We went to a concert tonight, what a blast! It was a free concert, sponsored by the Communist Party of Moldova (wonder who’s having an election in the near future?) at the Culture Palace, with a group of famous Moldovan singers. Well, I didn’t know who they were, but the locals sure were impressed and excited. The hall was jam-packed, standing room only, with people of all ages – young and old alike – and everyone seemed to have a great time.
Today was another one of those days when I can really feel that I’m getting adjusted. Next Tuesday is my “3 month anniversary” in Tvarditsa, February 15. Everybody talked so much about the first three months being an adjustment period, getting acclimated, learning the lay of the land and figuring things out. I’m always amused when such predictions come true – they really did know what the heck they were talking about! But let’s back up and I’ll start from the beginning of the week.
It always takes me a day or so to “recover” from a trip to Chisinau, as time there invariably involves a lot of running around, plus the 3 1/2 hour bus ride home in and of itself is draining. I get home late, tired and hungry, and usually spend the next day hanging out around the house. So, Monday was a quiet day, and I spent a lot of time working on the library web site, since I finally decided it was easier to start from scratch than to try to patch up what is there now.
Tuesday, I got up early to get to the library, and the internet, early. I showed the librarians the draft of a new site, and they gave the thumbs up! I’ll upload it next week when I’m in Chisinau and can get a high-speed connection. Phase 2 of the web site will be to get a local kid to translate and type it into Russian so we can have both an English and a Russian version.
In my email, I had a letter from our program manager, Silvia, about next week’s Project Design & Management (PDM) conference for PCVs and their partners. I printed off the letter of invitation, and carried it around all day trying to think of who to ask to go with me. You may recall that I was assigned to Tvarditsa to work with Donna Bobicova, who is supposed to be working with several NGO’s in the village. You may also recall that Donna was “temporarily” filling in for the secretary in the Primaria. Well, she’s still doing that, and hasn’t had any time to work with me. Furthermore, on the few occasions when we have talked, she didn’t make the best impression with me. Our work styles are totally different, and she has a rather condescending way of talking to me. At first I thought it was maybe because my Russian doesn’t sound make me sound like the most intelligent, professional or mature person, but after observing her interactions with other people, I’ve concluded that that is just her style – she’s bossy and condescending to just about everybody. Not the best way to make friends and win people over, I’d say. I could also tell, from the couple times I’ve seen her interact with the youth group, that she and I have totally different approaches to advising and mentoring young people. She takes charge, tells them what to do and how, and if she does bother to ask for their input, she always counters it with her own “better” idea. I, on the other hand, prefer to let the kids drive their own organization; I want to hear their ideas and I will help them do what they want to do, providing guidance, feedback and advice as needed.
Anyway, I really didn’t want to go to PDM with Donna, and I was wracking my brain to think who could go with me for 3 weekdays to Chisinau. I asked my host mom, Anna, but she can’t leave work right now. I realized I was going to have to take the mature, professional route, and talk to Donna about it, since she is my partner and all. Turns out she can’t go anyway as the Village Council meets on Friday, Feb. 18, and she’ll be swamped until them preparing for the session, and her presence is required at all Council meetings. She gave me a bit of a lecture, just to make me feel even more sweet about her, and I walked out irritated and frustrated. I talked it over a long time with Anna Tuesday night, and she really encouraged me to move on, stop spending my energy being upset by Donna. She’s right, of course, and I just have to remind myself (and Donna) that I am a Volunteer for the entire community, not for just one person. I’ve told Anna before, if I can just get pointed in the right direction, I can take off by myself, and she’s really taken it on herself to get me introduced to people, help me meet different communities leaders, etc. I decided to ask Natasha, the vice president of the school parent’s association, to attend the conference with me. We met on Friday, and it turns out she also cannot go next week as her husband leaves on Feb. 18 for work abroad, and won’t be back until at least August. I suggested Paulina, the president of the parent’s association. Since I’ve only met Paulina once, and even then it was in passing, Natasha said she would call and talk to her first.
At this point, Donna walked in and said she wanted to talk to the two of us. As I suspected, she wanted to talk to Natasha about the very thing she and I had just discussed and settled, but she was determined to repeat the entire conversation, regardless of me saying that we’d already talked about it all. She has a real knack for making me feel like she thinks I can’t handle a single thing. Anyway, I had promised myself I was going to be more firm with her, not let her steamroll me. To her credit, though, she really did explain well to Natasha what an important opportunity this conference is for her organization, how PC is basically giving them a free conference on how to write a grant, and really pushed her to find someone to attend with me. The conversation expanded into what is my role here in the community, what can I do with the kids or the parent’s association. Donna, as usual, started to speak for me, but I cut her off and said I could talk for myself, thank you for very much. It was a small victory, and she still had to supplement what I said, but I felt a little better. I told Natasha, “It’s not about what I want to do, or what I think you should do; I am here to help with your ideas.” Natasha just wasn’t getting it, though, and, again, to Donna’s credit, she interjected and explained it in a way that Natasha could understand, saying that it is the American style to ask what everybody wants, and not to tell them what they need to do. She actually kind of surprised me with such a level of insight and understanding of our cultural differences! Later, retelling the conversation to Anna, I realized how I need to explain my presence here by saying that I can’t tell them WHAT they need or want, but I can help them with HOW to do it. It takes me back to the conversation Anna and I had about the sidewalks, though. These are people who pretty much always had someone else take care of things, and many literally don’t know how to start in even identifying their needs. The sidewalks are crumbled, but it doesn’t occur to them that this could be a project they could take on themselves to fix. Perhaps I do need to take a more active role in helping them to identify their needs, despite my American culture kicking and screaming against doing that. I’ll have to think about that some more.
Anyway, we left the conversation on Friday afternoon that Natasha would call Paulina, and if she couldn’t go with me to PDM, then Natasha would talk to the school director about sending a teacher with me. I also asked if the parent’s association ever meets, and Natasha said yes, sure. So please invite me! I practically shouted. Tell me when you are meeting and I will come to talk to the parents. I got the usual “OK, sure,” with no definitive information. By Friday night, when I called Natasha, she hadn’t followed up with Paulina, and said she’d work on it on Saturday. Now, I’ve got until Monday to let PC know who is coming with me to this thing! Fortunately, I’ve got another plan.
Another person called the house Friday afternoon and said he wanted to meet me. He works at the local Cooperative, aka Agribusiness, and Anna said he also has some kind of Community Organization, but she wasn’t real clear on what it is or what they do. She’d seem him earlier in the week, and since she’s always looking out for me and trying to get me hooked up with more people, she encouraged him to meet with me to talk about how I might be able to help them. Well, he called Friday afternoon and invited us to stop by his office before the concert, as it was on the way. Anna showed me the way, and when we walked in and say his 15-year old daughter sitting with him, we both knew what the meeting was about: teaching his daughter English. He put on a nice performance for a little while about his organization, and then introduced his daughter, Natasha, with the spiel I can recite myself by now: she’s learning grammar in school, but she needs practical experience, they don’t teach what the kids are interested in, blah blah blah. I had the requisite 5 minute conversation in English with her, and like all kids she seemed nice enough. It was a relief, though, to be able to say the English Club has started and she can come on Sunday to our next meeting. Like most parents, I think he would have preferred that I offered to be her private tutor, but that’s just not going to happen. And like most parents, he insisted that I speak to her in English only. My usual response is “We’ll speak in English sometimes, and in Russian sometimes, since I live here in Tvarditsa and I really need to learn Russian!” (More on the English Club later.)
From there, Natasha and I walked to the concert hall. A man stopped me in the hallway, introduced himself so fast I couldn’t catch a thing, and asked if I had a few minutes to talk with him right now. What the heck, why not? We went to his office, and I was able to clarify that he is Georghi Dimov, Artistic Director for the Culture Palace. A quick aside about the Culture Houses: during Soviet times, a Culture House was erected in just about every village and city, as the town meeting hall, event center, library, movie theatre; you name it, it probably happened at the Culture House. 20 years ago or so, Tvarditsa built a large and beautiful new Culture Palace, significantly bigger than your average Culture House. Anyway, Georghi struck me right away as an energetic man, and he dove right into the purpose of our meeting: he wants to host an international music & cultural festival in Tvarditsa. He told me about some other festivals he’s attended throughout Europe; talked about the importance of preserving their Bulgarian traditions here in Tvarditsa; how kids need to see, particularly in these hard times, what is so special about their heritage. He’s got some great ideas, has contacts in other Eastern European countries, and has a more or less realistic sense that such an event will take quite a long time and a lot of money to plan. While I myself have absolutely no artistic talent whatsoever, I do love the arts, and especially have a great appreciation for folk arts, the kinds of traditional cultural signing and dancing he was talking about. I told him I would LOVE to help with it, and that I’m going next week in fact to a seminar to learn how to design projects and write grants. He wanted to know when we could meet, and when I said “Maybe week after next, when I’m back from Chisinau,” he shocked the heck out of me by wanting to nail down a date and time. I nearly started to cry, it was just so exciting. He is not the first person here to search me out, but he is the first person to (a) have a concrete idea and some thoughts on how to go about it, (b) have a clear idea of why and how he wants me to help, (c) set an actual meeting date and time instead of just passively saying “OK, well, call me sometime and we’ll see” (I’ve started giving my phone number to just about anyone and not a one has called to follow up). He really won my heart, though, by not mentioning teaching English even one time.
I think people who join Peace Corps tend to be optimists, people who think they can and will make a difference. A real challenge for many PCVs is maintaining your optimism in a place and time where every idea gets beaten down, where you might not see any tangible results in your 2 years. I think I’m a cautious optimist, and I try not to let myself get to worked up over new possibilities, but boy, it’s hard to not get too excited when you finally meet someone who seems different from the rest, who seems ready for you and what you can offer. So, my new plan for PDM is to call Georghi Dimov today and ask him to attend the conference with me. He might not be able to, but it’s worth asking. I know something will work out, someone will go with me, and it will be a worthwhile event.
As for English Club, we had our first meeting on Tuesday. 20 kids showed up! I hardly knew what to do with them, especially since they ranged in age from 8 to 18. I gave them some snacks to start with, told them about Ohio, showed them postcards and other little do-dads I have. When I got tired of doing all the talking, I started giving out American flag pencils to anyone who asked me a question. That got some of the older ones talking, and we had a nice time. The next day, one of the post office ladies told me her little granddaughter had been there and she went on and on about how I gave them cookies and apples. Note to self: bring a snack to every meeting. I’ll give out some Ohio State pencils next time! It was pretty clear that I’ll have to split them into 2 groups, older and younger. The little kids don’t really know enough English to participate in a Conversation Club, and the older kids don’t want to hang out with little kids. Many of the older kids have decent English already, and it’s an age group I’m more accustomed to working with, so I’m not too worried about finding activities for them. The little kids, though, are perplexing to me. Love ‘em, but had no idea what to do with them!
I got a Valentine’s Day package on Thursday from Mom & Dad (Thank you!), which gave me some ideas of what to do with the English Club kids on Sunday, even the little ones. Our snack will be the Valentine heart candies, which will provide some fun English practice too. Mom sent a card game called “Heart to Heart,” which, after editing out a few of the more risqué or culturally-specific cards (ie, “Are you a Brady Bunch or Partridge Family person?”), will be fun to play. I bought some red and pink construction paper, and decided we’ll make Valentine’s cards. My “teaser” for the meeting this week is that they should bring scissors, but that’s all I’m saying! Hopefully, this will intrigue most of the kids who didn’t understand a thing on Tuesday and/or who were scared senseless.
Jenny sent me a bunch of Highlight children’s magazines (Thank You Jenny!), and I scoured them all for activities suitable for different language levels, and made some of copies. I have no idea how many kids to expect, but I hope to be prepared with enough material and enough variety to keep them busy. I asked my “partner”, 16-year old Petya, to look through my book “Heroes of Ohio” and let me know which person he thinks we should read about first with the older kids. I’ll make copies of the 2-3 page biography and send it home with the older kids to read for our next meeting. By the way, did you know Johnny Appleseed, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Jesse Owens, Orville and Wilbur Wright, Techumseh, Henry Heimlich (as in Heimlich maneuver), and Neil Armstrong are all from Ohio? I’ll be curious who Petya picks to read about, and who the kids here may have heard of.
Tonight will be another fun night in the village, as it’s the annual High School Reunion. The school has been preparing for weeks, hunting down graduates from 10, 20, 30, 40, and even 50 years ago. The 12th graders have been working hard on a special program, and we’ll be back at the Culture Palace tonight as they show off their singing and dancing talents. I caught a bit of a rehearsal earlier in the week, and I think it will be an impressive program!
I mentioned at the start of this entry that today was one of those days when I can really see and feel that I am getting adjusted. I went to Ceadr-Lunga this morning with the mission of finding some construction paper for the English Club, plus a couple other things I need. Anna asked me to buy a few things for home, too. My friend Nadia had invited me to go along with her and a couple other folks by car, instead of bus. I’ve done this before, and it has its pros and cons. A car, of course, is warmer, more comfortable, and faster than taking the bus. But you’re still stuck to somebody else’s schedule, and what’s usually more frustrating for me is that they seem to have a hard time making and/or communicating their schedule. While the bus doesn’t exactly go and come back at convenient times, at least I know exactly when it’s going and coming! I showed up at 8:30, as requested, to meet everybody. We waited, and waited, and waited. By 10 I was about ready to call it quits and go home. I know I’m an American at moments like that – I sit there fuming about what a waste of time this is, how inconsiderate, I could be doing …? What? I really don’t have anything else I to do right now, so what the heck am I upset about? OK, go with the flow. A huge plus of the car ride was that we could stop and take some photos on the way. It was a cold frosty morning, and the trees lining the road looked like they were from a postcard, beautifully dusted in crisp white snow. The last time I went to C-L with Nadia and Co., they wouldn’t let me out of their site, taking to the extreme their “assignment” to help me and watch out for me. There was a lot more I had hoped to do on that trip, but since we had to travel by pack and do everyone’s shopping together, I managed to only do a couple things. This time, though, I beat them to the punch. When the car stopped, I hopped out and said “where and when are we meeting?” and was dashing off practically before I heard the answer, and well before they entirely understood what was happening. I was determined to manage it all on my own, and was pleasantly surprised a couple hours later to realize that I had!
As I waited at the appointed meeting place, at the appointed time, standing their alone in the cold winter air, waiting another 45 minutes for everyone else to show up, I thought back to my previous visits to C-L, and gave myself a pat on the back. I made my way around today quite well: I remembered where a school supply store was located that I’d heard about and I bought construction paper there; I went to a hardware store, where I was the only female (and of course the only foreigner) in there, and bought a good power strip/extension cord plus a couple adapters; found a place to make some photo copies; mailed a letter home; went to the market to buy milk, had a moment of panic when I found out you had to go to a store to buy milk, but managed to find it and bought everything on the list Anna had given me. I even had time to buy a couple kilos of apples for the English Club on Sunday. Doesn’t sound like much to be excited or proud of, I suppose, but I was and am. As I said, it was one of those moments when I could really see and feel how I have started to get the hang of things.