My friend, Suzanne, arrived in Pepeni Saturday morning to assist me with my American culture club. She has something similar in her school and I was really happy and excited to have her help and meet my kids. I had six girls show up at school on a Saturday to meet with us. That's impressive and I should probably be more flattered than I am. They really want to learn about where I'm from and how our countries are similar and different. So yesterday I discussed with them US census research from 2000. Census information about how many people live in each state, what percentage speak a language other than English at home, percentage of ethnicities and religions in America, average income, average housing costs, percentage of people living in poverty (nearly a quarter of Americans living in New York City live below poverty), etc. It was extremely interesting for me to learn more about our diversity and the kids had no previous information about the stuff we discussed. The students thought that the first Americans were white Europeans and had learned a lot of other common misinformation. When discussing salaries Moldovans usually know that the average $30-40,000 salary is significantly higher than salaries in Moldova (for example, a Moldovan nurse might earn $1-2,000 per year)... but people usually don't realize that the average cost of a home is $100,000. The cost of living is extremely high in many cities. We also talked about race and religion and it was interesting to educate the students about how Peace Corps volunteers are not good representations of what Americans really are. We represent the 25% of Americans who have college degrees and nearly the full majority of us in Moldova are white and what I would presume to be middle-class.

After club we invited three of the 7th grade girls to my casa mica for tea. They were thrilled to hang out with us and it was really cool to hang out with them and answer more of their questions in a relaxed environment. They told me that the other health volunteer never had them over to her house as guests. It's hard for me to know the line of what's considered appropriate interaction with my students outside of class, but I think I'm allowed more room to be weird because I'm foreign. I hope I can be some sort of mentor to them. They're so eager to learn and want so badly the kinds of opportunities for education and travel that kids anywhere would. One of the girls, Marina, called me later that day to thank me again for having them over and wants to start doing "sport" with me on Sundays. So maybe we could start frisbee games or something every Sunday. She called again today to say goodbye to Suzanne and that she hopes to see her again. Marina is about 12yrs old. From the way I understood it, her little sister is about 7yrs old and I think Marina is her primary caretaker. Her parents both work in Moscow so she lives alone with her sister with "supervision" from her grandmother who lives in a house next door. Children become adults fast.
After the girls left Suzanne and I made soup for my family. It is currently the time that most Orthodox fast from animal products (will last through the Russian Orthodox Christmas on January 7th) so I tried to make something they could eat. Fara butter, egg, etc. Suzanne took new photos of my family and village so I hope to have them to post soon.

This morning I invited both Valentina and Viorica to my house for breakfast and to meet Suzanne. I was incredibly nervous about preparing any food for them because the role of Moldovan women in the kitchen is ... important. I was mainly just wanting to do anything to impress Viorica because my first host mother told her and others at my school that I don't know how to cook de loc. One bit. If it were true I wouldn't have been angry because in my culture if I can't prepare food it doesn't make me less of a woman. But, because I had cooked meals from scratch in front of her so it was a lie meant to insult me. Suzanne told me I was being too Moldovan about the whole thing because I was obsessing about everything being perfect in the house. I cooked apple sauce with cinnamin bananas, apples, and dried plums... oatmeal, coffee, tea, and peanut butter on toast. I remembered to offer and serve refills of everything and I'm proud of my performance. It was really simple, but I think Viorica was impressed because she kept making comments about how surprised she was at how I manage my house. I put my femei Moldovean reputation to the test and I hope Viorica will think I'm a woman now. Or at least on my way to the full transformation that will take place on that glorious day when I am, in final, a blushing bride.
Over breakfast we discussed the stigma or stigmat of having special needs. Persons with special needs living in Moldova face much discrimination. Most of the discrimination stems from the government not having the money to invest in programs that encourage the integration of students with special needs into mainstream classrooms. In our neighboring village there is a school for children with special needs: physical or mental. Families do not like sending their children to this school because of the stimat that will be place on their child and the family. The school sounds to be like a boarding school as the students live there. I want to visit sometime soon. Valentina said it is about a 30min walk from my house in centru. (I live in the center of Pepeni.) If possible it would be cool to find volunteer opportunities at this school. It's far too early to say, I'm playing with the idea of volunteering there and finding ways to get students from our school involved in going there with me. I'm not sure if any of this would even be possible. The idea of volunteerism here is new and not fully understood. O sa vedem. We will see.
We also discussed how Valentina's husband recently applied for a two week training program with USAID. Those selected to participate will be flown to Washington DC to learn about grant writing and other ways to be active in their communities. Eighty Moldovans applied and twenty will be selected. I helped Pavel, Val's husband, edit his recommendation letters this past week. Everything had to be translated into English. This would be an amazing opportunity for him and for the people in Pepeni. He finds out the results in January. There are massive problems with corruption so we hope that the selection process will be fair. It's extremely difficult for a Moldovan to obtain permission to travel to the US (and western parts of Europe). It wasn't completely clar for me, but I think if Pavel is selected he will have greater opportunity for an open visa for work in the United States.
My house is in disarray so I might break the rules of Sunday rest and wash my dishes. I like cleaning and listening to the Christmas cd with love from dad :).
Favorite tracks:
Santa Baby...Eartha Kitt
Please Come Home For Christmas...Charles Brown
Happy Xmas...John Lennon