Spring

So, April finally happened.

I did not just live through a horrid winter just to not enjoy the wonder that is wearing only three layers a day and only one pair of socks and sleeping without a hat.

I have a bench outside my house where, after school, I do most of my work, but am in the market for a TV Tray so as to not hunch for hours while out there.

I Make Fire

Since the onset of cold, we've been making fire. Naturally.

Most houses in Moldova run on wood/coal burning water boiler systems called Sobas. My family, being rather well off, has two with great systems of pipes and radiators. The main part, however, is a giant, porceline tile wall with a fairy tale-esque stove top and two openings for fuel. The openings are stacked one on the other, separated by a grate. The top is where you stick all your fuel, the bottom collects all the ash. Yep, straightforward. I know, I know... You're thinking -- "oh that Erika, she's a super fire chick. Been making fires since she was knee high to a bumble bee (or whatever the phrase is). She was a girl scout and her dad a park ranger. Obviously she's been helping make such straight forward fires!"

And you'd be dead wrong.

Nope. Maria, my host mother and fire tender, cook and maid (she will forcibly clean my room sometimes while I teach. It really gets me going.... gr.), will not let me help with fire ever. I am a teacher and cannot afford to get dirty. Teachers must be frumos (beautiful).

But I love making fires! Its so creative! Look at all that creation and destruction at once! and its useful! and necessary! and -- to boot -- it's damned pretty!

I am an artist! I need to help make fire!

Nope.

Until today. Today, Maria and Laurentiu (host dad will make fire if Maria is absent and he gets cold enough) were both gone!

So I copied all the steps:

Clean yesterday's ashes out.

Collect:

Sawdust soaked in lighter fluid.

Old cracker boxes

Corn cobs from the animal yard out back

Little chunks and flakes of wood

Bigger chunks of wood

Stack in a nice aireated manner

Light.

Close door.

Maria was so surprised! She laughed at my dirtiness and has left me in charge of my own soba in my room. I am so proud.

Moral: Observe until left alone and enact!

Today's Oral Experience

Eat a clove of garlic. Fresh.

Brush teeth.

You will not be disappointed.

Re: The Beatles are Magic

So far... just having problems with my partner...

She really liked My Heart Will Go On, so we spent two or three class periods singing it. I was forced to lead a couple times and it was... well some students liked it when I impersonated Celine Dion and basically dropped some true Diva Tears on them, but otherwise it was truely boring.

She did not like All You Need is Love (contrary to all her other tastes in music) and kinda edged it out of class. Thus, the real power of this idea will not commence until next year when I have the whole Beatles syllabus planned.

In other news I get to teach Billy how to Hora tomorrow night. The Hora is a traditional Moldovan circle dance where we all hold hands, step three times to the right, kick your left foot, kick your right foot then step three times to the right... Repeat endlessly.

This is unlike anything you with your innate American 4/4 rhythm brains can fathom. It seems easy, but keeping it up ad infinitum to music whose beat is not only something obscure like 6/8 but is also not at all in time with the fancy foot work.

And just when you think you can muddle through they add the hands which are, in fact, bobbed to 4/4 time.

I gave up. Billy still has lots of New Kid Optimism however, so it'll probably be a riot.

It's good having him here. As a natural tour guider, I tell him only all the really great things that I notice and partake in here, thus, my own motivation goes up a bit.

He has already noticed the roughness and frustration of trying to integrate and speak the language, and can't wait to move to Paris where he will be able to communicate.

It's predicted that winter will drag on to April this year. I've moved temporarily into the tiny room next to mine for warmth.

The Beatles are Magic

I think I have come up with a perfect, teenage friendly, semester long plan.

Every week I have classes with 11th graders and 12th graders who have no textbook to speak of.

I'm photocopying Coraline for them to read. Most like it but its a bit fantastic for some.... thus....

Beatles lyrics!

How did I not think of this before?! Later Beatles lyrics are rife with consistent tense usage, parallelism, fun teenage themes... Then! at the end of the semester they can be rewarded with an absurdly angsty film featuring all the language they've already learned: Across the Universe. Thus rendering it long term pay off for all their concentration! hell yes!

I'll let you know how it goes. We're starting with All You Need is Love.

A Note on Food

You may have heard me complain about food in the past.

As a child, my mother actually had to take me to the doctor to check on my picky eating habits; essentially I refused everything but yogurt.

Now, snug in my room, distilling water acceptable to the bacteria in my intestines, I reflect on my previous two weeks of eating...

A varied diet of serrano ham, various cheeses, various alcohols, coffee, tap water, sewer water, bottled water, water with bubbles, water without bubbles, bacon, toast, scallops, squid and sushi has made me realize I must one day live forevermore in Spain.

Returning to various sorts of potato and various sorts of bird and maybe a stewed tomato for flavor, has made me realize that I will never again (after I leave in a year and a half that is) eat potatoes and birds.

That right there... That is a sewage opening telling me it is safer for me to drink water from under sidewalks in Barcelona than it is to drink water anywhere in my village...

drunk with students

TODAY'S LEARNED VOCABULARY:

pele wele - colloquial slang for sex

pusca (that 's' is a 'sh' sound) - rifle

bet - drunk

there are many a taboo in the world. most of course differ between cultures.

Taboos in Murka:

Drinking with Students

Having Sex with Students

Taboos in Moldova:

Women Drinking

Women Smoking

Women Swearing

I of course have no qualms with myself drinking, smoking or swearing. I curb them all in order to be initially respected and then let them go with time, thus easing my community into the idea that a woman CAN IN FACT do these things and STILL function in a respectable manner. Who knew.

However, mixing taboos is an interesting taboo cocktail. Like a Long Island Ice Tea -- by all chemical rights it shouldn't work... but... it does!

That is, I just returned home from the following:

+ 6 breakless hours teaching kids who have no interest in what I am teaching.

+ 2 hours cleaning, talking with my host mother in Romanian, making bread.

+ 1 hour speaking in Romanian with Renata (magic) and two of my least motivated boy students in 11th grade about why I won't sleep with them and drinking Renata's (magic) moonshine (the only tasty moonshine I've yet tasted.... stay alert for a posting on Moldovan moonshine)

+ Picking up Renata's daughter at the kindergarten

+ Having a snow fight with one of the students (who previously I'd hated for breaking the concentration of one of my favorite girl student, Olga's, in her classes as they are unfortunately dating)

Home now, I feel fulfilled and happy and warm. Tomorrow I leave for Spain and I could not have imagined a better way to leave my village to entice me to come... home.