Ljubljana 1

Day 1
Slovenian keyboards have several extra letters. The punctuation keys are everywhere. It is good times. Extra letters:

š č ć ž đ

and y and z are swapped.

Otherwise the train yesterday was ideal. Many games were played. We slept well in our hostel last night and are the only people HERE. Even the owner is just hanging out up stairs with his sick girlfriend instead of tending his establishment.

Plans: to drink coffee. To find and walk over really pretty bridges.

Budapesti

Forgive the bullet points. The hostel has 1 computer and many Asians.

Unexpected closures of everything in Iasi led us on a wild goose chase for some fun looking place to hang out and talk to locals about the history of the area, and what people do there now. We did find a castle, and one of Stefan Cel Mare's little churches, but not much else. After walking with out baggage (baggage storage was closed for Christmas) 2 1/2 hours walking up and down hills with everything shut, we admitted defeat and holed up in McDonalds to wait the remaining two hours before the train

Budapesti itself has been enhanced by wandering around behind our own tour guides, Zach, another volunteer came this far with us to meet up with some friends of his here as this is where he got his Masters degree> Thus, the places we go are local, cheaper and far more interesting. Though, funny enough, they don't speak much Hungarian.

Zach says that everyone young here speaks English and everyone old speaks German. He just spoke German for two years! Very cool, as it turns out Hungarian is more distantly related to English than Farsi or Sinhalese. I remember learning this in language classes, but seeing it in action is a little intimidating and fascinating.

Like last night's coffee bar: a three storey affair with giant spiral staircase and clearly student generated art work everywhere. The coffee was delicious and served in square cups. Hungarian beer was on tap and everything very happily priced. I also got to peruse some art and theatre magazines for their pictures. It looks like a full and vibrant art house life. And considering the hype, I guess I should not have been surprised!

Budapesti is good.

But you may have to learn about Budapesti later as this keyboard is turning caps and number lock on at random, and the punctuation is scatter shot and the typing difficult. gr.

Itinerary

I'm sure there's a map application with GPS that follows the chip in my neck while I wander around the world... But in lieu of that, Here is where I hope to be in the next two weeks:

Dec. 25 -- Singerei: Christmas celebrations with Matt, Lindsay and MacKenzie.

Dec. 26 -- Balti --> Iasi --> Cluj --> Budapesti

Dec. 28 -- Budapesti --> Ljubljana

Dec. 30 -- Ljubljana --> Sarajevo

Jan. 1 -- Sarajevo --> Podgorica

Jan. 5 -- Podgorica --> Belgrade

Jan. 6 -- Belgrade --> Bucharesti

Jan. 7 -- Bucharesti --> Chisinau

It's amazing. There are only a couple days where we won't be on trains and I can't describe how excited I am about that.

So many travelogues (and stories from Maria and Bunica) about trains here describe them as cold, over crowded, slow and sat only on planks of wood. However, the trains I've taken to and from Bucharesti, and the one Casey recommended (Iasi/Cluj) , are kick ass red leather affairs with lots of brass studs and Jetsons likes bars. They are mainly empty, but clean and staffed by eager men who endlessly love Americans.

It also looks like border crossings won't be too hard. Maybe in and out of Bosnia, but we might not even get stamped from Hungary to Slovenia! That would be sad.

Saddest though, is that they don't just punch a hole through our PC passports at the end of days, but TAKE THEM from us. Bad form, if you ask me, but ceva ceva. If I've learned anything it's that the treatment of people from government is arbitrary feeling.

Judge Maria

Lunches, in winter last longer than in other seasons. Maria has less to do, and the kitchen is the only room in the house that ever seems adequately warm.

At some point I made it clear that I don't want to hear about villagers' personal problems. So she tells me about the things that she sees on TV.

The ongoing government drama.

Ukraine's government drama. (we seem to have it pretty sweet in Moldova)

How the communists suck.

How the communists were once so cool.

The haughtyness of Bunica.

The obraznic-ness of the cows.

And now, the Moldovan poor and thier promiscuous ways.

Some girl got pregnant, doesn't know who the father is, so they will have the blood test done, and whoever turns out to be the father will pay for everything.

This would be pretty run of the mill, EXCEPT she had the baby over a toilet, by herself. The baby fell out and cracked its little head on the porcelain and is in intensive care. Its been a couple days... the baby is recovering nicely.

The would be weird all on its own EXCEPT she had a supposed 'pregnancy test' earlier in the year at school and it was negative. The girl was 4 or 5 months along already, and tested. Thus, either the school was trying to cover up for her, or pregnancy tests just ain't what they used to be.

Thus, scandal.

More recently, a woman killed a man, went to jail for her 7 years. Was out. Killed another, this time convicted for 8 years. Gave birth to a baby while in jail -- but of course there are no conditions for babies in jail, so the baby was given to a friend of the killer woman. The friend dodged off and refused to bring the child to jail EVER to visit the mother and now that Mom is out, she wants her kid back, but the kid has no idea who this woman is -- has been raised to think this other woman is his mom etc etc...

Maria is glorious in her rendition of these stories. She gets involved and gesticulates and every little bit shrugs her shoulders and says "Such people."

The beauty is she never passes judgement. Not once. Its amazing.

Sometimes she'll bring it back to government problems, and blame them. Usually, though, these are people and they have more colorful lives than her.

Who does Maria pass judgement on?

People who vote communist.

The government -- no matter who is in charge of it -- for not developing agriculture technology.

Moldova has the richest soil, she says. In Italy they have nothing but rocks with one stalk of corn growing through the middle. But that one stalk, that one stalk has ears of corn the size of my arm! And so many of them! they can have 5 stalks and feed their pigs for as much as I can with half a hectare.

She is righteously irate.

I asked if there were organizations in town for an Agricultural Volunteer to work here, to replace me.

Where? Where? No! Everyone has a farm and farms and farms but no one will be larger.

Maybe I can get a COD in here. With the two gradinitas, primaria, various little stores, big school and the incoming retirement home (Maria fumes at the communists who, had they been in power, never would have allowed the building of this retirement home, and if they get re-elected the construction will stop) there is more than enough for a Community Development kid here.

thoughts...

References

In our campaigns of self promotion, to get jobs, university entrance, boyfriends/girlfriends it is always useful and often necessary to provide references.

The last job I applied to is the first I have ever encountered, where, without thinking too hard, I can produce 5 extremely well-qualified references for said job. It occurred to me, that I'm finally in a place where I am actually qualified for things like managerial jobs, publicity coordinating jobs, teaching jobs, administrative jobs.

I've always known (no small thanks to my ever-encouraging parents) I can do pretty much anything if I put my mind to it. However, America, being the highly pragmatic and quantifiable-fact-mongering creature that it is, has disagreed with me.

Until now.

I'm not saying I'll get a job right off the bat (I have more well qualified friends than me jobless and losing hope). And I'm not saying I have an above average resume, just that I'm more accomplished than I thought.

Then, I chatted with one of my former students. Maxim graduated last year and has been studying in Balti. It was great to see him again as he was the only boy in his whole graduating class last year who took me seriously as anything more than That Jessica Simpson Look Alike (and seriously, where did they even GET that comparison?).

Maxim is applying for a work abroad position in the USA. I told him if the system needed it, I would happily give him a reference.

Mormons vs. Volunteers

Every 4 or 5 months I have a Mormon sighting.

There are, as far as I can tell, 4 - 8 Mormons living in Moldova currently. Evangelizing. Walking around. Speaking Russian. Wearing suits and backpacks.

Once they invited us to watch a carol thing they'd organized on the TV.

Once they were carolling on a street corner in their suits and back packs.

Usually, they are chatting and walking, and I wave real big to them.

The thing is, Mormonism is my favorite sect of Christianity. I have never met a Mormon I didn't like a whole bunch. If not for the alcohol thing, and the believing in god thing, I'd totally sign up.

I often wonder why Mormonism, as a religion, makes such good people without fail. It has been suggested it's because they are so 'good works' based. This makes sense. Catholicism did that though. Why do Mormon church leaders succeed where Catholic church leaders just turned crazy greedy and charged their congregations money for their good deeds? What is the difference there?

One of the greater things is their two year commitment to evangelizing. Though I don't believe forcing people to believe a thing you believe is an ethically ok thing to do, I adore that followers are required to live somewhere away from home when they are young. From what I've been told by friends in Disney World (which hires Mormons by the drove) and the guys here in Balti, they have no choice in where they are sent. It can be anywhere in the world from Florida to Balti to Nepal.

When they find out, they are given language training. Extensive language training. We in the Peace Corps have 3 months of language and job training. Daily it's about 4 hours a day. They have twice as much daily for twice as long. Their language is phenomenal. I want to convert just to be sent out with that kind of knowledge. I got our of training and could barely float with my language.

When they are sent out, they are sent in a pair. When we are sent out we are sent singly. There are pros and cons to each of these. On our own we are fully immersed in the culture. That's the point. However, I am a surprisingly shy extrovert -- I need to be pushed to go out into new groups of people, but I have to think out loud. If I'd had a partner I'd have been more likely, immediately, to meet the village. If I'd had a partner this whole time, my plans and projects would have expanded more, much more quickly.

I wonder what they think when they see us. Do volunteers stand out more or less than them in their uniforms? Are we more or less effective in integration? What is the impact on their development projects with the religion factor? How much time do they spend with the religion factor? Do they have as many romances with host country nationals as we do?

And ultimately, who would win in a fight?

Moldova as Dream Drug

Either Moldova is a sink hole, metaphysically, for sub-concious thought (would account for the Baba Yaga stories which make Grimm look downright Dr. Spock) or I have just hit a plateau in mental development.

Either way, I dream more vividly here than I have at any other time.

Dreams have been a major stock of my mental life since I was about 12. Funny enough, that is also when I started reading the Bible in earnest. I started a dream journal, bought and received for Christmas no less that 4 different Dream Dictionaries. Theories of and experiments with past life regression, out of body experiences/astral projection, communicating with ghosts and fairy-like creatures, fairly rigid daily meditation, bullshit wiccan-type spells with candles and home made tinctures abounded.

That is, I'm pretty well informed. And though I genuinely believe very little in these things currently, I am thankful to this phase for other things: I have a mighty discipline of the mind. Literally, at the time, I could control my hiccups. Thought, this particular talent disappeared in December 2005, I still have an uncanny ability to tell the time and wake up exactly when I want, fall asleep when I want etc.

And I have never had dreams like I'm having dreams now, and in the past 6 months.

Almost every one features the ocean--either benign or about to swamp me and the whole world. Usually, my sisters are involved. Often I am pregnant, or spontaneously have a baby that is Mary-like mine. Sometimes my parents are around. Sometimes there is flying in planes. I never fly on my own, my teeth never fall out. I've died once.

This is all very run-of-the-mill.

What's not is how I've been waking up. Before I've woken up maybe twice before with real tears. Now it's at least twice a month. Twice I have literally laughed myself awake. My dreams are becoming more physical. If any one knows how gauge melatonin levels etc. I'm all ears.

And, about half the time, regardless of what else is going on, I look nothing like myself. I've been chinese men, white men, black women, super old, super young... But everyone else is who I, Erika the Blonde, know them as. Elise, Greta and Kelsie are always themselves. Stephanie is always herself. But, 50% of the time, I am not me.

What is that?

Is it all the natural, unpasteurized food? Is it the hive mind of a Moldovan Sat? I haven't yet dreamed in Romanian, so, I guess we all know what my language level is, but could the massive amount of life in a different language have other effects? Is it living so isolated? Is it the water? The amount of DayQuil and NyQuil I now take? If that were it, the dream level would have dropped off in the summer, so that can't be it--despite the amount consumed having been enough to start my own meth-lab.

I'm gonna keep blaming Moldova unless someone can posit a better theory.

I'm a Moldovanka Short and Stout!

...Here is my brinza

Here is my grout

When I get all steamed up

I will shout:

Put that rachiu down--

you're a lout!

Yes, dear reader, I have this day made it into the ranks of the domestic Moldovanka.

(it should be noted the following events were only possible because Maria was significantly distracted with a woman from Glodeni who came to discuss the financial health of various magazins, and the great shift of accounting from longhand to computer)

Today I:

- Cleaned the kitchen after lunch for Maria as talked accounting shop with her accountant friend

- Wore rubber ankle boots to wade through farm yard slush and mud

- Made a small bridge from the viceu to the wood pile with the scraps from the gospodar's rather neglected project-wood pile (that is, I imagine 10 years ago Laurentiu had a project in mind, but forgot...ever since the turkeys and chickens have been roosting in this pile of rotting, but professionally-cut wood, now covered in various types of domestic bird shit)

- Stocked the house with the day's supply of wood

- Lit the fires

- Kept those fires going

And when Maria was finished she and Laurentiu exclaimed over my many merits as a gospodina (house wife).

Nothing...

Nothing too exciting happening...

Done a lot of work for the daily lesson plans reformatting and all their title pages...

Done an overhaul on the grant proposal.

Watched a lot of Fringe.

Tending my fire. It's cold enough now that my room doesn't keep warm too long. Compacted ice and snow is already building up, melting a bit around 2pm and then freezing again by 4.

Remembering why Spain seemed like such a good idea last year. How cold these trains are going to be.... But! It'll be fun! Most things booked now...

Adriana made me an origami boat with drawings all over it. It's pretty cool.

More and more students are talking to me on Skype. What a fun way to improve language. If only we had a bunch of computers in the classroom, we could use it as an in-class tool!

Man Huddles of Winter

Man Huddles occur more often in winter. Yes, even the mighty Man Huddle is brought low by the crippling sweeps of winter. They crouch themselves lower, closer to each other, quicker shots with more frequency, in the domain of their women. I imagine they are therefore, tamer.

Things I learned with today's Man Huddle:

The wine cellar is quite warm.

Fully popped kernals of popcorn are called roosters, half popped ones are called hens.

The toast: Few deaths in the house, less work!

Maria wryly mentioned that if you work less, you have less to eat and therefore more deaths occur.

Ie. Bullshit.

Today is the first day of winter, and as such, a Man Huddle was forced to form. Slavic's wife called complaining of his not being home to save all the pumpkin's from freezing. He hung up on her and he and the men conferred about how likely it is that pumpkins could freeze today.

Yesterday, still officially being fall, was a toasty 42 degrees. When I dodged out to the veciu this morning, however, I noticed the ground was frozen hard enough that I could safely wear my pretty shoes without losing the heels to the mud made famous by killing armies. Indeed, walking to school, through various stabbing tests, it was surmised that the ground is solid to about 4 inches.

If the ground, that solid thing that is giant beneath us, can freeze up to 4 inches deep, I put forth that a pumpkin 8 inches in diameter, would freeze solid.

Though, I have not tested the viscosity of pumpkins, or the temperature at which pumpkin pulp freezes. So, really, as I was told, I have no clue.

I made up for this conversation mishap by listing my three favorite foods: cheese, pickled cucumbers, gummy bears.

Yes, pickled cucumbers are delicious! "Hai! Few deaths, Little work!"

Alegere

Today is Sunday, and as such, subject to various obligations. We can do no washing. We must go to the piata (especially since we need light bulbs).

But today is no ordinary Sunday. We have a very specific obligation here today. Today is voting day.

By the end of today Moldova may have a president. That president might even be not-a-communist.

I went into the kitchen circa 9am for some tea. Laurentiu was ironing his pants on the kitchen table. Maria was bustling around in her best hat.

I asked what was going on, why was everyone so frumos? We never go to church.

Why are we frumos? It's Voting Day.

Maria had already been. Laurentiu was just about to pack Bunica into the car.

Renata is one of the facilitators at the school today. She's been wired for weeks. Even took me to a political rally for her favorite candidate.

Maria, so contained most of the time, flew off the handle the other night about pensioners and the impeding opinions of conservatives.

Bunica spent a good twenty minutes wagging her ancient CCCP passport at me like Senator Byrd used to do with the constitution.

The drunk PE teacher harassed my star 12th grader for her voter pin number in the middle of my class.

Peace Corps moved our Thanksgiving celebration a week early so there would be no stragglers in Chisinau today.

It's exciting times.

It's official

First snowfall.

Peers

We learned the word 'peer' in 12th grade.

It took longer than I thought to explain. Apparently there is no translation.

They knew Nat was NOT their peer.

I, however, was.

Operation Hydra, and Other Happenings

Rejection in the poetry world is pretty common: fact.

Erika is overly sensitive/defensive: quantifiable.

Why she doesn't seem to mind having her poetry rejected on such a frequent basis: Unknown.

However, being rejected by Beloit Poetry Journal (who is she kidding trying for such a fry?) solidified something in her, previously indistinct and with the consistency of silly putty. For every rejection I now get, I will send out 3 submissions.

Yes, the loneliness is good for our intrepid nerd. Long evenings cut short when one wages a one woman battle of alliteration against all artifice and its strappings.

Also, Renata's open class today went extremely well. First time I've seen Claudia approve of anything other than my beauty.

And I have a cold out of nowhere. Good thing I stocked up on DayQuil/NyQuil rations.

Five Things

1. Today is 70 degrees and sunny...

2. The hick children I pass every day to school (they are approx 2 and 4 years old, and Vladya's cousins) learning a garbled version of English greetings. They run out of the house EVERY time I pass and shout things that sound like "hello" and "how are you?" in weird slurs.

3. Claudia decided today that all the lesson plans we have should be in a different format.

That's 105 lessons per class, 14 classes.

It's not getting done today.

Renata is crushed.

My inner viking nearly smashed things.

4. There are several cow bones, new since this morning, helping fill a pothole outside my house.

5. I officially deem my office ready and open for business. There are still several things that need doing (rugs, curtains, covering of chairs, filing system for materials and plans more organized than binders full to bursting) but mostly, it looks pretty damn good.

Today's Problems

Because it is Moldova, all conversations seem to start this way: My problems my problems...

Clearly, this is not uniquely Moldovan. It does seem uniquely Moldovan to not look for solutions. Also, for people of power to fuck with their underlings as much as possible.

Claudia, for example, has seen me working in the office and decided to take the office away from the English Dept as soon as I am gone. Instead she wants me to write a grant for a room with 4 windows because she wants to get the bang for her buck (me being the buck). Fine, fair enough. Sounds reasonable.

Last time I talked to the big C, it was in her office. The office that has hoarded 6 desktop computers for 2 years now. Brand new. refuses to let people set them up in classrooms or offices or even the computer lab. The weather had been freezing for 3 weeks and her office with the computers was the only heated one. This whole time.

A week ago was Halloween. The 12th graders, my darlings, organized a party for the high school with music and dance and games and competitions and costumes and decorations and mood lighting and mood music. We held it in the sports hall since Claudia had the Festival Hall refinished over the summer and now won't allow people in it. Even for it's purpose. Which is for the student organized things like this.

I would go into the Teachers Day Fiasco, but I think I have a blog about it already.

Claudia routinely does undermining of all projects presented. And undermines the authority of everyone around her. She publicly humilates bad kids, which in the Catholic sense of "whip, sit" might actually work, but with 20 minute orations on the badness of not acting in a frumos manner, FOLLOWED IMMEDIATELY by praise and nice touches for the bad kid in question (unless it's a girl. Girls get talked about in teacher meetings, the teachers all go out and immediately regurgitate this gossip like she were a fully defensible adult. Even if she were an adult -- I, I... What the Fuck?)

Last winter she discounted my Language Lab series of grants out right. Do English first, since that's what you got me for, and then, when I am gone you have a ready made proposal, you just have to send it out and present yourself and Boom! a French Lab. After that, who knows. The grant is designed to be adaptable to any subject needed. The teacher of that subject need only fill in the blanks, basically.

Nope. Don't want it. Do a toilet project. Take Olga to Chisinau to learn.

Ok. I can do two.

Research reveals it will cost $10,000. Work only with Olga, yes, I could, except she'd fold under Claudia as soon as I leave. The problem here isn't the money, it's the length of time it will take to raise that much money. It will take longer than the year and half I had at the start.

Late last spring, after rejection #1 I went to Tatiana, the vice pricipal. She loved the proposal and the idea. She gave us a room, a good one with a working soba, two windows and a door to replace. It's even right next to the main offices, prime real estate. Great.

Claudia gave the room to the new 4th graders and their diriginte after a squabble of some sort.

We still had our office. I thought, I'll start with that. I installed a door with money out of pocket. Adriana, Matt and I refinished the existent furniture and made new furniture. MADE. From scratch. All the materials from Laurel, Colleen, Kelsie/Andrew, Billy are all now safe and secure here behind the anchored and elaborately locked door. We even have art work, provided by me, Bob and Renata. Flowers from Natalia (they're dying though) a fake christmas tree from Colleen, and I bought coffee cups, coffee, tea and brought in Billy's old ceainic. I taped the window and I am just cold enough I decided to shell out from my travel funds for the $300 it will take to get a real window that has all its glass intact and latches that acutally close.

At the beginning of this year, we were given a different room. The Planet Hoth of classrooms. Remote, without heat, 2/3 of a chalkboard, half a floor (literally, it crumbles under plain walking) a box of rocks (flint and fools gold) and half as many chairs and tables as necessary. No teacher's desk.

We briefly discussed fixing it up, but the positioning is bad enough that teaching is often out of the question. The three holey windows cover the outter corner walls and jut out into the recess playing field. The students would much rather look longingly at kids skyving than listen to anything -- however fun the class is. They won't even play games with these windows.

However, I am farming the older students, and bringing Ren and Nat, and possibly Valentina the French teacher who speaks a little English, into the project getting enterprises. I'm not a snob about English speakers, it's just most grant foundations accept proposals in English. Some from the EU will accept in French, Ren and Valentina speak French. It's all good.

So, that's happening. In the mean time I have a fleet of 6 12th graders about to start fundraising for the Language Lab thing. SPA grant presentations are in March. I'm tailoring the proposal to an example proposal I have. I'm taking Grigore and Corina or Olga with me to present. I'm very excited.

The Toilet Project I'll get written before I go, and have the students ready to go with fundraisers for the year and a teacher or two to oversee them.

So, what happened now?

Claudia said we can no longer have this office. In exchange she will give us her room with four windows that faces the front of the school. It's well heated and catches all the sun. It's a great room. It's even beautifully painted. and heated.

However, she will only give it to us after the money arrives.

Unfortunately I don't trust her.

If she can take and give hypothetical rooms at will, and this one is hers, and has been for over a decade, why would she hypothetically give it to us while we work on a grant and then not take it back for herself when the windows and doors are installed?

Not to mention the door in the grant is already paid for. I won't mind giving that money up to the greater cause of the school, if only I knew this new other door would stay with Renata and Natalia and Corina.

I am really sad I missed The Rally to Restore Sanity.

This may have been the only political/protest rally my generally centrist sensibilities jive with.

And it was on Halloween.

And the signs seem to have been superior to any other signs I've ever seen.

And, one day, I wish to be either Mrs. Colbert or Mrs. Stewart.

And there was political feeling without political preaching (my problems with most religions are my same problems with political parties).

New Blog

As a fan of consistency, and continuity (watch Day for Night, I'm that girl with the clipboard filling in Trouffaut's gaps) I am not scraping this blog. Instead, the new blog is for my students. The older, more fluent in English ones.

It's a place for them to post their homework if they want, instead of handing it in, or to stick thoughts on discussions we had in class.

The first time I mentioned it (yesterday) they thought I was crazy. Didn't believe me. I came home, spent an hour putting it up, presented all the information in class and it took 5 full minutes (a lot of class time when you think about it) of convincing for them to believe it was real, and for them.

They're even a little excited!

Check it out!

EnglishatBalatina.blogspot.com

Skimming the Haunted House

I designated today my physical labor day. Laundry, despite cold drizzle, I'm my last pair of undies, and office DIY.

Originally I thought to continue with paint stripping in preparation for painting on Friday. I don't know why it didn't occur to me to strip the desk in summer. I wish it had, would make a bushel more sense.

At ten minutes to two, I was eating and chatting with Maria, and Adriana showed up. She is always early! I told her about the paint stripping plan but she piped up with "There's a cupboard possibly in this house on the hill!"

"Whose house? What sort?"

She gave me one of her terribly long and involved and too-quick-for-my-Romanian stories. It involved lots of relatives and death. "something something something Grandma something something cousin something dead something something died something something I'm scared." for almost five minutes without pausing for breath.

We puffed up the steep church slope where kids sled in snow, little dog trailing behind, sock in his mouth. "Where did this dog come from?" I ask.

"A neighbor had two new puppies and nothing to do with them. He doesn't follow anyone else. Not even Lenuta, and she always tries to give him treats to make him come, but he only comes to me. I play with him and pet him."

"Cool."

Adriana is the first person I've met in this country who has thought to train her dog, let alone treat it nicely.

The house is a cute normal blue color, if a bit faded from not being replastered every year, with especially ornate wooden window frames. It's next door to the church in fact, prime real estate!

We un tangle the three feet of coat hanger sort of wire that's keeping the gate shut, walk past the front through some overgrown trees to the back door that's ajar. Adriana gives me a final warning of "it is dirty all over." Of course it is, I think, it hasn't been live in for a decade. I just nod "no worries."

What she meant was that we had to crawl through a hole in the foot thick wall made of mud and rush bricks. Then over various 50 year old kitchen appliances and dodge some falling bits of ceiling.

The shelf/cupboard was indeed perfect for our purposes, but two little girls (she's only an inch or two shorter than me) were not about to sprout the arm and back muscles to heft it out of the house and down the hill, around the corner, up some stairs and down the hall to my office.

We worried over it a bit until I spotted the shelves themselves were removable. huh. "are there bricks or something in here we can take also?"

"just mud ones"

"no good."

"How will we get it out?!"

"We won't, just take these! We'll make some ourselves in the office!"

Adriana looked a bit skeptical, but she went along with me on it. Next problem was exiting. The front door was nailed shut and she thought herself a bad hostess for making me crawl through the hole in the first place.

Ever quick on the draw, she jumped onto the door frame, kicked out some glass (at which I yelped like a six year old at a snapping dog) and swung through the place where the glass had just been. She tugged at the nails, but alas, to no avail.

At least now we wouldn't have to drag the boards out the back hole entry. Went back to retrieve our new furniture, covered completely with cobwebs and sawdust and half buried under ceiling. I was given a demonstration of how to be a mummy in a full sized wardrobe, and see saw on the fallen ceiling. I felt like a mischievous fawn or other creature from Shakespeare's wileyer fantasies.

A finger flung out in front of me: "My dad made that! My dad made it and now its all broken." She pointed at a half gutted tv frame, wires spurting impotently for direction. "Do you want it?" she asked. An image of a fish tank in a tv sprouted in my mind. Almost as good, a secondary shelf. Or puppet theatre!

"Yes."

We dragged it out with our boards.

Tossed em out the door window. The puppy scampered about. We were careful to miss him.

Walking down to school, spoils over our shoulders, Adriana talked about how jealous all the other kids would be if they could see her with me and such weird stuff, would she be allowed to bring the puppy to my office? She had to sing later. She wanted to sing, but with the other kids it was just so boring. Where was Elena. She's already at school, waiting to sing. Are you going to the Halloween party with the 12th graders? Could she come with me as my date, she was too young, but wanted to see it, also, she's shy.

She got her wish. Several girls from her class were hanging around and, true to form, asked what was going on, and how weird and dirty we were.

All that was left, was to set up the computer, put on the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (Adriana heard one song from It's Blitz and it's all that's allowed to play now whenever she's around. She won't let me try to introduce her to other music she might like no matter how many times I point out how much she likes this song after it took me ages to convince her to listen to it the first time) and clean.

And we scrub and unscrew and smash out the remains of the tv until they gleam and are arranged with coffee cups and flowers in the corner of the office near the window. Adriana crashes and I feed her some coffee with lots of sugar. We go home.

Good afternoon.

Extreme Multitasking

In the last three hours I have:

Finished coloring a pinup

discussed the concept of practicing things, and the integral good therein

faux roasted marshmallows

Cleaned my room

Given two guitar lessons

made videos

Introduced and explained the basic concepts of atheism

bought a pumice stone

translated all of Moulin Rouge into Romanian as it was happening.

Because Adriana and Elena's mother has flown the coop to the fields for two days, so they hang out here with me a bunch.

English Club Part 2

For me, it's three 12^th grade boys. Roma, Grigore and Sasha. They actually cut time out of their chicken feeding to hangout with me every Monday afternoon. We meet at a bar, but they don't drink alcohol. If anything they drink juice and eat what I call “crunchy things”. They love that I call them this, but there is no English translation for the fish flavored flakes of dried bread we crunch on.

I don't have to create anything. I never have to tell them how to do things the correct way. They know far more about taking care of themselves and their families than I do. We talk about girls, and university and language and culture. I see weird things, these are the people I go to. They watch a new American movie (in English) or play a new computer game (they play World of Warcraft with Americans and learn words like “moron” and whip them out at the weirdest times!), they ask me about it.

Yesterday we compared violence in movies. They have never heard of A Clockwork Orange or Full Metal Jacket and were sincerely disturbed when I described what they were about. They asked why I would ever let that into my life. They like movies like King Kong and Star Trek. Sasha is a particular fan of the Step Up trilogy. Grigore even thought Chicago was pretty cool.

They don't even tell me these things because I'm a girl. Last week they told me of a new system of code they'd developed. The key word is “sheep”. They call people they don't find intelligent or capable sheep. They call girls who do nothing but preen. They call boys who do nothing but drink and smoke sheep. I asked:

“Am I a sheep?”

“No! Of course not! We can talk to you like a normal human!”

“Are your girlfriends sheep?” (Roma's girlfriend and I are pretty good chums)

“No, we would not date them if they were.”

A boon of post communism is a weird sort of feminism, I guess for a lack of better terminology. Even though there are very specific Man Roles and Woman Roles in the home and in the town, this does not, somehow, mean they think women are dumber or anything. They just know that, in the words of one Volunteer Isaac Lutz “Girls just can't play sports as well!” And it has nothing to do with conversationalism or the ability to do math or play with computers.

They don't go easy on me because I'm their teacher. I defined the word “peer” for them (no equivalent apparently) and they thought I was their peer, but my partner Natalia was not. In class they are extremely vocal. To the point of exasperation. They speak so well that today's lessons on exhaustive suffixes was way beneath them. They were bursting with examples and other students didn't have a chance to speak. At first, of course I just say “yep! Good one” then “cool, let someone else have a go. Lumilla give me a word” and they start in on Ludmilla's hesitation (she's a notorious sheep) I have to forcibly tell them to shut up. When I say “shut up” though, they listen. So, I'm not a teacher, and not a peer. Its comfy and doesn't interfere with work. They certainly don't shield me from weird or bad or offensive things.

But these boys of the country, with yearnings to travel the world (Roma: America only. America all the way. Grigore: Egypt, Germany and America. Sasha: Manchester England and America) are sincerely gentle and considerate people.

I wonder if they have to be, all the raising of animals. Do you grow a deeper appreciation helpless things when you are dependent upon raising and treating them well?

English Club Part 1

Secondary projects are worrisome. Joining up, confused, thinking only of Africa, I though “Wells!” and “ditches!” I'll help dig things! What else can I dig? School foundations. Dykes. My brain fizzled with hot days breaking my back to bring the easiest symbol of civilzation to tribesman using sticks.

American's thinking of themselves as gods dolling out gifts of better life That better life simply being something more like their own life. Disney pointed this out succinctly in the much criticized masterpiece of color and music and child-level criticism of society: Pocahontas.

Ask any educated person you like and 8 times out of 10 they put this down as a work of baseless historical misinformation. They tend to be malicious.

My point is not that Pocahontas was a sex kitten in leather who seduced a Mel Gibsonish John Smith and saved the world from war, cus obviously those are exagerations at the kindest. The point is this strip of dialogue:

P: Ee tomaway, mata ha way.

J: I'm John Smith.

Magic Wind: Listen with your heart...

P: My name is Pocahontas

cut to their subsequent conversation →

J: We'll show you how to use this land. Make the most of it!

P: “Make the most of it?”

J: We'll buid roads and decent houses!

P: Our houses are fine!

Other things Disney does not include: the insane cannibalism that happened in those better house John Smith was talking about when the inhabitants of Jamestown ignored the teachings of Powhatan's people.

I came to Moldova and found snug houses, well painted and adequately heated. Some with running water. The only things that needed digging, I was not allowed to dig – girl. And I was teaching. Teachers are revered community members. They're supported by the communities so as not to have to do so many menial things. Of course here in the backwoods, there's little choice but to grow corn (thanks Pocahontas) and chickens, but they are never sunburned, and they certainly aren't expected to take their turn to shepherd the cows all day.

Training for this sort of thing didn't exist. What did exist was pressurized seminars and panels of older volunteers about secondary activities. We don't have chickens I guess, so we must instead, tend clubs. Almost every volunteer has at least one club they mind, with students or adults or who ever is interested.

Vladya

I started tutoring again this month. Filled my schedule immediately with lessons, as many as I could fit without going nuts, which comes to 12 hours a week.

I love tutoring. All the benefits of teaching with none of the drawbacks. Magic, really. If anyone has a person willing to pay me to tutor, I will be happy all the rest of my days.

A particular surprise has appeared in the guise of a red-headed 8 year old girl. She is my neighbor. Even by Moldovan village standards, she hails from a family of hicks. Imagine boondock Arkansas holler inhabitants. We met one day on the road after 7 months of my being here. She and her brother were barely dressed and covered head to toe in dirt. The took turns bumping a pram back and forth through mudpuddles. They had their smallest sibling in there.

I said "hi" they got curious and abandoned lil bro/sis. They spoke to me in thicker than thick village accents I barely understood. The girl, Vladya she introduced herself, picked up a used syringe out of one of the mud puddles, waved it around telling me what it was and promptly stabbed her finger with it. Horrified by all sorts of things, I tried talking and/or snatching it away from her but she moved too quick and tossed it to her brother who started running around with it.

Because she now had a puncture wound on her middle finger, Vladya cast around herself for a kiddie tournequette. She found a muddy candy wrapper. It was that super flexible tinfoil stuff that Japanese presents always come wrapped in.

Thus scarred, I've made a point of always talking to them. Tried talking with their mom, but if she's out of the house she's deep in gossip with someone. Vladya is the spitting image of her mother like no genetic copy I've seen anywhere else.

Her father I've seen once driving the family horse around.

So, I didn't even advertise my tutoring this year. People just started showing up to my office and I had to make a schedule damn quick.

Vladya was one such case, came in with two girls two grades above her who had been taking English with me for a year already. Within the two lessons we've had, Vladya can already speak, read and write better than them. She found herself a cast off text book and showed me how she's doing all the exercises on her own at home. I asked, she has no one in her family or whom she knows who speaks English.

She asked if she could sit with me all afternoon, practice. Sure. I have other lessons, you'll have to stay here at the desk and be quiet. Ok. Ok.

True to her word, she simply sat, translated stuff with her pirated textbook and listened in on whatever I was teaching the other kids.

Today, she decided she was done with English and asked if she could do her math homework. Sure.

Sums, obviously. However, she was only doing them asa:

54 + 73 = or 100 - 48 =

I asked about this structure:

54

+ 73

And she'd been taught, but didn't get it, besides, it's more frumos to do it all in one line like that.

Ok, well, do you want me to teach you this way? I think it is easier...

Ok.

It should be known that teaching math in a foreign language is crazy. And also, teaching English through teaching Math is equally crazy, but really, really productive and a highly effective way of using the language.

IE. it was a teaching goldmine.

Then I taught her how to use my iPod and she nearly died of happiness.

Otherwise, all my lessons (8 of them) today were a total frustrating waste of everyone's time.

100 Posts, No way.

It's taken me three years to get here, and that is sad. Hopefully I can keep up this pace and the next 100 won't be grossly belated.

And to celebrate: a description of joy.

Showers. Showers my be an act of joy incarnate. Hot water on bare skin in a small warm room has its own sensual attributes, obviously, but the cleaning part should not be discounted. I never took cleaning seriously in America/England/Australia. I'd never before washed and then, while drying, seen rolls of dead skins flay off, pull out literal handfuls of hair from my hair.

Before I thought of showers as a reprieve from reality where I literally would sit under the water and dream up Thor knows what words of intrigue and sparkles.

And I took it all for granted...

I just showered for the first time in a week, and the joy I felt cannot be described. I'd even prepared with two towels: one for hair and one for corpul. The soba in the bathroom was even warm and I put my towels on it, and they warmed up.... oooooo deliciousness.

I will invest in a very well equipped bathroom when I own a house, hopefully with a small sauna.

Things Moldovans Do So Right - 1

Cheese.

Brinza is homemade white cheese. Pretty simply the leftover stuff when you boil milk at a correct temperature etc.

Then hang it outside to solidify further. It drips whey for a day, what you have afterwards is usually crumbly and tasty with all sorts of things.

If it's cold, the texture changes to a more mozzerella sort of thing.

Maria made some that is like Mozzerella on the outside and Philadelphia Cream Cheese on the inside. It is divine. Be jealous.

Wine Fest and the Worst Winter Ever

Several reports on the grapevine dictate this will be the worst winter on record for ages and ages.

I'm inclined to believe them since I'm already wearing long underwear full time, and we're not quite half through October. Maybe it'll swing back, and I hope so, I need to shower and I'm developing an upper respiratory infection.

For these reasons I had banned myself from going to Wine Fest this past weekend altogether.

Besides, I've seen my friends get drunk en masse many a time, it's not entertaining or fun for me. And Obama told us not to gather in big public groups, which, really, seems like a good idea to me even if there aren't random, obscure terrorist threats floating around (aren't they always...what a lame duck warning).

But it had to be done. The keys to our apartment were with a person there, and I wanted to go to sleep. Trek we did to a dark and sleet filled Wine Fest.

Thank Thor for Marlene, Alex and Erin, who forced me to enjoy myself for the 30 minutes I was there. Meeting creepy frenchmen, drinking free wine, eating free grapes. Yes, my party pooper attitude was coaxed to fun.

Meeting with the group was less inebriated an affair than anticipated also. Just to the huggy phase, not the fall over phase! woot! Who likes hugs? Erika likes hugs!

And we got our keys, bought cheese and noodles and made weird melty mac n cheeze and watched The Empire Strikes Back in Russian. Who likes Star Wars in Russian? Erika likes Star Wars in Russian!

So, Badass Winter a comin'? You wanna snow and ice on my parade? It appears I'll prevail whether I want to or not! Ha!

phew!

Whoa, a whole eventful week and no blogs to show for it!

Being as wonderful and eventful as it was, I am exhausted. And must get dressed for school. Therefore, a short overview:

Thursday

0800: Bus --> Chisinau

1600: Train --> Bucharesti

Friday

0530: Disembark train, drink coffee eat NON-breakfast menu at McDonalds, only thing open.

0700: Meet some Portugese dudes, walk around, find hostel, check in.

0800: Walk around. Find many cool things.

1000: Stuff starts opening, drink coffee. Make friends with bartenders.

1200: Random guided tour of the National Library (Romanian "Library of Congress" thing)

1330: Lunch. Make friends with Irish restaurant owner.

1500: Walk around.

1900: Dinner.

2030: Make friends with Christian Missionaries in our hostel.

Saturday

0700: Up. Pack.

0900: Leave hostel.

1000: Exam

1330: Finish, talk to Foreign Service Officer proctors.

1430: Walk around.

2130: Train Bucharesti --> Chisinau

Sunday

1030: Off train, shelf books in PC HQ library.

1540: Bus Chisinau --> Balatina

1945: unpack...

2100: Fall asleep without eating... Maria upset

Monday

0800: Teach... Fiasco with Teacher's Day masa where Renata and Natalia are not invited and I have to crash the party with them as my dates in order to go. It's complicated politics with the director and the person replacing her, my partners are the arbitrary grunts who take the flack.

1300: Party. I must drink R and N's vodka for them...

1500: Club with Grigore and Roma

1730: Leave club, go home and wonder what I have to do in the real world...

Tuesday

0800: Teach... Cover N's classes, she has left to prepare for the 2nd round of Teacher's Day ceremonies in Glodeni

1300: Without lunch, R and I take the private rutiera to Glodeni to watch N present stuff.

1700: Sufficiently bored and hungry we duck out and convince the mayor it's time to go. After all, R is now an hour late to pick up her daughter from Kindergarten.

2030: Start falling asleep. Maria doesn't let me this time: Veronica my host sister is here.

Today I must teach for 6 breakless hours (secret to being done at 1330 is to not stop working ever) then tutor for 3 breakless hours and then maybe I'll collapse as is becoming the pattern.

Thank Thor there are not two-day holidays of festivities every week. I'd be trashed, bored out of my mind AND not doing any work every week. Really, this school system is so devout to wasting teachers' time (and it's not just with fun things like this, it's usually paperwork that goes nowhere) it's no wonder to me they can't grasp progress.

Is this a post-soviet thing? A new government thing? A Claudia-specific thing?

On the other hand, I think I did alright on the FSOT. But we'll see if that makes any difference in a month... Speaking of lengthy processes...

Wood

When hippies and illiterates from hollers claim their lives have more meaning than the airbags in cities with their poetry, they have a point. I spend ever minute I can in my room, reading, listening to music, writing this bull**** and researching people who do the same, and I rarely feel as fulfilled by 7 hours of that as I do from 1 hour splitting wood.

My guitar callouses are fine motor versions of the honking blisters I have. Running a couple times a week does not make my legs feel what my whole body feels right now.

Little has ever made me feel more genuinely powerful. Telling off children in front of a corner shop is nothing but mental. The only thing that compares to this is shooting a Glock at golf balls in the rain on the top of a mountain. And even that was a sharp, bright speck next to this behemoth.

You could argue, genderists, that this is because I am a woman. I am splitting wood for the upkeep of my hearth etc. I like to think it's because I am almost all Viking, and as such have, somewhere in my blood very brute conquering strength. Aim is for Brits. We Saxons, Goths and Thors (there really should be a group of Scandinavians out there in history bearing the name directly) just wanna tear shit up.

I don't think I can be criticized as butch either seeing as I did the whole thing in full Moldovanka regalia.

Bunica came out. Watched me cus it was better than tv.

The Corrections

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am flabbergasted.

I never get comments. I've been under the impression that no one other than my dad reads this. Yet, someone who speaks English, lives in a USSR country (unspecified) corrected me on a fact: The former USSR, like Moldova, has a wider gauge of rail than the EU. I stated the opposite, and apologize for this error.

When I was last on one of these trains, and inquired as to why we were still waiting at the border of Romania and Moldova outside Ungheni, I was informed it was because the Moldovan rails were smaller. Thus interpreted, I informed all of you!

There seems to be at least three or four of you, I love you for the illusion of this being public -- then, Dimos, and his blog Excel made me even happier!

Unfortunately I cannot read Dimos' blog (not because it's in Russian, but because there are no accesible posts) to apologize directly, so maybe he will look here again, waiting to call me out, and see this.

Warning: Pettiness Ahead

It's true, what I have to say is petty.

Like groups of people everywhere, a handful of my students (all male) like to taunt. The taunt whoever they can. I am American, and prominent in the community. I'm an easy target. What they don't know is I'm an even easier target since my background includes being bullied for this same reason for some years in school.

Last year, weird catcalls from these boys at my school were so reminiscent that my first experiences with Moldovan culture were easily subsumed by self-doubt, fear, lack of control. I won't explain further, but these are emotions that would not have existed if such interactions hadn't been forced.

Thanks to my patient mother, many of those issues were conquered this past summer without a large expenditure of money on psychoanalysis. Shock of shock, Sir Freud, one can deal with one's own problems.

Otherwise, of course I know both Romanian and Russian better than this time last year. I have a third partner, who I taught with for the first time today--she is wonderful. All our classes are cut in half. I work fewer hours. I know what projects to pursue and how to pursue them. I buy my own cheese and alcohol, and have learned to say "no" to hospitality I simply cannot accept. The problems I encountered last September are all but gone.

Walking home today, I needed to buy tissues. The magazin on my way home had a hoard of these boys hunching around in a proto-Man Huddle. They weren't drunk, but that's only because even the shopkeepers won't sell alcohol to 6th graders. Two years, though. It'll be different.

One shouted my name as soon as I was in earshot. I didn't break stride. Walked up.

Erika (in English): yes? what?

Boy: ...

Erika (in Romanian, village dialect): what do you want? Is the store closed? I'm so proud you can pronounce my name in your language.

Boy: ...

Boy 2 (Romanian): She said she would be a minute.

Erika (clean Romanian): Thank you, no worries. I will see you tomorrow.

Boy 3 (English): Miss Erika! (said strutting around a corner)

I walked off home.

Boy 3, is their ringleader. I'm sure if he had been a part of the group originally, this would have gone differently, but as it stands. I count it a victory.

Train Travel

I've now taken two overnight trains in Eastern Europe, fallen in love with subway systems in Moscow, Paris, London, and DC, learned how to fix and drive a monorail, and been generally filled with awe at the British Empire and American expansion's gusto with steam across plains and through the stomachs of mountains... I love trains. They are damned cool.

So this neck of the woods is made for me. Plans are in the works for a train dot-to-dot trip from Chisinau to somewhere in Greece or Bulgaria this winter. I'm excited, and if you have suggestions, please make them.

High Hopes:

Various birthplaces in Iasi

Roman ruins in Cluj

Franz Ferdinand's assassination point in Sarajevo

Llubliana

Comparisons between Eastern Orthodox and Catholic church/cathedrals

Coffee, of course, from everywhere.

Taking a train this coming week from Chisinau to Bucharesti for the Foreign Service Officer Exam. Train will be fun, test will be terrifying, Bucharesti will be brilliant now I can see it without 4 inches of a solid ice coating.

This is a regular little trip. One train runs back and forth from Chisinau to Bucharesti. Even days there, odd days back. They go, approximately, from 9pm to 7am. A border guard boards and stamps all the sleeping passengers. The wheels of the train also get changed at the border. Moldova hasn't yet switched its rails to EU standard, and therefore are of the narrower gauge used by the former Soviet overlords who used Bessarabia/Moldova for agriculture and didn't need the bigger, more robust gauge Germans and Austro-Hungarians had been setting up.

I just find the whole thing fascinating.

So, this weekend we had to buy our tickets. Tickets bought in Bucharesti, like those Becca, Erin and I bought in January, are what you'd expect for international travel: plane boarding pass like in size and heft and printing.

The ones procured yesterday, in the--hands down--most beautiful and least used building in all Chisinau, are once-stapled booklets of various size carbon paper, and receipts, all hand written. The woman making them took a full 15 minutes writing, folding, printing, pulling levers, stamping, typing on three different machines... No smile. No questions. No response to my greetings and questions. Stamp, sign. Next? Uh, and two return tickets for the 30th please? Whole process started again. Are the return the same price? Seven lei more. Thank you. nod. Have a nice day. But she was already looking dubiously at the shoeless woman standing to my right.

phew.

The booklets are now with my passport and Moldovan IDs.

I'm excited.

Ideas and Their Slippery Nature

If that title isn't quite superficial and novelish I have something dreadful with which to follow it up.

I started carrying around a little datebook with me. It's brown fake leather bound. It contains two maps, all the numbers and area codes for Russia and Moldova and Romania. It is dateless, but with spaces for a day or date. It has list areas. Money conversion areas. A box titled "?" and a box titled "!" per page. It is perfect. I record many, many things in it, without worry of where each must go. The sequence and all that linear stuff.

And yet, I only catch about half of what I want to write in it. Afraid it would put Maria on "weird American" alert, I don't bring it to lunch or dinner, when other teachers are conversing around me I put more attention into listening to their complaints and jokes than in writing about them.

I had 4 ideas for blogs today, and at one point had even merged two. I remember the acts of creating, but have no idea what I created.

gr.

Can one induce OCD? If you know a way, please contact me.

Adventures With Internet

Missing, assumed stolen, very specifically from a zippered inner-pocket of a zippered main pocket, containing also a bottle of ibuprofen, pack of tissues and pair of pliers, I alerted Orange Moldova. Orange Moldova has a Facebook page if you wanna question their evil and innovative methods.

I can't even make up that it went missing on the exact day my annual subscription ended and I had to officially recharge it. Like, Orange has this immense range able to hire little pick pockets to keep track of whose subscriptions are up when and to snatch their USB modems, forcing subscribers to come into HQ and pay up.

Being a dystopian dictator's dream of a sheep, I went.

They told me I was clearly not Renata Buzuleac and they couldn't help me. I offered to forge the signature and they very nearly let me. I think if I'd said so with serious intent, I'd have pulled it off. As it was, I was stunned they even humored the idea and hesitated too long.

Told Ren. At first she was horrified I'd suggested forgery: For this you could go to jail! It didn't enter her mind that the company would have ALLOWED it.

Thereafter, every day she came up with a new scheme to get herself to Glodeni. Bus was out of the question, her husband/driver works during the day. She has to pick up Bianca at 4 everyday. The puzzle pieces are slimy.

Tuesday, I'm headed out of town for a dentist appointment in the Big City and she'd said Definitely Definitely today. Dorin will drive us. I said I'd take both her and Dorin out for lunch at the Moldovan Bistro they love so much. I'm partial to Bistro for hangovers from Ukrainian wedding parties only, really, preferring the draft beer and veggie pizzas of Millenium down the street, but whatever. Renata loves her traditional Moldovan food and won't be swayed.

The crucial hour, 13.20 arrives, I called before, I called after, a called an hour later, I hitched to Glodeni on my own thinking, maybe her phone's off. Hunted around, peeped in the Orange outlet, nothin... I go to find a bus to Balti.

Next morning, doing my PC librarian thing, I find my Orange Stick... Call Ren.

Ren: Hello.

Erika: Hey. You'll never guess what?

R: What? I went to the police yesterday.

E: What?!

R: I told them your internet was stolen. Now we can get a new one very cheap.

E: That's -- damn. Really? The police?

R: You said it was stolen.

E: Yes, but, uh,

R: ...

E: I found it, here, in Chisinau...

R: Oh. Oh. Well, then I will cancel the police report.

E: Damn. I'm sorry... I called--

R: Yes, I saw that you called, but I was in the police station, and...

Then, Orange, it it's infinite wisdom, disconnected us.

Turns out, that if you LOSE your modem, it costs 9x what it costs if you have it stolen.

Renata actually had her uncle go down to the station today to cancel it. She beeped Orange. Currently, neither of us have money on our phones. To Beep, in Moldovaneste is to call and hang up on a person so they must call you back. It's pretty standard.

Also, because it continued being connected for the whole 10 days, Orange just rolled over my annual subscription, said I still have to pay for this month, and then start my new subscription on the 25th. All in all, less complicated than it could have been.

Renata Gets a Water Boiler

That's it. That's the whole story. It's terribly exciting!

After work last night, I was hanging out, eating watermelon with Bianca, Ren cleaning up.

Watermenlon, eaten the Renata way is:

Take a smile slice, cut in half for two triangle bits

Fillet off the rind.

Slice longwise to make skyscraper-shaped, finger-friendly bits.

Voila! easy to eat, relatively clean watermelon!

So between that and listening to Bianca make up little poems (the girl has a natural sense for iambic pentameter) Renata said: "Erika, your fingers are now dirty. Come and wash them!" Romanian likes a commanding tone since the language itself is ingratiating.

"I'm ok, I'll just use the towel Bia is using. No worries."

"No. Today you must wash."

"Renata, is there something special in your sink?"

"No...."

I stuck my little fingers in there and, reader, it was hot hot hot!

I squealed with delight and ran out to her now finished bathroom! Look at that! Look at that! You don't need a soba anymore for the shower! and it's in the kitchen! What an innovation!

Ruslan, in the bedroom, is used to my outbursts by now and didn't even turn up the TV. Besides, the man should be proud: He just installed the only water boiler I've seen yet outside the big city that has HOT water in the kitchen.

With Renata's mind for progress, Ruslan's ability to comply with its ideas, and Bianca's 3 yr old genius, I think you'll agree with me: This family kicks ass. I am so glad they exist.

Today's Epiphany

I just realized I am paid to be a translator.

I can tell people I'm a translator.

How sexy.

First Bell

Though lenient in many a thing about attendance and dates and schedules, Moldovans are particularly strict about when school starts and finishes. September 1st, by golly, will be the first day of school, come hell or perhaps weekends. June 1st, accordingly, is our last.

In a culture where the children and the people are the number 1 priority according to all propaganda, these dates take on an almost Holy Day, holiday, feel. Even the worst scraps of children listen and are genial -- hands full of roses and mouths full of compliments for teachers they otherwise abhor. They even all wear their uniform.

Uniform consists of: White shirt. Black bottom. Girls to wear skirts. Boys, trousers. Ties (straight or bow) are preferred, but that can slide. As can the length of skirt and sleeves, height of heels and style of any of these things. Accents are all to be red. Red accents only. If you're going to wear color, it should be as an accent and it should be red. Except tiny little girls who can wear pink. Boys wearing earrings will be whipped.

It's amazing. At any other given day, like tomorrow, the first day of real classes, the school yard is a riot of dirty colors. Today, and June 1st though, The White Stripes would blend right in.

The premise for this ceremony: the first ringing of the bell, lessons starting. June, therefore, has the last ringing of the bell, lessons ended. To symbolize this, all the first graders hold hand bells and sit on the shoulders of strapping 12th grade graduaters and walk around the crowd ringing their bells like scaring off the dead. Then the director will ring the school bell proper one long time. This in between speeches and songs and poems and gushes of praise for all involved.

So. Get dressed, come on down. Stand/converse/listen to speeches and half the national anthem (will be tuned out halfway through, or whenever the flag makes its halting ascent... no one should sing for fear of looking enthusiastic) and after an hour of this, mill about giving teachers flowers.

Last year I got 1 flower. From a boy. I don't know if he knew who I was or what I was doing, or if he just thought I was pretty, but I got 1 flower.

This year I got so many I had to throw out half and still managed to arrange (Maria was impressed I could arrange flowers) two giant pickling jars full--one only for red long stemmed roses, one for everything else!

I also didn't have to give a speech this year, though I'll start drafts for the Ultimate Sunet.

Kitty

Carpal tunnel syndrome happens most often, shocking, in the hand you eat and write and throw with. For most people it's their right. These days its the side of the computer with the mouse. This summer I've felt the strain on my tendons build up quicker than ever before because for the first time in my life it is my job to sit still on a computer for as long as I want, planning lessons. Teacher stuff. IT's tedious, but far more enjoyable than actually teaching. This little glow comes into my heart everytime I think of a new way to present vocabulary or grammar, or a new way to split the class into teams. That idealism comes back for a couple minutes with every lesson I plan. Soon after is the bone crushing despair that comes with realizing this student or that student, will do this or that which will bring the whole activity crashing down and then I realize why I like planning so much more than implementing.

But! This is all beside the point. I break up the plans (sluggishly written, at a pace of one per 45 minutes) with writing my own stuff, stuff like blogs or poems or self analysis or letters. The less I write the less I think and if I think nothing for a whole day then I feel stupid, thus, lots of writing. Anyway, by about noon, I start feeling the strain in my right hand …

Luckily for my right hand, strumming guitar does not take too much effort. Holding down chords does. Lefty does chords!

Kitty is my guitar, so named by Josh Riese because she is Kitty Kat Red. Josh Cross gave me her two and a half years ago for Christmas, and it was love at first sight. All her accents are a creamy color that accents on the red in a way that invokes lacquered pin up girls from the 50s. She has all nice metal strings that tune easily and hold their tuning for a long time. She has small wear spots where I hold her down or hold her up most often, she picks up and reverberates a bit at certain pitches of my voice even when she's in her case.

When Josh gave me her, and gave me lessons and encouragement for a year, I often got frustrated and worked on specific chord changes on repeat until I cried. Josh would put her down and tell me I was improving, he could hear it etc. I never believed him. When I left for Moldova I left Kitty behind, thinking I would be so busy bringing democracy to another nation I wouldn't be able to play. I was wrong. Between tutoring, teaching and planning there are gaps of space and time that I wander around the village or clean things or watch movies or stare at the chickens or play hide and seek with Lulu. It's a rough life, I know, and something was missing.

Elise brought Kitty to England when we met last month and I brought her from England to Balatina. I've been playing again for a week and was shocked at how much muscle memory there was in my fingers. After relooking up some chord structures, I was strumming away almost as well as I was before the year interim. Difference: Now I can look up new songs and just start playing at already half the strength! Never would this have happened in Shepherdstown. I'd get screwed up over it and curse my fingers. Did my hand become more dextrous with all the lesson planning? Was the winter so hard that my standards have significantly lowered, allowing for relaxation?

I asked Jeremy once when I would get it, when would I make any progress. He told me I'd wake up one day and be able to transfer between chords. What a guru he turned out to be! Only took me a year of not touching the thing!

Maybe the air of Moldova has something to do with it. For all it turns my boogers strange colors, and gives me constant headaches, Moldovans love music more than Americans love McDonalds. Kittys a new darling in the family. There has always been singing for no apparent reason at most dinners, in Moldovan, Romanian, Russian and Ukrainian. Kareoke is a must for every party. They don't call it kareoke, and it's a profession. When I bring up the concept they look at me like I'm stupid and say, “but it's not humorous, it's joyful, everybody does it.”

The first time anyone sees Kitty, they exclaim over her existence. Then they exclaim over her redness. Then they exclaim over my hidden talents. (I've sung here twice in public, both times The Star Spangled Banner, verse 1) They ask to touch her, to strum her. I let them of course, it's so cute how excited they get. They try a couple things, tentatively, I ask if they want lessons (horror of horrors to the world, Erika teaching guitar!) and they shake their heads.

When school starts I have two students in mind to ask if they want earnest lessons. Mostly this will consist of me letting them come over and practice in my room while I read. There is one guitar in the whole village, no teacher, and tons of enthusiasm.

uh... Moldova?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11074645

we try so hard.

Kitty's Kiss

I have an honest to Thor blister on my left pointer finger.

It is the less painful injury done to pointer fingers today, but it is the one I'll force to continue. I'm not so great at playing guitar, and I can't tune it without internet aid, and I forgot my capo in Chisinau, and I am as slow to memorize song lyrics as I am to memorize anything, but I really like doing it. What is that?

The right pointer succumbed to too much organic grown hot chillis being torn for soup. That oil does not wash off and it took quite a shine to the bed of my nail. Yes, I washed! but 5 hours later, the bed began to burn... wash wash wash! I sucked at it like it was snake poison.

Not Lefty. That I pressed against the fresh boiled side of my coffee mug. Thicken callous, thicken!

Foot Baths – Yes!

Surely, someone, somewhere at some point told me why there are so many foot baths in the Bible, but it didn't stick. Culturally aware folks who read the bible think, yea, well, paired with so many descriptions of sandals and long ass walks, no way Galilee ain't going to be full of foot bathers, like shoe shiners of 1950s New York. Or, in a particularly Moldovan preoccupation, in keeping your house and rugs clean.

Upon entering any domicile, everyone takes their shoes off immediately. Houses are kept pristine in the case that some person may just drop in on you. I've received many a nuanced urging to keep my room tidier if I'm going to tutor children here. The parents of said children may think me unfit to teach them, or Maria to host me if my room is cluttered or unswept. I'm not even messy. In the course of a day, sure, things get scattered as I jump from guitar to drawing, to researching history, drink various things, make snacks, blow my nose, plan lessons, scan grammar charts, check email etc. But I periodically get claustrophobic and put everything away! I also never wear shoes in the house.

Once, at The Lost Dog (beloved), the new kid (shit what was his name! He was 17 and a stoner...) was closing shop by himself the first time. Closing the Dog entails dozens of minute cleaning tasks, but the last is always the floor, which we have (present tense on purpose—I don't think ex employees are ever considered “ex”, clarify with Garth, but there's only one ex employee not allowed behind the counter whenever to make his or her own drinks – free.) to wash by hand.

Ah... never is there a day I don't dream of scrubbing that 300 year old, original colonial floor but 6 inches from my face. Damn...

But! I digress.

Stoner. Right. So, it being his first time, he was taking awhile. 3 hours awhile (average = 35 minutes). Garth walked up at 9pm to see what had gone wrong and was all worked up and ready to bust Stoner for breaking the water something or spilling all the bean something. Stoner was inching around the floor in his bare feet, rag in hand. Forgetting his anger (as always in the face of something truly awesome) Garth went in and asked what Stoner was doing!

Stoner: washing the floor.

Garth: with your toes? You're not even using that rag in your hand! Where's your water?

Stoner: Water's there.

Garth : Don't use that bucket! Use this bucket back here! Your rag has a hole in it – is that a bleach rag?! What are you doing?!

Stoner: I'm checking the floor with my toes.

Garth: what?!

Stoner: Your toes are really sensitive. I already washed the floor and now I'm checking to make sure I got all the dust.

Garth: Oh.

Stoner: …

Garth: Well, you're late. Where's the day's money?

Then Garth told us all the story of Stoner and his toes and how maybe we should ALL do that. We didn't, but you get the point.

Feet are amazing. Feet crushing is a preferred torture for a reason. They feel all that dirt, all those crevices you think are just callous, all that jam from you fluffy socks, all that Galilee dust and flakes from dry sandals? Yea, it's all felt.

One of first things I noticed was a habit of Moldova was the foot, shoe thing. I'd walk around my room and notice if there was too much dust buildup on the floor and hair buildup in the rugs. I can't let my room get messy because I feel every speck of dirt and dead bug. Hole punch collateral sticks to my soles. Cat fur sticks to my toes.

Thus, I vacuum often. Just gross not to.

It's also just gross not to wash your feet at the end of the day. Even if you don't take a shower, while brushing one's teeth, rinse off the feet. Even if you lead a teacher's sedentary life rather than a farmer's robust one—the water will still brown. Even if you don't use soap, you'll still see the day wash off. And afterwards...oh tingly goodness! Cleanliness is next to godliness because God likes foot baths. God has good reason. They feel freaking awesome! Wash yours today!

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/07/palin-invents-word-compares-he.html?hpid=topnews

Yes, crazy lady, English is a living language, but the people who are allowed to play with it are not the ones elected and expected to hold it up. Politicians being one such group of professionals. Unfortunately for some people in the world, the professions they choose do not jive with what the may have been better suited for.

Like me, teacher. I don't especially like children, and I agree with Thomas Jefferson on the whole governing thing. Thus, I am looking for alternatives. Or, like politicians who might have been better off as stand up comics or actors or Televangelists or moose hunters or whatever.

Besides it doesn't really matter how one makes up words as long as the ones the make up work with what they're saying. Eg. "Refudiate" -- ok. I kinda like it. Good combo of Refute and Repudiate. Semantics aside, (they're pretty close) it has a nice undulation to it. Like a furry Lolita.

But when you are threatening war on someone you cannot misunderestimate your message.

PS. as you'll find out if you read the article, you can't have both conviction in your new word AND delete it from you twitter. Idiot.

I Took a Survey

This is what I said:

Involve more host country nationals in training. The largest problem I face is the lack of motivation of Host Country Nationals. If they were more involved with me while I was being trained, they would have more similar levels of motivation. A problem with involving them is removing them for training from their homes and jobs. If things like Pre Service Training and In Service Training were broken up into regional training grounds rather than focused in the capital, though it would cost more initially, more HCNs would be able to participate and would better understand Peace Corps and its goals. My partners had never heard of Peace Corps until they were assigned to work with me and even then it's been a year of working together, and they still have limited understanding of the scope of such an enterprise.

Using money, instead, to bolster our training and that of our partners will not only integrate us more effectively into our communities more quickly, but will maximize a ghost of sustainability, which, up until this point, only appears in the budding attitudes of children.

Moldova Fabulous

Among the Eurotrash Elite cultures and fashions, I fear Moldova may be left out of the lime light incorrectly. While, sure, I'll grant that it's politics and exports are, to date, lameduck in comparison to mobsters from Ukraine and granite from Italy, I am sad to report that Moldovan teens and tweens beat out Berliner Punks, Londonite Skanks and Finnish Goths for Fabulosity--and get no credit for it.

Never does a day go by that my breath is not taken by varying forms of tight jeans, shiny tights, hooker heels, man purses, jewely clips, eye liner of all shades and thicknesses. Anything you can bedazzle or prop up to fight gravity is beadazzled and propped. Boobs to butt cheeks to toes to bangs. The engineering boys and girls put into their daily ensembles puts even my most conscious American Apparel hipster friends to shame.

And I quite like it. Although that many sparkles will never do credit to my German ploughman legs, they certainly will help my new fangled page boy hair cut. Little butterflies in my nose length locks, metal criss-crossing spirals with rhinestone bows can band them back. Various tight french braids from left to right like Princess Leia in a rave. Yea. Moldova Fabulous is just right for me now.

I'm a little ashamed I cut my hair myself. I'm skint, sure, but how much does a Moldovan hair cut really cost? Maybe $3. At the outside.

Here I am confronted with my timidity. Frizeries, Moldovan barbarshops, are infamous among Volunteers for their out of hand enthusiasm for mullets and shaved in racing stripes. While some of our ranks revel in this, well, one, I, uh.... I'm just plain scared of encountering an argument about how my hair could be more frumos. Thus the compromise. I cut, then tomorrow blow the $3 I would have spent at the new frizerie in town at the piata for clips and colors and sparkles.

I'm going to get to London in two weeks and show those mini skirts up!

New Kids

Today is the day we welcome a new kid to town. The 60 odd volunteers fresh for 2010-2012 service, are finally here. After much hope by many for cute boys and girls who speak English, we, the 1 year veterans, are not disappointed.

They've been in country for a month, and this past week they found out where their permanent host families in their permanent communities are. It was a frenzied map filling in the smothering gym of our training site, full of excited and terrified squeals of anticipation. Given a community dossier and town name, each new trainee was led to a triangle of paper on the wood ground with the name of their town or village on it. There they stood until all the noobs were placed. The idea, here, and it's very effective, is to show relatively just how close or far away you are from your recently developed friends.

Usually, you're far apart. My favorite noob is a medieval jousting re-enactor named Ben. He, for example, is 5 hours south of me. But! conveniently close to another friend of mine. All downs have ups.

It's pretty fun. They even get free ice cream!

Not my town though, my town is too small to have a new kid. So I'm in Singerei, with Matt and Melissa and their new kid Yoel.

The plan, weather and host families permitting: picnic/hike with some traditional Moldovan BBQ and Singerei community developer ladies.

That's today.

I have one person near me in Balatina, her name is Shannon and lives 40 minutes east and 40 minutes north of me. She has a big smile and less than the usual fear of breaking off from the herd. I like her. Her aura is friendly. I hope to be meeting her every other weekend or so in our raion center (county capital) for tasty Moldovan pizza and tasty Moldovan beer.

Shannon, this weekend is out of reach, the site visit is too quick for me to get out there or for her to get into town. I'll get to meet her as a real real Volunteer in August or September. wee!

Coffee

Coffee in Moldova, like in Britain, comes in the form of Nescafe crystals. Dehydrated flakes of coffee lain out on a huge conveyor belt and crushed with a sterile bulldozer thing, bottled and shipped to people who use coffee as a social lubricant like frat boys use kegs.

That is, it's instant. 1 spoon coffee, 2 spoons sugar, boiled well water.

So, I bought a french press. It holds 3 or 4 cups of delicious steeped coffee and if you use espresso grounds you get them filming the bottom for delicious chewing at the end of every cup.

It's lovely. And the Moldovan don't know quite what to do with it.

I also keep a jar of crystals around for emergencies.

Till You've Drenched our Steeples, and Drowned our Cocks!

First, Update on the Termites.

As yet actual birth/hatching/emergence has eluded me and all I find are curled bodies, sometimes being dragged away by a single ant (easily a quarter the size of a termite), but I count the new ones every hour or so when I'm home, averages 3 an hour until noon.

I've had one incident on the scale of the first one, since. Maria, in her infinite mothering, quizzed me afterwards on the genocide I dealt. It appears I used too much spray, but otherwise I am a competent warrior in the ongoing saga.

Yep.

Otherwise, summer is pretty sweet. If my life continued like this for years, I'd be a happy camper. Tutor some days, attend parties, getting taught how to make food from scratch, washing clothes... If anyone knows of private tutoring gigs anywhere in the world, I'll be there in a snap. Its good, fulfilling fun!

The downside of this is the great fattening that happens. It's stormed everyday for three weeks solid now. Yesterday's storm literally made the sky look the underbellies of slugs. For an agrarian society at the zenith of its growing season (we have 17 possible hours of photosynthesis time a day) its not so crop-hot. It also restricts my running and clothes washing capabilities. Meaning all the unpaved roads require Wellies, meaning, no running. And I just got the box from Mom with real tennis shoes! My first pair since... geez, since Mom was in charge of dressing me... I was so excited! My Quarter Life Crisis so far has had amazing impacts on my physical health... Halt, Health! Erika must remain sedentary!

Golly.

And the whole plants not getting enough sun and too much water means really oddly shaped fruits and vegetables. Except potatoes. Gods smile on the growth of potatoes more than anything except maybe the cockroach or bluebottle fly.

The storms are good for one or two things though. Maria and I devised a way around the clothes washing difficulty. Put out all clothes in Storm 1. During respite, before Storm 2, rub down all clothes with detergent. Storm 2 Rinses.

We're still working out the kinks in the drying theory, but, we'll get there. Sci Fi has taught me the human spirit is indomitable.

3 Awesome Things

In the past three days, three notable things have happened. I've been away for so much of June already, teaching the new kids in Chisinau and its surrounding villages, that most of my money is gone (Peace Corps does not subsidize food and travel even if you are instructing their new recruits for free for them) and I'm more than happy to sit here on my balcony and sip on the tasty coffee and eat a biscotti my mommy sent me. I've read almost all 400 pages of The Best American Non-Required Reading from 2006. I highly recommend it. This is as close to paradise I can get without a footrub.

So, I would like to share these things. Don't judge me for not writing regularly, I know you will not, because, well, so few of us are writing regularly enough anymore to even bother reading this. You've already judged I write no longer, and are gone. Verily:

1. Lulu.

2. Office.

3. Termites.

These are in chronological order. My favorite is the first.

Lulu is our new baby cow. She is the cutest thing I have ever seen and I mourn often throughout the day that she will not stay cute for long, but will soon be nothing but a cow--large, ugly, ornery. But for now she follows me and lets me pet her alot and jumps around in that way Disney always led us to believe baby animals do in farmyards. She is scared of the big turkey and scatters all the chicklets. Her eyes and nose are wet and her fur is pristine white and chocolate fluff. Despite the dirtiness of everything around her (it is, afterall, a barn yard) she is always clean. It's magical. She is magical. I love her. She likes to sleep by the wood pile.

Second, I went to my locked up office in my school yesterday to teach a couple girls some drawing basics (they found out I can draw and immediately decided to have art tutoring instead of English tutoring.) to find the door still locked but the room ransacked. We are on the second storey of a massive Communist-built cement cage of a building. There is no climbing in through our window, but it has happened before (and before I had school materials to lock up) that some gang or other of students jimmied our lock and wrote naughty words in Russian on the floor. This time the wrote nothing, but tore up some posters and knicked all my pens/pencils/markers and chalk and candy. They scattered my books all over the floor and up-ended a bag of garbage in one corner -- taking the bag. Such bags cost a leu a piece. One leu = 8 or 9 cents.

Lastly, and most like a horror film: I woke up this morning to strange noises. Small, but definite. At first I tried to block it out and return to the very nice dream about travelling in a car, but was too curious to do it. I had to look. What a weird sound. Like a dry rain falling in the third of my room dominated by my computer, printer and collaging supplies. Ie. my work zone. Flying ants in the answer. Flying ants of all sizes. Thousands of them. They were not there at midnight when I hung up the phone and turned off the light. Not one. They were just starting to land on my bed and figure out how to flap their wings when I woke up. They were so young they were still slightly damp and couldn't quite do it yet.

Assessed, I cleaned the area of things like extension cords and hardrives, magazines and glue. I moved the furniture and runner carpets, squishing as I went. The more I squished the more appeared. After a couple minutes everything was clear, but the clearness seemed only to invite more bugs to fill the wood-floor-void! Yep, seems pretty obvious now. Anyway, thus prepared I went in search of Maria. "How do I kill alot of bugs at once?" I asked her. She laughed and asked "termites?" I said yes. She opened a cupboard and shook a couple empty aerosol cans, finding them empty, put them back on the shelf. Found one nodded at some sound she heard, but I didn't and marched to my room, "Don't be scared!" she instructed. "I'm not scared, I'm angry" I replied, " I don't go in their space and overrun their things!" Ok, I couldn't figure out how to say "overrun" in Romanian, but that was the general idea. She sprayed them a couple times before there was just air coming out of the can, but she got a shot at the floor and a shot at my curtains (literally crawling with them, I'm glad I put on my glasses by this point or I would have thought myself delusional).

So, sprayed and empty she told me to sleep in the living room with Karen, the previous volunteer for this village who is staying with us a week and had asked me YESTERDAY if I had seen the termites. "no" i said. "oh, you would have seen them by now -- they must have sprayed this year." Karen woke up when Maria and I came in. Maria explained quickly and Karen apologized for cursing me.

This was three hours ago now, and there are no bugs in my room at all now. two sprays and they all went into hiding. The magazins are open finally so I'm off to spend the last of my June allowance on Raid.