The last month and a half has been pretty eventful. I suppose the biggest event was that I went home (home home) and surprised my (real) parents for thanksgiving. That’s right, they went over to Anne’s (my sister’s) for Thanksgiving dinner thinking they were going to call me, but there I was, hehe! It was awesome. I hadn’t planned on going home at all, but in September I got pretty homesick and decided I wanted to go home for Thanksgiving. But by then I had already convinced my parents that I wasn’t coming home, so I decided to make it a surprise. I did enlist the help of two brilliant agents (my brother and sister), and we successfully completed the mission. My parents didn’t have a clue. I was able to pack a lot into my 8 full days at home, and I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep on this trip. But it was wonderful to see some friends and spend so much time with my family.
Was it strange to be back? Not really. It had been 1 year, 2 months, 2 weeks, and 1 day since the last time I had been in America, but in a way it felt like I had never left. There were things I appreciated more – like good roads, streets lit at night, hearing English everywhere, taking a shower every day, drinking water from the tap, not having to build a fire to heat the house, a toilet indoors, etc. But there were things that clearly just seemed wasteful – how much energy and water we consume, how much we drive unnecessarily, how much we throw away, how unnecessarily big everything is. I knew that we are a wasteful society before I even went to Moldova, but after experiencing the two lifestyles, the contrast is striking.
The second major event of late was Thanksgiving #2. I thought it would be a good idea to cook traditional Thanksgiving food for 50 Moldovans. It was. I billed the event as my 25th Birthday/Thanksgiving/American Christmas, and invited everyone who works at the school, my extended host family, all of the people working at the town hall, my partners and their families, and some random other villagers whom I have gotten to know over the last year, as well as 7 of my volunteer friends (no way could I do this myself). So I was prepared to have almost 60 guests. I was able to find most of the ingredients at the new supermarket in Soroca, but I had planned ahead and brought back a few items from home. It took a full week of preparing – gathering all ingredients, making sure I could use the space (the school cafeteria), writing my speech, preparing the entertainment, and of course, making all the food. We had one turkey (which was brought over the morning before, killed my my host dad, plucked my friend Lauren, and gutted by my neighbor), 8 grilled chickens, 8 batches of cornbread, 2 pounds of cranberry sauce, 14 cans worth of green bean casserole, 6 large bags of stuffing, 15 bowls of jello with floating fruit, 2 gallons of gravy, 25 pounds of mashed potatoes, 5 apple pies, 4 pumpkin pies (my first attempt at making a pumpkin pie, and with a pumpkin from scratch!), candy corn and candy canes, 4 liters of vodka, 20 liters of house wine, and 24 liters of water and soda. Whew. The liked the green beans and the stuffing, were interested by the cranberries (they don’t have them here), and loved the pies. We read some Thanksgiving facts, sang Christmas carols, put up turkey hands on the wall, and told about the various foods they had never seen. We laughed, we cried, we talked about how much we like each other. I got so many flowers my room is like a green house. The Moldovans all wished me a handsome husband and healthy children. They gave me a gift wrapped in 25 sheets of newspaper. We sang some more. They were amazed at how much the American guys helped out with everything – making food, serving the food, and cleaning up afterwards. All in all, it was a successful cultural exchange, and a feel-good afternoon. And my fellow volunteers were awesome; they made food, cleaned up, ran to the store and back, sang songs without complaining, and made me look good. I couldn’t have done it without them.
I had my ‘mid-service’ crisis in October (according to my manager), and while I still am not thrilled with me work here, at least I feel appreciated. When I went to my English class for the first time after having been gone for 2 weeks at home, the kids were all waiting outside, lined up on the front steps outside the school. As I approached from around the corner, they began singing Happy Birthday! It was so nice!! And they each gave me a kiss. My friend Lauren was with me, as this was the day that we were baking all the pies for Thanksgiving, and she was very impressed by how well the kids were doing with English, so that made me proud of them too. And the 50 Moldovans I invited to the party all chipped in a bought me a pair of really nice gold earrings – they know I love earrings, and they wanted me to have a pair that will last forever so that I will always remember Moldova! Wow.
The beginning of November was pretty relaxed. I spent a lot of time fighting with Windows Movie Maker while trying to put together a 10 minute film of my experiences in Moldova to be able to share with people at home. (My father now has a copy of it if you care to watch.) I put together more information for the Xavier choir, prepared and had my first business class with the kids in the bee project, took care of a lot of logistical items for that project, worked on some TARE preliminary planning (including choosing the new directors), continued with English lessons, translated and worked on improving a grant proposal with one of my partners, and studied for and took my Romanian language exam (I’m advanced now!). As a side project I edited my Austrian friend’s 180-page thesis on international business ethics (written in English). That in a way made me glad I’m no longer in school, and in a way made me wish I were still in school. It also made me miss Vienna terribly. There was also hram (village day) in the neighboring village, the opening of Mall-dova in Chisinau (looks like a real mall, but outrageous prices -- $150 for Lees jeans??). And I finally got Natasa (host sister) to come out with a bunch of volunteers – salsa night at a club in Chisinau. A good time was had by all, and I think I will have no trouble convincing her to come out in the future! ;-) Also, I’ll be singing with the village adult choir for the Christmas season. We’ve had a few rehearsals already; the director says I sing beautifully, hehe!
Well, I wish you all a very merry and blessed Christmas season. Enjoy the time spent with your families as we celebrate Christ’s arrival!
December 17, 2008
November 2, 2008
Pumpkins
Autumn is my favorite season. I love the crisp chilly air, the colors, the smells, the food! And in rural Moldova, there’s another whole element: the harvest. October turned out to be a beautiful month, with as much sun as there was rain in September. Everyone was out on their pieces of land, gathering their corn, or grapes, or potatoes, or whatever they had out there. Busloads of kids are taken from schools to work in the larger orchards, and everywhere you look you see horse-drawn carts stuffed with corn stalks and some dude sitting way up on top.
I’ve been spending as much time as possible outdoors, whether running or just walking around the village, trying to figure out who I could help. I spent one afternoon helping an older woman shuck her corn. She was sitting there on a little stool, with a huuuge pile of corn stalks from which she was removing the ears of corn and building smaller piles of the remaining stalks. The corn will feed the pigs in the coming year, and the stalks will go to the cows. Anyways, I had finished work early for the day, so I offered to help her out for awhile. We talked about everything, but she mostly chattered on about her family, which I didn’t mind hearing about. I admired her large pile of beautiful pumpkins in the back yard (we all know how much I love those!). After we finished for the day due to darkness, she of course invited me in for a tea, and as I was leaving she gave me the best pumpkin of the bunch! Woo hoo!
I spend another whole afternoon collecting mushrooms with one of my counterparts. We just took a pocket knife and plastic bag each and marched off into the woods across the street. The mushrooms are a big deal here. Everyone is always asking, ‘oh, did you go collect mushrooms yet?’ or, ‘I heard the Alexander Bun forest has better mushrooms than the Voloave forest!’ They are all trading recipes and methods of preserving them. It’s funny to see all these babas coming out of the forest with big bags of ‘shrooms. Anyways, my counterpart and I went aways back, since the woods had been pretty picked over already, and she showed me the difference between the good and bad mushrooms, and gave me tips on where to look. Well, I struggled at spotting them at first, because the forest floor was covered with leaves and the mushrooms blended in. But I started to get the hang of it. I had about a quarter of a bag and thought I was doing pretty good when I went over to check in with my counterpart, and she already had a whole huge bag and was well on her way with the second! Jeepers. But by the end of the day I had a whole sack, and my host ma was so proud of me when I dumped them out for her at home!
Last weekend I went with the whole host family to my host dad’s home village about 30 minutes north of my village to help his brother collect apples in his orchard. This was also a (mostly) pleasant experience. The weather was perfect, and the surrounding countryside beautiful and colorful. The orchard was about 15 rows, each a bit longer than a football field. There were 15 of us, and after a full day’s work, we managed to cover about 2/3 of it. It went like this. About 3 people per row went down one time and just picked the good apples, putting them in buckets, and then transferring them to larger sacks, which were then picked up by a man driving around the rows in a Lada. He then brought the apples to the edge of the orchard where he dumped them all in a huge pile. The second time down the row, we picked absolutely everything, even the fallen ones half-eaten by rabbits. These apples are destined for the juice factory. The work wasn’t too bad, although the weeds hadn’t been controlled, so I had so many scratches and burrs and thorns, and it was hard to find the apples that had fallen to the ground. I banged my head on branches so many times, and a lot of the time someone would just shake the tree to make the apples at the top fall, and I didn’t always hear the ‘get away’ signal and was thus bopped on the head more than once. The overall atmosphere was jolly, and of course there was food and vodka involved! At noon they spread out the food on top of the old Lada, and someone asked me, ‘I bet you don’t have this sort of uncivilized eating where you are from!’ And I said, actually we do, but we eat out of the trunk! Later in the afternoon we were busily working when all of a sudden a large chocolate cake appeared and everybody just rushed over, over-turned their buckets in between two rows, and dug in. It was pretty delicious, and welcomed.
Halloween was nice. I turned down various volunteer get-togethers for some chillaxin’ at home, and a mini party with my English kids. I told them about our trick-or-treating tradition, gave them some candy, and they came over and we carved pumpkins outside my fence. They were all pretty proud of theirs, but they all agreed that mine was the coolest, hehe. Well, since we couldn’t actually go trick-or-treating, they decided to take their lit jack-o-laterns and walk around the village scaring people. Well, I had made the mistake of singing that dumb kids song, you know the one -- ‘trick or treat, smell my feet....i’ll pull down your underwear.’ I gave them a rough translation, and then made it clear that we wouldn’t actually sing that at anyone’s house. Well, at one stop, there were a few older teenagers hanging out outside, and one of my girls, who usually is very quiet, yells out, ‘give us some candy or we’ll pull down your pants!!’ It was so incredibly hilarious, especially coming from her. Ya, I'm a real good influence on the kids over here.
Another fall event was the anual Wine Festival. There were small celebrations in each of the regional centers, and one large festival in Chisinau. A rather large number of us volunteers gathered on a gorgeous Saturday, took over an area of tables set up in the park, and just sat around talking all day, buying wine and food from the numourous exhibitioners in their booths surrounding the main square, listening to the music being played by different groups on the huge stage, moseying around the arts and crafts exhibits set up in the park, and talking with people from all over. I was ‘cheers-ing’ in about 6 different languages that day. And so we celebrated Moldova’s most prized product. Good times.
Have I done any actual work this month, you ask? Well yes, as you can see from the previous entry, we’ve finally gotten the beekeeping class up and running. I begin my business lectures in a week, so I have been preparing those. I have been preparing a bit better for my English classes, now that we have manuals that we can work with. My kids brought me apples last week, it was so cute. What else...my co-directors and I have had some strategic planning sessions for our women’s camp. I’ve been doing the occasional research/advising for various community members who have come into the office asking for information. There are a few women who would like to grow mushrooms (seems a little less risky than just going out to pick them, know what I mean?). I’ve also worked out a deal with the Xavier (my high school) choir to trade Moldovan music and culture for a little bit of financial support for the children’s music group in the village. So I’ve been busy putting together music and information for them.
I’ve also been busy adjusting to life with parents again. As I mentioned last month, my host parents returned from the Czech Repbulic, so it is a full house. I had just started to be really comfortable with my life just me and Natasha, and then all of a sudden it was like I was back to being a guest. I no longer make dinner, wash dishes, sweep, clean stuff, feed the dog, etc, because they just do it all while I’m at work. So I feel like a lazy worthless bum at home. Sometimes I manage to convince them to let me wash the dishes. And it’s strange hanging panties out on the line right in front of my host dad, ya know? And if Natasha and I want to talk girl-talk, we have to switch over to English, which is strange since we never spoke English before. But I’ll get used to it all, I suppose!
Well that’s all for this month folks, thanks for reading!
I’ve been spending as much time as possible outdoors, whether running or just walking around the village, trying to figure out who I could help. I spent one afternoon helping an older woman shuck her corn. She was sitting there on a little stool, with a huuuge pile of corn stalks from which she was removing the ears of corn and building smaller piles of the remaining stalks. The corn will feed the pigs in the coming year, and the stalks will go to the cows. Anyways, I had finished work early for the day, so I offered to help her out for awhile. We talked about everything, but she mostly chattered on about her family, which I didn’t mind hearing about. I admired her large pile of beautiful pumpkins in the back yard (we all know how much I love those!). After we finished for the day due to darkness, she of course invited me in for a tea, and as I was leaving she gave me the best pumpkin of the bunch! Woo hoo!
I spend another whole afternoon collecting mushrooms with one of my counterparts. We just took a pocket knife and plastic bag each and marched off into the woods across the street. The mushrooms are a big deal here. Everyone is always asking, ‘oh, did you go collect mushrooms yet?’ or, ‘I heard the Alexander Bun forest has better mushrooms than the Voloave forest!’ They are all trading recipes and methods of preserving them. It’s funny to see all these babas coming out of the forest with big bags of ‘shrooms. Anyways, my counterpart and I went aways back, since the woods had been pretty picked over already, and she showed me the difference between the good and bad mushrooms, and gave me tips on where to look. Well, I struggled at spotting them at first, because the forest floor was covered with leaves and the mushrooms blended in. But I started to get the hang of it. I had about a quarter of a bag and thought I was doing pretty good when I went over to check in with my counterpart, and she already had a whole huge bag and was well on her way with the second! Jeepers. But by the end of the day I had a whole sack, and my host ma was so proud of me when I dumped them out for her at home!
Last weekend I went with the whole host family to my host dad’s home village about 30 minutes north of my village to help his brother collect apples in his orchard. This was also a (mostly) pleasant experience. The weather was perfect, and the surrounding countryside beautiful and colorful. The orchard was about 15 rows, each a bit longer than a football field. There were 15 of us, and after a full day’s work, we managed to cover about 2/3 of it. It went like this. About 3 people per row went down one time and just picked the good apples, putting them in buckets, and then transferring them to larger sacks, which were then picked up by a man driving around the rows in a Lada. He then brought the apples to the edge of the orchard where he dumped them all in a huge pile. The second time down the row, we picked absolutely everything, even the fallen ones half-eaten by rabbits. These apples are destined for the juice factory. The work wasn’t too bad, although the weeds hadn’t been controlled, so I had so many scratches and burrs and thorns, and it was hard to find the apples that had fallen to the ground. I banged my head on branches so many times, and a lot of the time someone would just shake the tree to make the apples at the top fall, and I didn’t always hear the ‘get away’ signal and was thus bopped on the head more than once. The overall atmosphere was jolly, and of course there was food and vodka involved! At noon they spread out the food on top of the old Lada, and someone asked me, ‘I bet you don’t have this sort of uncivilized eating where you are from!’ And I said, actually we do, but we eat out of the trunk! Later in the afternoon we were busily working when all of a sudden a large chocolate cake appeared and everybody just rushed over, over-turned their buckets in between two rows, and dug in. It was pretty delicious, and welcomed.
Halloween was nice. I turned down various volunteer get-togethers for some chillaxin’ at home, and a mini party with my English kids. I told them about our trick-or-treating tradition, gave them some candy, and they came over and we carved pumpkins outside my fence. They were all pretty proud of theirs, but they all agreed that mine was the coolest, hehe. Well, since we couldn’t actually go trick-or-treating, they decided to take their lit jack-o-laterns and walk around the village scaring people. Well, I had made the mistake of singing that dumb kids song, you know the one -- ‘trick or treat, smell my feet....i’ll pull down your underwear.’ I gave them a rough translation, and then made it clear that we wouldn’t actually sing that at anyone’s house. Well, at one stop, there were a few older teenagers hanging out outside, and one of my girls, who usually is very quiet, yells out, ‘give us some candy or we’ll pull down your pants!!’ It was so incredibly hilarious, especially coming from her. Ya, I'm a real good influence on the kids over here.
Another fall event was the anual Wine Festival. There were small celebrations in each of the regional centers, and one large festival in Chisinau. A rather large number of us volunteers gathered on a gorgeous Saturday, took over an area of tables set up in the park, and just sat around talking all day, buying wine and food from the numourous exhibitioners in their booths surrounding the main square, listening to the music being played by different groups on the huge stage, moseying around the arts and crafts exhibits set up in the park, and talking with people from all over. I was ‘cheers-ing’ in about 6 different languages that day. And so we celebrated Moldova’s most prized product. Good times.
Have I done any actual work this month, you ask? Well yes, as you can see from the previous entry, we’ve finally gotten the beekeeping class up and running. I begin my business lectures in a week, so I have been preparing those. I have been preparing a bit better for my English classes, now that we have manuals that we can work with. My kids brought me apples last week, it was so cute. What else...my co-directors and I have had some strategic planning sessions for our women’s camp. I’ve been doing the occasional research/advising for various community members who have come into the office asking for information. There are a few women who would like to grow mushrooms (seems a little less risky than just going out to pick them, know what I mean?). I’ve also worked out a deal with the Xavier (my high school) choir to trade Moldovan music and culture for a little bit of financial support for the children’s music group in the village. So I’ve been busy putting together music and information for them.
I’ve also been busy adjusting to life with parents again. As I mentioned last month, my host parents returned from the Czech Repbulic, so it is a full house. I had just started to be really comfortable with my life just me and Natasha, and then all of a sudden it was like I was back to being a guest. I no longer make dinner, wash dishes, sweep, clean stuff, feed the dog, etc, because they just do it all while I’m at work. So I feel like a lazy worthless bum at home. Sometimes I manage to convince them to let me wash the dishes. And it’s strange hanging panties out on the line right in front of my host dad, ya know? And if Natasha and I want to talk girl-talk, we have to switch over to English, which is strange since we never spoke English before. But I’ll get used to it all, I suppose!
Well that’s all for this month folks, thanks for reading!
October 15, 2008
Help!
Ok, folks, my beekeeping and business project is posted on the Peace Corps website! Here is the link to my project: https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=261-176. Instructions for donating and tax stuff are on the website. Anything you can help us out with would be greatly appreciated!! Even if you can't donate, you might want to take a look at the site and you can get an idea of the type of projects that I and the other 8,000 volunteers across the world are doing. Thank you!
October 6, 2008
Smiles, Laughter, and Hugs
Well, September has come and gone. I accomplished almost everything I was hoping to. We sent out the survey and informational brochure for the Economic Planning Center, and already we have seen results. Many people have come in to run ideas by us, and more people have just randomly been approaching me in the village to say hi and see what’s up. Hopefully I will find a few solid entrepreneurs to work with to really get a business going over the next year. My partner and I revised the business plan (a web design business that we had originally tried to get going in the summer) and were able to pull all the necessary materials together to submit the entire proposal to the agency running the grant program in time. Now we’re just waiting to hear if we win the money for the initial investment in the business. The fall issue of the TARE newsletter (for all past participants of the women’s empowerment camp) will be ready to go out this next week. We heard back from many of the young women from this summer’s camp who have already done seminars in their villages. A few of the girls who live in a larger village are even working to put together a monthly seminar series to share what they learned with the other women in their village. We’ve heard success stories of getting into universities or study abroad programs or starting clubs in their villages. This is of course all great news, and a point for us in the dreaded ‘sustainability’ column!
English lessons are going well so far this year. I have it down to one group of 12 students who are really committed to learning. I was able to procure some manuals for us to use this year, which I think will be a big help. The third lesson of the school year Kirk was in the village, so my kids were able to show off their skills a little bit. I was very proud of how well they were able to converse with him, and despite the long summer vacation they improved greatly from when my family was here in May. The beekeeping class is almost ready to go. That grant proposal should be approved and up on the website within the next two weeks or so, and then YOU can help us out by donating. The idea is for the students in grades 7-9 to learn business and beekeeping through a hands-on approach. They have very few options for extra-curriculars, no exposure to ideas of business until the university level, and no opportunity to learn the skill of beekeeping, which not only can be a source of income from the sale of honey and wax, but is necessary for every community that relies on agriculture as its main source of income because pollenation leads to higher crop yields. The class will meet once a week and cover all the soft and hard skills, and the kids will have responsibility for 5 families of bees, all the way from the hiving to the harvest of the honey. We need money for the procurement of the bees and equipment. The instructor, space, storage, and lecture materials will all be provided by the community. So, if you want to help make this project a reality, stay tuned to find out how you can donate!
As for the yard work...we canned 7 jars of marinated tomatoes, another 10 of marinated peppers and tomatoes, 4 of egg plant, and a million of jam. We got rid of all the tomato plants in the garden, and have two large bins of garlic and onions. So I thought we had done pretty well. Well, my host parents came home, and after one week the yard looked completely different! They got rid of all the weeds and dead plants, picked the grapes and trimmed up the vines, and cleaned out the path to the outhouse. There are now two piglets and a handful of chickens. There is also a car in the garage and a new stove/oven. I guess they were pretty successful and saving money while they were working in the Czech Republic! It’s nice that they are home, but now I’m going to have to get used to not having all of the freedom that I enjoyed while it was just me and Natasha.
Our one year celebration was a lot of fun. About 25 out of 34 of us made it to the campsite for the two days that we had festivities. I won the grill competition – melted beans and cheese on toast. Oh yeah. It was rainy and cold the entire time, but our spirits were high. We had a lot of good memories and compliments to share with each other, and encouragements to give for the coming year. I feel truly blessed to be a part of this group, because we have all bonded really well and been so supportive of each other. I definitely have some lifelong friends here. The few times that I’ve been overwhelmed by life here I was picked up so quickly by them.
I almost didn’t make it to the one-year celebration because on the morning I was supposed to leave I got locked in the outhouse. Talk about a nightmare. I mean, I was literally locked IN THE OUTHOUSE. There is a little piece of wood that spins on a nail on the outside of the outhouse, and when we are not inside we twist it so that it covers the opening and the door won’t swing open in the wind. Well....this piece of wood was getting pretty loose, and when I went in the outhouse, it swung back on it’s own into the locked position, and I couldn’t open the door from the inside!!!! I was home alone, natasha gone for work for the day and my parents still in the Czech. I could see the neighbors in the garden off aways, but they were hammering and couldn’t hear my pleas for help. I discovered that the roof could be lifted off a bit, and I tried shouting through there, but no one heard me. I tried climbing out, but there was nowhere to put my feet to hoist myself out. I tried jiggling the door, sticking rolled toilet paper through the crack, but the wood wouldn’t budge. I started to panic. What if I was in there all day?! The people at work knew I wasn’t coming in that day because I was going to Chisinau, so no one would know that I was missing until that evening. Finally I noticed that the door was made up of plastic panels surrounded by a wood frame. I forced out the top panel and stuck it through the opening and pushed open the lock!!! Genius!! I survived 20 minutes locked in the outhouse - I’m ready for anything now!
As for my vacation, it was great! Kirk got a tour of Chișinău (thoroughly covered in about 30 minutes), and we met up with a bunch of volunteers and went wine tasting at one of the larger wine cellars a bit outside of Chișinău. We spend a day picking grapes in the village where I had my training, which was a great experience. We walked up at 10 am and, in typical Moldovan fashion, were immediately given two shots of vodka and some placinte to get us going for the day of work! The weekend in my village was hram (the celebration of the village), which meant lots of eating. So we had two nights of eating and vodka, and my host parents were back from abroad, so there was extra hoopla at my house. By the end of the evening, I was selectively translationg what was being said. ;) Unfortunately the town dance was cancelled because of all the rain we’d been having.
After 5 days in Moldova, we headed out to Romania for what we hoped would be some good trekking. But unfortunately the weather was not on our side, and we only got in about 2 days. Dracula’s castle in Transylvania was a rather large disappointment, and we had a few mishaps along the way, but overall it was still a fun trip. We went out to the Black Sea for a day, and wandered around Buchareșt, and for my sake, we spent a day at the mall, bowling, and the movies. And I went to Pizza Hut three times. We met some awesome people throughout the travels, which I always think of as the best part of any trip. One nice man drove us all the way from the mountains back into the center of Brasov and told us the real story of Dracula (or Vlad the Impaler). An 83-year old energetic man led us to a trail head one day, and he told us how he walks every day and climbs the hill 3 days a week. We stayed in the guesthouse of one really nice woman who spoke German and let me borrow her personal shampoo. Another nice young man let me use the internet on his phone to try to find a hostel while we were on the train to Buchareșt (there was something fishy about how he was obtaining this service though...). A waiter at a mountain cafe pleasantly informed us that the cabana we had been searching for had actually burned down 6 years ago. Two older gentlemen on the bus back from the airport kept me company and made me feel better when I was homesick and sad about parting from my friend. A nice girl saved us from getting fines for not punching our bus tickets (we tried, really we did, it was confusing.) And so on. The world is full of great people, and someone always seems to come along at just the right moment to say the right thing, or just to put a smile on your face. :)
To me, smiles, laughter, and hugs are three of the greatest things in life. And luckily, they are (mostly) universal!
English lessons are going well so far this year. I have it down to one group of 12 students who are really committed to learning. I was able to procure some manuals for us to use this year, which I think will be a big help. The third lesson of the school year Kirk was in the village, so my kids were able to show off their skills a little bit. I was very proud of how well they were able to converse with him, and despite the long summer vacation they improved greatly from when my family was here in May. The beekeeping class is almost ready to go. That grant proposal should be approved and up on the website within the next two weeks or so, and then YOU can help us out by donating. The idea is for the students in grades 7-9 to learn business and beekeeping through a hands-on approach. They have very few options for extra-curriculars, no exposure to ideas of business until the university level, and no opportunity to learn the skill of beekeeping, which not only can be a source of income from the sale of honey and wax, but is necessary for every community that relies on agriculture as its main source of income because pollenation leads to higher crop yields. The class will meet once a week and cover all the soft and hard skills, and the kids will have responsibility for 5 families of bees, all the way from the hiving to the harvest of the honey. We need money for the procurement of the bees and equipment. The instructor, space, storage, and lecture materials will all be provided by the community. So, if you want to help make this project a reality, stay tuned to find out how you can donate!
As for the yard work...we canned 7 jars of marinated tomatoes, another 10 of marinated peppers and tomatoes, 4 of egg plant, and a million of jam. We got rid of all the tomato plants in the garden, and have two large bins of garlic and onions. So I thought we had done pretty well. Well, my host parents came home, and after one week the yard looked completely different! They got rid of all the weeds and dead plants, picked the grapes and trimmed up the vines, and cleaned out the path to the outhouse. There are now two piglets and a handful of chickens. There is also a car in the garage and a new stove/oven. I guess they were pretty successful and saving money while they were working in the Czech Republic! It’s nice that they are home, but now I’m going to have to get used to not having all of the freedom that I enjoyed while it was just me and Natasha.
Our one year celebration was a lot of fun. About 25 out of 34 of us made it to the campsite for the two days that we had festivities. I won the grill competition – melted beans and cheese on toast. Oh yeah. It was rainy and cold the entire time, but our spirits were high. We had a lot of good memories and compliments to share with each other, and encouragements to give for the coming year. I feel truly blessed to be a part of this group, because we have all bonded really well and been so supportive of each other. I definitely have some lifelong friends here. The few times that I’ve been overwhelmed by life here I was picked up so quickly by them.
I almost didn’t make it to the one-year celebration because on the morning I was supposed to leave I got locked in the outhouse. Talk about a nightmare. I mean, I was literally locked IN THE OUTHOUSE. There is a little piece of wood that spins on a nail on the outside of the outhouse, and when we are not inside we twist it so that it covers the opening and the door won’t swing open in the wind. Well....this piece of wood was getting pretty loose, and when I went in the outhouse, it swung back on it’s own into the locked position, and I couldn’t open the door from the inside!!!! I was home alone, natasha gone for work for the day and my parents still in the Czech. I could see the neighbors in the garden off aways, but they were hammering and couldn’t hear my pleas for help. I discovered that the roof could be lifted off a bit, and I tried shouting through there, but no one heard me. I tried climbing out, but there was nowhere to put my feet to hoist myself out. I tried jiggling the door, sticking rolled toilet paper through the crack, but the wood wouldn’t budge. I started to panic. What if I was in there all day?! The people at work knew I wasn’t coming in that day because I was going to Chisinau, so no one would know that I was missing until that evening. Finally I noticed that the door was made up of plastic panels surrounded by a wood frame. I forced out the top panel and stuck it through the opening and pushed open the lock!!! Genius!! I survived 20 minutes locked in the outhouse - I’m ready for anything now!
As for my vacation, it was great! Kirk got a tour of Chișinău (thoroughly covered in about 30 minutes), and we met up with a bunch of volunteers and went wine tasting at one of the larger wine cellars a bit outside of Chișinău. We spend a day picking grapes in the village where I had my training, which was a great experience. We walked up at 10 am and, in typical Moldovan fashion, were immediately given two shots of vodka and some placinte to get us going for the day of work! The weekend in my village was hram (the celebration of the village), which meant lots of eating. So we had two nights of eating and vodka, and my host parents were back from abroad, so there was extra hoopla at my house. By the end of the evening, I was selectively translationg what was being said. ;) Unfortunately the town dance was cancelled because of all the rain we’d been having.
After 5 days in Moldova, we headed out to Romania for what we hoped would be some good trekking. But unfortunately the weather was not on our side, and we only got in about 2 days. Dracula’s castle in Transylvania was a rather large disappointment, and we had a few mishaps along the way, but overall it was still a fun trip. We went out to the Black Sea for a day, and wandered around Buchareșt, and for my sake, we spent a day at the mall, bowling, and the movies. And I went to Pizza Hut three times. We met some awesome people throughout the travels, which I always think of as the best part of any trip. One nice man drove us all the way from the mountains back into the center of Brasov and told us the real story of Dracula (or Vlad the Impaler). An 83-year old energetic man led us to a trail head one day, and he told us how he walks every day and climbs the hill 3 days a week. We stayed in the guesthouse of one really nice woman who spoke German and let me borrow her personal shampoo. Another nice young man let me use the internet on his phone to try to find a hostel while we were on the train to Buchareșt (there was something fishy about how he was obtaining this service though...). A waiter at a mountain cafe pleasantly informed us that the cabana we had been searching for had actually burned down 6 years ago. Two older gentlemen on the bus back from the airport kept me company and made me feel better when I was homesick and sad about parting from my friend. A nice girl saved us from getting fines for not punching our bus tickets (we tried, really we did, it was confusing.) And so on. The world is full of great people, and someone always seems to come along at just the right moment to say the right thing, or just to put a smile on your face. :)
To me, smiles, laughter, and hugs are three of the greatest things in life. And luckily, they are (mostly) universal!
September 3, 2008
Is It September Already?
I’m not really sure what happened to summer. One minute it was here, and then it was gone. Unfortunately, after writing about all the cool stuff that was finally happening, I managed to get myself invalid status for two weeks. At the last baseball game I got drilled in the leg near my inside ankle really hard. Twice. I’ve been hit with a baseball before, and yeah, it stings, but no big deal, right? So I went back to site thinking it would pass. Well, by the end of the week, it looked like I had elephantitus of the foot, there was a huge elevated lump on my shin, and it was completely blue all the way down to my toes (luckily I had painted my toenails purple, so it matched). I also could barely walk. I had a rather pleasant Friday giving seminars to 12 girls in a fellow volunteer’s village, but I was on my feet the whole day, and by then I realized I needed to do something about this. It’s not a good sign when everybody has a look of horror on their faces after looking at my leg. So I went in to our doctor at Peace Corps, who had me get an x-ray. Not broken, no hairline fracture like I feared. Ok, so then we go to the ‘traumatologist’ at the local hospital (dark and scary!). His immediate response was ‘cut it open and let it drain out.’ I wasn’t so thrilled with that, so we settled on extracting the extra fluid with a syringe. So we did the ‘procedure’ back at Peace Corps (they proudly showed me all of the black goop they took out), and I began two weeks of sitting with my leg elevated and daily electro-therapy treatments. At the end of the two weeks, our doctor stabbed me again and took out the remaining fluid. By now my foot had returned to its normal size and color, and it no longer hurt to walk. Crisis over. But do you have any idea how hard it was for me to sit around for 2 weeks?! Peace Corps has an apartment next to our office in the capital where all of the volunteers stay for free if we are sick, or if we have to come in for a medical appointment and can’t make it back to our site in the same day. I managed to avoid this place for more than 11 months, and then wham! – 13 nights. The upside is that it is the nicest apartment I’ve seen in Moldova, located right above a convenience store, and there is usually at least one other sick person each night to play movie trivia, watch movies, or do puzzles with. I did as much work as I could without actually being at site, so that occupied me for about a day. For the first week I was able to watch the Olympics from 8-noon everyday on NBC, which we get in the volunteer lounge. I also watched 13 movies and 12 episodes of Saved by the Bell, read 3 books, and did most of a 1000 piece puzzle, and wrote a lot of emails. Conveniently, we also had a two-day language training during this time, so my whole group was in town for a few nights. But I obviously couldn’t run, or work out really at all, or do anything worthwhile. I felt like a lazy, worthless, blob.
Last week a supermarket opened in Soroca. A real one. Not huge, but enough that I felt like I was walking into Rainbow, or Copps. Now I don’t have to go to Chișinău to get my grocery store experience. However, we volunteers have been talking about the fact that we are here to help small business development, but then we are super excited any time we get to go to a large chain grocery store. This new store will definitely have its effects on the farmers and mom-and-pop convenience stores in my region. I was expecting a reaction to the opening of this store somewhat comparable to some of the Wal-mart protesting. However, so far I’ve only heard wonder and awe on the part of the Moldovan people. They are amazed at the space – not having to move through a throng of people and being bumped and pushed from all sides like at the piața. They love that you can pick everything off of the shelves yourself and see everything clearly and read the labels, without a salesperson having to get it from behind a counter or pressuring you to hurry up, as happens in the small convenience stores. They are amazed at the variety of options, the pre-cut, de-fatted and de-boned meat, the semi-prepared packaged food, the fruits and veggies out of season, the fact that you can absolutely everything you need in one place. They were pleasantly surprised that prices were comparable, or in many cases even lower than at the piața or in the convenience stores. And of course there is the lure of the fact that it is inside, which means they don’t have to go to the outdoor piața if it is raining, too hot, or too cold. A less tangible benefit is the pride or higher standard of living that it gives people. “See Kate?’ they tell me, ‘we are becoming civilized too!’
But what does this mean for the small guy? Those hundreds of people who sell their produce at the piața, or who own the smaller convenience stores? Some of them will make it, but certainly not all of them. And for many of them, that is absolutely all they have for income! What will they do? Sure, this new supermarket will provide jobs to maybe 100 people, but hundreds more will lose out. Not to mention the fact that the supermarket is of course foreign-owned, meaning that the profits are flowing right on out of the country. Unfortunately, such is the reality of globalization. What the solution is, I have yet discover. And should I feel guilty for enjoying the fact that I can go to the supermarket this winter and buy avocados instead of getting cabbage at the piața? I feel like I’m back in junior religion class when Mr. Mauthe convincingly argued that it was a sin to eat at a restaurant....
On a happier and less complicated topic, September 1 was the first day of school here, and coincidentally, my first day back to work after my two-week foot debacle. It was a great day, one that made me glad to be here. I started by going to the opening ceremonies at school. The whole gang from the mayor’s office was there, and they were all thrilled to see me, going on about how much they missed me, that it was a different feel without me around, what are they going to do when I leave for good next year, etc. (Do you see my head inflating?) And then some of my English kids caught sight of me and came running over. I had been hiding in the back of the crowd, but all of a sudden I was a crowd. I had decided that this year I only wanted to work with the 6 students who I knew were actually learning and studying the language each week last year. I am not here to teach, and I don’t really know how, and I don’t want to spend my time teaching them the same words, and dealing with a classroom of rowdy kids, when I could be helping those few who really could learn something over the next year. To be honest, I’m not really sure why there are so many who kept on coming last year, and who want to keep coming this year. Surely the novelty of the American has worn off? So anyways, the point is, I had decided that I only wanted to take 6 kids this year, but then no less than 20 were so excited that classes would start up again and kept asking me when. And there were more parents who were asking me to take their kids this year because they had learned a bit of English in Moscow, or in Balti or where-have-you. And seeing the excitement and enthusiasm on their faces, I couldn’t say no! So we’ll see. First class is Friday, and I’ll be laying down ground rules for this year. So anyways, the kids and I stood in the back of the crowd, giggling and talking about this at that, while the priest was up there blessing everything in sight and spraying holy water. After the ceremony, most of the teachers came up and said hello, asked about my foot, said they were looking forward to this or that thing that I was going to help them with in the near future. And so on throughout the day. Whenever I was walking anywhere, I ran into people I hadn’t seen for weeks, and so I would stop to talk for longer than usual. The day was really an ego-booster. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t done anything for two weeks, they were just glad to see me. I also just like being back in the village, where everyone greets each other. I called out a greeting to a baba (an older woman) pulling water from a well, and she turned around so quickly with a smile, eager to return the greeting to whomever had greeted her. I called out a ‘Lord help you!’ to a man working in his garden, and he gave me an appreciative thank you, a big smile, and a wave. Home sweet home.
So not only did summer fly by, but September already has a full agenda. My counterparts and I have created a survey and an informational brochure for the Economic Planning Center that we run. It will go out to all the families in the two villages that make up our community. We want to make them more aware of the services we offer, as well as to get an idea of what kind of projects and services they would be most interested in. So that needs to get out within the next week (the logistics of printing, copying, and distributing have been more time consuming than the actual creation of the materials!). I also have the next issue of the TARE newsletter to work on, the beekeeping class to get up and running, and English lessons and materials to prepare. We are also revising the business plan I mentioned in my last entry in order to submit it for a different grant program. In addition to that, there still is some canning to do, the garden needs to be cleaned up, and the grapes need to be picked and the wine made (that can take a week itself). Also, hram, the annual day of the village is on the 21st, and that involves a lot of cleaning and food preparation, many guests, and in general, craziness. AND, September 12th marks exactly one year since arrival in country, so our entire group (or rather, the 34 of us who remain) is spending a few days together to celebrate. Woo hoo! Oh, and on the 18th I receive my first non-family visitor! Kirk is coming to check out Moldovan life for a few days, and then we’re hitting the mountains in Romania for a week at the end of the month. Woo hoo again! So I guess I’ll have a lot to write about next month!
Last week a supermarket opened in Soroca. A real one. Not huge, but enough that I felt like I was walking into Rainbow, or Copps. Now I don’t have to go to Chișinău to get my grocery store experience. However, we volunteers have been talking about the fact that we are here to help small business development, but then we are super excited any time we get to go to a large chain grocery store. This new store will definitely have its effects on the farmers and mom-and-pop convenience stores in my region. I was expecting a reaction to the opening of this store somewhat comparable to some of the Wal-mart protesting. However, so far I’ve only heard wonder and awe on the part of the Moldovan people. They are amazed at the space – not having to move through a throng of people and being bumped and pushed from all sides like at the piața. They love that you can pick everything off of the shelves yourself and see everything clearly and read the labels, without a salesperson having to get it from behind a counter or pressuring you to hurry up, as happens in the small convenience stores. They are amazed at the variety of options, the pre-cut, de-fatted and de-boned meat, the semi-prepared packaged food, the fruits and veggies out of season, the fact that you can absolutely everything you need in one place. They were pleasantly surprised that prices were comparable, or in many cases even lower than at the piața or in the convenience stores. And of course there is the lure of the fact that it is inside, which means they don’t have to go to the outdoor piața if it is raining, too hot, or too cold. A less tangible benefit is the pride or higher standard of living that it gives people. “See Kate?’ they tell me, ‘we are becoming civilized too!’
But what does this mean for the small guy? Those hundreds of people who sell their produce at the piața, or who own the smaller convenience stores? Some of them will make it, but certainly not all of them. And for many of them, that is absolutely all they have for income! What will they do? Sure, this new supermarket will provide jobs to maybe 100 people, but hundreds more will lose out. Not to mention the fact that the supermarket is of course foreign-owned, meaning that the profits are flowing right on out of the country. Unfortunately, such is the reality of globalization. What the solution is, I have yet discover. And should I feel guilty for enjoying the fact that I can go to the supermarket this winter and buy avocados instead of getting cabbage at the piața? I feel like I’m back in junior religion class when Mr. Mauthe convincingly argued that it was a sin to eat at a restaurant....
On a happier and less complicated topic, September 1 was the first day of school here, and coincidentally, my first day back to work after my two-week foot debacle. It was a great day, one that made me glad to be here. I started by going to the opening ceremonies at school. The whole gang from the mayor’s office was there, and they were all thrilled to see me, going on about how much they missed me, that it was a different feel without me around, what are they going to do when I leave for good next year, etc. (Do you see my head inflating?) And then some of my English kids caught sight of me and came running over. I had been hiding in the back of the crowd, but all of a sudden I was a crowd. I had decided that this year I only wanted to work with the 6 students who I knew were actually learning and studying the language each week last year. I am not here to teach, and I don’t really know how, and I don’t want to spend my time teaching them the same words, and dealing with a classroom of rowdy kids, when I could be helping those few who really could learn something over the next year. To be honest, I’m not really sure why there are so many who kept on coming last year, and who want to keep coming this year. Surely the novelty of the American has worn off? So anyways, the point is, I had decided that I only wanted to take 6 kids this year, but then no less than 20 were so excited that classes would start up again and kept asking me when. And there were more parents who were asking me to take their kids this year because they had learned a bit of English in Moscow, or in Balti or where-have-you. And seeing the excitement and enthusiasm on their faces, I couldn’t say no! So we’ll see. First class is Friday, and I’ll be laying down ground rules for this year. So anyways, the kids and I stood in the back of the crowd, giggling and talking about this at that, while the priest was up there blessing everything in sight and spraying holy water. After the ceremony, most of the teachers came up and said hello, asked about my foot, said they were looking forward to this or that thing that I was going to help them with in the near future. And so on throughout the day. Whenever I was walking anywhere, I ran into people I hadn’t seen for weeks, and so I would stop to talk for longer than usual. The day was really an ego-booster. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t done anything for two weeks, they were just glad to see me. I also just like being back in the village, where everyone greets each other. I called out a greeting to a baba (an older woman) pulling water from a well, and she turned around so quickly with a smile, eager to return the greeting to whomever had greeted her. I called out a ‘Lord help you!’ to a man working in his garden, and he gave me an appreciative thank you, a big smile, and a wave. Home sweet home.
So not only did summer fly by, but September already has a full agenda. My counterparts and I have created a survey and an informational brochure for the Economic Planning Center that we run. It will go out to all the families in the two villages that make up our community. We want to make them more aware of the services we offer, as well as to get an idea of what kind of projects and services they would be most interested in. So that needs to get out within the next week (the logistics of printing, copying, and distributing have been more time consuming than the actual creation of the materials!). I also have the next issue of the TARE newsletter to work on, the beekeeping class to get up and running, and English lessons and materials to prepare. We are also revising the business plan I mentioned in my last entry in order to submit it for a different grant program. In addition to that, there still is some canning to do, the garden needs to be cleaned up, and the grapes need to be picked and the wine made (that can take a week itself). Also, hram, the annual day of the village is on the 21st, and that involves a lot of cleaning and food preparation, many guests, and in general, craziness. AND, September 12th marks exactly one year since arrival in country, so our entire group (or rather, the 34 of us who remain) is spending a few days together to celebrate. Woo hoo! Oh, and on the 18th I receive my first non-family visitor! Kirk is coming to check out Moldovan life for a few days, and then we’re hitting the mountains in Romania for a week at the end of the month. Woo hoo again! So I guess I’ll have a lot to write about next month!
August 5, 2008
Summer in the Village
Well, Camp TARE (the women’s empowerment camp I’ve been talking about) was a success. In Romanian ‘Tare’ means ‘strong.’ And as an acronym, it stands for ‘Tinere (young), Active, Responsabile, Egale (equal). The camp took place July 1-6 in Soroca, the city nearest my village (convenient for me!), and there were 71 young women ages 18-22 from all over Moldova. The theme of this year’s camp was ‘My Dream Can Be Reality,’ and throughout the course of the week the participants went to 15 seminars, with topics ranging from career development to breast cancer. The seminars were taught by teams typically consisting of one Moldovan and one Peace Corps volunteer. (We had 10 PCVs and 8 Moldovan counselors.) In addition to the seminars, we had activities that most girls had never even heard of before, such as pinatas, tie-dye, a bonfire with s’mores, and various art projects. We also had a candlelight vigil for domestic violence, and a guest presentation on human trafficking. As a director, it was so rewarding to see all of our work over the past 5 months to come to fruition. It was incredible to watch these girls grow over the course of the week, and to leave with new friendships, new ideas, new knowledge, and new attitudes. I spent the week acting as a liaison with the campsite director, trouble-shooting any problems, keeping track of expenses, and in general making sure things ran smoothly. The four of us directors were typically the first ones up and the last ones to bed. In addition to the above mentioned duties, I also taught 4 sessions of the community development seminar, and 2 sessions of self-defense, and I led a running group bright and early every morning.
My favorite evening of the whole camp was probably the 4th of July. We had a bonfire and the 14 of us Americans sang patriotic songs and waved around tiny little American flags. We went down to the river and shot off fireworks, which were actually impressive (or maybe I’ve just been here too long). Then the part that brought tears to my eyes – after we sang our national anthem, the 79 Moldovans sang their national anthem. I had never heard it sung before, and you could see how much pride these young women had for their country, and it just made me want to burst. This country needs more young people who love their country and want to improve it.
The final night of the camp the girls organized a talent show, which was awesome. They ended it by crushing the 4 of us directors in a 94 person group hug, which again made me want to cry. At that moment I felt like I had really done something to make a difference. I had that ‘aha!’ moment, that this was why I had joined Peace Corps. And the TARE love doesn’t stop there. Each girl received a 150-page manual (which I diligently worked on through-out the spring – it was great to see our work in published form!) with information for all the seminars as well as sample lesson plans. The hope is that when the girls go back to their villages, they will each do a seminar there, thus further spreading the information that we gave them. Also, this year we are starting up a newsletter to keep giving the young women information and support, and to celebrate their successes. The first issue went out today! Woo hoo!
So, back in my village things have also started to heat up. I spent two weeks working long days to put together a proposal for a grant sponsored by UNDP. The idea is for NGOs to start up small businesses, from which the profits will be used as a source of funding for the ongoing activities of the NGO. So we had to put together a detailed business plan in addition to other information about the NGO. Well, just so happens this is right up my alley, and exactly why I came here! My Moldovan counterpart is the director of the children’s summer camp for our region, so she literally lives at the camp, which is across the street from our village. So everyday I hiked over there, and we worked on the computer she had hauled up to the top of the A-frame cabin were she lives. We talked about things like the target market, the pricing, the financial projections, the management and operations, and in general how to clearly and concisely write up a business plan. It was nice that everything had to be done in Romanian, because then she and her son, who will be the main employee, really did have to write it, and I played the advisor/Excel-goddess role. The week before the proposal was due, however, oh boy, did the rains come! 6 days in a row it rained without stopping, and the power kept going on and off. So it was quite frustrating to be working and having the computer keep turning off. Not to mention I felt like I was permanently wet. But we finished. And I had another this-is-why-I-joined-Peace-Corps moment. One night, my counterpart turned to me and said, ‘Kate, even if we don’t win this grant, I’m so glad we did this. I can’t even tell you how much I’ve learned from you in the last two weeks.’ Then she went on to say that she plans on quitting one of her 4 jobs so that she can spend more time at the NGO and work together more with me. Woo hoo!
Let’s see what else. I’ve also been working on the grant proposal for the beekeeping class that she will be teaching starting this fall. The bee lady lives in the neighboring village, about a 30 minute walk. One day during the week of the rains, I went over to her house to work with her. I waited until it was just a light rain, and then set out down the hill. But of course the skies opened up, and by the time I got to her house I was drenched. I spent the entire afternoon sitting in her house in my underwear. But we accomplished a lot, so I guess it was worth it. Plus I of course got home made sheep cheese, some honey-vodka, fresh tomatoes and cucumbers from the garden, and some honeycomb. Woo hoo!
As for the rains, wow! I’ve never seen anything like this before. The beach where we hung out after the camp – completely gone. The river near Soroca swelled to 3x its normal width, and the water level reached almost to the top of the retaining walls built exactly in case this happens. It was creepy to look at the now huge rushing river. The bus station in Soroca flooded and the road into town from my village closed. In other places people lost their homes. Also, here’s a geography lesson for you. The borders of Moldova are the River Prut on the west, with Romania on the other side, and the River Nistru on the east, with Ukraine on the other side. Funny, several different news sources reported disastrous flooding in Ukraine and Romania due to the overflowing of the Nistru and Prut rivers. But in Moldova, so it seems, nothing happend. What, the rivers only overflowed on one side? Or it’s not disastrous if Moldova floods, just Romania and Ukraine? Boo!
I have now discovered the allure of living in a village. Beyond the fact that you can walk everyone, and everyone knows everyone, and there is beautiful countryside all around, there is the over-crowded and diversly-sowed garden that is requisite for any up-standing Moldovan household. Being that my host parents are abroad, the upkeep of said garden has fallen under the responsibility of two delightful and ‘TARE’ women in their mid 20s, that is, me and my host sister. In one plot of land a bit larger than your typical basketball court, we have onions, garlic, carrots, potatoes, cabbage, green peppers, six different kinds of grapes, strawberries, cherries, apples, and numerous beautiful flowers. So every night I go out and pick some tomatoes, or pull an onion out of the ground, and make some dinner. We sometimes go out to weed, or water, or tie up the tomatoes or grapevines that are being weighed down, or whatever needs to be done. There is enough of everything except the potatoes to be canned and last through the winter. Some of it will be pickled (not a fan), some of it will be marinated (so-so), and some of it combined into a delished pickled/marinated salad (am a fan). And there will be enough grapes to make 500 liters of wine, which will hopefully last until next year’s harvest. (Good thing harvest is coming soon, because we’re almost out of the stuff from last year!) And on top of that, we have also gone over to the relatives, who have a much bigger plot of land, and collected berries. With the goods we made many jars of both raspberry and currant jam. Mmmm. The raspberries – oh my! One day I just sat in the raspberry patch and ate until I couldn’t eat any more. Then I grabbed a few apricots off the tree on the way out to eat later. Oh, and then I made a really AWEsome raspberry pie with homemade crust and everything. Woo hoo!
Oh, and my dog had four adorable little puppies! I get to keep one! Woo hoo!
My favorite evening of the whole camp was probably the 4th of July. We had a bonfire and the 14 of us Americans sang patriotic songs and waved around tiny little American flags. We went down to the river and shot off fireworks, which were actually impressive (or maybe I’ve just been here too long). Then the part that brought tears to my eyes – after we sang our national anthem, the 79 Moldovans sang their national anthem. I had never heard it sung before, and you could see how much pride these young women had for their country, and it just made me want to burst. This country needs more young people who love their country and want to improve it.
The final night of the camp the girls organized a talent show, which was awesome. They ended it by crushing the 4 of us directors in a 94 person group hug, which again made me want to cry. At that moment I felt like I had really done something to make a difference. I had that ‘aha!’ moment, that this was why I had joined Peace Corps. And the TARE love doesn’t stop there. Each girl received a 150-page manual (which I diligently worked on through-out the spring – it was great to see our work in published form!) with information for all the seminars as well as sample lesson plans. The hope is that when the girls go back to their villages, they will each do a seminar there, thus further spreading the information that we gave them. Also, this year we are starting up a newsletter to keep giving the young women information and support, and to celebrate their successes. The first issue went out today! Woo hoo!
So, back in my village things have also started to heat up. I spent two weeks working long days to put together a proposal for a grant sponsored by UNDP. The idea is for NGOs to start up small businesses, from which the profits will be used as a source of funding for the ongoing activities of the NGO. So we had to put together a detailed business plan in addition to other information about the NGO. Well, just so happens this is right up my alley, and exactly why I came here! My Moldovan counterpart is the director of the children’s summer camp for our region, so she literally lives at the camp, which is across the street from our village. So everyday I hiked over there, and we worked on the computer she had hauled up to the top of the A-frame cabin were she lives. We talked about things like the target market, the pricing, the financial projections, the management and operations, and in general how to clearly and concisely write up a business plan. It was nice that everything had to be done in Romanian, because then she and her son, who will be the main employee, really did have to write it, and I played the advisor/Excel-goddess role. The week before the proposal was due, however, oh boy, did the rains come! 6 days in a row it rained without stopping, and the power kept going on and off. So it was quite frustrating to be working and having the computer keep turning off. Not to mention I felt like I was permanently wet. But we finished. And I had another this-is-why-I-joined-Peace-Corps moment. One night, my counterpart turned to me and said, ‘Kate, even if we don’t win this grant, I’m so glad we did this. I can’t even tell you how much I’ve learned from you in the last two weeks.’ Then she went on to say that she plans on quitting one of her 4 jobs so that she can spend more time at the NGO and work together more with me. Woo hoo!
Let’s see what else. I’ve also been working on the grant proposal for the beekeeping class that she will be teaching starting this fall. The bee lady lives in the neighboring village, about a 30 minute walk. One day during the week of the rains, I went over to her house to work with her. I waited until it was just a light rain, and then set out down the hill. But of course the skies opened up, and by the time I got to her house I was drenched. I spent the entire afternoon sitting in her house in my underwear. But we accomplished a lot, so I guess it was worth it. Plus I of course got home made sheep cheese, some honey-vodka, fresh tomatoes and cucumbers from the garden, and some honeycomb. Woo hoo!
As for the rains, wow! I’ve never seen anything like this before. The beach where we hung out after the camp – completely gone. The river near Soroca swelled to 3x its normal width, and the water level reached almost to the top of the retaining walls built exactly in case this happens. It was creepy to look at the now huge rushing river. The bus station in Soroca flooded and the road into town from my village closed. In other places people lost their homes. Also, here’s a geography lesson for you. The borders of Moldova are the River Prut on the west, with Romania on the other side, and the River Nistru on the east, with Ukraine on the other side. Funny, several different news sources reported disastrous flooding in Ukraine and Romania due to the overflowing of the Nistru and Prut rivers. But in Moldova, so it seems, nothing happend. What, the rivers only overflowed on one side? Or it’s not disastrous if Moldova floods, just Romania and Ukraine? Boo!
I have now discovered the allure of living in a village. Beyond the fact that you can walk everyone, and everyone knows everyone, and there is beautiful countryside all around, there is the over-crowded and diversly-sowed garden that is requisite for any up-standing Moldovan household. Being that my host parents are abroad, the upkeep of said garden has fallen under the responsibility of two delightful and ‘TARE’ women in their mid 20s, that is, me and my host sister. In one plot of land a bit larger than your typical basketball court, we have onions, garlic, carrots, potatoes, cabbage, green peppers, six different kinds of grapes, strawberries, cherries, apples, and numerous beautiful flowers. So every night I go out and pick some tomatoes, or pull an onion out of the ground, and make some dinner. We sometimes go out to weed, or water, or tie up the tomatoes or grapevines that are being weighed down, or whatever needs to be done. There is enough of everything except the potatoes to be canned and last through the winter. Some of it will be pickled (not a fan), some of it will be marinated (so-so), and some of it combined into a delished pickled/marinated salad (am a fan). And there will be enough grapes to make 500 liters of wine, which will hopefully last until next year’s harvest. (Good thing harvest is coming soon, because we’re almost out of the stuff from last year!) And on top of that, we have also gone over to the relatives, who have a much bigger plot of land, and collected berries. With the goods we made many jars of both raspberry and currant jam. Mmmm. The raspberries – oh my! One day I just sat in the raspberry patch and ate until I couldn’t eat any more. Then I grabbed a few apricots off the tree on the way out to eat later. Oh, and then I made a really AWEsome raspberry pie with homemade crust and everything. Woo hoo!
Oh, and my dog had four adorable little puppies! I get to keep one! Woo hoo!
June 28, 2008
We Got a Washing Machine!
One time, the four of us camp directors were waiting on a rutiera in Bălți (the second largest city in Moldova, in the north). It is not uncommon for beggers, often little girls, to come on the rutiera and ask for money. We were in the back row, and one girl came up and just stood in front of us for like 5 minutes, which is like an eternity. Finally I gave her two 1 leu bills in the hopes that she would go away. She backed up a bit and pulled out a huge wad of money and started flashing it around! So my colleague turns to me and says, ‘sucker!’ We all kind of chuckeled and said, ya, I’m a sucka! Then the girl looks and me and goes, ‘sucka sucka sucka!,’ laughs, and dashes off the rutiera! Nice.
Summer is here, things are really starting to grow, and I’m starting to realize just how ignorant I am about agriculture, and where my food comes from. I have no idea what fruits and vegetables look like when they are planted, and I feel stupid that I have to ask. ‘Duh Kate, those are carrots!’ Of course. And the trees! I didn’t know that peach trees have beautiful pink blossoms! Now that my host mom is working abroad with her husband (they have both been in the Czech Republic since the beginning of May), it is just me and my sister at home, taking care of the garden and the land on the outskirts of the village, so I’ve gotten my hands dirty once or twice. The first time I had to be told which were the weeds and which are the parsley. We Americans just buy everything at the supermarket and don’t even stop to think or question where our food came from. Now I can at least say that I know a little bit.
I love that I can just walk out my door and pick cherries off the tree or strawberries from the bushes. I had a great evening strolling around my partner’s huge garden with her daughter, stopping at every tree and just eating fruit until my belly was about to burst. I ate cherries (I climbed up in the tree to reach the best ones!), sour cherries, raspberries, strawberries, currants, and some weird yellow berry that I can’t even describe. It was glorious. Oh, and I ate peas and liked them!!! Picked ‘em right out of the pods that had been given to me by a neighbor as I was passing by on my way to work one day.
I also had a fabulous day harvesting honey at the bee lady’s house. (She’s also the one I helped with the sheep project back in February.) I walked over to her village with the crocheting and music teacher (who is always good for laughs), and together with the bee lady’s husband and two sons, we spun out about 140 frames of honey. The six of us were crammed in one little hot shed, working hard all afternoon, sweaty and sticky, but the end result was a huuuuge barrel of honey. And then of course we sat down and ate it with sheep cheese and homemade wine. Moldova rocks sometimes. But then I started talked to the grandpa, and we were discussing how no one can make a decent wage, and all of the young people are leaving, and then he started to cry! He said it just isn’t fair that he worked hard his whole life and is 80 years old and still has to look for extra sources of income because he can’t live off of his pension (not to mention the only option for saving for retirement is putting cash under the matress). And that his grandchildren can’t find well-paying jobs here and everyone’s families are torn apart because people leave and leave their children behind. Seeing this man cry was one of the most heart-wrenching moments I’ve experienced so far in Moldova. Something definitely needs to change here.
As far as my work is concerned, things are picking up. My partners and I have several ideas for big projects we would like to start working on. All the volunteers and their partners went to a 3-day project design and management workshop put on by Peace Corps back in May, so we have a better idea of how to approach things. My English kids want to continue through the summer, but less frequently. I’m working with the kindergarten still, to get them much needed education games and toys for physcial activity. I’d like to put together some kind of financial planning/cost benefit anaylsis seminar to address the problem that people never look farther ahead than the next 9 months or so. Also, a woman in the community (the bee lady) wants to teach an optional class in beekeeping at the school, and I might join her to teach business skills, kind of like a Junior Achievement course. And one of my two partners is the director of the regional rest camp, located right across the street from our village, so I’ve been called over to attend opening ceremonies, judge beauty pageants, and teach the kids American games. The first week she tells me, ‘it would be nice if you can come tomorrow to teach the kids some games.’ I said, ‘ok, what time?’ She says, ‘5:00. You have a stage, 250 kids ages 8 to 18, and one hour.’ I was like, oh geez, how in the heck do I plan for that? Luckily I was able to call in my trusty fellow volunteer from Soroca, and we did a bunch of relay race games (bat spin anyone?!).
Things are really getting going for our women’s camp. Lucky for me, the location was changed to Soroca, so it’s convenient. But that means I have to keep going to there to meet with the camp director, bring supplies, draw maps, scout out bus schedules, etc. We’ve also been very busy dealing with a minor budget crisis, due to the location change (the new place is more expensive), which also increased transportation costs since it’s farther away from the center (not to mention rising gas prices). And the dollar lost 8% since we submitted our grants two months ago (the grants were dollar-denominated, and we receive the money this week at the current exchange rate). Luckily we were able to come up with last minute donations, and the camp will go on! So many of my nights and weekends have been occupied with planning for this camp over the last 4 months, so it better be good!
So a few more notes about the rutieras. It’s really a love/hate relationship. The other day I went to Bălți, to do some shopping for our camp. It’s about an hour and a half rutiera ride away, but I clearly got on the rutiera from h-e-double-hockey-sticks. Since I hopped on in my village instead of the beginning of the route in Soroca, I had to stand. Usually this isn’t a problem because seats will open up as people get off in villages along the way. Unfortunately, hardly anyone got off, and more people kept getting on. And people have no regard for others whatsoever. No one moves back to make room, people who are sitting leave their huge bags in the aisles, people stop to smoke and then squish back in right next to me, there’s a bag with dead chickens in it, etc. My body was contorted at a weird angle to support myself among the throng of people. I wanted to throw-up from the jerkiness of the driving because of the severely pot-holed roads, and I wanted to pass out from the heat. And they yell if you open in the window for some air because the current will make everyone sick. No, actually that is precious airflow that will stop you from dying of heat exhaustion. I won’t even start on the smell...
But why I love the rutieras is this – it also doubles as a super express postal service! Yes, you can stop a rutiera, hand him a package, and for a small fee (50 cents - $2, depending on the package, obscureness of the drop-off location, and your negotiating skills) he will deliver it for you within the next few hours! As long as the package’s destination is along his route, it’s pretty much a sure deal. It’s remarkable. I once was in Ungheni, a city near the Romanian border, and my friend’s host mom says, ‘go to the bus station and wait for the 6:45 from Chișinău. The drivers name is Vlad.’ Sure enough, when the rutiera arrived, Vlad gave us a plastic bag with a little girl’s bathing suit in it. My friend’s host mom’s niece (got that?) had forgotten it in Chișinău, and she was due at rest camp the next morning. So now this past weekend, it came to be that I had 5 purple and orange nerf-floating-noodle thingies in my possession which were urgently needed by a group of volunteers in Chișinău the next day (no, you cannot buy nerf-floating-noodle thingies in Moldova). Well, it would require 6 hours and $13 if I were to bring them there myself, so I decided it was time for me to test out this system. I stood out on the side of the road at 5.45 the next morning, holding a bag of flourescent-colored nerf-floating-noodle thingies, waiting to hail the next rutiera to chisinau (all of the inter-city rutieras have signs in the front window listing the beginning and ending points, which often I can’t read until the rutiera is almost passing me by so then I quickly jutt out my hand to signal them to stop and they come screeching to a halt and then the driver glares at me or curses me under his breath in Russian). The 6:00 Soroca - Chișinău approaches, I signal him to stop (giving him an ample amount of time), give him my nicest ‘could you pretty please take these to the north bus station in Chișinău?,’ hand him 10 lei, and he takes them without even batting an eye and shoves them under his seat. Three hours later, a volunteer calls me to say she had made the pick-up. Success!
The four of us camp directors now have a favorite taxi-driver in Chișinău. We’ve been staying a lot in an apartment (the one from the ‘hahaha, nyet’ story) that requires a taxi ride from the center. We now always call this driver because he will go out of his way to bring us through the McDonalds drive-through to get McFlurries on our way to the apartment at 11:00 at night.
I went to a mass exorcism and slept in a monk’s bed. Just throwin' that out there.
And the last thing, there is now a washing machine in my house! I have gotten used to almost everything here that we would consider uncomfortable back home (I actually like holes better than toilets now), but I really had begun to loathe hand-washing my clothes. I don’t care that we don’t have a dryer, I just need something to wash, rinse, and wring out my clothes better than I can. I used the machine for the first time this week, and it was glorious! I’m telling you: appreciate your washing machines! Yes, try to buy one that uses less water and energy, and so on, but really, a washing machine is a good thing!
Summer is here, things are really starting to grow, and I’m starting to realize just how ignorant I am about agriculture, and where my food comes from. I have no idea what fruits and vegetables look like when they are planted, and I feel stupid that I have to ask. ‘Duh Kate, those are carrots!’ Of course. And the trees! I didn’t know that peach trees have beautiful pink blossoms! Now that my host mom is working abroad with her husband (they have both been in the Czech Republic since the beginning of May), it is just me and my sister at home, taking care of the garden and the land on the outskirts of the village, so I’ve gotten my hands dirty once or twice. The first time I had to be told which were the weeds and which are the parsley. We Americans just buy everything at the supermarket and don’t even stop to think or question where our food came from. Now I can at least say that I know a little bit.
I love that I can just walk out my door and pick cherries off the tree or strawberries from the bushes. I had a great evening strolling around my partner’s huge garden with her daughter, stopping at every tree and just eating fruit until my belly was about to burst. I ate cherries (I climbed up in the tree to reach the best ones!), sour cherries, raspberries, strawberries, currants, and some weird yellow berry that I can’t even describe. It was glorious. Oh, and I ate peas and liked them!!! Picked ‘em right out of the pods that had been given to me by a neighbor as I was passing by on my way to work one day.
I also had a fabulous day harvesting honey at the bee lady’s house. (She’s also the one I helped with the sheep project back in February.) I walked over to her village with the crocheting and music teacher (who is always good for laughs), and together with the bee lady’s husband and two sons, we spun out about 140 frames of honey. The six of us were crammed in one little hot shed, working hard all afternoon, sweaty and sticky, but the end result was a huuuuge barrel of honey. And then of course we sat down and ate it with sheep cheese and homemade wine. Moldova rocks sometimes. But then I started talked to the grandpa, and we were discussing how no one can make a decent wage, and all of the young people are leaving, and then he started to cry! He said it just isn’t fair that he worked hard his whole life and is 80 years old and still has to look for extra sources of income because he can’t live off of his pension (not to mention the only option for saving for retirement is putting cash under the matress). And that his grandchildren can’t find well-paying jobs here and everyone’s families are torn apart because people leave and leave their children behind. Seeing this man cry was one of the most heart-wrenching moments I’ve experienced so far in Moldova. Something definitely needs to change here.
As far as my work is concerned, things are picking up. My partners and I have several ideas for big projects we would like to start working on. All the volunteers and their partners went to a 3-day project design and management workshop put on by Peace Corps back in May, so we have a better idea of how to approach things. My English kids want to continue through the summer, but less frequently. I’m working with the kindergarten still, to get them much needed education games and toys for physcial activity. I’d like to put together some kind of financial planning/cost benefit anaylsis seminar to address the problem that people never look farther ahead than the next 9 months or so. Also, a woman in the community (the bee lady) wants to teach an optional class in beekeeping at the school, and I might join her to teach business skills, kind of like a Junior Achievement course. And one of my two partners is the director of the regional rest camp, located right across the street from our village, so I’ve been called over to attend opening ceremonies, judge beauty pageants, and teach the kids American games. The first week she tells me, ‘it would be nice if you can come tomorrow to teach the kids some games.’ I said, ‘ok, what time?’ She says, ‘5:00. You have a stage, 250 kids ages 8 to 18, and one hour.’ I was like, oh geez, how in the heck do I plan for that? Luckily I was able to call in my trusty fellow volunteer from Soroca, and we did a bunch of relay race games (bat spin anyone?!).
Things are really getting going for our women’s camp. Lucky for me, the location was changed to Soroca, so it’s convenient. But that means I have to keep going to there to meet with the camp director, bring supplies, draw maps, scout out bus schedules, etc. We’ve also been very busy dealing with a minor budget crisis, due to the location change (the new place is more expensive), which also increased transportation costs since it’s farther away from the center (not to mention rising gas prices). And the dollar lost 8% since we submitted our grants two months ago (the grants were dollar-denominated, and we receive the money this week at the current exchange rate). Luckily we were able to come up with last minute donations, and the camp will go on! So many of my nights and weekends have been occupied with planning for this camp over the last 4 months, so it better be good!
So a few more notes about the rutieras. It’s really a love/hate relationship. The other day I went to Bălți, to do some shopping for our camp. It’s about an hour and a half rutiera ride away, but I clearly got on the rutiera from h-e-double-hockey-sticks. Since I hopped on in my village instead of the beginning of the route in Soroca, I had to stand. Usually this isn’t a problem because seats will open up as people get off in villages along the way. Unfortunately, hardly anyone got off, and more people kept getting on. And people have no regard for others whatsoever. No one moves back to make room, people who are sitting leave their huge bags in the aisles, people stop to smoke and then squish back in right next to me, there’s a bag with dead chickens in it, etc. My body was contorted at a weird angle to support myself among the throng of people. I wanted to throw-up from the jerkiness of the driving because of the severely pot-holed roads, and I wanted to pass out from the heat. And they yell if you open in the window for some air because the current will make everyone sick. No, actually that is precious airflow that will stop you from dying of heat exhaustion. I won’t even start on the smell...
But why I love the rutieras is this – it also doubles as a super express postal service! Yes, you can stop a rutiera, hand him a package, and for a small fee (50 cents - $2, depending on the package, obscureness of the drop-off location, and your negotiating skills) he will deliver it for you within the next few hours! As long as the package’s destination is along his route, it’s pretty much a sure deal. It’s remarkable. I once was in Ungheni, a city near the Romanian border, and my friend’s host mom says, ‘go to the bus station and wait for the 6:45 from Chișinău. The drivers name is Vlad.’ Sure enough, when the rutiera arrived, Vlad gave us a plastic bag with a little girl’s bathing suit in it. My friend’s host mom’s niece (got that?) had forgotten it in Chișinău, and she was due at rest camp the next morning. So now this past weekend, it came to be that I had 5 purple and orange nerf-floating-noodle thingies in my possession which were urgently needed by a group of volunteers in Chișinău the next day (no, you cannot buy nerf-floating-noodle thingies in Moldova). Well, it would require 6 hours and $13 if I were to bring them there myself, so I decided it was time for me to test out this system. I stood out on the side of the road at 5.45 the next morning, holding a bag of flourescent-colored nerf-floating-noodle thingies, waiting to hail the next rutiera to chisinau (all of the inter-city rutieras have signs in the front window listing the beginning and ending points, which often I can’t read until the rutiera is almost passing me by so then I quickly jutt out my hand to signal them to stop and they come screeching to a halt and then the driver glares at me or curses me under his breath in Russian). The 6:00 Soroca - Chișinău approaches, I signal him to stop (giving him an ample amount of time), give him my nicest ‘could you pretty please take these to the north bus station in Chișinău?,’ hand him 10 lei, and he takes them without even batting an eye and shoves them under his seat. Three hours later, a volunteer calls me to say she had made the pick-up. Success!
The four of us camp directors now have a favorite taxi-driver in Chișinău. We’ve been staying a lot in an apartment (the one from the ‘hahaha, nyet’ story) that requires a taxi ride from the center. We now always call this driver because he will go out of his way to bring us through the McDonalds drive-through to get McFlurries on our way to the apartment at 11:00 at night.
I went to a mass exorcism and slept in a monk’s bed. Just throwin' that out there.
And the last thing, there is now a washing machine in my house! I have gotten used to almost everything here that we would consider uncomfortable back home (I actually like holes better than toilets now), but I really had begun to loathe hand-washing my clothes. I don’t care that we don’t have a dryer, I just need something to wash, rinse, and wring out my clothes better than I can. I used the machine for the first time this week, and it was glorious! I’m telling you: appreciate your washing machines! Yes, try to buy one that uses less water and energy, and so on, but really, a washing machine is a good thing!
June 4, 2008
Bine Ati Venit in Moldova
This entry is a guest entry, written by my family members who visited me from May 12-19:
Moldova Visited
By Agnes, John J., and John F. Biese
(comments by me)
Mixed emotions was the perfect term for the rampage of feelings we experienced during the six week period from the time we decided to visit Katie until May 1st, the day we departed.
By Agnes, John J., and John F. Biese
(comments by me)
Mixed emotions was the perfect term for the rampage of feelings we experienced during the six week period from the time we decided to visit Katie until May 1st, the day we departed.
Anxiety had to be the leading emotion as we worried about the complex travel arrangements Expedia prepared for us – four different flights each way also, three different airlines each way. That, combined with the media reporting all the problems our airline companies were having, especially Delta, our major transport across the big pond, definitely made anxiety the king of emotions. Added to that was the task of finding accommodations in Vienna that weren’t astronomically expensive. (We can lecture on that topic for hours.)
Anticipation was next on the list as our 19 day trip would include visiting Vienna, Prague, Salzburg and Berchtesgaden before spending a week in Moldova.
And finally, excitement for seeing Katie for the first time since she left on September 9th 2007. During that time she had experienced so much that we wondered if it had changed her noticeably. (If we forget to mention it later, it did not. She’s the same old loveable Kate.)(Yes I am!)
The trip to Vienna where Katie was going to meet us was a looonnng one. It was caused by a canceled and a replacement flight that left us with a nine hour layover in Atlanta. We were supposed to leave Appleton around 11:00 AM and instead, left at 6:00. After our 10 day stay in Vienna we were on our way to Moldova. Katie left Vienna two days before we did to attend a weekend conference and would be waiting for us at the airport in Chisinau, the capitol city.
Arriving in Chisinau one and a half hours late, we slowly processed through customs and - the lost baggage department – Agnes’ bag never made it from Vienna. Fortunately she had judiciously packed her backpack-carryon for just such an occurrence as she would not retrieve her suitcase for five more days. (I was very impressed by the way my mother handled this situation – she wore the same clothes 3 days in a row and didn’t complain once!)
John F’s first memorable moment of Moldova was going out of the air terminal and seeing Katie in the face of three, male, taxi drivers, attempting to haggle them down on the price of a ride into town. She lost – they all stuck together and we were stuck with a high tab. (I beg to differ – I put up a dang good fight, and got them down from 200 lei to 150!)
We stayed that night at a hotel the Peace Corps uses for its meetings. The first thing Katie did after we arrived at the hotel was give us some do’s and don’ts for life in Moldova. First, do not flush the toilet paper. Roll it up and place it in the basket/bucket next to the commode. Next, always have a leu (10 cents) or two handy in case you needed to use a public toilet. Most countries in Europe charge to use public WCs – Water Closets. (In Vienna we needed a half Euro [75 cents]). Also, if we wanted a hot shower we had to take it betwixt 8 and 10 in the morning since that was the only time hot water was available.
The next morning we took our bags to Peace Corps HQ for storage while we trekked to Katie’s village for three days, carrying just enough clothing and supplies for that time period in our backpacks.
In Moldova there are three methods of transportation: Rutieras, taxis, and private autos. Rutieras are minivans you can stand up in and have seating for nine to twenty or so passengers. The joke among the PC people is: How many people can you get into a Rutiera? The answer: “Always one more.” There were 39 people at one time on the 22 seater we took to Volovita. (The worst part is that even though it’s suffocating in there, Moldovans refuse to open the window for fear of the dreaded current.) Another PC “game” we learned about is to trying to see how long you can stand up in a Rutiera without holding on to a part of the vehicle.
Katie’s village is a small community of about 1000 people located on a hill in northern Moldova. It has two blocks of paved streets, the rest composed of dirt and whatever the weather makes them. The only businesses I saw were a gas station and small café. (For the record, there are 3 tiny convenience stores.)
Shortly after arriving in the village we met her Moldovan partners Svetlana and Angela. It didn’t take long to realize why Katie liked working in Moldova. These ladies were wonderful and you could tell by the way they talked how much affection they had for Katie. Later that day we met Katie’s host sister Natasha. She is just a year older than Kate and is a really good friend. She has a degree in International Relations, can’t get a job or a visa to leave the country to get one, so she studied cosmetology hoping for success in that arena. While we were there, Natasha was replacing her mom where she worked – her sister and husband’s business – while she was visiting her husband in Prague where he was working. (Since we returned from our trip we learned that Natasha’s mom also got a job in the Prague area and we assume Natasha will continue to work for her.) Natasha did take her cosmetology exam using Katie as her model. How did she do? (Very well, considering she had the ‘ugliest client and most difficult task of making her look beautiful’ – yes, I endured 3 hours of women calling me hideous and advising Natasha on how to hide all of my 'imperfections'.)
We enjoyed the hospitality of several families, much to the chagrin of our waistlines. We tried every type of food we were served: roasted rabbit with wine, mamaliga (a type of corn bread) with wine, pork with wine, chicken with wine, sheep cheese with wine, – and many more dishes I cannot remember. We do think that they kept it pretty conventional for us – no head cheese, filet of tongue, meat jello etc. (The meat jello is actually quite tasty.)
Almost every family has a large garden and a menagerie of small animals – rabbits, chickens, and geese to sustain themselves. A few have cows and pigs. One we visited had bees and milking sheep – the latter obtained with Katie’s help.
Did I mention that wine is the number one agriculture product of Moldova? Everyone we ate with demonstrated that fact again, and again, and again. BURP! Her host sister even had the “nerve” to bring out the (home-made) vodka after a scrumptious meal she and her cousin prepared for us.
It would take another page or two to talk about the countryside – beautiful land to support agriculture; nearby town of Soroca (about 5 km) which has adequate stores, a fortress built in 1494 and a lot of gypsies; and Chisinau, the capitol city. But space is limited. Oh, what the heck:
The most crowded, cleanest restaurant in Chisinau with neat, uniformed workers – Mc Donald’s. Prices were as high as in the US – which was not the case in other restaurants where the prices were much lower.
The smallest businesses in Chisinau - old ladies sitting on a stool on the sidewalks next to a bathroom scale. Weigh yourself for a leu (pronounced “l-yo”). I weighed 85 kilograms on one.
The largest wine “cellar” in the world – just outside Chisinau – 650,000,000 liters of wine contained in 1,300 barrels (big ones about 8’ in diameter, 2,200 vats, and 2 million bottles. This is stored along 55 km. of underground streets that you travel on with autos. They make wine only when the grapes are good – they were in 2007, but not in several previous years. We bought a .7 liter bottle for $2.55. A nearby display case had .7 liter bottles for prices ranging from $1,237.50 to $2,475.00.
During our short stay we met several people and families Katie either lived or worked with and we realized that big hearted, friendly, and giving people surrounded Katie. These warm experiences of Katie’s village went a long way towards allaying this mother’s worries about her daughter in a far away land.
Our six day visit to Moldova was rewarding and reassuring and also gave us a greater understanding of Katie’s blogs – in summary, a tremendous trip. We still miss Katie however (I miss you too), but we worry much less.
Visit again next year????? Possibly (They’ll be back)
April 29, 2008
Hahahaha, Nyet
A couple weekends ago we were in Chișinău for some more interviews for our camp counselors. We are tired of paying for hotels ($13 is expensive on a PC budget), so we decided staying at an apartment for free would be better. Turns out one volunteer’s host mom has a sister who is working in Italy and has an empty apartment in the city. So the host mom drew us a detailed map of how to get to the building, as well as how to find the apartment once we’re in the building, and how to turn on the water once we’re in the apartment. So it’s about 11 pm, and we’re dropped off by taxi at building 29, and the driver gives a slight wave and says to look for our building (33 according the map) over there somewhere. Ok. These are huge Soviet apartment blocks, not well marked, and we can’t find 33 anywhere. We happen to catch site of a man coming out of building 31, about to get into his mini-bus. We ask him if he can tell us where building 33 is and give him our map. He’s not exactly friendly, and he tells us 33 doesn’t exist. Super. We’re like, ‘but it has to, it’s on the map!’ He says it’s probably supposed to be 31, and we should call the people we are visiting to come out and get us, but we reply that there is no one there. He turns over the map and looks at the drawing of the apartment within the building. He lets out a Hahuhuhuh, followed by a definitive ‘nyet.’ What is it with me and the nyet’s? We were like, what does that mean? He then asks us if we have keys. Yes. Let me see them, he says. What’s the name of the people you are visiting? We don’t know, it is a relative who went to Italy. He then pulls out his cell phone. We were like, oh geez, is he calling Italy? What did we do? Turns out he was calling the volunteerțs host mom. He asks her if her sister is expecting visitors from the US, and then yells at her for writing 33 on the map instead of 31. Turns out, that out of all the thousands of people living in these huge apartment blocks, we ask assistance of the very man who has been left with the task of looking over this woman’s apartment while she is in Italy. Lucky us! After clearing up the matter with the host mom, he brings us upstairs, unlocks the bazillion locks, turns on the water for us, and shows us around. The joke for the rest of the weekend was, ‘hahahaha, nyet.’
Moldova rocks in the spring. Everything is becoming more beautiful every day, and I’m falling more in love with my village, now that it’s coming alive. The trees are blossoming, the sun comes out, you can see greens and browns and yellows on all the rolling hills. People are out in the fields, kids are out playing in the dirt roads, and goats, chickens, and other animals are roaming about. I’ve never actually seen a baby goat before – they are soooo cute when they jump around! There are random baby chicks wandering around in our garden, and my cat is pregnant. I go on frequent run/walks through the local forests with the kids, and they pick me flowers, and I sneeze a lot. I spent a long afternoon, a rare one by myself, sitting in a orchard down in the valley reading a book, watching the fluffy clouds pass overhead. People are out and about, and any time I walk anywhere in the village, I stop at least two or three times to chat with people about this or that. Last weekend, a fellow volunteer came to visit me in my village, and after persistant requests from four of the village girls, we took a walk to Soroca to go to the ‘candle,’ a big monument that looks like a candle, perched on top of a hill overlooking the river Nistru and to Ukraine beyond. It’s about 2.5 miles to the city, with a short cut down the hill through the woods, and then 500 stairs back up to the candle. It was a very pleasant walk (despite a little headwind and some sprinkles) and after making it up to the candle, we explored in the woods, looking for the cave and spring, which we never actually found. The four girls are great, and I’ve taken quite a liking to two of them, who always come to everything I ever suggest, including English, computer classes, leadership seminars, and running. I love feeling loved.
One of my favorite times in the last month was the evening a spent with a fellow volunteer and her host parents, after doing a seminar in her village. We just sat at the table for a good three hours talking about who knows what and laughing a lot. I’ve gotten to the point where I can converse freely without thinking about language, if there are fewer people and they aren’t all talking quickly and all at once amongst themselves. By the end of the evening, he had pulled out his mini-accordion, and Sam (the other volunteer) had pulled out her ukulele, and we were all singing. Evenings like that are the best.
Work-wise, things are going. I’ve been busy with computer classes for both adults and kids, and collaborating with the kindergarten for a grant. My partners and I have been discussing various project ideas, and of course I’ve been busy with the camp. Also, the volunteer in Soroca and I took a few days and went to all of the banks in the city to investigate different credit options for entrepreneurs. There are 7 different institutions, including one specifically for business loans, and yet none of them really offered anything favorable. There is no investment mentality here – people don’t really understand the concept of investing money now – to build a greenhouse, install irrigation, buy higher quality seeds, etc. – and seeing better results a few years from now. However, with the credit conditions here, I can see why they would be somewhat averse to taking out a credit, regardless of the prospects. The absolute longest term that we found was 7 years, so any real long term investment is out. The average annual interest rate was about 24%, paid monthly, with no grace period. Also, the problem of collateral – some banks required as much as 200%! Most people don’t have anything to offer. I keep reading about various development agencies that have worked with the banks here to provide a system of credit for antrepreneurs, but so far I have not seen that put into practice at all. Makes it hard to convince people of the benefits of investment. So that’s a little frustrating.
At home I’ve finally convinced my family to let me be the designated dish-washer. This came after I helped my mom cut fire wood (yeah, we’re still building fires at night to heat the house), and spent a morning hacking weeds out in their plot of land just outside the village. I’m becoming more Moldovan everyday, and feeling more at home.
This past weekend was the Orthodox Easter. And no offense to my own religion, but it is way cooler than the Catholic Easter. The night before all the young people build fires with tires (yeah, ok, that’s not real good for the environment) and then jump over them, and there is some prediction about your marriage depending on how you jump. Then many people go to Church starting at 11pm and stay until the sun comes up. I didn’t do that, but I did wake up at 3 to go with my host sister and uncle to my grandma’s village and go to Church there. The most important thing is that you take your basket of Easter food (eggs, meat, and especially the ‘pasca’ – special bread, cheese) and get it blessed by the priest before the sun comes up. The ceremony was beautiful. The entire village (or at least someone from each family) was lined up along the walkway leading up to the Church, with their baskets in front of them, holding candles that brightened up the dark morning. Around 4 the priest came out, flanked by a choir of 20 teenage girls, said a prayer, and then walked around and sprayed everyone and their food with water. After this, we dropped off grandma and went home to sleep for a few hours. The rest of the day was of course filled with eating and drinking and family. We started at home at 11 (eating the blessed food first, of course), and two sets of aunts and uncles and cousins came over. After I was so full I couldn’t move anymore, we went back to grandmas for some more food. This grandma rocks. Like all grandmas, she’s always trying to give treats to the kids, and even though she’s old and walks with a cane (i.e., a bent tree branch), she still takes care of chickens, pigs, a dog, a sick husband, two new baby goats, her home and garden, and so much more. She wears the traditional baba head scarf, a thick maroon (with purple and red flowers) bathrobe-like sweater, with a gray fur pad tied around her waist, and thick slipper-like boots on her feet. You just want to hug her. Anyways, after grandma’s house, we went back home and the neighbors came over, including the daughter home from college. We ate again, and later in the evening went to the ‘joc’ or village dance. The had speakers and a keyboard set up in the back of a truck, with big lights illuminating a little clearing in the center of the village. 20-somethings home from college or working abroad reunited, little kids ran around, and the adults chatted and let loose for an evening. There was dancing until the wee hours of the morning. I was immediately sought out by a somewhat inebriated young man home from Moscow. Jeepers, I couldn’t get rid of this guy! I was dancing whether I wanted to or not. At the end of one song, all of the men are supposed to pull out their hankercheif and kneel down on it on one knee and kiss the hand of the woman. However this dude couldn’t find his hankercheif and was wearing white pants, so he kept saying ‘just wait a second, just wait a second!’ as he frantically searched for it. I was like ‘I’m waiting, I’m waiting!’ Everyone in the immediate are was looking and laughing (in a good way). Finally, I took off my black coat and put it down on the ground in front of him, and he knelt down on that. Everyone cracked up. A little while later he proclaimed that ‘his heart beats for me’ and I decided it was time to go. All in all, not a bad Easter. Oh, and for the next 40 days, instead of greeting each other normally, people say ‘Christ is risen,’ which is responded to with ‘He is risen indeed.’ Kind of nice, and interesting, since that would never happen at home.
Moldova rocks in the spring. Everything is becoming more beautiful every day, and I’m falling more in love with my village, now that it’s coming alive. The trees are blossoming, the sun comes out, you can see greens and browns and yellows on all the rolling hills. People are out in the fields, kids are out playing in the dirt roads, and goats, chickens, and other animals are roaming about. I’ve never actually seen a baby goat before – they are soooo cute when they jump around! There are random baby chicks wandering around in our garden, and my cat is pregnant. I go on frequent run/walks through the local forests with the kids, and they pick me flowers, and I sneeze a lot. I spent a long afternoon, a rare one by myself, sitting in a orchard down in the valley reading a book, watching the fluffy clouds pass overhead. People are out and about, and any time I walk anywhere in the village, I stop at least two or three times to chat with people about this or that. Last weekend, a fellow volunteer came to visit me in my village, and after persistant requests from four of the village girls, we took a walk to Soroca to go to the ‘candle,’ a big monument that looks like a candle, perched on top of a hill overlooking the river Nistru and to Ukraine beyond. It’s about 2.5 miles to the city, with a short cut down the hill through the woods, and then 500 stairs back up to the candle. It was a very pleasant walk (despite a little headwind and some sprinkles) and after making it up to the candle, we explored in the woods, looking for the cave and spring, which we never actually found. The four girls are great, and I’ve taken quite a liking to two of them, who always come to everything I ever suggest, including English, computer classes, leadership seminars, and running. I love feeling loved.
One of my favorite times in the last month was the evening a spent with a fellow volunteer and her host parents, after doing a seminar in her village. We just sat at the table for a good three hours talking about who knows what and laughing a lot. I’ve gotten to the point where I can converse freely without thinking about language, if there are fewer people and they aren’t all talking quickly and all at once amongst themselves. By the end of the evening, he had pulled out his mini-accordion, and Sam (the other volunteer) had pulled out her ukulele, and we were all singing. Evenings like that are the best.
Work-wise, things are going. I’ve been busy with computer classes for both adults and kids, and collaborating with the kindergarten for a grant. My partners and I have been discussing various project ideas, and of course I’ve been busy with the camp. Also, the volunteer in Soroca and I took a few days and went to all of the banks in the city to investigate different credit options for entrepreneurs. There are 7 different institutions, including one specifically for business loans, and yet none of them really offered anything favorable. There is no investment mentality here – people don’t really understand the concept of investing money now – to build a greenhouse, install irrigation, buy higher quality seeds, etc. – and seeing better results a few years from now. However, with the credit conditions here, I can see why they would be somewhat averse to taking out a credit, regardless of the prospects. The absolute longest term that we found was 7 years, so any real long term investment is out. The average annual interest rate was about 24%, paid monthly, with no grace period. Also, the problem of collateral – some banks required as much as 200%! Most people don’t have anything to offer. I keep reading about various development agencies that have worked with the banks here to provide a system of credit for antrepreneurs, but so far I have not seen that put into practice at all. Makes it hard to convince people of the benefits of investment. So that’s a little frustrating.
At home I’ve finally convinced my family to let me be the designated dish-washer. This came after I helped my mom cut fire wood (yeah, we’re still building fires at night to heat the house), and spent a morning hacking weeds out in their plot of land just outside the village. I’m becoming more Moldovan everyday, and feeling more at home.
This past weekend was the Orthodox Easter. And no offense to my own religion, but it is way cooler than the Catholic Easter. The night before all the young people build fires with tires (yeah, ok, that’s not real good for the environment) and then jump over them, and there is some prediction about your marriage depending on how you jump. Then many people go to Church starting at 11pm and stay until the sun comes up. I didn’t do that, but I did wake up at 3 to go with my host sister and uncle to my grandma’s village and go to Church there. The most important thing is that you take your basket of Easter food (eggs, meat, and especially the ‘pasca’ – special bread, cheese) and get it blessed by the priest before the sun comes up. The ceremony was beautiful. The entire village (or at least someone from each family) was lined up along the walkway leading up to the Church, with their baskets in front of them, holding candles that brightened up the dark morning. Around 4 the priest came out, flanked by a choir of 20 teenage girls, said a prayer, and then walked around and sprayed everyone and their food with water. After this, we dropped off grandma and went home to sleep for a few hours. The rest of the day was of course filled with eating and drinking and family. We started at home at 11 (eating the blessed food first, of course), and two sets of aunts and uncles and cousins came over. After I was so full I couldn’t move anymore, we went back to grandmas for some more food. This grandma rocks. Like all grandmas, she’s always trying to give treats to the kids, and even though she’s old and walks with a cane (i.e., a bent tree branch), she still takes care of chickens, pigs, a dog, a sick husband, two new baby goats, her home and garden, and so much more. She wears the traditional baba head scarf, a thick maroon (with purple and red flowers) bathrobe-like sweater, with a gray fur pad tied around her waist, and thick slipper-like boots on her feet. You just want to hug her. Anyways, after grandma’s house, we went back home and the neighbors came over, including the daughter home from college. We ate again, and later in the evening went to the ‘joc’ or village dance. The had speakers and a keyboard set up in the back of a truck, with big lights illuminating a little clearing in the center of the village. 20-somethings home from college or working abroad reunited, little kids ran around, and the adults chatted and let loose for an evening. There was dancing until the wee hours of the morning. I was immediately sought out by a somewhat inebriated young man home from Moscow. Jeepers, I couldn’t get rid of this guy! I was dancing whether I wanted to or not. At the end of one song, all of the men are supposed to pull out their hankercheif and kneel down on it on one knee and kiss the hand of the woman. However this dude couldn’t find his hankercheif and was wearing white pants, so he kept saying ‘just wait a second, just wait a second!’ as he frantically searched for it. I was like ‘I’m waiting, I’m waiting!’ Everyone in the immediate are was looking and laughing (in a good way). Finally, I took off my black coat and put it down on the ground in front of him, and he knelt down on that. Everyone cracked up. A little while later he proclaimed that ‘his heart beats for me’ and I decided it was time to go. All in all, not a bad Easter. Oh, and for the next 40 days, instead of greeting each other normally, people say ‘Christ is risen,’ which is responded to with ‘He is risen indeed.’ Kind of nice, and interesting, since that would never happen at home.
March 25, 2008
Playing the Moldovans at Baseball
Ok folks, this is a long one -- a lot has happened since I last wrote. So grab a cold one and settle in...
Within the time span of two short weeks, I managed to play baseball, start a running club, get tipsy at a 1 year old’s birthday party, and drink German beer and dance the polka in public – all things I never thought I’d ever do in Moldova.
For starters, yes! They play baseball here! (Skip to next paragraph if you are bored by baseball details.) There are two leagues around Chișinău with a dozen or so teams. One of the volunteers who played with the Moldovans last summer started up an all-American team this year, so naturally I jumped at the opportunity to play. I was told that there were other girls on the team, but come game day, they were nowhere to be seen. So, having not played competitively in years, and having never actually played baseball, I was a little leery about just jumping in this game. I offered my cheerleading services instead. But after three innings, the first catcher said he was tired and so in I went. The coach of the other team, who was calling the game from the mound, was like, ‘Jerry (the volunteer who started the team)! What’s with the girl?!’ He was like, ‘It’s cool, she plays.’ I was like, ‘Oh dear Lord, please help me not make a fool of myself.’ It was so strange to be back behind the plate again, and strange to get used to the overhand delivery. But I stopped almost everything in the dirt, much to the amazement of more than one person, including myself. I also got a lot of dirty/curious/come-hither looks from the members of the other team as they came up to the plate. I should mention that the age range of the other team was about 12 to 60, and they could more or less play. Oh, and the field was basically your typical sandlot (see photo). There was a path going through the middle of it, which most people avoided, seeing that there was some sort of game in progress. There was, however, one woman and her little boy, who marched right through the middle of the game, and then got in a shouting match in Russian with the other team. Oh, Moldova. Oh yeah, and I was looking forward to hearing the Romanian words for the baseball lingo, but unfortunately, the other team was mostly Russian-speaking, and all of the baseball-specific words were simply in English. Like ‘out’ or ‘batter.’ The bases were called by the Russian numbers (Adeen, Dva, Tree), and there was a lot ‘davai, davai!’ (let’s go, let’s go!). Anyways, on to my at-bat. I was forced to go up to the plate having not even picked up a bat in ages. Lucky for me, with a 1-2 count, our man was caught stealing to end the inning. So to start the next inning, I winked at the pitcher, who was clearly flustered by my presence, and managed to get a walk (or ‘baz on balls’). I didn’t realize until I got to first that I have no idea what the rule is for leading off. I just kinda danced around out there, and the pitcher tried to pick me off once, hehe. All in all it was a wonderful day. The sun was out, there was that smell in the air (wait, that was probably burning trash...), there was the crack of the mitt and the ping of the bat, and a slight feeling of being part of a team again. Oh, and we lost like 20 to 2.
Moving on...I have a running club! Never thought I’d see the day. So I was teaching English one day, when one of the girls in the front row blurted out, ‘Miss Kate, are you running today? Can I go with you?’ About four others chimed in, ‘Yeah, I want to run too!’ I was blown away. They refused to continue with the English lesson until I set a date and time for us to run. Five kids showed up at my gate the next Tuesday. Cool! Of course they are wearing things like jeans and slippers, but what they heck, let’s see what they got. Well, we made it about half way to the next village, or about 5 km total. Not bad!! And it was fun! They’re all really chatty and energetic. So we went again the next day. The third day I had a very important 1-year-old’s birthday party to attend, but the kids ran without me. Apparently word of this daily athletic endeavor is spreading beyond the English circle. Saturday morning I got out off the rutiera in Soroca, a little girl came running up to me and said, ‘Miss Kate, are you running this afternoon? I would like to run too.’ I had never even seen this girl before! Ok! That afternoon 10 kids showed up, only 4 of whom I actually knew. So now each day the group changes a bit, and the kids have varying abilities. Some of the kids who really can’t keep up have started riding bikes along side the runners. But it’s just great that they’re out there. And there’s even an expressed interest in having a little 5k here. Man that would be awesome, but I’m not going to get too excited yet.
So the 1-year-old’s b-day. Man, these people celebrate everything. And they don’t celebrate half-way. The little girl, Vica, is my host cousin, and the entire family from both sides showed up for the occasion. I had never met the uncle side of the family before, and they were pretty cool. The grandpa was awesome. The grandpas are always the best. We made a ‘Catusha’ sandwich when he found out his wife and I have the same name. He found out that we both have the same favorite Moldovan food (stuffed cabbage), but then proceeded to tell me that it’s much better when you smother it in the meat jello. Ummm... not sure I agree on that one.
There is also a lot of celebrating simply because it’s March. I guess spring officially begins here on March 1st, and it is tradition for people to wear little ‘Mărțișori’ on their shirts for at least the first week, if not the whole month. The girls crochet these little pins, which consist of a red and a white tassel. Red symbolizes love, and white new life. Apparently the girls give it to the boys of whom they are fond, but pretty much everyone has one. I did get one from one of my English boys, and one of my English girls. I wear them proudly (one at a time). There was also much hoopla surrounding March 8, International Women’s Day. Everyone was talking about it starting in February, but other than a few flowers being given, I didn’t really see a whole lot of action for the actual day.
Last week we were all in Chișinău for an in-service training, and the second night we went to a German restaurant. It was wonderful!! They had everything from Franziskaner beer to men in lederhosen playing the accordion! The music was a Moldovafied polka, but fun nevertheless. The place was packed, but no one was really dancing. Until we came, that is. We got out there for the chicken dance and some polka/hora dances. When the chicken dance was played again a few hours later, a few Moldovans joined us and said it is more fun when the Americans are there. Hehe.
Last weekend, the M22s (the volunteers who arrived in February) had a field trip to Soroca. So naturally, TJ, my fellow volunteer who lives in Soroca, and I decided it would be fun to meet up with them, since we hadn’t had the occasion to get to know any of them yet. We weren’t really sure where to find them, but we knew where to start – the fortress. It is not possible to go to Soroca and not go to the fortress. It was built by the son of Moldova’s hero, Ștefan cel Mare (Steven the Great, who was a cousin of Vlad the Impaler), as a defense against the Turks in the early 16th century. It’s not very big, and not super remarkable, but I suppose interesting enough. The two of us have been there multiple times, since anytime anyone comes to the area, we have to take them to the fortress. (Naturally, should any of you come to visit, we will go to the fortress.) So we walk in, and the two ladies who work there immediately said, ‘the Americans were here, but now they’re at the synagogue.’ As simple as that, we didn’t even have to say anything. We caught up to the Americans just as they were boarding the bus to go to lunch. Super. We hitched a ride and I spent the lunch hour talking with the new volunteers. It was kinda crazy to think how far I’ve come since six months ago, when I was in their shoes. Everything was new and strange and overwhelming. Now everything is old and normal and overwhelming. Anyways, it was fun to talk to them, and maybe offer some reassurance. Then they went off to meet the Gypsy King, and I went off to meet my running club.
Well, apparently the women in my village have decided that I’m fat and ugly. Well, not so harshly, but yeah. I was sitting down the other day when one of them grabbed my stomach and was like, ‘what’s this?!’ I was like, ‘what?! This is what happens when you yell at me to eat all day every day!’ Fact is, it’s kind of a miracle that I haven’t gained any weight since being here. Anyways, they went on to say that it’s not ok for me to be fat until I’m married. Also, more than one person has told me I should wear more make-up (I usually only put on a little mascara), and I should cut my hair and style it every day. Apparently this past week all of the teachers decided they would cut my hair for me. I put my foot down there. I’m in the Peace Corps for cryin’ out loud! It’s not like I dress poorly, in fact, quite the opposite. I just don’t get all gussied up. Seriously, the young girls here dress like their going to a fancy club every day. It’s starting to get on my nerves. I’m ok with being single!!! And when I do find someone, it’s not going to be because I’m a beauty queen!
So you want to know what it is I actually DO here? Well, I’ve been occupying my time quite nicely of late. I’ve been working a lot with my fellow directors on planning for the summer camp. We had to finish our grant applications, which included a detailed budget that I happily put together in excel (I heart Excel!). We’re now in the process of recruiting and selecting our Moldovan counselors, whom we will interview this Saturday. We’re also revising the curriculum a bit from last year, so that will take a lot of work. In my community, I of course have my English and running groups, and I’m going to start working a few days a week at the computer center and giving lessons in various computer skills. I’m also working on putting together a program in Excel to automate the calculations for the village’s savings and loan association – right now everything is done by hand, and there are piles and piles of paper that take forever to sort through when looking for something specific. I’m translating the instructions for the World Map Project – we’re going to paint a huge map (I heart maps!) on the wall of the cafeteria that is being newly constructed at the school, and throughout and after the painting of the map there will be various fun learning activities. And as far as developing the local economy, I’m trying to figure out what project to run with...expressed desires include expanding/developing a dairy farm, constructing a greenhouse to grow strawberries, building a cold storage facility to keep fruits, and a rabbit farm. These all could be rather large projects, and the problem I face now is trying to figure out who would really be committed to something and who is more like, ‘oh, that would be nice, but it’s too much work.’ And of course, the fact that I don’t actually know anything about that stuff. But I can help organize seminars, find information, plan budgets, search for funding, etc. I’ve also gotten repeated requests to help the local kindergarten procure toys (for inside and outside) and furniture. The kids literally have nothing right now. I’m also continually reading information on a variety of topics and trying to improve my language. I would like to work more with my NGO just on how it is structured and what it’s scope is, but today I found out that the only three active women don’t really have time to dedicate to the NGO and therefore want to de-register as an NGO and simply be an ‘association.’ Hmmm. So yeah, that’s the more or less useful stuff that I’m doing!
Pa for now!
Within the time span of two short weeks, I managed to play baseball, start a running club, get tipsy at a 1 year old’s birthday party, and drink German beer and dance the polka in public – all things I never thought I’d ever do in Moldova.
For starters, yes! They play baseball here! (Skip to next paragraph if you are bored by baseball details.) There are two leagues around Chișinău with a dozen or so teams. One of the volunteers who played with the Moldovans last summer started up an all-American team this year, so naturally I jumped at the opportunity to play. I was told that there were other girls on the team, but come game day, they were nowhere to be seen. So, having not played competitively in years, and having never actually played baseball, I was a little leery about just jumping in this game. I offered my cheerleading services instead. But after three innings, the first catcher said he was tired and so in I went. The coach of the other team, who was calling the game from the mound, was like, ‘Jerry (the volunteer who started the team)! What’s with the girl?!’ He was like, ‘It’s cool, she plays.’ I was like, ‘Oh dear Lord, please help me not make a fool of myself.’ It was so strange to be back behind the plate again, and strange to get used to the overhand delivery. But I stopped almost everything in the dirt, much to the amazement of more than one person, including myself. I also got a lot of dirty/curious/come-hither looks from the members of the other team as they came up to the plate. I should mention that the age range of the other team was about 12 to 60, and they could more or less play. Oh, and the field was basically your typical sandlot (see photo). There was a path going through the middle of it, which most people avoided, seeing that there was some sort of game in progress. There was, however, one woman and her little boy, who marched right through the middle of the game, and then got in a shouting match in Russian with the other team. Oh, Moldova. Oh yeah, and I was looking forward to hearing the Romanian words for the baseball lingo, but unfortunately, the other team was mostly Russian-speaking, and all of the baseball-specific words were simply in English. Like ‘out’ or ‘batter.’ The bases were called by the Russian numbers (Adeen, Dva, Tree), and there was a lot ‘davai, davai!’ (let’s go, let’s go!). Anyways, on to my at-bat. I was forced to go up to the plate having not even picked up a bat in ages. Lucky for me, with a 1-2 count, our man was caught stealing to end the inning. So to start the next inning, I winked at the pitcher, who was clearly flustered by my presence, and managed to get a walk (or ‘baz on balls’). I didn’t realize until I got to first that I have no idea what the rule is for leading off. I just kinda danced around out there, and the pitcher tried to pick me off once, hehe. All in all it was a wonderful day. The sun was out, there was that smell in the air (wait, that was probably burning trash...), there was the crack of the mitt and the ping of the bat, and a slight feeling of being part of a team again. Oh, and we lost like 20 to 2.
Moving on...I have a running club! Never thought I’d see the day. So I was teaching English one day, when one of the girls in the front row blurted out, ‘Miss Kate, are you running today? Can I go with you?’ About four others chimed in, ‘Yeah, I want to run too!’ I was blown away. They refused to continue with the English lesson until I set a date and time for us to run. Five kids showed up at my gate the next Tuesday. Cool! Of course they are wearing things like jeans and slippers, but what they heck, let’s see what they got. Well, we made it about half way to the next village, or about 5 km total. Not bad!! And it was fun! They’re all really chatty and energetic. So we went again the next day. The third day I had a very important 1-year-old’s birthday party to attend, but the kids ran without me. Apparently word of this daily athletic endeavor is spreading beyond the English circle. Saturday morning I got out off the rutiera in Soroca, a little girl came running up to me and said, ‘Miss Kate, are you running this afternoon? I would like to run too.’ I had never even seen this girl before! Ok! That afternoon 10 kids showed up, only 4 of whom I actually knew. So now each day the group changes a bit, and the kids have varying abilities. Some of the kids who really can’t keep up have started riding bikes along side the runners. But it’s just great that they’re out there. And there’s even an expressed interest in having a little 5k here. Man that would be awesome, but I’m not going to get too excited yet.
So the 1-year-old’s b-day. Man, these people celebrate everything. And they don’t celebrate half-way. The little girl, Vica, is my host cousin, and the entire family from both sides showed up for the occasion. I had never met the uncle side of the family before, and they were pretty cool. The grandpa was awesome. The grandpas are always the best. We made a ‘Catusha’ sandwich when he found out his wife and I have the same name. He found out that we both have the same favorite Moldovan food (stuffed cabbage), but then proceeded to tell me that it’s much better when you smother it in the meat jello. Ummm... not sure I agree on that one.
There is also a lot of celebrating simply because it’s March. I guess spring officially begins here on March 1st, and it is tradition for people to wear little ‘Mărțișori’ on their shirts for at least the first week, if not the whole month. The girls crochet these little pins, which consist of a red and a white tassel. Red symbolizes love, and white new life. Apparently the girls give it to the boys of whom they are fond, but pretty much everyone has one. I did get one from one of my English boys, and one of my English girls. I wear them proudly (one at a time). There was also much hoopla surrounding March 8, International Women’s Day. Everyone was talking about it starting in February, but other than a few flowers being given, I didn’t really see a whole lot of action for the actual day.
Last week we were all in Chișinău for an in-service training, and the second night we went to a German restaurant. It was wonderful!! They had everything from Franziskaner beer to men in lederhosen playing the accordion! The music was a Moldovafied polka, but fun nevertheless. The place was packed, but no one was really dancing. Until we came, that is. We got out there for the chicken dance and some polka/hora dances. When the chicken dance was played again a few hours later, a few Moldovans joined us and said it is more fun when the Americans are there. Hehe.
Last weekend, the M22s (the volunteers who arrived in February) had a field trip to Soroca. So naturally, TJ, my fellow volunteer who lives in Soroca, and I decided it would be fun to meet up with them, since we hadn’t had the occasion to get to know any of them yet. We weren’t really sure where to find them, but we knew where to start – the fortress. It is not possible to go to Soroca and not go to the fortress. It was built by the son of Moldova’s hero, Ștefan cel Mare (Steven the Great, who was a cousin of Vlad the Impaler), as a defense against the Turks in the early 16th century. It’s not very big, and not super remarkable, but I suppose interesting enough. The two of us have been there multiple times, since anytime anyone comes to the area, we have to take them to the fortress. (Naturally, should any of you come to visit, we will go to the fortress.) So we walk in, and the two ladies who work there immediately said, ‘the Americans were here, but now they’re at the synagogue.’ As simple as that, we didn’t even have to say anything. We caught up to the Americans just as they were boarding the bus to go to lunch. Super. We hitched a ride and I spent the lunch hour talking with the new volunteers. It was kinda crazy to think how far I’ve come since six months ago, when I was in their shoes. Everything was new and strange and overwhelming. Now everything is old and normal and overwhelming. Anyways, it was fun to talk to them, and maybe offer some reassurance. Then they went off to meet the Gypsy King, and I went off to meet my running club.
Well, apparently the women in my village have decided that I’m fat and ugly. Well, not so harshly, but yeah. I was sitting down the other day when one of them grabbed my stomach and was like, ‘what’s this?!’ I was like, ‘what?! This is what happens when you yell at me to eat all day every day!’ Fact is, it’s kind of a miracle that I haven’t gained any weight since being here. Anyways, they went on to say that it’s not ok for me to be fat until I’m married. Also, more than one person has told me I should wear more make-up (I usually only put on a little mascara), and I should cut my hair and style it every day. Apparently this past week all of the teachers decided they would cut my hair for me. I put my foot down there. I’m in the Peace Corps for cryin’ out loud! It’s not like I dress poorly, in fact, quite the opposite. I just don’t get all gussied up. Seriously, the young girls here dress like their going to a fancy club every day. It’s starting to get on my nerves. I’m ok with being single!!! And when I do find someone, it’s not going to be because I’m a beauty queen!
So you want to know what it is I actually DO here? Well, I’ve been occupying my time quite nicely of late. I’ve been working a lot with my fellow directors on planning for the summer camp. We had to finish our grant applications, which included a detailed budget that I happily put together in excel (I heart Excel!). We’re now in the process of recruiting and selecting our Moldovan counselors, whom we will interview this Saturday. We’re also revising the curriculum a bit from last year, so that will take a lot of work. In my community, I of course have my English and running groups, and I’m going to start working a few days a week at the computer center and giving lessons in various computer skills. I’m also working on putting together a program in Excel to automate the calculations for the village’s savings and loan association – right now everything is done by hand, and there are piles and piles of paper that take forever to sort through when looking for something specific. I’m translating the instructions for the World Map Project – we’re going to paint a huge map (I heart maps!) on the wall of the cafeteria that is being newly constructed at the school, and throughout and after the painting of the map there will be various fun learning activities. And as far as developing the local economy, I’m trying to figure out what project to run with...expressed desires include expanding/developing a dairy farm, constructing a greenhouse to grow strawberries, building a cold storage facility to keep fruits, and a rabbit farm. These all could be rather large projects, and the problem I face now is trying to figure out who would really be committed to something and who is more like, ‘oh, that would be nice, but it’s too much work.’ And of course, the fact that I don’t actually know anything about that stuff. But I can help organize seminars, find information, plan budgets, search for funding, etc. I’ve also gotten repeated requests to help the local kindergarten procure toys (for inside and outside) and furniture. The kids literally have nothing right now. I’m also continually reading information on a variety of topics and trying to improve my language. I would like to work more with my NGO just on how it is structured and what it’s scope is, but today I found out that the only three active women don’t really have time to dedicate to the NGO and therefore want to de-register as an NGO and simply be an ‘association.’ Hmmm. So yeah, that’s the more or less useful stuff that I’m doing!
Pa for now!
March 9, 2008
They Laughed at Me!
Well, I’ve been here over 6 months now. Jeepers. February 20th marked the end of our 3 month ‘lockdown’ period, during which we weren’t allowed to leave our sites except for New Years and a two-day language training. Now we are more or less free to come and go as we like. My group (that is, almost all of the 34 of 40 of us who still remain) got together in Chișinău to celebrate our freedom and trade stories. Two of the volunteers who’ve been here two years already were gracious enough to host us at their apartment, and we made delicious food such as Kraft mac and cheese, soft shell tacos, brownies, and raw veggies and ranch dip. Now I probably won’t eat those things again for another 21 months.
The weather has finally taken what I believe to be a permanent turn for the warmer. We’ve enjoyed beautiful sun-shiny days and temperatures in the 60s. This is great for me and my aversion to mud and fading willpower to run in the cold. The other day I was out running without a hat on (gasp!) and an old lady down the street shook her cane at me and yelled at me for running without a hat. I laughed. Then when I was further out in the countryside one of the young men from the village was driving home with his family and honked (a crazy weeooo-weeeoo sound) and waved. I’ve never actually talked to him, so I was glad he recognized and acknowledged me rather than offering me a ride like most people do. The downside to all the sunshine and warmness is that things are drying out – not good for an agriculture-based economy. And if it does freeze again, all the trees that have started blooming will be doomed. So let’s hope for the best. Oh, and another good thing about being warm – my laundry dries in less than 24 hours instead of a week!
I’ve picked up a hobby – crocheting. All of the girls at school have to learn the arts of knitting, crocheting, and sewing, which they do while the boys are out in the field learning boy stuff. The social worker (with whom I share an office, if you remember) is crocheting a ‘summer sweater’ and solicited help from the crocheting teacher at the school, so I decided to go along and learn a bit myself. I’ve picked it up pretty quickly, and I too would like to make myself a little somethin-somethin. We’ll see if I get further than the time I started knitting a scarf....
I think you all know that I love language, which certainly an attractive part of being in the Peace Corps. I’ve started to feel pretty good about where I’m at – almost everyone understands me, and even though I make mistakes and have a funny accent, people love the fact that I’m trying. And then there are the 9th grade punks. I had finally overcome my fear of speaking in Romanian in front of larger groups of people, especially people I don’t know. So I didn’t think anything of holding a short meeting to give some preparatory information to the 9th graders (who I haven’t met before) who were attending the business seminar that weekend. I began speaking and two of the boys in the back burst out laughing. I thought they were having a conversation of their own, so I waited a few seconds for silence to come and began again. They burst out laughing again, and this time it was clear that they were laughing at me. At me! I was like, what? I’d like to see you get up here and speak in English! I had gotten so used to people accepting the way I talk that it was a bit of a shocker for me. But no worries, I let it roll. The little kids like me anyways.
Last weekend I hosted a two-day business seminar for about 20 of the high-school aged kids in my village (fortunately, the aforementioned punks didn’t show up). Four Moldovans came from Chișinău and taught them the basics about entrepreneurship, marketing, management, economics, making a budget, and writing a business plan. At the end of the two days, each of four teams wrote and presented a busins supply and demand. It was some what of a rigorous two days, and I was very impressed with how active and enthusiastic these kids were, and how good their business plans were considering the circumstances. A couple of the 15 year-olds wanted to start up the business now!
Back to the language, I made another boo boo this week, but a really funny one. The words for ‘copies’ and ‘children/babies’ are very close – pretty much the only difference in the accent of the syllables. I tried to tell the social worker that I was going to the computer center to make copies for the seminar. But of course it came out that I was going to make babies. To make it even better, the guy at work who jokes 95% of the time overheard and said ‘What?! Do you have someone to help, or do you need me to come?’ I don’t think he’s going to let this one go for a long time.
Going back to the frettings of my last entry, I’m still racking my brain trying to figure out how I can help create more jobs for the people in my village. It really is sad and alarming how many people have left and continue to leave to find jobs in other countries. While I was at my crocheting lesson last week, the teacher read a few of the essays the kids had written about what they would do if they were president. Almost all the lists started with ‘create more jobs so my mother/father/sister/brother/neighbor can come home.’ Similarly, during Christmas, letters to Santa often began with ‘I want my mother/father/sister/brother/neighbor to come home.’ It breaks my heart.
Last weekend I went to Bălți, the second largest city in Moldova and predominantly Russian-speaking, to meet up with one of my co-directors for the women’s summer camp. We went around to different NGOs that we hope will provide us with speakers and/or informational materials for our camp. After that, we stopped at the piața to pick up some veggies for dinner, and of course all of the vendors spoke in Russian. However, I whipped out my mad Russian skills and correctly understood that the carrots cost 15 lei. Woot. Later that afternoon, we went to the orphanage, where my co-director volunteers every Friday, to play with the kids there. Again most of them spoke Russian, but I wowed them with my ability to ask, what is your name? And to respond, ‘my name is catuișa.’ Woot woot. Also, even though I just met these children, I managed to get four ‘pups’ (pronounced ‘poops’ – kisses) and two hugs!
The weather has finally taken what I believe to be a permanent turn for the warmer. We’ve enjoyed beautiful sun-shiny days and temperatures in the 60s. This is great for me and my aversion to mud and fading willpower to run in the cold. The other day I was out running without a hat on (gasp!) and an old lady down the street shook her cane at me and yelled at me for running without a hat. I laughed. Then when I was further out in the countryside one of the young men from the village was driving home with his family and honked (a crazy weeooo-weeeoo sound) and waved. I’ve never actually talked to him, so I was glad he recognized and acknowledged me rather than offering me a ride like most people do. The downside to all the sunshine and warmness is that things are drying out – not good for an agriculture-based economy. And if it does freeze again, all the trees that have started blooming will be doomed. So let’s hope for the best. Oh, and another good thing about being warm – my laundry dries in less than 24 hours instead of a week!
I’ve picked up a hobby – crocheting. All of the girls at school have to learn the arts of knitting, crocheting, and sewing, which they do while the boys are out in the field learning boy stuff. The social worker (with whom I share an office, if you remember) is crocheting a ‘summer sweater’ and solicited help from the crocheting teacher at the school, so I decided to go along and learn a bit myself. I’ve picked it up pretty quickly, and I too would like to make myself a little somethin-somethin. We’ll see if I get further than the time I started knitting a scarf....
I think you all know that I love language, which certainly an attractive part of being in the Peace Corps. I’ve started to feel pretty good about where I’m at – almost everyone understands me, and even though I make mistakes and have a funny accent, people love the fact that I’m trying. And then there are the 9th grade punks. I had finally overcome my fear of speaking in Romanian in front of larger groups of people, especially people I don’t know. So I didn’t think anything of holding a short meeting to give some preparatory information to the 9th graders (who I haven’t met before) who were attending the business seminar that weekend. I began speaking and two of the boys in the back burst out laughing. I thought they were having a conversation of their own, so I waited a few seconds for silence to come and began again. They burst out laughing again, and this time it was clear that they were laughing at me. At me! I was like, what? I’d like to see you get up here and speak in English! I had gotten so used to people accepting the way I talk that it was a bit of a shocker for me. But no worries, I let it roll. The little kids like me anyways.
Last weekend I hosted a two-day business seminar for about 20 of the high-school aged kids in my village (fortunately, the aforementioned punks didn’t show up). Four Moldovans came from Chișinău and taught them the basics about entrepreneurship, marketing, management, economics, making a budget, and writing a business plan. At the end of the two days, each of four teams wrote and presented a busins supply and demand. It was some what of a rigorous two days, and I was very impressed with how active and enthusiastic these kids were, and how good their business plans were considering the circumstances. A couple of the 15 year-olds wanted to start up the business now!
Back to the language, I made another boo boo this week, but a really funny one. The words for ‘copies’ and ‘children/babies’ are very close – pretty much the only difference in the accent of the syllables. I tried to tell the social worker that I was going to the computer center to make copies for the seminar. But of course it came out that I was going to make babies. To make it even better, the guy at work who jokes 95% of the time overheard and said ‘What?! Do you have someone to help, or do you need me to come?’ I don’t think he’s going to let this one go for a long time.
Going back to the frettings of my last entry, I’m still racking my brain trying to figure out how I can help create more jobs for the people in my village. It really is sad and alarming how many people have left and continue to leave to find jobs in other countries. While I was at my crocheting lesson last week, the teacher read a few of the essays the kids had written about what they would do if they were president. Almost all the lists started with ‘create more jobs so my mother/father/sister/brother/neighbor can come home.’ Similarly, during Christmas, letters to Santa often began with ‘I want my mother/father/sister/brother/neighbor to come home.’ It breaks my heart.
Last weekend I went to Bălți, the second largest city in Moldova and predominantly Russian-speaking, to meet up with one of my co-directors for the women’s summer camp. We went around to different NGOs that we hope will provide us with speakers and/or informational materials for our camp. After that, we stopped at the piața to pick up some veggies for dinner, and of course all of the vendors spoke in Russian. However, I whipped out my mad Russian skills and correctly understood that the carrots cost 15 lei. Woot. Later that afternoon, we went to the orphanage, where my co-director volunteers every Friday, to play with the kids there. Again most of them spoke Russian, but I wowed them with my ability to ask, what is your name? And to respond, ‘my name is catuișa.’ Woot woot. Also, even though I just met these children, I managed to get four ‘pups’ (pronounced ‘poops’ – kisses) and two hugs!
February 15, 2008
Pondering the Meaning of Life (and other things)
This month we also started planning for this year’s Camp TARE, a week-long nation-wide camp for young women ages 18-22. Actually it’s more of a seminar series, covering topics ranging from professional skills to human-trafficking. TARE stands for (in Romanian) Young, Active, Responsible, and Equal, and the word ‘tare’ means strong. I’m one of four directors for the camp, and we’ve got some work to do before July! I’m also hosting a short seminar in my village at the end of February. The topic of this seminar is business for youth. In the village there is absolutely no business curriculum before the university level, so this two-day seminar will give some of the high-school age kids in my village an introduction to economics and entrepreneurship. So I have been preparing for that as well. And of course, English class is always good for some work and laughs. We played Jeopardy this week in order to review what we’ve learned so far, and I’ll just say that I need to work on class-room control, and perhaps next time I should have a better plan for debating who said what first. There was shouting (everyone at once), laughing, jubilation, and even a bit of crying. But overall I was pleased with what the kids have managed to learn up until now.
So I’m learning all about sheep. And I’m actually doing something somewhat useful! One of my partners and I are helping a woman from the village write a business plan to try to win a grant so she can buy another breed of sheep to cross-breed with her sheep in order to increase her overall production of milk. Apparently this other breed lactates a crazy amount. Anyways, from this milk she then makes sheep-cheese, that glorious product that is sold in the ‘brinza barn,’ my favorite part of the piata, as I mentioned in my Christmas entry. So I’ve read a whole bunch of material about raising sheep, and I’ve learned a whole bunch of new vocab, all of which will be extremely useful in daily life, of course. I’ve typed up and organized the entire plan, adding my opinions and advice where needed, all in Romanian! Although it is but something small, this is a start towards making an impact in my community!
When the snow melts, there is mud everywhere. I mean everywhere. Not just a few sticky spots here and there. There is sink-down-to-your-laces-in-thick-brown-gooey-junk-every-step mud. Completely unavoidable. Then why do I have to wash and polish my boots every single night?? My first step out the gate will completely undo all of my hard work and no one will even know that I cleaned them!
So I’ve spent a lot of time thinking lately. Not for lack of things better to do, but because there is a lot to think about. I am constantly plagued by the worries of not accomplishing anything while I’m here. Outside of the capital and a few larger towns, there is virtually no economy. How can we create jobs here so that people don’t have to leave? Of course I can’t solve the problems of the entire country, but even in my village? How does one raise the living standards of this tiny community in rural Moldova? Yes, the land is fertile. But does it really make sense for a village to have 1000 individual agriculture-based small businesses? One thing that the Soviet collective farms had right was the idea of economies of scale. What can a person get with 3 hectares of corn?! Or half a hectar of wheat? And of course there are the complaints of the low prices received for cereals, so why don’t they switch to higher-value crops? And if someone buys another’s land and starts to produce more efficiently, where does that leave the other guy who now has nothing? He can’t exactly just up and get another job. If someone does have the initiative to start something larger, where does the start-up capital come from? Most can’t afford the 25% and higher interest rates, or they don’t have any sort of collateral to offer. Hardly any one has savings of any kind, maybe some euros stashed in a jar, and most don’t even have bank accounts at all. I don’t want to be a grant-writer, but in many cases it might be the only way. But how is that sustainable? So that is one line of thought running through my head.
I’ve also been pondering the questions raised by two recent publications: an editorial in the New York Times criticizing the Peace Corps for not being an effective international development organization because of the inexperience of the young people it recruits, as well as a book, The Search for Bliss, which labels Moldovans as the unhappiest people on earth. As for the former, I have in fact at times felt under-qualified for my job here. But how important are these tangible development results? How important is balancing the first Peace Corps goal of development with the remaining two goals of cross-cultural understanding? And how many other international development agencies are reaching out into remote villages like the Peace Corps is in dozens of countries? How many of these agencies have a model in which the developer becomes of part of the community that he seeks to aid, learns the languages, and really gets to know the people? But I didn’t come here solely for two years of cultural exchange, as great as that is. I came to make a difference in the lives of these people. Some say they don’t need help here, others say they need all the help they can get, and still others say there is no way to help unless you have access to money. While I may not be a development expert, I do bring energy, knowledge of the workings of a market economy, ideas, an open-mind, and yes, some access to money. My time here will not be for nothing. As for the claim that Moldovans are the unhappiest people on Earth, yes, there is a good amount of unhappiness here. I discussed this with my host mother, who said, ‘Of course we’re unhappy! We can’t get jobs and our loved ones are gone!’ But the unhappiest people on Earth? Please. People don't spend their days moping around. In fact, there is much laughter and joking everyday. I see smiles and laughter and happy gatherings all the time here. The author of this book neglected to present both sides of life here. And furthermore, I think any attempt to label the unhappiest people on Earth is futile and ridiculous.
My final ponderings have revolved around my decision to join the Peace Corps, and, I suppose, the meaning of life. Yes, I believe life is preparation for eternal life in God’s kingdom, but what does that mean for me? What is God’s plan for me here on Earth? Is this really where he wants me to be, or did I just think this is where he wants me to be because this is where I wanted to be? And why did I want to be here? To satisfy my own craving for adventure? To avoid having to choose and start a career? To learn a new language? To serve others and fulfill my need for that ‘do-good’ feeling? Yes to all. Is that ok? I’ve asked myself many times what would really make me happy in life, and I always come to the conclusion that, after a strong relationship with Christ, relationships with people are what keep me going in life. Even the worst job I’ve ever had made me happy when I did it with people that I cared about and who cared about me. If it is the case that people are the most important thing to me, why do I keep choosing to leave them? Each place I’ve gone I’ve been incredibly blest to have made new amazing friends, but then when the time comes to leave, it is that much harder to. Is it enough to maintain relationships through long distance? There are so many people who have had an amazing impact on my life, but do they know it? I try to show my appreciation for others, but I don’t think I always succeed. Can I keep going on though life assuming that wherever I go there will be somebody with whom I want to laugh, spend time with, listen to, tell my stories to? And what does it mean to ‘make new friends, but keep the old?’ Everybody always asks me if I miss life in the US. The answer is no. I only miss people.
Alrighty, that is all. I promise to keep it a bit lighter next time!
So I’m learning all about sheep. And I’m actually doing something somewhat useful! One of my partners and I are helping a woman from the village write a business plan to try to win a grant so she can buy another breed of sheep to cross-breed with her sheep in order to increase her overall production of milk. Apparently this other breed lactates a crazy amount. Anyways, from this milk she then makes sheep-cheese, that glorious product that is sold in the ‘brinza barn,’ my favorite part of the piata, as I mentioned in my Christmas entry. So I’ve read a whole bunch of material about raising sheep, and I’ve learned a whole bunch of new vocab, all of which will be extremely useful in daily life, of course. I’ve typed up and organized the entire plan, adding my opinions and advice where needed, all in Romanian! Although it is but something small, this is a start towards making an impact in my community!
When the snow melts, there is mud everywhere. I mean everywhere. Not just a few sticky spots here and there. There is sink-down-to-your-laces-in-thick-brown-gooey-junk-every-step mud. Completely unavoidable. Then why do I have to wash and polish my boots every single night?? My first step out the gate will completely undo all of my hard work and no one will even know that I cleaned them!
So I’ve spent a lot of time thinking lately. Not for lack of things better to do, but because there is a lot to think about. I am constantly plagued by the worries of not accomplishing anything while I’m here. Outside of the capital and a few larger towns, there is virtually no economy. How can we create jobs here so that people don’t have to leave? Of course I can’t solve the problems of the entire country, but even in my village? How does one raise the living standards of this tiny community in rural Moldova? Yes, the land is fertile. But does it really make sense for a village to have 1000 individual agriculture-based small businesses? One thing that the Soviet collective farms had right was the idea of economies of scale. What can a person get with 3 hectares of corn?! Or half a hectar of wheat? And of course there are the complaints of the low prices received for cereals, so why don’t they switch to higher-value crops? And if someone buys another’s land and starts to produce more efficiently, where does that leave the other guy who now has nothing? He can’t exactly just up and get another job. If someone does have the initiative to start something larger, where does the start-up capital come from? Most can’t afford the 25% and higher interest rates, or they don’t have any sort of collateral to offer. Hardly any one has savings of any kind, maybe some euros stashed in a jar, and most don’t even have bank accounts at all. I don’t want to be a grant-writer, but in many cases it might be the only way. But how is that sustainable? So that is one line of thought running through my head.
I’ve also been pondering the questions raised by two recent publications: an editorial in the New York Times criticizing the Peace Corps for not being an effective international development organization because of the inexperience of the young people it recruits, as well as a book, The Search for Bliss, which labels Moldovans as the unhappiest people on earth. As for the former, I have in fact at times felt under-qualified for my job here. But how important are these tangible development results? How important is balancing the first Peace Corps goal of development with the remaining two goals of cross-cultural understanding? And how many other international development agencies are reaching out into remote villages like the Peace Corps is in dozens of countries? How many of these agencies have a model in which the developer becomes of part of the community that he seeks to aid, learns the languages, and really gets to know the people? But I didn’t come here solely for two years of cultural exchange, as great as that is. I came to make a difference in the lives of these people. Some say they don’t need help here, others say they need all the help they can get, and still others say there is no way to help unless you have access to money. While I may not be a development expert, I do bring energy, knowledge of the workings of a market economy, ideas, an open-mind, and yes, some access to money. My time here will not be for nothing. As for the claim that Moldovans are the unhappiest people on Earth, yes, there is a good amount of unhappiness here. I discussed this with my host mother, who said, ‘Of course we’re unhappy! We can’t get jobs and our loved ones are gone!’ But the unhappiest people on Earth? Please. People don't spend their days moping around. In fact, there is much laughter and joking everyday. I see smiles and laughter and happy gatherings all the time here. The author of this book neglected to present both sides of life here. And furthermore, I think any attempt to label the unhappiest people on Earth is futile and ridiculous.
My final ponderings have revolved around my decision to join the Peace Corps, and, I suppose, the meaning of life. Yes, I believe life is preparation for eternal life in God’s kingdom, but what does that mean for me? What is God’s plan for me here on Earth? Is this really where he wants me to be, or did I just think this is where he wants me to be because this is where I wanted to be? And why did I want to be here? To satisfy my own craving for adventure? To avoid having to choose and start a career? To learn a new language? To serve others and fulfill my need for that ‘do-good’ feeling? Yes to all. Is that ok? I’ve asked myself many times what would really make me happy in life, and I always come to the conclusion that, after a strong relationship with Christ, relationships with people are what keep me going in life. Even the worst job I’ve ever had made me happy when I did it with people that I cared about and who cared about me. If it is the case that people are the most important thing to me, why do I keep choosing to leave them? Each place I’ve gone I’ve been incredibly blest to have made new amazing friends, but then when the time comes to leave, it is that much harder to. Is it enough to maintain relationships through long distance? There are so many people who have had an amazing impact on my life, but do they know it? I try to show my appreciation for others, but I don’t think I always succeed. Can I keep going on though life assuming that wherever I go there will be somebody with whom I want to laugh, spend time with, listen to, tell my stories to? And what does it mean to ‘make new friends, but keep the old?’ Everybody always asks me if I miss life in the US. The answer is no. I only miss people.
Alrighty, that is all. I promise to keep it a bit lighter next time!
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