I Am A Walking Pile of Contradictions

Oye! So many emotions these days. In so many ways, I’m ready to leave Moldova and start the next chapter in my life, and yet I also want to stay. A couple weeks ago, I went to a meeting to plan for this PST summer. I felt so pulled; I wanted to help because I enjoy that, but I also want to have time this summer to enjoy my last month here. I just feel like I’m just one big oxymoron.

I’ve actually realized that I have been a walking pile of contradictions my whole time here. I’ve had to remain strong to get through this difficult service, yet I was fragile. I often cried over something silly, and then later broke out into laughter over something else. So frequently I feel alone, yet there is still this feeling that I need more alone time. I’ve become really self-conscience about my actions, but okay with making a fool of myself.

Finding someone who understands you can be hard. Most PCVs feel similar, but everything (background, knowledge, degrees, experiences, etc.) differs so much between each of us that sometimes how we feel is different as well. Not to mention how different our experiences at site can be.

Learning how to deal with myself has been one of the most difficult things during my service.

COS Conference

I just returned from my COS (Close of Service) conference: a sign that my time in Moldova is also through, which fills me with a mixture of happiness and excitement as well as sadness.

Acutally, I feel like I’ve been a Debby Downer lately. I think it is partly because I’m questioning my value here, and I’m wondering if how I want to help is actually the help my partners want. For example, I’ve been working on developing English resources for two years. And this year, I’ve organized a room to keep all the new resources I’ve gathered and made as a place where the English teachers can continue to share things since they don’t collaborate much. But when I talked to my partners, they are talking about divvying up all the materials, those defeating my collaboration idea. I guess a part of me knew this was the reality all along, but it still upsetting hearing that my goal with the room won’t be fulfilled.

When I realized my goal is not the same as my partner, I began to think about why I was here and why I joined Peace Corps. My primary reason was because I want spread God’s Word though my actions. I’ve always felt the most powerful way to show God’s Love is by leading a loving life yourself by spreading love and peace to others. So I’ve always wanted to show my love by helping those in need. And being a young, single woman, why not help those in need around the world.

Although I joined PC this spread peace and love, I never imagined the enormous effect it would have on me. Peace Corps has tested me in ways I could have never imagined. And with each test, I think I come out a little better of a person. With all the ways PC has helped me become a better person, I can’t help but wonder who is Peace Corps really helping: the host country or the Peace Corps volunteers?

I Choose Happiness

I feel like I’ve been kind of whiney lately. I want you to know that I am happy here. Despite the difficulties and oppositions I face, I like my job. And although there are numerous things I would change (if you couldn’t tell from the last couple entries), there no other place I would rather be right now.

But with the difficulties of this job, I can sometimes forget to be happy. I’ve recently heard the phrase that “you choose to be happy”, so I’m trying to make sure I’m happy. And I have plenty to be happy about. But sometimes it’s easy to think about what you don’t have and what else you want instead of what you already have.

I know that’s what I have a problem with here; I always want more. I want more passion or more dedication or more resources. But I wouldn’t be needed here if they had those things. So as it turns out, teaching my partners how to be thrifty with what is available is not only helping them, but helping me as well for it is teaching me to make the most of what you have. Be happy with what you have; there lies true happiness.

I also have a problem with comparing myself to other volunteers. If you ever join PC, the biggest piece of advice I could give you is don’t compare yourself with other volunteers. Each volunteer’s work is relative to the abilities of the village. Every time I hear a success story, I can’t help but think “Why can’t I do that?” I also had decided to focus my work on dedicating my time to building resources rather working on obtaining grant money to purchase things, which limits a lot what I can do as volunteer.

I tend to create this “Super Volunteer” in my head. I hear success story from one volunteer and then a different one from another. In my mind, I add them all together and feel like everyone else is Super Volunteer doing everything.

Well, Super Volunteer does not exist, and I must remind myself of that every once in awhile. But that doesn’t mean I can’t try my hardest and be happy with and I can achieve.

Serenity Prayer

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, 

The courage to change the things I can, 

And wisdom to know the difference. 

I’ve always loved that prayer, and it never rang so true until I had this job. Everyday, I have to tell myself “You can’t do everything”, and everyday I try to prove this statement wrong. But I’m must face facts and be okay with not being able to fix everything.

It’s a real challenge picking what I can change and what I can’t. It’s like saying what do I care more about, or picking which problems are fixable as opposed to lost causes. It’s not always an easy decision. And finding the serenity to accept I can’t change certain things is difficult.

When PC first told me about my assignment, they told me that it was very likely I would see corporal punishment in the classrooms. Luckily, I haven’t seen that. But what is seen as acceptable for how people talk to each other is hard for me to handle. It’s acceptable for people to call each other stupid or yell at them to shut up; this goes for teacher-to-students as well as peer-to-peer. Anger is more often expressed. On numerous occasions, I’ve seen students cry and no one does anything about it.

There are also problems with way the education is valued (or not valued). Moreover, all the other problems I’ve mentioned before.

I end up putting a lot of energy into trying to inspire change with certain things without ever seeing a result. It’s very tiring. And although I know I must accept I can’t change everything, sometimes I wonder if it’s okay if I never stop trying to change certain things that may be impossible for me to change.

Why Is Peace Corps So Difficult?

There is a reason Peace Corps advertises that this job is “the toughest job you’ll ever love”; this job is incredibly difficult. But sometimes I wonder what makes it so hard. Of course I miss my friends and family back home, but not to the extent of tainting this experience. And I miss several luxuries I had back home, but I have indoor plumbing that works most of the time, the public transportation in my village is easy, and I have good quality clothes for the winter weather. So what’s the hardest part of this job?

To me, the part that makes this job so difficult is that I’m working to inspire change within a foreign system that is somewhat restraining. I have to work with poorly designed textbooks that we must teach by and we can’t stray to far from. And I try to work with it. I can see that the textbooks are poor, but complaining about them won’t make positive change. Instead, I work with my partners to make the best of the situation.

Teachers here don’t have previous pedagogy training that is current. So I work with them to include new pedagogy and teaching methods in their lessons. Additionally, I hope to inspire them to enjoy teaching with these up-to-date teaching techniques.

There’s also corruption in the system. Nepotism is often overlooked, despite the evidence of poor performance. Moreover, many college professors allow students to pay for their grades. It’s difficult to teach the value of honest and not cheating when this is allowed later in life.

Furthermore, I’m not causing direct change. When you have money to donate, you can see the products bought with said money right away. When you volunteer to build a school, you see the physical structure. But I work to inspire change. I work to teach my partners how to be better teachers, and that’s not something I can see right away.

So it’s that leap of faith that makes this so hard; hoping and trusting that the work I’ve done is a positive change that remains once I’ve gone.

Year One Versus Year Two

There are so many differences between the challenges during my first year and my second year in Peace Corps.

The first year was trail and error (many, many errors), and the second year I understood better how things worked. My first year was learning how things worked and where things were, while I knew my way around my second year. My first year was working until 8 or 9 o’clock every night making materials and resources for lessons. My second year is working on gathering available resources to organize them for my partners, of which I’m able to finish during the school day. During my first year, I kept saying “yes” to everything, resulting in me being a little overwhelmed with my responsibilities. So by my second year, I had learned how to say “no”, and now I have free time.

Although my second year has been a lot easier in many ways, there are still several things that had difficult to my last year here. The biggest challenge I face this year as opposed to last is that I have more internal battles about my work here. I often question the value of my work. Now when I take on a project, I ask myself several questions before trying to complete it:

1. Will my partners benefit from this? 
2. Will anyone actually help me? 
3. Will this be something that they will actually continue to use once I’m gone? 
4. Can I finish this before I leave? 
5. Will anyone care that I did this? 

So the first year was more of a challenge of accomplishment while the second year is a challenge with my apathy. May I maintain the necessary strength to get me through the last 4½ months.

Sometimes You Need To Do Things For Yourself

If you are PCV, you have heard the word “sustainability” all too often. And although PC may overuse the word, I do actually think about the sustainability in everything I try to do here. It helps me decide what I want to take on and what I will and won’t do.

So as a rule of thumb, I aim to focus more on improving my partner teachers’ teaching skills more than my students’ education. My reasoning is that if I were to focus on the students, I would only influence the students I work with for these two years. But if I improve my partner teachers’ teaching skills, they will go on to continue to help students once I leave and provide good teaching techniques to future generations. So I’ll indirectly help students long after I’m gone.

Since I love teaching, sometimes this is difficult for my mentality. So I’ve decided to make an exception to my sustainability rule and work in small groups with some struggling students. As a result, I’m working less with my partner teacher during the lesson, and I’m creating resources on my own instead of teaching my partners how to make them. But I think I need this. I need a time when I can teach in my style without worrying about teaching my partners, when I get to enjoy teaching.

I really wish I’d thought of this earlier in my service because I’m loving it. I get to create my own lesson plan my way. I get to teach without worrying about my partner. And I get to get to know some of my students better. Plus, since I’m working with struggling students separately, I’m creating my own little curriculum. So I’m not restricted by the textbooks. And bonus, my Romanian is getting better.

Yep, I’m Still In Moldova

It’s been 20 months working and living in Moldova, and I feel pretty accustom to daily life here. In fact, that’s why I don’t have as many blog entries anymore. So you would think that most things wouldn’t surprise me much anymore, yet I still get caught off guard with some things.

On Monday, one of my partner teachers told a student to leave the lesson to go make copies since she hadn’t made them yet. This involved the student leaving the school to go to a place that makes copies. The student had to go multiple shops, and the student missed the whole lesson.

And in another class, we were giving a test. I caught a student cheating and marked that he would receive a lower grade because of it, which is something my partner and I have been doing all year. And he just left the classroom. As far as I can tell, he won’t be making up the test either.

And then today, I was talking to another one of my partners about how I could participate more in the lessons. In the classroom with this partner, I’ve been included less and less in the lessons slowly through out the year. At this point, I was pretty much just sitting there doing nothing the whole lesson. So I wanted to come up with a way to help out and participate more, and I suggested that I work with the students struggling with English in small groups or individually. My partner replied that she would love my help and that she hadn’t asked for my help before because she didn’t want to disturb me during the lesson. I guess that why I’m not always involved in the lesson. I don’t think she completely understands my purpose in working with her.

It’s experiences like this that make me miss America and American school systems. I miss valuing education, both from the teachers and students. I miss higher expectations in schools. I miss the expectation for working hard, from all members of the school community. And while America is far from perfect, I’m starting to get excited to get back to working in the familiarity of American schools.

Special Education

Working in a foreign school system is difficult; I think that goes without saying. But one of the hardest things for me to deal with is the lack of recognition of students with special needs. People are different, and everywhere you go, people work differently. Classrooms everywhere are multilevel; you cannot escape that, no matter where you are. And Moldova is no exception. Just like in the States, there are a number of students with special needs. The unfortunate difference is that “special needs” is not as well recognized, and therefore, not accommodated for. Being a teacher who studied and worked in the USA, this is incredibly difficult for me to work with.

The most common need I see is students with AD/HD. So just to give you a quick background on my beliefs on students with AD/HD, I believe that AD/HD is a diagnosis that needs to be recognized and accommodated for. However, I believe that too many parents and teachers are using a diagnostic of AD/HD as a cop-out, thinking they just give their child Ritalin as a “fix” to the problem. Many cases only need teaching rather than treatment. With the right discipline and expectations, the child can learn (without medication) how to deal with AD/HD. However, that is not to say that I think all AD/HD diagnoses can be approached as such. There are many cases where a child needs a little bit more than the right teachings. But in many cases, I think the student just needs the right teacher.

The Moldavan school system does not work in a way that diagnoses students with specials needs. Additionally, the teachers do not receive training on how to work with students with special needs. And there aren’t special education teachers in the schools.

With an understanding of my philosophy and the Moldavan school system, you might be able to understand my personal dilemma. While I have several students who might be diagnosed with AD/HD, there is a student in my 5th form who clearly has AD/HD, possibly extreme enough to need medication (which says a lot coming from me).

Since I value teaching over treatment, I want to provide this student with the right kind of accommodations. But without all his other teachers helping and accommodating, I wonder how effective I can be. Furthermore, there is the need of sustainability from the work I do. So I have this internal battle: do I give him the time and attention he requires and hope my teacher learns from my example (which, so far, has not proven true in other situations, unfortunately), or should I focus on teaching my partners how to work with AD/HD and deny him some of the help he would get if I personally worked with him?

I don’t know the perfect answer to this, which is often the response I have to the dilemmas I have working in a foreign school system. I wish that answers to my problems could be more black and white. It would make this job so much easier. But if that were true, I guess they couldn’t advertise the Peace Corps as “the hardest job you’ll ever love”.

Survival Instinct

Getting through some days here is a monumental task. Working within a foreign school system provides daily challenges. Constantly coming across the same problems over and over again without any change is overwhelming. Performing what were once trivial daily tasks (in America) now require my full concentration to complete. My mistakes are often seen as jokes, and many Moldovans accredit them to my misfortune of being American. Add in my poor Romanian and no Russian knowledge, you’ve got a very stressed out Maggie.

For example, yesterday I went downstairs to make myself a snack, and my host dad was in the kitchen. As I was trying to put some food together, Roman started talking to me about something. I eventually understood that the topic was about cleaning the kitchen. He was either telling me that I should vacuum or that I shouldn’t vacuum; I couldn’t tell. Every time I thought I understood and said “okay”, Roman would just shout “no okay”, slap his hand to his head, and yell at me for not understanding him. At least I think he was yelling about me not understanding him; I don’t know what he was saying. And all I wanted was a snack. Some days, right?

Anyways, today I was listening to a podcast about Stockholm Syndrome, and the hosts were talking about how those who are kidnapped develop this psychological disorder as a survival instinct to this stressful situation. And this got me thinking about what new thoughts or ideas have I started thinking as a result of my mentally strenuous experience.

Obviously, comparing my situation to someone who has been kidnapped is quite melodramatic. I know that I can’t even begin to put myself in the same category as those so unfortunate as to be kidnapped. I am not here against my will, and I have all my necessities and more. But sometimes hearing about extreme situations makes me think about my tiny problems.

So my survival instinct. For my first year here, I think the main thing to help me deal with my daily stresses was apathy. It took me a while to realize how much apathy I had developed since I had been here, seeing as it was building slowly. But I realized that not caring was helping me get through my difficulties.

My first months working in my school were incredibly difficult, and it was all I could do to not pull all my hair out. I joined PC to help those in need and inspire positive change by dedicating my time, knowledge, and skills; however, I could barely get my partners to listen to me or think of me as a creditable source. So I started by telling myself to not let it bother me. I would then tell myself that when other things didn’t go the way I hoped, and it eventually grew from “not bothering me” to me not caring.

I don’t know if apathy is the right or wrong way to deal with this, but I do know that apathy is not my way. I’m very passionate, and I love caring about things. I happy to say that it’s my passions that have gotten me to where I am today. So when I realized that I was using apathy as a coping mechanism, I was heart-broken. I couldn’t believe I had changed so drastically, and not in a direction I liked. So I made a decision that I had to rid myself of this apathy.

Nowadays, when things don’t go my way, I try not to let it bother me and think about how to improve things for next time. Or sometimes I think about whether or not this requires reflection. Maybe this is something I can’t change, so I need to focus on other tasks.

I also use the small and infrequent successes I have to get from one day to the next. These little successes are what help me get going sometimes, and they are what inspire me to keeping working. And most importantly, they remind me why I joined the PC, something I think all volunteers need to constantly remind themselves to stay strong.

My successes are usually really small, and they don’t come around too often. Sometimes, the most recent success that I use as motivation was from two months ago. It’s not much, but I believe using successes is a better survival mechanism than apathy.

“All evil needs to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

–Edmund Burke

Sometimes It’s Hard To Work With Moldovan Priorities

I had mentioned how my school has given the English department a classroom to use, which will also be a place where I can work during and after school. And this past week, the priority of the English teachers was to prepare the room. When I first saw the room, I thought I would be able to have some freedom with setting up the room in a functional way so that resources are stored well and in a logical order. And since I would be the one working in there, I thought I would get to plan the basic set up of the classroom. I was looking forward to having a classroom to arrange and decorate with my partners.

However, things weren’t going as I thought (as with most things here), nor are they going so smoothly. My partners all have their own opinions about how the room should be put together, but many of their ideas collide with one another. And many times, they turn to me to take their side. This is the whole reason why I want my focus this year to be getting my partner teachers to work together. They don’t understand how to work together without just letting one person have her way.

Furthermore, I haven’t been able to express what I want with the room. My goal was for the room to have a library-like set-up: lots of bookshelves with resources and some tables to work at. Plus I was hoping to decorate it with lots of posters teaching English grammar and vocabulary. However, my partners are not showing any interest in my opinion. When they ask my opinion, they just want me to support their idea.

Since this is the English department’s room, not just mine, and my partners will (hopefully) continue to use it once I leave, I am trying to be compromising. But right now, it feels like I’m the only one not getting heard. I was hoping to have a room that reflected all of us. And so far, all the opinions I have expressed haven’t been honored.

Even though the opinions of my partners are clashing, the one thing they all agree upon is that the priority of the classroom right now is beauty. When I first started talking to my partners about what I wanted to do, I was talking about how to have bookshelves for materials, a place for the posters, etc. But they wanted to talk about what color the curtains should be. In fact, as I sit here writing this, one of my partner teachers sent two students to clean the plants.

I’m trying to be understanding since part of the reason they’re working on the appearance is because the director wants to show the room to some officials who are coming tomorrow. But it’s really hard to be understanding when I can’t express my opinion of how to efficiently store resources in the room. I keep telling myself that this is a room for them so I need to let them set up how they would like. But many Moldovans have poor organizational skills, and I was hoping to help with this room organization.

I just have to let it go sometimes. But the room is starting to lose some of its functionality because beauty keeps being prioritized. This makes me wonder what the purpose of this room is; to develop and store resources for the English department or to impress others with a pretty room. Sometimes it is very difficult for me to work with Moldovan priorities, and I often feel like I'm working against them. I am hoping that once tomorrow has passed, I can slowly start to change the room to be more functional while keeping up the beauty Moldovans value.

Mugged Sorta

Well, I can now join the rank of Peace Corps volunteers who have been mugged. And the funny thing is that I was just talking to another volunteer this weekend about how I feel safe here. Theft is actually the predominant kind of crime against volunteers. Last year, there were 11 incidents reported. I guess I’m another number now.

After a fun-filled weekend in Chișinău, while I was waiting for my bus back to Criuleni, I was standing at a table by a kiosk near my bus stop eating a chicken wrap and drinking my Fanta. I noticed there was a man squatting a couple feet away from me watching me, but I ignored him because lots of Moldovans stare awkwardly at me and make me feel uncomfortable. After a couple minutes, he stood up and came really close to me. Some of the women working at the kiosk started yelling at him to go away. And as I took a drink of my Fanta, he tried to steal it from my hand! I started putting up a fight trying to keep my treasured soda, but soon realized that this Fanta obviously meant more to him than me and let him have it.

While I was standing there trying to understand what just happened to me, one of the women working at the kiosk came out and chased the man down to get the drink. At first, I was touched by her kindness. But as she was walking back to the kiosk, the other woman had to tell her that it was my soda. So obviously, she had only gone to all the effort to get the soda because she thought the man had stolen it from the kiosk. As she handed me my herpes-infested soda bottle, I thanked her and tried to continue to eat in peace, NOT drinking my Fanta of course.

My whole bus ride home I could barely contain my laughter as I was thinking about what just happened to me. Somehow I’m not surprised that I’m the PCV that got her Fanta stolen, even though I was carrying my iPod and a load of money in my bag. I should probably reported this right away so as others will not suffer such a traumatic ordeal as I have. So travelers be warned: if you decided to travel to Moldova, don’t worry about your purses and wallets; just be sure you guard your Fantas!

No More Movies

On Friday, while trying to clean up my computer, my external hard drive, which has all my movies and TV shows, stopped working. I tried fixing it on my own, which didn’t work. So I turned to the internet to find my answer. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the answer, so I asked for help in a couple of forums. Waiting for a reply was awful, so I distracted myself by keeping myself busy in my room away from my computer for the next couple of hours. Once I finally started to get some replies, it seemed like I wouldn’t be able to fix it. It was very frustrating.

So I made a conscious decision to spend all day Saturday not working on trying to fix my hard drive. I needed to step away from the problem. Once I stopped thinking about my hard drive, I had a rather pleasant day, and I realized how much I had been watching my movies over the last year. It was what I would automatically do when I was bored.

TV and movies have never been a big part of my life. When I was in school, we had the rule “no TV on weeknights”, so I clearly had other things I would do instead of watching TV when I was growing up. But once I was in college, I started watching TV and movies more and more. And I guess it has started to get to the point that this is what I automatically do when I get bored. It’s been particularly bad since I’ve joined the Peace Corps.

So I came up with list of things to do when bored. I wanted to think of better ways to spend my free time. And I needed to be realistic to the fact I might not be able to watch movies as frequently if I can’t fix my hard drive.

Luckily on Sunday, I found a way to fix it. It was quite a relief. Even though I have my movies and TV shows back, I want to remember all the other ways I can spend my free time. Hopefully, I’ll remember how much I enjoyed my free day without watching movies and therefore turn to more engaging actives to fill my free time.

The Smells Of Moldova

One thing I remember getting used to last year was the different smells. And to be quite honest, I’m still not completely used to a lot of them. The most common smell is the smell of smoke. Usually, it’s the smell of trash burning since there isn’t always a trash collector. And in the autumn, the air seems to always be filled with the smell of burning leaves.

I’ve mentioned the smell of viceos before, which is like the smell from a million porta potties crammed into one outhouse. I don’t think this is too difficult to understand.

And then there is the body odor. Moldovans don’t tend to shower everyday because many can’t. For the families that have water that comes into the house, the pipes often freeze in the winter, so they go months without running water. Many must get their water from the wells, and therefore take bucket baths. And in the summer, with all the manual labor, there is a lot of smelliness. Getting used to the smell of body odor is very difficult and something I’m still not completely used to.

Public Transportation

As I had mentioned before, this summer I am working a lot with the new EE volunteers. The new volunteers are being trained in the same places we were trained last year: in villages outside Chișinău. So this summer, I have been traveling a lot back and forth between Criuleni and Chișinău. Therefore, I have to use the public transportation much more. So let me explain about the public transportation here.

Public transportation is a much-needed service in Moldova. Most Moldovan don’t own a car, even in the very rural places. So for many, this is the only way to get around.

The main type of vehicle used for public transportation is called a rutiera. A rutiera is about the size of a 15-person van, but the seat arrangement is much different. There are usually four-five rows with two seats on the right and one seat on the left and a full row at the back that seats five people.

In addition to the rutieras, some villages and towns have autobuses. I am lucky enough to have both autobuses and rutieras that travel between Criuleni and Chișinău. Every 45 minutes, an autobus leaves from Criuleni or Chișinău for the other, and a rutiera leaves 20 minutes after the bus. It’s nice to have such frequent rides; it makes traveling to and from Chișinău very easy. However, many volunteers live in place that only have one bus or rutiera leaving per day. And other volunteers live in such rural villages that there are no rutiera leaving from there, so they have to hitchhike to the nearest village with public transportation that will take them to Chișinău.

Riding the public transportation is no picnic. Rutieras are often very crowded. The seats are very close to each other, leaving little space for your legs. And the width is small as well, making the allowed space very tight. Additionally, once all the seats are filled, the rutiera continues to pick up passengers, who then have to stand. It can get very crowded very quickly. It is not unusual for the rutieras to be so crowded that when you stand, you do not need to hold a handle to keep you from falling. This is not pleasant in the hot and humid summers. Autobuses are a bit more spacious, but they can still be crowded depending on the hour to the day.

Neither the rutieras nor busses have AC. And many Moldovans believe that the current (the wind created when opening the window of a moving car) is unhealthy, therefore most rides are done with closed windows. So in the hot and humid summers, riding in an overcrowded rutieras or buses with all closed-windows is quite unpleasant. I am very careful about which side of the bus to sit on so that the sun isn’t hitting me most of the time of the trip.

The quality of the driving is quite scary. The drivers take curves very quickly, especially considering most of their passengers are standing. And the stops are often quick and jerky.  Riding them in the winter is even worse because the driving doesn’t change much even though there may be snow and ice on the ground.

And respect of one’s personal space isn’t taken into account on the rides. You cannot have a personal bubble on a rutiera or bus in Moldova. And if you do, you will be crying the whole trip due to others violating it. Here are some things that have happened to me on my rides. A boy was consistently sticking his butt in my face while he was leaning over to kiss his girlfriend. The passenger sitting behind me laying his hands on my headrest in a way that caused me lean forward the whole trip so as not to get slapped in the head with his hands. A passenger putting a half empty bottle of beer on the shelf above me without putting the cap on it, resulting in the beer spilling all over me. And these are just a few incidents.

So traveling via public transportation is no cup of tea, but it is all we have. And luckily, it is relatively inexpensive. I suppose things could be worse.

End of the Year

So the end of the school year is here. This is the last week of school. May 31 is the last day of classes. There are state exams for some grades, so those classes with continue to work with teachers to prepare for exams. However, this doesn’t affect me. I am done with lessons on May 31.

The end of the year is crazy; students are slightly apathetic and ready for school to be over, which is not too different than in schools in America. However, the biggest difference I noticed is the teachers don’t attempt to have any kind of lesson. For example, during the past two weeks, in my 10th form, my partner and I haven’t taught or reviewed anything. All we have done is allowed the students to get additional marks by speaking in English. Sometimes my partner will try to have a conversation with a student and give him/her a mark based on that. But most of the time, the students just recite a paragraph in English that they have memorized. Not really an accurate way to measure one’s knowledge of English.

All of my partners have been using lesson time during the last week as a way to get their grades done. They will assign the students a task, such as read the text or answer the questions, and then they will work on averaging the grades while the students “work”. While I don’t have a huge problem with assigning the students work so the teacher can work (mind you, I don’t really like this idea, but there are bigger issues I choose to help improve), my partners don’t hold the students accountable for the task. So basically, it’s just busy work.

Additionally, the students have now turned in their textbooks to their homeroom teachers. And since most of my partners plan by doing activities straight from the textbooks, lessons are pretty empty because my partners aren’t sure what to do without them. I’m trying to plan English activities and games for my students so the time in class is not completely wasted. However, it’s difficult to get time with my partners to plan together because they are so busy with the end of the school year. And since the whole point of PCVs working with partners is to create sustainable differences in the classroom, planning the activities alone seems in vain.

Furthermore, it’s difficult to keep the students’ attention. The students seem to like the activities, but most of them have checked out. They know their teachers aren’t holding them accountable for the information, so they really don’t try much.

In fact, I don’t think much is being done about attendance at this point either. I have noticed attendance is a problem all year around; the students just skip classes when they feel like it very frequently. However, today was a new situation. My first lesson only had about half the students present. And my last lesson today only had 3 students, one of which left after the first 10 minutes of class.

I’d hate to admit this, but I can’t help but wonder why we continue to have lessons if the students aren’t present (whether physically or mentally) and the teachers aren’t using lesson time to teach.

Middle School Again

Have you ever looked back 10 years and thought, “Man, I was such a kid then!” Well, that’s how I feel looking back 11 months ago, when I first arrived here (yep, that’s right kiddos; I have been in Moldova for 11 months!). I think I have gone through more changes in the last 11 months than I did in middle school.

In fact, I constantly feel like a middle school girl again. Before coming to Moldova, I had grown into a person with confidence and self-awareness. I knew that I was far from perfect, and while I wanted to work on improving my faults, I was comfortable with who I was. I was okay with not being perfect. But more importantly, I knew myself and I liked myself. But since I’ve been here, I often don’t feel like myself or I don’t know myself. Seeing as I’m 25 years old and I once felt like I knew who I was, this is a very disconcerting feeling.

Like a middle schooler, I am consistently self-conscious. With every decision I make, I am worried about what people think about me. I guess this makes sense given that I’m in a different culture with different practices and beliefs, and I need to be aware of how my actions are perceived by others. It’s just a little upsetting being an adult and feeling so extremely self-conscious, as opposed to self-aware.

My emotions are all out of whack. I am numb to things that should be upsetting me. But then I’m overwhelmed with emotions caused by a tiny, insignificant thing. Logic is no longer helping me control my emotions. I think this is due to the fact that I had to change my coping methods being in a country away from my home.

Also, I’m questioning my many of my beliefs. Some of them I am making stronger and some of them I am changing. Plus I’m forming new beliefs. And oddly enough, I’m learning about right and wrong again. I’m questioning why things are the way they are, what fairness really is, how I can make the best of it, etc.

I do try to constantly challenge my beliefs because I am always searching for the right one. This is something I have tried to do all my life. But in middle school, that is when I formed so many of my beliefs or built the foundations of my beliefs. And though some have changed, I still believe a bulk of my beliefs that were formed during middle school. And that is how I now feel about the Peace Corps.

I think the best word to describe myself since I’ve been here is awkward. I don’t do things the same way as Moldovans, and they often look at me strangely. I’m starting to not feel embarrassment anymore because I’m embarrassed so frequently. Oye.

So this can be overwhelming sometimes, and I have a difficult time dealing with it. But I’m really looking forward to coming out of this. Middle school was one of the most defining stages in my life; it made me who I am. And since Peace Corps is causing me to go through similar transformations, I can only imagine how much this will define me when I’m finished. I can’t wait to see who I am at the end of my service.

Big Baby

Unfortunately, I have been getting sick a lot lately. At first, I thought it might be allergies since it all started about when spring weather was arriving. However, it has become clear that is not it.

Some of it isn’t really new; since I’ve been in Moldova, my stomach hasn’t felt normal. I definitely don’t get a balanced diet here, many foods aren’t cooked properly, and basic sanitary practices are not followed here. These factors added together result in my stomach never feeling great. I can’t remember the last time my stomach wasn’t bothering me.

The thing is that I got sick in America, too. But somehow, being sick in Moldova is so much worse. My sicknesses aren’t necessarily worse, except for the whole stomach thing; the act of being sick in Moldova is not preferable. I guess being sick any place isn’t preferable. But I’m noticing that I react to “small” illnesses more extremely. For example, if I had a headache when I was working in America, I would drink some water and carry on with my day. But when I get a headache here, I go home as soon as possible, bury my head in my pillow, and try to shut the world out. I guess being away from home and being sick is too much for me. Or I’m just turning into a big baby.

Pardon? Did You Just Offer Me My Dream Job?

Today I had my second lesson with my adult class, and so far, I’m really liking it. It is a lot of work making up lessons without a book to follow, but it’s so nice to teach a class how I want. And while I’m sure my lessons are far from perfect, it’s nice to feel like I’m making them the best that I can. It’s not like I’m not trying my best in school; it’s just very different working with partners. Most teachers don’t go into the teaching profession because they like to let go of control.

Anyway, at the end of the lesson, one of the adults asked me if I could also teach English to some children. She said it would be about 5 or so children, ages 7-11. It took all of my energy to not hurl myself onto her with a giant hug. I could barely contain my excitement at the prospect of teaching elementary kids seeing as this is something I have wanted to do for a really long time.

But the most difficult thing was remembering how busy I already am and legitimately thinking I don’t have enough time (for the planning, not the actually lesson). Do you know how hard it is to say “no” to a dream opportunity? It’s so hard that I actually didn’t say no. I told them I would try it for a week and see how it goes. I’m pretty sure I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure I can keep this. I’m not sure how I will balance everything, but I think having something like this on my plate will add a great deal of sanity to this absent-minded volunteer.

Woes of a Whiny Volunteer

When I started thinking about joining the Peace Corps, I did a lot of research. I talked to many people who had been volunteers, and I read many, many memoirs about volunteers’ experiences. However, whenever I was reading someone’s account of his or her experience, I had to remember that each person’s experience could be vastly different than another’s. Pieces of advice depended greatly on your job and location. Someone’s difficulties in Africa could be the exact opposite problem for someone in South America. However, after reading and hearing many different experiences, there were two things that seemed to be the common problems for most volunteers: loneliness and boredom. Therefore, I tried to prepare myself for these very likely future difficulties.

Loneliness is very easy to understand and quickly experienced. Everyday, I am surround by people of a different culture, which, in some ways, is pretty exciting. But when the stress of this difficult job in a different culture is getting to me, the fact that I’m the only American in a 20 kilometer radius feeling this way makes me feel even lonelier. Not to mention all the cultural and language barriers floating out there. Additionally, I don’t have social life. A lot of my work is done after school hours: planning, making material, typing everything, laminating everything (i.e. using packaging tape), etc. When I was in America, I was active in many activities after work hours. That is not true here. And pretty much any activity I do after work hours could technically be categorized as work. And I miss my family and friends back home, obviously. Anyways, being 5,000 miles away from the people I love the most and the only American in a town with a job that requires me working in my room after school hours and allows no social life results in loneliness.

Boredom, however, is not something that can apply to my situation. Many PCV experiences that I had read talked about having nothing to do when they leave work, and how their “office” cancels work a lot, so they have a lot of time to fill. In my situation, I think it would be more accurate to describe my feeling as restlessness. I feel like I am always working. When I finish my day at school, I come home to the pile of work I need to prepare for school the next day. Most night, I’m not done until 8 or 9 o’clock. I keep waiting for that day when I’m going to get faster at this. But as I start to get faster, I find a way to make something better, which takes more time, and therefore, I’m still working the same length of time. And while I feel like all the work is necessary and well worth (although sometimes I have to remind myself that fact), it can be very difficult working all the time. I’m used to being a busy and active person, but usually my time is filled with multiple things. I had activities I did outside of work, plus (what is now a foreign concept) a social life. Having my all my time filled with one thing is a new concept for me, and I’m not sure I like it very much. Sometimes, I’m so tired that I wish I had never heard so many accounts of PCV needing to find things to fill their free time. It sounds like a luxury I would appreciate.

I mentioned that I’m going to start teaching an adult English class and continue a youth English club. Both of these things seem like the perfect kind of thing I would like. They will be something I enjoy doing, and they will give me a break from my schoolwork. But I must confess, I’m worried about adding one more thing to my full days. Even though I think it will help my mentality, it will not help my constant feeling of restlessness. But I’m hoping that my feeling of restlessness will change to a feeling of vivacity and accomplishment. Here goes it!