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.

Communal Apartment

According to a Russian broadcast of "Vesti" (Вести = news) that I just watched, about 200,000 families in Moscow still live in communal apartments. (I think the region was Moscow...my comprehension isn't always that amazing.) Talk about crazy! I though those had been consigned to the dustbin of history, considering how much people universally revile them.

There seems to be a government push to get people out of these communal apartments. However, they interviewed some people who lived in communal apartments, and they didn't seem entirely keen to leave. Some people complained about feeling like they lived "in a train station." An old lady said she never actually bathed in the apartment, but preferred to go to communal baths instead. Still, a young woman explained that she doesn't want to leave the apartment because it is in a good location in the city. She'd rather live in a communal apartment in the center than a private apartment in the boonies. Given the sprawling size of Moscow, this is understandable.

My fellow Fulbright colleague here said she had seen such apartments in Poland. I myself have never actually seen one. Interesting issue! The more things change, the more they stay the same...

For a compelling depiction of the, ahem, romantic possibilities of living in a communal apartment, see the excellent film East-West.

This picture is from a site (http://kommunalka.colgate.edu/) that has virtual tours of communal apartments.

Happy Teacher's Day!

It seems that every profession has a holiday here in Moldova, and professors are no exception. Today we celebrated День педагога, or Teacher’s Day.

I was at first somewhat underwhelmed by Teacher’s Day, as it required that I pay 15 lei ($1.40) last week for the celebrations. I argued that if it was my day, they should be paying me, but to no avail.

Today, I was happy to discover that one of my classes gave me some pretty white flowers in honor of the holiday, which was quite touching. They are my literary analysis class, definitely one of my favorite groups to work with. The whole department also got cake and champagne from one of the groups, which I very much appreciated.

Then we went home and changed and then returned to the university for a concert and presentation. Several of the students sang and the rector gave a speech. Teachers nominated by their departments also got awards. After the concert, we had a fourchette, which is basically a banquet with lots of different small dishes for snacks. This being Gagauzia, we celebrated with champagne and homemade wine. After many toasts, the dancing began.

I certainly hadn’t danced that much since the Person-Rennell wedding! It took me back to the old days of dancing on Armenian buses. All of the professors got out on the floor and showed off their dance moves. My dance moves are a motley combination of Armenian, disco, polka, and hip-hop, with some skanking thrown in during songs with horn sections. I consider it my patriotic duty to dance the night away in order to represent America well. It’s also in the Hutchinson genes...we don’t let a dance floor stay empty for very long. At any rate, my colleagues all seemed to think I was sad any time I wasn’t dancing, so I didn’t have much of a choice. Natalia, Oxana, and Lyudmila were quite the troopers. Their dancing stamina was very impressive.

I think we danced for three hours! It was pretty hardcore. The only familiar songs were “The Macarena” (I remembered the dance in its entirety) and a weird Russian remix of “Mama Mia” by ABBA. I also had to give a toast in Russian and totally screwed up my prepositions. I’m blaming the champagne. I danced with the rector, which caused me to crack up somewhat embarassingly. (For those unfamiliar with the terminology, this was like dancing with Comrat’s Michael Crow.) I also danced with Maxim, a professor of European law. It was very junior high! Except for in junior high I wasn’t required to make small talk in Russian. Quite amusing.

We arrived home at 8:45 PM, a full 6 hours after we left the house. For $1.40, I think it wasn’t too bad!

Calling Music Buffs!

Since I got so many great suggestions last time, I was thinking I'd send out another all-call for help designing another lesson.

This time, I'd like to demonstrate how an author can create tone and setting. I'd like to use songs again because they are nice and bite-sized for students. Additionally, I think that songs tend to use more conversational language which is more useful for students than the sort of language used in most literature.

For tone, I am thinking that a great example would be "Brick" by Ben Folds Five. Although the subject matter of abortion is controversial (not to mention depressing), I think it will probably translate pretty well to my class. Plus, Ben Folds handles it is a very subtle and non-controversial way, so I think it will be okay. Ben Folds' word and imagery choice is very apt in this song and I think it's fairly easy to understand if you first (a) explain what it is about--I think most people who hear this song initially misinterpret it--and (b) translate some of the more conversational phrases. Still, I'm open to suggestions if anyone thinks they can top "Brick"!

I am also trying to think of a song that conveys a sense of setting. It's harder to find pop songs that are about a place, although a couple come to mind. Unfortunately, they tend to make a lot of allusions that my students won't be at all familiar with. "Why You'd Want to Live Here" by Death Cab does a great job of conveying setting...but it also only makes sense if you are familiar with Los Angeles. I think something like the old standard "New York, New York" might work.

Thoughts?

I was also looking for a song that could convey setting, but it's pretty