I had a meeting with my program manager this week and we identified projects that might be cool to do with my school or medical center. One thing that I need to work more on at the school is connecting with the parents/families of my students. I haven’t done a very good job of that this year and would like to see if I could start involving them more next school year. Most schools in Moldova do not have parental involvement or activities/meetings for parents, so this is a good thing to do. Even just a meeting with parents to explain the material their kids will be learning in our health class would be a start. It will be interesting to see how many parents show up to this sort of meeting. I’m also hoping that I can add classes to teach with the other school nurse, Ecaterina. The more partner involvement in teaching these health classes the better...It’s very good training for the school nurses to learn how to teach and present info.
I found out this past semester that the village next to Pepeni has a school for students with special needs. The kids live and learn there. I found brochures on autism and a play (both things translated into Romanian) about tolerance and acceptance of those with special needs. I would like the girls in the health club to read the brochures and this skit during one of our next meetings and I would like to find out who might be interested in going with me to the neighboring school to volunteer. I would like to find out exactly where this school is, visit, and find out what sort of stuff we could do there with the kids. I’ve been told that Moldovan schools for those with special needs do not differentiate between people with physical or mental disabilities. At least in my village (and from what I’ve heard from other volunteers, in their villages as well), there is a large stigma for those who have any sort of special needs… so it would be a very useful project to start on. There are also students within my school that can’t read or have other problems doing their work. The 7th grade girls in my club would make great mentors or homework buddies if I find that they have interest in this idea, too. The word “volunteer” is not really understood or defined in Moldova, so this would be a great way to teach people what it means to be a volunteer and all of the things a volunteer can do. Most people still don’t believe that I’m technically not making a salary for working as a PC volunteer. The word volunteer was only really used in Moldova during the last war when men “volunteered” to be in the military. So the word volunteer makes many people think of military service.
My program manager had another cool suggestion about having the students volunteer to help the elderly in Pepeni. I’m not sure how this would be received or the projects they could do (maybe help with house cleanup or running errands for elderly), but I’ll run this by Valentina to see what she thinks.
Work at the med center is going decently. We’ve done “presentations” (I’m putting this in quotes because it’s not something too impressive, but it’s a start…) about the importance of staying hydrated, TB, and we’ve started work on a presentation about hypertension/heart disease. We “presented” the information about TB to patients a couple of weeks ago and will present water this week to patients and the heart disease information to the doctors and nurses before it will be presented the patients the following week. I was feeling like our progress wasn’t that impressive, but my friend Megan—who lives in the raion center with the larger hospital by my village—ran into my nurse partner at their hospital this past week and my nurse partner was bragging like crazy about the stuff that we’ve done. Megan said she acted like she was really proud of our work so that’s always a good start. I hope these presentations can become more interactive with our audience. I am really proud of what my nurse partner and one of the other nurses have learned on the computer… they didn’t know how to turn a computer on and off and now they use it by themselves to make tables of information on Word and other documents. That’s really neat. I’d like to teach them how to type, too.
Home life, as you might be curious, has taken an unexpected turn over the past month. The situation with heating for my house grew into a larger conflict with my host family and after multiple meetings with all of the PC staff I’ve decided to move homes again. This was not an easy decision, but my program manager, PC doctor and I believe this is the best solution. The PC doctor and I have decided that I need to live in my own house. Therefore I am looking for a house in my village that I can rent from owners who are not living there anymore. I have already found a home I would like to live in and the PC doctor and security officer will visit the home within the next couple of weeks to make sure that it is safe and meets their list of criteria (secure locks/doors/windows, location, absence of mold etc., close water source). The house is across the street from my partner, Valentina and located almost directly behind the mayor’s office and the police station. The family who owns the home work and live in Italy. The daughter of the couple who own the house works and lives in Chisinau and I met with her and her fiancé today when they showed me around the house. I really hope that this move happens and happens smoothly, because I believe that this house is the best situation I could possibly have in my village. The house is surrounded by a large fence and the gardens are well kept by an elderly man who has a wife working at my school. He takes care of the flowers and grows fruit and vegetables for the daughter in Chisinau. They have a dog tied up in the backyard so I’m assuming he feeds the dog, too. He comes regularly to work in the garden and I got to meet him today, too. It is very good that the house is being watched by someone for the family. PC does not like volunteers living by themselves to be in homes that are left completely alone. I also really like that the house is surrounded by a real gate. The home is rather new looking and well kept. There is a casa mica and a casa mare and I will be given keys to both houses to use. The kitchen has a freezer, refrigerator, stove and other furniture. The large house is fully furnished (beds, cabinets, dresser, tv, phones, tables, etc.) and both houses have sobas. The casa mare has a really nice bathroom with bathtub/shower with a hot water boiler (and a toilet!!), but unfortunately the water in Pepeni is still not flowing, and I doubt it will be for a long time. I’ve heard that costs in the five digits of dollars to fix this water problem… so a PC grant could not even begin to touch that project. A well, however, is located within the family’s fenced in property so I will have my own well which is what I have right now, anyway. The groundskeeper said that the soba in the casa mica does not heat well, so I might be sleeping in the casa mare during the winter if we can not have this fixed. I have the space heater that PC gave me and will be allowed to use it next winter as I will be paying the energy bills myself, without paying through a family. Anyway, I’m very very excited about this move… whether it is to this particular house or to another one in Pepeni because living on my own will resolve MANY problems. PC volunteers are only required to share homes with families in 5 of the PC countries… Moldova being one of these five countries where the volunteer is required to be with a family for at least the first year in that country. Our Romanian PC Doctor does not like that the volunteers have to live with families… she said that she has seen too many volunteers neglected and develop psychological problems after dealing with the stress of living under someone else’s roof, rules, total control. Total control is about how I would sum up how it is living with a host family here. The families dictate to you when you can distill your water (so how much clean water you have for drinking each day), how often or when you can bathe, how much to use your lights or other electric things (phone charger, etc.), how warm your house can be, how to clean your room… and so forth. I think I could probably feel cool as an adult—like I’m in paradise—living with my real mom and dad for the rest of my adult life in Raleigh after PC. They’re pretty hip.
So, in conclusion, I think that the host family idea is pretty and sweet, but realistically (often though not always) when you put volunteers into homes of very poor families, the money paid to the families by PC for the volunteers heating, meals, water, etc, is not used for the volunteer’s safety and comfort.