Odds and Ends

Usually with my entries I try to start off with some large happening or occurrence and then go on to smaller points of interest. This week, however, there hasn't been one stand out moment. Instead, it's been a lot of small things building up. So without further ado . . .

- From a mental standpoint, these last two weeks have been some of the hardest of the year, especially from a 'get out of bed in the morning' standpoint. It's been cool and foggy (no sun for the last week, just like last year) and there is nothing worse than waking up in the morning at 7:30 and it's still really dark outside and relatively cold in my room. I'm faced with a daily battle – to just lay around and make up for lost sleep (more on that in a second) or to crawl out of my warm bed into a cold room, then put on cold clothes before venturing into the cold weather on the outside. The latter option (getting up) has an undefeated record so far but I have to admit, there's been some close calls. The going will get better in a week or so because, after daylight savings, it'll get darker later. And while it will then proceed to get worse as December approaches, by then we're approaching Christmas break so everyone's in a different mental place as it is. And then after Christmas, no matter how dark it is, we realize that it will just get better and better for the rest of the year.

We've also now finishing (today, actually) the longest stretch of school without any breaks – eight weeks. Our fall vacation starts on Monday, lasts for a week, and it will bring with it a welcome and well earned respite for teachers and students both. Believe me when I say that we all need a break from each-other.

- Last Wednesday, the day I posted my last entry, I came home from school and discovered that I had missed out on a spectacle I was really looking forward to – the fall goose cull. They're at their maximum weight now and will soon start to lose mass so they decided to put them – literally – under the knife. My host mom called in sick that day (more in a second on this too) and my host sister-in-law took the day off from work to do everything – because of the amount of feathers that need to be removed, it's rather labor intensive. I came home from school and saw six be-headed carcasses in and around the kitchen, then sat and watched the process of dismantling them (really interesting). Then they proceeded to fry up one and we ate it with potatoes (the verdict – I'm officially a fan of goose meat. Far better than turkey and chicken).

- In the Moldovan school system there's really no such thing as 'sick leave' – that is, if a teacher is sick and unable to go to school they don't receive any pay for the missed day, a huge incentive for going to school under the most dire conditions. My host mom, however, is in the unique position of receiving a healthy monthly payment from Peace Corps, via me. While I don't won't say just how much it is, I'll just say that just the money from me is double the monthly salary for the average teacher. As a result, my host mom is able to stay home when there is a lot of work to do, call in sick, without really having to worry about the financial consequences. Lucky for her, I guess.

- The reason I've been wiped out this whole week is that last Friday and Saturday I spent a sleep-deprived weekend in Chisinau. I went in on Friday to meet a girl I know who had just returned from a week in Moscow with the plan to come home again on Saturday. So we met and were talking in a bar on Friday night when I got a call from one of the Marines here telling me about a party at their house on Saturday night – I immediately invited the girl to see if she was interested in going and she was, so I then decided to stay the night Saturday night with the knowledge that I wasn't likely to sleep. The reason for this is simple – last time I went out with the Marines I had checked into a hotel and paid seven dollars (a fairly large amount) for a room only to arrive there from the disco at 5:30 AM, a bit of a waste considering that I could have just waited a half hour and gone to sleep at the Peace Corps office here.

So this time I didn't bother to check into a hotel and instead went to the Marine house with the Moldovan girl, where we talked to the soldiers, the Embassy staff there, and the other volunteer who had come. We took a taxi to the disco here (a harrowing experience – the only time in my life in which I've been totally terrified in a car because of the driving. At one point we stopped at a light and smelled something odd. We started talking in Russian about what it was when the driver turned around and with a grin said, “I burned the tires”), and while the people I came with left about 2:30, I stuck around until 3:45, walked a ways to a 24 hour market, bought something to eat, and showed up at Peace Corps at 5:15, where the guard was kind enough to let me in and where I slept until 7:30.

There was one silver lining, however: because of the time difference when I woke up I was able to see the last two minutes of the LSU-Auburn game live. Almost made it worth it.

Naturally, I was so wiped out that on Sunday night I went to bed at 8:30 PM (can't remember the last time that happened) and soundly slept until 7:30 the next morning. Yes, I'm writing this Thursday night and I still and feeling the effects of last Saturday. And yes, if I could do it all again I would.

- I'm looking forward to the coming vacation more so than I've looked forward to something in a long, long time. On Saturday I'm going to the north of Moldova to visit a friend of mine whose village is celebrating what basically translates to “day of the village” (Imagine a town festival in American that's condensed from three days into one). While it's a long way for me to his village – I'll be on the road for eight hours – it should be a great time. I'll come home on Sunday and then from Tuesday to Sunday I'll be in Chisinau; up to Saturday for a conference conducted through Peace Corps for the volunteers that have just come in in June and then on Saturday night to celebrate the birthday of two friends of mine. We'll also be there for Halloween and are going out somewhere (I'll be a cowboy if I can get my hands on a hat somewhere).

- One of the biggest problems facing Moldova is the exodus of the working class – around twenty-five percent of the population has left the country to work abroad. As an example of how prevalent this has seeped into parts of the country and of even the villages, on Thursday after school we had a parent-teacher meeting in which the doctor from our village stood up and told us about a list of maladies that have struck our students and then told the parents how they should take good care of their kids when they are young because if they are not healthy or have bad habits they won't be accepted to work in Italy or Portugal in the future. A lot of parents smiled and snickered but when he said, “I'm just talking about real life here,” the room got really quiet, really quickly.

- You'll notice that the frequency of my entries had been diminished when compared to a year ago. The reason for this is simply that last year, everything was very fresh and new and all that I experienced, I wanted to post here and tell it to those who read my writings. This year, however . . . a lot of what I go through I've already been through once and therefore, written about. As a result, it simply takes me a little more time to come up with an appropriate amount of material to opine about.

- Finally, my favorite part of the previous seven days: last Wednesday I was playing a review game with my sixth graders (who are amazing, by the way) to prepare them for their upcoming test.

Before we started, however, I split them up into teams and asked them to pick team names. After some conversation one girl said that she wanted to name her team 'Hakuta Matata' and when I started started to laugh a little she said, “or maybe they can be Timone and we can be Pumba.”

Needless to say, references to The Lion King are not too often stumbled upon here. And of course, this random mention made not only my week but will also stick with me for a long time.

Lowlight Of the Year

You may remember that last year - and every year for that matter – at Thanksgiving we hold what is described as the All Volunteer Conference for two and a half days. It was the only time of the year that every member of Peace Corps Moldova got together, and during our time in Chisinau we had various conferences, meetings, a talent show and a game of touch-football, and without a doubt the highlight of the time was our Thanksgiving day dinner, although to label it as a dinner would be to describe it way too lightly. It's actually an event that they plan for the entire year, a celebration really of Americans here and what are doing here. There are usually a lot of Moldovans there too as well as a ton of other Americans, ranging from PC staff to Marines to Embassy staff and even the ambassador, with whom I sat with last year while we ate. If you'll recall, last year I wrote about the whole event with a strong sense of joy and since that day had been very much looking forward to our next celebration this year, even writing how I didn't feel like I missed America at all last year and in fact, was likely to miss the event here in Moldova when I had returned to the USA. And of course, all of this was the under the responsibility and jurisdiction of our full time Country Director who took a leave of absence in July to be with his wife, who is suffering from lymphoma for the second time (but who, thankfully, is doing better and is expected to make a full recovery).

In her place was brought in an interim director, a woman from Peace Corps main office in Washington, who in her first few days on the job made a move that has been met with universal scorn by the volunteers here: the canceling of of the All Volunteer Conference. No one – and I mean no one here – is even a little bit happy with the decision, especially considering that 1)Most of the new volunteers were told to – and did – go out of their ways in America, and buy, take up valuable suitcase space, and bring to Moldova, food for the event, 2)Most of the current volunteers had already given 100 lei (about 8 dollars, not an inconsequential amount for us) for the dinner. Now that money has to be re-distributed out; of course, there are no records of who paid. And 3) Most importantly of all, instead of being in the capital for one of the most joyous holidays of the year – and without a doubt the one most about community and gathering and thus, the most valuable for us volunteers – surrounded by literally 250 friends, acquaintances, and others in the spirit of joy, eating home-made traditional American for food (an annual event in itself), I'll be alone in my village surrounded by a handful of Moldovan villagers, maybe eating fried potatoes or buckwheat (if I'm lucky). So if I sound a little bothered by the decision, well . . . take my feelings and multiple them by 125 and you'll get a sense of the mood around volunteers. The problems that most volunteers feel is that she was not totally incorrect in some of her feeling for wanting to cancel the event (some of which were legitimate, most would agree) but was instead quick to dismiss the concerns of us volunteers.

Of course with any big decision like this comes an amazing response of other alternatives to the canceled event. There are already three gatherings in the works for that weekend, and almost all of us are sure to end up at one of them. It should be a good time wherever we end up, but ironically at the same time it's likely to be also one of the worst days of the year considering that what was almost guaranteed to be one of the best days of the year is now non-existent.

Notes:

- On a lighter note, I wrote a few weeks ago about how our family had bought a new pig for rearing and later, slaughtering. Well, on it's second day here it figured out how to jump out of the little pen in which it was held, the first pig in the history of the family that's figured out how to do so. At first my family had the idea of putting it back but it kept jumping out so then they decided to let it run free with the thought that soon it will be grow too fat to be able to jump out: then, we won't have a problem.

So now it runs free everywhere around the property, eating things left out and following my host-mom everywhere like a dog would, from the garden to the orchard to the barn where the cow is held. She also runs up to the gate every time someone comes home or as soon as she sees a person who has returned for the day, and she also loves to be petted. Yes, the pig loves to be petted. Chalk that up as another thing on the list of facts I would have never learned without Moldova – that some pigs love it when someone pets them.

- Last Saturday, the day of wine here and a national holiday, was everything I thought it would be and more. There were about thirty volunteers in town for the day and we started in the center, where there were tents everywhere selling wine and food and was packed with people. We congregated there, talked to each-other as well as an Australian guy we bumped into, and had contests about slang that we use in different parts of the country. We were there for about five hours before going to our favorite Irish bar at about 10:00 at night (see picture below of the concert that was also held to get an idea of just how crowded it was), before finally splitting up at going home about mid-night (A there were literally no free hotel rooms or apartments for rent, three of us slept on the floor in an apartment of a friend of mine).

Probably my favorite conversation of the day happened when I went to the bathroom with some friends with whom I was talking to in English. At one point I waited five minutes to get to the front of the line when a Moldova guy came up, paid the attendant (has I had just done), listened to our English conversation for a moment, then cut in front of me. I gave him an inquisitive look and he said to me in Russian, “I can't hold on,” and made a gesture of discomfort, to which I responded, “we'll neither can I.” With a stunned face he muttered the response, “And I also just paid”, to which I responded just as the bathroom door opened, “And I paid first and I was here first” before stepping in front of him into inside. While there I heard him say to the attendant, “I can't believe her understood me,” to which she responded, “he understands everything.”

- Finally, yesterday (Tuesday) my partner-teacher was sick and I took all of her lessons for the day at school, something I have no problem in doing because she is more than happy to help me when I need to go to Chisinau or someplace. When this happens my lessons just descend into games of UNO with English, Hangman, or 20 Questions because rather than just my group I have everyone together and it's next to impossible to try to teach information using conventional means.

So with my 8th graders (who can't say 'she' in English in their third year with the language) we were playing 20 questions when they figured that I was thinking of an animal that has a height of six feet. Their next guess as to what animal I had in mind?

A whale.

Of course, this is beaten by the time last week when I had student look at my map of Moldova on the wall and ask me, in total seriousness, where America was located on the map because he couldn't find it and then asked me in which country America is located.

That being said, I still have to say – I still love my students here and will definitely miss them in one year's time. Sometimes, it just seems like the challenge will just surviving for another six months . . .

Wit's End

We as English teachers here in Moldova are required to teach, at a minimum, eighteen hours a week of classes, usually three hours a week with every class. The vast majority of teachers here have, for example, maybe only three classes (fore example, fourth through sixth grade) but they will teach two sections of every class for a total of six classes, each at three hours a week. In fact, of the forty-five or so TEFL volunteers here in Peace Corps Moldova, I'm about ninety percent sure that I'm the only one who teaches the full gamut of classes. I have the fortune of teaching all grades, fourth through ninth. In general, I'm very lucky in that my kids are very bright, want to lean English for the most part, and really like me. Of the six classes I have this year, I taught four of them last year, so I know what to expect from them, they know what to expect from me, and we get along without problems. In fact, I would say that this is the case with every class except my eight graders, with whom I'm just about at my wit's end in trying to get across to them.

I had them last year as well and even then I just ran about of ideas with how to teach them. At the start of the year I worked like normal and didn't see any results from there work. My solution was to just work harder for them in the hopes that they would work harder for me and get the necessary results. And while I certainly stepped up my efforts, the results I wanted were not received. I tried to yell at them, to coddle them, to bring them down and to build them up, to reward them with good grades for doing the smallest task right and to punish them with bad grades for doing the smallest mistake. And nothing worked. I hoped and prayed at the end of last year that a summer off would some how rejuvenate them, in some way give them the spirit to work and to hopefully help them in their studies.

I was sorely mistaken. This year started off OK – we worked well for the first two weeks while doing very basic things like the alphabet and numbers one through one hundred. All was fine. Then we started doing trickier things, like plurals and possession, and their knowledge and skill slowly eroded. None of them do (or really have ever done) their homework, and while they work in class great and without problems (I have no discipline issues with them – they're all nice kids), without work at home their progress is highly limited.

My final straw with them came last Tuesday when I asked them, very basically, how to translate the work “she” into Russian, something we'd gone over literally fifty times in the last year and one month. At first they just looked at me and I, in expecting the answer right away, didn't tell them the answer. Then I waited. And waited. After thirty seconds I started to realize that the answer wasn't likely to come quickly, and while I was tempted to give them the answer I was very interested to know just how long it would take them to come up with the answer. So I waited more. And more. I started to read a book. I drank some water. Read a magazine too. Finally after fifteen minutes, they came up with the answer. Needless to say, I was in shock. I couldn't believe it. Mercifully for them, the bell came as soon as they answered. So at the next class, on Thursday, when I saw that no one had done their homework and no one had studied, I told them I'd had it, that they will do their homework in the future or I simply won't bother teaching them, that I'll just sit and read a book or prepare other work and that they are more than welcome to waste their own time but I won' allow them to waste mine. We'll see what happens in the upcoming weeks, but as for now I'm just at about my wit's end with them. I'm not sure what else I can do to get across to them.

Notes:
- This year I wanted to institute a new tool of discipline. Last year I was left with the choices of just telling kids to be quiet fifteen times or kicking them out of class, without a whole lot of area in the middle. So I decided to reach back into my childhood and take a page from the best disciplinarian I've ever met – my mom – and I instituted a policy of making kids stand in a corner, heads looking at the corner and backs to the class. They don't have to do anything but stand there and be quiet, and they usually start with five minutes but every time I have to tell them to be quiet or turn-around, they get one more minute added on (last week my most trouble-making fourth grader stood there for fifty three minutes). It's been a boost to my repertoire. Older kids really hate it while younger kids feel like kindergarteners when they're placed there. They hate it too. And it's great.

- Last month I went on a reading binge and I read six books in the span of four weeks, including one that was 900 pages (quick note – if you haven't read 'I Know This Much Is True' by Wally Lamb or 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime' by Mark Haddon, you should). So I decided then to channel all of that reading energy into taking on one of the most infamous long books ever written, 'War and Peace'. I have to say, I'm about 300 pages into it (only 1150 to go), but so far I love it.

- Next weekend promises to be one of the funnest weekends on record for the citizens of Moldova and it's capital, Chisinau. Every year we celebrate here the Day of Wine on the second Sunday of October while also celebrating the day of the city in Chisinau on the fourteenth. This year they happen to fall on the same day so wine day had been moved back to this following Saturday while day of the city will still be Sunday, the fourteenth. Top all of that off with a Moldova-Turkey soccer game on Saturday night in the center of the city and it amounts to what should be a great time. Of course, in the middle of all of it will be about fifty current volunteers, author included.

- Another Moldovan holiday is Teacher's Day, which is celebrated on October 5th every year. On that day all the students give flowers to all the teachers, sometimes small gifts are exchanged, and after a few lessons we all gather outside in front of our school for a little ceremony featuring dances, speeches, and the like.

This year, like last year, on the day before Teachers Day some of us from my school went to my regional center of Calarasi for a concert and ceremony for all the teachers in the area. Last year we were there for two and a half hours, one hour of which was a ceremony in which they gave out awards to schools followed by a concert of national music for an hour and a half. Now, I have to throw out the caveat that this national music is something I can stomach for about ten, fifteen minutes – tops – before I can't take it anymore. As a result of this, I think it goes without saying that last year the hour and a half-long concert was exactly not the highlight of my day/week/year.

So this year, despite my less-than exceptional experience one year ago, I decided to accept my director's invitation and go again. And of course, about ten minutes after everything started I began to regret my decision to come and instead thought of all the things I could have been doing at home. There was one big difference though this year: at the concert last time they played the music I detest for an hour and a half. This year it was two and a half hours.
Then on Friday, when we celebrated the day at my school, it was a whole other experience. Students had prepared traditional dances with songs and concerts (as opposed to dancing to American hip-hop like last year), and everything was interesting and very well done. Afterwards all of us teachers gathered in our cafeteria for a feast where we also drank cheap cognac (1.85$ for a half-liter) and gave speeches (my toast killed) for two hours before we started to dancing (I with the female-mayor of my village as well as the sixty-five year old third grade teacher).

This day, however, there were no regrets. In fact, I started to get a little melancholy when I thought about how, in one year, all of those people will still be here in this village, doing the same thing, while I'll be in America, starting a whole new life.

It was together a joyous and sorrowful moment.