Drifting

Probably the biggest difference between my first and second years here is my propensity to stay in my village and just how often I'm here. In my first year I stuck around my site a lot, leaving for Chisinau only every other week or so and even when I did that, I seldom slept there over night. I can't really give a reason for my propensity to stick around – I just did. I didn't really gain much out of it – occasionally I worked with students on Saturday or Sunday and I tutored with a woman in my village once in a while. I was able to sleep in, recoup energy from my work-weeks, and save some of the spending money were provided with each month because it's very, very difficult to spend money in my village. This pattern of being basically a homebody was followed rather tightly up to the end of classes on May 31st of last year.

Fast-forward to this year. While I continue to go to school every day, continue to give my best efforts to my kids, and in general continue to enjoy (for the most part) my work here, there is no doubt that I am – and have been for a while – finished with weekends in my village. As I tell people here, I like everything in Hirjauca from 8:30 on Monday morning to 2:00 on Friday afternoon, after which the last bell rings and I want to get out of here as soon as I can, on the first option that's available. In a car, on a mini-bus, on a horse, it doesn't matter. I want out. The reason is basically simple and was actually hinted at in the first paragraph here; that I stayed in my village for a whole year and didn't really get anything out of it. There still remains nothing to do here. Apart from the parents of a few students and the students themselves, I don't really know anyone here. I haven't any friends. And lest you think that I'm complaining, I'm not. This is just the reality of my life in my village. As a result, I stay here not as little as possible but not much more than that. I've woken up in my village on a Sunday morning exactly once since October 9th. I sleep here on Fridays maybe once a month, choosing to either 1)Go to Chisinau, 2)Go to my regional center to the apartment of another volunteer there, or 3)Go to the villages of other friends.

This weekend, however, will be different. I'm actually going to stick around, not going farther than a mile down the road to the regional center on my runs. It will mark the first weekend that I haven't left my village for any reason since (gulp . . .) September 1st and 2nd. I haven't stayed at my site for more than eight days in a row since (gulp again . . . ) May of last year. Needless to say, it's been a while. (if that sounds bad, I have a buddy who hasn't stayed in his village for a 24 hour period in weeks) But I'm mentally ready to bunker down: I've got three books, five movies, and I think a friend or two of mine may come out on Saturday to ease my burden.

And I should come out and admit that I have an ulterior motive for being here for the next two days; the bar that they've been building in the forest for a year and a half has finally opened and I'm ready to try it out.

Notes:
- Wednesday of this weekend marked one of the most productive days that I've had in a while here, with productive of course being a relative term. I taught three lessons, all of them successful (meaning that information was processed), then after school we teachers had a little celebration in light solid visit from our regional inspectors, then I walked to the sanatorium here to get a haircut. That's it. One one hand, it's not much. On the other, in terms of productivity, that's about as good as it gets.

- The wedding of my host-brother and his fiancée of two years is officially on for sometime in May. The place is still a topic of discussion and the date keeps changing, but the bottom line is that the event I've been waiting for for a year and a half will finally come to fruition. Soon.

- One personality trait that has come out strong in my time here has been my competitiveness. I've always been competitive, telling friends here that I never play: I win or I lose. That's it. But I think that here, the lack of opportunities to compete have made whatever chances come my way that much more intense for me and, as a result, those involved. This applies to many situations, some of which make sense – a game of basketball – and some of which are ridiculous, like an Easter Egg hunt last Friday. That's right, an Easter Egg hunt.

The girl who I wrote about last time, the one with appendicitis, prepared for my friend and I a friendly little search for Easter Eggs in the apartment she was at. They were really well hidden. My friend and I started out in good moods, laughing and smiling and joking. That lasted about five minutes, after which things turned dour. Our lack of ability to find them, our lack of success, drove us totally nuts. It ceased being fun for everyone involved – even the hiders – and we were absolutely determined to finish what we had started. Thankfully, the torment of everyone involved ended only 35 minutes after the searching had started and only 30 minutes after we started taking it far too seriously (I say we because my friend was just as into it as me, the difference between us being that I didn't try to hide my feelings while he did).

- It's been a slow week so I'm already ready to wrap thing up on my end but while I usually try end to my writings with a story or an antidote or something quirky tale from the last week. This week, I decided to write a few lines about one of the things I'll miss most when I leave here in a few four months time. The sky.

First of all, I can count with one hand the amount of times in America that I could see the Milky Way. Here, it's a daily occurrence. I can track the stars and actually have a mental-image of where they are; the Big Dipper, for example, is right over my house right now – usually it's farther north. And Orion is to the south-west. One of the best things I do here is to print off the Internet a star-chart every month and go look at the constellations and the clearest planets.

I've also found that I can predict the next-days weather by the night before simply by looking at the clouds, which given my lack of other sources happens to work out just fine. While there are many luxuries to which I will return with a smile on my face, the lack of my Hirjauca night sky's – and the pleasures they can bring – will be one thing I will surely wish for.

For What's It Worth

If there is one nice advantage for schools here to having a Peace Corps volunteer it's that, in addition to the obvious benefit of having another teacher that will help the students in their pursuit of English, we volunteers have access to various activities and projects through Peace Corps Moldova that we are able to bring to our schools, to our kids, that they would maybe otherwise not be able to receive.

For example, this year, as I've written about in the past, I was lucky enough to be able to take a team to the Model United Nations conference in Chisinau, put on through Peace Corps and a host of Moldova partners. It was a conference that was done all in Romanian, a bit of a problem for me because in my Russian school there are only a handful of kids who speak Romanian to the level required. Thankfully, amongst the twenty-one ninth-graders in my school there are five of which speak the national language to a high enough level – of these five, I was able to take three to Chisinau to the conference last weekend. It was one great moment followed by another.

It started on Friday, when we rolled off the bus from my village at 7:45 in the morning and needing three hours to kill, went right to the Peace Corps Moldova office where we have a volunteer lounge that I spent an inordinate amount of time in. We hung out there for a few hours while I gave the kids some more information that they needed, then let them prepare their opening presentation. We then went to a hotel here where all the kids were put up for the duration of the weekend. It was clear from the start that it was their first time in such a place as when they got their registration cards they worried immensely about how to fill in the information correctly (I, on the other hand, just filled in what I thought they needed – no problems either). Then they got to their rooms and of course their first question was if the TV worked or not. I then led them to registration – done totally by Peace Corps volunteers – before basically letting them go for the next two days. I had their cell phone numbers, they had mine, and I just dropped in from time to time to monitor things but tried to stay out of their hair because, as I told them, they were young and in Chisinau and with other students and they last thing they wanted was to be around me.

The conference went well for them overall. They told me that they had a few problems with the language (at one point the guy on the team was stating an opinion when he paused, said the word in Russian, waited for someone to shout out the answer, then proceeded, all done with an air of helpfulness). When I went to get them on Sunday morning I asked them how they had slept – I myself had slept only from 2:30AM – 5:45AM – and they responded that they hadn't really slept and had instead just watched TV until 4:00 in the morning, waking up at 7:00. In hindsight, I should have expected nothing else from ninth-grade students away from their village and parents, in a hotel and without supervision with a TV full of channels.

But they way back from the hotel to the bus-station brought out my absolute favorite part of the experience. As I wrote about in a previous entry, the kids that I took were/are the best of the best in my school, kids that I look forward to teaching every day, who work for me and from whom I work as well. So on the road I was able to finally see just how rare of a chance it was for them to be where they were and to live the life that, fortunately, I'm able to live every weekend.

At one point we walked into the largest supermarket in the center of Chisinau and my kids looked at the escalator with a bit of awe – it then hit me that they had never ridden one. So they asked me if they could take a spin and I jumped on. I then turned around to watch one of my kids slowly approach the foreign object, and take a little hop, only to carried safely to the top. Then they got into the glass-walled elevator with the purpose of just taking a ride to the top.
And to top things off, on our way out I ended up having to wait for the two girls inside the store while the guy with us was waiting outside and when I went to check up on him there was a woman proselytizing to him with a brochure from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in her hand. It was fully clear, in that moment, that he wasn't in Kansas anymore.

Notes:
- Probably the favorite computer program of every volunteer here (and, I dare say, around the world) would have to be Skype, which allows any person to call to America for two cents a minute – by comparison, the cheapest calling card available in Moldova costs seven dollars for forty minutes).

So last Saturday night, in a Peace Corps apartment for sick people (more in a second), I and two friends of mine sat around for three hours and called person after person after person in America. We did a round of sorts, with each of us calling one friend at a time, and because we were in the situation of using only the microphone and speaker, thus allowing everyone to hear and converse with the person whom we were calling. Made for some great moments intertwined with great conversations.

- The aforementioned apartment that I was in is Peace Corps owned, right next to the office, and is for volunteers who have some affliction that requires medical attention. Well, a girl I know – the same girl whose village I wrote about in my last entry – happened to come down with appendicitis last weekend and let my friend and I basically camp out with her all of last weekend. She couldn't do much at the time so there was a host of us there. The most unfortunate part for her was that it hurt to laugh, making for plenty of painful moments. And the apartment itself is great, like any place in America or Europe. Two bathrooms, three bedrooms, relaxed atmosphere. It was painful to leave.

I've also found out, as a result of this calamity, that should I need to have any sort of emergency surgery done there are places in Chisinau where it's possible. And no, it's not at any of the public facilities (sadly, they aren't up to western standards). But there's a private clinic somewhere in the capital that, if need be, can take care of anything too serious.

- My favorite part of last week – apart from seeing my kids get on an escalator for the first time – was on Wednesday when I was walking home from Grandpa's house and on the road home I ran into two third-graders. So we talked for a few minutes, with them giggling to themselves when I asked how their English lessons are going and if they could speak English to me.
Before we departed I asked them where they were going and they said to the kindergarten to pick up their younger siblings. One boy, nine years old, was going for his eight-year old sister, while the nine year-old girl was going also for her eight-year old brother.

Crashing

Have you ever seen the movie Wedding Crashers? Well, last Friday, my friend and I did just about the best impression of that possible at a celebration in the village of a friend of ours in the south of Moldova: the main difference between us and the characters in the movie is that we were actually invited. Apart from that, however, the similarities are eerie.

It all started at a concert held at the school in the morning (more on that in a second – and on the village, in general too), after which all the teachers and administrators got together for a feast of food and wine, also done in collaboration with the International Womens Day that is celebrated in this part of the world. It started at 2:00 and the first glass of wine was down by 2:10. My friend and I had gone to the village last Wednesday after our TEFL conference in Chisinau to visit a girl we know there; because we were guests, we also were invited as was another Peace Corps in the village, making a total of four Americans present at the party.

Walking in the door my friend and I knew nobody apart from the girl whom we were visiting. After an hour, the three American guys present were on the stage, singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” after which I gave a toast in Russian. Within two hours we were dancing with all the teachers, swinging around and dancing the national dance in a circle as well as chatting up the director. After three hours we were walking out with a pitcher of wine, a 3-ounce glass, and a plate of meat and cheese that people use to chase the wine, a task usually taken on by the host/hostess and a task which amused the real hosts to no end. The girl we were visiting was dancing with her director (not at all strange, despite what you may initially think) when we started the handouts and he pointed us out to her: she at first was surprised but then just laughed and laughed.

The similarities with the movie don't end there, however, because if you'll recall they end up crashing funerals.

Well, we had a like circumstance happen to us. Turns out, the sister of one of the teachers in the school died a few days before so after the celebration following the concert we had a little memorial celebration for the sister and again, for some odd reason we Americans were also invited. It was, as you could imagine, a fairly somber event. We all received a loaf of bread in the shape of a ring with a candle in it, the bread symbolizing the soul. This event held us there for another two hours but the more the wine flowed the looser the atmosphere got. One of my favorite parts of the evening – and the part that fully demonstrates just how integrated we were into the community of teachers – was the end when we took a group pictures of all teachers in the school. I'll try to post it as soon as I can because who is present in the the background? My friend and I who had met the teachers there a mere four hours before. It only took that small amount of time for them to consider us part of the family . . .

Topping off the night was our return home to the girl's host family – we heard music blaring from the kitchen when we walked through the gates, knowing that a good time was likely going on inside. We were not mistaken when we entered and saw the host mom with a bottle of wine and a glass pouring out shots as well as two women dancing with the two daughters, aged eleven and fifteen. Naturally we jumped in, my friend and I dancing with everyone from the host-mom to the youngest daughter. And all was done within the tiny confines of a kitchen that while being tiny, was big enough to contain our spectacle . . .

Notes:
- As I alluded to in my last entry, the reason for my not being able to post recently is that we were on a hard-earned vacation from school for the last week, starting on the afternoon of February 29th and going until the morning of March 10th. I had a conference in Chisinau through Peace Corps on Saturday and Sunday for all the TEFL teachers in the country (ironically, the only time that ALL of us TEFL teachers, separated by a year of arrival, will be together) and I worked at the conference for the new volunteers that went through Tuesday. I have to admit that I really love to work at the Peace Corps conferences because 1)It's a lot of fun to be around the group of TEFL teachers that came in last year – they're just a great set of people, 2)I get to extend my stays in Chisinau for as long as possible while all the while being given per-diem for food, and 3) It's not too much work and the work that we do do is a lot of fun.

So I was in the capital until Wednesday, after which I went to the south of Moldova with a friend of mine to the village of a girl we know there, another volunteer in my group and the same girl to whom I went at the end of January, if you'll recall my entry on the time and just how great it was. Well, this time was better. A lot better. We were basically there for two days, arriving Wednesday evening and leaving Saturday morning. As alluded to before last time, the family there is great, the village huge (over 4000 people: the director of the school there, upon hearing that we have 1300 people between two villages, said they have 1300 houses). I can't begin to describe the differences between my village and hers but the biggest one would have to be wealth.

I've always known that my village is pretty poor but it didn't fully hit me until I came home the day after leaving the other village and, seeing some of the homes around here, I realized that I didn't see anything like them down south. When were at the concert we saw all these kids in all sorts of these nice national costumes, little kids in suits, little girls in beautiful dresses: none of these things have I seen at the concerts around here. Also, I've written about how at the school there they did a big celebration for International Womens Day, something we did at my own school last year. This year, however, it didn't happen; the reason, according to my host-mom, is that the teachers voted it down because they couldn't afford to miss the few precious hours of work in the fields that they would have to sacrifice.

Another example of how the wealth of students can affect the motivation of the kids. The same girl who I visited told us how she did a trash art contest with her kids in which they students had to walk around the village picking up trash and then make some sort of design out of what they found. It was a huge success, with the kids producing some amazing work. Their reward was merely a diploma that she printed off her computer. If I were to try something like that, the kid would either laugh at me or tell me to go and make art. No one (with the exception of 6th graders, who are great) would even think twice about not doing it. They simply don't have the time.

- The story that I wanted to kick off this entry with would have been the most surreal set of events to happen to me if not for our crashing/taking over the party in the village. My initial story happened two weeks ago, the first Friday of vacation, when a friend of mine had a free room in a hotel in the center of Chisinau as a result of his presence at a conference for an agricultural organization that is nation-wide (I'm still not sure why he was there, this being the reason for my odd explanation). Along with his room at the hotel came an invitation to an anniversary party for a couple celebrating six years of marriage, and because the drinks and food were free. So I showed up with a girl in my group, two of us showing up uninvited to a wedding of people we didn't know. Like what would happen seven days later, it took us an hour before we started dancing with everyone, chatting people up. It was nice.

- I'll end with the following story, one of those that's a reminder of just how odd this bubble of Peace Corps Moldova volunteer can be for us, especially in villages.

On Thursday of this week during one of my free hours between lessons my host-mom came in holding six sheets of paper and telling me that our director wanted me to go home, re-type all of the documents (which was a grant that another school had written and he wanted to copy without a digital print), and put them on my flash-drive so he could print them the next day. Unfortunately, I forgot my flash-drive with a volunteer in my regional center about a month ago and haven't gotten it back yet. I told this to her, she retold to my director my words, and returned telling me that my director was 'calling' me.

So I went to our computer room and when he saw me he told me that, knowing how fast I can type, he was canceling my last two classes so I could sit in the lab and re-type everything, all six pages of Romanian as well as reproducing charts with numbers and costs and totals. Seeing as I didn't have an option, I proceeded to sit there and, for two hours and fifteen minutes, type out every word. Actually, because it was a language I don't know, it was more like every letter. It was both painful and a painful reminder of this odd world, but if given the chance to do it over again, I would in a heartbeat.