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.
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.
posted by Andy Buchanan at 12:28 PM
1 Comments:
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