squatty-potty...Moldovan style

My view from a recent squatty-potty i was using.

And the "toilet paper" (it's in Russian, sooooo, myabe it's a political statement?)

Yup.

Nutria

Know what this is?? 

Nutria! Ever since watching Andrew Zimmern eat it on Bizarre Foods, i've wanted to try it. I had heard that they were here in Moldova, but in the 2 years i've been here, i had never seen one...until this past weekend when i came back to site from vacation and Mama-G had cooked one up! I was so excited! I told her how i'd been curious to eat it for a long time. She was a little surprised, but pleased. And i'm happy to say that it was very tasty...i even liked it better than rabbit! 

The above photo is a baby one, being raised to be eaten. It's soooooo cute, but really pretty tasty too... sorry lil guy...

Paștele Blajinilor

My favorite Moldovan celebration is Paștele Blajinilor (Easter Memorial, or Easter for the dead... loose translations), which takes place over 2 days - the Sunday and Monday following Orthodox Easter. It's when the cemeteries all over Moldova (and other Eastern European countries, i'm told) come alive with family, friends, food, and drink at loved ones' graves. Every grave (to my knowledge) in Moldova has a permanent picnic table and benches set up just for this occasion. 

How it works: You go to the cemetery with your foods and drinks. Set up your table. Decorate your loved ones' graves. Wait for the priest to come by to bless it and to spray you with holy water. Then everyone eats and drinks and socializes. People walk around with bottles of their casa de vin (house wine) and offer shots of it to everyone else...it's definitely the fastest way to get...tipsy...because everyone's just pouring you shots left and right. 

I love it for a lot of reasons, one of the main ones is because it's a truly authentic holiday that just can't be replicated anywhere else. It's unique to Moldova (and a few other countries). I also love cemeteries...and it really is a beautiful thing when a place for the dead comes so alive with celebration! 

I got to take part in it again this past Monday with Mama-G at her parents' cemetery in the village she grew up in :o]

I love that they grow plants over the grave sites. Another example of abundance of life in their cemeteries!

Lesson on Discrimination

My partner teacher and i taught a lesson about discrimination that proved surprisingly effective. While researching effective ways to teach about discrimination to middle-schoolers, i came across an experiment done by a teacher (Jane Elliott) in the 1960's called Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes Exercise (found at JaneElliott.com) that i decided to try out in my classes. She did her experiment over 2 class periods, but i had to condense it into 1 class period. 

So we started the class by having everyone stand up and instructed all the brown-eyed kids to move to the back of the class for the entire class and all the blue-eyed (or everyone without brown eyes) kids move to the front. 

Then we started our lecture as usual, by giving stickers to those who wrote in their "Grateful Journals" and did their homework...but we ignored all the brown-eyed kids. The brown-eyed kids became very upset, which set the tone for the rest of the class. 

After we gave stickers, we asked for 7 volunteers...and again ignored the brown-eyed kids. The 7 volunteers were each given a different name tag to wear (poor kid, mother without a husband, pregnant woman, black person, Gypsy, gay, doctor). Then we read about 20 statements out and asked them to step forward if they thought the statement applied to the name tags they were wearing or not (for example, "You live in a house with internet access and cable TV"; "You've never been discriminated against"; "You are not afraid to be stopped on the street by police"; "You have the right to vote"; "You can choose your own profession"; etc.). Then we asked why they did or didn't step forward.

Then we defined and discussed what discrimination is, what a stereotype is, different forms of discrimination (race, sexual orientation, age, gender, religion, handicaps). etc. 

After that we handed out the above-mentioned types of discriminations to groups of 4 to have them role play what they might look like. The brown-eyed kids refused to partcipate, saying since they hadn't been included during the whole class, they weren't going to do the assignment. I had mixed feelings about their response. On the one hand i was glad that they were seemingly truly understanding what if feels like to be discriminated against (which was the whole point of the brown-eyes vs. blue eyes), but on the other hand they knew what the class was about and i found it interesting that even though they knew they were being discriminated against for the purpose of the class, that didn't matter, they were still upset and unwilling to participate.

So, after the role-playing, i then spoke to the brown-eyed kids and asked them how they felt after being discriminated for the whole class. They all said they were upset and angry. Then i asked the blue-eyed kids how they felt as witnesses to such discrimination against their classmates and friends. They said it was unfair (but none of them spoke up during the experiment, interestingly). 

Then we ended the class with a demonstration. I had 1 brown and 1 white egg. I asked them what the difference was. They said the colors. Then i cracked them open into a bowl and asked them if there was still a difference. They said they were the same. I said that's how people are too...we may look different on the outside, but we're all made of the same parts. 

Then, because i felt bad for the brown-eyed kids, and because they were still sore about the whole thing, i let them choose from the goody bag...so, i ended it by discriminating against the blue-eyed kids...opa! ;op

Primăvară (Spring)!

I think Spring is here to stay. :o] Here are the 1st tulips to bloom in Mama-G's garden. And Mama-Cat posing for the camera (actually, she just wanted me to scratch her head...she loves a good head scratching...don't we all...).

Easter Egg Hunt!

This year Easter celebrated in America and elsewhere in the world was on March 27, but Orthodox Easter (which most Moldovans observe) is on May 1. 

I decided to have an Easter egg hunt with all of my classes to celebrate non-Orthodox Easter. Thanks to my American peeps (no pun intended), i was able to do so cuz they sent me the plastic eggs (about 150 of them), American candy, and even peeps! I also included slap bracelets (thank you again America), Moldovan candies, 7 lei per class (in 1 leu bills), $1USD per class, stickers, and free points. All the kids had a blast! :oD

Here was my set-up. It took quite awhile to fill all those eggs!

This is my 9th grade class with my partner, Natalia in the white on the left. They were my last class of the day and 3 of my 6th grade boys came back before the 9th graders came, as i was still hiding the eggs, and stole some of them, including the one with the $1USD! I was sooooooooooo mad! So for punishment i took away any points they got from the eggs and made them apologize in person to the 9th grade class...they were so embarrassed! Overall, it was a succes!

Valentine's Day (ziua îndragostiților)

For Valentine's Day i taught some history/legends of how Valentine's came to be and how we celebrate it in America. Moldovans celebrate Valentine's Day too, like with all Moldovan holidays, there is Valentine's Day, similar to the American holiday, and then there is the religious observance day of celebrating St. Valentine himself. There is another holiday in Moldova, also in February, called Dragobete, and it's the day they celebrate romantic love.

After a brief history, all my students decorated pre-cut Valentine hearts i cut for them and i put them up on the wall. After they finished decorating, i gave them more construction paper to write a Valentine to someone...i received about 10. :o]