Blogcrastination

So, every semester, we lucky education program volunteers get to fill out a lengthy report documenting all the things that we've done with our schools, students, and every single class that pertain to our Peace Corps service. I regret to say that I really don't feel, one semester into this thing, as though I've done a whole lot. I may have minimally impacted our classroom management strategies for the better with one partner, and I've contributed some handmade materials, and the occasional use of technology to get the kids' attention, but there's been nothing earth-shattering... or earth-tremoring... or earth-slightly-wiggling... or even school wiggling, for that matter.

The fact remains, though, that however minimal this report will ultimately have to be to document my limited achievements here, I don't feel like doing it. I sometimes worry that I forgot to pack my motivation to come to Moldova, when I start putting off things like crafty classroom materials or Christmas cards, but a lack of desire to do work that I don't deem rewarding or enjoyable, or meaningful, or even sometimes just things that seem overwhelming, regardless of how great they may be... well, that's nothing new.


I thought (as of this morning) that I still had two days to complete this thing, but I actually got an email this afternoon that said it's due tomorrow, causing me to sugar myself up with junk food in anticipation of a really late night of typing and clicking away into the wee hours of the morning... I was braced, ready, motivated, I have Christmas music playing, water bottle full, and (of course) the cat curled up on my lap. That's when the real bad news struck...

I got an email from my program manager stating that enough volunteers had replied to her previous message to say that they hadn't known this was due tomorrow that she.....

Extended.

The.

Deadline.

No!!!!

There goes the pressure I work so well under. Now I may well be in trouble!

If any of my college professors are reading this, you're probably now recalling every assignment I turned in to you within 20 seconds of the deadline, or perhaps even a few times when things that were assigned without deadlines arrived to you just moments before the end of the grading period. If my friends are reading this, you're thinking of me camping out in the library for all-nighters during the week when end of semester projects were due or IMing you trying to keep myself awake until I'd finished just one more page of something. My poor mother's reading this and thinking of the times during my student teaching when the living room was lit up and my computer keys were a clicking until I couldn't keep my eyes open, and I was polishing up lesson plans at the counter while I ate breakfast.

It's not that I don't think these things are important or worth devoting my efforts to... It's simply that I never seem to muster up the necessary motivation to do them well until they're coupled with an obscenely narrow time-frame.

In other instances like this one, I've filled my procrastination time with other useful projects, but since the scope of my world's still just a bit on the narrow side here and I can't pack for winter vacation until the family's washing machine's fixed and I have some clean underwear, I figured I'd give up just a few minutes to seeking out anyone reading up on my Peace Corps experience in hopes that you'll all say a little prayer that the deadline inches its way back up to tomorrow by nightfall or that I am, by some other means, struck with a bout of compulsion to complete paperwork.

Okay, now that I've hopefully got at least somebody out there rooting for my completion of this report, I'm going to crank the Christmas music back up and type 'til my eyelids are heavy.

I promise to minimize my Facebook, Free Cell, and Pinterest breaks, but I can't eliminate them, or I'll take even more of the pressure off myself. Can't have that. I really do work best under unreasonable pressure.

Today's Tally

Today I'm tallying the successes of the day, because while none of them were big, there were enough of them that it'd be a crime for me not to stop and take note.

In my sixth grade class, one of my students who I have never before heard speak-- at all-- in any language-- participated in our vocabulary exercise using a PowerPoint slideshow that took me less than fifteen minutes to create. (Note to self-- the computer should come to school more often.)

In my third grade class, students actually requested that we do a direction-following/craft project from last week again. I've never had students in this school request to repeat an activity before. (Another note-- my third graders are most attentive when there's glue involved.)

I visited a restaurant where the waitresses only speak Russian, and I used Russian almost entirely. (I slipped on a couple thank-yous in Romanian, but that's minimal.)

I bumped into a few of my seventh grade boys on my walk home. I greeted them and asked how they're doing, they responded and asked me in return. All in English. Maybe you need to have met my seventh-graders to understand the enormity of this, but believe me, it was a big deal.

My teaching partner and I collaboratively filled out a kind of evaluation of the curriculum form today, all in Romanian, and I understood it just as well as she did. We genuinely needed one another's assistance, and it was a kind of collaboration I'd never have expected I'd manage in Romanian.

I carried my computer to and from school today, and no harm came to it.

I made my bed after school instead of giving into the urge to crawl back into it with a book. (Again, maybe you'd have to be here to know it's a big deal.)

My partner and I did all our planning on Sunday (which was lovely, because it also involved an invitation for dinner and some time hanging out with her and her darling daughters) so today we had free time in the day-- honest-to-goodness, not spent planning or typing, or cutting and drawing, free time. It was excellent.

Last, but I'm sure not least:

I blogged about things that went well here for the first time in just a bit too long, and about things that went well at school for the first time in Moldova.


Addendum:
I know I already said last, but that was mid-afternoon and since then:

My eight-year-old host brother came up to my room to ask for help studying his English vocabulary, and I reduced him to giggles by speeding up the words, pronouncing them enthusiastically, and doing them out of order, going back over and over to the tricky ones for extra practice. Something so simple has such a huge effect when kids are used to such "classical" teaching methods.

Host borhter showed off his newly memorize vocabulary to the family over dinner.

My host sister from summer training Skyped me to ask for English homework help, too, and impressed me by producing a really nice essay on friendship, with little more than some help translating figures of speech that she hasn't yet learned.

Training host sister was super grateful for the help-- and gratitude's a big, big deal. :-D

I'd say it's become an all-around good day.

(Now, back to tackling a to-do list full of deadlines fast approaching.)

Observation Day... :-\

I was observed by my supervisor in Peace Corps today, the English Education PC Moldova Program Manager.

I always thought classroom observations were stressful in America. Every tiny mistake I made, I had to think, "Is someone going to assume I normally do this this badly, or worse?" The bright side here is that there's no need to scrutinized, nit-pick for tiny mistakes, or search my actions and lessons for flaws. The not-so-bright side is that the reason finding the problems with my lessons is a non-issue is that the problems are so tremendous that they virtually overshadow everything else that takes place in our classrooms.

A few direct quotes:

"I've taught primary and secondary pupils, university students, worked for the Ministry of Education, and worked in Peace Corps's E.E. program for all these years, and that is the worst class I have ever seen."

"Your lesson plans are great, but if you can't at least get the students to look at you, you're not teaching them."

"Maybe some different classroom management would help-- maybe if you'd stopped the boy who talked permanently through your entire lesson."

"No one in that room learned anything. You sad they have a test next week. I know they will all fail."

"I don't know what to tell you to do, that was just awful."

There was positive feedback, too, of course-- unfortunately, none of it was anything actually remarkable. The lessons were dreadful, and she was just trying to offer us at least a little something positive. My best lesson that was observed today isn't something I'd ever have even considered satisfactory in America. My worst was the worst she'd ever seen, too, and incidentally, that group was notably better-behaved than usual today.

Guess that's life.

At least I finally know I'm not crazy for being frustrated beyond all reason with my teaching experience here. I still have no idea how to improve anything, what to change, whether I'll ever do anything more than try to teach in Moldova, or if it's even worth my while to be here. The suggestion that was posed, yet again, was to perhaps change my site, and try to put me some place easier to work.

Accepting that offer would be double-edged, of course. It would make my teaching easier, but I certainly didn't come all this way to teach in a school that's already doing well. It would remove me from the school where I do have some small successes, and where I'd hate to abandon what tiny bit of progress I've spent months working on, but it could potentially put me in a place where I could make much more progress. It would also remove me from a rather comfortable living arrangement with a host family that I've grown rather fond of in a home where I'm just finally starting to feel pretty much at home. I know that I didn't come all this way for an easy and comfortable life-style, either, but I can't help but think that downgrading to a lack of indoor plumbing or readjusting to a new home or a new host family, may be enough stress to snap my already weakened resolve to stay here and do good things. Or, at the least, I fear it would be stress enough to make even the best of new working placements just as difficult as the challenging one I'm already in.

I'm totally torn between staying put and potentially not accomplishing anything noteworthy in my two years, or moving to a new site, starting yet again, and losing the few months of work I have put in here. Ultimately, I told her that I want to continue working at this school, at least a while longer, before even considering anything else, because while it's beyond any difficulty I ever imagined I'd face in any classroom (since these are nothing like any classroom I've ever known before).

The good news is that my program manager did bring the mail I'd received in Chisinau to me since she was making the trip. I received my Christmas gift from my dad, a (ginormous) book, Van Gogh: The Life, which I fully intend to spend tons of these dark wintery evenings buried in. I also got a box from his side of the family full of real coffee (in little filter packets, because coffee makers are super-rare around here), candies, travel sized toiletries that I'll be glad I have when traveling over the holidays (to Turkey, particularly to Istanbul, which was Constantinople-- Oops. I digress.), and warm snugly socks and a scarf-- definitely good to have, as we got our first legitimate snow of the year this morning. (Thanks, guys, for the care package!)

After dragging myself through a moderately miserable school-day, a miserable meeting with my partners and program manager, I snuggled into my new wooly socks, slathered a banana with the peanut butter Abby sent me in her last package, and sipped down a giant mug of Folgers. So, the day wasn't a total bust. There's definite value here in savoring the little things. Comfort foods and toasty feet may not get me through two years of service, but they'll get me through days like today.

I also read this this afternoon-- the kids' behavior may be the biggest obstacle I seem to face in my classrooms here, but at least on the "teaching English" front, I know it's not just me. I'd never thought so much about how irrational our mostly-borrowed, cobbled-together language really is until trying to get students used to a phonetically spelled language to transcribe the words I say or say the words I've written. "House" becomes "huh-oh-oo-seh" and "answer" becomes "ah-nn-swuh-air"... not just when they say them, either, I've got to get them to spell these things somehow.

I enjoyed reading the poem below today... It's difficult, and it's long, but I can't help enjoying a little poking fun at our language when teaching it's become so difficult. Yes, I'm lashing out at the English language through the borrowed words of some other author-- so??

You may want to have this open and your volume up as you read, for the pronunciation guides.

English Pronunciation

September 5, 2007 

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world. After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud.
 
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

English Pronunciation, by G. Nolst Trenité


And as a special treat for any of you who've read my whole novel of an account of my day, pictures:

My host brother, Costel, made use of an unused cardboard
box that had been sitting in my room, as a house/airplane
for Tim, our cat.

Tim may not have had quite as much fun with this game as Costel did.

While I sipped my coffee this afternoon, I heard what I thought was a torrential downpour start completely
out of the blue. Turned out to be about five minutes of seriously intense, pea-sized hail.

I was going to pick some up and get a picture
of the hailstones in my hand...

... but by the time I bent down it had melted and begun to come
down as rain.

It was large enough that even a few minutes into the rain, it was frozen white on the ground, though.

Of course, when I stepped onto the balcony (AKA roof of the garage) to
get a picture, the cat had to join me. I go nowhere in this house sans-kitty.

Found the largest mug in the cupboard to brew my single-serving coffee in. It was perfect!

Oh, and for all of you who looked at that photo and
thought, "Surely that purple creature in front of the
human house with the puppy prints is an--
elephant!"
Ding, ding, ding!!! You got it!
You'd win the prize, if there was one.
(Bonus points if you assumed he'd
be wearing an orange bib.)

What?! All that, and there's no prize??

I'd offer to do better next time, but I made my first trip to the Edineț Post Office this week, and it's not something I plan to attempt in the near future again. Prizes are not in the near future of my blog.

You'll just have to settle for the satisfaction of knowing I found a new favorite coffee mug, and the sheer pleasure of admiring my host-brother and host-cat.

Thanks for reading. :-) Sorry for whining. I won't write again until I've got positive things to say-- promise!

Pray that they're positive things about how much my students improve now that my partner and I are armed with the knowledge that their behavior is indeed unacceptable, and that a drastic change is in order. Maybe it'll help!

No Place Like Home for the Holidays

I'll never forget the year that during our "Christmas Tour," my high school music teacher made the mistake of assigning our show choir to sing the song while visiting one of the living facilities for the elderly. We broke half our audience down into tears by the middle of the chorus. I understood, of course, that it hadn't been her best idea. What I didn't appreciate though, is what it actually feels like to spend holidays not surrounded by loved ones and the smells of a turkey in the oven and familiar spices wafting from the table.

I don't doubt that I'm going to enjoy myself here over the holiday season. I haven't yet decided whether I'll be traveling or hanging around to see what Christmas and New Year's are like here in Moldova, a country that certainly knows its way around celebrations with family. Either way, though, Thanksgiving's been a bit of a downer.

Even on the toughest days, I'm glad I'm here. I'm glad I'm working hard to help with situations few have had the nerve to address. I'm happy to be a part of the children's lives that shows them the only way they've ever known things to be done may not be the only way things can be done. I love that I'm meeting people, and I won't deny that I'm proud of myself for even the smallest of successes.

Still. It's a holiday, and I'm not home. I'm not hugging my mom, I'm not laughing with my cousin, I'm not drinking wine and playing board games with my sister and her boyfriend. It isn't the same.

Anyhow, I've been trying to think of things I can do that will brighten things up for me. I'm definitely eagerly anticipating snow, because that always makes the world feel like Christmas to me. I am excited to start a hunt for a few gifts for the host family, and I'm looking forward to hearing the traditional songs, and to blasting my own wide collection of Christmas music from my computer while I cut and color materials for school. I know I'll enjoy some days off school that I can spend bundling up and taking my camera for long, icy walks or hunkering down with a mug of hot tea and a good book. These things won't be exactly like home, but they won't be completely foreign either.

I do have one wish from home, though. I've had a few different people offer care packages or Christmas gifts from America, and while I love the gesture, there isn't much here that I really need. If you have the chance, though, I would positively love to be able to deck out my bedroom in Christmas cards from across the miles. If my friends and family could pitch those extra few stamps to send a festive, written in English, filled with warm wishes card this way, I'd appreciate it tons! In fact, you don't even have to worry about getting it out early, since Christmas is celebrated in Moldova twice, once on the twenty-fifth of December, then again on January seventh, my birthday.

So, if you'd be willing to add to the card collection I hope to display in my room clear up until the snow melts (maybe longer, so far cards I've received have never come down from where I display them) the address is:

Corpul Pacii
Cassandra Mosier, PVC
Str. Grigore Ureche #12
Chisinau, Moldova  2001

Also, the closer we get to the holidays, and the more I miss the people I love, the more I'd be thrilled to Skype with any of you. My screen name is c.g.mosier, and if you want to send a message or plan a time to video chat, that would be positively wonderful!

Know I'm sending warm, Thanksgivingy wishes halfway around the world to you all and that I could not possibly be more grateful for the love and support in the only place that, no matter how far away I may lay my head at night, really is home! Eat some turkey for me!

A Shift in Dreams

To anyone but me, it surely seems the silliest of dreams. I walk into the room, warm and full of the smells of white glue and chalk dust, crayon wax and pencil shavings. I brush snow off my coat and hang it into a crowded closet besides boxes and boxes of patterns, posters, pictures, glitter, pipe cleaners, and sticky tack in reserve. The room is dark until I flip the switch that livens the buzzing of fluorescent lights, and I set to work readying a chalkboard with the things we need to know for the day and setting the desktop computer a-whir, ready to check emails. I sit in the big chair behind the big desk, and I peer out at all the little ones, tops wiped clear the evening before, ready for another fresh start.

When I try to consider my favorite season, I often hang up on the notion that really, what I like is the very beginning of each, probably none more or less than the next. These days are much the same, while no two are alike, each offers its own beginning and its own promise. A blackboard wiped free of white clouds, coat hooks empty but for the stray hat and boot or two. I sip black coffee in the dream, and when a bell rings, the clamor of little children that had been confined to the cafeteria moments before gradually floods into the hall, then the buzz makes its way to my room where I greet with smiles and squeezes, hearing one story after another and directing the energy of the morning to readying ourselves for the day.

I don’t just dream of this scenario, but long for it. I think I have for as long as I can recall having even the faintest idea that someday I would grow up and be able to be the one seated in the rocking chair, picture book balanced on a knee, making words spring to life. From second grade, when I’d bound down the hall to the first grade room, math flashcards in hand, ready to spend recess quizzing and helping the younger students. From third grade, when my teacher always participated in our writing activities, words pouring onto paper to create poems and songs and stories that we listened to as intently as if she’d composed the works of Shakespeare himself. From middle school, when my teachers told me what a good teacher they knew I would be. From high school when I struggled with a project where we were instructed to research three careers that may interest us, because, truly, I never had anything else in mind.

I like to think I was just made for this—somehow, I want to consider that God put me together, and pulled a mind off the shelf, clearly stamped with the phrase “passionate teacher,” perhaps a heart marked “nurturer,” and hands marked “will only write legibly in washable marker.” When he polished me up, maybe he handed me off to some angel and said, “Put her some place where she can learn for all her life and share every bit of it with those around her—it’s all she will ever want to do.”

Funny, then, twenty-three years, a shining school record, two degrees, and countless jobs working with children later, I’m not greeted every morning by those fluorescent lights or the coat closet packed with my supplies hoard. I wake up each morning, and without a shower or a cup of coffee, I bundle into as many layers as the day demands, trek through the cornfield, then the park, and then town, and enter the halls of the noisiest building I’ve ever known. Children bump and bustle, shout, push, and crash into one another, bound over anything in their way, and greet each other with smacks and handshakes, and cries in two languages, both of which just hum through my mind as babble when I’m not yet fully awake.

I suppose you could say I took the road less traveled.

The smells of chalk are replaced by the faint remnant reek of shiny oil based paint. The scrape of chairs on floors creaks through the din of noisy children, and when I make my way into the room where I will teach, I set the whole of my possessions in the building, all of which are in one bag, onto the same chair where I hang my coat—except, of course, on days when the heating system just isn’t up to the task of combating the weather, and we all remained bundled up.

I ask the class to stand up, as is customary at the start of every class—the only show of respect teachers will receive in the forty-five minute period more often than not—and my students’ singsong voices chant together:

“Good morning, dear teacher.”

On a good day, and in the strongest of my classes, this is followed by pupils taking their seats and responding to questions like “How are you?” “What day is it?” “What is the date?” and “Tell me about the weather.”

                A good day doesn’t yet elicit the kind of passion every other school I have inhabited always did, but I keep telling myself that it will. I’m comforted by the occasional spark of it. Sometimes it comes as a student follows me across the street on my walk home, answering my questions that I pose in my language and translate to hers. Some days, it warms me from inside when I get a student who normally isn’t bold enough to speak to give an answer. On the best kinds of days, it wraps itself around me in students hugs, the swish of their puffy jackets against my own calming me and reminding me that even in a strange place, in a foreign language, in a world I sometimes fear I’ll never fully understand, I am still a teacher. It’s in me, and it’s not going anywhere. It gets stronger every day. By the end of two years here, I don’t imagine that anyone—least of all myself—could question it.

                That’s the dream now, and I’m giving all I’ve got to make it real. In a few years, I don't doubt I'll make my way full circle, back to the dream that's lived in me for so long. For the time being, though, I want to live this one to the fullest.

                Wish me luck.

A Week in the City

This week we had training and seminars, both in language and teaching, in Chisinau, from Tuesday through Saturday. I'd love to tell all about them, but it will have to wait, because while there, I also finally visited our medical officer about having fallen and hurt my hand a few weeks ago. She was a bit appalled that I'd waited so long, sent me straight to the hospital (which looked, and smelled, remarkably American) for X-rays.

Turns out it's a little broken, and the brace I've got to wear makes typing kind of a chore. I've really only got full use of the first two fingers on my right hand, and I've been expressly forbidden from writing with it. The bad news is that not writing is a little rough on a teacher, especially with no technology in the classroom. The good news is that it had almost healed itself in the three-ish weeks I waited, so she thinks I'll only need it in the brace for a week. I get to make another trip to Chisinau Friday, bright and early, so I can have it X-rayed again and see if this poor little metacarpal bone is looking healthy again.

I'll be popping calcium and Vitamin D tablets like candy until then, as, evidently, my almost-all-carbs diet at home hasn't done wonders for the strength of my skeleton. Until then, wish me "Noroc!" (Romanian for "luck") and I'll write more when I'm working with ten fingers instead of seven. :-)

A School Party in the Village

Well, I was going to spend this afternoon packing for our mandatory week of training in Chișinău over the fall break, for which I leave tomorrow, but the washing machine melted down with the clothes I planned to pack still sudsy and trapped inside. I'm waiting for my host mom to get home from work so she can help me sort that mess out, and I'll at least get to take them with me clean and wet to dry in my hotel room. Hopefully.

The good news is that this gives me some time to tell about an awesome weekend in the village of Mărăndeni. One of our English Education Volunteers, Kim, lives and teaches there and was planning to hold a Halloween party Friday, so she sent out an invitation for others in the North of Moldova to lend a hand. Looking forward to the prospects of seeing another village and of painting cute kids' faces, I eagerly agreed to make the trip.

Halloween isn't traditionally celebrated in Moldova, but the kids do all learn a bit about it in their English classes, since it's a pretty big deal in America. My host brother was informed that Americans carve heads from vegetables for the holiday, so he and I, because we didn't have a pumpkin around, had carved a family of apple people the week before for him to take to school. Beyond that, not much happens here at the end of October unless someone (usually a PCV) is ambitious enough to organize festivities. I'm hoping to try my own hand at it next year. While I'm not usually all that into Halloween, I miss the pumpkin carving element, and the kids think it's such a cool novelty to be part of a foreign celebration.

My attempts at getting from Point A to Point B in Moldova have yet to work out simply and as-expected, but that's par for the course with a sense of direction like mine, so I wasn't too worked up over the fact that it took me ages to find the bus station in my own town. I knew it was at the edge of town, but I hadn't been to the edge of town on foot before and had no conception of just how long a hike that would be, plus I took a few wrong turns that added to the trip more still. I did get there just in time to catch the last bus that could potentially get me to Bălți, the nearest raion center, on time to catch the last bud out to Mărăndeni, and a friendly man who spoke a little bit of English led me to the window where I could buy my ticket. He was pretty interested in what I was doing there when I said I'm not visiting but living here for two years. People often are, it's a nice reaction to have-- Moldovans are notoriously welcoming.

When I finally made my way to the Bălți bus station, I had unfortunately just missed the last bus of the day out to the village, so I ended up making countless phone calls to Kim and asking almost every driver, ticket-seller, and friendly-looking stranger in the area what the best way would be to get myself to Mărăndeni. After a few wrong answers from a few people, I finally figured out what would get me nearest to the village so I could walk in. The driver had been one of the people to provide me faulty information (that there would be another bus directly out to the village at the same time as his own would leave), so he was confused when I was all set to hop on his rutiera after all. I explained, though, and after first trying to convince me to marry either his son or nephew, let me on without a ticket and got me just where I needed to be.

Just seeing the village was great, because it's so quiet and the leaves are all the most incredible golden color right now, so I was enjoying the walk, but since I was running a bit late by this point, it was a relief when someone offered me a ride into the center. She correctly guessed me to be an English teacher and guessed that I was headed into town to see Domnişoară Kim, then got me just where I needed to be. While there are some inconveniences associated with living in these tiny villages, the helpful nature of their inhabitants certainly makes up for a lot of them.

We headed to the school and after some complications with getting the doors unlocked and a brief moment of uncertainty about whether we'd have electricity with which to play music, we got things rolling. Kim's democracy club (a handful or so of fifth- and sixth-graders, if my age estimation is right) showed up to help us with the decorations. I made a pretty impressive mess mixing up homemade face paint to use (since I'd had no luck finding it for sale even in the capital last time I was there), and things got rolling.

Admission for the celebration was five lei (about fifty cents) per student, which will go toward the creation of a world map mural somewhere in the school in the near future (part of a worldwide Peace Corps project I think is particularly cool). Kids were initially surprised when I told them they needn't spend additional money to have their faces painted, and once word of that got around, the line grew way faster than expected. I took one break for a bit while someone relieved me, but mostly, I was sole painter, so I took a lot of pride in seeing everybody running around with bats, pumpkin, ghosts, and spiders on their cheeks and foreheads.

There was also lots of loud music for dancing (played using a microphone laid near a computer speaker), bobbing for apples (which the kids also ate, a bonus when we're used to American kids who prefer the candy element of Halloween over healthy treats), an attempt at a Soul Train style costume dance off (it didn't work as planned, but the kids had a great time anyhow), a face cut out board (well, paper) with a witch and Frankenstein where students could have their pictures taken, a ping pong ball tossing game, and prizes. Overall, the night was a huge success. Students, teachers, and volunteers alike had an awesome time and we estimated that between 50 and 70 kids were there.

Afterward, the school director (like a principal) invited the volunteers (five of us in all) to hang around for tea and cookies in her office. We visited, talked about what we do and how we like Moldova, then headed back to Kim's place where we made ourselves a nice dinner and sat up talking and visiting entirely too late. The next day we headed into the city in the morning, spent the day hanging out and taking a long walk in the beautiful fall sunshine before I caught my rutiera home in the evening and made my way back to the house just in time for dinner with the host family.

A lot of my weekends here are pretty uneventful, and I'm all right with that. I think at heart I'm mostly a homebody, and the more time I spend getting to know my family here, the more I enjoy just being here and being a part of everyday life. Still, though, a little excitement sure can be nice, and when it happens to involve a fun night of music and dancing with school kids followed by a relaxing day with friends who speak English, it makes for a great change of pace. It's also really cool to see how someone is making great things happen at their site after a year of service here-- makes me look forward to the things in store for me the more capable I become here and the more connections I make. I'm so grateful to have been a part of the fun!

Seven Billion and Moldova

I spent some time this evening exploring an interesting tool provided by the British Broadcasting Corporation, based on a variety of sources of research on population growth and sustainability of resources. It highlights the fact that within the coming few weeks, Earth's population is anticipated to break the 7 billion mark. That's about 2 billion more than existed on the planet when I was born, which was about 2 billion more than had been here when my mom was. In the past 50 years, the population of our planet has more than doubled, and while research has advanced to make great strides toward the development of sustainable resources, we're still using entirely more than an expansion as we're currently seeing can accomodate.

I suppose the (kind of) good news is that the countries sucking up the large majority of these resources (America being a great contributor to this use) are not the ones with the most rapidly expanding population. For the most part, countries where people use the least are the developing nations in which people have learned to make do and are now experiencing great advances in known medicine, sustaining life longer, while birth control has not yet caught on sufficiently to allow populations to remain stagnant.

There are exceptions, though. There are countries in our world, where, despite an impressive ability to conserve resources, use what is available, and live comfortably with little money to spend and minimal natural resources at their disposal, population is declining rapidly. Moldova tops this particular list.*

With the most rapidly shrinking population of any country in the world today, the population of the Republic of Moldova becomes smaller by just over a hundred people per day. It seems a peculiar phenomenon, I'm sure, from a distance, but up close, it's more bizarre still.

Had someone asked me before seeing this website how rapidly the population here is diminishing, I'd have had no idea, other than that it's assuredly a noticeable change, and it is most certainly not growing. Putting a number in correlation with the things I see every day, though, gives a bit of clarity to a somber picture.

In the school where I teach, more students live apart from their parents than with them. While many scenarios consist of children who reside with grandparents, aunts and uncles, or close family friends, a sizable number of them live without an adult in the household, generally leaving teenage siblings, mostly sisters, to care for the younger members of their families. Needless to say, it's a scenario not conducive to the well-being of any of those involved.

I attribute circumstances like these to much of the negativity I see in the attitudes of young people within my school. Most will tell you they are unlikely ever to be able to leave Moldova, more will express that they desire to do so, very few seem confident that changes could take place here to improve the country they've been born and raised in. Poverty is commonplace, education is lacking efficacy and certifications in viability in the world, opportunities are few, and a stunning proportion of people work their entire lives never saving enough to afford their own homes or to survive someday upon a pension.

Interestingly enough, though, Moldova and its neighbors, the "transition countries of Eastern Europe" are grouped not among the developing or least developed, but among developed nations such as the United States and the nations of western Europe. To me, this sounds promising. The growth that has occurred here in a very short period. (Moldova, after all, just celebrated the twentieth anniversary of its independence at the end of this summer.)

It pains me to wonder what people think when they feel so defeated that they believe their children's only hope for a quality life is to leave their children behind in search of work that pays enough to raise children on. I can help wonder exactly what a Moldovan teen raising her siblings with parents working abroad sees, looking ahead to the future.

If I had my say, I'd put visions ahead of these children.

The first I'd place would be the vision of people working together to create opportunities. Opportunity, after all, comes to those who seek it, not to those who wait for it to arise. I believe that if the people in this country who are just now at the start of their lives made it a priority and a goal to form connections and relationships with organizations and businesses outside the country, those who have the resources Moldova, in many ways, lacks, great things could be brought into the country. Jobs could be created, money could be drawn into the country rather than sent from abroad, and possibilities would expand.

The next I'd want to place is a view of the future in light of what is available at present. I've seen incredible creativity among my students, ingenuity the likes of which I've never dreamed among my elders, and among my peers, an ability to bear great deals of adult responsibility with dignity, grace, and unparalleled capability. Moldovan soil grows grapes that snap in your teeth, and the people know how to turn it into wine of every imaginable, delicious variety. Moldovan fields are vast, fertile, and have been worked carefully for years by families who, if they were to develop cooperatives or collaborate with larger organizations, I don't doubt could find much greater revenue than they do in the street markets in Moldovan towns.

Most important of the treasures of this tiny country, though, are the people, who are strong in ways I never knew were possible. The children wear their coats in the unheated schoolrooms. Elderly women reap corn stalks from the fields bent over small, dull tools. Communities come together to help one another in whatever ways they can. Then, at the end of the day, the end of the season, the end of the week, or on any imaginable occasion, they join each other in celebrations with vast spreads of traditional food, dancing, song, laughter, stories, and (needless to say) a fair helping of home-brewed wine. Happiness and the joy of family and community underlie the culture, allowing a warm glow to shine through all the adversity visible at Moldova's surface.

Finally, I'd want to offer these young people a view of Moldova's potential for the future in light of its past. While Moldova has a long way to come in many respects, it is a country that has seen great adversity but has still made very impressive strides and advancements since its inception and, more recently, since its break from communist rule. The country has been governed by dictators and plagued by class war as a part of the Soviet Union. It has struggled to gain economic footing as an independent state. It sees to this day the remnants of Communist rule and the corruption which still impedes many of its greatest efforts.

The Moldovan ground, however, that has yielded great deals of adversity and pain has yielded a people who, while a bit battle-worn, are little worse for the wear. Technology has advanced by extraordinary lengths**. Schools are making evident progress in the gradual incorporation of more modern methods and the training of more progressive new teachers. Help from outside resources such as the Peace Corps is being accepted, often with open arms by organizations ranging from local government to schools and hospitals to small farms and NGOs. Many of these groups are working to improve the way of life of minorities, women and children who have suffered domestic violence, and those involved or at risk of human trafficking. Progress may not always be as fast as what we'd hope to see, but it is, all the same, undeniably taking place.

While it can't be ignored that I routinely walk past buildings no longer inhabited or cared for, standing like concrete skeletons of a population no longer bold enough to risk the struggles of a challenging way of life; while I, doubtless, see students in my classroom who know nothing of basic discipline because they are being raised without the guidance of parents; I can't help but see a community that, in its roots, holds incredible and indelible strength. This strength has brought Moldova forward from a difficult past, and I know that it has the power, so long as those who possess it can recognize it (perhaps with a bit of help) to carry this culture into a bright future.

I like to think that some day, I'll look at Moldova a bit the way a mother does of her grown child. I want to see the progress its made, in time, and know, however small my influence may have been, that I helped. I'll take great pride, someday, in knowing that the children whose lives I was a part of knew at least one person who believed they could make changes that would allow them to raise families for generations to come on the same rich soil that has supported countless generations before them.

It's a pleasant thought-- makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside without even a sip of that wine I mentioned.


*Incidentally, another list Moldova tops is per capita alcohol consumption (about ten times America's). Perhaps there's some correlation...

**Well, at least these folks are near the top of one list for something positive-- internet access speed.

Toughest Job You'll Ever Love

I've been awfully neglectful of the blog lately-- it's not for lack of things to write, but usually because by the time I get home with a good idea in my head to write about, I'm on the brink of exhaustion. It isn't as though I do especially a lot here; truth be told, I can't recall ever feeling like I'm doing so little. My work week is a shameful 12 hours (I'm working on finding more for next semester), I no longer have even an apartment to upkeep, I'm not yet involved in much outside of school, but still it seems everything I do here is work.

Carrying on a conversation is no longer thinking, speaking, and listening, but thinking then translating, speaking and translating, listening, translating some more, occasionally identifying words that pop up that aren't in the language I learned upon arrival (Russian is much more common here than my Romanian) and trying to do it all without looking like it's work because when I start to seem confused, people feel bad for making me work so hard and conversations end. Eating dinner is often a matter of carrying on conversation, or sometimes of trying to understand what is on the news that the family is watching at the table, while also identifying foods, beverages, and manners that are still not all familiar. Remarkably few of the table manners I've known all my life still constitute good table manners here, others have taken their place, and if I slip into the laziness of not working to be part of conversations around the table, people become concerned.

The funny thing about living with a host family in a place so different from what's always been home before is never quite turning off. While I sometimes have what feels a bit like "down time" if I curl up alone in my room with a book, the easy interactions I was always so accustomed to when relaxing among friends and family haven't yet become easy here. I imagine they will-- after all, I've got the better part of two years yet to work on them, but for the time being, just being a part of things is more effort than I'd ever have guessed it could be.

I recently talked to the Country Director of Peace Corps Moldova who stated that he thinks one of Peace Corps's greatest errors was when they stopped referencing Peace Corps as "the toughest job you'll ever love." In a place like Moldova where most homes are equipped with at least some modern amenities-- usually running water and often a shower, sometimes an indoor toilet, always some form of heating in the winter, and for the lucky ones among us, a washing machine or microwave oven-- it's really abstract to conceive of what could be so difficult. When thinking stereotypical Peace Corps Experience, one pictures a grass hut and a machete, a mosquito net, poisonous snakes, freak storms, and a well of murky brown water for cooking and bathing. The thing about those challenges, which are becoming less and less common in the Peace Corps Volunteers' world (though, they do, of course, still exist) is that we can imagine them. I've been camping. I've slept on a cot, been dirty for a few days at a time, and eaten food I don't like. We know what we are capable of in the realm of the physical, and it's not the same kind of difficult to be braced to face physical challenges.

Moldova doesn't present these challenges to the extent that other areas may, but it is, after all, a less developed country in many ways, and Volunteers are here for a reason. We are doing exhausting and strenuous work to help improve the quality of life for those in our communities, beginning with and working through the immense challenge that is integration into a way of life we never knew we could be so unfamiliar with.

To anyone who hasn't tried it, it may sound a bit absurd to consider that hauling water a mile from the well for a bath may not be much more difficult than navigating social situations where women are not regarded with the same status as men and are expected to quiet their brightest ideas, stay close to the stove, and mind the children and guests. Maybe it's easier to conceive, though not by much, that while sleeping on a cot in a grass hut is tough, working in a school where the only known form of discipline is to shout at students and where grades are normally forged so as not to reflect that students are very seldom learning the prescribed material, but teachers want to avoid appearing inept. Still, though, I'd never have understood, no matter how well it was explained to me before I arrived, that even the basic day-to-day activities here, those that were routine and simple tasks once, are strenuous, challenging, and are what make this job so valuable.

The way I consider it is that the people with the strongest character, by and large in life, make the greatest impact, and it must take a person of awfully strong character to overcome challenges in the quantity that bombard Peace Corps Volunteers. Because our hearts are in the right places and our character is strong in just the right ways to keep us here working to achieve goals through the best of intentions, I think we stand a very good chance, just by virtue of being here, being present every day doing the things expected of us, of making a really great impact.

It feels really good to be a part of a thing like that.

Beyond encountering challenges, we encounter successes. I was greeted today by my class of Russian-speaking fourth graders, with whom I share only the very most minimal bits of language, by a flurry of hugs and high-pitched chatter. I have a second-grader who asks me questions almost every day about my life in America and here in Moldova, often trying to use the English she knows within her Romanian. I work side by side with my host family to prepare food, harvest grapes, clean the house, and preserve food for winter. I also celebrate alongside them and share in beautiful and interesting traditions like the "hram" celebration of each and every village and town in the country, and the immense gatherings that are the mark of a Moldovan birthday.

The days when I feel most accomplished-- most at home, most like a teacher, most like myself. Those are the days that make all the challenges, all the nights I fall asleep before dinner is served, all the conversations I've muddled my way through sounding like a toddler, completely and totally worthwhile. They're moments that get better and better the more I learn, and the more of these moments I encounter, the more I look forward to those yet to come.

The Moldova I've Been Hoping For

I know, deep down, that getting one's hopes up can be trouble, especially in the Peace Corps Moldova where unpredictability is as certain as sunflowers in the summer and snow in the winter (which I hear is even more certain than the sunflowers). Still, I can't help but sometimes have a mental picture of what life in this country is supposed to be. I'm trying to get past the part of this tendency where I'm sometimes disappointed when life's not what I'm expecting, but that doesn't mean I ought not be excited when it is...

Yesterday, I went with my family back into the village. Cutting down cornstalks last weekend was great, but this weekend was grape picking, and it was even better. I've eaten plenty of grapes in my life, but I won't deny for a second that fresh off the vine, they're better. They certainly aren't the same as the seedless variety you can find at an American grocery store, in fact, they're not even quite like the seeded ones there. The skin is thick, so they snap between your teeth when you bite in. The juice is bright purple, so they stain your fingertips. The inside is a little tougher than what I'm used to, so if you don't want to eat them seeds and all, you roll them around in your mouth, wiggling the seeds out. Oh, and the taste. They're perfect. They're tart, and fresh, and I suppose subconsciously, there's a certain something added just by the novelty of picking it straight from the vine and throwing it in your mouth.

Peace Corps's medical office would be devastated by the amount of unwashed fruit I ate Sunday. Positively devastated. If the ask, neither the grapes nor the pears ever happened, got it?

We picked grapes at five different homes. One of them was explained to me to be a relative's, but I didn't catch whose. One was a neighbor's, and I didn't know the person, and after those, I pretty well gave up trying to figure out where I was until we'd returned to my host grandparents' house, where we stripped the grapevines beside and behind their home, too. Away from home we dumped our buckets of grapes into plastic lined sacks about 4 feet long and 2 wide, we lugged those home, and there we just dumped our buckets straight into the crusher.

I won't deny I was a tiny bit disappointed that there was no mention of tugging off our shoes and stomping around in a tub of grapes. I think there was a time the grossness of such a thing would have appalled me, but really, it would have been no less sanitary than the mechanism we used. Ever read one of those articles online that tells you how your candy bar probably contains such-and-such a percentage of bugs, because they don't pick them out of the cocoa beans. Well, I can tell you with a fair degree of confidence, now, that you've had some bugs in your wine, too, and that it's fine.

So, our wine making involved a big hand cranked crushing mechanism perched atop a huge plastic barrel. We filled the barrel twice with juice and emptied it into huge plastic jugs, probably 6 gallons each, to ferment. Well, most of it went into those. We sampled some of the fresh juice, too. I never thought I was a huge fan of grape juice, but that was before having tried real grape juice. It's wonderful. It reminded me more of wine than Welch's, to tell the truth. Needless to say, I've got no complaints about that variation from the expected!

Grape-picking and mashing was, of course, followed by a tremendous homemade meal, courtesy of my host grandma. Not all of the PCVs I've talked to are crazy about traditional Moldovan food (which makes up about 95% of what we consume here) but I'm a big fan. I'm an even bigger fan of her Moldovan food in particular, and the company that comes along with a masa (literally "table," but it's used to mean feast) there, whole family joking and smiling and telling stories-- well, it can't be beat.

It was a great end to the weekend, and today was a great start to the week. Because the teachers at the school where I was originally placed in Edinet expressed that they didn't have the time to work with a PCV-- planning lessons (which Moldovan teachers don't typically do), making materials (also an oddity), and the like-- our English Education Program Manager decided that it would be for the best for me to work in one of the other schools in the area. Last week was my first full week at the new school, and one of my two partners was out for the whole week with a cold, so I worked with just one.

The experience, let it suffice to say, made me a bit apprehensive about whether there's going to be anywhere I can happily and comfortably work in the Moldovan educational system. This first partner and I, I think, will have a lot of work to do together before we find common ground in terms of our teaching. She quite literally shouts until she's hoarse through the course of each lesson.

The yelling is among a few practices I'd never employ for myself in a classroom, but it's surely what bothered me the most. Granted, I don't think it's a real reflection of her character-- it's pretty typical classroom management here, as I understand. Moldovan teachers aren't especially familiar with the idea of positive reinforcement, and Moldovan students aren't used to being held accountable for their actions, so their behavior can get quite out of hand. It's not easy for me to remember but my partner's use of the approach is characteristic of the educational system that she knows, and neither she nor the students regard it as being nearly as aggressive as it seems to me. Shouting isn't uncommon in classrooms here, because, though very temporarily and for all the wrong reasons, it does usually settle the children down a bit.

As anyone who has seen me work with kids may guess, it makes my more than a tad uneasy to listen to.


It wasn't a great week, and I would be lying if I didn't say that when I woke up this morning, I wholly considered using the cold I've had for a month as justification for a week off of my own. Really, though, I want to be at school! I want to teach. It's what I do, and it's what I came here to do. Today was planned to be my first day with the partner who had been absent for my first week at this school, and I decided to extricate myself from under my very cozy down-stuffed quilt and get to school.

I mostly observed the classes my second partner taught, today, helping only a bit with one of the lessons, but it was a very encouraging experience all around. I have determined that while there's still a different kind of relationship and regard between Moldovan teachers and their pupils than I've seen between teachers and students in America, there can still be respect, and a generally pleasant tone to the lessons that take place here. The yelling isn't a necessity, it isn't the only this students respond to, and while it isn't uncommon, it's not a constant. That's a huge deal-- I'm way too big a baby to cope with constant yelling, or anything near it. This partner speaks calmly to the students, and she's got a handle on some teaching practices that aren't especially common in Moldovan classrooms (ideas gleaned, partially, I imagine, from her work with the last volunteer at the school) and that I wholeheartedly approve of.

The students were out of their seats in one class for an interactive game to identify the tenses of verbs, they were asked to work in groups, and they were praised for correct answers. The teacher spoke more English in her explanations of material and instructions than Romanian. Time was given to working with the students who struggle, as well as those who are more advanced. As one may guess (because a class generally stays with the same teacher for each subject for a few years, at least, and were this teacher's class last year) these classes were much more advanced in their use of English than the ones that I saw last week.

Also, no surprise, I felt exponentially more comfortable and confident today in school. So much so, that I think I'm ready to go back tomorrow for a day of lessons entirely with my first partner, and I may even see if I can work up the nerve to politely suggest that perhaps we give a try at a little mellower an approach to classroom management for a while, just to see what happens.

Today was the kind of school experience I have been hoping for.

Maybe tomorrow will be the kind of school experience that it's even more important that I be here for.

I and hopeful that if I keep on showing up, keep on praising right answers and correcting problematic behavior calmly, and generally just keep trying, the kids will pick up on my expectations. Maybe, then, just maybe, if they respond well, my partner will see that there are ways of teaching that she hasn't considered before, and that they do, indeed work.

I won't say I'm not still a little anxious, but I'm feeling more encouraged, and I'm going to keep trying and hoping.

I suppose I wouldn't be much of a Peace Corps Volunteer if I wasn't willing to devote plenty of my energy just to trying and hoping.

Dreaming of Ducks

For tonight, I apologize in advance to those of you (surely in the majority) who are reading this blog because you want to hear awesome things about Moldova and the Peace Corps. This particular post couldn't really be much less about the Peace Corps and still pertain to my life right now. It's just me loving when the continuity of events makes my life here just a little more "normal" (or at least similar to how it was before I came here, if that was "normal") while marveling at the capacity of the unconscious mind.

I've always had a habit of staying up too late, overtiring myself, and sleeping through morning alarms, thereby just incorporating the sound of them into my dreams. I dream I'm at school-- the buzzing becomes the class bell. I dream I'm outside-- the beeping becomes a passing garbage truck. Upon arriving here, and figuring out all the fun features on the new phone I got before I came, I saw that I could play songs as alarm clock tones. I picked one of my favorite utterly absurd tunes, because there's just no way my brain could ignore it. I figured that was for the best, because I know that no family wants to spend the whole morning listening to Cassie's alarm buzzing and beeping away while she dreams of giant bees and the motorized shopping carts at Wal-Mart traveling in reverse.

You should definitely listen to the song to appreciate the degree to which this couldn't possibly be slept through-- it's silly, but the punchline is a good one, and it's a little catchy. (Well, I can only attest that it's catchy if you're a sucker for kids' music... I guess not everybody is.)



Go on. Admit you giggled. It's cute. I won't tell anybody you enjoyed it.

So, I passed a summer without internet, without much language capacity to stay up visiting with my host family, and utterly exhausted at the end of every insanely long training day. I'd fall asleep pretty early, and because I wasn't especially at ease all summer, I never fell into super-deep sleep and I often woke up before my Duck Song even had its chance to play and silenced it in advance. It worked great.

Fast-forward to present-- a host family who I eat dinner with around 9:00 pm every evening, then visit with for a bit, internet access in my own bedroom and family and friends who don't even get home from work to talk to me until midnight my time, and I've finally become sucked into the Harry Potter series (Hooray, for friends who have large digital book collections to share with me, and for my Kindle!), so I read by flashlight (headlamp actually-- my book light died) for a while to relax before turning in.

Clearly, I'm now back to my routine of depriving myself of the sleep I need. This whole schedule's just a little wacky for my body, and after I eat that really late dinner, my body is usually not at all convinced that I should be able to rest for the few hours afterward.

This has me back in the routine of snoozing through alarms. Today was my third in a row of weird dreams just before getting up about ducks trying to buy grapes from lemonade vendors.

One minute, I'm en route to Chisinau via Moldovan minibus, about to pick up a water distiller from PC headquarters, because my family has decided that they're afraid to have me drinking the water here when it starts coming out of the tap brown (a dream of average weirdness, I think). The next minute, there's a giant animated duck boarding the minibus and making a whole-hearted effort to purchase grapes from the old man driving, who, obviously, is insistent that this minibus is a lemonade stand, and lemonade is all he's ever sold.

Ridiculous? Of course.

But, you know, there are worse ways to start a morning than waking up already laughing at yourself and wondering just how it is that your mind can do the absurd things it does.

:-)

I'll be changing my alarm tonight in hopes that I can find something I don't sleep through, and I'll be settling in with my Kindle a little earlier, if I can. Now, everybody, cross your fingers that, for my host family's sake, the alarm wakes me on its first attempt tomorrow (and every day after).

These nice people have already been subjected to three mornings of repeatedly hearing the first 60 seconds of the Duck Song before they're even out of bed, and I think that's a little more than they bargained for when signing on to take in an American.

Corn

Yesterday, my host family and I visited the village where my host mom grew up and where her parents still live. I really love village trips-- it's beautiful there; quiet and calm; you exchange friendly greetings with everyone you pass, strangers or not; there are more animals than I can count, grapes right from the vine to munch, and always a good meal; as a bonus, yesterday, there was work to be done. I love when we have work to do, because when everyone's keeping busy, and none of us have a whole lot to say, I'm really not too different from any other adult there. I may have the language capacity of a toddler, but in most other respects, I'm about up to par with the adults.

The task for the morning was to clear the cornfields of dried stalks. Though I've never worked in a cornfield at home (I've played in them, but I hardly think that counts for anything) I imagine that American farmers have some sort of tool that deals with this particular task-- something large, highly mechanical, and motorized. Moldovans have a tool for it, too. It's called a sickle, and it works beautifully, but not without some serious elbow-grease.


When we arrived, my host mother had everything all planned out. She and her brother, my host father, and my host grandfather would work in the field, my 8-year-old host brother and I could go for a walk or watch. I could sunbathe if I pleased.


Now, it's not the I don't enjoy a good walk, and the sun was gorgeous up on the hill, so if I'd had a book with me, I may well have consented to just finding a soft grassy spot and relaxing. Frankly, though, I've done far more relaxing since I arrived at my permanent site than I've ever desired to do. (Most of you probably know that I'm someone who tends to thrive on being too busy, if anything.) We walked out to the field, and when we got there, my host brother grabbed up one of the extra sickles, wanting to try cutting the corn stalks down. He didn't have much success with it, but his attempt meant that I, too, could get away with giving it a shot.

This looks about like what I started with.

I grabbed a sickle with an old wooden handle, and I started in on some corn stalks. This got little more reaction than an "Oh, you'd like to try it?" and I, of course, smiled and said yes, the looks that were passed between my host mom and her brother were no different than the smiles they'd exchanged when the 8-year-old wanted to have a crack at the manual labor, and my first couple swings were, admittedly, a bit embarrassing. The first stalk, I basically sawed off with the clunky blade, and I rapped myself in the shin going after the second a bit more forcefully. My host grandfather stepped in, though, and showed me that the trick is to swing a bit upward (the part I'd been able to observe) and at the space between where two segments of the stalk joined together (the part I'd been missing).

I set to work and was just getting the hang of it when my host father stepped in to help my host mother with a particularly green, thick stalk, borrowing the sickle she'd been using. She, then came over and asked to take mine off my hands, telling me she was more rested now (because she'd been without a tool for all of thirty seconds), and I, of course, agreed and handed it over, then headed back to the edge of the field to see if there were any tools left. Sure enough, there was one laying by the tree, still, and a little sharper than my first with a handle grip and everything-- definitely more comfortable to use than the one I'd just given up, so I lucked out.

A definite improvement, even if that little black grip
did keep sliding right off the handle.

Before long, I was working my way very quickly up a row. Swish, swish, swish, hacking off a few stalks. Fumph, adding them to a heap between the rows. I passed up my host mother and was easily keeping up with the men, much to everyone's surprise. They let me know I didn't have to help, and I said that I liked it. My host mother eventually remarked on the tremendous lead I had on her, marveling at how fast I was at this new job.

"Did you do this at home?"

"No, it's new to me."

"Costel (host brother), get Cassie a pair of gloves."

No one wants to think they're making the American, the guest, do work. On the other hand, no one's stupid enough to turn down enthusiastic help. We plowed through the field in less time than they'd expect, and went home to my host grandmother's delightful cooking, followed by a picnic in the woods in the afternoon, and all day, my family told people about how everyone helped to cut corn in the morning.

It felt pretty great to be included in everyone.

Another little victory.