October Santas

Wow! Just when things were threatening to settle into a routine...sending me into a fit of the blues...Jesus went and moved Christmas to October...just for me! Have I ever mentioned how much I love Jesus?

Yes, folks, it's true. For the first 4 months here in Moldova, the only thing I have received in the mail was an empty envelope. It had a nifty electronic gadget in it when it started it's journey, but that got appropriated somewhere along the way before it arrived to me. I was totally care-package bereft!

But in the last two weeks, in response to my newsletter appeal and prompted by Jesus, I have seen an outpouring of paper clips, contruction paper, and hole punchers like I have never seen before! ;-) And with them came so much love and affection that it feels like I've received packages of pure gold. Thank you so much for your love...AND for the various treasures such as:

Dry erase markers in a DOZEN different colors, markers that smell like rasberries and apples, ziplock bags, a DRY ERASE BOARD(!), all sorts of magazines, paperclips, reading books at all different grade levels, totally overprocessed FABULOUS American snack foods (thanks Grandma!), ballet slippers (thanks Mom!), cds/dvds, my favorite shampoo/conditioner, and more pens and pencils than you can shake a stick at.

I'm in teacher heaven! Wahoo!!!

To those of you who are still contemplating sending me packages, by all means still send them! I don't need anymore paperclips (unless I start using them for crafts...), but I can always use more magazines, comfort food, cds/dvds, postcards from anywhere in the world (ESPECIALLY America,) posters of any English speaking country (ESPECIALLY America,) and pictures/letters from you!

To the wonderful person at 127 East Ninth St, Ste 801, please accept my HUGE thanks...and PLEASE tell me who you are! There was no name on the package, only your address.

Jesus bless you all with peace and joy!

It's Official...

It's officially COLD! I understand that winter has unmistakeably come to many places, what with record snowfall in New York, snow in Wyoming, and finally a break in the Redding summer heat (I hear the violins playing for you, California! lol!) And while I cannot say that "winter" is officially here, because the locals just laugh at me when I say that, I CAN say that it is now DEFINITELY cold!

Today the low temperature is 25F/-3C and high was 39F/4C. That may not sound like much to you Arctic penguins out there, but please factor in 80% humidity and an 11mph/18kmphr north wind. This California girl already has her long johns, wool socks, wool scarf, wool gloves, and down jacket pressed into service. (Let me just say right here and now that I LOVE my sister Leanne!)

At my house, the radiators have not been turned on yet, but I have an electric heater in my room. And with the host mama canning tomatoes all day, the stove has heated the house considerably. But at school, there is (as yet) no heat. We were all (students and teachers) wearing our jackets during class!

So what am I going to do when it gets "really" cold??? Well, I was wearing 2-4 layers today. I can always up that to 4-6 layers, and just wear my whole wardrobe. One thing I will probably invest in while I'm here is a pair of boots. I have seen the most beautiful fur-lined, knee-high boots! Spendy, but it will be totally worth it! And they might even look kinda cool with a skirt...NOT like the knee-high boots that were in fashion here all summer, with 4 inch stiletto heels...more like the Australian-style Ugg boots that are the rage in California...

Here's to being from California!

Changing of the guard

Fall has always been my favorite season and now it is a beautiful autumn here, like we don't get much of in Redding. There are golden leaves, nippy air, but warm sunshine. And best of all, there is harvest of just about everything. Especially grapes.

If I was a regular housewife, I don't know how much I would love this season, because everyone is putting up hundreds of jars of conserves. And it's a LOT of work! My host mom is roasting peppers and eggplants, pickling cucumbers and tomatoes, canning boiled tomatoes, carrots, sweet and hot peppers with honey and garlic.

But as my job mostly entails coming and going to work and admiring the wonderful smells, I have to say that this is my favorite season so far.

This California wine lover came to the right place!

I just came from a wine festival in the city center that reminds me a lot of our county fairs. There was dancing, national costumes, singing and music, handicraft displays of needlepoint, weaving, and woodcarving. And lots of people.

There was the food. Every conceivable national dish was homebaked and set out to be tasted and tried: stuffed roasted peppers, placinte (fried bread with herbs and cheese inside), pickles, fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh pressed cheese, roasted eggplant salad, and more.

There is a special affinity here for baking beautiful bread. Not just mouth wateringly delicious bread, but braided and adorned and shaped and molded to within an inch of its shortlived life! Shortlived because it IS so tasty! Shortlived also because it is next to sacriledge to put bread in a plastic sack. I'm not sure how the logic goes, but supposedly to keep bread fresh, you wrap it in cloth which keeps in the moisture without making the crust go soft. Not sure how this keeps the mold out...

And then there was the wine. Not only are the fall vegetables being harvested now, but also the grapes. This is the season of new wine, when last year's grapes have fermented to the point where they are truly wine, and this year's grapes are picked and crushed and started into the process of becoming wine themselves.

Every village has its own winery or wine factory. At the wine festival today, each village set up a booth out of the back of a truck or a van to show off the handicrafts, food, bread, and wine from that village. Beautiful wooden casks with half crushed grapes inside showed the process how people make their own homemade wine. Other specialty casks are ornately carved with 2-3 spigots on them which will pour out different kinds of wine.

The wine is free and many varieties are very good. The food is handed out along with your filled glass. You may taste the wine with a savory treat of your choice. Or you may taste the fresh grapes that the wine was made from. For example I came home with a bunch of ripe cabernet grapes, some sauvignon, and some moldova grapes.

Yes, someone named a variety of grapes after the country! They are similar to the concord, but with a more complex flavor. Call me crazy, but I taste apple, pear, and pineapple when I eat them. Very good!

So if the wine and food was free, and there was no entrance fee, how was the crowd, you ask? After sampling many wines, most were only slightly inebriated, if at all. The alcohol tolerance is really quite amazing. Everyone had been dancing and eating as well. I didn't see any brawls, and I only had to fend off one gentleman who was overly zealous that I stay and listen to him expound about something to me. On the whole it was a lovely day.

It's really a shame that most of the wineries are only operating at a fraction of their capacity, if at all. Russia continues its ban on Moldovan wines which has caused thousands of people to be put out of work. Some say it's because of political disaggreements over Moldova's pro-western moves, its crackdown on the porous border with the breakaway, pro-Russian Transnistrian region, or Moldova's hesitation to admit Russian to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Whatever the reason, Moldovans are losing a lot of money, and the excellant wine industry here is also suffering. If you happen to see wine from Moldova, you should definitely buy a bottle and try it!

So You Think You're a Teacher

I have been teaching English and American Civilization for a month now. Well, what I mean is, I've been standing in front of classes of ten to twenty-five students on a daily basis. I've demanded good behaviour. I've expounded on the delicacies of English Grammar. My students have participated in activities designed to inspire interest and the desire to express oneself. And I've done it all in English. So, though some may disagree, I think this qualifies me as an English teacher.

Sometimes I feel that I'm doing a good job. Take yesterday for example. Yesterday was Teacher's Day. It is the day when students take over the adults' jobs, "to give them a rest." The students give flowers to their teachers, and say very nice things to them, like, "We hope you'll be our teacher all the way til the 12th grade" and "I'm so glad you came to be our teacher" and "Your class is the most interesting and important of all my classes." Very possibly it is a large load of first class fertilizer. But JUST possibly, there is a glimmer of truth in some of it.

As students traipsed into my class all day with flowers and small gifts, and nervously delivered speeches of beautiful words (a Moldovan hallmark), I couldn't help but feel my heart fill up. Sometimes the student was alone, which meant that the individual student bought a flower just for me. Sometimes they came in a group, which meant that the class had pooled money to buy a flower for each one of their teachers, and they were delivering the flowers to each teacher in turn.

I couldn't tell if it was done out of obligation, or if they really meant it. I'm such a sap that I tend to believe it all, thus accounting for several close calls with teary eyes in front of my students. But I'm growing wiser as each year passes, and I've learned that even the best of intentions go astray.

So today I was not too surprised, or even very disappointed, when I had to reprimand one class for collapsing into total chaos when I left them alone for several minutes (I returned to my class to find students on top of desks, ready to hit each other with chairs, yelling at the top of their lungs...) Nor did it phase me when I tried to lock my classroom door at the end of today, only to find that someone had jammed the lock with match sticks...

Retaliation for bad marks? Backlash because the students were tired from their exemplary behaviour yesterday? Acting out because the routine had been interupted and the normal restraints were not present? I'm learning that to be a teacher means one thing. But to be a good teacher means being a master of my subject, a master of drama, and a master psychologist. Lord, help me, but I'm learning.

It also helps if you can read minds and have eyes in the back of your head. For all of you teachers out there, can you direct me to the nearest teaching supply store where I can find these supplies? Directions much appreciated.