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.