Preparation for Easter

In this part of the world, Easter is just about the most important time of year. It's not all about bunnies and candy, as the secular culture of the USA has made it. Instead, it is a mixture of highly-serious religious observation and light-hearted family and community celebration. I have yet to experience either aspect of the holiday, first-hand, so I'll wait to explain the history, ceremony, and customs of Moldovan Easter until after Sunday. Right now, people are preparing. And how!

Maybe "preparing" is too soft a word. It's more like turning the houses upside down in a spring cleaning to trump all spring cleanings, and preparing for the biggest and most wonderful feast possibly imaginable. The cleaning doesn't require further explanation. Everything must be proudly sparkling and brimming with pure cleanliness before Christ rises. I'm still not fully on-board with this concept, but I guess I understand why it is important the others.

The most visible (and curious) aspect of this pre-Easter cleaning is to be found on the roads. Every respectable curb is coated a brilliant, shining white. Or, at least, it is brilliant and shining for about a day. The curbs are not painted with "paint" per se; rather, they are whitewashed with what seems to be a chalky water. I'm pretty sure this is the same annoying substance covering the walls of most non-wallpapered rooms (such as schools). Benefit: it's cheap and easy to apply. Reason it's not worth it: it's chalk. A brief and gentle grazing of a wall covered in this stuff leaves an embarrassing white mark on everything. But to paint a curb with this chalk is a whole new level of senseless, as the first wash of rain strips away 100% of the glorious whiteness. Well, but it looks good for a few days, so there you have it.

The food is another matter, though. While I may feel ambivalent about the cleaning and the white curbs, the culinary exposé of tomorrow's holiday is entirely something to be anticipated with glee and rumbling stomach. Said rumbling stomach is amplified by the period of fasting leading up to Easter, known in Romanian as "Post" (equivalent to Catholic Lent, but much more extreme: people are strict vegans for over a month). Moldova has a rich tradition of sweet cakes, roasted meats, knotted breads, and excessively sugary candies with which to break Post ("post" with a lower-case 'p' simply means "fast"). The last day of Post, today (Saturday), people are supposed not to eat for the entire day, until after the mid-night Easter service. Then, immediately after the service (which ends around 6:00am), each household digs into the biggest masa (feast, or literally "table") of the year. Oh boy!

I'll be attending the Easter services, here, and I am very excited -- not just for the food, and certainly not for these spring cleaning rites. This will be my first Orthodox service since I arrived, and I am very much interested in learning more about this particular faith, and perhaps partaking in regular services and even a catechumin.

That's all for now. More on Easter after the fact, so stay tuned.

On those who sit in cars

Is anybody else creeped out by people who, for no apparent reason and for long periods of time, sit in their cars? Am I alone on this one, or are others baffled by such strange behavior?

It's something I've noticed in Moldova, though it may be endemic to a larger population group. Walking down the street in Chisinau, you may notice that every third car, sitting silently among the rows of parked cars, contains some person who seems content with his little metal sidewalk container. Do they think they are moving? Is the car, for them, some small refuge from the beautiful, sunny day outside? Perhaps it is a cheap (albeit time-consuming) theft deterrent? Maybe it just smells good?

The best explanation I have yet divined is this: Moldovans don't like leaning or sitting on non-seat surfaces (including retaining walls, curbs, window-sills, etc). I'll refrain from stating the 'why' of this until I can devise a way to explain it delicately and without upsetting my Moldovan friends. However, this cultural nuance, combined with the general lack of public seating, perhaps leaves car-owners little choice but to rest in their vehicles... no matter how long the wait, nor how small the vehicle, nor how creeped out the occasional passing pedestrian may be.

The real baffler, though, is when four of five people remain crammed into the three-person bench seat of a truck that is, quite apparently, not going anywhere for the foreseeable future. My logic does a half-back-flip and lands on its head when I see this (which is surprisingly often). This broken-neck-logic results in slight internal laughter, usually coupled with pity and severe confusion.

Clearly, there is a vast cultural rift that has so far prevented me from seeing such car-sitters and thinking, "Yah, OK. That's normal." Maybe somebody who "gets it" can help me understand.

The State of Moldova

The outcome of recent elections in Moldova has led to seemingly widespread discontent, as well as large demonstrations in Chisinau. On Tuesday, protesters stormed and severely damaged both the Parliament building and the Office of the President. The government has responded in a variety of manner, at one point declaring the Romanian Ambassador a persona non grata. Several local and international news organizations have been reporting on these events, to varying degrees. (Unfortunately, American media seems more interested in Twitter's role than in the actual events unfolding in the Republic of Moldova.)

While there has been grumbling and some organized demonstrations throughout the country, most of the protest seems concentrated in the capital. Please keep in mind: this has simply been my perception, and I am in no position to be declaring any definite facts. I merely say this to inform friends and family at home of what is going on, and that my town has remained peaceful and non-threatening, so far. I have no intention of posting anything further about the events to this blog, but friends and family are welcome to email me for updates and assurances.

For those of you looking for more information about Moldova and the history that has led to these current events, please follow these links:

• Wikipedia (of course)
• Ca La Moldova (an interesting and VERY recent documentary; link removed, as some people might find the content biased or inappropriate.)
  
• CIA World Factbook
• BBC Country Profile
  

There are a lot of really great links at the bottom of that Wikipedia page, so check those out if you just can't get enough. I'll be living life as normal, unless the situation escalates significantly. Of course, I'll let family and friends if things change for the worse.

EDIT: Here are some links to news articles that have seemed fairly accurate, although I don't think I've read a single article, yet, that has fully and fairly captured the events.

• BBC News
• Reuters
  

World Cup Championship... kind of

Portland's futball (or, for those of you afflicted with knowledge of the American sport known as football: soccer) team, the Timbers, has a pretty impressive. It's only USL, and Portland isn't a particularly large city, so it's remarkable that the games draw loud, energetic, and sizable crowds to partially fill the slightly miniature stadium (primarily a minor league baseball venue). The Timbers Army makes the games worth going to, even on the occasion of a loss. Despite filling fewer than half the seats of the small stadium, Timbers game crowds provide an unusual opportunity (in the states) to participate in the pulsing mass of passionate and creative futball fans. American football games got nothing on this -- sorry, America.

Being a Timbers fan of any degree is great. But there was talk (read: sighing and resigned acceptance) that futball games in the rest of the world were a whole different beast: enormous stadiums packed with painted legions, whose roaring and stamping cause the city around them to tremble.

Last weekend, I had my first opportunity to experience something approaching this quality of game. By some stroke of last-minute luck, I landed a ticket to the World Cup qualifier match between Moldova and Switzerland. There was (deafening) whispering of a chance that Moldova might be able to win the match, and thus making it past the first round of qualifiers for the only official event more international the a UN meeting. The Swiss are not the strongest of futball players, but would still be a formidable challenge for the Moldovan team. Sadly blaspheming, I arrived moments after kick-off, sitting down at nearly center-field, sideline seats. (!)

I was out of practice, as a fan. My throat was hoarse after only a couple minutes, and I had no idea who I should be watching. I caught on, after a while, though. The Moldovan chants were rather uncreative, and thus easy to learn: Hai Moldova! Hai Moldova! (That is: Come on Moldova!). Still, the stadium was significantly larger than any other futball stadium I had previously seen, and it was packed well beyond the "sold out" level. Several sections, solid red, were obviously Swiss, but the majority of the crowd carried the Moldovan colors. (I wasn't able to find myself apparel in anything above "child's medium" size, this time.)

Ultimately, the Moldovan team lost. We discussed post-game: Clearly, it was because the Moldovans weren't challenging for the ball, and there wasn't enough small play. We fans are experts on the game, of course; we would play, were it not for some knee injury, or some other such excuse. Regardless of the fan review, the Moldovan team made a worthy effort, and it is unfortunate that their bid for the World Cup Championship had to end at Game One. Nonetheless, I feel privileged to have been in attendance. And Moldova's next chance is only a few years away, right?

Now I'm even more eager to attend regular matches -- here, and elsewhere in Europe.

On Tutoring

I recently began accepting requests from people -- both individuals and groups -- to teach English classes outside of school. In my first few months as site, I had refused such requests on the grounds that I was simply not settled enough in the community and in my primary role as a volunteer. However, one of the results of my hitting bottom a few weeks ago was the realization that I do not particularly enjoy teaching English in the classroom. This, paired with my lack of diverse social interaction in my community, spurred me to change my self-limitations, thus opening the doors for tutoring.

I waded into the waters of tutoring with one-on-one home lessons with a student who desired knowledge of English, in addition to his in-school French studies. Sure, why not? Ambition should not be stifled, right? He proved to be an eager learner, which is (incidentally) my favorite kind of student. In these lessons, I discovered that such tutoring could proceed at a much faster pace than classroom lessons. More importantly, I could teach material that matters: relevant grammar, phrases and idioms, American and British variants of words, vocabulary that is more pertinent than "Wellington boots" (yah, that's a real vocab word from the Moldovan textbooks). And all of this at a variable pace that best suits the particular student.

The following week, I began classes with a small group of women at a local social services NGO. The first week with this group was quite fun for me, as I led three happy and energetic women through the alphabet and some basic salutations. The next week, I arrived to a group which had more than tripled in size, including two priests and a few people from a nearby government office. Word was getting out that a volunteer was offering free English classes to the community. Suddenly and unexpectedly, I was becoming fairly popular in town. What started as one-on-one tutoring with a student had quickly exploded into several separate classes of groups which varied both in number of attendees and average age. This week, I began a class with over 15 people at the primaria (the Mayor's office), to which the mayor is expected, post-elections, to attend.

All of my out-of-school classes started with the very basics of English, such as the alphabet, common pronunciation, and plenty of pointers, such as: English isn't a phonetic language, and To make the 'th' sound, put your tongue between your teeth... no, don't use your lips, and Remember, English is not phonetic. The 'a' makes a lot of different sounds. These are the sort of reminders that English teachers in this part of the world get to (or should, at least) use every single day of their careers. Luckily, the materials for these lessons are easily adaptable to all types of classes, whether younger or older, smaller or larger.

Let's be clear on one thing, though: I don't teach these classes simply out of my love for the English language. I teach English at the school enough to satisfy my responsibility as an English Education volunteer. However, teaching these courses provides me opportunities to meet and get to know people in my community -- such opportunities as were painfully lacking in the first seven months of my service. This extra social stimulation, the subsequent filling of my free time, and the coming of spring, have all contributed to bringing me out of the shell of my bedroom / the internet.

Now, if only I could just do this sort of thing all day, instead of banging my head against the wall (read: teaching English according to the national curriculum)...

Primavara A Venit

As I sit in my room at the tail-end of a long day, listening to "Beautiful Otherness" by the Nottingham, England-based group, Bent, I feel a pleasant feeling of contentedness. Today was a good day, finishing out a fairly good week.

My Fridays are always a bit easier to swallow than the other weekdays. While I must rise early, my eight o'clock class eighth-form class is both the beginning and end of the school day for me. Despite an epic battle between my alarm clock and my dreams, I managed to get out the door in time. On my way to school, ignoring the frost and biting breeze, I observed the year's first bright red squirrel bounding down a tree on some dangerous mission, its strangely long ears and scraggly tail bringing a smile to my face. I seem to remember hearing a bird slamming its beak into some nearby tree, as well. Ah, so spring my finally have arrived! Indeed, small buds were even beginning to push forth on the tips of small tree branches.

The rest of my Friday mornings are spent teaching English to a group of adults at a local social services organization. Teaching this group is extremely fun for me -- partly because the "students" are much more engaged and interested in their studies, but also because I have the opportunity to socially interact with people who are not younger than me. A fringe benefit that is worth noting, is that I am not restricted by any National Curriculum, and can thus teach pertinent material at whatever pace is most appropriate. Teaching English outside of the classroom has rapidly become my preferred mode.

This Friday class is relatively new. Today, it tripled in size to an impressive head-count of nine. Among the new attendees was a priest, who I hadn't seen in town before. At the end of class, I asked him which church he was with, and he informed me that he is actually the priest at a nearby monastery. I told him that I have been on the edge of my seat to visit some of the monasteries around my town, and he immediately offered to show me around his.

After a short 10 km drive, we stepped through a great iron gate and onto the modest monastery ground. In fact, we entered the convent, for this was home to a devote group of women, and the only men were the two or three priests and some helpers (such as our chauffeur). The priest explained the history of the 200-year-old community and convent, including the Soviet decades in which the churches had served as a sport center and a night club.

The monastery was practically destroyed during the Soviet period, but it received official support again in 1994. It wasn't until 2003 that work began to restore the main church. The project, supported by local communities and the larger church, was finished a year later. This smaller church was not as badly damaged and will wait for the relatively minor repairs it needs. Seeing both of these churches, hearing the history of the monastery, speaking with the priest, and seeing some few aspects of daily life among the women -- all of these were exceptional treats for me, and I look forward to further conversation with the priest.

It seems that the coming of spring may bring budding social opportunities, in addition to furry squirrels, flowering trees, and (hopefully) warm weather.

A Threatening Black Cloud Has Passed

Those in Peace Corps service often face what is called "Early Termination" (ET), which is to return home before the full 27 months of volunteer service. Sometimes, it is the result of some event at home which requires their return. Other times, it is the inability or unwillingness to continue service under varying degrees of difficult lifestyle or work. Almost none of us enter Peace Corps expecting to ET, and those who do return home early do so only after much struggling, I imagine.

A few weeks ago, for the first time, I seriously weighed the possibility of ETing. After two weeks of solitude (due to illness, cold weather, and only minimal social opportunities in my town), I returned finally to the classroom. As in the States, students are often unresponsive in class, and all but the most stoutly confident instructors stumble at the lack of any apparent appreciation students may have for them. I am not, to be sure, a stoutly confident instructor when it comes to my students' valuation of me. That, coupled with my feelings of intense isolation among my community, contributes to a recurring sensation that my service is not welcome. And, as the thinking goes, if my service is not welcome, then why am I here? In my case, the face of this uncertainty and isolation is the face of Early Termination.

The straws which didn't break the camel's back, but still managed to put it in critical condition: some species of cold virus, a week-long spring vacation, and a subsequent two-week absence from school. Being out of the classroom for two weeks set me up for a huge shock when I returned. It was during those first few hours that I found myself contemplating a plane ride home. As the day progressed, however, I slowly fell into an attitude of dull, subconscious resignation toward teaching. One thing I realized: I am not a high school teacher. I enjoy teaching English, but I have patience for neither adolescent attention spans, nor semi- and unmotivated students.

But the day progressed and improved. I had hit bottom, and if there is one thing that tends to happen when one hits bottom, it would be to bounce back. I floated through the remaining classes. The day prior had been 8 March, International Women's Day, and the fifth graders were following Monday classes with a short performance honoring their female teachers and beloved mothers. In need of a positive focus, I decided to sneak in to see and to hear the cheerful celebrations of these young students. This put the first smile on my face, thereby breaking the mood and opening the way for further bouncing back.

After the performance, several of the teachers (male and female) and I conducted ourselves to a local restaurant to further celebrate 8 March. Over pizza and some more traditionally Moldovan food, the teachers happily chattered about life and sang songs (which most of them mostly knew). And while I sat amidst their company, I could feel my spirits rising. The negative effects of social isolation are quickly dispelled, as it were.

The celebrations concluded with one of our fellow teachers inviting a small group of us to her house for tea and further conversation. In the seven months I had lived in the town, this was the first time I had personally been invited to any person's house for a social purpose. Despite a calm exterior, I was altogether elated. Even though my confidence in my Romanian does not yet permit me to participate in the discussion more than haphazardly, I am thrilled to be included in any socializing among my Moldovan colleagues and friends. At the end of the day, I was feeling great and ready to get on with being a volunteer. In fact, the rest of the week was among my best since I arrive in Moldova. I started several tutoring classes, recommitted myself to previously suspended clubs, and began to feel more secure in my place in the town, despite the isolation.

Hitting the bottom permitted me to reassess my personal goals in Moldova. It confirmed that I do not consider myself a teacher of public secondary education, by nature. But it also showed me that I can (even if only occasionally) feel very welcome by my community.