Holiday Spirit

So the holiday season is starting to make me miss home. When Thanksgiving rolled around, no one celebrates it here, so there wasn’t a constant reminder that I’m not home for Thanksgiving. So Thanksgiving came and went without causing me too much homesickness. 

But Christmas is a different story. Christmas here is celebrated on Old Christmas, January 7. And so far, it’s not nearly as commercial as it is in USA. I only started seeing Christmas decorations for sell about two weeks ago, and I only started seeing decorations put up last weekend. The nice thing about this is that I wasn’t being reminded that it’s Christmas time since October. But now that the decorations are starting to be displayed, it does make me miss home. However, Moldova once again aims to make me happy. Wednesday was Roman’s 60th birthday, so we had a celebration. We had dinner at the only restaurant in my village with lots of my host family’s friends. We ate, we drank, we talk, we danced. It was a lot of fun. Plus, I got a picture of my host parents. It’s not the picture I was hoping for, but I think it captures them perfectly: Roman causing trouble and Parascovia scolding him. I love this picture of them.

My host family: sitting are my host mom, Parascovia, and my host dad, Roman.  My host brother standing; he lives in Spain and he was visiting for Roman's birthday.

Additionally, there was a school Christmas concert this week. Last weekend, some eighth grade girls asked me to sing with them in school concert. I said that I would, and we sang “Jingle Bell Rock” together on Thursday. The girls were very impressed that I had the words memorized by our second rehearsal, but I reminded them that I have been singing along with this song since I was a child. 

The school concert was various musical performances by the students. Many singers, some dancing, and a pair of students played instruments. Now, I have song in choirs and preformed many times, but I have never felt like a rock star until this performance. When we were introduced, and the MCs mentioned that I would be singing with the students, the school cheered very loudly. Many students pulled out their cameras to record the performance, and the entire audience was clapping the whole time. I don’t know if our performance deserved this praise, but it sure felt nice.

Me with my partner teacher, Svetlana, and the four girls who sang "Jingle Bell Rock" with me. Notice the silly American wearing her coat because she can't handle the Moldovan winter.

And then tonight, my host mom prepared a mini Christmas Eve celebration. She put together a dinner, and it was nice to sit together in honor of Christmas. The cool thing, too, was that the dinner kind of reminded me of traditional Christmas Eve dinner with my family. Christmas this year is not the same by any means, but different is not all bad. I miss my family, friends, and home, but I’m looking forward to learning about Christmas celebration here in Moldova.

The Way You Look Tonight

Today, I met one of the seventh grade classes I might teach this year. And for the first time, after I introduced myself and opened the floor for questions, the students actually asked me questions. They wanted to know about my family and Richmond, where else I have traveled, why I was in Moldova, my favorite sport, etc. It was nice to feel like the students were interested. And I was able to answer some of the questions in Romanian.

The boys thought it was cool that I liked American football, and they wanted me to teach them how to play after school today. Unfortunately, we don’t have a football right now. Then, one of the girls mentioned that she likes to sing. And this somehow led to another student asking me to sing a traditional American song. I was not ready for this, and I couldn’t think of a traditional song on the spot. The only song I could think of that I knew enough lyrics was Frank Sinatra’s “The Way You Look Tonight”, so that what they got. I’ll have to think of a song in case they want to hear more.

I think I’m going to like this class. The students just made me smile. And it was nice to find out something they are interested in learning about: American football and American music. I have to come up with an idea for some project to do outside of school. Maybe I can incorporate these interests somehow…a flag football game with a performance of Yankee Doodle at half time?