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.

I Always Love the Little Things

My host parents came home today, I talked for a few minutes with my host mom about what I did all day (went for a walk and washed some clothes-- not a wildly exciting conversation) and then she told me she and my host dad would be outside in the garden. I sat in my room for about five minutes bored after that before I started wondering what they were up to and whether there'd be a job for me in it.

Turns out, there was!

They were cleaning sweet peppers and boiling them in what can only possibly be referred to as a cauldron over a big ol' cornstalk fire in the corner of the garden. They get the stalks from the neighbor's field for free, so they're clearly a better value than the way-too-expensive natural gas (courtesy of Russia) that the stove uses. As an added bonus, the fire looked, smelled, and felt just perfect on a cool autumny evening. I loved it.

I sat on a little stoll wiping dirt off the peppers as my host mother cut off the stems and my host father stirred them in the cauldron of oil and water, then we fished out a little pile of them from the boiling water, peeled them with our hands. (I'm not nearly as tough as a Moldovan lady; I can tell you that for sure-- ouch.) We fed the skins to the dog who lives in the garden (and he was hungry enough to eat them... ew), and went inside where I helped her make them into sauce for dinner, talking all the while about what my university was like, what my family's like-- things I couldn't get wrong. I'd go so far as to say the conversation was easy, even.

After dinner, we went out to finish the last couple batches of peppers, now with my 8-year-old host brother (who had been at soccer earlier) helping out. He mostly played in the fire, and I'm still certain someone needed to be doing that job. It's a good thing he was there. I'm not so sure I'd have gotten away with trying to do it.

After a while of this, my host mother was taking a phone call while my host dad was stirring away, so I just watched my host brother horse around in the garden pretending that the sticks sticking out of the dirt were the controls in... well... something. I guessed a car and he said no, but that's about where my creativity comes to a halt in Romanian non-public means of transit. Anyhow, his dad finally shushed him because his mom could hardly hear the person on the other end of the phone, so he lost interest and whispered to me something that sounded like "psspspsspspss tumshejury pssspsps?" and I gave him my dumb American face (it's like a scrunched eyebrows, head cocked variant of the classic puppy dog face, and I do it so well) and he asked "Vrei sa privesti?" which means "Want to watch?"

Well, it was clear he wasn't going to clarify for me, so I figured that watching whatever this was would be the easiest. I followed him in the house and he offered me his two Tom and Jerry ("Tom si Jerry") DVDs to choose between. The title on the case was in Romanian, but beyond that, these were exactly the same Tom and Jerry cartoons I've known for as long as I can remember. There's not much talking, and when there is, it's in English. I did a little bit of translating, which my host brother thought was very cool, because he'd only guessed what they were saying before tonight, but mostly, the two of us and the cat just chilled out and laughed.

It felt really good.

I didn't need the least bit of any skill that I don't already have to sit back and laugh at goofy cartoons. I occasionally forget here that there are indeed still things I can do with no effort at all, especially when it comes to things that involve more people than just me.

Tonight was a pleasant reminder. :-)

Celebrate little victories, Cassie. The big ones are entirely too rare.

Yes, I will fail! -- Wait, what??

This whole train of thought was sparked by an article linked here  that was passed along to me by the training director of PC Moldova, and may make the most sense in context. It's totally worth reading, anyhow, so, really, go ahead!

I've heard from a number of credible sources, as well as from some not-so-credible ones and even some total strangers, that one of the most important things a person learns in the Peace Corps is how to fail. Encouraging, huh??


I never disputed that distinct possibility before leaving for (and on arrival in) a new place and way of life, speaking a new language and living with a whole country's worth of total strangers-- in fact, I may even have looked forward to it a bit. I though "it'll toughen me up." I know quite well that I've lived a pretty easy life, on the whole, and I figured the challenge would do me good.

Then I got here.

There were little things first, when I was surrounded all day every day by a support team of my peers and some very patient Peace Corps staff in training. I'd get locked out of my house and have to go to someone else's for the night. I'd fail to find the word I needed to communicate with my family and ultimately settle for just telling them that the phrase I'd been looking through a dictionary to translate for the past half hour wasn't important anyhow (and ultimately, it wasn't). I'd get lost on my way from A to B (nothing new for me, really) and make myself late for classes or whatever else I hoped to do with my time (also old news). Ultimately, I'd become frustrated, pick myself up, and (very quietly) congratulate myself for how well I'd recouped from one "failure" after another. This was quality, character-building good stuff!

You're laughing, too, right?

Locked gates, translation troubles, and becoming disoriented, as it turns out, were only the beginning, were immeasurably minor setbacks, and (I have the sneaking suspicion) were absolutely nothing compared to the kinds of failure I'm in for over the next couple years.

This is not to be mistaken for a complaint-- just a realization. For that matter, I'm kind of relieved at the whole notion of it. I think this may be just what I need.. I may need to redefine failing for myself, because it's occurring to me that (likely due to good fortune and a life that's primarily consisted of being a student, something I do pretty well) I've never really had the chance to totally fail.

I've got a family who have always supported me, who, lucky for me, can no longer break my falls here in Moldova. I'm pretty good at expressing myself and being able to explain myself to others who can help to solve my problems, which is clearly not the case in my new Romanian-speaking world. I'm good at school, in American classrooms and from the little desks, rather than the big one, but here, I get to try my hand at the big desk in a whole new realm of an educational system.

All the obstacles I once encountered were, in my defense, "major" within the context of my life at a given time. I've had to pull all-nighters to complete projects. I've stressed myself senseless in social matters. I've even received a very few-- brace yourself-- average or slightly lower grades. I've worked a couple jobs at a time, slept too little, pulled through, and come through unscathed. When I pictured obstacles in the Peace Corps, I won't deny for a second that I expected once again to come in here, barrel through with my head down, work all night, stress myself stupid, pick up the pieces, and be successful.

I read the article above earlier, about how very necessary it must be for people to learn to fall hard, then stand up and move forward. I anticipate that at some point in my coming two years, I'll be overcome, I'll get in the way, I'll be rejected, I'll try really hard at things, and, when it's not meant to be, I won't succeed.

I expect that when that happens, I'm going to cry a lot. I do that. I think I'll sulk a bit. I do that, too. I think when I'm finished with all that, I'll get back up, brush off the dirt, and I'll try really hard again. My successes will count, even if they're not always huge, and maybe, just maybe, if I'm incredibly lucky, I can come away from this experience when all is said and done, able to fail with all the grace expected of a Peace Corps Volunteer-- the kind of grace that let's us laugh off statements like "The most important thing I've learned in these two years is how to fail" and then proceed to move forward just as successfully as ever, or more so.


And in line with my constant excitement at a chance to celebrate a small victory, I'm really pleased that I've embraced the idea of failing. Now, please, all of you, when I actually get around to those real failures, could you kindly remind me of just how valuable I'll have forgotten they are? Thanks a bunch-- knew you would.

Right There All Along

I've spent a whole lot of time since I've been at site praying for the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. I've serenely sat through long conversations that go on around me at the dinner table far faster than what I can comprehend. I've serenely lain in bed at night with the blanket over my head so I don't need to listen to the fly that bounces itself off the walls while I rest. I've serenely (mostly) ignored the staring and occasional pointing when I walk through town looking entirely out of place in a land of pointy high-heels and model-thin Moldovan girls. I've been so dead set on serenity, in fact, that I may well have been forgetting what else I've asked for-- courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

I would like to think that this isn't because I didn't possess these two things from the get-go, but because I'd completely forgotten about them. So, today, I put on my most courageous face (well, it probably didn't look all that courageous, but it was a start) and ventured out to make changes.

See, upon arrival at my site, I had three English teaching partners at my school, one of several schools in the town (raion center) in which I live. I had a grand total of four planning sessions. Two were with a partner with whom I ultimately taught one days' lessons before she fell ill and spent a week in the hospital, leaving me as her substitute. One was highly unsuccessful and culminated in one of my potential partners declaring that she would absolutely not work with me, and she called my supervisor the next morning to wash her hands of me. One was with the partner I collaborated with during our practice school period in training, but it was nothing like our previous, highly successful planning. She explained to me that these students are not as good as those who voluntarily attend summer practice school English lessons and that she doesn't have as much time for planning as she had there, so to begin, I'd serve as a replacement for the cassette recordings the school can't afford that are supposed to accompany the textbooks.

That last planning session happened to be on the same day that the director and adjunct directors of the school called me into a meeting to inform me that while the English teacher who was requesting a volunteer at the school last year would surely have had more than enough time to work with me, she's since moved to America and been replaced by the woman who was first to rid herself of the responsibility of me, and the two teachers remaining for me to work with have too many obligations to their families to devote their time to planning for our team taught lessons with me. She suggested three options to me: I could alternate with the teachers, teaching every other lesson and doing away with the time-consuming team teaching that is the very reason Peace Corps Moldova places English Education Volunteers in schools; I could convince the woman who does not desire to teach with me at all to accommodate me so that I take up less of the other teachers' time; or perhaps I could just leave the school and find a place where the teachers wanted me. By the next morning I was too upset to bring myself to even show up (which had no impact on anyone, considering my role as nothing more than a pronouncer) and I've since been to the school only a couple of times, never having the chance again to partner teach.

I have, since then, been at home, making myself stir-crazy and my host mother mortified at the useless American in her spare bedroom. It has really not been pretty.

Today, though, the director of the PC Moldova English Education program made the hours-long journey from her home in the capital to my site to visit the school with me and find a solution. Yes, changes!

We spoke first with my original school, and they confirmed yet again that they simply haven't the means to work with a volunteer right now. They would like me to remain friendly with the school and to consider collaborating on other projects, but team teaching just isn't an option. So, we left there and ventured to another school in the raion center, which our program director had called before to ask if they may consider taking a volunteer. Our visit to that school was very pleasant, and I think I may have found myself a place to finally teach!

We're going to start out slow, with me just observing for the remainder of this week and possibly the beginning of next, so that I don't risk stepping on toes and don't give anyone the impression again that I'm too needy to work with. Because it's a smaller school (only younger grades, instead of the 1-12 spread of the last school) there won't be quite enough classes here for me to fulfill all of my minimum number of hours required by Peace Corps.

The first suggestion was that perhaps to make up these hours I could have an optional class period with a few classes, teaching them alone. As much as I hate to turn down an opportunity to be in a place where I have a whole classroom of students to myself to call my own, the younger grades are really difficult to teach alone since my Romanian is so limited and their English even more so. I haven't ruled it out entirely, because I hope to wait and see if maybe the oldest couple of classes are advanced enough for that to be possible.

Another suggestion was that I could continue to teach just a class or two at my original school placement, working with the woman who I co-taught with in practice school during training. That might make it easier to run extra-curricular activities that involve students from both schools, and I'm considering it, but if I'm a bit leery that I'll be the textbook narrator yet again, and I really don't think that's a valuable use of my time. Again, it's under consideration.

The third option, while least likely to be feasible logistically, sounds awfully appealing to me, so I've got my fingers crossed. Another volunteer in a nearby raion mentioned to me last time that we spoke that she knows a university professor of English there who would be very excited to collaborate with a native English speaker to teach together, and suggested that I ask whether it may be possible to work with that professor once a week. It would mean a bit of extra travel time (and money) every week, but because the teachers with whom I'll work here now have no Friday classes, it would be feasible in terms of my schedule, and I think it could be really rewarding. These would likely be individuals training to be English teachers. I think if I could involve them in some way in the activities I do at my school, or maybe if I could provide them some bit of background about American culture or English language that they may pass along to their future students, it would be really valuable.

So, that was that. I finally mustered up the wisdom to see there are things we can change, and now I've got options to choose from so I can move forward and start doing the rewarding, valuable, teaching things that I've been dying to get involved in since well before I boarded my plane to Moldova.

I suppose I've had that wisdom at my disposal all along. It's about time I put it to use!

One Hundred and Counting

First off, I owe an apology to the people who I promised that I'd keep them posted. So far, I've done little more than send a couple mass emails, and I've become lazy in taking pictures because they're a hassle to upload. I know this overview of what I'm doing is a bit overdue and that most of you know what I'm up to by now, but I had to start somewhere. I'll try to do better from here on out.

Moving on, today is my one-hundredth day living in Moldova as a volunteer in the United States Peace Corps. So far, it's been some kind of ride. We began with a very full summer of training-- I and a handful of strangers who are now my very dear friends lived together in a village not far from the capital of the country and shared in the experience of language (Romanian), technical (English Education), and cross-cultural (How Moldova is Different from America) trainings for around eight hours a day, no less than six days a week. It was exhausting, stressful, challenging in more ways than I can count, and quite possibly the best summer of my life. I wouldn't trade it for anything, but I'm glad it's done.

Now I'm living in the raion center (≈ capital) of the raion (≈ district) called Edineţ. The town is fairly large for Moldova with a population of somewhere around 20,000 (though many work abroad) and a downtown stretch with a lovely public park, two supermarkets, a handful of restaurants and bars, and a fair selection of shops. There are three schools (two for Romanian-speaking students and one for Russian-speakers), the primaria (mayor's office), a police station, and if you walk far enough, a soccer field where people take their sheep to graze. I worried when I arrived that I wouldn't get comfortable in a place that felt so much less rural than I expected, but I'm becoming pretty attached to my site, and I think I'll spend a happy two years here.


The program to which I've been assigned by the Peace Corps is English Education. PC Moldova's setup doesn't fall entirely into the categories typically outlined in the Peace Corps's Education programs, as it has been designed to correspond to the Moldovan Ministry of Education's strict national curriculum. The goal for the program is that volunteers work alongside Moldovan teachers as part of an equal partnership, and the exchange of ideas between the two provides better English language education for students in the schools served while opening the eyes of Moldovan teachers to a variety of new possibilities in teaching. Ultimately, it is hoped that when the volunteer leaves, his or her influence will have impacted the teacher who remains in Moldova so significantly as to impact future years' students.

Realistically, not every teacher wants some younger, less experienced teacher coming into their classroom to try to make changes, so the program's goals aren't always necessarily met. In a perfect world, I'm hoping to ultimately leave some bit of a legacy of teaching ideas with the school in which I work at the end of two years, but since I'm just getting started, I'm willing to set my sites at the hope that my teachers will collaborate with me and allow me a role in their English classes. Those who know me best know that really, what I want most is to get out there and teach. I've encountered a few bumps in that road so far since I've been at site, but I have a meeting planned on Tuesday with me partners and I'm hopeful that we'll get rolling on the right track from there, so that we can develop some sort of healthy partnership.

While I do have (almost) reliable internet access here, I'm still working on figuring out the best way to upload pictures, as my connection is painfully slow. So far, I've uploaded a pile of the earliest ones I took to Facebook in an album that you're certainly welcome to explore. The bad news is that I haven't quite been able to edit the album to get rid of the silly ones I never intended to publish, and I haven't managed to add all the ones I took after that first week just yet. They're a good start, though, and a bit of an idea of what the country looks like, which is fun.

I am able to add a few pictures at a time to this blog even with my slow connection, so I think I'll take the time to tack on a little collection of my favorites so far:

The wildflowers in Moldova are just awesome-- everything that grows here is...

...including the snails...

... and the fruit.

One of our most exciting adventures was a hike to the top of the village's tallest hill to this huge stone cross.

My last day of "practice school" at the end of training, posing with my tenth-graders and my partner, Oxana.

On our last day of language training before swearing in, posing with our instructors Svetlana and Nadia.

It's not a wildly impressive photo-- I just really like all the cypresses I see here. They make me think Starry Night.

Our village happened to have a castle...

... which we later learned sits atop a huge, gorgeous wine cellar. We got a tour and tasting on our last night in the village.

I've seen an absurd number of goats since my arrival. This one had found a particularly unique place to graze.

This baby cow was one of my most important landmarks throughout training.

Okay, adding pictures proved a little more challenging than I thought. I was kind of inserting them blindly because the thumbnails couldn't load. I'll try a better approach next time.