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!
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Thursday, October 27, 2011
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.
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.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, October 3, 2011
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.
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.
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