May in Moldova

Today marks my 11 month anniversary here in Moldova. It is hard to believe that in just one month, I will have been here for a year. Even though I won’t officially be half-way through my service until the middle of the summer, the end of this school year has become a significant milestone in my time here. I only have about 3 more weeks of school left (our last bell is on the 31st of May) before our summer vacation. The past month was a busy time for me, and May seems to be continuing in the same way.

As I mentioned in the last post, I recently returned from a trip to Belarus with some of the students from my school. Organizing that trip was quite an arduous experience. With the help and generosity of so many people back in the US, I was able to raise enough money to fund the trip. After the money side of things was taken care of, I had to obtain the proper travel documents for all of the children and myself…let me tell you, this was no easy feat! We had to have documents signed by each student’s parents and a notary designating my partner teacher as the person responsible for their safety and well being while outside of Moldova. This was a bit tricky since a few of the kids don’t actually have any parents living in Moldova to begin within. Once we had all of those forms sorted out, I had to get a visa. Since my students are all Moldovan citizens, none of them needed a visa but I had to get one…that doesn’t happen very often. Anyways, we finally got everything organized and left on a rainy afternoon to meet with the other 4 teams from Moldova who were going to the competition as well. We all loaded up onto a big charter bus (there were about 50 kids and 12 or 13 adults). I would not wish that bus ride on my worst enemy…it took us about 32 hours to get to the children’s camp in Belarus and by the end of it, I would have given my first born child for a shower, a bed, and a toothbrush! It was interesting to travel through the Ukraine and Belarus…a lot of the towns and villages we saw reminded me of places here in Moldova. The camp we stayed at was really nice. It was in a forest and right by the biggest lake in Belarus. We were about 2 hours north of Minsk, and it was cold! I opened the curtains on the second morning there and was greeted by big fat snowflakes. My teams did well in the competition (but didn’t win) and got to meet a lot of new people from other countries. There were teams from Poland, Germany, Estonia, Switzerland, Romania, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and of course Moldova. There was supposed to be a team from India as well, but the volcanic ash prevented them from being able to fly into Europe. I found it very interesting that all of the Moldovan teams automatically supported the team from Romania (and vice versa)…even though none of the students knew each other prior to the competition. There was a talent show one evening in which a few teams from each country got to do a performance of some kind and then all the teams voted for the winner in the end. As soon as we found out we couldn’t vote for our own teams, all of our students immediately voted for the Romanian team (even though their performance was definitely not the best). The Romanian team returned the favor. Any time, throughout the entire competition, when the Romanian team was presented, our teams were their loudest supporters. I have seen in my time here in Moldova, that many people feel a strong connection to either Romania (Moldova used to be part of Romania, after all) or to Russia, but it was interesting for me to see my students make such a strong statement of their feelings on the matter. I was also a bit surprised at the Romanian kids’ unwavering support of the Moldovan teams. There was definitely a feeling of brotherhood and friendship between the two countries at the competition. On the way back to Moldova, we spent about half a day in Minsk and in Kiev. While we were in Minsk, it was interesting to see all of the preparations that were being made for the 9th of May celebrations. The 9th of May is celebrated as the Victory Day of WWII. This year is the 65th anniversary of the end of the war and there were banners and streamers everywhere…and I mean, everywhere.

After seeing the elaborate decorations and preparations being made for the celebration of Victory Day in Minsk, it was interesting to return to Moldova and see how many Moldovans feel about May 9th. For many people here, this holiday arouses very mixed emotions. While the day marks the anniversary of the end of a terrible war, it also marks the beginning of the Soviet occupation. Many people in Moldova suffered greatly during the years after the war at the hands of the Soviet government. There is a war memorial in our village (and pretty much every other village in Moldova) and on the morning of May 9th, many people from the community met outside the primaria (mayor’s office) and then joined a procession to the war memorial. Once everyone had gathered at the monument, the mayor said a few words and handed out medals to the only 4 surviving veterans of WWII from our village. The veterans from the war in Afghanistan and the conflict in Transnistria (the break-away region in the east of Moldova that considers itself to be autonomous but is not recognized by any other government in the world) were also recognized at the ceremony. After the speeches were done, everyone went and placed flowers on the monument. My host mother decided not to go to the memorial and when she was asked why, she responded that Moldovans lost the war and that she did not want to celebrate the horrific things that happened here as a result of the Russian occupation. She has told me many times that while she worked in Italy (she worked as a house keeper for about 6 months a few years ago to help pay for my host brother’s studies in Romania) she told many people there that they should be thankful that it was the Americans that liberated Italy and not the Russians. She also told me about her own father’s experience with the war. Moldova was caught in between Romania (who was fighting with the Germans) and the Russian forces coming from the east. The Russian army would go into Moldovan villages and draft the men into the Russian army. When my host mother’s father was sent to report for duty at a Russian base in the Ukraine, he hid some cured lambskins under his clothes. When he arrived at the train station, he happened to hear a man speaking “Moldovaneşte” (aka Romanian) to his horses so he stopped to talk to him. The man told him to go see a certain doctor who would, for a price, say that he was mentally unfit for the army. My host mom’s father did not want to be forced to fight against the Romanian army since that would mean he would be fighting against his own countrymen so he gave him the lambskins and was declared unfit. He hightailed it back to Moldova as soon as he could. After the war, many Moldovan families were shipped off to Siberia…especially if they refused to become part of the farming cooperatives that the Soviet government set up throughout the country. If a farmer refused to give up his land, crops, and animals, he - and usually the rest of his family as well - were sent to Siberia…where many died of exposure and starvation. I guess the holiday and the constant stream of Russian war movies that have been playing on TV as a result of the holiday have sparked a lot of conversations about the war and the effects of the subsequent occupation in my house. It has been incredibly interesting to listen to these stories about real people that my family here knew. It has definitely provided me with more insight into why things are the way they are here today.

The next couple of weeks are going to be pretty eventful for me. Wednesday is my host dad, Boris’, birthday. Despite the fact that he detests celebrating his birthday, his sister and niece (and maybe some other random relatives that I don’t know yet) will be coming over for dinner. Thursday marks the end of Easter here. Orthodox Moldovans (which is pretty much everyone in this country) celebrate Easter for the 40 days after Easter Sunday. During this time, you are greeted with “Christ has risen” instead of hello and are expected to respond by saying “True, he has risen”. I am not exactly sure what this celebration on Thursday will entail, but I plan to just go with the flow like every other holiday here. I am sure it will include lots of food and wine…and probably vodka too. On Saturday, my school is having its “Meeting of the Graduates”, which is basically like a reunion for anyone who graduated from the school. They host a presentation and a party for the classes that graduated 10, 20, and 30 years ago. The current 12th form class act as the hosts of the event and students from the school will put on different performances for the guests. My partner teacher, Svetlana, is also the adjunct director and is responsible for coordinating the event…she is also going to be celebrating the 30th anniversary of her graduation. She told me that last year the guests celebrating their 30th anniversary stayed at the school eating, drinking, talking, and dancing (of course) until 7 the next morning. I plan on attending the event, but I doubt that I will make until 7am! Next week, some of my students will be participating in a web conference (via Skype) with some students from Germany. They will be discussing the topic “Youth for a Healthy Way of Life” and will be doing everything in English. For the past week or so, I have been helping students prepare for this by helping with translations etc. I am looking forward to sitting in on the conference (I won’t actually be participating myself) and seeing how my students are able to communicate with their peers from Germany.

Once school lets out for the summer, I will have a couple weeks of complete freedom. While I am looking forward to some time off, I am a little concerned about getting bored…there isn’t exactly a whole lot to do in my village when I am not working. My mom and little brother, Isaac, will be coming to visit me in June and I can hardly wait. I won’t have seen my mom in a year and I won’t have seen Isaac since Christmas by the time they get here. We are planning on spending a week here in Moldova…a couple of days in my village and then the rest of the time we will stay in the capital and take day trips to other areas of the country…and then we will take either a bus or a train to Romania and do some exploring there as well. I am so excited to be able to show them where I live, where I work, and what I have been doing here for the past year. My host family and friends here are also excited for the “guests from America”…my host mom is already talking about how she is going to have to clean and cook to prepare for these honored guests. After my mom and Isaac leave, I will be involved in some of the technical training sessions for the new group of volunteers that will be arriving in June. During PST (pre service training), Peace Corps likes to involve the “older” volunteers in the technical training sessions. Last year, we had some volunteers that had been in Moldova for a year facilitate our sessions, and this year, I will be doing the same thing. I am looking forward to getting to know the new batch of trainees and hopefully it will occupy my time so that I won’t get bored over the summer.

I think that is about all for now. I have posted a few pictures from the Victory Day celebration and in my last post I included the link to the facebook photo album of my trip to Belarus. Hopefully you find it interesting!