the last few years if, when talking about Ukraine, it should be described as the Ukraine or simply Ukraine. Well, now I have an answer. Turns out, "ukraine" in Russian literally translates to"at the edge", so politically under the Soviet Union it translated literally as "at the edge" in terms of being at the edge of the Empire. Ukrainians think that describing their nation as the Ukraine is derogatory, referring to it not as a nation but as simply ‘at the edge.’ They prefer just Ukraine, marking them as real people. In Russian there are two ways to refer to something in Ukraine, one of which is ‘in’ the nation and the other of which is ‘at’ the nation. For years - up to recent times - people have been using the preposition for ‘at’, the one that is negative to Ukranians. Now things are changing, a push is being made to use the ‘in’ preposition, to the point that on political shows they will actually argue over which way to refer to the nation.
But that is for Russians. I will now officially call it "Ukraine."
- My ‘wish list’ has now expanded, but don’t worry, most of the things are cheap to buy and send (did I mention my birthday is coming up in a few weeks. If you send something now, it should get here just in time for the 15th of August):
- A book of mad libs
- Folders, binders, a hole punch
- Simple games like UNO or any fake money, like Monopoly money
- Construction Paper
- Zip-Lock bags, any size
- Dry erase - or any - markers
- A book of quotes
- Maps of Minnesota, Minneapolis, or the United States - should be found free through AAA or any tourist office
- Old magazines - any magazine.
- Food advertisements from the newspaper or take-out menus from restaurants
- Office supplies. Anything from Post-it notes to masking tape to paper-clips are appreciated.
As for the more expensive things (to buy/ship):
- A Teacher’s planning book - they are priceless
- BBQ sauce or salsa, well packed of course. Black licorice would be great too.
- Some sort of indoor/outdoor thermometer.
That’s it for now. Of course, anything big or small is appreciated.
Thank you in advance.
- Finally, I have a new potential destination for vacation over Christmas break - Moscow. That’s right, although I already have plans to travel there a year from now, I just may double up. A week or so ago some trainees and I were discussing Christmas travel plans and a friend of mine said that he was headed to Moscow to meet his cousin. Needless to say, the wheel’s started turning. First, it’s cheap to get there from here - a train ride costs about forty dollars, though it takes 30 hours - a bus is about the same price but only sixteen hours.
Apart from my obvious desire to travel and see friends that I adore, also helping influence my decision is the fact that my friend is a Romanian speaker and that there are few places in this part of the world that are as unforgiving to non-language speakers as Russia - it can be a nightmare, to say the least.
We’ll see what happens. A visa is easy to get from here. In November Peace Corps has a conference which all the volunteers attend - if there I don’t hear of any other great vacation plans, Moscow moves to the top of my list.
posted by Andy Buchanan at 12:22 PM
6 Comments:
Hey, Andy!
This was very exciting to read that you can double you plans in terms of moscow!
We will put some political pressure from here on your decision))
Hope you have great weekends!
Очень хочется поболтать с тобой по-русски!
Счастливо!
Саша
Andy,
Things seem to be entering a rather comfortable pattern and you can begin to see the images of what your teaching experience will be like slowly emerging from future's fog. Once the language is part of your tool kit another very exciting world will undoubtedly unfold. The possibiity of a trip to Moscow sooner then expected is a great plum that you might be able to pick. December is not far away, heck the Vikings have just opened training camp and will still be playing then.
It is sad to hear of the decline in day-to-day worship but it is for now the same to one extent or another just about everywhere. Maybe in Eastern Europe you can blame the open and constant atheistic attack by the State but I guess one would expect that when it ended there would be a spiritual backlash to that period. Something to ponder, and maybe we'll have to rely once again on the Irish or some other isolated group "To Save Civilization". But we approach the Gates of Heaven as individuals....
Several packages have been sent, my brother sent the battery by ground, I sent the stamps (in a letter), and yesterday off went an air delivery of "critical" supplies. Let us know when things arrive, it will generate some confidence that we are doing the right things, getting the address straight, etc. U.S. Postal Service's web site lists the things you can send to Moldova, because it is a liquid and breakable it wil be hard to get some Mrs. Renfro's there, but we shall see !
I saw Diane today and Mike is still living in London, working on getting a contract to help with the latest Chernobyl clean-up, that is why he travels to Moscow. All is well with her and things are OK at home, Mom nerves have settled down considerably after the latest invasion from Montana. Last Friday I sat dumbfounded for TWO CONTINUOUS HOURS listening to Dick spew some of the sickest language of hate I have every heard or read in my short life. I literallly was getting dizzy before I finally told him "I've got to go" and walked upstairs to work on Paul's room.
By the way he is back home as of last Tuesday, he sure can cook !
Love,
Dad
Andy, where is your mailing address posted? Or could you post it? I would be happy to send you some stuff, but I need to know where. Furthermore, what shipping service can I use to be sure it gets to you?
Rob
Hey Andy,
You know, Eastern Orthodox is actually a very close relative of Catholicism. It may even be acceptable under church law to receive communion at an Eastern Orthodox service.
http://www.catholic.com/library/cag_ecclesia_de_eucharista.asp
If you are interested I would discuss with the local priest or I would be happy to get you some information from the home front. J
Has any one sent you some of the things on your list… I am guessing that you are sharing some of the listed items with your future students…
Anyways, I hope all is well. You sound like you are still very busy.
BC
Andy what is a teacher's planning book...
Do you have word 2000 on your computer?
Here is a template..
http://www.northcanton.sparcc.org/~orchard/Templates4Teachers/wordtemplates.htm
Good luck on your second language assessment- you'll do great!!
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