Coolest thing to happen in my life this week: when leaving a shop across from my house today I saw a rutiera (one of those minivan-ish buses) approach our bus stop and it had a sign for CHIŞINĂU in the window… this means there are now TWO buses that go to Chisinau twice per day now. This winter there was only one bus that left Pepeni at 7am (getting me there at 9am) for Chisinau and returned at 12:30pm… so I was never able to make just day trips to Chisinau… I could catch later buses back to Pepeni, but those buses would drop me off a few miles from my village and then I had to hitch hike with people driving into Pepeni. Not always the most fun or safe experiences so I’ve pretty much sworn that practice off. Although I did have a positive experience last time I hitch hiked all the way to Chisinau… I accidentally left my phone in the car and the guy driving called up my friend Suzanne and she got in touch with me at PC office so I could meet him and get my phone back. I was shocked they went through the trouble to try to track me down when they’re from Chisinau and I didn’t even know their names…they could have just kept it and sold it. There are good people everywhere. Anyway, so this second rutiera means now I can go to Chisinau for just a 5 hour day…for a SHOWER, lunch with a friend, meeting, groceries… Oh my GOD the possibilities. Staying there for overnight trips was fine as two of my closest volunteer friends live only 45 minutes by hourly buses to/from Chis (and I’m always welcome to sleep at their house so I don’t have to get a hotel), but this makes it SO nice when I just want and/or need to be gone for a few hours and not two days. Wow, had no idea that could brighten my day so much, but it did. The little things.
It’s been a rough week. We were told joining PC that as volunteers we would have the best days of our lives, and the worst. That sounds about right. Although to be honest/specific, my happiest days have been when I was back at home in the states. The most rewarding or fulfilling will probably be here, though. I think that’s to be expected in many cases. I’ve learned that sometimes you can be proud or pleased with what you’re doing even when you’re feeling down.
This week I’ve been teaching my classes with 5th and 6th graders by myself. Unfortunately, Viorica has been in the hospital with internal bleeding. I think she’s been feeling really bad since her miscarriage. I feel bad because she keeps apologizing to me for being sick… or for having to miss class to be in the raion center (court) about the food that was stolen from her house. Things just happen and they’re not your fault. I do have to admit that I miss her in class because the kids go crazy when she’s not there… although I’ve learned good methods for keeping it relatively quiet that don’t involved hitting them across the head: keeping a list of kids who act up and telling them the list will go to the school director (basically like the god of all principals). Our school’s director does pull ears (saw him do it at the onion fields last fall when kids goofed off instead of working) and he might be a hitter as well (haven’t seen it) so I don’t actually give the lists over. I just use it to keep the class on track. Not sure if it’s a healthy threat, but it works well. There are still, unfortunately, those kids who refuse to do anything during class. I ask them to write or do the assignment and they yell at me that they don’t wanna… or they spend the class period hitting other kids and creating other problems. The life of a teacher… Although I don’t blame the kids for most of what they do because so many of them come from really bad homes and just don’t know better. That’s really been something that gets me through many days of work or life where I’m living. I don’t ever want to look down upon people, but I do have to be realistic about how the upbringing and education of many people I interact with and how that might affect their behavior. Many people just don’t know better than the way they behave and you have to let it go.
In that same vein, Viorica hasn’t exactly been on my good side…. I might have told you about the threats and hair-pulling that went on during our anti-violence lecture… but we’re still trucking along somehow. Even when she doesn’t respect me or my views, she at least holds a lot of respect for Peace Corps and my bosses. We have mutual understanding that I’m fully capable of arranging meetings with these bosses to openly discuss with them our problems if needed. I will not tolerate violence in our classroom and never want to see that happen again. I feel traumatized from the things I’ve seen go on in classrooms at my school and can only imagine how this must affect the kids. During one of the anti-violence lectures we had cartoon sketches of different types of violence that the 6th graders—12 year olds—were to analyze. What sort of violence is being depicted (physical, emotional, sexual, etc.) and what should the kid in that situation do? In one picture a kid was being beaten by a big man with a belt. Many of the kids said that the child depicted should apologize to the man for what they did to provoke the violence so that it won’t happen again. That made me pretty sad. In one class the kids said that they couldn’t calmly tell teachers or adults to not abuse them (yelling or hitting) because they’ll just be laughed at. I know at least for many of the teachers laughing at the kids would be the case and it makes me wonder how I can work towards helping to change this. So much of what goes on infuriates me. I used one of the Romanian teacher’s classrooms the other day to teach while Viorica was with me, and the teacher had a hitting stick she left on her desk. Viorica laughed about it and pointed it out to me in front of the kids. I told her I wanted to take it and she told me it was so-and-so’s personal property and that I shouldn’t touch it so I broke the stick over my leg and stuck it in my bag. Everyone was kind of like “damn” after I did that so I wasn’t sure if that was the best way for me to get my point across in front of the kids. What’s done is done, right? The teacher of conversation is sort of an intimidating woman. She’s the lady who was beating kids with a sunflower stem last summer at the onion fields. I would welcome conversation with her if she would like to know where her stick went. She has probably already found a replacement.
Home life has also been interesting. I feel very thankful to the family that took me in last year, though we’ve kind of hit some rocky patches in our relationship as of late. During the winter months of October thru March, PC pays the families for heating, whether that be gas or wood. Pepeni does not yet have access to gas, so everyone heats their homes with wood or coal. Last October when I moved into my family’s home they bought our wood for the winter. The wood that they bought they have stored behind the house and it has not yet been used. We have been using the dry wood that I would assume they had left over from the previous winter. During the month of October I was sleeping in an unheated bedroom in their casa mare (big house where they sleep) and not using any of the wood I had started paying for that month. I moved into the casa mica (small house) in November and began using wood maybe making a fire once per day, twice per day if I was home the whole day and if it was very cold. In December I was gone for 2 weeks in Germany yet paid the full amount for wood because I didn’t want to seem like I’m trying to be cheap with them because they have been generous to me. So now the end of March is approaching and we’re out of dry wood and only have green wood left. If you’ve ever built a fire you know that green wood doesn’t really burn. I’ve felt restricted on the amount of wood I could use this winter because they would ration the amount I could use out to me each time I took a fire and often it was cold in my house. Like, cold. Just to take a bit more control of my comfort, I told them I would like to buy my wood separately next winter and my host mother got angry with me and my PC program manager who was with me while we discussed this. She told me that if I were to use too much wood she would tell me and that it’s not necessary for me to buy mine separately. However, I’ve seen that’s definitely what I have to do if I stay here another winter. Although it’s technically spring, it snowed here yesterday. I spoke with my host mother about the wood again yesterday and brought up the month and a half that I hadn’t used fire wood and asked politely if I could continue using more wood in April if necessary since I didn’t use any heating for a month and a half of payment. My host grandmother yelled at me and told me to go ahead and good luck getting the wood to burn because it’s green. They also told me again that I shouldn’t think they have been using my wood (I never actually told them I thought that) and they told me I have already used all of the wood I paid for. They also told me they don’t have any space at their house for me to store the wood I want to buy for next winter. So that went awesomely and I was feeling wonderful after what I wanted to be a mature, casual discussion about my heating. Viorica asked me how much I spent on wood this past winter when she found out PC wasn’t “paying” for heating in April. I usually don’t trust people with any personal information about money, but when I told her how much I paid the family for wood she said that’s a fortune. That’s what my other friends’ host families have also been telling me. Some of my friends have really lucked out in Moldova with great host families. It does make quite the difference in your life. When I asked Viorica for suggestions about where to store my wood she asked why I couldn’t keep it at my family’s home. When I told her they said there isn’t space, she said “No, Melissa. They have space, they just don’t want you to use it. You were paying them more than what is necessary for wood and they’re angry that they’re not going to make money off of you next winter. They should have shame.” Well, whatever the case, I spoke with people in the village today who sell wood and hopefully should have something resolved within the next week. I’ll probably get them to build a shed for me somewhere or just pay to have some of the wood stored at their supply store. Everyone in my village—a few thousand people—know everything about each other (REALLY) and the family you as a volunteer live with can either choose to look out for you, stand up for you when people talk about you (because they WILL no matter what you do) and help you with language, daily living, emotional support… Or, they can try to hurt you and your reputation by spreading rumors about your personal habits, using extreme aggression when talking to you, and consistently asking you for more money. The latter basically describes my month with the first host family in Pepeni. Looking back now I’m honestly surprised I didn’t quit Peace Corps. I had my bags packed. With whatever gripes I might have about where I’m living now, it’s basically a 180 from the first home I lived in. My host brother and sister are both really nice to me, especially. My host brother who is 15 loves me so it's nice to have one person in the family who's always super polite to me. I think my new host mom gossips to people that I only bathe with distilled water (which isn’t true and makes me sound ridiculous), but we're all just people. And these are pretty tame, gentle people and whenever I say hi to them they greet me back and most always speak at a normal volume. I do however wish there was a better way for PC to find potential host families… because there is a MAJOR flaw in the system.
So, Moldova has their big election in April and I’ve heard it’s going to be cheaper to buy wood—or at least a better idea because no one knows what’s going to happen after the election—before the election takes place. I’m very curious to see if the communist party will be reelected and what might happen if they are not… how they might affect their relationship with Russia. My nurse partner tried to give me one of the communist party posters that the hospital received because it has a beautiful young woman smiling in the forefront. “Just cut off the ‘vote communist’ at the bottom—because they’re bad—and you have the poster of a beautiful girl… Isn’t she beautiful? Don’t you want this on your wall?” As much as I would love to have a poster of a beautiful woman wearing the communist anchor on her shirt, I left it at the hospital and found it posted on the front door the following week with another copy inside the waiting room. So either the doctors are communist, because the head nurse apparently isn’t, or they just wanted everyone to see the picture of the beautiful girl.