Rabbit Ears and Bunny Tails

During our Pre-Service Training, we received stacks and stacks of materials and manuals – language manuals and dictionaries, technical materials and references, cross-cultural guides, policy manuals, safety and health handbooks. Out of this stack that must be at least 3 feet high, I’ve found myself returning to a simple little booklet over and over, called “A Few Minor Adjustments: A Handbook for Volunteers.” It’s perhaps the size of a theatre program, 64 pages long with seven short chapters addressing different stages of PCV life and experience. It’s easy to overlook this booklet, being so small, not very flashy; you might even call it unimpressive, at first glance, especially compared to all the other specialized, dense materials we received. But this little guy has turned out to be the single best piece of Peace Corps material I’ve read since I first began the application process.

The book refers to itself in the introduction as “a kind of owner’s manual for Peace Corps service.” It’s generic enough to be given to any PCV, anywhere in the world. Sure, we all face different issues, have different struggles, and different successes too. But overall we all deal with the same daily necessity of cultural adjustment, and this little book addresses it simply, realistically, with a sense of humor and a lot of wisdom.

I’ve returned to this book numerous times over the last six months because it is put together so well, it addresses my different anxieties, different frustrations, different issues at different times. Towards the end of PST, on a particularly miserable day, I pulled it out and was laughing within an hour – laughing at myself for behaving and feeling exactly the way nearly every other PCV does towards the end of PST. It’s comforting to realize it’s not just you, and it’s OK to feel the way you do sometimes.

I have quite a bit of training, and personal experience, with cultural understanding, cultural sensitivity, and inter-cultural experiences. Yet living it like this, fully immersed, is a much more intensive experience than one can imagine. With my most recent reading of the Adjustment handbook, I was drawn to this passage, written by a PCV in Guinea Bissau:

“Most of us agree that although we knew Peace Corps was going to be hard, it is often hard in a different way than we expected. We all worried about adjusting to the bugs and the heat, but that’s the easy part. It’s more of a challenge to get used to dealing with a perplexing bureaucracy, the lack of motivation in some host country counterparts, the lack of technology and education, and cultural barriers.”

It is true for me, too, that the things I expected to be hard were often the easiest to adjust to. I was terrified of the outhouse, but it ain’t so bad after all. I was nervous about living with a host family, after many years of living alone, but that’s turned out to be the single best part of my life here. I was hung up on being a 30-something in a group of 20-somethings, worried that my place in the PCV group would be like my job at the University – taking care of college-age kids. I’m glad to say they’ve accepted me as a peer, and I’m pleased that I’ve been able to accept them as peers, as well. And it’s OK with me now that I may sometimes fulfill the role of an advisor in their lives; I’m good at it and I like to help people, and it makes me feel good that they trust me and are comfortable talking about their issues with me.

Many of my entries here have been dedicated to the Unexpecteds, the little daily things that have consumed my time and energy. There are other unexpecteds, too. I didn’t expect I would actually get used to NOT knowing what’s going on in the world. I sure didn’t expect I’d ever get used to checking email only once a week. I didn’t expect it would be so hard to see Alyona leave. I didn’t expect it would so hard to say good-bye to other PCVs when we leave an IST and go back to our sites, not knowing when we’ll see each other again. And I didn’t expect I would feel so conspicuous, so different, so un-relaxed, all the time.

It is wearing to live in the “fishbowl” world of a PCV. I think it is especially disconcerting for a white American, who has always lived with the privilege of being white, part of the majority, part of the “norm” (whatever that means) of American society. It’s strange to feel like I stick out here, in a much more homogeneous society than the United States is, in a village without a single person of color, in a nation that is 99% white. Yet I am different here, I stick out like a sore thumb. I’m the bumbling fool who doesn’t know how to buy her bus ticket, who didn’t understand what the shop clerk said to her, who just asked “With whom is that soup made?” instead of “With what?”, who somehow just by the way she walks down the street exudes “I am different.” Some days you just don’t want to be stared at, to be asked a million questions, to be “on display.”

My other favorite bookmarked page in the Adjustment handbook reads:

“Someone once said that if an applicant wanted to know what it is like to be in the Peace Corps, he/she should put on rabbit ears and a bunny tail, stand at a busy intersection in downtown Chicago, walk up to people and say ‘I’m here to help you.’”

Only you should say it in Pig Latin.

It was good to be reminded that the people I live and work with, meet every day on the street and in the shops, are not the weird ones – I’m the weird one here! Cultural adjustment is, in large part, about making appropriate predictions, having appropriate expectations. In your native culture, you generally know what to expect from people in various situations, without even thinking about it. When the elevator doors close and the man next to you sits down on the floor, you instinctually know that this is unusual, this is not normal. The problem is, though, that in the lack of understanding of a new culture, you continue to apply your own expectations in these new situations. Why don’t Moldovans pitch a fit when the electricity is shut off for the 7th time in two weeks? Because they just don’t, that’s why. And they are thinking, what the heck is she getting so worked up for because the post office opens and inspects every package she gets? And why is she getting so many packages anyway? Because I just do, that’s why. Both responses are intimately entwined in our cultural training, and it’s really hard to understand and explain it to each other.

Another common thing we PCVs do to ourselves is that we think life ought to be hard, maybe it even ought to be harder than it is. It’s a guilty pleasure for me that my host family installed a water toilet and a shower. I love it, I savor it, and I’ve only told a couple other PCVs. Many of us have some little “perk” that we think belittles our “roughing it experience” – the one with satellite TV at home, the one with a cable internet connection at work, the one with hot running water, the one with a bus to Chisinau every hour. Sometimes I think we make it harder for ourselves, too, in that quest to be the toughest. For awhile, there was a little competition about who could use the least water for their bucket bath. I dropped out of that one pretty quick. Many PCVs think the Minimalist Experience is requisite to having the Peace Corps Experience.

I started to realize that I’ve been making it harder for myself by not admitting that I need a break. I feel guilty by the notion of taking a vacation. I feel like I’m hardly working, why the hell would I need a vacation? Then you add the layer of feeling like the privileged wealthy American in the midst of the working poor. I have to admit to myself that I’m embarrassed to tell my host family, my host country friends and colleagues, that I will go on a trip they couldn’t even begin to afford, and here I am doing it when I don’t even have an income! Peace Corps provides us with ample stipends, you might even say generous, compared to the average income of Moldovans. (No, PC won’t be paying for my vacation, I was lucky enough to be able to put a little money aside before I left to support my personal travel expenses.) But when I try to look at myself through the eyes of my Moldovan neighbors, what do I see? A person who: always has enough money; pays her host family (per PC formula) more in room & board than they receive in salary; has spent a lot on phone calls; gets packages in the mail that the postage alone is sometimes more than a Moldovan’s salary (not to mention the cost of the contents); and has already traveled to more places than any Moldovan can imagine. I feel like I walk around with dollar signs tattooed on my forehead, even though I hardly spend a dime in the village outside of what I pay my host family. My life, compared to the average Moldovans, is not hard. So why do I need a break?

Re-reading “A Few Minor Adjustments” helped me remember that it is OK that I sometimes feel like my life is hard. Sometimes I do need a break, sometimes I want to be someplace familiar, or just someplace different from here. I can love it here, but still need a break, and that’s OK. It’s not just a guilty pleasure to take a vacation, it’s a necessity. I knew this back in the U.S., knew that it was healthy and important to take time off from work and do something different so you can come back energized and refreshed. In Peace Corps, when living here is and of itself your job, it’s hard to realize and accept that you need a break from the rabbit ears and bunny tail. It’s hard to admit to myself that, yes, even though I’ve wanted to do this for many years, I need a break from it after just 6 months. I didn’t expect that.

Spring is here

Spring is finally starting to peak out from the winter blahs; warm sunny days, bulbs starting to sprout from the ground, and every Moldovan spending every possible minute in the garden. The main activity seems to be pruning the grapevines. As I walk through the village, I can hear the steady “snip snip” of scissors behind nearly every garden wall. Baby animals are being born, the most exciting of which were the 14 piglets born to one pig last weekend. They are darn cute, I’ve got to admit.

The last couple of weeks have been very busy. We had the second of three Language In-Service Trainings all this week in Chisinau. It was intense, but worthwhile. And it’s always intense to be back together with our whole group. Lots to people to see and talk to, and lots to hear about. Our third Language IST will be in mid-May, when we will also be tested again for proficiency. We have the option to be tested after one year and at the close of service, as well, should a PCV have an interest or need for the ACTFL rating documentation.

This is also the time when many people are getting ready for vacations. A few PCVs left after IST for a trip to Greece. Another left for Romania. Others took the opportunity of a few days in Chisinau to finalize plans and purchase tickets for trips in April and May. Egypt is a popular destination for many PCVs, as is Turkey. I will be traveling to Kiev, Ukraine, in April.

I applied for a volunteer teacher position with an organization called American Councils, which actually is the same organization I did my study abroad through in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1992. In addition to sending Americans to study in Russia, they also send high school kids from former Soviet republics for year-long study abroad in the U.S. The program is called Future Leaders Exchange Program (FLEX). Each summer, there are two 4-day orientations for the high schoolers, and they hire Americans to teach cross-cultural stuff. I don’t know about the other countries, but here in Moldova they like to hire PCVs, since we’ve got a pretty good idea about the Moldovan-American differences! 🙂

So, I applied and was selected. The curriculum is pretty set, but it’s a live-in program and we’ll also be responsible for evening activities as well as daytime lessons. I’ll be paired with a “teaching assistant,” who is an alumnus of FLEX, who’s now a college student, which means there is some mentoring involved, too, of the teaching assistant. This work will be right up my alley, given my experience at The Ohio State University. I’m pretty excited about it.

There is a 4-day Training of Teachers in Kiev in April. I’ve worked it out to stay an extra 5 days with friends there, so I’ve got my first vacation planned, and I don’t have to pay for the visa ($100!!!), round-trip travel, or any lodging! My kind of vacation!! 🙂 I’ve even asked if it’s possible for me to pay the difference and get a multi-entry visa instead of a one-time visa, and they said it shouldn’t be a problem. This would be really cool, as I live just 8 km from Ukraine, and would love to be able to travel to Ukraine more easily.

I’ll be back in Tvarditsa tonight, with English Club tomorrow, and then a fresh week of who knows what? More adventures, I’m sure.

6 month anniversay

I’ve been in Moldova six months. What have I learned? What have I accomplished? What have I contributed?

I’ve learned a lot. In fact, this week I learned a Moldovan phrase that provides a lot of insight into the culture, I think. In the U.S., we say “measure twice and cut once.” In Moldova, they say “measure 7 times and cut once.” When I reflect on the culture from this perspective, I have a whole new interpretation and understanding of so many of my encounters here. There really is no “throwing caution to the wind” here, no “giving it a whirl” or snap-decisions. I’ve watched my host family make some big decisions in these past months, and considering the long, drawn-out process it has been every time, I understand it completely differently now.

For example, they recently sold three of their pigs, and with the income bought a washing machine. Now this is a big purchase no matter where you are, and here it’s a heck of a lot of money. The calls went on for weeks, with their son Sasha in Chisinau getting facts and figures on every possible brand and variety of washing machine. I would see the notes next to the telephone several nights a week – how many watts of energy it used, how much water, what capacity load, size and dimensions of the washing machine, and, of course, prices. After weeks of this, they settled on a really nice Samsung front-load washing machine, which was on sale for International Women’s Day (the holiday sale is, in my opinion, one of the best aspects of the market economy!). This kind of process, including extensive research and comparison, is conducted for almost every purchase. At the market, most Moldovans go from vendor to vendor comparing quality and price, whether it’s apples, onions, dishes, umbrellas, soap or shoes. There’s not a lot of “impulse” shopping here!

But the notion to “measure 7 times and cut once” goes beyond just monetary decisions. It’s part of the culture to be cautious, careful, and slow to act, pervasive at home and at work. As I said, learning this phrase has given me new understanding, and I think will help me have more patience in my daily interactions at work and in my community.

What have I accomplished? 6 months isn’t much time to have accomplished much, but then again, Peace Corps did tell us to be happy with small accomplishments. I’m able to communicate reasonably well in Russian, I’ve learned my way around a few towns and cities, plus I’ve learned my “way around” in general within the Moldovan culture and systems. In other words, I’m getting the hang of things. I’ve learned a lot about the NGO sector in Moldova, and about the international aid organizations providing support and assistance here. I’ve started to get to know a group of really great young people in my village, via the English Club. I’ve made some wonderful friends.

What have I contributed? I think my contributions are more qualitative than quantitative, so far. I know I was put by “fate”, or whatever you want to call it, to live with 2 specific host families because they needed me as much as I needed them. I’ve been able to help Alyona during this time of huge change for her. I know that meeting me, seeing how I changed my life, helped her realize that she could change her’s too. In Tvarditsa, there were difficult times that my presence helped eased. Anna, especially, needed a daughter-friend at this time in her life, and I know I was brought to her house to help her. My presence, my needs, gave her a much needed change of focus from the loss of her grandson (his mother, Anna’s daughter-in-law, moved away with him last September after a bad breakup with Anna’s older son).

I could leave Moldova tomorrow or in two years, and knowing that I made a difference in the lives of these two amazing, strong, and wonderful women will be a contribution I am very proud of.

Friday, March 4

The last two weeks were an adventure, but what else is new?

As I’ve mentioned before, I’d scheduled a seminar with La Strada, an international organization focusing on Human Trafficking, for Saturday, February 26. It was on-again, off-again for most of the preceeding week. When I first talked to the La Strada folks about a month ago, they said we’d talk after February 20 to set the time and confirm the location/venue. I called them on Tuesday last week, cutting it severely close, in my opinion, but they seemed unfazed. They did not ask directions, didn’t check if there was more than one school in the village, nothing. Just said they’d be there at 10 am. OK, I thought, I’m not going to worry about it if they aren’t.

So I turned my attention to confirming the room in the school and to making sure someone would be there to open the building, get out the TV and VCR for us, etc. It turned out that the School Director and Anya, the teacher who was my contact for the event, were both in Chisinau at a seminar – for THREE WEEKS! The Assistant Director was home sick, as were a significant number of other teachers and students (the flu has been going around the village epidemically). No one else was empowered to make any decisions, nor did anyone else have access to the Director’s office to get the TV/VCR out. Wednesday morning I was sure we would have to cancel the seminar. My host mom, bless her heart, gets even more worked up than me when she knows I’m upset or frustrated about something, so she set herself to the task of making sure this thing would happen. Thursday morning she told me to “Go to the school right now! The Assistant Director is there, waiting for you. Hurry!” I rushed over, met with Ludmila Ivanovna, and she agreed to come in Saturday morning to open up the rooms for me. Whew! Another teacher helped me type up an announcement, and by Thursday afternoon we had flyers posted at both schools, the Music College and the Primaria. Would anyone come with just 2 days notice? That seemed about the right amount of lead-time as I’ve seen for other events, so I figured we’d get some folks.

La Strada was sending 2 volunteers, one to meet with parents/adults and one to meet with school kids. They had asked for 2 TVs and VCRs to show the film to each group, but the school only has one TV & VCR, so my La Strada contact then suggested they could show the film to one group on a computer, as they also have the film on CD. Turns out the computers at the school are pretty old and don’t have CD drives. Well, I decided the Moldovans would have to do the accommodating this time, so I quit worrying about it.

Friday morning I went to Taraclia to meet Emily. She came back with me for the weekend, as she was interested in the La Strada seminar, too. When we got back to Tvarditsa, we popped in the Primaria, where I had a message from Maria Danilovna, the Vice Mayor, saying that we had to cancel the seminar on Saturday. I called her on her cell phone, in a near panic and down right pissed, thinking, first of all, who the heck is she to tell me we have to cancel the seminar, and second, what an awful position she was putting me in at 4:00 pm on a Friday afternoon. She told me Saturday was going to be a “working day” and thus school would be in session and no rooms would be free for the seminar. I told her point-blank that I wasn’t calling La Strada and canceling now, that she could call them if she wanted but that, in my opinion, it was too late to cancel. She pushed it back on me, saying she wouldn’t be back to the office until after 5 pm (when it would be conveniently too late for her to call them herself). I was furious, but another kind soul took pity on my, namely my host mom’s office mate, Nadia. She called Ludmila Ivanovna, school assistant director, who calmly informed us that they were NOT having school tomorrow, too many teachers and students were sick and it would be pointless. (I later learned the reason for the working day: Tuesday, March 8 is International Women’s Day, a huge holiday here, and the government decided to give everyone Monday, March 7 off so they could have a 4-day weekend; but the day had to be “made up” by working on Saturday, February 26. A pseudo-free day.)

Quick interjection: from the Primaria, Emily and I walked to the small branch office of the phone company as Anna had asked me to pick up the itemized phone bill (they don’t automatically include an itemized listing of long distance calls in the monthly phone bill, and Anna and Georghi finally got a friend at the phone company to print up a listing that we can pick up every month so I know how much of the bill is mine). Emily and I walked to the little office, which is full of the craziest looking phone equipment you’ve ever seen. It’s really like those things in old TV shows and movies – panels and panels of wires and cords connected in some confusing melee. I always think of Lily Tomlin’s phone operator skits when I’m in there. As we opened the door, a worker extends a telephone and says it’s for me! I was dumbfounded, in fact was too surprised to say anything for a few seconds. When I took the phone and it was my tutor, Anya. She’d called the Primaria looking for me, they told her I was going to the phone company, so she called there for me. Such is life in a small village! You can be found absolutely anywhere.

So, back to our original seminar plans. Saturday morning we got up early, and around 8:30 I get a call from Anya, my contact at the school who’d been in Chisinau all week. She was calling to let me know that everything was set for the seminar today; she didn’t want me to worry or think she’d forgotten about it. Gee, thanks. 90 minutes before the thing is supposed to start, and you’re calling me now so I won’t worry? Anyway, she said she’d meet us at the school at 10:00 to open the rooms and set up the TV/VCR.

We left the house about 9:30 and walked out into a totally yucky day – cold dreary rain. No one’s coming out in this weather, I thought to myself. Then my cell phone rings and it’s La Strada. They are running late, the roads are really bad (“Duh,” I thought. “They’re bad everywhere in Moldova.”) But we have confirmation that someone is coming from La Strada! They are on the way!

At the school, one girl is already waiting. We hang out in the hallway for a few minutes, which stretch into 10 minutes, then 20, then 30. At 10:30, Anya shows up with the keys and lets us into the room. Kids start to trickle in. At 11, the La Strada volunteer arrives. But only one; turns out the other person who was supposed to come got sick and couldn’t make it. No problem, I tell her. We have enough people for one seminar and only one TV & VCR, so it’s perfect! By then, we had about 17 kids (boys and girls) and 4 parents (including one father!).

The seminar was really good. The La Strada volunteer, Ina, facilitated a great, hour-long discussion with the kids, and later told me that she was impressed by how well informed they were. We then watched the film “Lilia 4-Ever,” which is just as difficult to watch the third time as it was the first. Ina told me later that she was also impressed by how well behaved the kids, especially the boys, were while watching. Although there is no nudity, there are scenes when it’s clear that men having sex with Lilia, and Ina said boys, especially, are prone to getting the giggles while watching. Our kids were serious, subdued and attentive.

So, seemingly against all odds, I pulled off My First Event as a Peace Corps Volunteer! I’m really glad we did it, the feedback has been very positive.

The weekend only continued to get more interesting, though. During Soviet times, February 23 was celebrated as something akin to Army Day, which I jokingly refer to as “Men’s Day,” since all men served in the military. Although the Moldovan military is honored in an autumn holiday, “traditionalist” still celebrate the February date. One traditional way to acknowledge the day is with sport competitions for the school boys. Tvarditsa hosted a competition on Sunday, February 27, with teams coming in from 2 neighboring villages. It was interesting, to say the least.

When we got the Sport Hall (aka gymnasium), the balcony was already filled with high schoolers chanting and cheering for their village team. Emily and I watched with intense fascination as equipment was set up for the first event. What do you get when you put together wooden hurdles, Kalashnikov rifles, and a bunch of teenage boys in a crowded gym? A unique competition, that’s for sure. Emily and I entertained ourselves with musings on exactly what we were going to witness. Turned out that the first event involved the boys jumping over the hurdles and racing to the rifles, which they had to disassemble and reassemble, then run back to the other end of the gym. This was repeated by the 10 members of each team. For the second event, they had to scramble under the hurdles, and one boy would empty a gun clip of all the bullets and then run back; the next boy would scramble under the hurdles and have to put all the bullets back into the clip. The third event involved shooting BB’s at targets. The fourth event was basketball – each boy had three shots to make a free throw basket. The day wrapped up with a tug-of-war. Tvarditsa swept the games and were declared the Victors this year – yeah!

The weather turned terrible during the sport competition, and I wasn’t sure if we’d get any kids at the English Club meeting, so I was delighted 3 “regulars” waiting for us at 2:00. I had prepared a variety of materials, not knowing who would show up, but all three on Sunday were older kids, so we talked about the short biography I had given them to read at the last meeting. They were very impressed to read about Januarius MacGahan (1844-1878), a journalist from Ohio who wrote about the horrors and oppression of the Ottoman Empire in Bulgaria, and brought the Bulgarian people’s plight to the attention of Europeans, and his writings helped gain support for Russia in the Russo-Turkish War. In his day, Bulgarians called MacGahan their “savior” and “The Liberator of Bulgaria.” There is a statue to him in his hometown of New Lexington, in southeastern Ohio.
How cool to find such a connection between the kids’ “homeland” and mine!

I had also prepared some material about the Season For Non-Violence, an international campaign, begun in 1998, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s death and the 50th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s death. The Season spans the 64 days between the dates of their deaths, Gandhi’s on January 30 and King’s on April 4. Previous PCV’s put together a wonderful packet of materials and information for us to use at our sites, and this year the coordinators organized a Poster Contest throughout Moldova, in which youth were invited to submit original art on the theme of non-violence. One girl from Tvarditsa, Galina Yemets, submitted a stunning poster that has garnered much attention. The PCV coordinators divided the posters into 3 sets, and those sets are “traveling” around the country as mini-exhibitions that can be displayed in local communities. We have a set in Tvarditsa now, which includes Galina’s poster, and I’ll pick up another set next time I’m in Chisinau.

The Season For Non-Violence manual includes a word/thought for each of the 64 days of the campaign. Emily and I had prepared index cards with some of the words and phrases, to generate discussion with the English Club. I think I’ll do that a few more times, as the kids seem to enjoy it. The manual includes some short stories and parables, which I’ll use during some of our upcoming meetings. I’ve given Russian-language copies of the manual to both schools, and some teachers have expressed interest in incorporating some of the material into their lessons. I also adapted the introduction to the manual into a short article for our village newspaper. Next year I’ll be prepared earlier to do something more during the SFNV, but at least we’ve got the notion introduced to the village this year!

In other news, I’ll visit Alyona one last time next week. She and Anya were approved for visas to England as dependents of her new husband. Alyona leaves on Saturday, March 12, to start her new life. Anya will finish the school year, graduate in June, and join them probably in July. It’s an incredible opportunity for the both of them; I’m so very thrilled for them. It will be bittersweet next week, though. I will miss them both immensely. Alyona and I have had many conversations about the parallels in our lives – too many sad years in unhappy marriages, struggling to finally end the relationships, finding freedom and happiness again, the miracle of a second chance, starting our lives over. Only I came to Moldova to start over, and she is leaving for her new beginning. I am so glad that our journeys crossed for these few months.

And now I have friends who live in London! They can count on me to visit.