Gripe Session
As much as I really like my life in Moldova, in my village, and my Peace Corps service in general, there are a few things that drive my nuts, especially in the last week. Here is a list:
- I have never, in my life, seen people (and an educational system in general) waste as much time as I have here. Case in point: On Tuesday of this week – the 27th – the 11th graders in my school were to write a test for Romanian. They were to start at 9:15 and take until 2:00, the end of the school day – yes, almost five hours for a three hour test. How is this possible? I wish I knew. It also created a problem for me because the 11th graders also have a test on Friday for English and I desperately needed to prepare them. However, according to the the schedule it would not be possible, because they would be busy writing the test during our planned lesson. This would be maddening enough if not for the fact that, for some reason, they didn't start writing the Romanian test until 11:00, just sitting around for two hours in the morning, again without appropriate reason, before going home at 2:00 as I watched in dis-belief as they walked out the doors. Had they actually decided to start on time, we could have maybe used one of the two chances I have to get them a little prepared. Insane.
- My host mom is great – I couldn't be happier with my selection for host families, as they are actually all great. But (like any mom), she does things that drive me nuts. The most interesting? If I'm watching TV people talk all the time, without a cafe of convern for me. This doesn't bother me really. But if my host mom is watching a soap opera on Russian TV, she has a tendency to start a conversation by asking a question and 'ssshhh' me when I start to respond. And while they are more than happy to talk when I watch something, I (and my host brother too) can't so much as think about talking without getting told to be quiet (this problem is not isolated to my family here – as anyone in my family in America knows, if my mom there is watching “Lost” or something of that sort, it's in the best everyone in the house to stay away for fear of causing even the slightest disturbance that will incur wrath).
- Last week saw the strongest wind I've ever seen in my life – 3 straight days of literally 40 miles per hour, so strong that it actually took part of the roof of our school. By the end of the 3rd day there was so much dust in the air that it was like a fog.
Well, as you could imagine the wind did a number of our satellite dish on the roof of the house, making the TV literally unwatchable as the signal couldn't be recieved. The reason was clear to my host brother and I, as we just looked at the satellite and saw it swaying back and forth in the wind and the answer was simply to wait. My host mom (who knows almost nothing about technology more complicated than a phone), however, was not happy with that answer and instead on Friday evening called the guy who installed the dish who, in turn, told her that someone needed to bring the receiver box to Chisinau so he could look at it. My host mom, knowing that I was going, volunteered me to meet that guy when I got off the bus at 8:00 in the morning so we could go to his shop together. That actually turned to out to be a painless effort, because while we had some trouble in meeting (resulting in my needing to call him on his cell phone), he was a really nice guy. No gripe here.
However, there were two annoying things. 1) One of the reasons for my trip was to get some pictures for my 11th graders, which I had promised them I would do for a while. So while I the aforementioned gentleman was working on the TV satellite receiver I went to the Kodak store in Chisinau to get these pictures, walking a half-mile through driving rain to the location only to find it closed, locked totally up at 9:00 in the morning (when it was supposed to have opened at 8:00). That was annoying. 2) At the Peace Corps office there were a ton of volunteers there, all of whom wanted me to sleep in Chisinau because we were going to go out and celebrate the birthday of a volunteer here. I would have loved nothing more than to stay, but because of the situation with the satellite dish that wasn't option, as my host mom would have been slightly peeved with me had I not come home on Friday eve. But of course, upon my return they quickly plugged in the box and we found that the situation was not only better but worse, much to our surprise.
That's it for the gripes. It felt good to get that out . . . .
Notes:
- On Friday of this week some friends of mine are coming to the village for the weekend, and it promises to be a good time. We have a dance at my school on Friday and believe me when I say that if we, all four of us, walk in together it will be like in a western film where the music stops, things break, and every neck in the gym will get whiplash from snapping their heads around.
- The satellite dish (now that it's working – my host brother and I repaired it by him going on the roof and moving it around until we found a signal, which I relayed my tapping on a window) is amazing for showing very odd sporting events. You can imagine my surprise when I turned on one of the Polish sport channels this week only to discover a replay of a 2006 NCAA Division II football semifinal game between Grand Valley State and Delta State, replayed in Polish. That was odd.
- I mentioned before about how we've started to play football with my kids a few times a week after school. It really is great fun, and it also allows me the chance to realize what it will be like to have kids one day and teach them sports, because there is little more frustrating that I've endured (including the complaints at the top) than throwing perfect pass after perfect pass to these kids, only to watch the ball slide through their grasps time and time and time again.
Thankfully, I received a lot of training in my summer as a T-ball coach when I was the only person staff patient enough to be a pitcher to the kids.
- Finally, highlight of the week (actually, two weeks ago, but who's counting?) - On Wednesday a doctor from the Peace Corps came to my house to look around and make things were fine here from a health standpoint (they are). Peace Corps pulled up in a white Toyota SUV, the likes of which have seldom been seen around here.
Well, the next day during my lesson with the 4th graders they asked me when my parents had arrived – I quickly asked them what they were talking about, as my parents aren't set to arrive here for another three months. They told me that they heard my parents had arrived (which one kid in the school no doubt just made up after seeing the SUV), and when I asked who told them that my parents arrived they all pointed to one girl near the window and said, “Nastya! Nastya told us your parents were here”, to which the girl responded, “It's not my fault! It's not my fault! Someone else told me!”.
Maybe you just have to have been there to appreciate it . . . .
- I have never, in my life, seen people (and an educational system in general) waste as much time as I have here. Case in point: On Tuesday of this week – the 27th – the 11th graders in my school were to write a test for Romanian. They were to start at 9:15 and take until 2:00, the end of the school day – yes, almost five hours for a three hour test. How is this possible? I wish I knew. It also created a problem for me because the 11th graders also have a test on Friday for English and I desperately needed to prepare them. However, according to the the schedule it would not be possible, because they would be busy writing the test during our planned lesson. This would be maddening enough if not for the fact that, for some reason, they didn't start writing the Romanian test until 11:00, just sitting around for two hours in the morning, again without appropriate reason, before going home at 2:00 as I watched in dis-belief as they walked out the doors. Had they actually decided to start on time, we could have maybe used one of the two chances I have to get them a little prepared. Insane.
- My host mom is great – I couldn't be happier with my selection for host families, as they are actually all great. But (like any mom), she does things that drive me nuts. The most interesting? If I'm watching TV people talk all the time, without a cafe of convern for me. This doesn't bother me really. But if my host mom is watching a soap opera on Russian TV, she has a tendency to start a conversation by asking a question and 'ssshhh' me when I start to respond. And while they are more than happy to talk when I watch something, I (and my host brother too) can't so much as think about talking without getting told to be quiet (this problem is not isolated to my family here – as anyone in my family in America knows, if my mom there is watching “Lost” or something of that sort, it's in the best everyone in the house to stay away for fear of causing even the slightest disturbance that will incur wrath).
- Last week saw the strongest wind I've ever seen in my life – 3 straight days of literally 40 miles per hour, so strong that it actually took part of the roof of our school. By the end of the 3rd day there was so much dust in the air that it was like a fog.
Well, as you could imagine the wind did a number of our satellite dish on the roof of the house, making the TV literally unwatchable as the signal couldn't be recieved. The reason was clear to my host brother and I, as we just looked at the satellite and saw it swaying back and forth in the wind and the answer was simply to wait. My host mom (who knows almost nothing about technology more complicated than a phone), however, was not happy with that answer and instead on Friday evening called the guy who installed the dish who, in turn, told her that someone needed to bring the receiver box to Chisinau so he could look at it. My host mom, knowing that I was going, volunteered me to meet that guy when I got off the bus at 8:00 in the morning so we could go to his shop together. That actually turned to out to be a painless effort, because while we had some trouble in meeting (resulting in my needing to call him on his cell phone), he was a really nice guy. No gripe here.
However, there were two annoying things. 1) One of the reasons for my trip was to get some pictures for my 11th graders, which I had promised them I would do for a while. So while I the aforementioned gentleman was working on the TV satellite receiver I went to the Kodak store in Chisinau to get these pictures, walking a half-mile through driving rain to the location only to find it closed, locked totally up at 9:00 in the morning (when it was supposed to have opened at 8:00). That was annoying. 2) At the Peace Corps office there were a ton of volunteers there, all of whom wanted me to sleep in Chisinau because we were going to go out and celebrate the birthday of a volunteer here. I would have loved nothing more than to stay, but because of the situation with the satellite dish that wasn't option, as my host mom would have been slightly peeved with me had I not come home on Friday eve. But of course, upon my return they quickly plugged in the box and we found that the situation was not only better but worse, much to our surprise.
That's it for the gripes. It felt good to get that out . . . .
Notes:
- On Friday of this week some friends of mine are coming to the village for the weekend, and it promises to be a good time. We have a dance at my school on Friday and believe me when I say that if we, all four of us, walk in together it will be like in a western film where the music stops, things break, and every neck in the gym will get whiplash from snapping their heads around.
- The satellite dish (now that it's working – my host brother and I repaired it by him going on the roof and moving it around until we found a signal, which I relayed my tapping on a window) is amazing for showing very odd sporting events. You can imagine my surprise when I turned on one of the Polish sport channels this week only to discover a replay of a 2006 NCAA Division II football semifinal game between Grand Valley State and Delta State, replayed in Polish. That was odd.
- I mentioned before about how we've started to play football with my kids a few times a week after school. It really is great fun, and it also allows me the chance to realize what it will be like to have kids one day and teach them sports, because there is little more frustrating that I've endured (including the complaints at the top) than throwing perfect pass after perfect pass to these kids, only to watch the ball slide through their grasps time and time and time again.
Thankfully, I received a lot of training in my summer as a T-ball coach when I was the only person staff patient enough to be a pitcher to the kids.
- Finally, highlight of the week (actually, two weeks ago, but who's counting?) - On Wednesday a doctor from the Peace Corps came to my house to look around and make things were fine here from a health standpoint (they are). Peace Corps pulled up in a white Toyota SUV, the likes of which have seldom been seen around here.
Well, the next day during my lesson with the 4th graders they asked me when my parents had arrived – I quickly asked them what they were talking about, as my parents aren't set to arrive here for another three months. They told me that they heard my parents had arrived (which one kid in the school no doubt just made up after seeing the SUV), and when I asked who told them that my parents arrived they all pointed to one girl near the window and said, “Nastya! Nastya told us your parents were here”, to which the girl responded, “It's not my fault! It's not my fault! Someone else told me!”.
Maybe you just have to have been there to appreciate it . . . .
posted by Andy Buchanan at 1:59 PM
2 Comments:
Hey Andy,
It sounds like you have really found a second home there.
I thougt that it was hilarious that you are shushed during teh soap opera. It is those little idiosycracies that make life interesting.
Just on a side note, Benilde lost to STA in the HSBB tourney.
It was a great tournament,there are some pictures on this site:
http://photo.twincities.com/index.php/2007/03/21/minnesota-state-boys-basketball-tourney/
Stay cool, I wish I could visit, it would be really fun.
BC
Andy,
You were right on the mark with Lost but don't forget Oprah, Survivor, ER, ad nausseum....
Wasting time ? They do it here, too. When you spend years on subjects that are quickly forgotten I guess you can say that school is for many students mostly a socializing experience. But your village with the dances, etc., seems to have that aspect covered very well, perhaps these events are simply a carry over from an earlier time when school wasn't so organized and people didn't get a chance to minge together very frequently. I always thought I could never be a teacher because in general I lack patience. But even with the language problems in China I did alright, although there the guys were very eager to learn. I think you may have experienced an "Administrative" delay.
We actually went to the BSM game, Rob & Erin came to town that afternoon. Coach Moore wasn't his normal self spending most of the game just sitting on his bench. Maybe it was the constant TV timeouts, they really broke up the flow of the game.
Monday we went to CONNECT and the visitors talked through interpreters about their home towns. It was an interesting time but different then when the Moldovians focussed primarily on the Justice system. Monday's talks were mostly about economic aspects of the region. One lady who is also a host and was for the Moldovains, too, said
see had visited Moldova recently to attend the wedding of the guy she had hosted. Althougfh she had been raised on a farm she found the "bathrooms" the most interesting, where she visited these were simply a hole in the ground without even a bench to sit upon !
Me in a lowly Toyota SUV ? How embarassing, when the kids see the motocycle escorted Mercedes Benz 600 limosene your Family has arrived !
Dad
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