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.