Well, it has been a month or so since I have written even though many things have happened or passed. One of the best is that spring has finally come!! I say finally, I should say that it has come and for many people it is finally. I am still in shock from the change from 20 degrees to suddenly 65 degrees in the middle of the day. I will not complain though. To go from many, many layers of clothes to a normal amount is always a good thing. I also enjoy being just the right temperature in school. With spring has come happy faces, children running and laughing, sunshine, and warmth. February was also a hot bed of activity. I was lucky enough to take part in an open lesson for English. Open lessons are when the other teachers in the raion (like a county) for a particular subject all come to observe lessons taught by other teachers. In this case it was mostly English and some French teachers who came to observe either a French lesson, an English lesson and then all together an extra-curricular activity in English dedicated to St. Valentine's day. There were around 28 teachers, although it could have been a few less. After all the lessons we all met together and then the teachers discussed the lessons said what they liked and what they would have liked to have seen improved upon. Also during this time several teachers presented research that they had done. I think that it was supposed to be teacher research but it was not very structured so it was hard to tell. After all "business" was over we all went for "coffee and tea" which turned out to be a стол or masa in Romanian which is a meal but bigger scale. There was lots of good food, drinks and talk and of course toasts. The French teacher gave hers in French, there was one in Russian and on in Romanian and then in the end I gave a toast Spanish in keeping with the theme of foreign languages. The whole day was fun but exhausting. At the end I felt like I had just taken a very important test or something along those lines.
In addition to my own experience with the open lesson, there were several more at my school soon after in physical education and Romanian. It was a big event for everyone at the school and required lots of planning and cleaning and preparing. I think they all went well.
Also we celebrated St. Valentine's Day, Affection day (24th of February for everyone where as V-Day is really just for couples), Men's Day (23th of February an old soviet holiday that has been reworked) and then just recently the 8th of March International Women's day. A celebration of women and all of their roles and accomplishments. It included of course many a feast and a speech and flowers and cards and wonderfulness. I wish that we had this day in the USA. The 1st of March is also a large holiday in Moldova and Romania Martisor, it is the official beginning of spring here.
Everyone gives and receives Martisori which are little red and white flowers. There are many legends about the Martisori and they are all very interesting. One that I heard was that the sun used to turn himself into a man and come and visit the Earth and people. Then one day an evil dragon captured the sun and kept him on Earth. The land grew dark and cold because the sun did not return to the sky. A young man saw what was happening and decided to go save the sun but his journey took him a long time to find the evil dragon. But the young man found the dragon and fought him. He fought him so hard that his blood splashed on the ground and on white flowers staining them red. He fought and killed the dragon but he also died. So in honor of the young man who fought for the sun and brought spring we were the Martisori.
There are many more legends this is just one I like.
So many holidays, much work, and now sun. I was also lucky to be able to listen to VP Joe Biden speak when he was here in Moldova and then attend a meet and greet with him after his speech. It was a once in a lifetime event, the VP in Moldova when I am in Moldova and then a special session afterwards were we got to meet him in person. It took about 5 hours of standing but the weather was good, there was live music and I was with friends.
That's it for now. I have lots of projects and plans for the coming months. The 50th Anniversary of Peace Corps has kicked off. If you want to see what Peace Corps volunteers in Moldova please check out our website http://www.365peaceandfriendship.com it has a calendar of events and posts of those events. We are hoping to highlight one event, volunteer, Moldovan, city, activity every day for the next year to commemorate Peace Corps and the people we work with.
Happy Spring!!
