A Good Day

Despite the cold and rainy weather, yesterday ranks near the top for
my stay thus far in Moldova. This was due to a combination of me
actually being productive and by Moldovans actually showing some
initiative.

It all started around 5:30am when I got up as part of my new "Get $#!
@ Done" Plan. I studied my Russian for about 2 hours, fried a couple
of eggs, drank my green tea with lemon, and made my way to the
office. Progress - check!

Later that morning I was able to get money out of the bank after only
a 25-minute wait. Now I ask before waiting in line if the bank has
money or not [see previous entry for why this is a good question to
ask]. Granted, I did have to make two trips because the first one
resulted in a negative answer by the teller - but I didn't have to
wait in line to find out. Progress - check (and ka-ching!).

Then, I ran through the first Excel class I've planned out with the
office attorney, Valeri, as a test case for my actual class on Jan
17th. It actually went pretty well and I think Valeri learned
something. Perhaps with repeated lessons and a little bit of nagging
for him to actually use the program, he may grow to use it on his
own. Progress - check!

After lunch, Valeri told me he was going to take me to the kalhouz
and then to the textile factory to meet the directors of both places
- something I've been asking to do for the last couple of weeks. And
though Valeri and I left 45-minutes later than he first told me, and
though the kalhouz director did not return to his office after lunch
and so I did not meet him, and though I didn't even get to the
factory because I had to leave for the English Klub - we did actually
go where we were supposed to go and I did meet a couple other people
in the kalhouz. I think that warrants a "Progress - check!"

Later that day I had my biggest attendance to date for my English
Klub - a total of 17 people. I actually planned out the lesson (on
giving directions) for the beginner group the night before instead of
basically winging it, and this is definitely the way to go. I'm
pretty certain that most of the folks in the beginner group could now
ask "How do I get from the school to the clothing store?" and answer
with "Go 2 blocks north, turn right and go 1 block, and the clothing
store is on your left." Progress - check!

Then my advanced group actually did their homework - or at least the
ones who showed from last time when I assigned it. They were
supposed to tell me all about a particular building in the village.
I learned about the two bakeries (and when I can buy fresh, hot
bread) and the main store, which is some sort of quasi-publicly owned
entity. Interestingly, despite being the most expensive place to
shop and having goods that are no different whatsoever from the 7-8
other general stores and not really seeing any reinvestment of the
profits of this "public" store in town, most people shop there out of
habit. The 8 women that run the main public store get 4% of the
monthly sales, yet they do nothing to attract more business like have
sales or special events or advertise (or come anywhere close to the
term "customer service"). And the other neighboring businesses that
have cheaper goods do nothing to hit people over the heads with this
information in order to attract more business for themselves. Folks
aren't big on change here like we are in America where things change
on a daily basis. So maybe this wasn't a whole lot of progress, but
I think I did plant some seeds of capitalism in the minds of my
students as we discussed how businesses could improve - and let's not
forget that I learned where to buy hot, fresh bread.

After the Klub, one member, an English teacher, asked me if I could
stay behind a look at the school's computer room and see if I could
get internet set up there. I agreed and after about a hour of
fiddling, I discovered that all they really needed to do was dial the
right number, plug in their modem, and run one cord from the jack to
the modem and from the modem to the phone. Presto - the school that
has not had internet for the last several years now has dial-up on
one computer. Progress - double check!

And if you mind is already reeling from all this forward momentum,
that evening at our Cultural Center I was asked to help chaperone/
bounce/observe a disco. It was fun to see a bunch of teenagers
dancing in a circle, at the center of which no one wants to be.
Again, the ingrained American business man within me was thinking of
ways to boost profits. Why doesn't anyone sell refreshments at the
dance? Why are the DJs paid a flat rate regardless of how many
people attend - why not give them a percentage of the door and
they'll naturally help bring in a bigger crowd? And why do we have
DJs that we pay at all when all they're doing is playing mp3s that
Valeri has on his office computer anyway? So again, not so much
progress made that evening, but good ideas are happening...