WMF Moldova blog updated here.
November 11, 2009
The Lausanne Movement Blog
The Lausanne Movement is doing a series of blog entries on the topic of partnership. Please check out articles written by Chris Heuertz, Noah Tullay and me. I believe that the blog will be updated 4 more times until November 27, so keep checking back for more.
October 28, 2009
they’re back
my friends josh and robin (who are also on wmf staff in romania) have been on paternity/maternity leave for several months because they had a baby. they arrived back in town on sunday evening, and so we prepared to meet them at their apartment with a warm meal and welcome signs in hand. i had things so in order beforehand that i even remembered to bring my camera to capture my first few moments with their new son, lukas. however, as you might expect, i totally forgot to take any pictures until the very last minute as i was walking out the door. following is what i took. you will notice that lukas is not in this picture. nor is robin, his mother. i did, however, manage to catch josh in the background.
October 21, 2009
good advice
I hope I’m not being inappropriately facetious here, but I just couldn’t help sharing the awesomeness of this quote with you all:
“Comment should be made here on a good way to deal with the anger and frustration that is a part of our daily lives. Married people, like singles, can so easily use others as a punch-bag if they are not careful, taking out on each other things that are not relevant to the other person but reflect the difficulties and frustrations of the day. Suppose the wife is the working partner and her husband looks after the home and children. She has had a ghastly day, he is fed up with not hearing a sensible adult voice since she left the house, so both are ripe for an explosion. Prevention is much better than cure. If the wife stops off at a tea or coffee shop, orders a drink, adds sugar if she is not on a diet, stirs it vigorously and sits there for a bit with her Walkman playing soothing music and reading the paper, she will calm down, and on arrival home can say to her husband, ‘What has your day been like,’ and let him sound off a little. Then they will talk more quietly about her day, so peace is preserved and all is well. In addition, everyone working cross-culturally, whether married or not, should have an enjoyable hobby to keep stress levels down, preferably something to hit or throw so that tension is harmlessly displaced onto an object and not on a vulnerable human being. This has been further discussed in Chapter 6″ (Marjory F. Foyle, Honourably Wounded, p. 176-177).
October 20, 2009
russian lessons
every thursday at 3:30 i leave the day center early to grab a maxitaxi to the other side of town for my 2-hour russian language lesson. my teacher is an elderly romanian man who spent his life teaching russian at a high school here in galati, and it is very likely that i am his first student since the revolution of 1989. our lessons are generally pretty straightforward: we go over the essay i wrote for homework, we discuss my questions from the text i read that week and finally he introduces a new set of vocabulary, expressions and grammar topics.
this past week, however, we got sidetracked. my teacher likes to tell stories of the days of communism, the days when he led student tours throughout the soviet union and other socialist countries of eastern europe. he had one glorious visit to the большой театр in moscow that he recounts to me during every single lesson. our conversation this week, on the other hand, veered toward the relationship between moldova and romania and eventually toward life in galati during the communist period. i sat fascinated for an hour listening to him talk about the bombings that took place here during WWII, the apartment buildings that were built after the destruction was over and what it was like to buy food and work and go to school during ceauşescu’s reign.
i could tell that my teacher was really getting into the discussion as each of my questions would cause his eyes to light up and then to continue explaining in further detail. at one point, he asked his wife to bring in a plate of grapes and cookies for us to eat as we talked. this was the first time he’d served me a snack at my language lesson!
finally, as the discussion turned toward more personal matters and my move to moldova in january, he asked me if i’m ever planning on getting married. if i am, he said, his advice to me is to not marry an american or western european woman. why? they age quickly and aren’t beautiful, of course. whom should i marry, then? a russian, ukranian or romanian. they stay young for many years and are all beautiful, he assured.
yes, domnule profesor, i will certainly keep that in mind.
October 4, 2009
frogs
one day, about a month ago, i was walking home from our last friday outing of the summer with one of the girls who comes to our day center and who happens to live right across the street from me. i was telling her about my nightly battle with the hordes of frogs that venture out from the garden and onto the path that i must take from my bedroom to the bathroom (i live on the second floor of a house with an exterior staircase only….the bathroom is on the first floor). sometimes, i said, i take a flashlight with me because i am scared that i will accidentally step on a frog and be left with its guts all over my shoe. (come on, it’s a real possibility! one night, i counted 10 frogs sitting on the path on the way to the bathroom.)
the girl affirmed my experience, saying that each night, there are tons of frogs outside of her house, too. and once, she stepped on one! i asked what happened afterward, and she said that she ended up with tons of negi all over her hand. this was the first time i had heard the word negi, and not having a romanian/english dictionary on hand, i tried to figure out the meaning from context. but i failed, not being able to connect a smashed frog underfoot with this girl’s hand.
upon arriving home, i looked up negi in the dictionary, and guess what it means?
WARTS!
