Last Thursday I ventured to the Culture Palace to see a performance by the local philharmonic. Although I was not expecting much, based on some lackluster reviews I’d heard, I was blown away. For just around $1.50, I was able to enjoy a night at the orchestra. The evening’s guest conductor was an American, and at one point in the program he addressed the audience, stating how much things had changed since his last visit in 1991. Another treat in the program was a piano solo by a Romanian from Germany. It was absolutely captivating, and he needed to come back onto the stage three times for his ovation. I was a bit shocked at the quality of the performance, and that it is right here in my little city. So perhaps now I’ll add a little classical music education to my weekly schedule!

It’s funny, life here. There are two big box stores (Costco like) throughout the country, Metro and Selgros. I prefer Selgros and have been making a few trips there to get things for my apartment. Well, since these places are usually on the outskirts of cities, I am forced to take the bus to get there. So as I’m waiting for the bus back home, with a few bags in my hands, I see a sight that is quite Romanian. By the bus stop a bunch of cars are coming and going, carrying people, goods and whatnot. Then, from a field next to the store, emerges a horse drawn wooden cart. It trots up to the bus stop, and a family, also waiting with bags in hand, puts everything in the back of the cart. The old man gives the horse a little whack with the whip and away they go. Imagine two horses pulling a cart up to Sam’s Club or Target. Anyway, it made me chuckle.

Yesterday I went to a bull show. I guy who I’ve gotten to know works at this company that, don’t laugh, sells semen. Specifically, they breed big healthy bulls and sell their semen to farmers in other countries who want to improve the genetic stock of their herds. So, once a year, all the Germans come and the company parades around its prize bulls. Now, I’ve seen cows before, but these bad boys were huge! See the picture below:

So yeah, that’s what I do with myself here. On the school front, things are trudging along. School here is messed up and seems designed for failure. For instance, let’s look at the schedule. Students must go to school from either 7 or 8 in the morning until 3. Classes are 50 minutes and there are 10 minute breaks between them. The students stay in the same classroom working with the same people for the entire day. Teachers rotate from classroom to classroom. There is no lunch break. There are no electives. There are no free periods. Students study all subjects – that is, instead of studying Bio freshman year and Chemistry sophomore year, they study both the same year. The end result, as I see it, is that students gain a superficial knowledge of most subjects, and simply don’t have the time to go any deeper because they are so busy juggling the requirements of so many different classes. After school, most students just go home and do whatever (play computer, watch TV, study for national exams.) The teachers here have one goal, and that is teaching for the national exams. There is very little learning in these halls, and there is nothing of extracurriculars. All in all, it is overly regimented, dull, and outdated. Although there are shiny new businesses and restaurants all over town, the schools are in dire need of help.

So I think I’m going to revise my expectations (lower them,) and begin looking into secondary projects. I try hard to make lessons interesting, and though I think that I succeed with most of my classes, I don’t think there is a bigger picture in it for most of the students. I mean, I am teaching in segregated schools – so how to discuss diversity (as I see it) when the Romanians and the Hungarians won’t even deign to sit in the same classroom! The challenges here are more nuanced than in Uzbekistan, and I do think it will be good for me in the long run. But sometimes I get quite disappointed when I meet somebody promising, only to hear the same old tired negatives from his/her mouth not long thereafter. I’m still not sure how much of this is attributable to the Communists and how much is just part of the picture here.

On a happier note, let me leave you with some traditional Romanian folk music:

Click Here (MP3)

Last night was the Jewish new year, so I decided to attend services here in town. We have a beautiful old synagogue not far from the center. When I arrived, through a nondescript side entrance, most of the crowd was over 50, in fact all of them were. Upon entering the building I took a paper kipah from the pile that they offered (perhaps in hope of) to guests. The service was very short, without the shofar or anything, but was satisfying nonetheless. After the service one guy in particular took an interest in my presence – I did rather stick out – and asked me a few questions. He was interested in my job as teacher and when I told him that I was from Boston, he mentioned that he’d visited Brookline. Considering this whole conversation was in Romanian, I was quite satisfied with it all. Isn’t is amazing that I would run into an old Jew in Romania who’s been to Brookline? Well, he also mentioned that iniante razboi there were over 6,000 Jews in the city where I live here. Amazing and terribly sad. I can only imagine that some of the people at the service were survivors of the Holocaust. I’m not sure if I will have any further involvement with the community, but I am glad that I went.

Today I was reminded that I was in Eastern Europe. Tracksuits are quite popular here among the men. Well, I’m walking from my apartment to school and see one guy. He’s got a blue tracksuit, with the top part unzipped about 80% of the way. Underneath, he’s got a big gold chain, which hangs about halfway down his torso, with a giant gold dollar sign (5 inches at least) at the very end. He was standing and smoking next to a VW – who knows??

Click here for a good op-ed article from the New York Times about the controversy regarding the military offering Peace Core service as an option for fulfilling active duty. I’ve written to Senator Kennedy but didn’t get a response. I hope this is killed, and quickly.

Salut

It’s amazing how much other people can annoy you when you are in a good mood to start out with. So first I try to go to McDonalds in town. But this McDonalds is special… American prices, Romanian service – meaning, you will wait at least 3 minutes in line and another 2 for your food. Now, yes, I know I’m in the Peace Corps, but if America is going to be a good superpower, we must at least be consistent in our imperial fast food designs! So I decide McDonalds is not for me this night. Instead I go to a local joint that specializes in chicken. The woman in front of me, ordering for herself and her little boy, takes 5 minutes to decide what kind of food she wants. She gets a little of this, then decides, hey, why not have something else, slowly building up her fantastic dream meal! Then I come to this internet cafe – my rope is very thin with Romanian internet cafe’s. The guy on duty is not my favorite, in fact he is my least favorite. I sit down in front of the computer and instead of activating the system so that I can get online, he does nothing, slowly keeping himself busy up front. So I have to go front, pound on his desk and just stare at him when he says, stupidly, “internet?” Yes you idiot, I didn’t just come here to stare at the computer screen for fun; I have not become that desperate, yet. The most annoying thing is that I have this fantastic new computer at home but am waiting for the internet people to come set up my connection! Grrrr – life was simpler in Uzbekistan!

I needed that vent. Now, what I had wanted to write about before the mini-ordeal. So much has happened over the past few weeks. One, I have secured and moved into a new apartment. It is a great one, just 5 – 10 minutes away from my work sites. That means I don’t have to spend money on buses! May not sound like a lot, but it adds up, and considering our budget, I’d rather spend the money elsewise. The place is on the 6th floor of a tall concrete apartment block. I have a balcony which faces away from the center of the city, so is quite pretty especially around sunset. Thankfully it is mostly furnished and I don’t have to buy too much for it. I’m already looking forward to my first soiree.

School is going much better than I thought. Okay, so some kids are better than others, but that’s the story everywhere. I’ve tried very hard to plan interesting lessons, 1/2 lecture, the other 1/2 small group activities. They are good kids, but I feel bad for them because most other teachers just come in and talk for 50 minutes then leave and that’s the extent of the education. Things are just so rigid here, that I think I’m something a little different for the kids and interesting that way. I just hope that they don’t go too far and try to take advantage. At one of my schools I am being shadowed by a young Romanian teacher who is hoping to learn “new methods” and better English. He just comes with me to classes and watches – it is interesting to have someone to talk to as the concept of feedback is not big here. At the other school there is a young Hungarian teacher who seems to have things down pretty well.

I have already received my first request for tutoring services. I am kind of torn regarding what to do. I am here to help teach English, yes, but I’m not sure how much private tutoring really fits with the Peace Corps gist. I’m also not sure what to ask from the guy. I can’t accept money, but I’m not about to do it for nothing. Suggestions?

I’ve taken a break from following US politics because I fear that if I do, I will become the ranting raving crazy American to all my kids… oh wait, I already am. But seriously, I did hear that Roberts was green lighted by our week kneed Democrat friends. Ugh. It is a shame to lose faith in the Supreme Court – if you can’t believe in that then what is there? Perhaps good service at McDonalds, on the home front at least…

My first day of classes is over and, well, I’m still alive. Actually, things went quite well. Although I pretty much have syllabi for all my classes, today was just an introductory lesson. I took this idea from a book. I brought in my MP3 player and small speakers and asked the class to stand up. When I was playing the music (Jackson 5 – ABC,) the students would walk around the classroom, kind of mingling. When I would pause the music, I’d shout out a command that they’d have to complete quickly. The commands ranged from getting into groups of different sizes to working as a team to create a logo.

The logo part of the exercise was quite fun as I had the students come up to the board and draw the logo, then have other teams try to guess its meaning. It shed a bit of light on the personalities of the students, which is what I want to get to know. Then for the second exercise I broke them down into different groups and asked them to designate a secretary. Each group was given 5 minutes to write down as many uses as possible for a plastic tupperware container which I had brought in. After the 5 minutes I asked each group to say the 3-4 most interesting, and some were quite funny.

Then, if I had time, I did a similar exercise with a flower I had brought in. This one, however, was for verbs. On the board I wrote three categories: Nurture, Exchange, Destroy. The students had to come up with appropriate verbs of what they could do to/with the flower under these headings. Though this one was a little more difficult, they enjoyed it, especially Destroy. I have some more introductory classes for the rest of the week and I think I’ll stick with this format. I think it is a good creativity stimulator – something I’m sensing they get little of from most of their (older) teachers.

Next week is when I have planned lessons beginning. For History, Geography and Culture/Civ, I have pretty much come up with the topics already, with of course a few empty spots for what may come. The Conversation course, which constitutes the bulk of what I’ll be doing, is still gelling. I need to get a better grasp of the students’ levels first, so that I can decide how much “guided speaking” is necessary. Overall, though, the students’ English level is quite good, and I think my task will be to get them more comfortable with expressing themselves.

Next week is D day as on Monday school begins. Although just now the weather has been perfect every day (no rain at all,) I am ready. It has been a long road here, and it is time to get going in the place where I’ll be for a while. A few days ago, the Economic Officer from the American Embassy came by town and invited the four of us new volunteers out for dinner. It was quite an interesting talk. The man, as I found out, was not an economics person by training. He studied history as an undergraduate, and got a masters in German. He mentioned that he had a “person” to do all the number crunching work – he himself was the big picture guy. I found that very interesting. When I asked him what was the thing I needed most to impart to my students, he said, “ethics.” Although I am starting to see the signs of this, perhaps given my relative newness here, I’m not really completely privy to it; that is, the mentality here is “get rich quick,” and whatever happens to others happens to them.

I think that I received a very good education, but inexcusably, I learned little to nothing of the Communist/Soviet world and the new challenges it faces now. In Uzbekistan I got some of that, and here I’m starting to see that things are similar. The idea, primarily, that grades are given to a) reflect well upon the school and b) are manipulated with greater ease in direct proportion with the parents’ social/political/economic status. Sure, stuff like that happens in the United States, but the issue here is scale. For instance, I got an anecdote today about how at some technical schools, students will show up for the first time to the last class with some gifts and grade will be decided. I won’t face that at my school, but I know that subtle and strong pressures will be operating to reflect a sunny image.

It worries me because this generation of students is, as I see it, the make/break for a country such as Romania. Here we have a country that is less united as a whole than by regions. A mind numbing Communist past coupled with a brutal dictatorship have done great damage to what constitutes civil society. Yes, compared to Uzbekistan, things here are shiny, but underneath it is a bit nasty. The law is something to be manipulated, and it is often not merit, rather connections that bring success. Again, these things happen in the US, but here it is more blatant. That is the system, and most people accept the system. The man from the embassy told us two Romanian proverbs he had learned:

“The bowed head does not get cut off,” and, “Although the water flows, the rocks remain.”

It makes sense. He said that the real revolutionaries were either killed or have left. So I guess this is the system I am up against. I do have one great thing in my favor, though. These kids love the United States. Yeah, we are talking mostly about movies, music, and other low culture – and perhaps their admiration is misguided. But if I have that opening, perhaps that is how I begin to teach about ideas such as the social contract, fair play, and the courageous individual spirit, all positive qualities of the American ethos. And yeah, these days I’d feel like I was swimming against the tide if I was teaching these principles back home. But those kind of Americans (I am pretty sure,) don’t join the Peace Corps – they go and work for Bechtel.

Oh, and did you know that Halliburton has received a nearly 20 million dollar contract for cleanup in the storm’s wake. Ain’t it grand?

From Romunia,