While Grigory and Roma continue to be lovely, and only challenge my sensibilities by stating things like “the moon will be 200 km away on Saturday” and “flossing is bad for your gums,” and Laurentiu is being rather less drunk and more hardworking than usual of late (I thank Spring) the rest of the men in my village continue reinforcing the stereotype I snap-judged summer 2009.
That is, at any time of day, you can take a stroll and dollars to donuts you'll find multiple drunk men on the street in various states of falling down. Off bikes, off feet, into trees, ditches, bushes, horses, walls.
My particular favorites are the two or three school employees who are predictably drunk in school. The male gym teacher. The head grounds man, and one or two of the other groundsmen. Other male teachers, the Romanian teacher, the Shop teacher, the Physics teacher, the Chemistry teacher... Are all honestly respectable men who I don't mind spending time with or talking to. These two though, swagger around and get in people's face and do/don't do their jobs at their leisure.
The groundsman is a friend of Laurentiu's and can be found driving to my house a couple times a week. He has almost too good of posture—puffs out chest—and perfectly coiffed hair. He lives in a bright yellow house with multi-colored fencing. He is the man around whom we had to work to get a door and priza and lights, and a window and clean stuff and paint.
When he first listened to our requests for help (it being his job description to help us) he refused to make eye contact, kept fiddling with bits of wire unconnected to anything, and nodded. The second time (a month later without anything having been done, me getting antsy, Ren wanting just to calm me, and finding that “patience” is something with an end in my brain and habits) he said some things like “well, it's hard to get that done!” without looking at us or stopping his fiddling. NB. I've never seen this man do work, just fiddle with things in his hands.
Eventually, Ren and I started asking the wiry little man who does not smell of vodka and refused to look at us out of real shyness. He came with us directly with a box of tools and did the thing. When I asked technical questions about installing the plug into the wall, he answered. A bit confused at first, but there was communication.
At least the drunk leader of the groundsmen doesn't touch people a lot. The gym teacher is a real toucher.
He grabs female teachers by the arm and waist all the time. Most of them allow this, and even smile at it. Even more when he changes the arm grab to a small-of-back turn around maneuvar that normally only gets used by professional dancers. Renata and Natalia not only accept this, but indulge it, even encourage it by their seeming genuine enjoyment of such treatment. The one time he tried it on me, back in the day, I responded with such natural vehemence that he now forcibly ignores me in the presence of others. I like to think it's his last resort of power.
A little larval version of this man is Vlad, who I have mentioned before. I mention him often because he is the smartest version of the Drunk Man To Be. Usually, the obviously intelligent boys fall into an in between category of child. They tend to be quiet in class, even if they don't do their work. They're the kids Renata encourages to translate words in lists if they so flatly refuse to participate in the real work. They have shit potential, but don't use it.
The problem with Vlad, is that he finds these boys and actually whips them into a skirting frenzy of his own rebellions. It gets to a point where, literally, every lesson with him is impossible. Every teacher except the drunk one agrees with this.
Today was special. In regard to drunk men. First, the gym teacher invaded my office while I was working. Three times. Didn't say anything, just opened the door, walked in smiled real big at me, looked around and closed the door. It isn't like he went away and thought about it, then came back to check that yes, The Americanka does have a Stefan Cel Mare poster! But in quick succession. Almost exactly as Vlad and his buddies do. In the words of Data: Intriguing.
Today we also started preparing for a special presentation/party thing. The language departments are all swapping languages and children. Ren, Nat and I have to train six eleventh graders who have only studied French up to this point in English poem recitation, English song singing, and a short skit in English.
I'm in charge of posters (of course) and poems (of course). Renata is director of the whole thing – from what they are doing to what they are wearing. I'm not too clear on what Natalia's doing, but I'm sure it's something. Luckily our singer already knows an English song by heart: Because of You by someone in America.
So, we were in Ren's diriginte classroom organizing all this, while her class (Vlad & co.) sat around or cleaned plants and swept the floor. My poet, Renat, at one point decided to help with the discipline. That is he picked up one of the boys by the shirt collar, slammed him back down on top of a desk and asked if he would, now, listen to Doamna Renata.
He did.
A couple minutes later, one of the boys in the skit took Vlad in a half nelson and told him to stop. Are you ready to stop? Vlad, being made of stiffer stuff than the average dickhead, didn't say anything until he'd been slapped and set on his feet, at which point he shouted some stuff in Russian, cried, and stormed out of the room. I was so surprised I burst out laughing.
I know this is only encouraging further violence from the younger boys, and that is the tragic circle of some conglomeration of poverty,existent violence, and a cultural identity of being conquered by every empire to ever make the history books. Seriously. Name one. I mean, the Ptolemies and Aztecs never raped and pillaged Moldovan soil, but all the others did.
It's not an excuse, but that sort of mindset is hard to get through, and I am so thankful for Roma, Grigory, Sasha, and several other young men here who are genuinely upstanding. I just hope they have as much an influence as the hitters.
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