Moldovan Ice Age

I see snow again.
Things once melted are now white.
Spring, Moldova. Spring!

Guess What I Found!

A church!

A real, live, people-filled, Protestant church right here in Edineț. Surprised? Well, I was.

It may not be exactly like churches I've called home before, starting with the fact that most of the service is in Russian and an handful of songs even in Roma, but that's not going to keep me from going back.

I think I found a new, friend, too. That's a pretty big deal here-- why, she's even fluent in English. Aside from my host family and their friends who are kind of mine by default, my Moldovan friends are a pretty short list, so adding someone to it is very exciting.

See, last week, during what was supposed to be our winter vacation, English Education volunteers and their Moldovan counterparts (teaching partners, school administrators, and other collegues) were invited (I say invited because it sounds nicer than mandated) to attend three days of training sessions in Chișinău on the development and implementation of secondary projects, which are basically any project that isn't teaching English classes during the school day to students. It was pretty good, though I spent most of the stay not feeling especially well (the last leg of Moldovan winter's been taking a toll on this wimpy American). The topics were interesting and the bonding time with other volunteers is always much appreciated.

While I was there, I bumped into my site mate, Adam. He also lives and works right here in Edineț, but we don't tend to see a lot of each other when we're in town. He's a year ahead of me, so he'll actually be heading out of Moldova in just a couple months after the school year ends and the new trainees ship in. He asked when I saw him if I'd be willing to fill in for him at an English club he runs with a Moldovan girl named Nadya at a youth center I'd never heard of on Saturday, because he had something to do in Chișinău, and of course I agreed. It's not like my Saturdays are typically very eventful, and I do love the whole teaching thing, plus he was volunteering to take care of the planning, so mostly, I'd just have to show up and lend a hand to his colleague who was too nervous to try to take charge of the group on her own.

As an afterthought, he added that he's hoping I'll step in and keep working with the club once he's left the country. That's a pretty big leap from "for a couple hours on Saturday," but I told him I'd think about it.

So, I returned to site in time for International Women's Day and my host mother's birthday (both fall on March eighth) and celebrated, Saturday came, and I met Nadya to head to English club. The kids' language skills aren't the best I've ever heard, but they're better than I was expecting, and more importantly, they showed up, on a Saturday, worked their hardest, and enjoyed themselves. I was as happy as a pig in mud. Really sloppy, smelly, English-y mud. Hmm... Pardon my mixed metaphor.

While talking to Nadya (who, by the way, turns out to be one of the sweetest people I've met in my entire life) on the way back, she mentioned that she attends a Protestant church in town, and that if I'd ever like to see it, I'm welcome. I said I'd love to go sometime, and so she asked if I was free the very next day. Considering that my Sunday plans at site almost never consist of anything more exciting than putting away laundry or constructing materials for a Monday lesson, I agreed.

We got to the church on Sunday, and it turned out to be absolutely awesome. There was music and scripture (Nadya even brought an English bible for me to be able to follow along) and I had my own personal translator for everything in Russian. Neither of us understood the parts in Roma, but that's all right. It was more than I ever expected to have translated for me. I told Nadya she didn't have to translate the whole service, songs and everything, for me, and that I would be totally content to just take in the atmosphere and read along in the scripture, but she was pleased to have the chance to practice translating, so I didn't have to miss a thing.

In fact, by the end I even managed to pick up the chorus of one of the songs-- Пой Аллилуйя Господу (It means sing hallelujah to the Lord, but it's pronounced like /Poy Allelujah Gospodu/. I also got the super rewarding experience of just forgoing language that can only come comfortably with children, and joined a handful of adorable kids in drawing and giggling at the back of the church after service for a bit. They all wanted to know if I'm going to come back, the obvious answer, да (/da/, which, of course, means "yes" in Russian, Romanian, and Roma. How handy.)

At the end of the service, almost everyone in the little church came by to say hello to me in some language or another and to ask who I was and why I'm in Moldova, what I do, where I work, and if I'm Christian. They were all so curious of me, it was kind of exciting. The majority of the congregation there are Roma (that's the politically correct term for the people who used to be known as Gypsies). The Roma people in Moldova have a really hard life, as the drastically most margianlized demographic in the country, often believed to be lazy, thieves, or even unholy. I was so happy to see that there was a place who had so happily accepted and welcomed this often discriminated-against community.

In addition to offering a place of worship, this church is doing really awesome things for a group who, because of how difficult it is here for Roma men and women to find jobs (due to the disrimination issues, mainly) are among the most impoverished in the country. They run a school in the downstairs portion of the building, where children whose families can't afford to buy them supplies and books to send them to public school attend without needing to bring anything of their own.

The church is sponsored by a religious group based in, if I remember correctly, Sweden, who sends the majority of the school materials and who was responsible a few months ago for finding a sponsor who purchased the church a new location, in place of the hall where they'd previously met that had drafty walls, broken windows, a leaking ceiling, and no floor at all. Moldovan weather tends to cause some pretty major mud issues, so their old location was definitely a problem, especially for the pastor and his wife, both Russian missionaries, and their two young children.

A few different people showed me around their new church building-- an older soviet style apartment, but still a far cry better than what it sounds like they used before-- and then the pastor's wife (who even knew a tiny bit of English) invited Nadya and I in for soup and tea and cookies. Moldovan hospitality never fails to disappoint. We ate and visited, we communicated in whatever languages we could manage, and the kids demonstrated for me their vast knowledge of animal names in English. All around, it was just wonderful. I couldn't have asked for a better day.

Looks like I may have found a way to occupy my weekends at site, and a pretty good one at that. :-)

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I Feel... Pretty?

I walked home yesterday from school planning on writing this in the afternoon, but our day was consumed by an "English Seminar," complete with teachers from all around the raion (like a county), observers making our students nervous during over-planned mock lessons, a big long concert-like production, a long evaluation and assessment session, and then a feast. By the time I actually made it back, there was really only one thing on my mind--



To be frank-- and I can be frank here, of all places, right?-- I'm just glad it's done. It didn't strike me as especially valuable, because nothing involved in the whole production was authentic, and I see no place for the affected in a school. I think it's just a personal preference. I can't help it-- if I'm in a classroom, I want to see real learning and real kids doing real activities within real lessons. I think there's something about the general noise and messiness of working with kids that appeals to me in itself, and it's not something much value is placed on here.

I do look forward to seeing it again someday when I get back to America, but for now, I'll just enjoy the little unapproved bits of it that organically arise in the times when students aren't doing quite what's expected in a Moldovanly frumos (read: beautiful) classroom.

Anyhow, on to what I meant to write about. I had sort of a crazy realization yesterday. Because we'd be having loads of visitors at the school and many of their eyes would, unfortunately, be on the token American who's not really a fan of being the center of attention (and also because I was up way early and had nothing better to do with my time) I got pretty well dolled up for class. I mean, by my standards for how I looked for most days of school in America, it wasn't much. By the time I walked downstairs in my skirt and turtleneck, no makeup, my host mom was telling me how pretty I looked, probably trying to boost my confidence for the seminar. It was nice of her.

I washed up and added my most Moldovan sweater (it's not something I'd have sported to school in Pennsylvania, but it's pretty stylish here), minimal makeup, and a pair of decent looking shoes. Really, it wasn't much, but I've got to say, it was a noticeable difference from how I usually look here. Thing is, I didn't feel especially good about myself all spruced up like that. I got, for the first time ever, the strange feeling that my appearance wasn't at all for me but for those watching me, and I didn't like it one bit. I felt unnatural.

Before arriving here, no one emphasized to me the importance of being frumos. No one thought that my appearance was a reflection of my respect for others, and no one was offended by my looking how I saw fit. I wore makeup more often than not, and it was because it made me feel good. I dressed up for school, and it was because that's how I was most confident. I bought pretty jewelry or new clothes from time to time, because I liked the way they made me feel.

There's a very peculiar focus here, though, on appearances, and I've found myself (sometimes unconsciously and other times very knowingly) bucking the system. Dress pants and a top under a cardigan are sufficient for school, and my hair's down when it's clean, pulled up on the day that it's going to need washing in the evening. Add that to the fact that most of what I packed to come here is now a tad too big for me, and by comparison to the other teachers here, I'm nothing fancy.

That's when I feel pretty.

See, I had this really awesome moment early in the school year when I visited another volunteer's site, and one of her high school age girls came in complaining that her feet were killing her. When the volunteer asked what happened, the girl showed her the pair of spike-heeled, pointy-toed shoes she had worn to school. They were standard Moldovan girl attire, nothing that I'd take much notice of here by that point, but they even looked painful.

"I don't know what to do-- I want to be healthy, but I also want to be beautiful," she explained.

Her explanation struck me in a way I didn't like one bit-- that's not a healthy way of thinking! I wouldn't have known how to respond, but the volunteer who I was visiting did.

She gestured to her worn out sandals and said simply "You don't need to pick-- I wear ugly shoes, and I'm beautiful."

Wow. So matter of fact? So sure?

Sure. That's what we're here for-- we're an example. We're an element of different in a culture full of same, and maybe we can get girls here thinking there's more to beauty than high heels and short skirts. Maybe there's more to self-worth than what others see in your clothes.

I figure I'll go back to America someday only slightly less focused on my looks than before-- I'll probably still look my best for school and put on my makeup even to go to Wal-Mart. I'll probably feel best that way.

Here though, I feel really good about taking a stand, in my own quiet way. I like that in my sensible American shoes, I walk like I'm on my way to do something good. I love that when my students see me walk in the room, they notice my smile before my lipstick. I feel beautiful here, because I think that the way I see myself, the way I carry myself, might be the example that lets some student here feel certain that conforming isn't what will make her impressive.

A seminar full of an audience when we're given specific instructions to look how we're expected to every once in a while? Okay, I'll follow orders.

Still though, in reality, I and the little girls I do believe are growing to look up to know that I come to school simply looking like me-- I show up however I feel best, shy of traipsing in in my sweatpants, and I'm not working to impress anyone with my looks, but still, when I look like myself, feel like myself, and am a reflection of a tiny bit of strength I hope can grow in them, too, well... I feel pretty.