Jinx On Me

Two weeks ago, while walking around, I spotted a group of people working in their yard, hauling water back and forth between their well and the place they had planted some crops. They were all bent over and covered in sweat, and it looked like hard work, exhausting really, and I definitely remember giving thanks for the fact that I was spared such a task.

Well, I spoke (thought) too soon, as literally two days later my host mom asked me one day if I could help her with some work. Always glad to help, I quickly jumped into action – I was outside for two second before she explained to me that nature of the work – that's right, drawing water from the well two buckets at a time and hauling them the thirty yards to the garden where tomatoes and cucumbers are growing, and my host mom scoops water out, one tea-cup at a time, until all the plants in the 100 square yard are fully fed (interestingly enough, they bought the vegetables already partially grown, as they couldn't plant seeds due to the fact that our literally free-range chickens would make really quick work of anything like that). It's not the most difficult work in the world – far easier than pulling corn from the husks and hauling 100 pound sacks of the stuff through a field or literally picking grapes until thumbs start to cramp-up.

The work is actually made necessary by the lack of rain. One sure sign that I've been fairly highly culturally assimilated here is that I definitely feel the locals pain on things like a lack of rain. Here they're really worried about it and it's effect on corn (I'm sure other crops come into play but corn is always what I hear about). It's rained only once in the last nine days – rained weakly too – but my host mom really picked up yesterday when I reported that, according to weather.com. We're supposed to receive a lot of rain this week, which is exactly what we need.

In fact, I think my weather-indoctrination process came fully complete on Wednesday of this week when I, while playing on my computer, realized that rain was coming and felt my mood instantly sky-rocket. I then went outside and watched the rain with a smile spread across my face (before I was scolded by my host mom for not wearing something to cover my head) . . .

Notes:
- On of the sports channels we have on our satellite is the Italian official sports channel, fun to watch because it shows the highlights between the sports priorities of American and Italy. For example, when glancing at it one can see sports ranging from water polo to cycling, with plenty of soccer to go around.

So you can imagine my surprise the other day when I flipped it on only to find a baseball game. That's right, Italian professional baseball, complete with a dozen people in the stands. I remember reading a while ago about the presence of this league and how the quality of baseball can be compared to junior-college, a comparison that seems dead-on. But nonetheless, having not watched any baseball of any quality for almost a year, I was hooked.

- We also receive the ESPN of Ukraine, which is actually one of my favorite channels (aside from the Georgian HBO that shows nothing but American movies dubbed in Russian and BBC World). And you know who is constantly being showed on TV, playing professional basketball for a team in Lvov? That's right, basketball legend from my hometown of Minneapolis Khalid el-Amin. I thought at least a few people reading this would find that fact mildly interesting.

- There is a new favorite drinking establishment for a lot of us Peace Moldova volunteers – McDonald's. We just realized a few weeks ago that beer is sold there for 10 lei (80 cents) for a half liter. It's fresh, cheap, and it's one of the few places where we can sit outside and drink. Plus, it's centrally located and a great place for people watching.

- It's the time of the year for grades, and it's been a fun process. On Tuesday I had a friend of mine call me and he told me that his motto – which he repeated like a mantra – was simply, “I'm not emotionally invested in your grades.” I loved it and repeated it to my classes again and again on Thursday, especially when they started to complain.

For my 8th, 10th, and 11th graders their task was simple: to write 10 sentences using 10 pieces of grammar we've learned in the last year. I gave them plenty of time to complete the task and was more than willing to help them. Of course, about ½ the kids simply copied sentences from the various textbooks around, not realizing that 1) I know what each and every student is capable of producing – I know what they know – and 2) That their efforts at simply taking other's work would not be well received. I gave all the kids two scores, on a 1 to 10 scale (as the national system goes), the first mark for effort and the second for usage. This is also after I told them at least a dozen times that it's not important to me what they know, it's important what they try to do and produce.

Of course, there is always the kid who simply gets it and who simply got destroyed by me. And when they started to complain, I just told them (in Russian so it would be clear), “I'm like a machine here – I see what you do, what you write, and I register grades. I don't feel anything. I don't favor one student over another.”

The results – 2 kids brought to tears. Can't say that I felt too bad.

- My favorite moment of the past week was Friday evening. We had a dance at my school which was supposed to start at 8:00 but rain started so a lot of kids waited at home for the end of the rain – as a result, I and our gym teacher and another old guy who watches the school at night all were waiting when I realized that I could go for a beer – half liter (16 ounces), sold for 65 cents at our local store.

So I went to the store, got my beer, and stood on the little veranda there watching the much-needed rain come in, thinking about the week. I also ran into one of the women who was a housing option of mine when I first visited in July and had a nice little talk with her. Good times all around, the perfect end to the week.