One day last summer, my friend Jenny and I were talking about our mutual interest in someday working for the program called “Semester at Sea,” which is kind of like a study-abroad program for college students, in which you live, study, and travel a part of world on a ship for a semester. It’s also a “work abroad” opportunity for some college faculty and staff, as they teach and oversee various operations on the ship. Jenny’s experience with Residence Life makes her an excellent candidate for being hired by Semester at Sea (SAS). I, on the other, as Jenny so tactfully put it, would have to get a skill before I would be hired. Of course what she meant was that I would have to get a skill that would be useful on the ship, as my ten years of work experience at the University in recruitment and advising positions did not prepare me for the kind of work available on the SAS ship.
Well, Jenny, if SAS is anything like PC/Moldova, you were absolutely right! Right now, I don’t have one useful skill here. It is truly humbling to have to have every single aspect of like explained to you: how to use the toilet and shower; how to wash your clothes; how to mail a letter; how to use the bus; how to cook and clean up; what to do with the trash; what to wear and when; where and how to clean your shoes; every single action or task of every day living — I am completely incompetent here. It is beyond humbling, sometimes to the point of embarrassing. I knew my life was relatively easy in the U.S., but I can honestly say I had no freakin’ idea how easy. Yes, a big part of it is just plain unfamiliarity, and I keep reminding myself that I’ll learn how to do all these day-to-day things and soon enough I’ll be skilled enough to take care of myself as a grown woman ought to be able to do. In the meantime, it’s kind of frustrating.
Peace Corps is absolutely right in their requirement that PCVs live the first 6 months with host families. I can’t even imagine trying to figure all of this out living on my own right now. Today, for example, I washed my clothes by hand. I’ve done this before, and it doesn’t necessarily sound like a big deal. Anna Kirillovna gave me a quick run-down before she went to work, using about two words that I understood and a bunch of gestures that I tried to connect with what I know about washing, rinsing, and hanging clothes up to dry. After breakfast I set to work. I felt like those guys in the movie “Apollo 13”, who are told to make a square peg fit in a round hole using only the items supplied in one box. There I stood with two metal basins, a huge pile of clothes, a packet of detergent and a bar of soap, and a limited supply of warm water. I instantly realized mistake #1: don’t wait a week to do laundry, but instead wash a little bit every day or every other day. A full load of laundry has a whole new meaning when you are doing it by hand. And did I mention the limited supply of warm water? That was gone before I’d finished half the clothes. Babushka had offered to help me, and yes I could have gone to her and asked what I was doing wrong or how I could do this more efficiently and effectively, but I just couldn’t bring myself to admit that there was yet one more common everyday task that I was completely incapable of completing on my own.
Don’t get me wrong, no one here has ever done or said anything to make me embarrassed, to the contrary they’ve been very kind and helpful, but sometimes the truth is painful. The other night, for example, I asked where the extra toilet paper was kept so I could put a new roll in the outhouse. Anna Kirillovna showed me where it was, paused a moment and said she’d put it there herself in a few minutes because I probably wouldn’t be able to do it in the dark. At first I thought, geez, is it so hard to put on a new roll of t.p.? But you know what? I realized she was absolutely right. Every little thing that I think I can do, I can’t. She didn’t mean any offense by what she said, just stating the complete and truthful fact that I don’t know how to do a darn thing here. And when it came time to ask for help with my laundry, I just didn’t want to admit to one more inability. It was, pure and simple, my own ego getting in the way.
Well, my clothes are hanging now in the cold wintery air turning into colorful clothes-shaped popsicles. I’m not entirely clear on how the clothes get dry outside in the winter when the water in them just freezes and doesn’t drip or evaporate away, but I hung my stuff right up alongside their frozen clothes.
One of the PCVs in my group, Joanna, wears a necklace with a pendant engraved with the words “This too shall pass.” My mantra is a bit different, “Eventually, things will become clear.” At least I hope so.
A kind word to ease the sting…
Monday only got better when I went to work. The good part was that I met with my new tutor, also named Anya, who is a Russian teacher at the village school. She doesn’t speak any English, which is what I was hoping for in a tutor. We set up our schedule to meet 3 times a week, starting next Monday, and then I chatted for a bit with my partner Donna Mikhailovna. She shared with me a copy of a project that the village just won (in other words, they just found out that a grant they submitted was approved). It’s a very interesting project, focusing on the national minorities and providing some “inter-cultural” education between the majority Moldovan population and the ethnic minorities: Bulgarians, Gagauzians and Roma (Gypsies). There will be some youth exchanges between different villages, during which the host village will have the opportunity to share some of their cultural heritage with the visiting young people. Tvarditsa is one of the sponsoring villages of this project, which means some of our youth will be visiting other villages and we will also host visiting youth here. There is also something in the project about a seminar for future journalists and starting a club for youth interested in careers in journalism. I’m not exactly sure how that fits into with the rest of the project, but that’s kind of the way grants are done around here- put in there as much as you can that is somehow loosely connected to the main theme.
I hadn’t even read the project description yet and Donna Mikhailovna said she’d like me to organize a seminar about journalism, and perhaps one of my friends who is experienced with journalism could present. Huh? is all I could think. But I kept my thoughts to myself, said “We’ll see” and read through the proposal. Then the Vice Primar, Maria Danilovna, wanted to meet with me. I’ve been waiting a month to redeem myself with her, as I was a complete and total bumbling idiot the first time I met her during my site visit. She speaks very quickly, very politely and “flowery”, in other words, neither slowly or simply enough for me to easily understand. Well, when her first question was “So, what will we be working on?”, all I could think was “Shoot, lady, I don’t even know how to wash my own clothes here. You think I have a clue what we should do?” I collected myself enough to answer more appropriately, though, and said “I think that’s really a question for you. I am here to help with the work that you want to do.” At that point, she started to grill me on what kind of experience I have and in what realms I can help them: public administration; 10-year strategic plan for the village; obtaining grants for a multitude of projects, from getting furniture to opening a rehabilitation center for at-risk children and more. That now-familiar feeling of being a deer in the headlights returned. She gave me a bunch of documents to read, then proceeded to talk on the telephone, read the newspaper, and listen to the radio simultaneously, while I struggled to concentrate on the difficult texts in front of me, all the while trying not to reveal exactly how stupid and incompetent I felt. I finally tiptoed out and sought refuge in Anna Kirillovna’s office, who quickly had me laughing and feeling better. I thought I’d take a stroll around the village in the sunny but cold remaining afternoon, but instead Donna Mikhailovna found me and invited me to attend a budget meeting with the village council, Primar, Vice Primar, and staff. It was definitely interesting, although I certainly couldn’t follow the entire conversation. After 90 minutes, as it approached 5:00 pm and I knew Anna Kirillovna would be heading home soon, I tried to slip out inconspicuously. Not so easy, as I had skillfully sat myself in the far corner, boxed in by a desk and a row of people. I leaned over to Nadia, a very nice woman I’d met on my site visit, and whispered that I needed to leave. She got up with me, and we stepped out together. What relief!
Walking home with Anna Kirillovna, I tried to be “cool”, joking about not being able to do anything here. Truthfully, I was completely overwhelmed and frustrated from just a few short hours at the Primaria. I later told a “veteran” PCV here that I realized today I don’t have a single useful skill for life in Moldova. His answer? “Welcome to everyone’s first week at site.” His advice was that I should lower their expectations for what I can do right away, do my best, and no one can fault me for being honest.
I also realized how completely intuitive and compassionate Anna Kirillovna is. At home, she sat me down in the kitchen, told me to relax a bit and have some tea. I read a book there, quietly calming down. After a while, she invited me to the small kitchen where she does most of the cooking, and I sat with her while she masterfully rolled balls of dough paper-thin for a traditional dish called “platsinda.” As she rolled the dough, she told me how when she first watched her mother rolling dough like this, she thought her own hands would never be able to do it, she’d never be able to make it so thin and perfect like her mother could. But, after practice and time, she does it with almost no effort now, and watching her own hands is like watching her mother’s hands. She said “It’s like you today with washing the clothes. You’ll get the hang of it sooner or later, it just takes time and practice.” Those were about the kindest words anyone could have said to me today, reminding me that this, too, shall pass.
Anka in Kyiv 