Merry Christmas!

After quite a long absence from my blog, I have finally returned. I have no real excuse for my neglect, but I hope to get back into the swing of keeping this thing updated regularly.

I am days away from completing my third (of four) semesters of teaching here in Moldova, and the fact that I only have one semester left is slowly beginning to sink in. When I think back to my first few days of teaching English, I have to laugh at how utterly petrified, confused, clueless, and hopeful I was. Over the past year and a half, I have learned so much about my fellow teachers, students, and myself. I am also happy to report that when I go to teachers meetings at school now, I actually understand what is being said (at least about 93% of the time). I remember my first meeting at the school, which took place within the first couple of weeks of my first semester, and how I had absolutely no clue what was being discussed…there was a lot of smiling and nodding on my part.

Just when I think that I have figured things out here and that I have heard/seen it all, I hear a new story or I hear about a new tradition that just blows my mind. On December 13th, Moldovans celebrated St. Andrei’s (Andrew’s) day. I don’t know how I missed this particular holiday last year, but apparently I did. I had a very interesting conversation about the traditions of this particular Saint’s Day with my 10th form class. They informed me that it is customary for the boys in the village to go around on the night before the holiday and steal the gates from the houses of the marriageable girls that they like. For those of you who have never seen a Moldovan gate, let me tell you…this is an impressive feat. They are generally rather imposing metal structures that can’t possible be easy to maneuver. I have heard two variants of the following tradition…one involving a hairbrush and one involving a broom…either way, girls are supposed to sleep with either object under their pillows the night before the holiday in order to dream about their future husbands. My host mom told me that when she was younger, she would write all of the boys’ names she could think of on slips of paper and then sleep with those under her pillow. When she woke up, she would pull out one slip of paper and the name on her selection would be the name of her future husband. I am rather surprised these girls can sleep at all, let alone dream of anything, with all of that stuff under their pillows! My host mom also told me about one more tradition that she practiced as a young girl. She said that she and her friends would line up in a hallway and kick their slippers as far as they could to see who would get married first. It is rather interesting to see how many Moldovan traditions/customs/superstitions involve marriage. For instance, a single person (esp. a girl) should never sit at the corner of a table…if she does, she will never get married.

I was also educated in the etiquette of doing laundry in Moldova recently. I am not quite sure how the topic came up, but one day over dinner with my host mom, I learned all about what is acceptable and what is not acceptable while doing laundry. For most Moldovan families, it is the wife/mother who is responsible for all of the household’s laundry. There are, however, a couple of exceptions. According to my host mom (who is my primary source of information dealing with the customs and traditions of my adopted country) a wife should never wash her husband’s underwear, socks, or handkerchiefs. Apparently, those particular items are just too intimate and the man should be responsible for washing them himself.

Winter in Moldova is full of opportunities for me to experience new things. Remember that I grew up in Texas and was not exactly exposed to many wintertime activities as a child. As a result of this, I still get a bit excited every time it snows here (esp. since that means that the mud is frozen and I won’t have to clean my shoes 3 times a day). After our first real snow of the winter, I walked outside the school and immediately got bombarded by snowballs. I would like to say that what I experienced was a snowball fight with my students, but that would be putting it lightly…it was more of a massacre, and I was definitely not the victor. Later that day I definitely experienced one of those “wow, I am living in Moldova” moments. I had stayed after class to help my 10th form prepare for their holiday performance (more on that in a bit) and ended up leaving school at the same time as all of my 10th form students. I walked out with a couple of the boys and they told me to wait for our “taxi” home. I assumed they were joking and just wanted to wait for the rest of their classmates so I stuck around with them for a few minutes. All of sudden, out of the darkness behind the school, there appeared a horse pulling a sleigh. Now, when I say “sleigh”, I do not want to give you the romantic image of the kind of horse-drawn sleigh that Santa drives…what I saw that evening was more along the lines of a few boards nailed together on a couple of metal blades. It can’t have stood more than 3 inches above the ground. Well, the nearly the entire 10th form (it must have been at least 10-12 students) crammed onto the sleigh and I was dragged up on it as well. As soon as the horse took his first steps, we all went flying off the back. Luckily nobody got hurt, and we rearranged ourselves so that we were all either sitting or squatting on the sleigh. I was given the place of honor up in the front next to the driver (one of my students). This meant that as soon as the horse started galloping, I got a face-full of snow and ice. It was rather scary since we were so low to the ground and I couldn’t see around the horse…and because we were moving at break-neck speeds in the dark (my village doesn’t exactly have street lights). Anyways, we all eventually made it home safe and sound and I have to say that my first village “taxi” ride was pretty fantastic. About a week later, I was walking home with this same group of students again and suffered the consequences of being a girl. Apparently, it is customary for the boys to pelt their female classmates with snowballs the whole way home. The girls, for the most part, go along with it in a relatively resigned way…occasionally yelling at the boys if they throw too hard or mess up their hair. Well, as the new “girl” around, the boys soon switched their focus to me. This was ok at first and I managed to dodge some of their snowballs, but the night ended rather badly for me. I made the mistake of turning around to say something just as one boy hurled a snowball that was intended for my back. I managed to catch it right in my open eye….let me tell you, snow is not nearly as soft and fluffy as it is the movies! Needless to say, my eye was red and puffy for a couple of days. I felt a bit bad for the kid who hit me…he looked so embarrassed and guilty as he tried to dust the snow off of my face, head, and shoulder. His classmates still bring it up every once in awhile when they want to have a bit of fun.

Since Moldovans are Eastern Orthodox, many people celebrate Christmas on January 7th instead of December 25th. My host family, however, celebrates on both dates (but their main celebration is on the 25th). My host mom keeps talking about how only crazy Moldovans would celebrate Christmas twice, but I keep telling her that it is better this way. Who doesn’t want 2 Christmases?! I think she is going to start preparing food for the holiday tomorrow (it is a long process and everything has to be done right). I will leave Moldova for a trip the day after the first Christmas and will be back a few days before the second (I don’t want to miss either celebration!). I am going to Belgrade, Sarajevo, and Budapest with another volunteer and I am so excited! We will be in Budapest for New Years and I think it will be a once in a lifetime experience.

I am going to try my best to do a better job of keeping this updated for my last 7-8 months here in Moldova.

I will be thinking of all of you back home as I celebrate another round of holidays away from you…I hope that you all have a wonderful holiday season with the people you love.

Crăciun Fericit!
Merry Christmas!