'Tis the Season

My first Christmas overseas has come and gone, and despite being away from friends, family, American food, and 100% indoor plumbing it was pretty great. I took a 10-minute taxi ride from my village to the nearest city, Taraclia, where I picked up a bus and traveled 1.5 hours west to the city of Cahul. From there I took another taxi, this time north about 25 minutes to Zirnesti, a village where another PCV, Joanna, lives.

Joanna had done her place up quite well, complete with a mini-Christmas tree, which we decorated. I brought my guitar and some print-outs of the words to Christmas carols and I must say our small group of carolers did quite well on Jingle Bell Rock, Silent Night, and The 12 Days of Christmas.


We watched a few movies and feasted on an excellent lasagna that Joanna and her coux (sp?) chef, Krystal, baked for the occasion.

Special thanks must be made to Krista, who gave me a bag of made-from-scratch bagels that she baked. Since I love bagels and they do not exist in Moldova, it really made my day. Definitely among the top-5 Christmas presents ever received.

And though I haven't done it yet, in about 3 hours I can call my entire family at my Aunt Gail's house in NJ, where they've gathered for the day. Really looking forward to speaking with everyone!

Cows, Trees, and Water Projects

Sunday morning Oleg drove me around town to explain some of the projects he's got going on.  First stop was a water project, funded by USAID through the Urban Institute's LGRP (Local Government Reform Project).  Where previously there was only one 60ft water tower fed by one deep well, there will soon be three 60ft water towers fed by three deep wells.  This should alleviate some of the shortages in water that those connected to the water system have during the summer - and perhaps more importantly lays the groundwork for other homes to be connected.

Then we drove to an empty field where he's started an orchard.  Children grow saplings in a garden in front of their school, and then transplant them to this field.  Only problem is the 6 cows who graze in this field, eating and knocking over the saplings.  Oleg called the police to find out whose cows these were, and while we waited for them to show, two men (who turned out to be the owners) drove by and stopped.  Oleg told the men that their cows were destroying the saplings and that they could graze them in anywhere beyond this 100-year radius in which the orchard was to be - and really there was
plenty of land all around.  One immediately moved his cow, but the other, who I think was a little drunk and couldn't get his right boot over his heel refused.  They yelled for 30 minutes in Gagauzian, and at one point the police officer got fed up and grabbed this man by the collar, knocked him off his feet, and was about to haul him into jail - but in the end he agreed to move his cows.  Oleg told me later he wanted money from the mayor's office for moving his cows 100 yards.

I don't know if the cows are where they should be or not right now.

The House of Culture

In virtually every village, town, or city there’s something called a
“dom cultura.” It was big in the Soviet times and basically
functioned as a community center. People performed plays there, had
parties or weddings, held band practices, community meetings, etc.
There was even and sort-of still is a local TV station in one of the
rooms.

Well our House of Culture – along with many of those in Moldova – is
in major, major disrepair. Windows are smashed, floors are torn up,
ceilings peeling, and toilets are non-existent and electricity is
almost there.

My mayor applied for a $150,000 grant to fix it up, and today we had
a big meeting and walk through the dom kultura with an official from
the Ministry of Culture and two people from FISM, which is funded by
USAID. In about a month or two, they’ll decide if our application is
to be approved, and I hope we get it.

Skype Follow-up

I helped my host mother call her son in Moscow via Skype. She was
really excited, and next we’re going to try calling her other son who
lives in the middle of Russia somewhere. The connection isn’t the
greatest over dial-up, but it’s super cheap and I get a kick out of
hearing her say the Russian equivalent of “over” each time she’s
finished talking so that she and her son aren’t trying to speak at
the same time. Over and out.

Skype

This blog entry is more for fellow PCVs than folks back in America – but you may find it useful too.  It’s about the latest and greatest (and cheapest) phone calling technology that I’ve seen and now actually used.  It’s called “Skype” and it allows you to call through the Internet to both other computers OR regular phone lines.  To call computer to computer and talk just like a normal phone conversation is free worldwide.  To call computer to regular telephone works fine too – that’s why I just did to call my parents in American – and it only costs about 2 cents per minute to call America from anywhere in the world.  [To call a Moldovan landline or mobile from anywhere costs 15 or 22 cents per minute, respectively and every country has its own rate.  It only matters where you call to, not where you call from.]

 

So, if you’re a PCV and want to know how to call home, you’ll first need two things:

1. A laptop that has a microphone either built-in or one that you can plug in
2. An internet connection  [Dial-up is fine.  That’s what I have and though the conversation is a little choppy at times, for the most part the voices are crystal clear.  If you’re in Moldova there’s a national Internet system.  You dial 1900 (or perhaps “p1900”) using the Account Name “Internet” and the password “Total.”  They charge by the minute and the cost comes out to be around 7 lei (60 cents) per hour.  The fee shows up on your monthly telephone bill)

 

If you fit those two criteria, go to www.skype.com and download their software.  It’s 4-7MB, so you might want to do this at the PCOffice and transfer it to your computer via a flash drive so you don’t get stuck online for a long period of time.

 

Then when you install the software you should be online so you can set up an account for yourself.  From there it’s pretty self-explanatory and the skype website is very user friendly.  If you plan on making phone from your computer to a regular phone, you have to buy credits with your credit card usually in $10 increments.

My First Trip Back

As most of you know, I work in a mayor’s office. Out of the 130 or
so PCVs in Moldova, about 7 of us work in mayor’s offices, and we
seven were invited to participate in a conference this past week
sponsored by USAID and the Urban Institute’s Local Government Reform
Project (LGRP). This is, in my opinion, an excellent program geared
toward opening up the local governments in Moldova, making their
actions more transparent and participatory for local citizens, and in
general improving their ability to fix local problems independently.
I made a few good contacts, including one former PCV who helped set
up my current site and as of two weeks ago works for the Urban
Insitute – thanks Ross. I think with LGRP’s help, I’ll be able to
get a lot done here.

It was also an opportunity to take a hot shower. The daily bus from
Copceac to Chisinau leaves at 4:45am and arrives in the capital
around 8am. I had the first shower in the PCOffice that day, and it
was glorious. I mean it – glorious.

I also got to see some friends, eat some hummus, and make a few
purchases – most notably my 200 liter water container. My plan is to
load it up with water from our well every Sunday, and that should be
enough to last Mom and me through the week. This way I don’t need to
make daily trips to get water for cooking, cleaning, washing clothes,
showering, distilling, etc.

The Pit

Many have asked about the toilet situation in my new site. I no longer have the fancy indoor toilet I had during my 3 months of training. We're back to the pit. Here's a photo. It's actually fine - you just don't bother bringing any reading material...

A Kalhouz, Frost, & an Earthquake

Here are some photos of my (busy) mayor, Oleg; the advanced members of my English Klub, from left Natasha, Evdokia, Ludmilla, and Anna; the local graveyard and my shadow; and the first real frost from this morning – it was quite beautiful. [Will upload the pictures at a later date when I'm in the capital- it's taking too long on my dial-up.]

This afternoon I was sitting in my room working on an advertisement for my English Klub when it felt as though someone dropped a heavy object in a neighboring apartment. I thought nothing of it and continued with my work. About 30 minutes later Krista called (to ask me the words to “Jingle Bells”) and asked if I felt the earthquake. “What earthquake? Oh, that was an earthquake?!” So there you have it. I doubt it will make the news in the States – it may not even make the news in Moldova since some many in Chisinau didn’t feel it – but now I’ve lived through an earthquake.

There are two main organizations in this village – the mayor’s office and the kalhouz. Similar to the wrangling between the American Congress and President, Copceac’s mayor and the kalhouz also have their fights. Recently, there was some kind of suit filed by my mayor against the kalhouz about tax evasion and I’m not really sure who is right. As a Volunteer based in the mayor’s office yet serving the whole community, I am anxious not to be perceived as for or against one side or the other. [Good news – my language tutor just offered to introduce me to her uncle, who happens to be the head of the kalhouz. Maybe I’ll get a tour of their building.]

I should probably explain what is a kalhouz exactly… In the days of the Soviet Union, all farmland was owned collectively by kalhouzes. The kalhouz employed hundreds if not thousands of people – some took care of the tractors, others were in charge of the grapevines, some corn, etc. When the harvest came, the kalhouz sold the produce and paid its workers in crops and cash.

In some parts of Moldova this practice continues; others broke up their kalhouzes and distributed the land as private property among the local citizenry. It is difficult to decide which is the better system. The capitalist American within me says give the land to the people, let them sell it if they want, and allow some farmer to buy it and apply his own ingenuity to farming and see how it goes. But the Moldovan side of me sees that if I were a teacher I certainly couldn’t farm the land myself and few here could afford to purchase my land for a fair price and renting it would just involve too many headaches and how will I eat if no one farms the land and why should I want to change anything anyhow?!

A recent conversation highlighted this attitude. As those of you who have been following this sordid blog know, I want to teach the people in my office MSExcel. Basically, the anti-Excel argument I heard was if they learn the program then the work it now takes a team of accountants to do could be done by one or two people – you’ll put people out of a job! The antagonists of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged made the same case: don’t let technology advance or don’t let one person’s hard work and intelligence allow him to succeed in a way that would force some to go out of business. Let’s all just stay the same so everyone can get a piece of the pie; let’s all move forward together. But if that argument held true, then we should never have attempted to move beyond the Stone Age. I’m sure some poor buggy drivers were run out of business when the automobile came on the scene, and some candle-makers went under when Edison invented the light bulb, but we (or at least I) don’t begrudge those inventors for their genius. [And I look forward to the day when cleaner industries antiquate the polluting combustion engine and inefficient light bulbs.]

I certainly don’t want to force anyone into unemployment (which incidentally if it ever did happen would not be for years), but part of my job is to help this place move forward. Instead of spending literally days on pointless busy-work computing down to the tenth of a penny what every teachers’ salary ought to be, they could focus on the real needs of this village – creating incentives for small businesses, paving roads, getting water into every home, caring for abandoned children, creating economic incentives to keep locals from leaving families to earn money abroad, etc. And if my mayor has his wits about him (which I believe he does) then he won’t fire anyone but set them to work on these bigger issues.

English Klub

I’ve started the Copceac English Klub and yesterday was our first
meeting. It’s for people who already know some English, but want to
practice speaking with a native (moi). I’d also like to use this
forum as a way to share a bit about myself and America and to learn
about Gagauzian culture (the members of the club told me they were
Gagauzians, not Moldovans) and my village’s needs from people who can
explain it in English better than I can ask or understand it in Russian.

Future plans for the Klub include watching and discussing American
films, learning about American geography (courtesy of maps being sent
by my friend Hal – though feel free to send maps of your own state
and I’ll use them), listening to American songs, etc. - and of course
just chatting. Eventually, I’d like to use this Klub as a sort of
local NGO, maybe to redo an abandoned movie theater as a new youth
center or some other such project, but that’s way down the line.

For now, we’re going to meet every Sunday. There is one time for
beginners and one time for advanced students or English teachers. As
this is the first English Klub I've ever run, any suggestions would
be most welcome.

Excel

I taught a man in my office how to use MSExcel a few days ago. He
needed to copy onto the computer and print out a table one of the
accountants had drawn out on graph paper. He began using the “insert
a table” option in MSWord, which I think is how most everyone does
things here, when I interrupted him and offered to show him a better
way. [For those of you reading this who are computer literate, you
know that Excel is a far superior program for these kinds of things
than Word. For those of you who are not computer literate, just
trust me on this… and stop forwarding me chain emails! You won’t
really live a lonely, destitute life if you fail to send that email
to at least 5 friends.] So Vadim and I worked together and created a
pretty good table.

Then the next day he had to do something similar and opted to go back
to Word. Oh well. I guess changing things will take time and I’ve
started creating some teaching files and tables to continue to work
on explaining Excel.

Along the same lines as changing things, I had a discussion – which
was really more one-sided than the word “discussion” implies – with a
geography teacher who actually knew a decent amount of American
history. He said that when the slaves were freed many of them didn’t
really know what to do with themselves, that they were not mentally
prepared for their freedom and the responsibility it entailed. He
then drew the comparison to the people of Moldova, who are not
necessarily mentally prepared for the active and entrepreneurial
aspects of life demanded by capitalism after decades of Soviet rule.
I asked what he’s doing to change that and he said he’s teaching his
students to think. Well, I suppose that’s a start.

Great Meeting

Today I had a fantastic meeting with my counterpart, the mayor of my village, Oleg. I wish we had held this meeting two weeks ago when I first arrived, but perhaps I wouldn’t have been ready for it – with my language, inability to ask the right questions due to lack of knowledge of the village, and the potential for my brain to overload after hearing too much new information too quickly. Anyway, I’m glad we had this meeting and I look forward to having more of them.

Oleg unfolded a huge map of the village on his table and explained the towns problems to me, pointing out where certain things were that he mentioned. There were the roads he wanted to pave, those paved during the Soviet Union, the paved roads completed recently by the mayors office – some with asphalt and some in the white method (large blocks of concrete), and the ones paved by the kalhouz (town council) which conveniently run in front of family members of kalhouz officials…

There were the garbage dumps that I didn’t know existed on two ends of the town and there were the ones that had already been filled, capped, and planted over with trees. He mentioned that no one takes their garbage to the dump because it’s too far away and the option presented by USAID for metal dumpsters and a garbage truck was too expensive and maybe we could come up with a more creative and cheaper solution.

We talked about the fact that the system that used to bring water into half of the 2200 homes in this village is essentially broken because the pipes are from 1961. There are no meters to measure water use, and thus its use (when it worked) was free and so people used too much in the summer for their gardens and there was no money to fix things when they broke. So perhaps if the system could be repaired and meters attached to individual homes, people would use water more conservatively and a sustainable source of revenue would cover the upkeep of the system.

There’s an abandoned movie theater that Oleg would like to see turned into a youth center with an internet café and abandoned lot he’d like to turn into a park. He thinks a youth organization would have an easier time getting funding for such projects than the mayor’s office – and I agree – and that my soon-to-be-created English Club could be the perfect vehicle for that. Perfect, I think – I want the English Club to actually do things rather than just sit around and watch American films.

There’s the tree nursery that he already started at the two schools and the forest beyond the town borders to where the trees are transplanted when their about a foot tall. There’s a public bath house that was built as a private enterprise and hopefully will start working next year. There are the street lights he’d like to hang and a new cemetery he’d like to build. There are computers and computer programs he’d like to get for his accountants so they’re not wasting loads of time using calculators and white out.

In other words, there’s a lot of stuff to do and I need not be worried about finding work, which to be honest is often a PCV’s darkest nightmare and sometimes sad reality. It is actually possible to be a PCV who reads a lot of books for two years and I really don’t want to be him.

The Simple Life

So here I am settling into my life in Copceac. Most days I get up around 7 and am at the Mayor’s office for the 8am morning meeting with all the staff. As my Russian isn’t yet at the level it needs to be and I can’t say anything beyond “Cheers” in Gagauz, I don’t understand everything that is said at these meetings, but I can usually get the gist of what’s going on. And it’s encouraging that the office even has these meetings.

I still don’t know exactly what I’ll do here, but I am getting ideas. I’d like to give a training on MSExcel, something many of the staff would benefit from knowing. It would free up probably hundreds of hours of time each week. Right now all accounting and record keeping is done by hand on huge pieces of paper with calculators, abaci, and white out. […I don’t think I’ve ever said the word “abaci” before. Before I wrote it I was wondering if the correct plural form might be “abacuses,” but my computer dictionary says otherwise. I think they might both be acceptable.]

Another idea I’ve been working on this week is forming an English Club. This would be an opportunity for people here who already know some English and just need practice speaking it. God knows being immersed in Russian has made it much easier for me to learn, and it’s got to be difficult for someone to learn a foreign language without being in that tongue’s native land. We’ll probably meet once or twice a week to speak or watch an English movie or cook an American dish. There are a few excellent students and 3-4 English teachers whom I think would really benefit from this activity. Many others who can tell you their names and how old they are (and not much more) seem interested as well, but I don’t think they’d get much out of it. On one hand, we can’t have too many people or it will get unwieldy. On the other hand, I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings (or incur anyone’s wrath) by turning someone away. Pasmotrim (we’ll see)…

I’m on the twice a week shower schedule, which is fine for the winter. I am, however, looking forward to being able to use my sun-shower outside on a daily basis once the summer rolls around. Speaking of weather, it seems to be a bit of a damp climate – perfect for growing things and requiring everyone to constantly clean the mud off their pointy leather shoes. It’s very important here to have clean footwear. I’ve given up on that aspect of cultural integration and wear my dirty boots everyday, preferring unsightly footwear to cold wet feet.

I recently figured out how to access the internet through a dial-up connection at my home. The telephone (and internet) system is nationalized over here, so to get online from anywhere in the nation, you dial the same number, user name, and password (1900, Internet, and Total in case you wanted to know). The per minute charge gets tacked onto your monthly phone bill. It’s a pretty ingenious system.

My point in mentioning the internet is that I’ve never really felt before now the great and glorious and much lauded aspects of the grand Information Superhighway. In America, I had access to the internet pretty frequently, but if I didn’t it was no big deal. I could use my cell phone or land line to talk to friends and family or I could turn on the TV or grab a newspaper or magazine and know what was going on. But not here – and even after my Russian is second nature I still won’t have the same access to communication with people in America or access to reliable news reports. So, I have a new appreciation for the internet. It’s not just a technology that drains the minds of teenagers, but a pretty awesome tool and I feel pretty lucky to have it here in my small corner of the world …and for only 60 cents an hour.

Other (somewhat) interesting stuff:
I finally managed to get money from the bank. Over the past couple weeks I’ve made a few trips to the bank, one room with a safe on the second floor of a building that houses a food store, a photo development kiosk, and a home appliance kind of shop. Each time there’s been a long line and I never wanted to wait the 45 minutes it looked like it was going to take to get my cash, preferring to wait to visit the capital city where I can instantly get my money at an ATM. Well, eventually I happen to be near the bank when there are only 2 people waiting outside and figure, “You gotta do this sometime.” So I wait.

There’s a sign on the door that says people should wait outside and one person goes in at a time. One person comes out and the first guy goes in. Then another guy comes out and the lady waiting with me goes in. So now it’s just me in the hallway waiting by the bank’s heavy metal door. This “babushka” (grandmother) with the traditional leggings and burlap-looking house dress and handkerchief tied over her head starts walking down the hallway. This is not odd because the home appliance shop’s entrance is just beyond the bank’s. She sees me and I nod my head in acknowledgement, and then she opens the gray metal door and goes right in! What could I do? You can’t yell at a babushka! She's basically earned the right to cut me. So I adopt the patient, I’m a good Volunteer attitude and wait – but this time inside the door.

Once the guy, and the lady, and the babushka have finished their business it’s my turn. All seems to be going well until the teller asks for my passport, which is in some office in the capital awaiting processing by the Moldovan government for some special kind of work/volunteer/I’m-cool card. The good news is I have a stamped piece of paper with my picture on it from said office explaining why I don’t have my passport and that people should help me anyway. The bad news is that it’s in Romanian, which despite being the official language of this country neither the teller nor I nor anyone else in the room speaks or reads. So he calls some manager on the phone and starts asking him in Russian if he can give me any money. Fortunately, I can understand he’s saying “This guy doesn’t have his passport NUMBER.” I interrupt and say but I do have my passport number – it’s printed right there on the paper. The teller says “Oh, OK” and gives me my money.

Now, while I was unwilling to yell at a babushka for cutting me in line, don’t think I’ve gone soft. There’s a guy in my office who is always yelling and a few days ago he asks me where was I after lunch. I say I was at School #2. Then he starts yelling “Why didn’t you tell me you were going there?! I was there, too!” So this time I yell back, “I don’t need to tell you where I’m going! And why didn’t you tell me you were going there! Stop talking so loudly [in my excitement I forgot how to say “yell.”] I’m standing right here!” He seemed surprised and kind of walked away and I felt pretty awesome.

And I'm playing soccer tonight. Hopefully it will go well. I'm really excited about it.