One Year Down, One To Go
Per tradition, the last day of school here in Moldova will be this Thursday, May 31st. Actually, school basically shut down last Friday and we teachers are in school now to 1)Give out grades to all the students, and 2) Hold together some semblance of order.
It's amazing for me to believe that I've been here almost a year (51 weeks to the day of me posting this, but who's counting). I still remember my first day of school well, as it was easily one of the most terrifying days of my life. I knew absolutely no-one, had no idea of the skills of the kids, could barely communicate in Russian, and stood alone in a corner of a square in front of the school while all these odd kids whom I didn't know put on a big show for everyone. Now I walk through my school, know the names of 75% of the students, have met a handful of their parents, know each and every one of their skill levels almost better than the kids themselves know it, and I communicate almost exclusively in Russian. The level of comfort is 100 times higher than it was a mere 9 months ago.
In Peace Corps Moldova there is no-doubt that the TEFL program is the hardest of the four present here. For starters, the topic we teach is simply difficult, as English is far from an easy language. We work with kids, which is far from easy (every day the 1st and 2nd graders hover around my classroom in between lessons, and it's just exhausting to pass through them a few times a day; kids that young are like energy vampires). And the educational system in which we have to work is also totally foreign from the system in place in America. And to top if off, the recognition of our work is far less obvious than in other programs, where volunteers maybe aide greatly in the building of a park for everyone to enjoy – and that everyone can see – while we are teaching Past Participles and and the Present Perfect Progressive tense, the results of which only we, the teachers, can see.
On the other hand, however, the skills that we are teaching are likely to be far more helpful to these kids in life, at least the ones who want to learn English. While something like a park is great, it simply can't help these kids break out of the life-cycle of poverty that many of them are stuck in and will be stuck in unless they give themselves the skills necessary skills life themselves up. English just happens to be one of these skills.
Throughout all the hardships that Peace Corps service has to offer, the one thing that carries me through everything is my students. While the majority have totally zero interest in learning English and don't need to do anything during lessons, there are a handful who really work, who I can see want to learn English and who really hold me here. One of the things that I'm most looking forward to in the next year is getting in with these kids and continuing to work with them, continuing to give them a huge tool that they can use in their futures to greatly better themselves and hopefully, their lives.
Until then, summer is here. On Thursday at school we will have a little ceremony called literally the “final bell”. It should end about 10:00 in the morning, after which I've decided that I will go to my classroom with a celebratory cigar and bottle of beer, lock the door, and just sit and decompress for 15, 20 minutes while I think of all the things that I've been through in that room, good and bad, throughout this last year. Frankly, I haven't been this excited about something in a long time.
Notes:
- I've written before about how there are four of us TEFL teachers from my group who gather together in each-others villages (if you'll remember, when we met the last time it took six hours and forty five minutes to travel a distance of 95 miles). Well, last weekend we all got together in the fourth and final home of ours, a town up in the north by the name of Riscani.
I actually took off from my village on Friday morning at 7:00 and pulling into my friends town at 12:30. It was a time-consuming but fairly easy trip with me passing through Chisinau and stopping for 45 minutes on my way at the Peace Corps office. We ended up having a great time together, as usual, passing the time just strolling around. Also, my friend there plays basketball with some guys every Friday night, so last Friday we dropped by with the intend of just seeing the facilities there (they are actually really, really nice) and ended up playing a 4 on 4 game against four Moldovans for a half hour, which turned out to be one of the funnest times I've had in the last year, especially because we won 21-18. We were actually supposed to play to 31 but it was raining and water started to leak through the roof. Not wanting to snap any ankles, we quickly decided to end it.
As good as Friday night was, Saturday morning was brutal because we had to wake up at 4:00 to leave the house at 4:20 to get to the bus-station at 4:45 so we would be guaranteed seats for the 5:00 ride to Chisinau. We got by OK in the morning basically going on fumes, but by the time we got to Chisinau at 8:30.
On the way to the bus stop however, we saw a concrete example of the type of mentality that we feel holds back many people in Moldova. While walking to the bus station and worrying about being late, we walked by a taxi driver. My friend asked him if he could take us to he bus station so we wouldn't be late. The driver told us that he had finished his shift, hopped into his car, and pulled out while taking a turn in the direction of the same bus station that we were going.
Now, the driver had two options: to go home without us because he didn't have to work, or to pick up a fare and earn a little money because just happened to be going that way and would have had to spend an extra one minute out of his free time. He chose the former.
- Next week the next group of TEFL and Health Education volunteers will fly into Moldova. I'm lucky enough to be a member of the Volunteer Mentor Program, where by for a month or so I've been in contact with 3 individuals who are on their way and, during the summer months, I can be used as a support for them if they have any questions of issues. This also means that, when the group arrives at the airport, I'll be there with eight other current volunteers to properly welcome the rookies here and then we'll escort them to the hotel and through Chisinau for their first day here. It should be a great time. I remember arriving one year ago, looking at these people who had been here for one year, and thinking about how they were these grizzled veterans and not being able to comprehend how much they knew simply about life here. Well, as hard as it is to believe, I'm a veteran now. Wow.
- On Friday morning on my way to Chisinau I got a ride in with a guy from the village. We were racing through the village next to ours on the one street. As happens sometimes, at one point a guy on a tractor pulled out in front of us from a side-street very late, causing the driver of our car to slam on the brakes and swerve a little. This happens fairly often and the driver usually rolls down the window to say a few words or simply wags a finger at the driver of the intruding vehicle.
This time, our driver started to do the same. He slowed down to get on pace with the tractor and started to roll down the window with a scowl on his face. When our driver could see the face of the tractor driver, however, he (in a village where everyone knows everyone) started to smile, gave a little wave, and turned to us – all four of us others in the car – and said, “It's just Vasia.” All three others simultaneously said, “Aahh, Vasia,” like it was the most normal thing in the world.
It's amazing for me to believe that I've been here almost a year (51 weeks to the day of me posting this, but who's counting). I still remember my first day of school well, as it was easily one of the most terrifying days of my life. I knew absolutely no-one, had no idea of the skills of the kids, could barely communicate in Russian, and stood alone in a corner of a square in front of the school while all these odd kids whom I didn't know put on a big show for everyone. Now I walk through my school, know the names of 75% of the students, have met a handful of their parents, know each and every one of their skill levels almost better than the kids themselves know it, and I communicate almost exclusively in Russian. The level of comfort is 100 times higher than it was a mere 9 months ago.
In Peace Corps Moldova there is no-doubt that the TEFL program is the hardest of the four present here. For starters, the topic we teach is simply difficult, as English is far from an easy language. We work with kids, which is far from easy (every day the 1st and 2nd graders hover around my classroom in between lessons, and it's just exhausting to pass through them a few times a day; kids that young are like energy vampires). And the educational system in which we have to work is also totally foreign from the system in place in America. And to top if off, the recognition of our work is far less obvious than in other programs, where volunteers maybe aide greatly in the building of a park for everyone to enjoy – and that everyone can see – while we are teaching Past Participles and and the Present Perfect Progressive tense, the results of which only we, the teachers, can see.
On the other hand, however, the skills that we are teaching are likely to be far more helpful to these kids in life, at least the ones who want to learn English. While something like a park is great, it simply can't help these kids break out of the life-cycle of poverty that many of them are stuck in and will be stuck in unless they give themselves the skills necessary skills life themselves up. English just happens to be one of these skills.
Throughout all the hardships that Peace Corps service has to offer, the one thing that carries me through everything is my students. While the majority have totally zero interest in learning English and don't need to do anything during lessons, there are a handful who really work, who I can see want to learn English and who really hold me here. One of the things that I'm most looking forward to in the next year is getting in with these kids and continuing to work with them, continuing to give them a huge tool that they can use in their futures to greatly better themselves and hopefully, their lives.
Until then, summer is here. On Thursday at school we will have a little ceremony called literally the “final bell”. It should end about 10:00 in the morning, after which I've decided that I will go to my classroom with a celebratory cigar and bottle of beer, lock the door, and just sit and decompress for 15, 20 minutes while I think of all the things that I've been through in that room, good and bad, throughout this last year. Frankly, I haven't been this excited about something in a long time.
Notes:
- I've written before about how there are four of us TEFL teachers from my group who gather together in each-others villages (if you'll remember, when we met the last time it took six hours and forty five minutes to travel a distance of 95 miles). Well, last weekend we all got together in the fourth and final home of ours, a town up in the north by the name of Riscani.
I actually took off from my village on Friday morning at 7:00 and pulling into my friends town at 12:30. It was a time-consuming but fairly easy trip with me passing through Chisinau and stopping for 45 minutes on my way at the Peace Corps office. We ended up having a great time together, as usual, passing the time just strolling around. Also, my friend there plays basketball with some guys every Friday night, so last Friday we dropped by with the intend of just seeing the facilities there (they are actually really, really nice) and ended up playing a 4 on 4 game against four Moldovans for a half hour, which turned out to be one of the funnest times I've had in the last year, especially because we won 21-18. We were actually supposed to play to 31 but it was raining and water started to leak through the roof. Not wanting to snap any ankles, we quickly decided to end it.
As good as Friday night was, Saturday morning was brutal because we had to wake up at 4:00 to leave the house at 4:20 to get to the bus-station at 4:45 so we would be guaranteed seats for the 5:00 ride to Chisinau. We got by OK in the morning basically going on fumes, but by the time we got to Chisinau at 8:30.
On the way to the bus stop however, we saw a concrete example of the type of mentality that we feel holds back many people in Moldova. While walking to the bus station and worrying about being late, we walked by a taxi driver. My friend asked him if he could take us to he bus station so we wouldn't be late. The driver told us that he had finished his shift, hopped into his car, and pulled out while taking a turn in the direction of the same bus station that we were going.
Now, the driver had two options: to go home without us because he didn't have to work, or to pick up a fare and earn a little money because just happened to be going that way and would have had to spend an extra one minute out of his free time. He chose the former.
- Next week the next group of TEFL and Health Education volunteers will fly into Moldova. I'm lucky enough to be a member of the Volunteer Mentor Program, where by for a month or so I've been in contact with 3 individuals who are on their way and, during the summer months, I can be used as a support for them if they have any questions of issues. This also means that, when the group arrives at the airport, I'll be there with eight other current volunteers to properly welcome the rookies here and then we'll escort them to the hotel and through Chisinau for their first day here. It should be a great time. I remember arriving one year ago, looking at these people who had been here for one year, and thinking about how they were these grizzled veterans and not being able to comprehend how much they knew simply about life here. Well, as hard as it is to believe, I'm a veteran now. Wow.
- On Friday morning on my way to Chisinau I got a ride in with a guy from the village. We were racing through the village next to ours on the one street. As happens sometimes, at one point a guy on a tractor pulled out in front of us from a side-street very late, causing the driver of our car to slam on the brakes and swerve a little. This happens fairly often and the driver usually rolls down the window to say a few words or simply wags a finger at the driver of the intruding vehicle.
This time, our driver started to do the same. He slowed down to get on pace with the tractor and started to roll down the window with a scowl on his face. When our driver could see the face of the tractor driver, however, he (in a village where everyone knows everyone) started to smile, gave a little wave, and turned to us – all four of us others in the car – and said, “It's just Vasia.” All three others simultaneously said, “Aahh, Vasia,” like it was the most normal thing in the world.
posted by Andy Buchanan at 10:01 AM
2 Comments:
I think every teach struggles with the student who do not care. Amazing that it is just the few that do care that allow each of us to be so dedicated to whtever it is we teach...
Oi, achei teu blog pelo google tá bem interessante gostei desse post. Quando der dá uma passada pelo meu blog, é sobre camisetas personalizadas, mostra passo a passo como criar uma camiseta personalizada bem maneira. Até mais.
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