a kuna ma ta ta

12:16:2007 20:19

One week down, many more to go. Quick preview what this entry is about, another good week. Worked with the kids, taught weightlifting, now we have a program, recruited two more boys. Learning to knit soon, going to get materials tomorrow. Meeting with director of children’s center to talk about a grant project because the are hurting severely on money. Translation work at work is going smoother, starting to enjoy translating and learning about agriculture in moldova which is a key step in learning the language and being useful at work. My partner had his gate stolen because of some holiday. Im learning Russian now on top of Romanian because it just makes more sense that way. Don’t’ know what to do about child abuse here. Going to begin a entrepreneur club in the next 6 months. Will start it as a “what is next” club to help solve community problems or just create things for the community that kids come up with. From there I will map out the community, assess the assets it has, what it is capable of doing, and how to improve things. I really hope to get the kids involved starting some type of business or service, raising the money and then making it sustainable. Starting to get pretty excited about that possibility. But that will only happen when my language skills are better and I can find kinds with an interest in it. I have located a pretty group of kids out of basketball and weight lifting class and most of the kids I have worked with at the high school seem eager to do something so I am lucky in that aspect.

I talked with Farina about this idea, the volunteer from Germany and she is on board to help and donate time when she has it. I will hopefully begin drawing a map of the community this week or next. I have been slacking on going to visit the mayors office but I will hopefully find time soon and get some maps and other information about the city if possible from them.

Work at the agriculture NGO is going well. I am meeting people, I am talking when I can, and I am keeping on tracking doing some much needed studying of the language. I am making some headway on the grammar. After studying for the last three days I now have a better grasp of what my language teacher was attempting to teach me. I made the call to end tutoring with that tutor until after the new year because I had no idea where she was coming from and I needed to do some studying on my own to try to understand what exactly she was trying to teach me. She doesn’t speak English so explaining the grammar gets tricky.

This past week was really busy. My new schedule makes me feel like I am doing something but it is also wearing me out. My colleagues give me pats on the back and smile a lot telling me molodetets ( that’s how its spelled but how you say it in English which means well done, bravo in Russian). From what I have understood from my other friends in the Peace Corps is that I am doing quite a bit. They are for the most part stuck in the work rut, working for a few hours going to tutoring 4 hours a week and reading books. That’s not all but that’s what I think I would be stuck doing also had luck not fallen my way. I was lucky to have a site mate who has been here for a year who got met started with the coaching, then I lucked into being able to teach weight lifting class, then as luck would have it I met a German volunteer at a bar who works with kids and I am allowed to work over there.

From what I understand that organization is fairly progressive and there are other projects I can launch with them, or get involved with other programs they have going on to get that feeling of accomplishment going on for myself which can be sometimes the hardest part about the peace corps. I have a good launch pad to begin from and I am grateful for it.

On other note my partner had is gat stolen. He comes into work says good morning to me then about 10 minutes later tells us in the office that he has to leave work because some local boys stole his gate. Every house has a wall and a gate, and when I heard this I became concerned. Then I realized how heavy these gates were and became confused on to why anybody would steal one. Then I inquired as to why they stole his gate and he said because he had a daughter as if this explains everything… he later did … because of some holiday if you have a daughter local boys will steal your fence and hide it. Long story short he found his gate 5 hours later after searching the city for it. It was next door in the neighbors garden behind their house.

Workout at the gym is going well. I recruited some more boys to begin the program that I drew up for them. Spent more time then I should have figuring out a correct split for them with the excercises they should do and the set amounts. They were all very grateful as am I because I love doing that kind of stuff. Last week I spent the time in the gym last week basically going over how to do the exercise correctly instructing each boy how to do them correctly. It did kinda waste an entire week of workout for them and me but it ill be worth it in the long run. Today we had a great workout and they are grasping the concept of doing a exercise correctly though can be harder is more beneficial for them. I had them squirming in pain from the intensity on some new exercises they had never seen before. They were all laughing about how tough it was, and extremely happy to have the instruction. I also invited those boys to play basketball because of how fun they are to teach and eager to learn. We had a great practice. Not much of a turn out for on the boys side so I was able to give some personal help on technique and that the weight lifting boys really needed. The girls had a fair showing and did a great job today as well.

I went to Chisinau this weekend to go to a seminar and visit my old host family. It was great. I brought another volunteer to stay over at the house with me and we all had a great time eating rabbit drinking a little bit of wine and talking about life in general. It was so nice, my host grandmother came up along with my dads sister and another relative I couldn’t place. The neighbors came over as well to say hi and have a bite to eat. It was quite the wonderful reunion, and the next day before I had to catch my bus back to my town I live in now we all played cards and just sat around enjoying a Sunday.

Monday … yesterday, was a good day. I got to go to the center and play with the kids. Played a little chess, and dominated! That’s right I beat up on some kids in chess. I am horrible, but I have started practicing against the computer on my laptop on easy and winning about 7 out of 10 times ;-) which is horrible because my strategy is basically an eye for an eye wildling down my opponents attacking pieces knowing the game get simpler when you only have a couple of pawns maybe a bishop and a knight to attack each other with. But what are you gonna do right? I also had a sad conversation about a kid that doesn’t come to center anymore because of abusive parents. She mentioned how fun he was to have around, but his parents are both drunks, and his mother won’t let him come anymore for whatever reason. He would come to the center with horrible marks on him. The police won’t do anything about it because I haven’t gotten a firm answer on this but I think they are either A) lazy, B) underpaid, C) corrupt, D) all the above. I am going to say D. I have heard horror stories about people reporting people dead and the police not even caring. Anyways the boy stopped coming the center about 3 weeks ago but is known to still go to school. I am going to inquire to peace corps what is the procedure in handling this, given the police are unresponsive. I fear the worst in the answer to just do nothing. It is a rough thing to grasp, but it is common place here where they people are poor, alcoholism is rampid and people take out their frustrations on the weak.

Ok… im tired. Need to sleep. Gnight.

kyle