A Simple Game of Cat and Mouse
I’ve written before how cool it is to have cats in my host family. There were four but one day last week I was sitting with one at dinner (he sat on my lap during every meal) and my host mom suddenly told me that I should enjoy the moment because the cat was getting shipped off to another home. Sure enough, we finished eating and my host brother stuffed the animal (and another) in a sack, off to a new home, leaving us with three cats, two kittens (down from four) and mom.
And lately, I’ve been lucky enough to witness one of the oldest games in the world - that of cat and mouse. We’ve started putting apples into crates in our cellar for the winter( more in a second), and as a result the mice are out too (they can’t get to the apples, but they still hang around trying. I guess that’s why they’re at the bottom of the food chain). And the cats are enjoying their presence too, as it means more food for them. And it means great entertainment for me.
On Monday of this week I saw it for the first time - I was just about to leave for school when I saw the mother cat, out of the corner of my eye, acting strange, swatting at something. Unsure what, I moved closer to get a better look and saw that she was playing with a mouse that she had dragged up from the cellar. The mouse was alive and the mom was having a great time playing, swatting it so it would run before pouncing on it, throwing it with its mouth, all the things I’ve heard about during my first twenty-three years but didn’t have a chance to see until now. It continued for about ten minutes until mom got either bored or hungry, upon which she decided to dig in. The young ones hunt a lot too, and they will play for a long time with the mouse. They almost always hunt alone, so if I get bored watching one play with a mouse and want to see the mouse get eaten, I simply find another cat and toss it in the direction of the hunter. This aggravates the hunter(who think’s is about to lose dinner) to the point that it will hiss and start eating away.
And as a result, I’ve also learned that a mouse, if bitten in it’s mid-section, will make a noise that is exactly a ‘squeaky toy’ that a dog plays with.
Notes
- In case you didn’t know, apple season is in full bloom, and because my family has about fifty trees it means that there is a lot of work to be done. Every day after school my host mom and I (and sometimes host-brother and sister) spend about two hours among the trees, with her climbing the ladder and picking the apples and me on the ground, carrying them in buckets to crates in the cellar. It’s fairly easy work, labor intensive but simple enough. I’m not exactly sure what we’ll do with all the apples: they may be for human consumption, but 1)There will be thousands, too many to eat, and 2) The cellar is cool but not too cold, so I doubt they will last the winter and not go rotten. My theory - they’ll get fed to the animals. It’s really nice to help, as often it’s just my host mom and I - she told me this week that she doesn’t know what she would do if I wasn’t there to help with the work.
In fact, last Sunday I spent six hours with my host family at the home of the father of my host mother working on apples. The three family members climbed the tree and put apples into buckets and I carried them to the crates - then, once six crates were full, my host brother and I put them on a wheel-barrow and, three at a time, rolled them about fifty yards down a hill. I was actually a little suckered into going. In the morning at breakfast my host mom asked me if I wanted to go with them but was vague on details. When I asked where we would be going, she simply said, "somewhere." We left at 12:30 and returned at 7:00 at night.
- I’m at the point in my time here when, if someone in my family says, "let’s go", I don’t even ask where we are going, why we are going, what we will be doing, or why we are going. I simply say ‘Ok’, grab my backpack and camera, a jacket if it’s cold, and go. No need for discussion.
- My biggest concern before I started teaching was classroom management and just how successful I would be with a room full of energetic farm kids and a loose grasp on the language. Luckily, it’s not too large of an issue for me due to two reasons, 1)Most importantly, the quality of the kids, and 2) The size of my classroom. The quality of the kids is great - for the most part, they work hard and listen. The 4th graders are even to the point that if one of their classmates starts to talk or act up, the others will tell him to be quiet. The 10th graders too - if one student starts to talk too much, I don’t need to say anything because one of the others will beat me to it. And my classroom can only fit twelve students, and there is no doubt that twelve students are much easier to manage that twenty or so.
- During training we were told that, under no circumstances, were we allowed to kick a student out of class, an order strickly from the Ministry of Education. However, last Thursday as I was leaving school I walked past one of our teachers standing on the front stairway just reaming out a student she had clearly kicked out of class. I didn’t understand much of what she said, other than the fact that she was calling him an idiot and telling him to go home. It’s was impressive. Even as the kid slowly walked away from school, she stood there and continued to holler away. Having played football for Donovan Larson, I saw some impressive chewing-outs, and believe me when I saw that - in any language - this one was one of the classics.
And you know what is ironic? The woman doing the yelling is our etiquette teacher.
- If you are at all interested in Moldova, there is a book that you have to read written by a British guy named Tony Hawks how played tennis against every member of the Moldovan National Soccer Team. It’s cleverly titled, 'Playing the Moldovans in Tennis' and it is amazingly funny and true at the same time. My host family thought I was crazy because I was reading it and laughing often and loudly, to the point that they asked me what was so funny. If you can get your hands on this book through any means, do yourself a favor.
- During training, one thing was made clear to all future teachers, that the quality of director in our schools could make or break our experience. I’m lucky in that my director is of the highest sort. About once a week or so I work on the internet in our computer lab, and it’s just him and I - after I finish he usually asks me questions about how things are at home and school, and I can tell that he is truly concerned about my well being in the village.
- The frequency of my showering is . . . . low. I’m down to about once a week, which isn’t as bad as it seems for two reasons: First, it’s autumn and the weather is cooling down, so I don’t sweat as much, and Second, in talking with other volunteers I realize this is about typical.
- My language skills are progressing slowly but surely, but my largest problem is word order. In Russian it’s not important at all - the structure of a sentence is presented through the grammar, which is tricky. For example, in English take the sentence "be it will today cold rain will and ." I’d imagine that you understood the sentence but it likely took more than one reading to do so. That’s where I am. In fact, often someone will say something to me and I understand every word but I need to hear again so I can pick-up the grammar. But when I ask for something to be repeated, the speaker often thinks I didn’t understand the words and they just say the same thing again with different words.
Actually, I told this to two girls that I tutor and they told me that, even for them, word order is a problem. That made me feel a little bit better.
- My parents sent me an advertisement from Rainbow foods to use as tool in the classroom, and on Thursday night my host mom was asking me how much things cost in America and rather go product by product I simply showed her the ad, much to her shock. A loaf of fresh bread here is about 30 cents as opposed to three or so dollars in the States.
- On Tuesday of this week my host mom, after dinner, showed me pictures taken of the man who would have been my host father. It was absolutely heart-breaking. There was a picture of the whole family on New Years Day this year, a picture of perfect health, smiling away. There was one of him on May Day (a big deal here), and it was clear he was sick, as he was bundled and hunched over. It’s hard to believe that only 10 weeks (almost to the day) he was dead. I think about the man all the time - I can only imagine how much the family must think about him.
- Finally, I’ll end with my favorite story from this last week. Last Wednesday I taught the sixth grade and they were very difficult - it was actually my biggest problem with discipline that I’ve had up to now. So I gave them homework and checked it at our next lesson, which was on Friday.
One student, when asked where is work was, told me, "I couldn’t do it. I didn’t know how."
"Why didn’t you know how?" I asked. "The last lesson, did you play or listen? You played right? Right.? Yes or no?"
"Yes", he responded timidly.
"Well of course you didn’t know what to do."
He was, for the first time in a month, speechless.
And lately, I’ve been lucky enough to witness one of the oldest games in the world - that of cat and mouse. We’ve started putting apples into crates in our cellar for the winter( more in a second), and as a result the mice are out too (they can’t get to the apples, but they still hang around trying. I guess that’s why they’re at the bottom of the food chain). And the cats are enjoying their presence too, as it means more food for them. And it means great entertainment for me.
On Monday of this week I saw it for the first time - I was just about to leave for school when I saw the mother cat, out of the corner of my eye, acting strange, swatting at something. Unsure what, I moved closer to get a better look and saw that she was playing with a mouse that she had dragged up from the cellar. The mouse was alive and the mom was having a great time playing, swatting it so it would run before pouncing on it, throwing it with its mouth, all the things I’ve heard about during my first twenty-three years but didn’t have a chance to see until now. It continued for about ten minutes until mom got either bored or hungry, upon which she decided to dig in. The young ones hunt a lot too, and they will play for a long time with the mouse. They almost always hunt alone, so if I get bored watching one play with a mouse and want to see the mouse get eaten, I simply find another cat and toss it in the direction of the hunter. This aggravates the hunter(who think’s is about to lose dinner) to the point that it will hiss and start eating away.
And as a result, I’ve also learned that a mouse, if bitten in it’s mid-section, will make a noise that is exactly a ‘squeaky toy’ that a dog plays with.
Notes
- In case you didn’t know, apple season is in full bloom, and because my family has about fifty trees it means that there is a lot of work to be done. Every day after school my host mom and I (and sometimes host-brother and sister) spend about two hours among the trees, with her climbing the ladder and picking the apples and me on the ground, carrying them in buckets to crates in the cellar. It’s fairly easy work, labor intensive but simple enough. I’m not exactly sure what we’ll do with all the apples: they may be for human consumption, but 1)There will be thousands, too many to eat, and 2) The cellar is cool but not too cold, so I doubt they will last the winter and not go rotten. My theory - they’ll get fed to the animals. It’s really nice to help, as often it’s just my host mom and I - she told me this week that she doesn’t know what she would do if I wasn’t there to help with the work.
In fact, last Sunday I spent six hours with my host family at the home of the father of my host mother working on apples. The three family members climbed the tree and put apples into buckets and I carried them to the crates - then, once six crates were full, my host brother and I put them on a wheel-barrow and, three at a time, rolled them about fifty yards down a hill. I was actually a little suckered into going. In the morning at breakfast my host mom asked me if I wanted to go with them but was vague on details. When I asked where we would be going, she simply said, "somewhere." We left at 12:30 and returned at 7:00 at night.
- I’m at the point in my time here when, if someone in my family says, "let’s go", I don’t even ask where we are going, why we are going, what we will be doing, or why we are going. I simply say ‘Ok’, grab my backpack and camera, a jacket if it’s cold, and go. No need for discussion.
- My biggest concern before I started teaching was classroom management and just how successful I would be with a room full of energetic farm kids and a loose grasp on the language. Luckily, it’s not too large of an issue for me due to two reasons, 1)Most importantly, the quality of the kids, and 2) The size of my classroom. The quality of the kids is great - for the most part, they work hard and listen. The 4th graders are even to the point that if one of their classmates starts to talk or act up, the others will tell him to be quiet. The 10th graders too - if one student starts to talk too much, I don’t need to say anything because one of the others will beat me to it. And my classroom can only fit twelve students, and there is no doubt that twelve students are much easier to manage that twenty or so.
- During training we were told that, under no circumstances, were we allowed to kick a student out of class, an order strickly from the Ministry of Education. However, last Thursday as I was leaving school I walked past one of our teachers standing on the front stairway just reaming out a student she had clearly kicked out of class. I didn’t understand much of what she said, other than the fact that she was calling him an idiot and telling him to go home. It’s was impressive. Even as the kid slowly walked away from school, she stood there and continued to holler away. Having played football for Donovan Larson, I saw some impressive chewing-outs, and believe me when I saw that - in any language - this one was one of the classics.
And you know what is ironic? The woman doing the yelling is our etiquette teacher.
- If you are at all interested in Moldova, there is a book that you have to read written by a British guy named Tony Hawks how played tennis against every member of the Moldovan National Soccer Team. It’s cleverly titled, 'Playing the Moldovans in Tennis' and it is amazingly funny and true at the same time. My host family thought I was crazy because I was reading it and laughing often and loudly, to the point that they asked me what was so funny. If you can get your hands on this book through any means, do yourself a favor.
- During training, one thing was made clear to all future teachers, that the quality of director in our schools could make or break our experience. I’m lucky in that my director is of the highest sort. About once a week or so I work on the internet in our computer lab, and it’s just him and I - after I finish he usually asks me questions about how things are at home and school, and I can tell that he is truly concerned about my well being in the village.
- The frequency of my showering is . . . . low. I’m down to about once a week, which isn’t as bad as it seems for two reasons: First, it’s autumn and the weather is cooling down, so I don’t sweat as much, and Second, in talking with other volunteers I realize this is about typical.
- My language skills are progressing slowly but surely, but my largest problem is word order. In Russian it’s not important at all - the structure of a sentence is presented through the grammar, which is tricky. For example, in English take the sentence "be it will today cold rain will and ." I’d imagine that you understood the sentence but it likely took more than one reading to do so. That’s where I am. In fact, often someone will say something to me and I understand every word but I need to hear again so I can pick-up the grammar. But when I ask for something to be repeated, the speaker often thinks I didn’t understand the words and they just say the same thing again with different words.
Actually, I told this to two girls that I tutor and they told me that, even for them, word order is a problem. That made me feel a little bit better.
- My parents sent me an advertisement from Rainbow foods to use as tool in the classroom, and on Thursday night my host mom was asking me how much things cost in America and rather go product by product I simply showed her the ad, much to her shock. A loaf of fresh bread here is about 30 cents as opposed to three or so dollars in the States.
- On Tuesday of this week my host mom, after dinner, showed me pictures taken of the man who would have been my host father. It was absolutely heart-breaking. There was a picture of the whole family on New Years Day this year, a picture of perfect health, smiling away. There was one of him on May Day (a big deal here), and it was clear he was sick, as he was bundled and hunched over. It’s hard to believe that only 10 weeks (almost to the day) he was dead. I think about the man all the time - I can only imagine how much the family must think about him.
- Finally, I’ll end with my favorite story from this last week. Last Wednesday I taught the sixth grade and they were very difficult - it was actually my biggest problem with discipline that I’ve had up to now. So I gave them homework and checked it at our next lesson, which was on Friday.
One student, when asked where is work was, told me, "I couldn’t do it. I didn’t know how."
"Why didn’t you know how?" I asked. "The last lesson, did you play or listen? You played right? Right.? Yes or no?"
"Yes", he responded timidly.
"Well of course you didn’t know what to do."
He was, for the first time in a month, speechless.
posted by Andy Buchanan at 6:15 AM
3 Comments:
Was that pupil conversation in english or Russian? About 10x more impressive in Russian, in my opinion.
It is amazing how so many problems would be solved if people just had the etiquette to chew a student out once in a while…
Andy,it's amazing how you can describe it all.
Victoria
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