Buna Ziua. I snuck into the regional center today to try and get some work done, and wander around the market. We have one week left until we start teaching, so it is prime procrastination time. I am justifying the trip, by thinking that it is the only time I will have to purchase school supplies, but really I am just avoiding my work back at home. Who would have thought that writing lesson plans in a foreign language would be difficult. I will honestly say though that six weeks of study is not sufficient for drafting a sex-ed lesson in Romanian. Should be quite the chuckle fest.
Luckily this is only practice school, meaning that we are teaching real kids, but we will have other moldovan teachers in the room, evaluating our performance. This means that they will be there to reign the kids in if necessary, but they will also bear witness to the finer points of our embarrassing moments.
As you can tell, it will be a very relaxing week. All I have to do is create eight hour long lesson plans in Romanian, pass my second language examination, and create a two hour seminar to be attended by the adults in our village. Dire prediction abound amongst my fellow volunteers. I'm sure we will survive, and the humiliation will prepare us for what is to come when we actually step into "our" Moldovan classroom.

On a brighter note, or at least a less stressed out one. We had the opportunity to visit a local monastery on Saturday as part of our cultural ed classes.

Unfortunately this shot is not the greatest, as it was taken from the window of our transport on the way there, but if you look carefully, you can see the vineyards in the foreground and some distinct yellow bands in the background. Those are actually large fields of sunflowers. Sunflower oil is what is primarily (exclusively) used here for cooking, and people eat the seeds habitually. The other major agroindustry in wine making, and vineyards can be found everywhere. Almost every house has a few barrels in the basement, crafted from grapes in their backyard, and commercially the Moldovan wines are fairly well respected throughout the former USSR and eastern Europe. Just as an interesting historical side note to give an impression of the agricultural importance of this country for the former USSR; Moldova only accounted for 0.2% of the land area of the USSR, but provided ~10% of the agricultural products for the republic when the collective farm system was at it's height of production.This is the exterior of the "Summer church", and is the grandest of the buildings as far as ornamentation, but is significantly smaller than what most Americans would conceive of. It is more than sufficient though, as there is no seating, and thus many people can be packed in while standing during the services. Apparently they stand for the entire service, which I am told lasts between 3&4 hours. Which certainly gives me a great deal of respect for their devotion to their faith. The interior of the church is highly ornamented, with frescos covering almost every surface, including the vaulted ceilings. The alter is actually behind the giant gold wall pictured below, and much of the service is conducted with the priest behind the edifice, sometimes with all of the doors completely shut. We had a short tour from one of the nuns, but much of the details of the orthodox religion still elude me, and at this point I feel I have an even less than superficial understanding.

As this site is a regional gathering point for the faithful, they are working on the construction of a Cathedral, modeled below, with the framework nearly completed at this point. It was actually kind of interesting to be standing in the church with the chants of the priest and nuns accompanied by the visage of 1950s vintage tower cranes, visible through the alter window, slowly working away on the new structure.

The construction, along with all other activities of the monastery, are completely financed by donations. A truly impressive fact, as the new Cathedral will have a capacity of 3000 worshipers, and will be completely paid for in advance (there is no credit system in Moldova, no loans or morgages). In addition to supporting the 100 nuns that live here, and maintaining the immaculate grounds, the parishioners also completely support ~60 orphans who live at the monastery in the summer time, and are sent to boarding school in the capitol for the remainder of the year.

Ok, procrastination completed. Until next time.