Where is Moldova, anyway?

Hello all, forgive me if this blog post comes off as an advertisement, but in honesty, I need your help and support. (I know many of you have gotten emails from me already, if this is the case, please ignore this post).

This is long, but please take the time to read it (if you haven't), and consider contributing. EVERY DOLLAR COUNTS!

I, together with the youth in my community, wrote a grant to build a youth community center in our village. This center will be a center of research, of non-formal education, and of training on the topics of leadership and volunteerism. It will be a place for youth to meet, to organize, and to be active in their community. A base of operations, if you will, for all the activities I have told you about that I am involved in in our community (from the volunteer club, to youth trainings), as well as all the future activities the youth will plan their through already formed youth council (modeled after the local government).

The kids have already raised $3,000 in local support – now they need to collect $7,000. Because I am trying to teach the kids here that "one person CAN make a difference," -- especially when everyone does their own individual part, no matter how small, I decided that our best bet for this project was writing a grant and applying through the Peace Corps Partnership Program, instead of to some unnamed, impersonal, formal fund. (I didn't
want them to get stuck in the trap that many beneficiaries of grants get stuck in -- that money just "appears".) I want them to believe in the power and the goodness of PEOPLE...

In case you haven't heard of it, the Peace Corps Partnership Program (PCPP) “connects small, community-initiated projects, like ours, with partners and individuals in the United States for financial support. These connections not only achieve goals in the host community, improving the quality of life for its members, but they foster international understanding between the communities and partners. While the Partnership Program does not directly fund projects, it serves as a link to those individuals and groups wanting to contribute to the valuable work Volunteers do with their host communities. Finally, the program attracts Americans who share a concern for grassroots development. By establishing a link between Americans and communities overseas, the Partnership Program facilitates an understanding of different cultures and the opportunity for cross-cultural exchange.”

The best way to contribute to a Partnership Program project is online via the website.

Our project is called "Room(s) to Grow" and officially it is number: 261-164. To donate through the internet go to "www.peacecorps.gov" and click on DONATE NOW on the left hand side of the page. Then choose "Eastern Europe/Asia" and then find my project in the list (they are listed by country, and there might be two or three from Moldova – so make sure you find mine).

Checks are also accepted. However, checks mailed to Peace Corps can take up to three weeks to arrive, due to security procedures at federal agencies. Mail operations may be suspended due to security concerns causing further delay. Therefore, donating online, over the phone, or via wire transfer is encouraged. Call 800.424.8580, extension 2170, for more information. If you are mailing a check, please make it payable to the Peace Corps Partnership Program and indicate the project number on the check’s memo line to ensure the funds are placed in the right project’s fund.

The mailing address is:
Peace Corps
Paul D. Coverdell Peace Corps Headquarters
Office of Private Sector Initiatives
Partnership Program
1111 20th Street NW
8th Floor
Washington, DC 20526

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And this is the best part, in my opinion In order to further my point that "everyone can help," and "everyone does help," I am going to create a "Collage of Faces" to hang in our new center-- the faces of people who funded this project, PEOPLE HELPING PEOPLE, very personal... After you donate, please do me a favor and send an email to facesforsingerei@gmail.com with a digital picture attached. It can be a normal picture of you, of you and your kids, of you and your dog, of you on the highest mountain in America, of you in the swimming pool, at the beach, para gliding, in front of your house, in a funny hat, in front of a famous US monument, in a Halloween costume, with your Christmas tree, your daughter covered in spaghetti etc etc. You get the point. Funny, silly, sweet, sad. I want the pictures to represent the diversity of America, and the spirit of America-- the same spirit that I believe will pay for this youth center-- where the collage of faces will hang!

If you have any questions about this project, please feel free to contact me at Sharonmariehakim [at] gmail [dot] com. Any support you could possibly give us, would be completely appreciated (both by myself and by the youth that this center will serve, for years to come). If you are a student give 5 dollars, the cost of a beer. If you have more money, give more. If every reader of this blog gave 5 - 10 dollars, this grant would be filled in no time.

While I am involved in many activities in the Peace Corps, I can honestly say, that this will be the defining project of my service – combining my love of working with youth, with the American spirit of volunteerism that I clearly hold very dear (or else I would not have ended up in the Peace Corps). I understand that it is the holiday season and everyone has their own expenses, but every dollar you invest here, will be a positive investment in many children’s future.

So you know by now, if you have been reading my blog, that in September I celebrated my one-year-in-Moldova anniversary. This past week, I marked my one-year-in-my-village anniversary.

It’s hard to believe that I have been living here for a year already: with this host family, with this work, in this community – this has been my life for the past year. While I am not so much in a reflective mood, I can comment on the progress I have made in this past year, not with work, per say, but with treating Singerei, my village, as my home.

When I first arrived here, it seemed so big and unfriendly. It was hard to meet people when I moved here last November because it had just started to get cold, and when it is cold, EVERYONE stays inside. The town felt like a ghost town – even the public spaces (the few of them that exist) such as the bar and the mayor’s office, were essentially abandoned – due to lack of sufficient heating facilities.

For the first three months I felt very temporary – like I was a guest. My host family tiptoed around me, making sure that I was not bothered, and was treated very well, almost so much so that I was a burden to them (someone had to make sure “the American” ate, and didn’t get lost, or get too cold, or get sick, or get on the wrong bus). My work didn’t really put any burdens or demands on me. I just learned, observed and studied my language. Also, I walked around lot. A lot, a lot. For exercise and fresh air, yes, but also to allow people to see me, and to see me again, and then again the next day. I needed them to get used to the fact that I would be here, living here, and was not transitional. It usually took around 3 times of seeing someone, with the normal required “buna ziua” – “good day” greeting, before they asked me what I was doing in their town. And of course, I explained.

Now, I am a regular part of my community. People expect to see me and recognize me. When I go away on vacation or to the capital, and people don’t see me for a few days – they worry. I hadn’t run much last month and many of my neighbors thought I was sick, when really, I was just lazy. : ) It takes me a long time to walk anywhere because people stop me to talk, to chat, to see where I am going. This question that I used to think of as an intrusion, has now become part of my daily life. Answering to other people, and playing into this fishbowl that I live in.

I also feel a part of my host family. I have chores, if that tells you anything about my role in the family. While I don’t participate in the slaughtering of the chickens, I do feed them everyday, and I peel the potatoes. Those are my chores, the potatoes I think are my responsibility, because my host family enjoys how painfully slow I peel them. My host family still respects my space, but I am expected, like all members of the family, to give up my bed and share if we have guests from out of town. Or to stay home and help prepare food for this celebration or that celebration. My host mom likes to remind me to turn off lights… she says I’m addicted to lights. Which I agree with, it’s hard to read in the dark! But her chorus reminding me to turn them off sounds scarily familiar to NJ. As I became more integrated into my host family, I have felt more a part of my neighborhood. Moldova is a very communal society, people help each other all the time.

When the grapes were ready to be harvested, everyone calls on each other, working on one family’s vineyard one day, and another family’s the next. Many hands make light work. I, of course, was expected to come and help this year, where last year, I was more of an observer. If someone needs something from the store, an older neighbor, they will ask me to get it for them. Or I will run down the street after some sugar, a chicken or a pot for my host mom to use for cooking. While everyone in my village won’t recognize me, they will have heard of me, know where I live, and where I work.

The challenges of living here have become less stringent as I have become more adopted into my host family. I’ve forgotten about some of the things I missed: drinking water out of a running faucet, going to the bathroom inside, air conditioning, good heat, microwaves, etc. We make due without. And I know in comparison with many other Peace Corps posts, I have a lot of amenities. (ie electricity and heating – although I think it is impossible to have a peace corps post in a cold weather country without these things, I guess weather does have a huge effect on you, and internet not too far away).

I guess that is my major reflection for the year. The challenges I have found to my everyday life in Moldova are not what I expected them to be. They are not a lack of amenities, or missing American things or foods or customs (although if you ask volunteers in posts more rural than mine, they might agree that they adapted and the lack of amenities doesn’t bother them either). The main challenge for me facing my work and everyday life in Moldova has to do with attitude.

As I’ve said before the Soviet mindset still persists in Moldova. People, having grown up under an oppressive regime, have no sense of agency or self direction. They have a more fatalistic approach to talking about the future and events. It is as if they think they have no say in their future – things just happen to them. This is challenging in two ways: 1) in work, it is hard to get people to work with you, or to be in the same book as you, never mind on the same page. Because they can’t picture the results their work COULD have. And 2) it is hard to explain to people why you are here. While many Peace Corps posts have a history of volunteers and are very open and warm to volunteers, many people look at me and say “why are you here?” – even after I explain to them the goals of Peace Corps and my work. They just can’t understand why someone would pick up and leave America (wonder of wonders) to spend two years in Moldova. And I can’t explain it. I can tell them about our concept of volunteerism, I can explain the want to give back, and the need to explore new cultures – but to them it doesn’t add up.

And, reflecting, this challenge to my everyday existence here probably is the most exhausting thing I face. Am I making a difference here? It is hard to say. A difference on someone’s mindset is a hard thing to bring about, and an even harder thing to measure.

I only hope to be leaving an impression on people about why, someone would indeed, come to Moldova, with the intention of helping out. If people started to understand the why, even if they were still unreceptive to the help or not accepting of the idea themselves, I would still consider that a difference worth making.

When I realize how similar people are, it makes me laugh. Kids especially. No matter where you are in the world, kids will be kids. Their development is scarily similar – I am starting to give more and more credit to my Child Development textbook.

Yesterday, at Dezdna, the center for kids with disabilities, one of the little girls asked me if I would like her to read to me. I, of course, gladly obliged.

And I watched, as she turned the pages of an illustrated story book, reciting by memory a clearly dear-to-her fairytale, which she finished “reading” by the time we were on page 5.

“What about the other pages?” I asked, referring to the 10 – 15 pages still left in the book.

"They’re not important,” she said, closing the book, “the story is over,” looking at me like I was a little strange for asking.

Good enough for me.

Something that always bothered me, walking around in America, was everyone else walking around with an ipod-- headphones in their ears. It just seemed so unfriendly and made people seem very standoffish and unapproachable. My opinion has since changed.

Now, not only do I enjoy my ipod while I walk to work (45 minutes—it makes the walk more enjoyable! And don’t worry, as I have worked in retail myself and had to deal with this, I always take out the headphones before attempting to talk to people). But Moldovans have started to listen to music with headphones… a development for which I am glad.

Why is this a huge development? Because, up until now the streets and busses and hallways of Moldova have been ruled by the self-proclaimed “Cell Phone DJ.” Wherever you go, you would be assured that you would hear music pumping out of someone’s cell phone—for everyone within 15 feet to hear (unless, of course, you were in a closer proximity to someone else also pumping a different song out of their own cell phone). Most cell phones here operate with a disk, like a flash drive, that can be used on the computer and for a phone. Thus, most youth have many songs on their phones, and play the distorted digital versions loudly through their cell phones, ALL THE TIME. A lovely symphony it was, the Russian techno in a 7am bus… through a cell phone speaker. But now, people are being only self djs, and I’m liking it a lot.

Kudos to whoever started this trend. I also saw, last week, an advertisement for an MP3 player for 50 us dollars on a billboard on the side of the road. While this is still really expensive for Moldova, I was surprised they were advertising it. AND last week in Chisinau (the capital), I saw an ipod for sale, a real true ipod. Good job advertising, Apple.

Last week, right after the Halloween party in my village, a few of us volunteers took off to neighboring Romania to celebrate Halloween, fall, and having been in Peace Corps for a year already. What a difference a few hundred kilometers and some mountains make... Romania is beautiful!... in a different way than Moldova. Where Moldova is calm and farm centric, with rolling hills and isolated villages-- Romania has jutting moutains, castles, fortified churches and interesting cities (a plus from not having ever joined the USSR-- all their old churches and towns are still standing, and have not been demolished or replaced with sovietstyle block architecture-- like the cities in Moldova have). Anyway, it was the perfect time of year-- we did some hiking and site seeing-- (how easy it is to get around when you know the langauge!) Dracula's home was a great place to spend Halloween...


(This fuzzy picture of the green... look closely-- we saw a bear while hiking!)

Yesterday, the 5th of November, it snowed in Moldova (!!!!)

So, Halloween meets Moldova, one more time. I know many of you think that all I do in the Peace Corps is celebrate Halloween, while this is untrue (almost!), I do enjoy sharing one of the best parts of American culture- costumes and free candy! (pictured in the first picture is myself and my new coutnerpart-- the one that is helping me with this youth council! And also pictured in the first photo are the WONDERFUL and TRADITIONAL american ghost-candy pops! // and in the picture on the right-- the whole gang!)



Anyway, this time around, my youth council celebrated and organized a halloween party for our village. We did it at the local disco (a room in our mayor's office), and went all out! Decorated the walls, played halloween games, and carved pumpkins. I even got to be the costume contest judge, based on my years of expertise. (Ghostbuster to the left! On the right a pirate and a gypsy... many many kids dressed up like gypsies, go figure)




I was really impressed with all the costumes the kids came up with-- we were VERY strict-- we did not let in people who did not have costumes on! Even though it was a fundraiser and more people would have equalled more money, we wanted to keep the halloween spirit! There were two little boys (pictured above) dressed as gangsters-- when I asked them what they were they said "from Chichago!". There was also a boy dressed like a ghost buster (like that, jon?) and he was carrying around a vaccuum to "clean up the ghosts." Okay some things don't translate exactly...



Maybe no trick-or-treating was done... but it was still fun. At one point I was "reverse Trick-or-Treating" the kids-- ie going up to them and giving them candy... because they didn't know they had to ask. All in all, a great time.