And She's Out
For the last week my host mom had been gone from my village, studying in Chisinau for something involving teaching (sadly, while I could explain it to you in Russian, I have no idea how to bring the concept to English. That's not be bragging about my skills – it's just something about another language. More on this later). It's been quite the scene around here without her.
Even before she left she was prepared for any and everything to happen to me – devoured by wolves, drowning in the well, lost and starved in the forest. If she were to come home and hear anything of this, she would not be shocked. She would likely slowly nod her head 'yes' and say, “Yep, that sounds about right.” She's ready for it all. She actually called last Thursday and asked three questions: 1)Had I eaten that day?, 2)What had I eaten?, and 3) Who cooked what I had eaten? It was a thirty-second phone call.
In the meantime, things have been interesting around here. My host-grandma comes over every day to feed the animals, gather eggs, do work like that, but it's odd because she doesn't speak Russian, only the Ukrainian dialect spoken here. Thankfully, after a year and a half in the village my comprehension is such that I basically understand what she wants me to tell me, like what she did, things like that. Sometimes, though, when they are really busy I get to do things like give water the animals (finicky drinkers, I've found): I feel like I'm at some sort of camp in America where people go to live in the country, because that's exactly what I get to do. As for other chores, thankfully my host sister-in-law does the cooking and cleaning for my and my host-brother, which actually works out nice for me because she's actually a little better cook than my host-mom.
Of course, there also comes the unfortunate malady of being treated like a four-year old child. For example, last Wednesday my host sister-in-law called and asked me if I could plug in the light in the hen-house. “CAN YOU PLUG IT IN!?,” she said. “ARE YOU SURE?,” was the follow-up question. I reassured her that, yes indeed, I could plug in a light. I only have one job to do every day: to start the fire in the wood-burning oven that serves as the one heat source for the house. And I have to admit, I've gotten pretty good at it, to the point that it takes me only one match after needing almost a whole box a year ago. I finally figured how it was done one day by watching my host-mom do it for the five thousandth time in life. That's all it took. And the house is warmer and the matches, more abundant, as a result.
Notes:
- We always like to joke here about our workdays – not matter what we say, there is almost zero doubt that we work less than most work in America. For an example day, last Monday I woke up at 7:45, got to school at 8:25, left at 9:15 after the first lesson (per schedule), didn't go back until 1:00 (per schedule), and walked out the door by 2:05. A total of 1:30 minutes of work, 1:35 minutes if you include preparation time. Not too bad, especially compared with a one day of a traditional forty-hour work week in America. And if there is an irony in this, it's that my work here is far, far more stressful than the work I did there.
- As I alluded to at the start, one of the odd things about knowing another language is that I (and any other person) finds that there are certain things that simply can't be translated to the other language at all. There are a handful times a week in which my kids will give me a sentence in Russian and want to know how it's translated into English and while I know every single word and understand it perfectly in the other language, I have no idea how to translate it into English.
Some of my friends make fun of me actually for my propensity to speak Russian around large groups of Moldovans when it's not totally necessary. As one friend jokes, if there is a room of 500 people, all of whom speak English and 497 of which speak Russian (American's being the three uninformed), I will inevitably start speaking Russian. And my answer? Yep. It's not my fault really. If I'm telling a funny story or something that originally happened in Russian, it's not my fault that the story is funnier in the original language. Then I shrug my shoulders and simply say, “What do you want to me?”
- I've written about before how my host-grandpa left about two weeks ago to return to home in the next village – his home is about a twenty minute walk away from mine. Usually I walk for about forty-five minutes every day but in the opposite direction of his house. I was wanting to visit him for a while but the problem is that his house is located at the top of a hill that is unpaved; thus, any attempt to visit him before the last few days would have been met by a mound of mud that would have driven me mad. As a result, I deferred. Until Wednesday.
I walked into house, shook his hand, and immediately regretted that I hadn't decided to come in sooner,. He got a big smile on his face, told to me to sit down, and after a few questions of mine directed in his direction – mainly focusing on the searing temperatures inside his room – he started to talk to me, wondering where and how I had been. I was there for about a half-hour before deciding to leave but when I got up to go he asked me where I was going to and told me to grab a seat again. It was clear that he didn't have much to eat around so I asked him if/when he wanted me to go to the store for him – he quickly responded that he could use three loaves of bread and a pack of butter to go with them. I went to the three closest stores, all of which were closed, before returning home with the sad news. He didn't seem to upset after I promised to get some homemade vodka from the cellar for him.
Thankfully, his disappointment about my inability to find him something to eat was alleviated by a woman who came up. Turns out, she comes by every day to clean and cook and straighten up for him. She fried up some fish, reheated some buckwheat, and went to get the vodka that I couldn't find. Then grandpa and I sat around, drank some of the vodka, and I went home with a promise to return the next day. He seemed to be happy with that.
- There is a lot of conversation going around now amongst Peace Corps Moldova volunteers surrounding a book that's come out not too long ago called “The Geography of Bliss” (the author's name escapes me now), a book in which Moldova is featured as the third least happy country in the world. The man wrote a chapter about life here, about his time spent here investigating just how unhappy people here are. The verdict? Really unhappy. As he was quoted in saying in Newsweek International, “People in Moldova celebrate in the misfortune of others.” He actually started in Chisinau and then went to a town in the south of Moldova called Cahul and interviewed a handful of Peace Corps volunteers, and suffice to say our organization doesn't come out looking too nice; were basically painted as a group of beer-slamming whiners.
The biggest complaint I have against the book is that he takes an amazingly one-sided view of things – he was here for a short amount of time and without knowledge of the language it would far easier to get the misconception of things. For example, just last Sunday I bought a card for my phone and, in a rush, left without getting my change. I realized my mistake after a minute and went back to get it and the woman was at first a little incredulous but after I told her how I just forgot to take it she started to joke around and was quick to give me my seventy lei (about 6.50$).
Also, I'll never forget how a few weeks ago I was waiting in my regional center at the bus station to get back home. A little girl came up asking everyone for money – every bus station has at least a few of these kids – and after she was denied by me she went up to the woman next to me. The woman gave her one lei, asked the girl to sit down, and proceeded to talk to her for a few minutes. The whole conversation was in Romanian and the only things I understood was about “Is Mom at home?,” and something about school. But needless to say, I got the gist of the whole talk. And I hardly find it to be the talk of a people who “ celebrate in the misfortune of others.”
- Before I wrap this up, a warning: we have break from school for the next week and I'm leaving my village on the 29th of February and not coming back until the 8th or 9th of March. I'll be out of my village for as long as I can, basically. As a result I won't be able to post anything for at least two weeks.
- The best part of my last week came on my first visit to host-grandpa on Wednesday. First, I should write the caveat that he's terrified and horribly bothered that I have yet to find a Moldovan girlfriend. It's atop his worry-list. Well, last Saturday I met a girl in Chisinau who seemed cool and with whom I exchanged numbers.
When I went to visit him on Wednesday I told him how I met a new girl in Chisinau. He looked at me and asked, “does she drink?” When I answered in the affirmative he leaned back, smiled a little, and gave me a thumbs-up. It's the type of look – the type of thing that he does – that I'll never, never forget.
Even before she left she was prepared for any and everything to happen to me – devoured by wolves, drowning in the well, lost and starved in the forest. If she were to come home and hear anything of this, she would not be shocked. She would likely slowly nod her head 'yes' and say, “Yep, that sounds about right.” She's ready for it all. She actually called last Thursday and asked three questions: 1)Had I eaten that day?, 2)What had I eaten?, and 3) Who cooked what I had eaten? It was a thirty-second phone call.
In the meantime, things have been interesting around here. My host-grandma comes over every day to feed the animals, gather eggs, do work like that, but it's odd because she doesn't speak Russian, only the Ukrainian dialect spoken here. Thankfully, after a year and a half in the village my comprehension is such that I basically understand what she wants me to tell me, like what she did, things like that. Sometimes, though, when they are really busy I get to do things like give water the animals (finicky drinkers, I've found): I feel like I'm at some sort of camp in America where people go to live in the country, because that's exactly what I get to do. As for other chores, thankfully my host sister-in-law does the cooking and cleaning for my and my host-brother, which actually works out nice for me because she's actually a little better cook than my host-mom.
Of course, there also comes the unfortunate malady of being treated like a four-year old child. For example, last Wednesday my host sister-in-law called and asked me if I could plug in the light in the hen-house. “CAN YOU PLUG IT IN!?,” she said. “ARE YOU SURE?,” was the follow-up question. I reassured her that, yes indeed, I could plug in a light. I only have one job to do every day: to start the fire in the wood-burning oven that serves as the one heat source for the house. And I have to admit, I've gotten pretty good at it, to the point that it takes me only one match after needing almost a whole box a year ago. I finally figured how it was done one day by watching my host-mom do it for the five thousandth time in life. That's all it took. And the house is warmer and the matches, more abundant, as a result.
Notes:
- We always like to joke here about our workdays – not matter what we say, there is almost zero doubt that we work less than most work in America. For an example day, last Monday I woke up at 7:45, got to school at 8:25, left at 9:15 after the first lesson (per schedule), didn't go back until 1:00 (per schedule), and walked out the door by 2:05. A total of 1:30 minutes of work, 1:35 minutes if you include preparation time. Not too bad, especially compared with a one day of a traditional forty-hour work week in America. And if there is an irony in this, it's that my work here is far, far more stressful than the work I did there.
- As I alluded to at the start, one of the odd things about knowing another language is that I (and any other person) finds that there are certain things that simply can't be translated to the other language at all. There are a handful times a week in which my kids will give me a sentence in Russian and want to know how it's translated into English and while I know every single word and understand it perfectly in the other language, I have no idea how to translate it into English.
Some of my friends make fun of me actually for my propensity to speak Russian around large groups of Moldovans when it's not totally necessary. As one friend jokes, if there is a room of 500 people, all of whom speak English and 497 of which speak Russian (American's being the three uninformed), I will inevitably start speaking Russian. And my answer? Yep. It's not my fault really. If I'm telling a funny story or something that originally happened in Russian, it's not my fault that the story is funnier in the original language. Then I shrug my shoulders and simply say, “What do you want to me?”
- I've written about before how my host-grandpa left about two weeks ago to return to home in the next village – his home is about a twenty minute walk away from mine. Usually I walk for about forty-five minutes every day but in the opposite direction of his house. I was wanting to visit him for a while but the problem is that his house is located at the top of a hill that is unpaved; thus, any attempt to visit him before the last few days would have been met by a mound of mud that would have driven me mad. As a result, I deferred. Until Wednesday.
I walked into house, shook his hand, and immediately regretted that I hadn't decided to come in sooner,. He got a big smile on his face, told to me to sit down, and after a few questions of mine directed in his direction – mainly focusing on the searing temperatures inside his room – he started to talk to me, wondering where and how I had been. I was there for about a half-hour before deciding to leave but when I got up to go he asked me where I was going to and told me to grab a seat again. It was clear that he didn't have much to eat around so I asked him if/when he wanted me to go to the store for him – he quickly responded that he could use three loaves of bread and a pack of butter to go with them. I went to the three closest stores, all of which were closed, before returning home with the sad news. He didn't seem to upset after I promised to get some homemade vodka from the cellar for him.
Thankfully, his disappointment about my inability to find him something to eat was alleviated by a woman who came up. Turns out, she comes by every day to clean and cook and straighten up for him. She fried up some fish, reheated some buckwheat, and went to get the vodka that I couldn't find. Then grandpa and I sat around, drank some of the vodka, and I went home with a promise to return the next day. He seemed to be happy with that.
- There is a lot of conversation going around now amongst Peace Corps Moldova volunteers surrounding a book that's come out not too long ago called “The Geography of Bliss” (the author's name escapes me now), a book in which Moldova is featured as the third least happy country in the world. The man wrote a chapter about life here, about his time spent here investigating just how unhappy people here are. The verdict? Really unhappy. As he was quoted in saying in Newsweek International, “People in Moldova celebrate in the misfortune of others.” He actually started in Chisinau and then went to a town in the south of Moldova called Cahul and interviewed a handful of Peace Corps volunteers, and suffice to say our organization doesn't come out looking too nice; were basically painted as a group of beer-slamming whiners.
The biggest complaint I have against the book is that he takes an amazingly one-sided view of things – he was here for a short amount of time and without knowledge of the language it would far easier to get the misconception of things. For example, just last Sunday I bought a card for my phone and, in a rush, left without getting my change. I realized my mistake after a minute and went back to get it and the woman was at first a little incredulous but after I told her how I just forgot to take it she started to joke around and was quick to give me my seventy lei (about 6.50$).
Also, I'll never forget how a few weeks ago I was waiting in my regional center at the bus station to get back home. A little girl came up asking everyone for money – every bus station has at least a few of these kids – and after she was denied by me she went up to the woman next to me. The woman gave her one lei, asked the girl to sit down, and proceeded to talk to her for a few minutes. The whole conversation was in Romanian and the only things I understood was about “Is Mom at home?,” and something about school. But needless to say, I got the gist of the whole talk. And I hardly find it to be the talk of a people who “ celebrate in the misfortune of others.”
- Before I wrap this up, a warning: we have break from school for the next week and I'm leaving my village on the 29th of February and not coming back until the 8th or 9th of March. I'll be out of my village for as long as I can, basically. As a result I won't be able to post anything for at least two weeks.
- The best part of my last week came on my first visit to host-grandpa on Wednesday. First, I should write the caveat that he's terrified and horribly bothered that I have yet to find a Moldovan girlfriend. It's atop his worry-list. Well, last Saturday I met a girl in Chisinau who seemed cool and with whom I exchanged numbers.
When I went to visit him on Wednesday I told him how I met a new girl in Chisinau. He looked at me and asked, “does she drink?” When I answered in the affirmative he leaned back, smiled a little, and gave me a thumbs-up. It's the type of look – the type of thing that he does – that I'll never, never forget.
posted by Andy Buchanan at 12:18 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home