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Where is Moldova, anyway?

Musings on my Peace Corps experience in this small, Eastern European, Republic.
 

Defining Characteristic(s)

Saturday, May 17, 2008

I am, generally, very happy in the Peace Corps. I enjoy the work that I do with youth, feel like I am an actual part of my community, and like the sense of adventure that comes with living and working in a foreign country and culture.

However, I long for the days when my defining characteristic will no longer be "American." Anyone describing me, meeting me, or talking about me here in my village will not say "the short girl with curly hair," "the one that works with the youth council," or you know "she reads a lot, spends a lot of time hiking around the village, likes chocolate." No, my reference is always the "American girl." Nameless, description-less, (or as they might think of it -- very descriptive), impersonal. Yet, a solid reference -- without question the person on the listening end of the conversation will know the dialog is about me.

I guess I am getting tired both of being seen simply as an American (I really am more than that...), and as being seen as representative of American culture as a whole (for example: "Sharon, why do Americans wear their clothes so loose?" Me: "Who said Americans do this?," Questioner: "you do it..."). It's exhausting being a representative of a culture, sometimes you want to (and do) eat chocolate for lunch, in your pajamas at 2pm without wondering what the neighbors will think of "Americans". It's also frustrating that when I am described without the word American, it is by such impersonal and surface characteristics - the girl who runs, the one who wears sandals, the one with the backpack, who speaks Romanian with a funny accent...

It's as if coming here I lost some of my identity (as an individual - as Sharon), but gained a new perspective on who I am (If you asked me in the states to use three words to describe myself, American would not be one of them. Here, it might be -- because although it doesn't explain differences that exist, it shows why they exist -- I'm an outsider). Recently, some of my friends in my village have been getting to know me better, both thanks to my increased language skills and the increased amount of time we spent together -- this has led to more misunderstandings and even disagreements and clashes, as we realize that assumptions we made about each other were merely assumptions -- but I think getting them out in the air makes all the difference. I'm not a clash-free person.

Yes, we are in the Peace Corps, and "come in peace." But that doesn't mean we come in stale, plain, and one-dimensional: American. I'm going to use my remaining 6 months here working towards getting my dimensions back...

Construction!

Tuesday, May 13, 2008














So, I convinced you that our youth center was a worthy cause, and you donated. Then, I announced proudly and thankfully that the entire thing had been funded (thank you again!). And then you don't hear anything else about it...

My apologies. My family has informed me that I haven't been keeping up with the construction updates as I should be. So what is happening. Things are happening. We started work the beginning of April, when the weather began to be kinder to us. Construction is hard, especially when your vocabulary doesn't cover words like "nail bolt" or "wall support." Nothing a crash course in construction related Romanian couldn't handle though... I'm just thankful the word for Spackle in Russian is pronounced "Spack-lov-kah", or else I would have been COMPLETELY lost the first week or so of construction.

The building we inherited for our youth center used to be an old soviet library. It was FULL with old Russian books, that were locked up in 1992, after the fall of the USSR. The rooms haven't been used since, literally -- they were sealed shut for over 10 years. Part of our deal to use the building was that we had to move all the books (and clean the dust from them) to another place for storage. You all know I love and cherish books...and don't like to think about burning them, but seirously it would have been easier to have a book bonfire than to lug them out of the building, across a field and up a circular flight of stairs.... If I thought someone would ever read these old books, I would have been more passionate about saving them. Either way, they are saved -- I hope someone will read them -- and I'm glad we had many, many hands. We also had to move some tanks that looked to have contained gas, and a bunch of paper. It was a lot of work, so it is a good thing we have a lot of youth!

We were then faced with the problems of reparations -- the building although solidly constructed, doesn't have straight walls -- they go in and out, left and right. Fun, right? Not fun to wallpaper, though, until I had some helpful advice from Dad. We are working (my partner and I) with a team of youth -- everyone has ideas, but no one has experience -- usually the learn as we go approach works, but sometimes we need the advice, or we end up wasting materials and time. And we had a leaky roof issue, but that was solved with some creativity and scrap metal. Right now we are continuing to work on construction issues -- the best news so far is that we have windows AND doors!!! Things, are looking up. More updates as they happen.



PS - I know the pictures are out of order, AGAIN - I can't figure out how to put pictures on my blog in an orderly fashion/arrange them nicely? Anyone out there that can help me with that?

PPS - I know I am wearing the same shirt in all the pictures. Not because reperations only took us one day, but because I figured once I got one shirt all dirty, might as well keep wearing it ... That's my American mindset talking.

Questions for an American



I am not an English Teacher. Nor do I want to be one. I have made that clear to everyone in my village from day one. (Well really by day 5 or 6, day 1 was spent unpacking and eating).

I don't know how to teach English, anyone who has been reading this blog is aware of my loose grasp on English grammar. PLUS, I just don't want to teach English. I don't have the patience to be a teacher, the interest in the subject or the desire to stand in front of a class full of students day in and day out. It's not me, I prefer the unstructured approach, and I like my give-and-take "I work with Youth Development" Peace Corps assignment. While harder to explain what I am doing here, in Moldova, especially when everyone assumes I am teaching English, my current work is a better fit for me.

While I refuse the teaching part of English language development, I like the cultural exchange part. I also recognize that going into the English classes once every few months can be useful as well as entertaining -- it gives me a chance to share something about America and American culture, and gives the kids a chance to listen to a native speaker.

Our village's English teacher understands, now, better than ever, how to use me in the context of their English program. I think I scared her at first with my intense refusal to teach English, and thus she shied away from asking me to even come to her class. But now she understands that I just don't want to be teaching, speaking, of course, I can do.

Today I spoke to the graduating 12th graders (there are 9 of them) about the "culture of volunteering" that exists in America, especially with students and we had a rudimentary debate about the benefits of direct vs. indirect service. It was really interesting, for them and for me, as they weren't even aware that volunteer service could be so criticized. Their concepts of volunteering haven't developed past the "it's something you do to help someone" phase. Which is fine, I have full confidence in their openness to explore these ideas with more experience further down the line. The important thing was to get them thinking.

We also talked about advocacy, for which an equivalent word doesn't exist in Romanian, unfortunately, and the difference between cleaning up the river, and trying to stop people from putting trash in it in the first place. I shared with them the phrase we use "band-aid" for an action you do that covers a problem, deals with it for the moment, but doesn't really solve it -- just takes it away from immediate sight. They thought it was funny, but a good comparison. While I loved this discussion, and it is clearly a topic that is very important to me, I enjoyed my time with the 4th graders more.

We had an hour long period and I gave them each a chance to ask me a question about ANYTHING in America. They have clearly limited vocabulary, but unlike the older kids, have no shame in asking anything -- are just curious, curious, curious.

My favorites were:
  • What are your parents' names? (they couldn't pronounce either of them)
  • Are you married? (Why not? Don't you want to be?)
  • How is life in America? (me: can you be more specific? him: no, how is life?)
  • Do you play tennis?
  • What do kids eat in schools in America?
  • Why do you guys like sandwiches so much?
  • Have you ever seen XXXXX celebrity?
  • What do kids read in American schools? (Following this question, I had a 3 minute embarrassing black out of famous American authors. I think I mumbled something about the boxcar children and moved on. Bad job, Sharon, way to represent American culture.)
  • Do you like to watch TV? Why not?
  • Do you eat McDonald's every day?
  • Does everyone in America have their own car?
  • Do kids in America have chores? (They didn't believe me that "setting the table" was an actual chore -- you put the plates on the table, that's it?)
  • Why do kids have pets... Don't they have animals in their backyards?

Easter of the Dead Pictures

Thursday, May 08, 2008














Sorry. I still can't figure out how to put pictures and text together well in a blog post... something about the formatting always goes wrong.

Paste Blajinilor / Easter of the Dead



Moldova celebrates two Christmases (old and new), two New Years, and two memorial days (Red Army Day and Moldovan veterans' day). You would expect two Easters as well. Ask and you shall receive.

The second Easter, celebrated the Sunday and Monday after Orthodox Easter is called Paste Blajinilor, which I am translating loosely into Easter of the Dead. A more literal translation would be "Easter of the kind souls who have passed away," but Easter of the Dead just sounds catchier. :)

I'm not sure if this celebration is "traditional Orthodox," a Moldovan specialty, a Eastern European thing, or what. I certainly had never heard of it before I came here, despite my neighbors' claims that it is a holiday celebrated by Orthodox all over the world. The closest church service I can compare it to is the Catholic "All Souls Day," but even that is a far fetched comparison. My host Mom says only Moldova and Romanian celebrate it, while my tutor told me Russia does as well. If anyone reading this blog has more information about other places that celebrate Easter of the Dead, please let me know. This year I made up for my absence last year, and I actually got to celebrate the day twice - once in the city, Sunday, and then Monday in my village.

On Saturday I went into Balti, the nearest city to me -- a very unfriendly, very dirty and very Russian city (in the central square is a huge military tank, on display for all to see)-- to buy some supplies we need for the construction of our youth center. While my official motives for going into Balti were for "business", having successfully purchased (read: haggled over prices, stomped around in the rain, got lost, lugged bags to and fro, argued with vendors about giving us receipts) everything we needed at a large outdoor market (piata), I decided to reward myself with a night in the city, at another volunteer's apartment.

Every time I go into Balti I feel like I am transported into another world. It is a HUB for volunteers -- right now there are 5 stationed there. The way they interact with each other and the community it almost feels like a college campus -- making dinners, meeting for lunches, playing games, going to language lessons, etc. PLUS it has grocery stores, a pizzeria, an indoor pool, book stores, a university, and good ice cream -- enough to lure you in. We played games all night, and in the morning went, "just to see", to the cemetery for"Easter of the Dead." Because people go to visit all of their deceased relatives, some of the bigger cities celebrate on Sunday, a day early, giving the city dwellers a chance to return to their villages for the actual celebration, Monday.

Sunday was rainy, and muddy. If Jen had lived with a host mother, she would have made sure we were dressed properly to be traipsing through a muddy cemetery. But she lives alone, and alas we got soaked, and mudded. I can't start to explain to you how many people were at the cemetery. Everyone was at the cemetery. They blocked off roads, had police redirecting traffic, and rerouted 90 percent of the cities transportation to circulate from the cemetery to the center of the city -- leaving the regular bus routes to the wayside.

We walked around and watched people set up their meals -- of meat, of cheese, of fresh baked bread, of wine, of candy. Most Moldovan graves are built with a fence around them. Inside this fence is a table, that is used once a year, for Easter of the Dead. The idea of the day is to not only "remember" the dead, but to eat with them. Wine is poured on the graves, food is left on the foot of the graves. Also, there is a tradition to give small gifts to others outside your family (not strangers, but people that were in the life of the person who died -- family friends, co-workers, etc) in the name of the deceased. The word they use for this gift translates into "alms. " It's like they give it in the spirit of the deceased person, but they have to give it on their part. I'm not entirely sure on this. The gifts resemble goody bags, and are filled with baked goods, cookies, candy, matches, candles and usually some dishes and a towel. I always ask about the dishes and towel, but I haven't figured that one out yet.

Wandering around speaking English got us easily noticed, and although I was in a rush not to miss the bus back to my village, we stopped when one man handed us gifts of "pomana". He was standing by himself in the rain, in front of two grave stones. He invited us in, to eat with him and although we refused at first, we eventually relented. I'm glad we did. He seemed very alone and sad -- his wife and brother had just died this year, his daughter was in America. The fact that he randomly found and invited two Americans to celebrate with himwas a happy coincidence for him, or a sign as he put it. He made all the food that he was serving, the cheese from his cow at home, as he put it. And when I asked him, he told me he was just "waiting for his other family to come", but Jen and I talked about it and we didn't think anyone else was coming... yet he had a table full of food, and went through a lot of trouble to prepare it. He offered us wine, and told us that he preferred milk. When I came home from Balti, my host mom was both surprised that I had already celebrated the holiday, and surprised that a "stranger" had invited us to his celebration. I'd like to think that he recognized that we were kind of "alone" also on that day... I'm glad we stopped. We took some pictures with Jen's camera, so we will have to wait for her for them.

Then on Monday, we celebrated Easter of the Dead in my village. My host brothers came from Chisinau and we set off early to church, followed by a grave side service. The priest says a prayer and then walks around the whole graveyard. Then, goes to each grave individually and blesses the food, and blesses the grave. Thus the food you are eating is blessed. It's a lot of work for the priest. We were there at 9 in the morning, left at 12, and there were still people just arriving at 12. Two boys working for the church were carrying away sacks of baked goods and breads that people had given as alms to the church. It's a LOT of bread. I hope someone eats it.

I walked around taking pictures while we were waiting for the priest to come to my host father's grave. People kept giving me gifts of "pomana", I think because they recognize me as the American, and becuase I showed myself to be the American because I was taking pictures. I came back with a lot of food, which my host mother was only slightly amused by -- "Sharon," she says, "we are supposed to give away food not collect more -- don't you know how much food we have at home!". Oops. And apparently we can't give it away or let it go bad because it is blessed.

The priest came, he said a "memory eternal", poured wine on the grave, blessed the food and the offering, and blessed us with holy water, and moved on. After the religious part of the ceremony, we sat around the table on the grave (kind of strange for me), and ate a meal, with my host family offering those that they know to eat with us.

For me, the jury is still out on this holiday. I like how the Moldovans' remembrance of the dead is more mainstreamed than ours is -- we do it individually for the most part, and for a limited amount of years after someone dies, and then it kind of gets phased out. They do it every year, and collectively -- you remember not only your family members, but your neighbors, your old teachers, etc. I'm not sure how I felt about eating in the graveyard though, maybe something was lost in the translation as I didn't really understand the point of it -- nor the point of the obligatory gift giving. Once again though, I'm open to more information about this holiday.

As for the Marathon-May of celebrations: Many down, one more to go, in my 2-week-long holiday extravaganza (tomorrow is Victory in Europe day,in Moldova, where they rememebr the victory over fascism .... do we celebrate it on the 7th or 8th, or am I mistaken).
 
   





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