Baptism

I attended a baptism and cumatrie (I'll explain it later) all day yesterday. This was one of my favorite shots! But now I have to give the Internet back that I'm borrowing!

Kneading bread

This morning I walked into the casa mica (small house) where my host parents live and where I take a shower and my host mom cooks so I could refill my cup with fresh tea. My host mom was making break dough, so I sat down for a few minutes to talk to her. She was almost done, and told me she knows that because her hand was almost clean of all of the dough she’d been kneading. Then she said she had a type of story, well, not a story, but kind of. Here’s how it goes:

There were two neighbors (two women). One was making bread dough and she got to a point where she couldn’t knead the dough anymore because her hands hurt so she called over her neighbor to come over. The neighbor stopped whatever she was doing at home and quickly came over and started kneading the dough. When she said she was finished the woman came over to say thank you and she looked at the dough and saw that it was very dirty, to which the neighbor replied, “by my hands are now clean!”

I can’t wait to have fresh bread this afternoon!!

Happy Friday!

What a great day! I began it by waking up without an alarm- I love that. For some reason my body has adjusted to the school hours very nicely and I wake up at 7am whether I’ve slept for 3 hours (eek!) or 10. Today wasn’t any different- while I didn’t have to be at school until 9:30 I was up and ready to go at, you guessed it, 7am. Thankfully that was the case because I got to take my time eating breakfast and drinking tea, while unfortunately my host mom was running around like crazy because she had to go to the fields to work and she thought she had the day off, so needless to say she was rather unprepared. At just after 8 I had finished my breakfast and was drinking my second cup of delicious homemade tea (which I actually had a dream about last night??!!) and working on choosing some photos for an awesome project that I am thankful to be part of and can’t wait to share with you on Thursday… when all of a sudden I heard, “CATE!!” coming from outside. Like I’ve said before, it is rare to find a house in the village that has a doorbell. Instead there are doordogs, or if you’re like us and don’t have either, if someone needs the either stand at your gate and yell your name or they walk on in and start opening doors till they find out. When I heard my name I hopped out of bed to go see who it was because it sounded like my partner teacher, but she usually calls me so I was confused. It turns out it wasn’t her, but it was a 2^nd grade neighbor girl and you know what she wanted? She wanted to walk to school with m e. I’ve heard of this happening to other volunteers (kids waiting for them at their gate to walk to school) but it’s never happened to me… until today. I think I’m going to start going to school for the first lesson just so I can have my walking buddy. It makes me think of when my mom used to walk my sister and me to school before we got old enough that she trust us (or she got busy enough to where she didn’t want to walk with us). It’s a pretty good feeling. Unfortunately I had to turn her down today because I was still in my pj’s and I still had some things to do at home…

But that wasn’t the only thing that was great in the morning. On the way to school I walked by the house of a little girl that I sometimes give English lessons to… or, rather, we do the “hokey pokey” about 10 times before I realize we’re not going to get any further than that and I go home (that was a bit of an exaggeration… we do actually do lessons until I give in and do the hokey pokey). She has apparently taught her little 2 year old sister to say, “hello” so now every time I walk by her I hear her little strong voice through all of the honking geese, clucking chickens, and the noise of the tractor say, “Hello!” as she raises up her hand. It’s pretty stinking adorable… and so is it when her sister tells her to come up to me and give me a kiss… she gives one of those big wet kisses on the check only after she rubs noses.

It doesn’t stop there!! I had the 2^nd and 3^rd lesson and then two free hours before the 6^th (and final!) lesson, so I went to the shop behind the school to get a coffee and something sweet to munch on. It wasn’t that I was tired or hungry, but I like hanging out there and talking to people that come in and with the people that work there (it’s like being at Henry’s in Lawrence, just without the scene kids, delicious coffee, and college town ambiance… oh, and the bar upstairs. With a balcony. But it does have a bar included, a shop to buy the bare necessities which is really anything you could need on any given day, and a porch). Anyways- back to the story. There wasn’t anyone there at the moment, but a chair in front of the door indicating someone would shortly be back. And they were. With a child in hand. Whenever I see a child it is very hard to resist talking to them or tapping their nose or playing with them. What I’ve seemed to notice is that the child is either going to be shy and run and hide, which is fine, or they are going to play back, which is great. Well this little fetita (girl) was the latter… she wasn’t afraid of me in the slightest and was just a ball of happiness and energy. And very smart! We ended up playing with a balloon and I taught her how to rub it on her head an then stick it to the wall, and we played with a top (the spinning tops) and she quickly learned how to make it spin after watching me. But then I asked her how old she is and she said, “2”. Grandma quickly chimed in and corrected her saying that she was not 2, but 3. Then she’d ask the little girl how old she is again and tell her to say it correctly and she’d tell her grandma 3, and then the grandma would tell her to tell me how old she was and she’d smile and say, “2”. Some things are just engraved into the memories of kids and are hard to get out, I guess. But who really cares because she was adorable nonetheless and never once stopped smiling, even when two balloons popped in her hands.

The Internet

It's not that I can't live without the Internet because I'm "addicted" to it... because I can. This is not the hard part at all. What is difficult is that I have realized how much my life really does center around the Internet. It's how I find out if I've won a photography competition, how I communicate with friends and family, how I plan lessons, how I plan vacations, and how I know what is going on in the World. It is also how I learn how to do things that I don't know how to do yet.

However, due to the timing of my year-long contract coming to an end and the installation of the new DSL internet in the village, I will not have internet at home until that is installed. In the meantime I will be borrowing my neighbor's internet when possible, but only for short periods at a time (like now). So if you need me, find my number on Facebook. Otherwise, feel free to shoot me an email (mccrandell@gmail.com) and I will get back to you when I have Internet access!

(and be ready for bulk blog posts when I do have Internet, because they're going to happen)

Inside out and gifts

Tonight as I was sitting at the dinner table with my host family enjoying a few shots of some of the amazing grape juice made today, my host mom looked at my host dad and said his tank top, which he’d been wearing while working outside all day, was inside out. He looked at the seams he could see and then mocked her saying the same thing. She then looked at the back of his shirt to see where the tag was- and it was, in fact, on the outside. But he wasn’t convinced… so he then pulled up his shirt and the back of it over his head so that he could see the tag for himself and sure enough, it was (still) inside out. The best part of this whole scene, though, was when he said, “Sometimes it’s OK to wear shirts inside out”. We all cracked up. Maybe you had to be there, but it was hilarious. I love it when my host dad is in a really good mood.

On another note, today while coming back to my village from Chisinau I met a girl from a neighboring village. She heard me speaking English with one my students and asked if I could give her some lessons. She then asked for my number but had to go get a piece of paper from her bag in the back of the bus…and when she came back, she had a book of the British Embassy in Moscow that she was giving to me as a gift (it is written in English and Russian). People here really never cease to amaze me.

What I learned

I know I'm the teacher and all, but teachers can learn interesting things in school, too!

Today I learned that there is a comet that is heading toward the Earth and is going to cause 3 days of darkness beginning on Monday, which could cause the end of the world. And due to this, all of the important world's leaders (Obama included) are taking "mini vacations" and really hiding in bunkers. While I haven't found out if the bunkers part is true, I did find out that the comet is most likely not going to be of an issue.

Then I found out that Moldovan's were not informed of the conspiracy theory that the attacks on the twin towers were not an act of terrorism but instead a plot by the government. They are just now being informed of this. I wonder what else they're hearing on the news...

I also learned that I'm probably going to be teaching a lot more classes by myself this year because I still don't think my other partner wants to work with me. But that's ok, because I like teaching by myself :)

Oh, and one last thing. I learned that chocolate gives me a NICE burst of energy to make it through the very last lesson on Friday's!

Last day of summer

My aunt informed me today that it is the last day of summer, so I guess it was a good thing that I chose today to go on a walk. But the real reason for choosing today was because the weather is beautiful (it was around 80ºF in the afternoon) and it was my last "sick day" before going back to school. And, in all honesty, I still look disgusting because of the attack of the cold sores and I wanted to get outside but I didn't feel like socializing with anyone. Luckily, though, the people that have seen me have informed me that I had a fever, to which my response is yes, I had a fever, along with a temperature and sore throat and yes, I drank a lot of tea with honey.

Oh yea, the walk.

I put on my walkin' shoes and jeans this time so I could walk through everything and not say "ouch" every few feet (flip flops are not good hiking shoes):

Then I hit the road by taking my original path at first, and straying from it.

When I saw the river, I knew I had to go there:

And made a wish

Then I decided to trudge through the weeds and make my way literally to the water's edge. It was so peaceful listening to the water! I felt like I was at the ocean.

And with all of my thoughts and wishes, I was glad a frog popped out of hiding to remind me that even though my mom isn't here with me, she still listens.

And the driftwood reminded me that my dad is still here and he also listens. And responds!

Then I saw the Arcopolis of Moldova (which ended up not being so cool up close)

Although some kids did try to write profanity in English. Spelling error!

And eventually I ran into the ferry which would have taken me over to the monument I wanted to see if it was running, but unfortunately it wasn't.

After sitting there for awhile and doing some writing and drawing, I decided to head back home.

And I found my next computer one the way there...

And some men that gave me directions and then the one in the white tried to get me to marry his son. His first question after telling me I just had to keep walking straight 2 kilometers was, "Are you married? Neither his he." HA!

My walk finished with picking some apples, which I later used to make amazing applesauce.

And on a final closing... I just want to say how happy I am at the moment. In fact, I am so happy that I was not only walking but also dancing while on my walk.