Sunday, December 25, 2005

Fericit Craciun!!!!

Merry Christmas everyone!!! Hope everyone is having a great day. We
here in Moldova, or at least in this specific village, are enjoying a
white Christmas, with snow still falling when we awoke.
I am hanging out with the in another village for the holiday, making the
delightful eight hour bus ride yesterday. There is an old Moldovan
adage, "How many people can you fit in a rutiera
(minibus/transport)---at least one more". Not only does this philosophy
make American college students and their telephone booth packing antics
pale in comparison, it even makes the Japanese and their white gloved
train porters seem somewhat wussy. Luckily for me though, my final two
hours of transit, spent standing on a bus, was easily the nadir of my
experience, and everything has been on the up and up since then. Upon
arrival I was greeted by my friend's host family, and whisked me off to
the Russian Baptist church. There was a kids concert there, and though
I recognized some of the tunes, my knowledge of Ruski (which includes
the words hello and cheese) was not really sufficient to understand the
Russian perspective on the birth of Christ. That experience was capped
off by an invitation to sing in English in front of 300 villagers I had
never met. Hopefully their ears survived the experience.
We then bolted home and prepped "Americanski" sugar cookies for the
kids, and started laying out Christmas eve dinner (Hawaiian pizza,
potato salad, strawberry juice, and cake---not my plan, but it worked).
After eating, we hung out with friends from the village, and had an
interesting time negotiating through three languages. My friend is one
of the few Russian speakers in Peace Corps, and thus when she is talking
with Moldovans I don't understand a thing and vice versa. It makes for
an interesting evening, and very complicated dinner conversation. The
evening was punctuated by two visits by carol singers, which fortunately
is still a large tradition in Moldova. Again, I didn't understand a
word, but it was fun to stand out on the frigid steps, handing out sugar
cookies and listening to the kids sing before bolting back inside to
warm up by the fire. We fell asleep watching movies and awoke to snow,
not too shabby if you ask me.
December 25th isn't really that big of holiday in Moldova, partially due
to the fact that this was a communist state for a long time, and part
also because many Moldovans still recognize the orthodox calendar, with
Christmas on January 7th, and New Years on January 13th. Those that do
use the new calendar typically celebrate what we know as Christmas on
the 31st. Anul Nou is when Mos Craciun (old man Christmas) comes, and
when families exchange gifts. With religion banned when the communists
took over, they simply shifted it all over six days and cut out
everything about Jesus. Thus, it was probably quite strange for
everyone to open presents and hang out around a Christmas tree. It was
all taken in stride though, and a good old American Christmas was had by
all.
The rest of today was spent lounging and visiting friends in the
village, after which we had a giant snowball fight with all the kids. I
am still hanging out in my snow pants now, as I have been banned from
removing them by the kids on the vague chance that we will head out for
another round.
All in all, I'd have to say that it has been a pretty good Christmas. I
definitely miss all of the friends and family back home, but my
surrogate families ain't too shabby. However you celebrate this time of
year, I hope you are with people you love, and had a great and peaceful day.

Sunday, December 18, 2005

Two Tongues

So I just returned from visiting Crasnoarmeiscoe, a Russian village in the central part of the country (try saying the name just once, it was a real hoot trying to buy tickets at the bus station). There is another volunteer stationed there, and we gathered to celebrate her birthday over the weekend. She is one of a handful of volunteers who is trained in Russian rather than Romanian, conducting her classes and activities in the former national language. A good time was had by all, and despite the language juggling, we all were largely able to communicate with her friends and family.

Many times in Moldova I have been annoyed by the language barriers I encounter, despite the fact that I have been trained to at least stumble along in the “state language”. Typically my frustrations arise going into town to go shopping or visit the post office. More than once I have had to beg a stranger to help me translate what in the world the Russian post office lady is saying. It is also common at the piata (pronounced piatza) to have the vendors shout across the rows to ask someone to translate into “Moldovski” for me. Most everyone understands basic Romanian here, but not everyone is willing to speak it. There is a large anti-Russian sentiment among the Moldovans because of this, not only for years of occupation, but for the simple fact that Russians who have lived here in country for 20-30 years still refuse to learn or use Romanian. Logically for them, why should they...everyone speaks Russian, why learn another tongue? Since Moldova was a part of the USSR, most affairs were conducted in the “international language”. Russian nepotism kept Moldovans out of public office, and even low level government jobs were handed to Russian immigrants rather than Moldovans, and the problem worsened. Eventually this meant that any interaction with government or business services was conducted in Russian. Thus making the language a de facto necessity for residents of the republic. Thus today, everybody speaks Russian, and depending on where you live, people also speak Romanian, Turkish, & Ukrainian. My “host brother” is nearly qudralingual at age 13.

Why then are 90% of Peace Corps volunteers here trained in Romanian? Because as an nod to the Romanian ancestry of many of the country’s residents, the “Moldovan” language was re-Latinized from it’s standing Cyrillic form shortly after the country gained it’s independence (early 90s). Thus not so tacitly acknowledging the fact that Moldovans actually spoke a dialect of Romanian, a fact staunchly denied by Russian lingual scholars for many years. This was part of a USSR campaign to build a Moldovan identity apart from Romania, and further integrate Moldova into the USSR.

There is literally a 200-page book written on the subject of language and nation building in this part of the world, but I will dispense with the history lesson.

The closest US analogy that I can draw is in the south, and the rise of Spanglish in Florida, Texas, California, and other border states. This subtle mixing of two languages that eventually makes it so that the speakers forget which tongue they are using, and universally adopt the easier or perhaps more melodious version of a word for permanent usage. There are also some concepts that are easier to describe in another language, as there may be something that does not have a direct translation. Volunteers here frequently speak in Rom-English when we are together, mostly I feel because many of the words we use every day are strictly expressed in Romanian, and we find we have easier access to the vocabulary when speaking rapidly. I also find that I may go months without expressing a certain concept in English, or may have only used the Romanian version since I arrived in country. This being my first opportunity to really be immersed in a language, I am continually surprised that I don’t “translate” in my head; I merely accept the word meanings as concepts and do not hunt for their English equals.

Something similar happens with Moldovans, except that they speak Rom-Russ. Many folks don’t even realize that they are speaking in Russian until I inform them that I can’t understand a word that they are saying. In other cases people simply don’t know the Romanian word for things. I had to teach my fifth graders the Romanian word for cheese, and quite frequently my host mother/Romanian tutor sheepishly admits that she only knows how to say certain things in Russian, and she is a Romanian language and literature teacher.

I used to feel great pride in the fact that people assumed that I was from Romania, not America, foolishly believing my language and pronunciation had advanced beyond toddler stage. I now realize though, that people assume this because I speak in Romanian, not Moldovan (Rom-Russ), using Romanian accents, grammar, and vocab. The difference is so profound in my village that my program manager gave me a mandate to study language more, not because I was doing particularly bad, but because she felt it would be one of the few opportunities for my students to hear correct Romanian grammar (talk about pressure).

So onward with language we all plunge, hoping to get to the point where we don’t have to think to talk (there has got to be a jab at a certain US leader in that last phrase), and also to get to the point were we can start learning Russian as well. Not only because I want to be able to go to the post office sans escort, but because it would be nice to know just how rude my 8th graders are being sometimes, and whether or not the lady selling bread told me to have a nice day or to go jump off a cliff (even polite Russian sounds mean to the untrained ear).

*Footnote – Crasnoarmeiscoe is a Latin alphabet translation of the Russian words for “Red Army”.......who thinks there might still be a Russian influence here????

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Life

So this is a picture of the sign on the back of our hotel room door. "If there is a fire RUN!!". I found it amusing at least.
Happy belated Thanksgiving everyone! Hope you had a great day of food and family. We folks here had a big dinner at the Hotel National. All 140 volunteers gathered at the hotel, along with the Moldovan Peace Corps staff and a group of ex-pats from the embassy.
We were given one of the old kitchens in the hotel to work with, and spent two days prepping food for 200. Who had turkey, cranberry sauce (imported from the states), pumpkin pie, and all the other fixens


Turkey day shots of the kitchen that we used at the Hotel National in Chisinau. We prepped dinner for slightly over 202.

The silver lump in the foreground is one of our 10 -20lb birds. Yum!
It was definitely an experience. Not only did we have the fun and excitement of using 50 year old Soviet cook gear, we also had interesting challenge of explaining what we wanted to do, and what we needed to the Moldovan staff there (who don't speak English). You would think that this would be fairly easy, but the concept of roasting a turkey is completely foreign to them, and things like cranberry sauce are alien. They also don't really ever do buffet style dinners, thus large serving bowls are non-existent. This meant that we served up mashed potatoes for 200 in vessels slightly larger than a cereal bowl. Good times.
It really was a great dinner though, and everybody seemed to have a good time. It is the only time of the year that all the volunteers are in one place, and thus you end up meeting all the other folks that are outside of your sphere of 20 or so in your specific program. It was definitely a great surrogate for the typical US experience. Hanging out with the Peace Corps family.

Pictures of my village. One was taken during harvest season, and looks back from the former collective farm up in to the village's apple orchard and tree line alley leading into town. On the right is a fog covered view of my village before a snow storm. You can just pick out the church spires in the background.

This was after the first snowfall we had. In between classes the kids made "foot slides", skooting down the hill on tramped down snow and ice.

Our town church, which is actually a landmark of the country. On the right, a shot of one of the traditional horse carts going down the tree lined street through the center of town.
Strangely, despite the fact that my village is less than a degree of latitude from the capitol, the weather is drastically colder. Thus we have already had our share of snow and ice. This resulted in a 9 hour bus ride one night trying to get into Chisinau, and some very muddy clothes and boots. Despite some of the drawbacks, my village definitely has a Norman Rockwell quality to it when it snows. The kids take advantage to the upmost, making foot slides in between classes and having "lupte de zapada" (snowball fights). One difference though is that they make "Babe de Zapada" (snow grandmas), dressing them up in head scarves and aprons.
The horse carts also lend an old world feel. The muffled hoof clops breaking through the silence of the falling snow, and the breath of the horses encircling the drivers head as it slides back through the air.
Our profusion of lakes nearby should make things interesting once the weather turns consistently cold. I will be hanging out with the kids on the ice, hopefully avoiding breaking my tailbone.