More Random Notes

Rather than think of a story or anecdotes from the last week to kick things off, I thought I would simply write, bullet style, about the things that have taken place lately:

- It literature, in film, I had always heard about not only the beauty of a full moon but also of the impact it can have when there is no light. While I always thought this was true in America, there is no way to fully appreciate it unless you live in a place without any artificial light (i.e. a village in the middle of Moldova). In America the streetlights always shone too brightly to get a full grasp of the moon’s power, but it’s totally stunning to see just how amazingly the moon illuminates everything. Also, because we can see the Milky Way here it’s interesting to compare the brightness of the moon to the brightness of other lights in terms of just how many stars can be seen. It’s something that needs to be seen to be believed - it’s like a giant spotlight. . .

It’s really eerie at night sometimes because, as I’ve written about before, I live in a valley between two hillsides and at night, the valley tends to fill with a fog that only amplifies the moonlight. The brightness in the sky stays the same between 10:00 at night and 8:00 in the morning. It was tough to get used to at first, waking up and seeing brightness and expecting to need to wake up soon only to look at the clock and see it’s only 3:00 in the morning.

- In America there were a few shows that were scoffed at by the general public but which are huge here on Russian state TV, the Russian equivalents of "Skating With the Stars" and "But Can They Sing?" (which put celebrities on stage and had people judge their ability to belt out songs). My family here really likes them, stopping everything when they are song. The singing show is actually good for me to watch because they show the words on the bottom of the screen so I can hear the words said and see them at the same time. It’s great for my language. As for the quality of the programming itself . . . we’ll just not answer that and move on.

- My trip to Christmas that I’ve written about in the last entry came about in an interesting way in terms of the crowd going along. First it was just going to be a friend and I, a guy named Chris who is from Virginia. At our conference a few weeks ago I told another girl in out group (who studied Russian with me and is a pretty good friend) about our trip and asked her to teach me some Turkish (she speaks it, Arabic, Japanese, and some French) that we could use, mainly how to ask people if they spoke English, Russian, or Romanian. Turns out, her plans for the holidays fell through and she asked if we wouldn’t mind if she came along too. Because she knows the language, it took us about a millisecond to reply in the affirmative. Then another girl in our group learned about the trip and also asked if she could accompany us, which we also were quick to agree with. We’ll be there for eight days covering Christmas and New Years - should be a great time. I’m counting down the days.

- When speaking with other volunteers (those who have been here a year or more) over the summer I would always about the language issue at sight and at what point they felt comfortable. The usual reply was around November, and I think it’s safe to say that they were right in their prediction. What do I mean by comfort? That’s the real question. When I first heard about ‘comfort’ I thought it meant full comprehension, but from what I’ve heard that happens after about a year. Instead, it means that I have no trouble expressing myself in social situations, that my abilities have advanced to the point that I have no fear of meeting new people and expressing myself in most situations in general.

For example, three weeks ago I went to the birthday party of one of my students, and after a while her parents grabbed me and invited me to sit with them and their friends in another room to eat, drink, and talk. Had this situation occurred in August, when I first got here, I would have been terrified - this, however, was not problem because my skills have advanced to that baseline comfort level. Even when they asked me a question and I didn’t understand everything, I understood enough of their words to figure out what the point of the question and how to answer it fine.

I’ve been telling a lot of new volunteers that, as good a Peace Corps language training is (some of the best in the world), throughout training the language is always conducted in a controlled environment. Even for the final language test the testee always has a general idea of what will be asked. However, once a volunteer gets to site it’s a whole different world in terms of language and what is expected of the speaker. It’s no longer controlled, and it takes about three months for the volunteer to regain that control. And if you want to get a general idea of how much I can produce, just remember that every conversation I write about in this blog takes places in Russian, unless it’s reported otherwise or with another American.

- Speaking about language, my skills have also progressed to the point that I understand if someone is speaking Ukranian or Russian. How can I tell? First, if my comprehension suddenly takes a dive I know something is going on. Also, not to sound negative, but when a person speaks Ukranian it sounds to me like they are speaking Russian after a few drinks. It just sounds different. Plus, I’ve picked up a few words in Ukranian that people say a lot, words like ‘to do,’ ‘to see,’ ‘how,’ and ‘what.’ And if I hear a word enough and can’t find it in the dictionary, it’s likely Ukranian. When that happens I just ask my tutor (who speaks Russian, Ukranian, and Moldovan) what it means. She is always helpful. I’ve also picked up enough to respond in Ukranian with my kids when they ask me something in Ukranian, which just caused a few of them to fall out of their chairs.

And speaking of tutor, she also told me that, it turns out, my host mom speaks with a pretty strong Ukranian accent. My tutor told me that her accent is as strong as mine (not sure if that’s a compliment . . . ) but people understand my host mom all the time, so maybe it’s not such a bad thing.

I’ve also learned that my village, in general, doesn’t speak Russian or Ukranian when in general conversation. They speak a dialect called хохлятский which is basically an odd combination of the two languages, 65% Russian, 30% Ukranian, and 5% Romanian with grammar from the three lazily thrown together - one of my students told me that she speaks only the dialect everywhere but at school (they also try to maintain that it’s it’s own language and get frustrated when I call it just a dialect. Sorry, the truth hurts kids). This revelation also helps explain a lot too - for example, my 7th graders are probably the worst kids I have in-terms of their English skills. When I told this to my host mom and told her that it seems to me that they don’t even speak Russian well, she said that I was right and that in lessons when she speaks ‘clean’ Russian they don’t understand her and that she has to switch to the dialect sometimes to get her point across.

- If you want to send me a text message on my phone, go to here and, in the number box, put in 825827. It would be great to hear from some of you, but keep in mind that I have no means of writing back. It would also be a great way to get updates on sports scores . . .

- And speaking of my host mom, last Friday she came into my room and asked me if I had any music for a ‘step.’ I had no idea what she meant. She said that her want to do a dance to a step and she wanted music they could dance to in an older style. So I went through all my music that could have possibly been that answer before stumbling on the correct song. The answer? "Give Me Some Lovin’", by the Spencer Davis Group.

- Finally, last Sunday was one of the most surreal, interesting days I’ve had here.
About three weeks ago my tutor told me that December 3rd was the "Day of the Volunteer" in Moldova and invited me to go with some students to Chisinau for an event that the philharmonic. At first she told me that there would ten students going along, but when the mini-bus pulled up to greet me it was filled with three kids. Not bad.

So we went to Chisinau and spent some time at the philharmonic, lounging about a visiting various booths with information about volunteer and volunteer opportunist in Moldova. There was Peace Corps things everywhere but ironically, noone for Peace Corps there. It was just my students and me, actually, as my tutor told me she had stuff to do and promptly split. Also, I use the term ‘concert’ loosely because here, they don’t totally sing. They always (at least, at the few concerts I’ve been to) just play music with the words already existing and someone on stage just softly ‘sings’ over the existing words. Very odd. Anyways, we spent a few hours in Chisinau and on the way back I had two amazing experiences:

1) There was fog everywhere on the roads, limiting visibility at times to about thirty yards in any direction. And on the way to my village you need to drive along what is basically the top of a hill, where the fog was especially thick. As we looked out the windows we could only see two precipices on each side because the fog in the valley was so thick that it wasn’t possible so see anything more - it was surreal to be driving along, look out both windows, and see only twenty yards of ground before a drop-off into fog. Not to sound too romantic but it was like standing at the edge of the world. Very cool.

2) On the way home we stopped at a village on the way to ours at a house. My tutor went in leaving five of us outside (the three kids, me, and our driver who was about 20 years old). She emerged a minutes later and beckoned us inside where, it turned out, there was a big feast going on. Why? Not really sure. But we were certainly welcomed with open arms, given food, wine, and honey (the man of the house is a beekeeper and gave us a big explanation of how the honey is made) with an openness that was amazing to behold.

I distinctly remembering how that would be seen in most American households - a family sitting around celebrating something and six people show up for dinner, unannounced. I think that, while the reception would be polite, it would not be done with the lack of pretense and sense of welcoming that we were treated to at this Moldovan family.