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Yeah, I know, I’m not very good at updating this blog quickly, so I apologize. However, if you notice (mom) it is updated on a regular basis of about once a month.
After arriving at my new site, I had 2 weeks to get ready for my classes. Everyday my partner would tell me if I was to come to the school or not for the next day. Quite frequently the plans would change, and I would get a phone call in the morning saying that I no longer needed to go to school. I kept asking my partner when I was going to be informed about my classes so I could prepare and do the boring paperwork that PC demands that we do. She kept telling me, we’ll figure it out next time, tomorrow perhaps. Everyday she would say this. So, on the Thursday before school started, I was finally told which classes I would be teaching.
I have six classes: 6th grade, 8th grade, 9th grade and 3 sections of 10th grade. My partner teacher and the other English teacher have actually broken the English classes in half, so when I am teaching, they are teaching the same exact class. This has its advantages (if I’m sick, for instance, it won’t disrupt other people’s schedules as much as it would otherwise). I have all girls in 3 of my classes b/c my partner didn’t want to give the ‘hard to handle’ kids, which I am totally cool with.
So, over the weekend, I started prepping for my lessons. On the first day of school, Monday September 3, I made sure I was at school early so I could get some stuff set up in my classroom for the first day. (Yes, I have my own classroom. It’s actually a PC policy. However, it is really small, like the size of a small dorm room). I got to school at 7:30 and the first bell was to be at 8:15. Well, 8:15 came and went.
Then, around 9:00, I heard music coming from outside. I looked out the window (I am on the 3rd floor) and there was a swarm of kids all over the grounds of the school. I decided to go downstairs to check out what was going on.
On the front steps of the school, they had set up a huge stereo system and all the students were gathered infront of the steps and on the anywhere they could stand. The teachers were all dressed up. Since they are mostly female, it looked like a “mothers’-of-the-bride” convention. (They really like wearing those dress-separates that match with lots of beads, sequins, etc.) The kids were definitely wearing their “Sunday Best”. Most of the boys (especially the younger ones) were wearing 3-piece-suits. Many of the girls were wearing some version of the following: black shoes, white tights, black skirt/jumper, white blouse, white fluffy hair-ties (with hair in ponytail or braids).
When I got to the front doors of the school, there were several speeches being made. Many of them were by teachers. They also had some of the older students give speeches, and even invited some of the young kids up. There were several older students who sang songs too. The kids in the audience all sang along. Then, all of the sudden I heard it…”Acuma, noi avem un voluntara de Corpul Pacii din SUA”. Now, for those of you can’t read Romanian, and are bad at guessing, that was my introduction (which I was completely unaware was coming). I walked out of the doors of the school onto the top landing at the top of the stairs and they handed me a microphone.
Now, I know that you might all be thinking this is like a nightmare happening in real life…ya know, like when you can’t hear anything b/c it’s all muffled. Actually, everything was quite vivid, especially the enormous roar from the crowd of students.
(internal monologue) “Holy crap!!! What am I going to say? I can’t think of what to say in Romanian. I can’t think of anything in Romanian. Oh good Lord why didn’t they warn me about this???”
I survived. I just said to them (in Romanian of course) “Thank you, thank you. I have been being exited about moving there. I am Colleen Williams from America. She was happy about that”. (Of course, I just now translated EXACTLY what I said – or, something close…I know I did not say it correctly in Romanian, so this is my guess at how bad it was.)
Then I eagerly handed back the microphone. After about 1 minute of the director talking, I suddenly heard “Canta in Englaza”. My internal monologue was screaming “No way in hell…you can have me give an impromptu speech, but not a song”. Much to my relief, a student walked out to where I had just been standing. He had a guitar with him. He sat down on a chair and played and sang “Hey There Deliliah” by the Plain White T’s. The song was so freakin’ beautiful. (It was stuck in my head for like 5 days afterwards too). So, after the English song, there were a few more speeches, then the students dispersed.
I followed the rest of the teachers into the ‘cantina’ or teacher’s breakroom. In there was a long table set up with so much food! We were having a ‘masa’ (translates to table, but means a dinner party – Moldovan style). There was sarmale, stuffed peppers, cakes, cookies, open-faced sandwiches with mayo and salami or mayo with a small fish (head cut off) and thin lemon wedge (I find this one odd). There was also eggplant wraps, and tons of other food I can’t really describe (next time, I swear, I’ll take a picture). There was tons of wine and cognac.
During the ‘masa’, there were lots of toasts and speeches. The Moldovans love to toast and hear themselves talk over a cup of wine nearly as much as Americans like to do keg-stands. (ok, bad example, but you get the idea). After we ate and drank and toasted (and some got toasted) it was decided that we were going to go on a picnic in the woods.
The town that I live in is situated on the side of a hill and down into a valley. The hill on the other side of the valley is still pretty much forest. So, after the masa, all the teachers went home to change clothes before going out into the woods. I followed suit. We all met up 2 hours later. We took taxis out to the woods. Once we were there, we hiked to a known clearing in the woods. We set up a camp fire to cook some fish, and we set up a picnic area on the ground with blankets.
Any of you who know me well, know that me being in a wooded area (for mosquitoes) is like a fat kid at the supermarket on ‘free sample’ day. Good Lord – I am NOT a buffet. However, the mosquitoes would most likely disagree. I was wearing jeans and had a long sleeve shirt on, however I still managed to get at least 100 new bites. Now, you might ask “Colleen, didn’t you use any repellant?” The sad answer would be ‘no’. The PC gave us medical kits with more stuff than you could even imagine (like a little Walgreens in a kit) however it didn’t contain repellant. I also didn’t think the mosquitoes would be so…vicious. They must be a sister strain to the mosquitoes from Minnesota. They were huge and didn’t mind being swatted at. They could bite through denim without problem.
Other than my drama with mosquitoes, the picnic in the forest was quite nice. We played some circle volleyball. We sat around and ate and talked (in Romanian, but whatever). We had smoked fish (I didn’t eat it – we’ve been warned not to eat the fish b/c of chemical contamination of the water. Plus, I’ve seen their food storage – its not always the freshest). We also ate bread with mayo and salami, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, grapes, butter cookies (think like x-mas cookies that come in those tins) and more wine and cognac.
After being out in the woods for about 3 hours, we decided to go home. Unfortunately, we were receiving no cell service in the woods, so we had to walk out onto the road heading to town and wait until we could get a signal. Well, the taxi station is at the other end of town and they said it would take about 20-30 minutes. It was getting dark and was looking like it was gonna storm, so we decided to walk while we waited. Fortunately, after several attempts, we were able to catch a ride hitchhiking. Yeah, in the truck I got into it was me and 3 teachers in their 50 and 60s. How funny that must have looked. He dropped us off in town and I walked the 20 minutes to my home. It was drizzling, but literally as I opened the gate to my house, it started to pour. Thank God we caught that truck, otherwise it would have been a nasty walk.
So, the first days of actual class were interesting. No, actually, it was the first two weeks of actual class were interesting. Everyday the schedule would be different. They said that it would take about 2 or so weeks to have the ‘real’ schedule because they didn’t quite know how many students they would have, which classes they would be taking, which teachers they would have and what classes the teachers would be teaching. To me, this seems silly because every year they have to go through the same thing. I would assume that they could anticipate these variables with information concerning what classes the students took the previous year, the number of students, and by discussing with the teachers if they plan on returning. (Please note that it is not normal for students or teachers to ‘come and go’ like we do in America. People don’t really move homes or towns unless to get married and they wouldn’t stop working unless there was an extremely good reason.)
Now that things are settled, and we have a permanent (God I hope it’s permanent) schedule, things are rolling along smoothly. I am really enjoying teaching here. The kids are so enthusiastic about having an American teacher, and their English is, generally, petty good for their age (props to my partner!). The other teachers are very helpful and really interested in me. My partner says that every time I’m in the breakroom, they are talking about me. Good thing I don’t understand, b/c otherwise I’m sure it would bother me greatly. Oh well…
Wow, thanks for such a wonderfully detailed story about your first days of school! Sounds like a great party they had. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall to watch you on those stairs with the microphone! I really like that Plain White T’s song too…but they are killing it on the radio over here.
Talk to you soon,
Kristine
Kristine Krambeck () - 18 09 07 - 14:48
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