Friday, July 18, 2008

Success? Soil testing? Not shot down immediately… well not totally…

7.18.08

So I am sitting at work reading this gigantic book about soil in English because it is just more productive for me to learn in English then read information in Romanian, though I do from time to time read in Romanian to pass the time while learning about agriculture and learn some terminology… that was a long sentence, I hope nobody passed out reading that aloud. ;-)

Anyway, I am reading about soils, crops, and fertilizer use, a book I never thought I would ever have any interest in ever in my life has me interested. So it is talking about soil testing for people so they can know in what condition their soil is in. With this information they might add some fertilizer (may it be organic or with chemicals I am not getting into that debate) to improve their yields of the crop or just the vitamin content of the fruit or vegetable.

So I ask my partner if he knows of any place where we could get tests like this done.. a lab or something near by. He said he didn’t know but there probably is. I asked if he does it, he says no, I know its necessary but I don’t do it, and neither does anybody else. After pestering him with questions and ideas as usual we get into a debate on weather or not this would be a good project or not.

Finally we decide to find out if it is even possible. I ask him if there is a testing center in Balti (big city south of us about an hour). He doesn’t know, I check the internet with avail. We decide to call our local office in balti and ask. They know of a place, they give us the number, we call, we find out they do exist, they do provide these services and guess what! They are really cheap and fairly fast. Aproximately $4 for a test and it takes roughly only 30 days to complete.

Then after finding out this information a man walks in a friend my partners of course he is not a random person looking for agriculture help from our hidden organization hears us talking about it and says, maybe he will go and get it done for his land. That sparks me into thinking, nobody really knows about this program, if they do they don’t’ know how about doing these tests, how about we do a project surrounding this topic?

Then after a second thought after my partner who doesn’t like working (the less the better, says we could just write we did this on paper but not really do it). I decide well how about we get the information from this lab (I hope they have information on how to do the samples and then how to interpret the results) and do some seminars for real in promotion to a business we can start by taking taking samples for people, taking multiple samples to lab, getting the info, translating the results for the locals in language they an understand then charge for this service.

Right? Sounds promising? Then comes him thinking… hmmm.. I dunno… lets ask people, so he goes about with me asking everybody we can find in the building if they would play, he of course didn’t pitch it right because you have to say the importance of doing the tests… you know really sell the idea before asking them for the $10 for the tests and results…. So everybody said… na… that’s ok and there goes our idea.

I will still try to do a seminar or so at least getting word out about it and whey its important. ( overuse of chemical fertilizers or misuse is horrible for the environment and detrimental to crop yields and nobody know how much to use but just buys the crap and puts it on their crops). From there if I can get enough interested I will try to sell the idea to them that we are a value add and maybe we can get some takers…

Next week we hopefully plan to go to balti and find the lab and ask for information. I offered to pay for the gas to get there and back, (without this its… a uhh its too expensive… we won’t go).

Crossin my fingers ;-)

Gimpy and quackers


That’s right, the title is correct. We have a new addition to our array of animals in the back yard now. I am sitting out side reading no other then War and Peace ;-) that’s right that 1300 plus classic that I never though id read and I am sure countless Peace Corps Volunteers get the chance to read during our schedules…. When my host mom comes around the corner with a duck in her hands and says look what I found!
This guy who is 1 month old and almost the size of a full grown chicken some how made its way into our yard, nobody knows how cause we have and fence and he can’t fly. Anywho we put some food down for him and some water, he guzzles them down and then walks around scared to death of us. We have a little gimpy chicken that I need to take a picture of, I hope to attach it here… anyway his mom doesn’t want him back after sitting on him breakin his legs where my upon my host mom had to nurse him back to health and now he gimps around the yard by himself. But he is scared of the duck and the duck just wants some company, so they are a funny sight to watch waddle around the yard.

Anyway, I got my computer out to show my host dad what a pressure washer was and then with that I got the idea to look up duck calls. With that I set off to have some fun with our new friend. I went to google put in duck calls and then began to call the duck for thigns like feeding time, or just for him to come close… he was really confused then after some time I just felt bad because I was growing a little attached to him knowing in 2 months he would lose his head and he would be meat… that’s a horribly depressing way to end that little snip… sorry. A happy ending is that last night the gimpy little chicken and duck snuggled next to each other as orphans and had a good night sleep.. (true story).




Tuesday, July 15, 2008

I am a peace corps volunteer

I came home last night soaking wet from the rain. Its was 10:30 at night, I had just spent about 4 hours discussing this summer camp which has turned into a fiasco of the highest magnitude. To spare the details and angry words… there is a big problem with planning over here… there is a summer camp that might or might not happen that I am not really even a supporter for but have been dragged into it through acquaintances.

And I am now in charge of getting the budget done. It is now 6 am and I am waking up to do this get this budget done, then go to the store to price items so I can meet with a woman who is possibly the most difficult woman I have ever worked with. She talks to me with a tone and attitude that I would really only let me own mother get away with or possibly my future wife after 10 years of marriage and I just take it.

So long story short, I worked with this difficult woman finished up, walked home in the pouring rain through the complete darkness, in my sandals, sloshing through puddles, dodging potholes with the light of my cell phone under a umbrella. As im walking I see a car in the distance, I quickly jump to the side of the road as far as I can from the street, but of course he turns right next to my spot runs right over a huge puddle, I prepare, turn the umbrella to the side to repel the onslaught only to angle the umbrella wrong and take a tidel wave of dirty water all over me.

Who else would put up with crap? After screaming a few obscenities after the car I started laughing, and smiled the whole way home. :)

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Castle

This is infront of the baron of all the gypsies house. Farina, Eric, Two germans i forgot thier names then me :)


Here are some castle pictures in Sorroca


More caslte pictures. find me ;-)


This was our ride to Sorroca.


7.13.08

A couple of weeks ago I went to Sorroca, a city about 4 hours by hitch hiking to the east of my town Edinet. I heard of the castle over there, and their large population of gypsies and their giant houses in this location known as gypsy hill.

Any who I set off with farina my German traveling companion and hitched our way there. It luckily only took 2 different vehicles to get there. The first was a van with one window and the second was a very large dump truck hauling sand.

The castle was neat. I really enjoy going and looking at castles given we don’t have a single real one in America or anywhere near Kansas. And most of the castles here are older then America by a good amount of years. So I went there, I saw the castle, I walked along the river walk, I saw gypsy hill and had a good time.

I met up with two more Germans who I met randomly on a previous date and another peace corps volunteer. The castle was laughed at by the Germans who have “real” castles in their home country but it was still impressive enough for me.


No I don’t know the name of that tree

7.13.08

This is just a quick culture note from my observing the types of questions I am receiving here as an American stranger. Everybody points out trees, and plants and everything and asks me what they are called in English. My consistent response has been I don’t have a clue.

It is a sad fact that I don not know the names of really any plants or trees in nature. Just the same I am from Kansas and we do not have a huge amount of plants and trees growing in our plains but just the same im not sure I could really pick out the trees from my home state that might grow here.

Everybody here knows the names of the trees… they may only know them in Russian for the most part but at least they know them. It is a gap for me and my association with the nature around me. Also, all of the houses are covered with potted plants. It is a big deal. In my room right now where I am sitting I can spot 12 potted plants. I live in a jungle :).

The bench project (a fost n-a fost)

7.13.08

"It was, no it wasn’t." That about sums up our bench project in the park. Quick recap, I had a project development volunteer group. Im going to loosely say I had a group because after the first 3 weeks it was staggered attendance and productivity.

The group of high school students, went through some brain storming ideas on things that they would like to see their community have. From there we did a little critical thinking and then selected a project. From there we wrote a project proposal, and with this we could develop into a request for money from either the mayor’s office, the community itself, high school students, and even local businesses.

I did not want to write a grant for this project because I am trying to show or maybe learn myself how to get projects in this country done without the needs of outside funding. Long story short, we fell short on asking the community, mayors office and the high school students. We were in the process of developing a marketing plan asking for money from a local business in exchange for some marketing and publicity for them which we could provide when we hit a brick wall then the project magically was completed.

The brick wall was the lack of enthusiasm on the project. It is summer, the volunteers had left or were working. I tried to call a meeting and only 2 showed up. About 3 days after meeting I noticed the benches were being repaired by some workers. I asked around, found out the organization in charge of making the park beautiful got wind of our desire to do this project and thought it was a good idea. So they just went a head and did it!

This is a huge step given its been nearly 20 years since these benches have been usable and now they are painted and repaired completely. Sure it would have been great to say, we did this ourselves, raised the money and did the repairs with our own hands like we had planned but I am just as happy with this result. Some adults who knew about our desire to get this project done were angry that this other organization did the repairs because it was “our” project. I think they need to look at the big picture… we have new benches :).

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Emergency injection

So im hanging out at my friends apartment a couple of weeks ago and she comes down with a fever. I brushed it off as if she was just over reacting to feeling bad. But as time went on she really didn’t say to much about it. Her sister came in the room feels her head and says whats wrong. She said she is hot and she has a fever of like 38 degrees celcius or something there abouts. I don’t know what that means because good o’l America uses some crazy non metric system!

Well the cure for her fever is quickly on display. The sister grabs a bottle of vodka out of the cabnit and starts pouring it on her hands then rubbing my friends arms vigorously then proceeds to her legs then followed by her neck. From there she bundles her up with socks and a blanket and wait for her to sweat it out to break the fever…

I had never heard or seen this in my life and I had a hard time keeping the smile on my face or mouth from gaping open in amazement at this technique, but what do I know. Anyway… about an hour or so later she was still feeling crappy. I got her to eat something but she quickly felt tired and sick and laid down the couch to rest. I took her temperature and it said something like 39.4 or something.

Her sister and her friend had left to go the lake or something and she calmly tells me that we need an ambulance. By then I was really concerned, because neither of us knew the number to get this job done. We end up calling her sister figuring it out and about 10 minutes later I hear the sirens.

Now given my experience with seening ambulences in this country.. ( mainly used as a taxi for friends of the driver or lucky hitch hikers) I was a little scared this tinly weird bus thing was going to come here. But sure enough it arrived and in came two people. The first one was a women in a open lab coat with the little heart checker around her neck. The second was a man in sandles and what looked to be a tool box for repairing cars. I think he also doubled as the driver/mechanic.

So after a few questions the man who had been reading a cooking book uninterested in the conversation decides to pop into the conversation by saying, I think we need an injection! INJECTION!? Ya, so she calmly rolled over and he popped this 2 inch long needled out and syringe out of his tool box and jabbed her in the toosh.

From there they said she needs to take some rehydration packets… (and buy them at the pharmacy because they don’t have them) and she should be ok. He asked her if she had been in any moving vehicles the past 2 days. She answered maybe 2 days ago but she can’t remember. He goes that was probably it! The CURRENT! 2 open windows spells disaster for anybody caught in the wind passage, she needs to be more careful he said then walked to the door with the chemist… I mean doctor. Then waited patiently for the sister to pay them a bonus for coming on an insured visit… I don’t know the amount but it made me a little sick. I will never call an ambulance again.

Working in the field for the grandma



So I have begun workin in the field again for that older women I met in the field on a walk. I did some work about 2 weeks ago but after farina told me it looked as though I wasn’t doing it right I never went back for fear the old women would be angry at me for doing my free labor incorrectly.

Well last week I ran into her on the street while I was with farina. She came up and was very happy to see me. She told me how good of a job I had done. I had passed by the field only the day before to witness where I had worked the corn was easily the highest around and that maybe I had correctly weeded with my hoe in a fashion that would encourage the growth of the corn not hinder it.

So anyhow I quickly blamed my not coming by to work more on farina’s errant observation which was quickly rewarded by a quick scolding from the old women upon farina. I really left her out hanging there but it was in good fun and a little revenge given how my previous 6 hour effort left me feeling bad about myself rather then happy for doing a good deed.

Anyhow I have spent the past 2 days putting in a total of 7 hours of work in a field overgrown with weeds. The old women gave up on it because she said she is too old and her help turned to alcoholism. So now im fighting the weeds that were allowed to grow too long for anybodies good hoping to earn a little respect from the surrounding people working in the field so I can then approach them with my questionnaire for my work.

Unfortunately I haven’t really seen anybody out there the past two days. Just a few broken hoes to and a sun day to show for my effort.