Sustain

The dictionary defines the word sustain in three ways: 1) to give support or relief to, 2) to supply with sustenance: nourish, 3) keep up, prolong. As my time in Romania grows short I have started to think more about how the work I have started can continue. I don't worry about my students in the high school; their English education will continue. However, I am trying to figure out how to sustain my work with the foundation. This is especially significant as the Peace Corps presence in Romania comes to an end and there will be no more Peace Corps volunteers in my community.

I have been working on a plan to transition my classes at the foundation to some of my high school students. I want to encourage the spirit of volunteering in my community. While I am still in Romania, I can share information and help them practice lesson creating and teaching. Next year the program would become their own, in the hope that they may help it grow and flourish.

Today we held an additional meeting with my students and Angela and Saskia, who run the foundation, to discuss this plan. My students observed part of my class with the younger kids.  Everyone is on board to start this project. Next week I'll meet with my students and we will create a lesson to teach together. I will also start to transition some of my teaching resources to them. After Easter vacation, while I am at my Peace Corps 'Close of Service Conference,' my students will have an opportunity to teach on their own. After I return from the conference we can continue to work together until they feel comfortable teaching on their own.

While this plan is still in its infancy, I feel excited about the possibility of it working.  I hope to spending the next three months working to get this plan to come into fruition for the benefit of the foundation and my students, both in high school and at the center.

100 Days

Over the weekend Julie and I celebrated 100 days left in Romania.  We decided to treat ourselves for the occasion by going to see a movie.  We took maxi-taxis to meet up in Bacau which is a hour and fifteen minute ride from each of our sites.  Our maxi-taxis arrive at the same bus station 15 minutes apart; my maxi-taxi got stuck behind a train so we arrived about 3 minutes apart which was even better.  We were super excited because The Hunger Games came out in Romania at the same time as it did in the rest of the world.  We both read the trilogy last winter as the series circulated through the volunteer community.  Most movies in Romania are subtitled in Romanian (not dubbed) so it's even more cushy for Americans. It was a lovely spring day.  I felt a little silly going inside to see a movie, but we walked slowly and stopped to get lunch along the way, so were outside for a good part of the afternoon!

The movie was a great adaptation of the book!  We didn't realize that the movie is over two hours long so we had to hustle to get the maxi-taxis back to our sites, but all in all it was a great way to celebrate getting closer to the end.

Breaking My Rules

As a teacher, I have been conscious of playing favorites.  When I was a student, I remember being acutely aware of teachers who had favorites.  I have been on both sides of that equation; I had teachers that I knew liked me and other teachers that I knew didn't like me.  I can remember being in elementary school in class with a teacher that didn't like me and trying so hard to try to figure what I could do to change that.  Becoming a teacher, I have really tried to make sure that all my students feel that I like them.  I think it's human nature to have favorites.  I definitely have some favorite classes and students, but I try to be fair in the classroom. I give grades based on ability and effort, nothing more. Trying not to have favorites has effected how I do things, I haven't done many activities with my students outside of class because I can't quite be fair about it.  About 70% of my students commute to school and have to take buses or trains right after school so I haven't thought it fair to make activities that not everyone could attend.  

However, this weekend I made an exception to my rule.  I have a number of students who live in the dorms at my school from the Republic of Moldova. While I have a lot of students who stay in the dorms Sunday night to Friday morning, students from Moldova don't have the ability to go home on the weekend (it's too far away).  Our school cafeteria also isn't open on the weekend so they have to cook on a hot pot in their room. Thus I decided they needed some warm baked goods. Also, a few weeks ago there was a schedule change in school so I had to stop teaching one of my twelfth grade classes so technically I am not their teacher anymore!

I was excited to have the girls over for a mini-tea party, but we actually had an amazingly beautiful day so at the last minute I made ginger lemonade instead.  I had made scones and banana bread ahead of time and together we made chocolate chip cookies.  We had a great afternoon sharing recipes, favorite music, and plans for the future.  Also, I sent them home with a giant packet of goodies to share with the other students when they return back to the dorms tonight.

Carolina and Doina

Inspected

Today I had a rite of passage in the Romanian education system; I was "inspected" (observed) by the County English Inspector. My school is undergoing a full inspection, all teachers are being observed, paperwork is being checked, parents and teachers are being interviewed.  All schools undergo these inspections every three or four years; it's essentially the equivalent of being certified by the state. All Romanian teachers have periodic inspections as well, but as a Peace Corps Volunteer I am normally exempt from these, but the Romanian Ministry of Education has asked all inspectors to observe PCVs to evaluate our teaching methodologies as Peace Corps exits Romania.  Thus I had inspection just like everyone else.

I was inspected during one of my 12th grade classes.  It was a very interesting cultural experience for me.  I have been teaching these students for two years and I have never seen them act as they did today.  They rose when the inspector walked in and waited until she gave them permission to sit.  The class that was observed was definitely one of my best classes, but their behavior was perfect.  I realized that, as students in Romania, they have been through a lot inspections.  I was able to take my queues from them a little, which was lucky.  For example, at the end of the class the inspector dismissed the class, not the teacher (I would have totally done that wrong).  The inspector was very nice and took a copy of my lesson plan and said she would use it with some of her classes.  I don't know if she will, but I took it as a very nice compliment.

After finishing all my classes at the high school, I went to the Foundation where I teach some younger students each Wednesday. All the girls were missing today. I had three very rambunctious boys. We had to take a few breaks during the lesson to break up some fights and practice deep breathing.  However, we were able to plow through a lesson on body parts and end with a rousing version of "Head, shoulders, knees and toes." 

Springing Forward

During the past week in Romania there was a lot of celebrating.  The first nine days of March is Mărțișor, where the coming of spring is celebrated, also March 8th is Women's Day.  During this time women and girls receive charms, called mărțișoare, that have a red and white string tied to them, the string symbolizes the changing of the season cold to hot and also the cycle of life, white for life and red for blood.

On March 8th, two of my 12th grade classes brought me flowers.  One class sang me "Happy Birthday" in English which was very cute.  There is a common confusion because the song that is the Romanian equivalent of "Happy Birthday," called "La Mulți Ani" which translates "to many years" and is sung for pretty much every celebration: birthdays, weddings, anniversaries and baptisms.

Flowers from 12A and 12B

For my own celebration of Mărțișor, I baked cookies at the beginning of the week and brought them to the teacher's lounge.  On the 8th I baked scones and filled them with raspberry jam.  I gave half the batch to my landlady who often brings me food.  We trade baked goods and scones are the one thing she asked for the recipe of.  I brought the other half to the foundation, as Angela, Saskia and I had a coffee date in the afternoon to celebrate.  I had been sick the past couple weeks and not teaching English as I didn't want to risk getting anyone else sick so we had a lovely time catching up.  

When I returned home I discovered in my e-mail inbox that we had been awarded the grant we applied for in February which was a great surprise.  We applied for a VAST (Volunteer Activities Support and Training) grant from Peace Corps to purchase additional educational supplies and a laptop for the spring sex ed programs that the foundations runs in all six high schools in my town.  With these funds the program will be a more interactive and technologically advanced.  It's a small grant, but it will go a long way, helping to educate over 500 students!

This weekend, Julie came to town to visit.  We always like to share when we find more unique ingredients and she had found coconut milk in her town.  I had some green curry, so we combined them and made Thai Green Curry Coconut Sauce, which, in my opinion, was quite possibly the best food we have made in Peace Corps. 

Also while Julie visited, she helped me change out one of the filters in my water filter.  Filters are supposed to last for three years with regular cleaning, but mine simply struggled.  The PC medical office was nice enough to have a filter couriered to me. You are supposed to be able to scrub off the outer layer dirt to make the water flow better, but the dirt and metals got so absorbed into my filter that even after cleaning, water barely trickled out.  The filter on the left is my old filter, after being scrubbed.  Yuck!  Julie holds my new filter on the right.  Yay!  This filter should happily clean my water for the last four months of my service.

Old and new water filters

Side note: while I did title this post Springing Forward, daylight savings time has not actually started yet in Romania.  While it did start in the United States today, it doesn't start in Romania until March 25th so now is the funny time of the year where I am nine hours ahead of Seattle, instead of the typical ten.  Anyone for a Skype date as we are a little closer in time?