Call Me Lance

Since I now live a 30 minute walk from my office, I really need a bike.  Making such a purchase in my village isn't possible, so I took a bus to the regional capital and met another similarly-inclined PCV in the bazaar and we went to buy our bikes together.

After trying out a bunch, I settled on a pretty souped up model that is unfortunately a tad too small.  There really wasn't anything available with a frame big enough for my lanky 6' body, but with the seat jacked all the way up it gets the job done.  There were actually some models that would have been a better fit, but they had only one gear and no hand-brakes - only the old-fashioned "back-pedal" brakes.  Despite the fact that I purchased the bike to get places faster, I figured it was more important that I be able to stop than go , so I had to go with the hand-brake model.  I don't know about you, but I'd much rather have a car that only went up to 3rd gear than one without any brakes...

Now we enter the part of this entry where I go from reasonable investment to absurd adventure...  Knowing that the buses - well, all forms of transportation, really - are very crowded, rather than attempt to bring my new purchase on a bus going back to Copceac I decided to ride it 52km back from Ceadir-Lunga.

I came dressed for a workout and packed plenty of water, a lunch, and some snacks.  During the 1.5 hour bus ride to Ceadir-Lunga that morning I drew a rough map of the route so I wouldn't get lost.  [It's a pretty simple map because there's rarely more than two (poorly) paved roads, so most of the directions consist of "go straight" or "pass the fields on both your left and right."]

I stopped along the way to snap a few pics, though most of what I saw were people working the fields by hand.  I also stopped several times along the way to roll up a spare shirt and stuff it under my butt when I realized that the seat wasn't nearly as comfortable as I thought it was when I bought the bike...

Anyway, the whole trip (including 45 minutes for lunch, a 30 minute detour to get a print out of my last telephone bill, and ultimately being overpowered by gravity on a gigantic hill toward the very end of the trip which forced me to walk the bike) took about 4 hours.  Not too shabby.

I rewarded myself with a haircut when I got home - something I probably should have preemptively given myself before the trip to cut down on drag and increase heat dissipation.  I stretched, ate, showered, and had no trouble falling asleep that night.  All in all, a good adventure and one I see absolutely no need to ever repeat.

Let's Twist Again

In my English Club, we've lately been listening to lots of popular American songs and trying to figure out what's being said.  I write out some of the words to help people along; it looks something like this:

Hey where did we ____
Days when the rains _____
Down in the hollow
Playin a new _______
Laughing and a ________, heye
Skippin and a jumping
In the misty morning fog
With, ah, our ______ a thumpin and you
My brown-eyed _____.  You my brown-eyed ____

It's a good time, but last week really took the cake when I busted out Sam Cooke's Twistin' the Night Away.  Towards the end of class, though no one wanted to, I managed to get everyone to twist.  We all laughed and had a great time.

PS - Interesting Russian word: брак (pronounced "brack") is the word for both marriage and a defective product.

Surfin' Sarfari

Talk about surreal experience: unpacking in my new place - the second landlocked country in which I've served - while listening to a Beach Boys mix.  Just another day in the life...

Hope you enjoy the pictures.  We have a real toilet and washing machine - the former doesn't work right now, but the pit out back has a nice view of the garden.  I love it.  Doing dishes with running water is almost bliss.  I finished unpacking around noon, had lunch, and took a little nap.  Then I strolled, and strolled, and strolled "into town" from where I live on the outskirts to buy food, hangers, and a surge protector (without any of the protection qualities...)  My new mom is leaving sometime this week to work in Germany for several months, leaving me and my 17-year old host brother.  Thus far, we get along very well - I gave him some ice cream tonight, which I think sealed the deal.  He invited me to go to the local "disco," but I was just too tired to walk another hour roundtrip in order to awkwardly dance with a bunch of high school kids.  But it was nice to get the invitation.

Gagauz

Though Moldova is a small nation - about the size of Maryland - it has many languages.  Romanian is now the official language, but virtually everyone knows Russian from this nation's time as part of the Soviet Union.  Then there are pockets of Ukrainian and Bulgarian, and in my neck of the woods, Gagauz, a Turkish dialect.

Language is actually a controversial issue - I'd compare it to the strife between English and Spanish in America, but a lot more vigorous.  Some favor Russian over Romanian, some go the other way, and some don't even know the other language.  In my village, only a handful know Romanian and Gagauz is actually their first language with Russian a close second.

Therefore, I have started learning this Turkish language.  PC was kind enough to back me up in this endeavor - meaning they'll pay my tutoring bill.  It's a bit of an experiment for them since no PCV has ever learned Gagauz before.  I really like it so far - it's grammar is definitely easier compared to Russian, the mother of all prefixes and suffixes.  Already I've been able to catch a few words and converse a little with people in their native tongue, and if nothing else it always wins a smile from locals who see that an American is at least trying to adapt to their culture.

Computer Class, Improved

When a PCV first arrives at site, to put it bluntly he or she has little idea about what the $%*# is going on.  After only 3 months of language training, communication is still an issue.  Then you're uprooted and dropped in a completely new community with a new host-family and a new workplace.  It's almost unheard of that said workplace will have a perfect (or even a semblance of a) workplan drawn up.  For the most part, your co-workers don't know what you're capable of or supposed to do and frankly, neither do you.  It's important for PCVs to find something that both fills a community need and is something that they like to do and can do well.  In my own humble opinion, this takes about 3-6 months to figure out.

Good news: I think I've figured it out.  From observations in our schools and offices, I've found that adults and (to a lesser degree) children are severely lacking in computer skills.  There are actually fairly decent computers available in my village, but there has never been anyone to teach people what they really need to know - typing, Word, Excel, and Internet.  Instead, the schools concentrate on programming language, which I fear at most only 1% of the graduates will actually use.  Combine this need with my knowledge and the recently discovered internet cafe in the village (which has only one computer with dial-up, but 8 good computers), and I've got myself a project.

Originally, I was teaching in the school's computer room, but the computers there proved too old and prone to crash to really make the class worthwhile.  But at the local internet cafe, things are really humming along.  I've held two 1-hour classes there for an 8-person group, all teachers.  Next week I'll add another group of 8, and the following week another.  There's really no limit to how many of these I could do, and once kids are out of school in the summer this would be a worthwhile thing for them to do.  I'm shooting for at least 5 classes.

The course is not free, but I managed to get the typical 5 lei hourly rate down to 3 lei (20 cents) by explaining to the owner that I'm bringing him all kinds of new business - adults.  I feel good about pumping money into the local economy, especially a business run so well by its young and knowledgeable owner Vitalik.  At the same time it increases the incentive and commitment of my students - they have to pay the entire sum for my 20-hour course up front and basically forfeit the money for any classes they miss.  Most if not all can afford this, and if not they can pay in the installment plan.

Volume Control

Call it a cultural difference between the Gagauz and American cultures.  To put it simply, they talk really loudly over here.  I'm not quite sure why locals feel compelled to shout when we're standing right next to each other.  I used to think it was because my language skills weren't all that great, and they (erroneously) thought that every time I said, "Please, speak more slowly" what I really meant was "I'm almost deaf and can only understand when you speak both louder and faster."

But now that my language and cultural skills are better, I see that it's not just me who's getting my eardrums torn.  It's just part of the system here to speak really loudly and emotionally.  It's a miracle that not more people have developed nodes on their vocal chords, though come to think of it there are several people I know with very raspy voices...

As American, this can sometimes grate on my psyche.  In the US - or at least the parts I frequented - we rarely raise our voices during the workday or even in debates unless we're really angry.  So being around people who daily "put it up to 11," requires that I constantly remind myself (a) they're not actually angry at me, (b) I don't need to cow-tow when someone "yells," and (c) it's OK to yell back.  Actually, that last part feels pretty good on the rare occasions when I do it.  WATCH OUT!  IT'S MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY!

New Digs

I signed a contract today for my new place and it's great!  There's a real washing machine, hot running water, a modern fridge, and I even saw a microwave.  I feel a little guilty for taking a place that has all these modern conviences, but I think I've taken enough bucket/bowl showers to truly appreciate them.  And besides, a happy volunteer is a productive volunteer - and this will make me very happy.

The family situation there is a bit odd, but it's to my liking.  The mother is a widower who works 95% of the year abroad either in Moscow or Germany.  She has one grown son who lives and works in Germany and another 15-year old who lives in the house, most of the time alone.  So basically it will be me and my new brother.  [This is a microcosm of the situation in Moldova where parents work abroad to support families still here, and kids often grow up with grandparents or on their own.]

The only drawback to this place is its location.  It is way on the outskirts of the village.  Actually, after my house there's just the corn fields that surround the entire village.  The walk from my door to the office is about to go from 30 seconds to 30 minutes.  But, this should lessen the degree of my fishbowl-like existence as the first and only American to live in Copceac and I don't mind putting a little more forethought into trips to the store or packing lunches like most of my co-workers.

Since I'm not much of a "walker," I'm glad that PC helps PCVs purchase bikes in situations like these.  I will soon avail myself of this assistance and be cruising in style (with a PC-mandated helmet, of course, which will probably give plenty of villagers a good laugh).  I'm excited to pull into the fast lane and get some exercise on daily rides, just like when I used to ride to and from work in Boston.  And year-round there's a daily bus from Bolgrad, Ukraine that passes by my house at 7:45am on it's way to Chisinau, which apparantly I can flag down to get a ride into the village center - helpful in the winter.

I'll post pictures once I move in, probably the last week of May.

Little Easter

As mentioned previously, Easter in Moldova operates a little differently than it does in America.  First of all, Orthodox Easter begins the week after America's Easter, and it runs for about 8 days.  On the last day, a Monday, everyone goes to the cemetary to have their food blessed (again) and to have little picnics beside the graves of loved ones.  The cemetary is prepared for this, as it is strewn with built-in picnic tables and benches.  I rather like the idea - it seems to celebrate the lives of those lost rather than morn over them.  And as it is done yearly, Moldovans seem to stay in closer contact with those departed than we do in America.  [Or maybe it's just me, but I've never gone to a ceremony outside of a funeral.]