Don't drink the water...
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
The inside of my distiller, also known as-- "why I don't drink the water from the wells". Calcium and dirt, yummy! Enjoy!
Ahoy la Moldova!
What did I do today? Well, for one thing, I made a pirate flag of which I am very proud. You heard right, a pirate flag—drawn, pasted and sewn. Yes people, this is your tax dollars at work, here in a foreign country, halfway around the world, in a foreign language, making pirate flags. What else did you expect from ME when I left for the Peace Corps?
Anyway, this pirate flag was not made with the sole intention of teaching children in this landlocked country how fun it is to pretend to be pirates (although this might be a happy unforeseen side effect—they don’t really play pirates too much, bandits yes, pirates no). It had a greater cause.
This week I joined another volunteer in starting a sort of “outing club.” This had been an idea of mine for quite a while, but unfortunately because I was sick, it stayed on the back burner in favor of doing my assigned “serious” work, and um, getting better. Then one of my friends in the Peace Corps, who also shares my interest in the outdoors, and maybe as well in pirates, decided to start an outing club in his town.
We kicked off this club was a giant cross town scavenger hunt! (sound familiar? That’s right, once addicted to making treasure hunts, always addicted) The kids loved it, tiring
as it was (one of the girls did the entire thing, about a 3 hour walk, in high heels!). And in addition to the fun of a scavenger hunt, they learned a little bit about how to use a compass and the difference between SSE and NNW. It’s always fun to watch people try to use a compass for the first time—Lord knows how easy it is to set off in the exact wrong direction. I had a lot of fun with this activity because it reminded me a lot of the work I always did at camp, plus it was fun for the kids… as a language professor put it, it is “unheard of” here, an activity like this. Where to go next, who knows? But this is definitely a start, and I am excited to start a club in my own town… teaching the kids to appreciate the outdoors, or to at least explore them a little bit and take a break from the TV and violent computer games. I’m afraid besides the flag making, I wasn’t too big of a help in the implementation of this treasure hunt, as you all know my sense of direction in new places… but I’m excited for the other events that this can build up to.
Either way, our treasure hunt, of course, ended with buried treasure, under the Jolly Rodger, of course. (some American coins and a compass, to take home and practice with). And, one Moldovan, at least, is now using the word “Ahoy.”
Job well done, in my humble opinion.
Swing, Swing...
Okay. So as I always say, a relaxed volunteer is a good volunteer. Though and behold, my latest “accomplishment” at site. A hammock! I purchased the wood poles at a store selling them for the garden. Then I found a used curtain at my piata, and some rope, and the rest is just history! (it actually wasn’t that easy, you try walking through a village with two long wooden poles and imagine the looks you get—also, I had to convince someone to let me use their sewing machine, which, was not the easiest task in the world). But all in all, worthwhile, of course. Now if I can only find a way to deal with all the questions about why I made a swing that doesn’t “swing.”
Local Elections
Monday, June 11, 2007This past month
Elections were held June 3rd, a Sunday. About a month before the elections, campaign “posters” started popping up on bill boards around town. Closer to the election cars and stores started posting these advertisements as well. Each town had to elect a mayor; and with the election of the mayor’s party, you are electing, to my understanding, the vice mayor and all the councilmen. It’s a package deal. The week before the election people started going door to door telling us about their candidate of choice. I enjoyed listening to the comments my neighbors would make after the canvassers left. Mainly, thoughts about how much money was “wasted” in printing campaign materials (one sheeted papers). If only they knew how much money was “wasted” in
My host mother was selected to serve on the election committee—I believe out of a pool of registered voters. Therefore on election day she was one of the people checking in voters and helping them vote. She was at the polls from
The final results in my town was our current mayor got reelected by a margin of 62 percent. 62 percent! Apparently, here, people don’t have qualms with the communist party. And according to our Mayor’s office, 54 percent of my town’s population voted. That’s amazing results in my opinion, especially when we compare them with our lazy voters at home. I guess when a democracy is young, it can swing either way—either people have a lot of faith in the system and ALWAYS vote, or think that it is in vain, and never vote. I’m interested to see how this will play out in the national elections in two years, and as
A tidbit into the minds of voters here—an organization supporting democracy and democratic means tried to conduct an exit poll in one of Moldova’s larger cities (I am using the word city loosely). The poll was highly unsuccessful because the voters claimed that the pollers had no authority to know who they voted for; which is true. But rather than trust that the process is important for research, many perceive the gathering of information with a cautious eye.
To end this little election blurb, I was speaking with some of my friends in my village who are not thrilled with the outcome of the election. They said, what can we do to change anything? None of our friends bothered to vote. It was only the little old ladies with their canes who voted. And their voice is louder than ours.
Sound familiar at all?
