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.