The Internationals

I think there comes a point when every American studying/working/living abroad asks themselves this question:

“Did I come this far just to hang out with Americans?”

Most people who go to foreign countries imagine themselves bonding with the locals and experiencing their lives (or at least doing shots with them). I know that when I first left for Armenia, that’s what I thought I’d be doing. And of course, that did actually come true in some regard, mostly through my homestay. (Although I didn’t really think that I’d be doing shots with my fifty-seven-year-old host mom and her brother...but that was a good evening.) We were also incredibly lucky to be introduced to Gevork, a great friend and our unofficial guide to everything Armenian.

Still, I spent the majority of my time with fellow Americans Steven and Patrick, bumming around the Yerevan and speaking English all day long. This ended up being extremely fun and I wouldn’t have traded it for anything...but it wasn’t what I expected to be doing when I left.

In Russia, we American students were extremely lucky to meet some very awesome, very культурные (cultured) people our age, and so I actually spent a pretty decent amount of time hanging out with Russian people in Russia! What a phenomenon! It was great, and I left with a really positive impression of Russians my age, who in my experience were very open and outgoing (and patient with our Russian).

Here in Moldova, I thank constantly thank God for the Peace Corps, because without them we Fulbrighters would be so bored. Just having a few extra Americans in town really makes a difference. It’s nice to be able to relax with some fellow countrymen. There’s times when you just need to talk with an American, dammit. (Like when your university changes the dates of three of your finals without telling you...) Plus, they have the hook-up with all sorts of nice freebies: space heaters, American medicine, coats, textbooks, etc. Plus, they actually get decent language and teacher training, so they’re a great help when you are confused/out of ideas/need to find a language tutor. The only danger is that Peace Corps tells them about every possible safety and health hazard, so talking to them has the tendency to make you extremely paranoid.

There’s also the interesting phenomenon of the international community that springs up whenever a few foreigners meet in a strange land. You’re all kind of bored, trying to meet people, and having difficulties with the culture and the language. So, of course, you hang out. In Armenia, I was friends with people from Israel, Russia, Poland, and Iran. (Armenia: the only place in the world where Iranians, Israelis, Americans are allies.)

I notice pretty much the same phenomenon here. One of my students asked me the other day, “Did you think when you came to Moldova you would be spending so much time with Turkish people?” The answer: no, but I probably should have guessed. It’s been pretty fun meeting the other internationals in Moldova. We Americans teamed up with the European volunteers (from Spain, Lithuania, France, and Germany) to party and go to the disco last night, and I have to say it was pretty awesome.

At any rate, my own international experiences have made me skeptical of those typical travel narratives where people go to a foreign country, integrate with the locals, and spend the rest of their time their living natively ever after. In my experience, it usually doesn’t work out like that. But, that’s not always a bad thing. Hanging out with other foreigners helps you to process the massive task of fitting in to another culture, and can even teach you about a new one (see: my Turkish language lessons). At the very least, it definitely keeps you sane, even if it doesn’t fit in with the romantic conception of living abroad.

The Little Things

After my epic journey from Phoenix to Jacksonville to Washington, D.C. to Zurich to Bucharest to Chisinau to Comrat, I decided to post about the little things I missed about America while I was in Moldova.

Shower curtains

Non-German beer varieties

Turning on the heat when it gets the least bit cold

Purple mountains

Seeing my own feet (I wear wool socks 24/7 in Comrat)

Not wearing long underwear or anything wool

Being able to walk into a store and look at clothes without a clerk asking you what’s taking so long

Large bookstores

Hoodlum’s (I really broke the bank on new CDs while I was home)

Spin magazine (I just consumed their issue on Pearl Jam...amazing)

Knowing where you can purchase something

Using idioms without worrying if people will understand them

Swearing

My grandma’s potica (delicious raisin and nut pastry)

Riding in cars

Blowdrying my hair (I couldn’t find a hairdryer for the longest time in Comrat)

Paying for things with a debit card

Wearing funky t-shirts

Coffee-maker coffee

Chicken wings

Watching American sports on TV (We’re hoping that March Madness will get some coverage on cable.)

Access to my DVD collection

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.