I am done feeling sorry for myself.

Lesson Number One of Leadership: .
For the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next the people fear, and the next the people hate. When the best leader's work is done, the people say, "We did it ourselves."
Lao Tsu
.
First Rule of Project Design: .
If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.
Anonymous

Lesson Number One of Management: .
There are only two things in life: Reasons and Results. (Reasons Don't Count)
Robert Anthony
.
Lesson Number One of Planning: .
If you do not know where you are going, then any road will do.
Lewis Caroll
.
Lesson Number One of Self Reliance: .
If you blame others, you give up your power to change.
Robert Anthony
. .
First Rule of Awareness Raising .
A good message must be:
Kept very simple, and must
Reach all people.
Phil Bartle
First Rule of Management: .
Do not work hard, get results.
Bill Owen

I will stop wallowing around in my own self pitty and do somthing. May those be my famous last words. Eye of the Tiger baby! I hope to have somthing of use to report in the following week or two. For if I don't it's because I didn't try hard enough. That is just somthing I will not accept.

8.27.08 brutally honest.

Drinking is culture here. It is everywhere, from the celebrations, to mid day work shots, to dinner shots with whisky or wine. You see it in drunks walking the streets stumbling by, or breakfast shots at the local bars as you walk by and there are a handful of men standing around a small table doing straight up vodka shots at 7 in the morning with guys all around them just sipping on their beers going about their days.

Word to the wise for future volunteers, this should have been stressed to all volunteers thinking about coming here. Its part of the culture and if you are not comfortable throwing down with the men you will have a very hard time fitting in or even enjoying yourself here.

I know some volunteers who in coping with their environment, may it been low productivity, a hopeless situation, homesickness, or just plain boredom are drinking more then maybe they had in the past or more then they should. When volunteers are put in a situation that is stressful and unknown like we are in then throw in a culture that you have to refuse drinks at ever corner if you don’t want to be drunk it can be a hard thing to say no. I remember in the winter, as I was being offered glass of wine after glass saying come on one more, “I don’t like to drink alone” you give into it and maybe you fall asleep at 8 that night ending a possibly boring or stressed out day early... Once you realize you are doing it you have the choice to stop it or continue it. I stopped it once I realized what I was doing and feel in control of myself. This summer has allowed me to escape it given in the host family I just left to live alone they ran out of wine and I was not forced it every night like I had been before.

Our peace corps doctor here in Moldova who is a native Moldovan said on this topic…You have to understand this is the culture this is our culture and society and if you reject it we reject you. He tells of times he knows of friends who refused to drink that wer fired from their jobs, there is this feeling of if you don’t drink with us you want something from us, your not our friend maybe you’re a spy.. (going to the extreme there but he was honest in what he was saying)

That makes me think about those days at work I would refuse to drink because it was a work day maybe my partners thinking less of me or don’t include me in things because I don’t take to drink as they do. It puts a whole new dynamic to saying no the drink and as that doctor was insinuating … you can’t really say no if you expect to be integrated in your community.

I am not saying I don’t drink here, I do, but I try to do it where kids would not see me or even high school students who are potential students of mine if I get any of these project groups off the ground here in the future.

Its not an easy job we do here, and with this added element of alcohol pressed on us on top of everything else it makes it that much harder.

I live without a host family now. I have an apartment. I will be sharing it with a 15 year old boy who is going to the local high school so he doesn’t have to commute from the village about 45 minutes away every day. His mom bought the apartment and I am renting a room from her. I am looking forward to having a roommate, even if he is so young. I hope this will help my conversational skills because he is a Romanian speaker.

I am also feeling alone at work. Given the level of corruption and inherent problems with my organization I don’t see myself really writing a project with them. I also don’t even know if I have the possibility to write a actual project that might leave any kind of lasting impact on them. This realization is a scary one because it mean what I do might be me doing this on my own.
I will focus on the youth because they are more receptive to making a difference or working for others without this “I work for only one person and that’s me” mentality. I have been planning my next year and have some ideas. I am in the process of making an action plan and we will see where it takes me.

I don’t want to just do a project so I can say I did something here. I don’t want to write a grant that my friends and family from back home fund either because I feel im forcing a project here that might necessarily be needed if the only funding I can find is with my own resources. I am here to learn, I am here to teach, but im not here to force anything on anybody. If someone comes to me for help may it be ideas I might have about a project or the a broken communication link I will do it with open arms. What I am not here do do in my perspective is force change, force things on people as things I want to accomplish but the inherent ideas need to come from locals, from there I will just capacity build.

For anybody out there who I might be letting down with these goals… sorry. I am over the expectation I will come here and change the world for the good as the realization has set in that I might be getting more out of this then anybody else here and that the Peace Corps helps the volunteer to a greater extent then the host country nationals.

8.27.08 Picking grapes making wine… and then squash..

Luckily for me I have been homeless one of the things I was able to experience was working in the fields with the old host family from Peresecina. They all went to the fields to go collect grapes to make wine and I was invited then told to reconsider. I was like heck yea ill go to the fileds and collect grapes to make wine! They said it wasn’t fun but I just wanted to help with something.

So about 18 hours later ill tell ya this, its not horrible but its not exactly fun either ;-). Spent the entire day the first day from 7 am until 9 at night working. There was about 15 of us in total and we had this little process going on where we would have pickers and bucket carries with the grapes. I made sure to do every job, from the picking, to the carrying, to the delivering the grapes with car and trailer and dumping them into barrels through this hand crank grape smasher. This wonderful time was finished off with a Masa or meal where we filled our mouths with watermelons, soup, bread, beer and of course some whisky. ( given I had run out of my store bought water I was forced to resort to drinking the well water like everybody else) I got lucky having little side effects after the consumption.

SQUASH!

Now for the squash. So I was homeless for a bit so in my travels I stayed in a this village with another peace corps volunteer near my site. I woke early one morning and forced myself to be able to go to the fields do to whatever they were doing. Turns out we were picking squash and throwing them into this truck trailer. Just had to throw that story in because I had never picked up a squash before I don’t think having only seen them at thanksgiving festivals next to pumpkins who dominate that holiday.

8.27.08 I bought a bike, but there was nothing easy about it …

So I purchased a bike. I have this friend here where I live who was very adamant about buying a bicycle and convinced me more or less that I wanted also to buy a bike like he did. I convinced myself I could ride all over the place to the different villages surrounding our town without the need to pay for transport or wait for transport, I can just bike anywhere no problem its easy!
So to get a better selection of bikes so we could get more for our money we decided to take a bus taxi to balti (pronounced belts) to peruse the second largest city in moldova for a bike that we could afford and wouldn’t fall apart.

We left early searched the city in all the largest outdoor markets we could find, an indoor bike shop then settled finally on two that looked the part even if it was a little more expensive then we had budgeted for but not enough to really break us. So its now about 2 in the afternoon we have our bikes and the only thing that stands in our way is the 70km back to Edinet. Why not in the heat of the day just ride back right? Good Plan!

We made it around 30 km before my legs refused to go anymore. I am going to blame it on me being out of shape, lacking on sleep the night before and last but most importantly least my bike was riding with resistance and we lacked the tools and know how to fix the problem. It felt as if I was riding with my rear brake on the entire time giving me constant resistance even on level ground.

We left our bikes in my buddies cousin’s village and took a car the rest of the way. Our bikes followed the next day, still not sure hoe it was arranged but they made it here. I am also not sure who designed the seat but if was to thoroughly bruise my tail bone (so much so that after nearly 3 weeks after the event it still is tender) they accomplished their goal.

8.27.08 International Work Camp.

That little girl was my best friend at camp even if she did abuse me with that racket.

What is that? In short it is a 2 week extravaganza of learning how to work with others giving some children something to do in a poor country in Europe. Here is the down and dirty.
It began on the 4th of August. The first of august I moved out of my house where I was living with a host family for a more comfortable environment of living on my own in an apartment. It really was my goal from the first day I did come to site was to get back to some normalcy for myself and live on my own again. It is quite a shock to not only move into another country but also move into another family. I mean I had fun living with my real family in the state but once I hit 18 I was ready to get out and do my own thing! So being forced to live with a family was a good experience but I was ready to move out once I could.

Any way, back to the camp. I left my house the first of August only to find out my apartment that I was going to be moving into was going to take a few extra days to finish before I was going to be moving in and living there. No problem, I took off down to the south to where my old host family lived and stayed with them for 3 days or so expecting to come home to an apartment ready for me.

Unfortunately or fortunately it was not completed and they quoted me a few more days. (lets just say this quoting 3 days into the future goes on for nearly 4 weeks before I was finally able to move in… last night).

So I needed a place to stay in the mean time… Farina my German site mate had space at her house but it came with a catch… I am not working full time with this camp her organization put together for 2 weeks and sharing her accommodations with 12 other volunteers from all over Europe plus Azerbaijan.

I had a really great time all in all and made some good friends from countries all over the place. The camp taught me a lot about how to go about planning a camp, and team work, and managing expectations.

The scenario was this… 12 volunteers with a a description of their 2 week service was working with disabled teens ages 18-20 somethings… and what they were brought into was a 2 week summer camp working with kids ages 7-14. Quite a surprise for a few of them but they took it well and we put on a sporadic camp from 9-4 every day then spent the evening planning for the next day and cooking for ourselves. We did this with no running water (water was out for the city for the first week and a half) so bucket baths and one outhouse for all of us. I slept on the floor on a few blankets and we all were mercilessly attacked by mosquitoes who feasted on all of our foreign bodies like it was thanks giving.

Nearly everybody went home happy and we all learned about each others country and culture such as … nearly all of them didn’t like America for various reasons and in the end they all liked me so they thought America can’t be all that bad ;-)

Busses and the sweating that comes with them 7.29.08

This will just be a little blurb about the busses and the current. This is something I just have to get off my chest. I HATE THE FAKE THING KNOWN AS THE CURRENT!.... ok I feel better. Im not sure if I have described the current before… it’s the act of opening two windows so that wind passes through one window and out the other.
The current can attack you in the car (and most likely does) and is the culprit of sore throats, coughs, getting a fever… and the cure is quick injections or feet in hot salty water, or simply shutting a door/window to keep that nasty brut out away from you.

This craziness doesn’t bug me to much except when I am in a situation where I have no control. Such as riding in a crammed backed bus (which is more or less a plumbers van with some seats in the back and some windows for viewing but not for opening. We sit in this hot box sweating profusely if its summer outside until we reach our destination. I normally get up drenched in sweat and slosh my way off the bus at my stop rubbing my perspiration on anybody I possibly can as I squeeze through them to get to the door.

I like to rub the perspiration as if to tell them look at this nonsense and look what it is doing to me!

Wondering through life eating fruit 7.29.08

A few weeks back I was taking a lot of walks through the fields just taking in the senery and the agriculture enviorment that is all around me I just have to hike out of town about 20 minutes to see it. Its easy to forget its there.

As soon as I get out there its like I am in a different part of the country. There are wheat fields acres and acres long, next to sunflower fields and corn. As I walk down the dirt road I see little patches of land that has been partitioned off that people work out, outlining their fields maybe with a box of corn all the way around it then inside that box is a box of carrots then, peas or beans or even potatoes, its beautiful and interesting.

I also have been working with my partner on his plum orchard and the last time we finished cutting grass with a scicle? (I don’t know how to spell it .. but its that blade grim reaper carries with him) in mud half way up to my knees… I got to go to a neighboring orchard and eat some fresh peaches off the trees. They were easily some of the best fruit I have ever eaten in my life.

Other days I will just be walking and grab a handful of cherries off a tree or go through a garden picking strawberries. It really lets you appreciate how wonderful fresh fruit is and really brings nature back into the picture where it seems so lost from view or thought.

Kids with handicap (situation here about that) 7.29.08

Give you a quick situation enlightenment. Kids with handicaps here are seen as inferior human beings. At least that is my understanding from people or the impression I am getting. I have heard remarks of people about them that stems from a lack of understanding in why the children have turned out they way they have.

It is sad, and because of this they children are suffering. Because the parents are ashamed of their children they don’t go outside of their house or their yards. There is an estimated 15 kids in our town that have not seen more then their most intimate relatives. Farina the German volunteer has been working with two twins, taking them on walks through the town a couple of days a week. I walked with her a couple of times and now the whole town thinks we are married and have children. Not only this but they look at us with pity on their faces and some udder fear and distaste.

I am not sure what can be done really to convince the parents of the children to take them out of their houses and take them on walks or send them to play with other children if they can but it’s a concern I have.