The river is melting and if you look closely you can see the swans
I would like to share some of my personal observation and opinions. The reason I am in Moldova is to teach health education. Under the soviets, health was not a required subject. Health was not preserved (maybe because Russia would care for you if anything happened) it was treated when problems developed. The majority held belief in the village I live in is that the ground is fertile and the food that comes from here nourishes and sustains the people who work very hard to grow, gather and store up for winter the fresh food here. During Soviet times this little country produced much of Russia's food and wine in exchange for housing, factory type jobs (where parts produced in other satellite country's were put together here and parts made here were put together in other country's) education and infrastructure. When they left the people had and continue to have a difficulty with their identity and sense of place in Europe. But, since I am a teacher now... in Romanian... I feel a sense of responsibility to the students. This is not like Uganda where teachers could not show up and it was still ok, or where if kids were bad they got canned or sent home because they didn't have $ for lunch or a small book in the FREE Education system. Moldova is a place where teachers care about the students and want them to learn. However the amount of material a teacher is to cover in a lesson is huge and it often happens that she races through it and the kids aren't engaged to learn the material. My job along with teaching students is to teach my partner teachers how to engage the kids in learning so we do a lot of role playing, poster creating, TV advertisements, and review games that get them explaining what they are suppose to know. Of course I give test which my older kids do miserably at and the younger ones fly through... So I present to you some of the things we worked on in school as well as the months happenings.
This is Bunica Eugenia coming to get our flip phone for use, while she was at the sanitarium. Her grandson paid for 18 days in one. This is how they do health care. If you have something wrong you go to a place to get better using therapy, hot baths, massage, fresh food with no salt sugar or additives, enema, ozone therapy ( don't know what that is) dancing, and pampering. This is the day b4 Eugenia left to get HEALTHY! I was teasing her about getting so healthy that she would come home with a new man. My Romanian isn't very good but I understood what she thought of that idea...not much! |
