Chisinau!

Yesterday was quite the adventure. I gave my last December final as quickly as possible, calculated grades at the speed of light, and then hightailed out of the university in order to catch a minibus to Chisinau. It had been snowing for four straight days, so I decided time was of the essence. There was no way I was going to let myself get snowed in and miss my flight.

The bus station was abuzz with people trying to figure out when buses were going to leave, as all the routes were on limited schedules. Me and my big red suitcase got rejected from one minibus, only to be accepted on board about five minutes later as they realized they needed more passengers. I like to think my dour, helpless expression helped to get me on the bus. Our two-hour ride over the snowy roads to Chisinau was surprisingly uneventful. The drivers here know how to manage without snow tires, apparently. On the way, I spent about 45 minutes talking with a friendly Bulgarian lady from Taraclia. She told me many entertaining stories, like how there were so many people at her son's wedding that they had to put chairs and tables on the stage of the House of Culture they were holding it in. Moldova is such a friendly country!

I lugged my suitcase (weighed down by approximately 6 liters of wine from my host family) on to another minibus from the South Bus Station into the center of Chisinau, where Amy, my lovely hostess for this weekend, found me and took me to her apartment. Her nice "Euro-remont" (European-remodelled) apartment is a good waystation between Comrat and America. We made a delicious meat spaghetti sauce with ingredients from the western-style grocery store downstairs from her apartment. Robin, a Peace Corps Volunteer who lives in the same building, joined us for dinner. We shared homestay horror stories; it was highly entertaining.

Today I went on a shopping extravaganza (read: I spent $50). It was nice and sunny, which made the snow glisten quite prettily. I bought a hairdryer (apparently the word diffuser is the same in Russian—score!), some Russian cartoons on DVD, more DDT music, and The Reader in Russian. I'm quite looking forward to reading The Reader on the plane. It was written in German originally, so I figure reading it in Russian is no more weird than reading it in English.

I also confirmed with the staff at an Air Moldova office that my flight to Frankfurt is indeed scheduled to leave tomorrow. This is good. About 12 hours until I have to leave for the airport. Yay!

White Christmas

I woke up this morning around six, wondering why it was so cold. When I actually got up at nine, I saw that Comrat had turned into a snowy winter wonderland! I, of course, cranked up the Christmas music (Stephen Colbert's "Another Christmas Song," of course) and enjoyed a relaxing morning.

Everyone at work was excited about the snow, which was fun! I, however, tend to have problems with falling down... My Arizona upbringing did not prepare me for this.

It's finals month here (yes, they have a finals month), which means lots of work for us teachers and lots of stress for the students. I have to give two finals tomorrow for my Culture and Civilization class, which I'm not exactly looking forward to. Unfortunately, test time means cheating time! I have a lot of issues with the pervasive post-Soviet culture of copying, which kind of makes writing tests pointless. Even when I do two different versions, people magically have all the same answers! You can map seating arrangements by looking at who has the same mistakes. The tiny classrooms definitely exacerbate this...as well as the fact that everyone seems to wink at it! Ah, well.

I'm looking forward to heading home on December 20th. It'll give me a good chance to recharge my educational batteries, stock up on books, eat Mexican food, and drink good beer. Most of all, I can't wait to see my Arizona people!

Another sign that I might be going crazy...

We watched a fairly lame educational dramatization of Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" in my literary text analysis class today. I felt that the class was rather bored, which gave me an impetus to get theatrical. So, we were reviewing the plot of the story, and at the climactic moment, I exclaimed, fists raised to the sky,

"It was the beating of his hideous heart!"

I had not realized until this year how entertaining it is to be eccentric in front of a captive audience.

On tap for tomorrow: an analysis of a Tim O'Brien short story and a song by Ani DiFranco. It's nice to be the professor. I can make them read whatever I want!

In the Trenches

I've been having a pretty crazy week as the result of insane amounts of class, but I thought I'd bullet point some highlights while I have a spare moment:

• Amazing breakfast on Monday at Melek's house (my Turkish teacher). Also, a fun Turkish lesson.
• Trying to explain the agony of ASU's loss of the Territorial Cup to a student.
• Teaching students about the concept of "hair of the dog."
• Great lesson on Shakespeare's Sonnet #130 on Monday.
• Listening to Jimmy Eat World's "Work" on the way to work.
• Somehow, one of my students knew about the Arizona Wildcats when I said I was from Arizona. This is actually sort of a lowlight (still sensitive after our crushing defeat...) but I thought it merited a mention.
• Very awesome lecture from Thomas Santos, the Regional English Language Officer. What a pro. All the teachers loved him and he returned our love.
• Getting a flatscreen TV, DVD player, and home theater system for the American Center! Thanks, U.S. Embassy! (Lowlight: The overall floundering about by the university administration on actually installing the generous gift.)
• Invitation to smoke hookah next week. Калянь!
• My oh-so-entertaining colleagues making fun of me and my quest for дополнительные пары (extra lessons so I can meet the requirements for the semester).
• My student's not-so-smooth attempt to change the subject of the conversation to Lost when we were discussing Tom Sawyer.
• Talking to Debbie on her birthday!
• Watching Meet the Parents in class today (on VHS!) instead of discussing "The Gift of the Magi." Hey, it was totally justified! This semester has been hell for everyone, including students. O. Henry can wait.
• My overall unsuccessful quest to stop speaking "foreigner English" before I get back to America. (I am slowly losing my ability to consistently use correct prepositions.)
• Purchasing Christmas garland today in order to begin the decoration of the American Center.

Overall, it has been a really hectic week, but I'm starting to feel like this might actually end at some point! It sucks because the day of reckoning (aka final exams) are coming up and students (not to mention professors) are starting to freak out. I just keep trying to remind myself that I only have 6 days left (7 if you count the fact that I'm working on Saturday, but I don't because that's too depressing to even think about).

Countdown to America: 17 days!

A Bag of Fish

Today didn’t start well, as I woke up 45 minutes earlier than my alarm and couldn’t get back to sleep. I kept thinking about all the work (particularly paperwork) that has to get done in the next few weeks. I’m really worried that the faculty head is going to catch all the “mistakes” I have made with my course documents and rake me over the coals. I’m not sure how bad it will be, considering that I do have a few cards in my hands. Quite a few Fulbright program rules have been disregarded (intentionally or unintentionally, I don’t know) by my university, so I always have that to fire back at them if I am confronted. Eh. I suppose it’s not a big deal, but it’s still stressing me out.

The thing that is frustrating is that at the end of the day, my performance won’t be judged by anything I do in the classroom, but how well I prepare my documents. Disheartening. (My mother assures me that this is the reality of teaching everywhere.)

Once my alarm actually went off, I got ready to go to the university for a marathon class session. Because of all the class cancellations and the fact that my students left the university for a month and a half to student-teach, I will be teaching basically double my normal class schedule until school ends in two weeks. So, we’re cramming in classes on Saturdays. I taught my Culture and Civilization group from 9:30 to 3:00 today. I was having flashbacks of AP European History Saturday test prep sessions!

I thought this was going to be awful, but it ended up being okay. Nobody really wants to work on Saturdays, so we had a twenty-minute breakfast break right in the middle of class. I was taken out of class by the department head in a rather official fashion, only to find out that the reason she wanted me to go to the faculty lounge was to drink tea and eat some leftovers from yesterday’s party.

Today my students were surprisingly active (and not too whiny) considering they were sacrificing their weekend to sit in class for nearly six hours! That is the one thing that makes all the ridiculous paperwork worthwhile: my students are entertaining. It’s fun to watch how all the girls interact (almost all of my local students are girls) and to see all of their personality quirks. They’re all very nice girls and it’s energizing to have such interesting students.

We did a crash course in American history from the Civil War to the present. It turned out pretty well, but it’s always hard to remember that people here don’t really learn much about our history, so you really have to start from nothing. I think the biggest hit was when I showed a clip from Glory. Too bad I had no reasonable excuse to watch the whole movie...I could have used a nap.

A bright part of my day was giving one of my students a burned copy of The College Dropout. Just doing my part to spread Kanye to Gagauzia.

As I was about to walk out of the room, I noticed a bag sitting on one of the desks. I decided that I might as well check it out in case it was something important. Imagine my surprise when I saw a large number of fish staring up at me with their dead eyes!

I called down the hall to the last one of my students who luckily hadn’t left yet. I showed her the bag of fish and she made some phone calls and scared up the owner of the fish.

Thank God I decided to look in that bag--the stench on Monday would have made a cat drop dead.

I came home and crashed. I’m currently reading A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle, which is way weirder than I remembered.

I had a strange moment while watching a Russian soap opera tonight. The main character was driving around in a fancy car, and I thought, “How wonderful it would be to own a car!”

Then I realized I do own a car. That was kind of weird.

I’m just trying to get through these next two weeks without going nuts. The problem is that after teaching for nearly 6 hours, I feel like I’ve had a frontal lobotomy. Unfortunately, there’s still many a lesson plan to write and many a test question to think up! At least I’m seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

We are thankful for...

After my sorry performance at Halloween (party cancelled thanks to swine flu), I decided to think of something interesting to do for Thanksgiving. I put up some DIY decorations in the American Center for starters. I realized there was no way to really do a party considering food logistics, so I decided to go to the good old standby: What are you thankful for?

I bought poster board for each class in festive fall colors and at the beginning of my classes I asked everyone to think of what they were thankful for. (This is more challenging to explain than it seems, because Russian really doesn’t have an equivalent expression. You can be thankful to someone, but not really for something.) I wrote “We are thankful for...” in big letters and then I passed around the poster and invited people to write on it. Some of the responses:

“My family”

“My friends”

“My sister twin”

“My baby” (yep, some of my students are moms)

“Having a true American teacher to teach us” (I got a few of this one. I think they are suck-ups, but I secretly enjoy it!)

“The cosmetics of Avon”

“My God”

“Being healthy”

“Bob Marley” (personal favorite)

“My parents”

“My love” (a popular choice with the female students)

“My family and my friends and my boyfriend”

“Leaving Adem forever” (Adem is one of the students in the class...the students kept joking that they would be happy never to see each other again after they graduate this year. This was the class that refused to take anything seriously. They cracked me up.)

“My life”

“My teachers”

“Being born in Turkiye” (A typical sentiment from the Turkish students! I guess the spirit of Kemal Ataturk will live on in my Thanksgiving posters.)

“Form monitor” (I have no idea what the students were trying to write, but this is the translation from the Oxford Russian-English dictionary. I think it’s like a homeroom teacher.)

“Having interesting students to teach” (That was mine!)

There was also one about a Turkish soccer victory that everyone seemed to be very excited about. I was confused, but then figured it had to be some kind of ASU-UA rivalry, the Territorial Cup of Turkey, if you will.

I labelled each one according to group (class groups have a very strong identity here because they have every single class together) and hung the posters up in the back of the classroom. It took a while because I had to scrounge for basic supplies, as usual. Finally, I just went out and bought packing tape. They look pretty cool (pictures will be forthcoming), and I hope having them hanging will encourage students to read them. I liked the project very much because it practiced particular English structures while still capturing the basic idea of the holiday. I also liked the interactive aspect of students reading what other groups wrote. Plus, I just like the idea of hanging up something the students have actually made instead of another doofy America poster.

So I didn’t get any turkey this Thanksgiving (I had meat dumplings and sour cream), but I did get to talk to all the main family members on Skype and commiserated with Derek about being in a foreign country for Thanksgiving. It wasn’t as awesome as seeing friends and family again, but I am thankful for being here nonetheless.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

A Recommendation to the ASU Russian Department

I would like to propose the introduction of a special topics class for the ASU Russian major:

RUS 394: Writing Useless Official Documents

It seems that if you travel to a former Soviet country, the only writing you will ever be expected to do is in the form of pointless “declarations” to various and sundry officials. Regardless of the fact that such declarations signify precisely null, you will be expected to compose them perfectly. Despite the fact that these documents will simply collect dust in a drawer, grammar mistakes are not allowed!

If you ask for assistance, you have a fifty-fifty chance of receiving it. If you actually receive help, there is a 33% chance of it being given snootily, as if anyone with a third grade education should be able to write useless official declarations.

Thus, I suggest a special topics class in the Russian department to solve this problem for young Russian majors venturing into the wild world of post-Soviet bureaucracy.

An Unfortunate Fact

At my university, every class has a register in which teachers record attendance for every single class. I know, very elementary school.

I noticed a few weeks ago that at the beginning of the register is a list with every student's name as well as their ethnic background. Perhaps I should find this upsetting, but mostly I think it is hilarious. "Well, I was going to give you a good grade, but according to the register, you are Bulgarian. Automatic 2 point deduction."

I wonder why this list exists in the first place. I can see why it might be somewhat useful for the university to know the ethnic composition of the school as a whole, but why do I as a professor need to have every student's ethnic background at my fingertips? Hmm.

Ah, Moldova, sometimes I think you have a long way to go.

Eventful Day!

Today I was unexpectedly pulled into an emotional grammar tug-of-war!

I was sitting in the department, wasting time, and in comes one of my colleagues crying. She lets off a string of Russian, of which I understood the words “you,” “ask,” and “may I take a book.” I freaked out for about 5 seconds because I thought she was mad at me for taking one of her books or something and I couldn’t figure out why she was so upset. Once she repeated herself, I realized that she was trying to ask me if she was correct in saying that there is a grammatical difference between “may” and “can.” My colleague marked the sentence the sentence “Can I take the book?” wrong on a student’s test and the student started going off on her in class, saying that she didn’t know English.

I told her that it’s okay in conversational speech, but in terms of grammar it is incorrect to use “can” instead of “may.” We all do it, but technically it’s not right. After she calmed down, I offered to go with her to the class and explain the rule to the student. It seemed like she needed to be backed up by a native speaker because this student wouldn’t let it die. So, we marched together into a class of 30 students staring at us, which was pretty intimidating. I explained to the very irritated girl that gramatically “can” indicates ability to do something, whereas “may” indicates a request for permission. (Somewhat ridiculously, I demonstrated this by running in place to show that physically I “can” run, but that’s not the same as saying that I “may” run.) Well, as we native speakers tend to have the last word on this issue, the girl pretty much had to accept defeat after that and her grade on the test stayed the same.

The whole exchange was pretty interesting to me, although of course rather upsetting. Generally, I think it’s a little silly to teach students to always say “may,” but on a grammar test, I think you have to mark it wrong. There is a particular mistake in Armenian that people always make in speech (using the subjunctive after “to want” instead of the infinitive), but I would never have cursed out my dear Armenian teacher Siranoush for marking that wrong on a test. After all, it is wrong, even if everyone says it. You can use bad grammar all you want in speech, but on a grammar test you have to follow the rules. That’s the point of a grammar test. Following annoying rules.

Let’s see, in other news, one of the Moldovan IREX fellows who studied in the U.S. gave us a lecture on assessment. It was interesting, because she was all about multiple choice, matching, and true/false questions instead of essays. At first I was turned off by this, but I saw her logic after a while. First of all, if you are testing a student on their knowledge of a particular subject in English, it does make more sense to use multiple choice tests. Students who don’t write particularly well in English may still know the material after all, and it’s unfair to test them constantly on their writing skills if the test is ostensibly on another topic (for example, psychology).

What I found most interesting was the defensive posture that teachers need to take when writing tests. The IREX fellow kept talking about having questions that you can “prove” are correct. She constantly stressed objective answers over subjective answers. Teachers obviously must not get much support from administration on their grading if CYA is one of the main goals in test-writing.

Finally, I have to say that navigating social rules is more confusing than it seems at first! One of my students told me yesterday that I am in danger of causing scandal by socializing with male students! Apparently, socializing means spending any time outside of class with them whatsoever. I mean, really. On the one hand, I find this quite amusing because I hardly ever do anything scandalous ever. On the other hand, I’m not exactly thrilled to have moved to Junior High Land.

The problem is having various definitions of what it means to “do my job.” As Fulbrighters, we are asked to go out of our way to help people learn English outside of class and generally be nice and helpful. So, it seems silly to only help out other ladies. (“I’d like to help you on the TOEFL, but unfortunately you happen to be of the opposite gender. Better luck next time.”) BUT, if I am causing scandal, that could probably hurt my capacity to do my job. Obviously, it is bad to lose people’s respect. Hrm.

To complicate things, it seems that people have different definitions of what all of these social rules mean. And some people entirely ignore the rules. And, by the way, there are three different ethnic groups here with (presumably) different rules. I think by the end of this whole affair in Moldova I will have an unofficial minor in Moldovan/Gagauzian/Turkish Anthropology.

As you can see, it was a very eventful day. I guess I’m going out to the disco tonight with the other teachers. Today is Students’ Day, and they invited us, I guess. It should be fun getting down with colleagues two or three times my age.

Accomplishments of the Day

1. Teaching a high school student how to say “bum a cigarette.” I should probably have an ethical problem with this.
2. Finishing Chuck Klosterman’s book Killing Yourself to Live. Very excellent.
3. Getting the ball rolling on learning Turkish.
4. Listening to the Seattle live Pearl Jam concert and remembering the amazing bridge to “Betterman” that you can only hear in live versions. If you think you have heard “Betterman” without this bridge...think again.
5. Writing an improved lesson plan for Critical Thinking class tomorrow. Trying to incorporate a listening component...we’ll see how it goes.
6. Having an ethical battle with myself over reading Paul Zindel’s The Pigman or loaning it to a student first. Sorry, Fulbright, but my love of children’s literature is getting in the way of me actually teaching it. (I don't think this can be counted as an accomplishment.)
7. Posting photos of Bucharest on Facebook with descriptive captions.
8. Figuring out how to put Facebook friends on a Limited Profile list...mwahaha!

Virtual Tour of Comrat, Part 3

These are some of the more mundane sights of Comrat...

This is a rather ordinary street in the center of Comrat.

Hey, want to move to Canada? Apparently a lot of people in Moldova do.

One of our two main markets. I bought a gorgeous scarf here this week.

Some Communist Party graffiti. The last president was a Communist, but I think they're losing power. The political situation is weird.

We have a museum, but I haven't been yet. It's on my to-do list.

This is where I buy most of my groceries. It is pretty cool. It only opened up about a year ago. I keep my fingers crossed that it won't close due to the economic crisis.

This is the electric company. These are the people I blame when I have no electricity.

This street is named Gavrilova. See below...

There are several plaques around the city explaining why streets have certain names. I find this cute. I think this person was a World War II soldier. The picture didn't turn out too legible.

Here's a well. People in the villages get basically all their water from wells, but we have indoor plumbing, luckily!

Virtual Tour of Comrat, Part 2

The virtual tour of Comrat continues with playgrounds and memorials...

A cross I found near the cemetery. There are lots of crosses everywhere. I still haven't managed to catch a shot of one the roadside Jesus shrines.

A playground near the World War II monument. This is just a small part of it. It's a pretty cool playground.

Monument to fallen soldiers of World War II. Everyone who gets married has their picture taken by this monument. People from this part of the world take World War II pretty seriously. Like much of Moldova, the town was under Romanian fascist control during the war, so the street near this monument is called "The Street of Liberators."

Plaque on the monument with names of fallen soldiers. I'm not sure if the names are soldiers from Comrat or people who died defending the city.

Another plaque. People mostly lay artificial bouquets so they last longer.

No town or village in the former USSR is complete without a World War II monument. Almost every village you drive through has two major constructions: a huge sign with the name of the city, and a big monument to WWII. I'm trying to remember where Mesa's World War II monument is located. I know in one of the parks downtown there is a monument to the British soldiers who trained in Arizona during the war. There must be a formal World War II monument...somewhere. (I know there is definitely a monument to the pioneers in Pioneer Park.)

Virtual Tour of Comrat, Part 1

After several weeks of highs in the 40s, we in Comrat have received an unexpected reprieve from winter! Magically, the temperature has soared to a peak of 70 degrees, and I have been grabbing at these last straws of fall the best I can. I've spent a few hours the last few days wandering around Comrat, listening to "This American Life" (ironic, I know), and taking pictures.

So, without further ado, I present a virtual tour of Comrat. Unfortunately, it's somewhat limited by the fact that I feel awkward about taking pictures of people's houses, cemetaries, and other personal places. Hopefully, these picture will give you a better understanding of our fair town!

This is Comrat's city hall. I know my dad will be happy to see that I have taken a picture of it. Everyone at work last week was cursing the mayor's office last week because they started heating this building before the kindergartens. Yeah...some people have no shame.

This dog was very vigorously rolling in the grass. We have a lot of stray dogs here in Comrat. You have to develop stray-dog-blindness in order to not sort of freak out when they are swarming around you. Makes you appreciate Bob Barker. "Don't forget to spay and neuter your pets!

I really like this basketball court. I should see if I can get one of the Peace Corps Volunteers to play some hoops with me.

Memorial to soldiers from Comrat who died in the Afghan War of the 1980s. I find the expression on the soldiers face quite poignant. It always has a lot of flowers.

Comrat's House of Culture. The sign says "Welcome" in three languages: Gagauz, Moldovan (Romanian), and Russian. I guess it used to be a movie theater, but now they just hold concerts and big presentations there occasionally. I think there was a bodybuilding contest there last week.

Here's our lovely statue of Lenin walking boldly into the future, located on Lenin Street. I'm not sure why they decided to keep this statue of him around, but people here seem to view it with some amusement. However, there are still flowers regularly placed on the base of the statue.

This is the Turkish library, named after Ataturk, located directly opposite Lenin. This is part of the Turkish government's charm offensive toward Gagauzia (the Gagauz people speak a language quite similar to Turkish). I'm not sure that Turkish foreign policy is really effective here; most people seem to be fairly indifferent toward Turkey.

Next to Lenin is the lycée/lyceum/whatever you want to call it. I think it's the most prestigious school in the area. This is where I take Russian lessons. The little kids running around when school lets out are pretty cute.

I think I've already posted a picture or two of this church, but it's worth putting up another one. The Gagauz are Orthodox, so this is an Orthodox Church. I haven't actually been inside yet.

I've got way more pictures to post from my walks around Comrat, so keep an eye out for Part 2.

Swine Flu

Apparently, the flu epidemic warranted closing all the schools in Moldova for the next week, giving me a whole week off! I am planning on going to a random place in Romania.

Seriously, I wish they'd just be honest and say, "We're not closing the schools because of swine flu. We're closing the schools because we're too cheap to heat them." I guess in theory this makes sense. If you're not going to heat kindergarten classrooms, at least don't make kids go there and then get sick from constantly fighting the cold.

People here seem to be concerned about swine flu. I am also concerned about swine flu, but my response is to wash my hands more often, not close all of the schools. I feel like all these international organizations think they are doing something by putting up H1N1 posters. Why don't you buy our department a bottle of hand sanitizer? 1) We have no running water in our department so you can't wash your hands the normal way. 2) Washing your hands is a better way of protecting yourself than simply not going to work. 3) Hand sanitizer is totally unknown here so you would be introducing a nice, useful product that could compensate for poor utilities. Sigh.

Well, I can't really complain too much, because it did get me a week without work. How I will finish teaching all the hours I'm required to teach, I have no idea, but I'm getting ready for Romania!

In other random news, my homestay mom and I hosted a Peace Corps Volunteer who got stuck in Comrat when the last bus out of town was full. The expatriot connection network strikes again!

Moldovans are nice

Recently, one of the Fulbrighters mentioned to us that an American she knows in Chisinau had told her that he got tired of the rudeness of people in the shops in Moldova.

This caused general consternation in our group, because we all think that Moldovans are by and large extremely nice.

Of course, people don’t exactly smile at you when you walk down the street. You can’t expect waitresses to beam at you when you order a soda. Nevertheless, you will often find authentically friendly people working in the shops. It is more pleasant because you know that they are being gracious because they want to be, and not because their boss will get mad at them if they don’t. People seem kind of cold when you first arrive, but now that I have started to get to know the cleaning ladies and the copy guy at the university, I will hear a chorus of “Hello!” at the beginning of the day and “Good bye!” at the end (in Russian, of course).

Moreover, when I have been traveling, like Blanche DuBois I have always depended on the kindness of strangers. People on the buses will gladly help me find my way when I’m not sure where to get off. Once people know you are a foreigner, they will even chat with you a bit. One time a woman gave me very detailed instructions and even tracked down a taxi for me when I was trying to hail a bus to get back home from the town of Hincesti. When I said thanks, she replied, “Мы же люди!” (We are people, after all!)

My colleagues have also been quite nice. Last Friday I attended the wedding of Tatiana, one of the German teachers. It was very touching to be invited because I know she didn’t have many spots available because she had to invite all of her distant cousins from all over Moldova. Three of us from the department went as representatives and had a very fun time. Her mom even came by and asked me if I was understanding everything, which I thought was cute. There were about 150 guests and they really put out quite the feast! I forgot my camera, but Tatiana said I could download a photo or two to show my friends, so expect a picture update soon!

Probably the coolest thing has been the enthusiasm of Moldovans who live in America to introduce us to their families. Not one but two Moldovans that I knew through friends in the States have gone out of their way to give me the phone numbers of their families to visit here. Keep in mind, these were people that I knew through the most tenuous of connections! One Moldovan happened to go to school with my cousin in Georgia, and another was friends with the foreign exchange student who lived with my parents’ friends. What is surprising is that people are actually sincere! They will actually get offended if you DON’T contact their relatives.

I think this is one of the benefits of being in a small country. People are pretty tickled that you actually care enough to come here, so they are happy to help confused foreigners like myself.

“Horizon,” the Theoretical Lyceum

Last week I went to a Turkish-English private school located in Ceadir-Lunga, not far from Comrat. I was asked to visit by Adem, one of the students from the Turkish student groups. He had been asking me to come for about a month, and it only just got organized last week.

I was fairly apprehensive when we were setting up a time to visit the school, because Adem started talking about me going there on “MondayS” and not just “Monday.” I was like, oh no, do they think I’m going to be teaching there every week?! I’m all about helping young Moldovans learn English, but I don’t really have time in my schedule to spend three and a half hours getting to and from Ceadir-Lunga and prepping for two lessons.

So I found Adem bright and early. Actually, it wasn’t bright at all--I don’t think I’ve seen the sun in four days here. Anyways, we took a taxi to Ceadir-Lunga and Adem started telling me all about the school. It seems pretty interesting: basically, it is a private boarding school founded by a rich Turkish lady. Instruction is in Russian and Romanian for the humanities and in English for the sciences. The students also learn Turkish. Many of the students are from Gagauzia, so Turkish is not that hard for them to learn, since they are both Turkic languages. Adem teaches Turkish to two students there on a weekly basis. Athough he attends university in Comrat, Adem actually commutes from Ceadir-Lunga everyday. I guess he likes living there better than living in Comrat.

My Turkish students are always complaining that Comrat is boring. I kind of see their point. After all, we don’t even have a movie theater. There isn’t much going on on weekends--just a few cafes are open. It’s a nice change for me to live here after going to school in Phoenix (after all, Phoenix is the fourth largest city in America, as I constantly tell everyone here), but I can see that coming from Turkey to here is pretty much a let-down for them.

Anyways, the students I met on the first day were somewhat awful in their general rambunctiousness and liberal use of profanity that they learn from rap and American movies. I’d like to mention first that I was NOT told that this was an all-boys school until I walked in to the classroom. “Hmm...there are no girls here. This must be an all-boys school. Thanks for the heads-up, Adem!” was my internal reaction.

It was quite the culture shock coming from the university, where all of my students are nice village girls. These boys were kind of insane...one kid was actually playing his PSP in class. Seriously, a PSP. I talked to Adem about it later (turns out he also is their dormitory monitor) and he told me that the students there have money because their parents work abroad. What they don’t have, unfortunately, is real parental figures. It’s the side of labor migration that we don’t really think about. All of these kids are at a boarding school with just the monitors and teachers for guidance. A lot of them haven’t seen their fathers or mothers in forever. Hence the brattiness. Unfortunately, Fulbright didn’t give me any training in classroom management.

This week, I visited again. This time I had class with two other groups as well. The first group was some fairly well-behaved eleventh graders. The second group was once again the crazy rambunctious kids. I actually had to call in their teacher because I wasn’t going to deal with the swearing and their complete unwillingness to listen. (I should say here that only 1/3 of the class is really bad. 1/3 is in the middle, and the other 1/3 yells at the other kids to shut up.) I guess their teacher got really mad because they sent me to another class for the final period. This, I guess, was supposed to be a chemistry class, but I got to take over.

The school apparently divides the twelfth grade into the good kids and the bad kids. These kids were like angels compared to the other class. First of all, two of the kids had been to America. They had qualified for this uber-prestigious State Department program administered by ACTR here. One was in Wisconsin and the other was in Hawaii. So their English was awesome. Actually, the other kids spoke pretty well, too. One kid was even making English language jokes. This kid was always running his mouth but he was entertaining. While another student was introducing himself, he was like, “He likes to box.” I asked the student in question if he actually liked boxing, and he said no. The kid then says, “I mean, he’s wearing boxers. No, actually, he sleeps in a box.” I was kind of floored by this, because I haven’t met many people here who could actually play around with English words, much less kids who are still in school.

After I left that class, the students from the bad class mobbed me in the hallway and were like, “Do you forgive us? If you forgive us, our teacher says we can have lessons with you the next time you come.” I am a softie. I forgave them. At any rate, if I can at least have one class with the nice kids it should be fine. I also have an ulterior motive--since I’m teaching for free, maybe I can convince the school to give me free Turkish lessons next semester. They already gave me a free mug. Maybe I will appeal to their sense of patriotism. Hmm, that shouldn’t be hard to do.

(The students from the rambunctious class have a YouTube video online, which they insisted that I watch, but as it is filled with heavily accented English profanity, I'm going to refrain from posting a link here. I can't be responsible for spreading this video around.)

Day of Pedagogy...Fun Pictures!

The long-awaited (?) pictures from Teachers' Day. Dancing, dancing!

Circle dancing!

A fairly awful picture of me. As you can tell, I was getting into the spirit.

My colleagues at the Foreign Languages Department, earlier in the day.

Gettin' down.

We had a nice little concert and presentation before the dinner. The guy talking is our rector.

The Giver

I’ve spent the entire day working on my lesson plans, which has been surprisingly rewarding. Some highlights:

I’m going to *try* to use an excerpt from Allen Ginsberg’s “America” in my American Culture and Civilization class. If you are not familiar with this poem, you can see why this might be dicey by reading it here. Still, I’m hoping it will be awesome. Other featured authors: Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Claude McKay. I think it’s gonna be fun!

I found a good website for English learners that has...American folklore stories!!! This is excellent because I happen to teach a class on that very subject. My lessons on Paul Bunyan and John Henry just got a whole lot easier. Thanks, Voice of America! U.S. propaganda is good for something, after all!

For my class on American music, I’m trying to figure out how to go from Copland to Jimmy Eat world in a 80 minute class. So far, I’ve only found time to go up to Johnny Cash’s version of “Hurt” (representing country music, of course). I’m going to be rockin’ the CCR. I’m wondering how “Fortunate Son” will translate.

The most enjoyable part of prepping has been reading Lois Lowry’s The Giver again. I’m hoping to use the first half or so in my Children’s Literature class. It will be interesting to see if I can get students to read it on their own at all...students here aren’t so fond of homework. Actually, that class has at least a few students who like to read

English on their own, so I think at least some will read it. It is, after all, awesome.

For the uninitiated, The Giver is basically a modern children’s classic. The characters live in a world free from pain, but at the cost of never being allowed to make any of their own choices. The main character Jonas is a young boy who is selected by the community to “receive” all the past memories--of pain, war, and love--that other members of the community are sheltered from for their own good.

Of course, the former USSR is a very interesting place to be reading books about negative utopias. I was having an interesting conversation with my Russian tutor this week about (what else?) Stalin. We were reading Anna Akhmatova’s poem cycle “Requiem,” (English version, Russian version) which is about Ahmatova’s experiences waiting in line to visit her son who was being held in jail (probably to punish her for her poetry) during World War II. So, Stalinism was actually quite topical.

My teacher was definitely familiar with a lot of the facts that were suppressed by Soviet censors--such as the fact that Stalin’s purges of military officers severely weakened the Red Army on the eve of the war. She acknowledged that Stalin did many terrible things, but she pointed out that the line between being strict and being cruel is blurry. She thinks that a government has to be strict to maintain order. She argued that during the days of the USSR, she knew she would always have an apartment and a job and that her paycheck would arrive on time. Now, the government in Moldova is in such a mess that teachers (and professors at the university, too!) never know if they will actually be paid this month or not. If you’ve been following my blog, you know that the government can’t even be relied on to consistently provide gas, electricity, or water. It has been eighteen years since the fall of the USSR and these things are still happening!

Lowry’s book is basically about this exact trade-off. In The Giver, lifetime security and freedom from pain can only be achieved through extreme government coercion and the killing of innocents. I don’t think that Lowry intended her book to be a criticism of communism, (the characters in The Giver shun workers, so you can’t argue that they’re Marxists), but it was obviously an influence. She is basically asking the same questions as my teacher. Where’s the line? Although Lowry obviously doesn’t come down on the side of killing innocent people, part of the book’s power is how she really brings you inside the issue and enables you to empathize with all of the characters.. It’s truly a fascinating take on the subject, and I highly recommend the book.

Updates!

1. Wine is fun.

Last weekend was Chisinau’s annual wine festival! Because the Soviet Union loved specializing industry by republic, Moldova was designated as the main wine producer for the entire USSR. In Gagauzia, this is particularly true. (If I had a lei for every grape arbor I saw walking around the city, I would be one rich Moldovan.) It seems like everyone makes homemade wine. Bottles of wine in the stores usually cost between two and three dollars, so it’s pretty cheap! At any rate, since the fall of the USSR, a lot of their distribution networks were disrupted, but they still provide a lot of wine to former Soviet countries.

I headed into Chisinau last Friday with Stephanie, the other English Teaching Assistant. We initially had major problems securing an apartment to rent, which caused us to rue the day we’d decided to even try to visit the wine festival. During our troubles, we got a brief introduction to the world of Peace Corps in Moldova. They have a headquarters in Chisinau with showers, computers, U.S. military television, and a whole room full of English books. It’s pretty awesome.

Anyways, things got a whole lot better when Amy, one of the Fulbright researchers here, called us and invited us to stay with her and Brian (another Fulbrighter). We crashed at Brian’s amazing Moldovan pad, which has three nice, big rooms and a kitchen with a breakfast nook! It was awesome, mostly because we could relax and just be American for a while.

After a couple of hours of relaxing, we went to the wine festival. It was outdoors, in this exposition area in a nice park. All of the leaves were changing, which was particularly pretty. Along the roads in the park were elaborate stands set up by every wine company in the country. Best of all, the wine was twenty cents a glass! Amazing. Unfortunately, a lot of Moldovan wine is very vinegary, so there was a glass or two that went into the bushes. We had shish kebab for lunch and cherry pastries for desert. There was folk music and dancing. The longer the day went on the more intoxicated dancing there was for us to watch!

After dinner, we went café- and bar-hopping, which was a lot of fine. Comrat has almost no nightlife, so it was fun to just have a beer in a bar. The bars we visited were pretty cool and I hope to explore more of them soon!

The next day, Amy moved into her apartment and Stephanie and I accompanied her. We walked down to the wine festival for another round of drinking, which was quite worth it. We sat down at a stand that had snacks, hoping to buy something to munch on while we drank our wine. Awesomely, they started giving us all of their “young” (not totally fermented) wine--for free! The young wine is like semi-sweet, slightly alcoholic grape juice. It is almost bubbly and basically tastes like something out of Harry Potter. We polished off a pitcher or two, and then realized we were running quite late to a meeting, which necessitated some unpleasant speed-walking while tipsy.

All in all, we had a great time. Chisinau went up several notches in my estimation...but it’s still not as awesome as Odessa.

2. I have a sinus infection.

I hate being sick in foreign countries because there’s this whole incomprehensible culture of sickness everywhere you go. In the U.S., when you are somewhat sick (allergies, cold, etc.), you are usually expected to tough it out and show up for work/school/whatever. You can expect some sympathy, but not much. Basically, you haul around Kleenexes for a week and make the best of it.

In Moldova, when you are sick, there’s a whole other set of rules. You are actually allowed, even expected, to stay home when you are sick. You should not show visible signs of sickness in public. This disturbs people and will prompt them to insist that you go home. Being sick in public will also elicit great amounts of advice on various home remedies. The most popular remedies for colds: lemons and honey. Also, you are not allowed to eat things from the refrigerator if you are sick.

There is a nice side of people fretting over you constantly, however. Anna, the girl who works in the American Center, insisted on going with me to the pharmacy to find some medicine. Although the medicine I purchased was of dubious value, having someone accompany me to the pharmacy made me feel loved. :) Thanks to a large supply of American Mucinex, my sinus infection seems to be manageable right now, although my treatment of it is being hindered by the problem below.

3. Our water is scary.

The water in our city has been turned off since Monday. Apparently, there was some filtering/sanitation procedure that had to be done, which meant no water.

I am always confused about what to do when there is no water. Each family has secret stores of bottles of water that they save up for these occasions, but I never seem to know where they are. Also: can you drink the water in these bottles? If I use it to brush my teeth, will I die of giardia? If I wash my face with it, will I be considered a “bottled-water-hog”? Very perplexing. My solution so far is to use limited quantities of the bottled water and then buy some of my own for brushing my teeth. I think the people I live with don’t understand how bizarre this is for me. I’m not sure if they appreciate that this NEVER happens in America.

Yesterday, the water returned! Unfortunately, it is extremely, extremely chlorinated. Our bathtub is full of this water right now, and it is aqua-colored and has some chemical floating at the top. I’m afraid to do anything with this water but wash my hands and flush the toilet, but this is a big improvement over yesterday. I am hoping normal water will return soon.

Days since Erin has taken a shower: 4. Let’s hope this number doesn’t get too much higher.