Trip to the big city

So, I just realized how long it has been since I posted. Hopefully there are still a few folks out there listening, my breathless audience of 10 or so. As I always promise, I will try to post a little more often, which may actually be possible in the future. My village finally got a touch tone phone server (yes, rotary died here on Oct 17^th, 2005), and along with it the ability to access the internet......at 33.6 kbps. Slow but tolerable, and while I won’t be posting a lot of photos from the home office, I can at least put my thoughts online.

This weekend was again spent in Chisinau, though it was a bit of a departure from the typical mini vacation of discussions in English with volunteers, and a trip to the “Big” pitata centrala (central market). We volunteers were hosting a Public Health Exposition/Conference. It was a gathering of health professionals, Moldovan non-governmental organizations, and ....our students. I know this last group is a bit of a wild card, but in the vein of making our program sustainable, we are getting kids involved in public health as soon as possible. Plus, technically this is the only way they can get some solid information on “taboo” topics such as sex-ed and AIDS.

So, I dragged two of my ninth graders down to the conference to see what they would get out of it. Since we are so far away though, this entailed an overnight hotel stay (we are about a 6 hour bus ride from the capitol). I, foolishly, decided to head into the city early to get some work done and to make arrangements for the evening. This meant that I took the 10pm bus into the city, arriving at 4am. While the bus that leaves our village at 4am is comfortable, and heated, the 10pm bus is not. Typically, one is able to stay on the bus and sleep until 6 or so, and then depart for their business in the city. It just so happened that we had a wussy bus driver, and he decided that it was sooo cold, he needed to go someplace else, and thus invited us to leave at around 4:45.

Luckily, the rest of my weekend went a little smoother. After crashing for 2 hours in the volunteer lounge at headquarters, I spent the day roaming the city on errands for my village. One trip into Chisinau costs roughly ¼ of a teacher’s monthly salary, so most folks try and take advantage of my frequent forays.

My kids arrived later in the day, and we spent the rest of the day exploring, as one of the boys had actually never been to the capitol. The other had been there for surgery when he was 9, but couldn’t remember any other occurence.

So after visiting a restaurant for the first time in their lives, and eating pizza for maybe the 3^rd time ever, we set out to find the monuments in town. It was absolutely amazing, one of the things the boys wanted to see the most was the collection of sculptures in the park of famous local writers and poets. Not only were these 14 year olds familiar with the names of all 20 or so on display, they could actually recite some of their works. I was more than slightly impressed.

Besides our nighttime run around the monuments, there was another great moment of the evening, that will stick with me for a while.

Dino, the one who had never been to the city, and who is one of the most intelligent kids in his class, was absolutely fascinate with the escalator we found in the old Soviet department store. After coming back down to the first level via stairs, he politely asked if he could ride up again, just because he had never done it. We were crushed to find that the system was already shut down for the night. Later on though, we found another one in a newer store, and he again begged to ride it. I almost fell down laughing watching him combine all the crazy and weird things that kids do on escalators throughout all their years growing up into three short circumnavigations. Finally, on a return trip, with some interesting gymnastics, he was chided in spitfire Russian by an old Baba (Russian for grandmother). He looked completely crestfallen, but hopefully he will keep the experience in his memory as a positive experience.

So, after an evening in the hotel, watching them savor glasses of Coco-cola like it was a fine wine, we headed off to the seminars. I spent the day taking people’s blood pressure, and explaining BMI (body mass index). Telling people they are fat tactfully is a bit difficult in English, just think what a treat it was in Romanian. The boys attended lectures on narcotics and AIDS. Hopefully their parents are progressive!!!

We snagged some great materials for our peers, I said a few words in English to the rest of the volunteers, and then we headed off into the city to catch our ride home. The car we were going home with was in need of a little repair, which was just fine our opinion as it gave us three more hours in the big city. Though the 4 hour car ride is what finally capped off our evening, it will be the three rounds of Frisbee that we played outside in unseasonably warm weather that I will prefer to remember.

Sunday was spent with the family, picking beets and carrots in the fields. Which though not really enjoyable, isn’t really that bad either. I won’t bore you with the details.....at least until next time.