Translation: which ghiveci should I eat? (Ghiveci is pronounced like kvetch but with a g instead of k.)

My host mom just told me to go down to the beci (root-cellar) and choose a ghiveci for lunch. This is always a job I love, because normally I just end up choosing my favorite.

This is a section of our basement, with all its wonderful assortment of ghiveci, compote, and every kind of fruit preserve imaginable. Did I mention this is only a section of the basement? And winter is more already half over at this point.

Ghiveci, by the way, is a kind of preserved and canned (and maybe fermented?) vegetable salad. My dictionary says the English equivalent is hotchpotch, but I have absolutely no idea what that is nor have I ever heard it before. So, per Peace Corps custom re: words/concepts we have never heard before our service, I will continue to simply call it ghiveci. (This also goes for things that are so specifically Moldovan that the English word just seems inappropriate. In Peace Corps lingo, the market will always be the piața, and the speeding death traps mini-buses will always be a rutiera. English rules of pluralization and declension still apply.)

This is the ghiveci I ended up choosing. It's my favorite, a peppery mix of eggplant, onion, and carrots. MMM!

Below is a description on Peace Corps Moldova's Small Project Assistance (SPA) fund, which our review board put together early this fall to clarify the purpose of the program for the new group of volunteers. The background to this post can be found here. We've recently undergone a pretty thorough review of our SPA program, refocusing on the overriding goals and tweaking some of our policies to match that. If there are any readers out there who work on their country's SPA program - or a similar program for that matter - I'm curious to hear thoughts on this.

SPA – what is it, really?

SPA exists through a special inter-agency agreement with USAID (plain English: it’s their money, we just get to spend/administer it). As such, the program is unique in that its goal furthers both USAID and Peace Corps’ missions (plain English: we can’t do whatever we want with the $). SPA has one overriding program imperative: "to increase the capabilities of local communities to conduct low-cost, grassroots sustainable development." This objective is significantly different from a goal of simply “conducting sustainable development.” It also informs the only success indicator against which we report: # of HCNs who demonstrate new capacity to guide a project through the complete PDM cycle as a result of collaborating in a SPA project.

The reason that USAID funds PC projects through the SPA program as a part of the Participating Agency Program Agreement (2009) is to teach HCNs all stages of the PDM cycle, including proposal writing, as a form of community capacity building. The focus of the program is not to fund volunteers' community projects or to teach volunteers about project design and management (though it has these positive effects).

USAID considers giving this money to Peace Corps an efficient use of funds because we have long-term, deep relationships with partners whom we can guide through the PDM cycle step by step. It's not so much that we know any better what communities' needs are, but that the process of working very closely and intensively with a project from start to finish is one of the best ways to teach these skills. In short, the project itself is of significantly less importance to USAID than the skills partners develop that can be applied in future community project work. We might not always agree with this sentiment when considering a potential project. With any other program goal, however, USAID would feel better qualified to implement the project itself. As a rule of thumb, the best projects come from the space where donor and implementer goals overlap, but this also requires the honesty to be able to walk away from projects sometimes. SPA is no exception, though we are fortunate in having a very broad donor goal.

On a deeper level, this program design speaks to Peace Corps’ broader philosophy of sustainability. We are not here simply to do, but instead to teach through collaboration with others. In the classroom, we don’t just teach students, but teachers as well. With mayors, we help to teach technology, not simply type documents. The idea of sustainability is no different with any other community project, even when it includes outside funding.

Sometimes this fact is mind-numbingly frustrating – it’s a much higher bar, so high that few organizations engage in the process on the level we do. This level of support is inconceivable for USAID (or any big development organization). But this is also the brilliance of the program: it plays to Peace Corps’ unique strengths in the development field as well as each of our unique relationships that are built on mutual trust and collaboration. Thus, this same difficulty is also the unique value of SPA – in all the grant making development programs our committee members have examined, there is nothing else like SPA out there. And it’s also one of the reasons we have so much respect for all of you.

What is Capacity Building, and what is Capacity Building Through Education

Business English.com defines "capacity building" as "planned development of (or increase in) knowledge, output rate, management, skills, and other capabilities of an organization through acquisition, incentives, technology, and/or training." In easier terms, capacity building means increasing the organization's ability to do what it does, to fulfill its mission and its goals. For the SPA program, projects must include two forms of capacity building: 1) the aforementioned increase in project design and management skills, and 2) a capacity building element through education (classes or trainings).

Here's example of how this might look: If your project sets out to bring running water to the school in order to improve students' health and to decrease the number of absences, the project may also do something like conduct health classes on the threats of infectious diseases -- or maybe conduct a hand washing campaign to decrease illness and a civic engagement campaign about taking care of "our" school so students will keep the indoor bathrooms clean. These training are matched with the goals of the project. For the trainings to increase the capacity of the school, they should not only be conducted by the PCV, but they should be conducted with a one or more HCN who will be able to conduct such classes themselves later on. In this way, the project uses education to increase the capacity of the organization, and in so doing, increases the sustainability of the intervention as well as the likelihood of meeting project objectives.

Many friends and family back home by this point have heard me talk about SPA, a USAID grant-making mechanism for Peace Corps Volunteers and one of my more time-consuming secondary activities. As with almost all PC programming, posts administer their SPA programs separately. I've been serving on Peace Corps Moldova's SPA review board since last winter, meaning once a month during the winter-spring funding cycle I get a stack of 8-16 grants to examine before travelling to the capital for a day of reviewing which will get funded. Our total annual budget is $140,000 with the maximum grant being $5,000. The money comes from US Agency for International Development, but can only be used to fund community-led projects that are conducted in collaboration with a volunteer.

Obviously, there's a lot of paperwork and minutia in reviewing grants, but it has nevertheless been one of my favorite secondary activities during my time here. It's given me a chance to see the incredible breadth of initiatives volunteers support, from community youth radio stations to agricultural projects. It's also proven true the maxim that the best way to truly learn something is to teach others - helping fellow volunteers through the grant process and continuously teaching the steps of project design and management has been great practice for explaining these steps to my own community partners.

As I spend more time around development organizations, however, I've also been gaining a deeper appreciation for the SPA program and the several ways in which it is unique. Simply put, there is no other development program like it out there. Because the overriding goal of the program is to teach project design and management skills, as compared to most grant-making programs which focus on particular priorities, with SPA there is no restriction on project domain. We've funded initiatives running the gamut from democratization and technology to health and business development.

We just held our first meeting this weekend, and as always, I was impressed by the creative, sustainable, low-cost and community-led solutions volunteers collaborated with community partners to design. I learned about rocket-mass heaters and the first school for the deaf and blind in Moldova, saw the most innovative reading promotion program that's probably ever been done in Moldova, and even got to see a high school student student give a very professional presentation to a committee of adults and foreigners.

The present entry here is meant for readers back home as a background companion post to this piece, which takes much of this information for granted. But it's also an insight onto how I spent upwards of 25 hours this past week. Seeing the great proposals we started the year off with yesterday, it was all worth it.

Just saw this pop up in my inbox from the Center for Global Development, one of the best think tanks out there working on development issues. It's a new study they're doing together with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health that will be looking at how practitioners asses the potential for behavioral economics based solutions in health (click images for larger).

Here's the key lines out of the email: "Behavioral economics approaches may be particularly relevant for health policy: people around the world, regardless of their income or social status, often act in ways that don't reflect what would "rationally" be best for their health. Yet the value of its application in health policy in low and middle income countries, from the view point of practitioners, has yet to be assessed."

And from the start of the survey: "Many...policies [in low and middle-income countries] are based on traditional economic models that assume individuals will behave in a rational manner. However, evidence suggests that individuals deviate from such models. For example, individuals make decisions in the short-run which are inconsistent with their welfare over the long-term, their choices are influenced by how options are framed for them, and they often conform to a dominant social view instead of choosing what is really best for them."

The study caught my eye because it relates pretty strongly to my own work with behavior change here in Moldova. In fact, three recent books in the behavioral economics line have essentially changed the entire way I look at human behavior and health, and convinced me that the standard economic models aren't sufficient when it comes to health systems. (The books are Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational, Sunstein and Thaler's Nudge, and Rosenburg's Join the Club; book reviews forthcoming.)

Behavioral economics has also played a big role in Vitality's work; the three aforementioned books in fact are at the top of our recommended reading list, which is how I first came across them. (Vitality's founder, after all, is a labor economist by training.)

The field has been gaining a lot of attention in recent years; as Rosenburg points out in Join the Club it's related to one of the biggest public health successes of the last two decades in the U.S.: the reduction in teen smoking. Nudge, meanwhile, was wide read by incoming Obama administration officials who had their sights set on our healthcare system.

But the CGD study reveals a very interesting fact: despite the fact that it's been getting a lot of academic attention from upper-level policy makers, behavioral economics has yet to filter its way down to tangible policy prescriptions for the development worker in the field. I would wager that in part is due to the fact that the theory still hasn't been boiled down into programmatic suggestions, making it somewhat daunting for the average programming staff person who struggles to keep abreast of the most recent policy suggestions, let alone have time to redesign new programs from scratch.

Regardless, it will be very interesting to see the results of this study, which should provide the best look yet at the prospects of behavioralism going mainstream in development programs in the near future.

For those interested or unfamiliar with the field, here is a great TED talk by Dan Ariely that gives the basic gist of what behavioral economics is all about. Enjoy!

It’s the week of lists and reviews, the year in review, top 10 lists of the year past, and lists for the year that is just hours away. Well, if newspapers can do it, then why not Embarkations? So, forthwith and without pause, looking back on the past year. (Skip to the end to see the most popular stories.)

Sparing for a last minute run-up in the numbers, 2011 saw:· 3,385 visits from 2,346 unique visitors (about 9.3 hits/day)· The average visit lasted for a little over a minute and looked at 1.4 posts· 68% of visits were from new visitors

Top countries of origin were as followed:1. United States2. Moldova3. Canada4. U.K.5. RomaniaAlthough by far, the most interested readers came from Moldova, whose visitors stayed longest and visited the most pages.

Some surprises coming from the U.S., where I’m most popular in Tennessee, followed by California, New York, Texas, and then Illinois at #5. Colorado came in ninth and Iowa fourteenth. Overall, visitors represented 95 different countries and all 50 states.

In life, 2011 was a pretty awesome year, with a few strong highlights:· Friends: ringing in 2011 in Brasov with Amanda, Sinh, and Miranda.· Service: finishing my first year, and all of a sudden being the “experienced one” in the Bloc· Work (youth): Winning Plural+ Moldova with my students’ first short film· Work (medical center): opening our public showers and hygiene improvement project for the elderly who use the soup kitchen· Work (partners): seeing my partner teacher coach new partners through practice school and standing next to my nurse partner – who is terrified of public speaking – speak to a room of more than 80 women about breast cancer· Vacation: hard to choose, they were all so amazing, but I think I’ll choose Krakow and Berlin for the HIA conference.· Family: seeing Keith and Eugene get married in Korea (cheating, I know, it’s also vacation)· Integration: My host-sister Rodica’s wedding· For the Peace Corps family: Thanksgiving (integration points for killing a turkey)

I’m also critical of lists, of course, because they tend to wax over the daily flow of life and make it all about the big moments. In reality, life, and most of Peace Corps, is what happens in between the big successes. Still, when most readers are so far away, I suppose it doesn’t hurt to distill things down a bit.

And finally, what were the year’s most read stories?· Most read story written this year: Another Cup: follow-up on Greg Mortenson, with 523 views· Most read post of the year: My Peace Corps Aspiration Statement (posted prior to my departure with Peace Corps), with 1,467 viewsThe Mortenson piece also generated the most daily traffic I’ve ever seen, garnering 200 visitors in a day and earning first place as the most commented piece on the blog. Maybe I should follow scandals more often in 2012. (Kidding)

This time last year, I had finished my first semester, and thought, wow, 25% done, looking forward to a productive year of new initiatives. Now, I’m looking around and saying, wow, it’s almost done, but there’s still so much to do. How am I going to tie it together?

So, with that, here’s to what has been a great 2011 of successes (and trials)! And here’s to a great 2012 ahead, a year of transitions. And what could be truer to Embarkations’ theme than that? Happy New Year and fiți sănătoși!

Our film, Casa Parinteasca, took first place at the 2011 Plural+ Moldova National Youth Film Competition!

First Place!

See this Embarkations' post for background on migration in Moldova and our film, which can also be viewed on YouTube here (click the Closed Captioning button in the bottom right of the video player to enable English subtitles).

Plural+ is an international youth film competition run by the International Organization for Migration, but because migration is such a pressing issue here in Moldova, the local country office also runs a national version of the contest.

The film was entirely made by my student film club I run with my partner teacher Olga. The club's name is "Tinerii Operatori" (Young Camermen), but the kids publicly named our "production unit" Carahasani Studios. The club first started when I mentioned in passing to Olga my intention to post the call for submissions and ask some students if they'd like to participate.

The premier and awards ceremony was held last Friday, at Malldova, Moldova's first (and arguably only) rich-country style mall. (Malldova, Moldova, get it?) The IOM invited all participating teams to the premier ceremony, and even made it possible for teams such as mine to attend by paying for transportation costs.

One thing that seems to transcend Moldovan-American culture is the role of the mall in a teenager's universe, so I knew the event would be a big deal for them. Still, it's hard to transplant oneself into the place of a rural teenager from a developing country, and even harder to imagine the culture shock they must feel when suddenly dropped right into the center of American consumerism, something only the most elite of the country have access to. It really hit home for me when Dana, a 9th grader who sat next to me on the bus we rented, squealed at the site of the city. Then she leaned over, and in a barely restrained whisper told me this was going to be her third time in the city. Third. I probably spend more time in the capital in meetings alone during an average month than Dana has spent there her entire life.

We spent a lot of time trying reign in students' expectations ahead of time, saying the cliche types of things that parents say, but that kids always wonder if they really mean. "It's not about winning. You've learned so much in this process. Let's just go and have a good time at the awards ceremony." I stand by all those statements, but turns out, yeah, adults still want to win. In fact, watching my students beam after the ceremony, I realize adults probably want the kids to win even more, because winning something yourself doesn't even begin to compare to the feeling of watching your students win something they worked hard for.

Three students (left) giving an interview.After the awards, our students were the stars of the show. They took pictures, made friends with other kids, laughed, ate, and even gave 3 interviews (radio, print, and television). Thankfully, they did not give their dear teachers heart attacks, who had been a bit nervous about chaperoning 24 6th-9th graders from a village around a 4 story mall in the middle of a bustling capital.

As a reward, we took them the the central plaza to see the national Christmas Tree and New Year's decorations. They'd all seen it on TV, but most of them had never seen it in person. For those readers who don't grasp Moldovan kids' obsession with taking poze (posed photos), the sheer joy this reward provided cannot be overstated.

Chisinau's National Christmas decorations!

While Plural+ was our initial impetus, once Olga got involved the group became about a lot more than this one contest. We're already storyboarding our next couple films, a documentary about the village school and a public service announcement about a health topic. It's incredible how much the kids have learned; in their first attempt, they were able to come up with a sophisticated metaphor where a house personifies the feelings of those left behind in a country that has fallen into disrepair. Meanwhile, Olga is already planning how to continue Carahasani Studios after I leave.

Celebrating on the bus ride home, (dance party!)Poze, at Moldova's National Christmas tree.

The Carahasani Studios team (well, most of it; some of them were

running around taking more poze...)

Human behavior is at the center of global health challenges today. Whether trying to decrease smoking, increase hand washing, or advocating more balanced diets, changing a few key behaviors holds more potential to improve overall human health and wellness than just about any treatment-based solution. Consequently, it occupies a key place in public health - the core preoccupation fueling the growth of the entire sub-field of health education.

Likewise, behavior change campaigns - or in the case of youth, often negative behavior prevention campaigns - are at the center of Peace Corps Moldova's Health Education program. Everything we do, from classes to community initiatives, is essentially part of a broader strategy tackling the slow and difficult process of helping people to take control of their own health for the better.

Needless to say, I've spent a lot of time thinking about behavior change these past couple years (after all, it's also key to Vitality In Action Foundation's work). I'll have some thoughts on the broader process of behavior change in a future post, but in the meantime, last month I had the pleasure to lead a 5 day In-Service Training on community-based behavior change campaigns for 33 Health Education Peace Corps Volunteers, Moldovan nurses, and community partners (social assistants and teachers).

Below is the presentation I gave on behavior change theory, primarily focused on the Trans-Theoretical/Stages of Change Model. Contact me if you'd like to use; slides also available in Romanian.

This entry is cross-posted here to "The Vitality Blog".

The last month has been a busy one: a trip to Korea, teaching a 5 day In Service Training for the M26 Health Volunteers on Behavior Change Communication, and putting together a civic education grant in collaboration with Humanity in Action. (Hence the short updates of late)

By far, however, the biggest success has been working with my students to prepare a entry for the 2011 Plural+ Moldova Youth Film Contest. Plural+ is a film competition that challenges students to express themselves creatively on migration issues. We finally submitted the finished product yesterday, and I'm awfully proud of my youth.

Background

Moldova has one of the highest outward migration rates in the world, about 25% of the population is working abroad, and the economy is sustained by remittances. This fact of life becomes one of the quiet themes of just about every volunteer's service in Moldova; I never give students homework to "go home and talk with your parents about ..." because about a quarter of them are living with aunts, uncles, grandparents, or other relatives. Oleasa, who is like my host sister, is actually my host cousin, but she's been raised by my host mom, who's sister has been working in Italy for 10 years. Rodica's wedding in September was the first time my host parents had seen their elder daughter in 5 years; she's been working in Canada and couldn't leave without losing her spot in the residency line.

I was deeply impressed with how my youth artistically confronted such a sensitive topic. The film above is entirely their work (with a lot of guidance from my partner and I, of course), from the story idea to writing the script to the filming and narration. It's the story of a house, the home of your parents, that is abandoned when its new owner leaves to work abroad and earn money so she can buy a nicer bigger newer house. Pretty good metaphor for a bunch of teenagers. (Don't worry, it has a happy ending.)

Enjoy!

The last goal of the health program refers to transferring ICT skills. I sometimes think of this as the "goal of chance", b/c much like you can't force a cat to take a bath or get your parents to text, you just can't really force technology on somebody who doesn't want it.

I thought I had this goal all lined up when my medical center got a computer last spring, but 8 months later the regional health directorate has still given no instructions as to what, exactly, they expect anybody to be doing with that computer. Also, their programmer still hasn't been around yet to install internet or any other standard office programs. (It's okay, we've actually made very good use of the printer it came with for our health education activities, so it's all for the better.)

But early last summer, Olga - the most amazing and driven of my 4 partners - got a laptop. (Or rather, her husband returned from working abroad with a laptop.) And thus began my work on goal 2.3.

Fast forward five months and that's how we end up with me spending my Saturday night shouting back and forth over the phone for an hour as we try to work through the notion of an email attachment. (Shouting is the culturally recommended volume for any phone conversation, there was nothing acrimonious about the call.)

Two 15 minute phone calls, 5 different explanatory strategies, one hour, and 10 synonyms for attachment in both Russian and Romanian later, and we figured it out. On the other end of the line, I could hear her entire family trying to help, including her 20 year old son who is studying English and Geography at university. (The fact that he had no idea what an attachment is shows that this is more than your standard age gap here...) Of course, it doesn't help that I don't interact with any of my partners technologically, thus I have absolutely no grasp of this vocabulary in Romanian. Nor would it have mattered anyway, as my partner's email account is in Russian. In the end, it took the paperclip symbol and some email attachments I had sent her a couple weeks ago, as well as an intimate familiarity with her file organization to succeed. (On the upside, I know how to find everything on her computer b/c most things were put there by me.)

It's not as glorious as a multi-million dollar water project, but it's what we do day in an day out in the trenches of development. Just another Saturday night.

My favorite moment of today happened when I was sitting next to my nurse partner, working on a plan for a health education program. Laying open next to us was the book* where the Medical Center is required to record all of the health education activities it does, as health education is a required component of every nurse and doctors job.

The Chief Nurse poked her head in the door and started chastising my partner, "You haven't written in the book yet!" To which my nurse partner Galena replied, "You all write, but we actually do."

SNAP. Well said Galena.

*Most of what's written in that book is fiction.

October 5 in Moldova is "Ziua Profesorului", or Teacher's Day. (Yes, the word for teacher in Moldovan is profesor. As an American, it's great to be called Mr. Professor.)

What this firstly means is that I get lots of roses, sometimes gifts, many congratulations, and listen to many poems and a lot of prose about "The Nobel Profession." Seriously, what could make one feel better? (Okay, maybe societies that didn't continually cut teacher's pay, combine classes into ever larger unmanageable melees, and parents that didn't pull kids out of school to harvest...but at the superficial level, what could make one feel better?)

Secondly, at my school the way they run things is that the older students teach class that day, which means I don't have to prepare lessons, and instead get to sit back and watch students teach my subject. Then I get some food and permission to go home early. Awesome!

Though less stressful than my typical day of exercising as much magnanimity as I can muster while herding cats teaching the world's future leaders, it's no intellectual free-ride. In fact, approached analytically, it is one of the best pedagogical learning experiences ever.

It's surprising how quickly as a teacher one can become caught up in the perspective from the front of the classroom. Going back to sit in the kids' seat immediately renders teaching methods, personal styles, and subject specific information in a new light. After watching an 11th grader teach nutrition using some techniques I myself used last year, it is clear I definitely have a lot more thinking to do about my methods before attempting that subject again.

Finally, there was this very intriguing cross-cultural nugget from the end of the day. A group of my 9th graders had to arrange the following values in order of importance: education, family, health, career, citizenship, religion, liberty, and economic security. This is what they came up with:

FamilyHealthCitizenshipReligionEducationCareerLibertyEconomic SecurityIn the notes scribbled to myself, I wondered:How would we as Americans arrange this list?How would I list Moldovan values based on behavior?How would American values be ranked if based on behavior?It's one of the most felicitous activities for cross-cultural understanding there is, so I'm curious to hear readers' opinions. Thoughts?

I finally got to a Moldovan wedding! Last Sunday, September 18th, my host sister Rodica and her longtime boyfriend (a Moldovan she met in Montana) Andrei finally tied the knot in Chisinau.

I'm trying something new this time, and going to tell the story through video. It's my first try at making a video, so, here goes!

Finally, after a year I finally collected enough necessary materials to make my collage map to explain to my students

where I'm from. Translation: "The native place of domnul (Mr.) Zachariah." (It sounds better in Romanian.) It

also features such fun facts as state populations and industries, and the size of Maryland (comparable to Moldova).

Credit to Craig Laurie for the map, Oma and Aunt Jan for the Iowa postcards, Mom for the Mt. Vernon calendar, and

dad for the Colorado postcards.

The back of the room, with a table featuring magazines and the "anonymous health questions" box.

A new addition this year, a display to feature the best student work of that week.

The title reads "take joy in what WE have made!"

Two articles that recently caught my eye on international service; the two go well together. Definitely an interesting read for any idealists considering Peace Corps or shorter term stints abroad.

Two Hell With Good Intentions, by Ivan Illich

IN THE CONVERSATIONS WHICH I HAVE HAD TODAY, I was impressed by two things, and I want to state them before I launch into my prepared talk.I was impressed by your insight that the motivation of U.S. volunteers overseas springs mostly from very alienated feelings and concepts. I was equally impressed, by what I interpret as a step forward among would-be volunteers like you: openness to the idea that the only thing you can legitimately volunteer for in Latin America might be voluntary powerlessness, voluntary presence as receivers, as such, as hopefully beloved or adopted ones without any way of returning the gift.

I was equally impressed by the hypocrisy of most of you: by the hypocrisy of the atmosphere prevailing here. I say this as a brother speaking to brothers and sisters. I say it against many resistances within me; but it must be said. Your very insight, your very openness to evaluations of past programs make you hypocrites because you - or at least most of you - have decided to spend this next summer in Mexico, and therefore, you are unwilling to go far enough in your reappraisal of your program. You close your eyes because you want to go ahead and could not do so if you looked at some facts.It is quite possible that this hypocrisy is unconscious in most of you. Intellectually, you are ready to see that the motivations which could legitimate volunteer action overseas in 1963 cannot be invoked for the same action in 1968. "Mission-vacations" among poor Mexicans were "the thing" to do for well-off U.S. students earlier in this decade: sentimental concern for newly-discovered. poverty south of the border combined with total blindness to much worse poverty at home justified such benevolent excursions. Intellectual insight into the difficulties of fruitful volunteer action had not sobered the spirit of Peace Corps Papal-and-Self-Styled Volunteers. Today, the existence of organizations like yours is offensive to Mexico. I wanted to make this statement in order to explain why I feel sick about it all and in order to make you aware that good intentions have not much to do with what we are discussing here. To hell with good intentions. This is a theological statement. You will not help anybody by your good intentions. There is an Irish saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions; this sums up the same theological insight.The very frustration which participation in CIASP programs might mean for you, could lead you to new awareness: the awareness that even North Americans can receive the gift of hospitality without the slightest ability to pay for it; the awareness that for some gifts one cannot even say "thank you." Now to my prepared statement.Ladies and Gentlemen: For the past six years I have become known for my increasing opposition to the presence of any and all North American "dogooders" in Latin America. I am sure you know of my present efforts to obtain the voluntary withdrawal of all North American volunteer armies from Latin America - missionaries, Peace Corps members and groups like yours, a "division" organized for the benevolent invasion of Mexico. You were aware of these things when you invited me - of all people - to be the main speaker at your annual convention. This is amazing! I can only conclude that your invitation means one of at least three things: Some among you might have reached the conclusion that CIASP should either dissolve altogether, or take the promotion of voluntary aid to the Mexican poor out of its institutional purpose. Therefore you might have invited me here to help others reach this same decision.You might also have invited me because you want to learn how to deal with people who think the way I do - how to dispute them successfully. It has now become quite common to invite Black Power spokesmen to address Lions Clubs. A "dove" must always be included in a public dispute organized to increase U.S. belligerence. And finally, you might have invited me here hoping that you would be able to agree with most of what I say, and then go ahead in good faith and work this summer in Mexican villages. This last possibility is only open to those who do not listen, or who cannot understand me.I did not come here to argue. I am here to tell you, if possible to convince you, and hopefully, to stop you, from pretentiously imposing yourselves on Mexicans. I do have deep faith in the enormous good will of the U.S. volunteer. However, his good faith can usually be explained only by an abysmal lack of intuitive delicacy. By definition, you cannot help being ultimately vacationing salesmen for the middle-class "American Way of Life," since that is really the only life you know. A group like this could not have developed unless a mood in the United States had supported it - the belief that any true American must share God's blessings with his poorer fellow men. The idea that every American has something to give, and at all times may, can and should give it, explains why it occurred to students that they could help Mexican peasants "develop" by spending a few months in their villages. Of course, this surprising conviction was supported by members of a missionary order, who would have no reason to exist unless they had the same conviction - except a much stronger one. It is now high time to cure yourselves of this. You, like the values you carry, are the products of an American society of achievers and consumers, with its two-party system, its universal schooling, and its family-car affluence. You are ultimately-consciously or unconsciously - "salesmen" for a delusive ballet in the ideas of democracy, equal opportunity and free enterprise among people who haven't the possibility of profiting from these. Next to money and guns, the third largest North American export is the U.S. idealist, who turns up in every theater of the world: the teacher, the volunteer, the missionary, the community organizer, the economic developer, and the vacationing do-gooders. Ideally, these people define their role as service. Actually, they frequently wind up alleviating the damage done by money and weapons, or "seducing" the "underdeveloped" to the benefits of the world of affluence and achievement. Perhaps this is the moment to instead bring home to the people of the U.S. the knowledge that the way of life they have chosen simply is not alive enough to be shared. By now it should be evident to all America that the U.S. is engaged in a tremendous struggle to survive. The U.S. cannot survive if the rest of the world is not convinced that here we have Heaven-on-Earth. The survival of the U.S. depends on the acceptance by all so-called "free" men that the U.S. middle class has "made it." The U.S. way of life has become a religion which must be accepted by all those who do not want to die by the sword - or napalm. All over the globe the U.S. is fighting to protect and develop at least a minority who consume what the U.S. majority can afford. Such is the purpose of the Alliance for Progress of the middle-classes which the U.S. signed with Latin America some years ago. But increasingly this commercial alliance must be protected by weapons which allow the minority who can "make it" to protect their acquisitions and achievements. But weapons are not enough to permit minority rule. The marginal masses become rambunctious unless they are given a "Creed," or belief which explains the status quo. This task is given to the U.S. volunteer - whether he be a member of CLASP or a worker in the so-called "Pacification Programs" in Viet Nam. The United States is currently engaged in a three-front struggle to affirm its ideals of acquisitive and achievement-oriented "Democracy." I say "three" fronts, because three great areas of the world are challenging the validity of a political and social system which makes the rich ever richer, and the poor increasingly marginal to that system. In Asia, the U.S. is threatened by an established power -China. The U.S. opposes China with three weapons: the tiny Asian elites who could not have it any better than in an alliance with the United States; a huge war machine to stop the Chinese from "taking over" as it is usually put in this country, and; forcible re-education of the so-called "Pacified" peoples. All three of these efforts seem to be failing. In Chicago, poverty funds, the police force and preachers seem to be no more successful in their efforts to check the unwillingness of the black community to wait for graceful integration into the system. And finally, in Latin America the Alliance for Progress has been quite successful in increasing the number of people who could not be better off - meaning the tiny, middle-class elites - and has created ideal conditions for military dictatorships. The dictators were formerly at the service of the plantation owners, but now they protect the new industrial complexes. And finally, you come to help the underdog accept his destiny within this process! All you will do in a Mexican village is create disorder. At best, you can try to convince Mexican girls that they should marry a young man who is self-made, rich, a consumer, and as disrespectful of tradition as one of you. At worst, in your "community development" spirit you might create just enough problems to get someone shot after your vacation ends_ and you rush back to your middleclass neighborhoods where your friends make jokes about "spits" and "wetbacks." You start on your task without any training. Even the Peace Corps spends around $10,000 on each corps member to help him adapt to his new environment and to guard him against culture shock. How odd that nobody ever thought about spending money to educate poor Mexicans in order to prevent them from the culture shock of meeting you? In fact, you cannot even meet the majority which you pretend to serve in Latin America - even if you could speak their language, which most of you cannot. You can only dialogue with those like you - Latin American imitations of the North American middle class. There is no way for you to really meet with the underprivileged, since there is no common ground whatsoever for you to meet on. Let me explain this statement, and also let me explain why most Latin Americans with whom you might be able to communicate would disagree with me. Suppose you went to a U.S. ghetto this summer and tried to help the poor there "help themselves." Very soon you would be either spit upon or laughed at. People offended by your pretentiousness would hit or spit. People who understand that your own bad consciences push you to this gesture would laugh condescendingly. Soon you would be made aware of your irrelevance among the poor, of your status as middle-class college students on a summer assignment. You would be roundly rejected, no matter if your skin is white-as most of your faces here are-or brown or black, as a few exceptions who got in here somehow. Your reports about your work in Mexico, which you so kindly sent me, exude self-complacency. Your reports on past summers prove that you are not even capable of understanding that your dogooding in a Mexican village is even less relevant than it would be in a U.S. ghetto. Not only is there a gulf between what you have and what others have which is much greater than the one existing between you and the poor in your own country, but there is also a gulf between what you feel and what the Mexican people feel that is incomparably greater. This gulf is so great that in a Mexican village you, as White Americans (or cultural white Americans) can imagine yourselves exactly the way a white preacher saw himself when he offered his life preaching to the black slaves on a plantation in Alabama. The fact that you live in huts and eat tortillas for a few weeks renders your well-intentioned group only a bit more picturesque. The only people with whom you can hope to communicate with are some members of the middle class. And here please remember that I said "some" -by which I mean a tiny elite inLatin America. You come from a country which industrialized early and which succeeded in incorporating the great majority of its citizens into the middle classes. It is no social distinction in the U.S.to have graduated from the second year of college. Indeed, most Americans now do. Anybody in this country who did not finish high school is considered underprivileged. In Latin America the situation is quite different: 75% of all people drop out of school before they reach the sixth grade. Thus, people who have finished high school are members of a tiny minority. Then, a minority of that minority goes on for university training. It is only among these people that you will find your educational equals. At the same time, a middle class in the United States is the majority. In Mexico, it is a tiny elite. Seven years ago your country began and financed a so-called "Alliance for Progress." This was an "Alliance" for the "Progress" of the middle class elites. Now. it is among the members of this middle class that you will find a few people who are willing to send their time with you_ And they are overwhelmingly those "nice kids" who would also like to soothe their troubled consciences by "doing something nice for the promotion of the poor Indians." Of course, when you and your middleclass Mexican counterparts meet, you will be told that you are doing something valuable, that you are "sacrificing" to help others. And it will be the foreign priest who will especially confirm your self-image for you. After all, his livelihood and sense of purpose depends on his firm belief in a year-round mission which is of the same type as your summer vacation-mission. There exists the argument that some returned volunteers have gained insight into the damage they have done to others - and thus become more mature people. Yet it is less frequently stated that most of them are ridiculously proud of their "summer sacrifices." Perhaps there is also something to the argument that young men should be promiscuous for awhile in order to find out that sexual love is most beautiful in a monogamous relationship. Or that the best way to leave LSD alone is to try it for awhile -or even that the best way of understanding that your help in the ghetto is neither needed nor wanted is to try, and fail. I do not agree with this argument. The damage which volunteers do willy-nilly is too high a price for the belated insight that they shouldn't have been volunteers in the first place. If you have any sense of responsibility at all, stay with your riots here at home. Work for the coming elections: You will know what you are doing, why you are doing it, and how to communicate with those to whom you speak. And you will know when you fail. If you insist on working with the poor, if this is your vocation, then at least work among the poor who can tell you to go to hell. It is incredibly unfair for you to impose yourselves on a village where you are so linguistically deaf and dumb that you don't even understand what you are doing, or what people think of you. And it is profoundly damaging to yourselves when you define something that you want to do as "good," a "sacrifice" and "help." I am here to suggest that you voluntarily renounce exercising the power which being an American gives you. I am here to entreat you to freely, consciously and humbly give up the legal right you have to impose your benevolence on Mexico. I am here to challenge you to recognize your inability, your powerlessness and your incapacity to do the "good" which you intended to do. I am here to entreat you to use your money, your status and your education to travel in Latin America. Come to look, come to climb our mountains, to enjoy our flowers. Come to study. But do not come to help.

And counterpoint: The Rugged Altruists, by David Brooks (Aug. 22, 2011 New York Times)

Many Americans go to the developing world to serve others. A smaller percentage actually end up being useful. Those that do have often climbed a moral ladder. They start out with certain virtues but then develop more tenacious ones. The first virtue they possess is courage, the willingness to go off to a strange place. For example, Blair Miller was a student at the University of Virginia who decided she wanted to teach abroad. She Googled “teach abroad” and found a woman who had been teaching English in a remote town in South Korea and was looking for a replacement. Miller soon found herself on a plane and eventually at a small airport in southern South Korea. There was no one there to greet her. Eventually, the airport closed and no one came to pick her up. A monk was the only other person around and eventually he, too, left and Miller was alone.

Finally, a van with two men rolled in and scooped her up. After a few months of struggle, she had a fantastic year at a Korean fishing village, the only Westerner for miles and miles. Now she travels around Kenya, Pakistan and India for the Acumen Fund, a sort of venture capital fund that invests in socially productive enterprises, like affordable housing and ambulance services. The second virtue they develop is deference, the willingness to listen and learn from the moral and intellectual storehouses of the people you are trying to help. Rye Barcott was a student at the University of North Carolina who spent a summer sharing a 10-by-10 shack in Kibera, the largest slum in Nairobi, Kenya. One night he awoke with diarrhea and stumbled to the public outhouse. He slid onto the cement floor and vomited as his bare body hit puddles of human waste. He left his soiled pants outside the hut, but when he went to find them later they were gone. He was directed to another hut where a stick-thin girl, with missing clumps of hair, had the pants, scrubbed and folded, in her lap. Barcott said softly, “I’m grateful,” and asked her why she had cleaned them. “Because I can,” she replied. A week later, she died of AIDS and her body was taken in a wheelbarrow to a communal grave. Over the next several years, Barcott served as an officer in the Marines in places like Iraq and created an inspiring organization called Carolina for Kibera, which offers health services and serves as a sort of boys and girls club for children in the slum. The greatest and most essential virtue is thanklessness, the ability to keep serving even when there are no evident rewards — no fame, no admiration, no gratitude. Stephen Letchford is a doctor working in Kijabe, Kenya. One night, years ago, when he was working at a hospital in Zambia, a man stole a colleague’s computer. Letchford drove the police down the single road leading from town. The police found the man carrying the computer and, in the course of the arrest, shot him in the abdomen. They put the man in the back of the car and rushed him back to the hospital to save his life. Letchford pressed his wounds to stem the bleeding, using tattered garbage bags as surgical gloves. He had scraped his hands gardening that day and was now covered by the man’s blood.

They saved the thief’s life and discovered he was infected with H.I.V. For several days, Letchford and his family were not sure whether he had been infected by the man who robbed them. Their faith was tested. (They later learned that he was not infected.) When the man recovered, he showed no remorse, no gratitude; he just folded in on himself, cold and uncommunicative. This final virtue is what makes service in the developing world not just an adventure, a spiritual experience or a cinematic moment. It represents a noncontingent commitment to a specific place and purpose. As you talk to people involved in the foreign aid business — on the giving and the receiving ends — you are struck by how much disillusionment there is. Very few nongovernmental organizations or multilateral efforts do good, many Kenyans say. They come and go, spending largely on themselves, creating dependency not growth. The government-to-government aid workers spend time at summit meetings negotiating protocols with each other. But in odd places, away from the fashionableness, one does find people willing to embrace the perspectives and do the jobs the locals define — in businesses, where Westerners are providing advice about boring things like accounting; in hospitals where doctors, among many aggravations, try to listen to the symptoms the patients describe. Susan Albright, a nurse working with disabled children in Kijabe, says, “Everything I’ve ever learned I put to use here.” Her husband, Leland Albright, a prominent neurosurgeon, says simply, “This is where God wants us to be.”

Written two weeks ago, but forgotten in the shuffle of preparing for the school year.

Sometimes one experiences one of those day. The kind of day that captures wonderfully the rhythm of life here in Moldova, all the while betraying little idiosyncrasies that if understood, can show something much larger about the culture. Today was one of those days – extraordinary for the normalness of its rhythm, and revealing in comfortable responses to a syncopated tune that is so different from the American melody of daily life.

So remarkably normal, it seemed worth sharing. I try to point out the cultural aspects that might be amusing or illuminating to an American audience, but I certainly can’t explain them all. So, in simple bullet point form, I present the day of Monday, August 15, 2011.

Woke up to an alarm. Vague awareness that summer is ending. First morning revisiting my school year morning routine: drinking coffee while reading priority email/news, realizing it’s too late for breakfast, leaving late. Arrive at school, where we (the teaching collective) are all waiting for the district level officials to come so that we can choose a new director. Stand outside talking to male teachers about our summers for 45 minutes. Find out that the district officials won’t be coming today. Modus operandi of the Education Ministry. Go inside, and almost get sucked into the teachers lounge, which promised to have been a 3 hour talkathon. Am saved by my amazing partner teacher, who suggests we go do some planning. We realize we can’t plan b/c classes haven’t been divided amongst teachers yet, which can’t happen without a director, which can’t happen without the district officials. All teachers, however, are required to be at school, so we decide instead to discuss our general goals and ideas for this year, including new ideas my partner teacher received while being a mentor for the new M26 Health Volunteers, and various ideas I have that reflect health education theory. Brief aside in the Vice-Director’s office for plotting and gossip top-off. Back to planning. Convince my friend Victor (the art teacher) to come to our house to drink a ceai (tea), which is a pretext for a favor I have to ask of him (which he knows), which is itself a pretext for another favor I have to ask of him (of which he doesn’t know). He accepts the concept of ceai, but refuses my offers of lunch. Victor fixes a painting I bought in Lviv, Ukraine, which had become somewhat loose on the frame. I meanwhile secretly communicate to my host-cousin who is more like a host-sister that indeed she should put out a full lunch. My host mother calls to inform that Vasile Kirilovici has asked for my cell phone number. Kirilovice (his patronymic) is the richest man in the village, running the agricultural firm that farms 2100 hectares (5000 acres) and employs 250 people (my host father included). In a town where I enjoy incredible access – greeted by the traditional kiss and embrace from the priest, and being able to walk into the mayor’s office without an appointment – Kirilovici is the only key leader I’m not on regular terms with. As Victor finishes the picture, I insist he stay for ceai. He accepts with the words, “well, as long as it’s just ceai.” I put as much food out for ceai as possible, including fruit, cookies, cheese, honey, lemons, bread, jam, etc. We sit down to eat, and I casually observe that a warm lunch has been set out us as well. I proceed to insist he eat. He is trapped b/c he knows I haven’t had lunch yet but can’t eat unless he does, and he knows I know he hasn’t had lunch yet. I will later be congratulated on this maneuver. Lunch proceeds. Victor happens to inquire about my soup kitchen project with Ecaterina, laying the perfect setting for the bigger favor I want to ask of him: helping us paint a mural in the dining hall of the soup kitchen. He reacts cautiously to the idea at first. (This is expected.) He continues, however, to advise how the project should be carried out. He slowly seems to be coming around, pulled in by the thought of an excellent opportunity for art education. He mentions the scene should be something beautiful, but not banal. I agree. Host dad arrives home for lunch. Victor is trapped for another round. The pressure is off me to draw lunch out further. Said pressure had been mounting as my host mother is unusually late getting home from work at the bank today and I must keep him at the table until she arrives. Host mom gets home. Harbuz (watermelon) is proposed. Roundly rejected by Victor. I subsequently leave to prepare the harbuz. I sneak into my room to grab a brochure on wall murals in Moldova. We all eat about a kilo of harbuz. Two hours after he came, Victor succeeds to make it to the gate. I show him the brochure. His interest is again piqued. He mentions that the mural should appeal to the elderly, perhaps with a quote about family. I again agree. Victor leaves. I gossip with host mom about the school director situation, which includes gossiping about our mayor. I go inside to try to get some work done. Call Ecaterina. Have one of those conversations when it is exceedingly difficult to convey a simple occurrence (that I didn’t tell her when Victor came). Catea (Ecaterina) calls me back. We shout over the phone for a while. She’s yelling something about a water heater. I’m yelling something about the walls at the soup kitchen. We establish we should meet at the soup kitchen in 10 minutes. I arrive to the soup kitchen. Catea is late. We have one of those rushed conversations about the proper way to resurface a wall, in which she disagrees with much of what I say. Having been here for a year, I now appreciate that this is not because I am American, but because I am in Moldova, so I keep insisting. Vasile Kirilovici calls. I mention I cannot come to his office right now, because I am not sufficiently frumos (beautiful), being in work clothes. We agree to meet at 6. I still have no idea why. Resume rushed conversation with Catea. We reach an agreement that “It will all be good.” I briefly take satisfaction in what is a very fulfilling moment culturally and linguistically. We walk home. Speculation turns to why Vasile Kirilovici wants to meet me. Catea speculates he wants to give us money for a project. I get home, sit down to indoor work. Sergiu comes. I volunteer to go help move cement. We move 800kg of cement. More speculation on what Vasile Kirilovici might want with me. I come home, shower, and make myself frumos for Vasile Kirilovici. I go to meet with Vasile Kirilovici. We begin with just 15 minutes of small talk. It turns out he needs help with an application for a USDA program in the States (the application is in English, which he doesn’t speak). We finish the application, and return to slightly larger small talk of my work in the village. He implies that he is happy to help if there is anything he can do. We spend some time discussing a particular project my youth are undertaking for which he will likely be solicited for funds at a later date (he doesn’t know this, but probably now expects it). I manage to speak well, translate the forms correctly without much stumbling, make him laugh a couple times, convey my projects without being too pushy on their financial aspects, and generally navigate the situation with proper respect. We dance around the sensitive issue of the school director, an issue which betrays very deep political fissures within the village. I meander home, running into students, a soup kitchen beneficiary, and stopping to buy spackle for the next day’s reparations in my classroom. Arrive home to colţunaşi – cherry and cheese stuffed dumplings – one of my favorite dishes in Moldova. Write this, and then hopefully go to bed tired but satisfied. Not a bad day. Not bad at all.

On Wednesday, after 10 grueling weeks of training, 27 new Health and English Education Volunteers from the Moldova 26 group took their oath, and with that, officially began their two years of service. As our Country Director, Jeffrey Goveia pointed out, it's the exact same oath of office every Federal official serving the United States takes.

One year ago Thursday I stood on a stage and repeated those exact same words; I'd already been in country for 10 weeks, had already begun working with Moldovan children and counterparts during practice school, was living with a host family, and struggling through my limited Romanian. But still, I remember distinctly the chill that ran down my spine when taking the oath. It was one of those rare moments of absolute clarity in life when one feels the full power of an ideal much larger than oneself behind one's actions, when that "something larger" you're a part of becomes so tangible it can be touched, if only briefly.

From here on out, it's now not just halfway, but less than a year to go. To all the M26s who just took that oath: savor it, it goes quicker than you expect. Also: congrats, you guys are gonna be great.

They certainly did if they spotted me today biking across 30 km of Moldovan countryside looking like this!

Laden down with Haiducii supplies, including the all-important and ubiquitous Haiducii Rubber Chicken.

Yes, I biked to Olanesti and back like this.

The occasion was for Ziua Sanatatii (Day of Health) which my rock-star raion-mate Shannon organized for her organization's summer long day camp. The day included lots of outdoor activities, including some awesome relay races. I was there to conduct some Haiducii activities in the afternoon.

Warm ups. Very important.

The little kids got to cheer.

Water relay.

Sac race!

Which inevitably ends in this.

Balloon volleyball.

Explaining the rubber chicken game,

"Pirate's Revenge

awwww.

Adam leads his students in a Zen Walk.If I was expecting summer to be somewhat more relaxing than the school year – I was – then I was clearly mistaken. While there have been two nice vacations, they have only managed to condense the amount of time remaining for a chaotic eclectic assortment of tasks. There has been teaching PST, a project at the soup kitchen, ongoing work at the medical center, and enough political intrigue in the village to require numerous visits to shore up friendships amongst the two main factions. There was also a great 50th Anniversary Concert in Chişinău that I MCed (credit to Ohad Sternberg for the post and photos linked to there).

While I like to stay busy, one downside of this is that there has been less time than expected for Haiducii, a secondary project I joined last spring (when still expecting a lot of free time in the summer).

Quoting from that last post:

Probably the coolest of my groups, Haiducii (pronounced Hi-do-chi) is a Robin Hood like character in Balkan folklore. In Moldova, we are an injustice-fighting band of PCVs who go around teaching teamwork and leadership skills to youth through outdoor teambuilding activities (the type common in U.S. summer camps and low ropes courses). We won’t really ramp up until the summer season, but as a throw back to my Boy Scout days, I’m looking forward to this group. It involves lots of hitchhiking around Moldova, but then, isn’t that how Robin Hood travelled too?Finally, with most of my partners now on vacation, I was able to lead my first Haiducii session up in Edineţ this past Monday for fellow volunteer Adam's Leadership Summer Camp. Working with fellow Healthy and Haiduc Melissa – aka Yoga Mama – we made the 4 hour trek up there to meet a great group of future Moldovan leaders who were willing to brave the cold and rainy weather for our outdoor activities.

The Spider WebIt was a great group of kids to work with for my first session, and dare I say, after we made them repeat Spider Web three times, they even seemed to draw some lessons about teamwork. My favorite moment was when we came to the conclusion as a group that without Alina – a very bright but shy girl – they never would have solved the mental puzzle to what is an otherwise rather physical activity. They even got the take away – after a little prompting – that sometimes, good leadership means listening, because if you just shout and only the leaders get to say their ideas, the best solution might be drowned out, because sometimes the quietest person has the best ideas. Now, if only our politicians back in the U.S. could come to that same conclusion…Melissa debriefs. Alina, work done, yawns.

Then we played Jedi Knife Fight. Theoretically, there’s a lesson in that game too, but mostly it just involves letting the teams whack each other with foam noodles after a hard day’s work while we try to enforce the games rules. A casualty of that enforcement tends to be getting whacked yourself. So, for all those readers who’ve been wanting to wallop me with a noodle but can’t because I’m here in Moldova, poftim (enjoy)!

Three articles have caught my eye in the months since my first post about Greg Mortenson and the accusations of wrongdoing within his Central Asia Institute (CAI). Unsurprisingly, they drew my attention in part because they pick up on two main themes of my post: the difficulty of verifying development dollars on the ground (which works in Mortenson’s immediate defense) and the uneconomical/unsustainable nature of the CAI solution (a longer term but also more damning critique).

We’ll start with the good: a February report by 16 education aid agencies currently working in Afghanistan offers two vindications for the CAI, (the Guardian also provides a nice summary). The report and article both contribute an arbitrating neutrality, having been published before the CAI news broke. Two key points as they pertain to the Mortenson story:

First, the report points out the overall impressive gains in female education that have taken place in Afghanistan since 2001. On paper, $1.9 billion has been spent on education, 2,281 schools have been built, and female enrollment has jumped from 5,000 to 2.4 million.

Secondly, the report simultaneously draws attention to the fact that these gains are significantly inflated on paper. Potentially 22% of those new students are classified as “long-term absentees”. A shocking 47% of the 2,281 “schools built” have no physical building, and school closure due to insecurity remains a chronic problem.

For CAI, the first piece of news is certainly a positive indicator that their efforts have been having some effect – they have been part of that collective school building campaign. Let’s not forget we’re talking about one of the least developed countries in the world that is still battling some very repressive views towards female education. In such a context, those gains really are impressive, and CAI is part of that story.

The second vindication is more bittersweet in that it demonstrates that many of the 60 Minutes’ claims regarding the schools themselves – the claims that suggested far less on the ground success than CAI claims on paper – are in fact not at all unique to the CAI. Given those statistics above, in fact, CAI may be having far more than the average success in getting schools open in Afghanistan.

The second article takes up this issue at a more theoretical level, taking a look at the decade long project by Transparency International (TI) to rate countries’ performance on corruption by surveying locals. In short, the article examines the disconnect between citizens’ perceptions and the reality regarding corruption in their country. This echoes my point from April about the extent to which citizens are often poorly informed regarding the sources of project financing. I’ve heard my host mother casually accuse our mayor of a million dollar corruption scandal over tea without batting an eye. Yes, that is millions, and yes she meant dollars, in our tiny rural village. When I ask how she knows, her response was the convincing “I just know.” This is a relatively well educated woman, so I’d hate to think of an international outsider trying to verify development money spent simply by driving around town and asking those even less informed than her.

Again, this is a mark in favor of CAI, as this effectively seems to be what 60 Minutes did. It’s also another sign of how tricky development is. The fact is one can probably dig up stories of misspent funds on just about any project, especially if outsiders parachute in without any understanding of local alliances. As I mentioned last post, it’s simply possible to achieve “developed” country accounting standards. Dealing with a certain level of uncertainty is an inherent risk in development; it can be mitigated, but never eliminated. That story is a lot harder to sell to the public, but those of us in the business do ourselves no favors when we try to sugarcoat it.

Finally, as the Oxfam report points out, the worst builder of schools in Afghanistan seems to have been the military. Again, unsurprising. I wouldn’t think to try to do the military’s job, and their strengths aren’t necessarily conducive to doing mine. The Provincial Reconstruction Teams poor performance seems to partially stem from the fact that their very involvement makes a school a security target and thus un-attendable for students. However, to some extent this is true for any Western organization. Again in defense of CAI, this offers support for their low profile approach. It’s a catch twenty-two for CAI because the approach breeds local confusion about who is funding schools, which in turn fuels 60 Minutes’ style sensationalism.

Now for the more important bad news: the World Bank recently released a new education strategy, as for that matter did USAID (once again, for brevity see this nice summary by the Center for Global Development). The strategies distill half a century of development experience down into a few key goals, and come to very similar conclusions. Unsurprisingly, what matters most in development is not building schools nor even necessarily getting kids in the seats, but rather incentivizing actors (students, parents, educators, administrators, and politicians) to perform, and most of all ensuring the quality of the education that goes on within the classroom. In shorter words, the key goal in education should be the achievement of learning. If that conclusion somehow seems less than illuminating, the banal bureaucratic language of the strategies obscures the fact that for four decades the World Bank spent its efforts focused almost entirely on building schools and training teachers.

The development community has been learning, and we now see the resulting shift from focusing on inputs to an emphasis on outcomes in agencies’ program design. Not even two decades old, it’s unsurprising that the CAI still betrays this input focused approach, albeit at a much more grass roots level approach.

Both of these arguments confirm my initial comments regarding the CAI “scandal” last month. On the one hand, development is messy and following the money trail on the ground is exceedingly difficult. Greg Mortenson’s detractors seem to have a very poor understanding of this in their efforts to verify his foundation’s work. On the other hand, much of the development community long remained unimpressed by Greg Mortenson because it knew the dirty secret he was still learning – building schools is a less than sufficient solution to a very complicated problem. Good story, cosmetic fix, poor solution.

From my understanding, domestically the news has been much more focused on the inaccuracies in his personal stories as well as the “using CAI as a personal ATM” line. I’m curious to hear from readers if they feel this is accurate. Meanwhile, I’ll leave that debate to the courts, for as I’m sure Mortenson would agree, the bigger issue is not the finances of one small NGO, but the billion dollar education of the world’s most economically vulnerable children.

On June 18 the liceu (high school) where I work hosted its annual Graduation Ball, which is the Moldovan version of a Graduation Ceremony rolled up in prom. It is for all the graduates, as well as teachers, families, and the rest of the village in general. The evening begins with the Ball, which includes speeches, flowers, and a releasing of the doves, and then moves on to a feast at the local banquet hall (normally used only for weddings), where the feasting, dancing, and toasting go until sunup, at which points the graduates depart their parents to watch the sun rise over a lake on the outskirts of town, and continue their celebration with barbecue and more feasting well into the next day.

Not so different from American Prom, this is the occasion when many boys buy their first suit, and the gown shopping for the girls, well, I guess some things just transcend cultures.

This year, the graduates decided they wanted to perform a waltz at their ball. For reasons still unclear to me, they also decided I was the most qualified person to teach them how to waltz.

The trophy, erm, statue, I got for teaching.So, beginning back in May, we started going over the basic waltz step. A month and a half later, after most of the class became casualties and the traditional Viennese Waltz was declared "insane and impossible" due to its speed, the remaining four couples danced beautifully to the first waltz I've ever choreographed.

One of the beautiful things about Peace Corps is that one inevitably ends up teaching things one is dramatically under-experienced in and has little relation to the primary program assignment. Prof. John Riker and Marcia Dobson, wherever you are, I'm glad I dropped in your ballroom dancing classes during that last month of college.

Oh, and afterwards, they embarrassed me with a far too gracious speech and this statue. Very Moldovan.

Another beautiful thing about Peace Corps is that even when you don't fancy yourself a dance teacher, it doesn't make you any less proud of your students at the end.

So, without further delay, the Waltz of the Graduates.

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My Program Manager recently asked me to lead this summer’s training sessions on medical center work for the new health volunteers. Thus, while the events of this post took place a couple of months ago now, it constitutes one of my bigger successes here in Moldova and is something I’m thinking about a lot while preparing to teach the new volunteers.

One of the hard parts of the Health Education program is that we straddle worlds – we must work in both the highly structured educational system, and the much more fluid world of community medical centers. Work at the school begins very quickly after arriving at site, and similar to English Education (EE) volunteers, the fruits of our labors become quickly visible.

Facilitating a needs assessment session at the med center.At the medical centers, however, our job is much closer to that of Community Organization and Development (COD) volunteers – work at the organization goes in fits and starts depending on how busy they are and how effective we are at identifying projects they are motivated to collaborate on. These two cultures can often be hard to bridge, with the fast pace of the school making it harder to be patient with the incremental change at the medical centers. This is one reason I think so few healthies work at their medical centers for the entire two years of service.

As a result of the less structured environment of medical centers, the needs assessment stage is a much longer process. Facilitating good needs assessment, in fact, is not just necessary to choosing the best health education topics, but is in of itself a key skill we need to transfer. Good needs assessment is also the first step of any long term planning process.

After coming up short for months in trying to get my medical center to write a one year health education plan, we’d had a number of needs assessment discussions that fizzled. I finally decided it was time to try a different approach, and reached out to my COD friend Craig. One of the downsides of bridging programs is it doubles the number of competencies a successful volunteer needs to possess; one of the upsides of Peace Corps is that we have colleagues like Craig who bring the perspective of a different program.

As part of its heavy emphasis on local sustainability, Peace Corps teaches the PACA approach to needs assessment, (Participatory Analysis for Community Action). More than a set of tools, PACA is a whole philosophy that calls for empowering community members instead of the development worker to set the agenda through participatory activities. It also includes a toolkit of creative needs assessment activities. The results are better needs assessments and thus an increase in the number of stakeholders, which lays a stronger foundation for resulting actions. The analysis itself helps build consensus amongst participants by demonstrating that the agreed upon needs were not a foregone conclusion.

For my medical center, Craig recommended we try an approach known as Pairwise Group Ranking, which is underpinned by psychology research that shows we humans are very good at choosing between two alternatives, but rapidly become much worse as the number of alternatives increases. Pairwise Ranking consequently employs a technique where all participants have a chance to identify all possible needs. Participants then consider needs one pair at a time, voting on which alternative is more important for every potential pairing. For example, if we have issues 1, 2, 3, and 4, participants need to vote six times (between options 1 vs. 2, 1 vs. 3, 1 vs. 4, 2 vs. 3, 2 vs. 4, and 3 vs. 4). Votes are then tallied, and issues are ranked from most to least important depending on how many votes each one has.

I ran the idea by my nurse partner Galena, who had never heard of the method before, but agreed to give it a try. While she is my formal counterpart at the center, ideally I should be collaborating with the entire staff. We have struggled, however, to get the other nurses involved in our health education work, though we have managed a couple of meetings. Simply put, health education and I are extra work, and these medical workers already have a LOT of work to begin with.

Voting: a bloc affair.Still, we got six or seven of the nurses to come to our needs assessment session, a pretty good turnout. Like most conversations we initiate about health education, it started a little reluctantly. We were quickly surprised, however, at how much the nurses all got into this activity. Especially once we were voting, our session prompted a lot of discussion. One interesting facet was the tendency of the nurses to vote together as a bloc – I somehow feel this would not be so common in the U.S. Still, there were some revealing divergences as well, and the ensuing conversation provided me with some key insights while also helping the nurses better understand their colleagues’ reasoning.

This was the priority ranking we ended with after the activity (vote tallies in parentheses):Listening: a key step in community change.Hypertension (69)Breast Cancer (69)Smoking (51)Drugs (48)Mother and child nutrition (46)Flu (46)Tuberculosis (38)Immunization (34)Cancer (29)Alcoholism (25)HIV/AIDS (25)Cancers of the digestive system (21)Type II Diabetes (19)STIs (5)

We agreed to concentrate on the top five during the next year. More important than the issues themselves, however, was another positive result: the other nurses left the meeting much more enthusiastic about health education activities targeting these priorities. The activity prompted a great discussion in which nurses for the first time started brainstorming about what we could do about these identified needs. One nurse even asked me if we could collaborate on some anti-smoking posters for her sector of the village, which includes the big agricultural firm (where a lot of the men smoke).

In development jargon, we’d increased the number of stakeholders by including them in choosing topics. The decision making process itself increased participant commitment to the issues identified and built consensus. Even if the other nurses don’t actively participate in interventions targeting these topics, they are much stronger allies when we engage the community. And that is exactly what Participatory Analysis is meant to do.

I just got back from a post-school year vacation in Odessa, and suddenly lots of 1 year anniversaries are crashing over me, much rougher than the gentle waves of that Black Sea port. Today, June 8, marks one year to the day since I reported to staging in Philadelphia. Yesterday marked my departure from Denver, and the day after tomorrow will make 1 year in Moldova. It’s still 10 more weeks until the August 18 anniversary of taking my oath and officially becoming a Peace Corps Volunteer, but with the school year now over and the new trainees arriving in a couple hours, those 10 weeks seem more like a formality.

It’s half over.

Soon, there will be fewer days in front of me than behind me.

I’m more about metaphors than theories of physics, so I’m not sure what the Theory of Relativity has to say about the actual passage of time, but it feels a lot like reaching the peak of a roller coaster: the first half of the ride, the climb, goes much slower than the plunge back down.

This could provoke all sorts of reflections; hopefully in the weeks to come some will make it into this space. But for the time being, perhaps in the most telling sign of reaching the halfway point, there is little time for reflection. Despite classes being over, I have a full roster of community projects to implement and training sessions to design for the new volunteers.

So, here’s to the first year of memories and the plunge into the second!

Mahala is a word deceptively simple given the complex construct it houses. In fact, it is probably this complexity that makes the word so thoroughly Moldovan. In Moldoveneşti, mahala means neighborhood. It is descended from the Turkish (and in turn Arabic) word mahalle, a term introduced throughout the Balkans during the period of Ottoman rule. In literary (i.e. Romanian) Romanian, however, mahala has come to mean more of a slum. Before even arriving at the complexities of the actual Moldovan mahala then, the word itself is a signpost showing the historical fork between Romania and Moldova. It is a very Eastern European dark irony that the word for neighborhood in Europe’s poorest country means “slum” in the same language spoken by its richer neighbor to the west. If Romanians often point out politely that Moldovan Romanian is an archaic and rural dialect, then the word mahala captures the subtler unspoken chauvinism between these richer and poorer neighbors.

Even in Moldova, however, a mahala is so much more than a geographical boundary. It’s an agricultural system, a living map of generations of familial histories, and a complex network for the exchange of gossip and information.

One never really leaves their mahala in Moldova. The village knows where you grew up, and if you move, somebody has relatives there too. Even if one moves to the city, they might well choose to live in an apartment next door to somebody else from their village – it simplifies the flow of fresh produce coming in daily from relatives on the morning bus from the village. Our own small village has a mahala reaching as far as Billings, Montana.

We volunteers, on the other hand, come from outside the system – we arrive mahala-less. So often, we are reminded of the frustrations that implies when trying to work with our adult colleagues – not knowing the right person to talk to in order to cut through the red tape, not knowing a particular history that prevents two potential partners from working together. But our tabula rasa also grants us some potentially powerful freedoms, particularly with students.

The Moldovan education system is fairly formal, with the respect and distance between students and teachers we would associate with bygone ages. But in the villages, the school corridors are also inlaid into the twisting streets of the mahalas, where mutual support and the community is literally what enables humans to cultivate food by hand and live through harsh winters. At the same time this formality dictates distance between teacher and student, then, it is never forgotten who is neighbors or relatives with whom, and thus who a student or teacher can best turn to for help in a moment of need.

With the benefit of our blank slate, volunteers fall along all points of the spectrum in how formal we are with our students. We all have our own classroom style, from the very formal to a level of informality that can be borderline radical within a traditional educational structure.

Bouncing around the broader neighborhood of Peace Corps’ northern Moldova volunteers earlier this spring, one of my most lasting impressions was the style of my colleague Lindsay Toler, who has an incredibly close connection to her students. The inevitable glazed over eyes or skeptical brow showed that they don’t always hear or believe her teachings about health. But the parade of enthusiastic students coming to talk to her in every break made clear that they all appreciate her, and a few she has truly reached even deeply trust her.

Reaching my mahala’s dusty road, returning travel wearied to a house that is increasingly feeling like home, I resolved to emulate Lindsay’s success and foster closer relationships with my students. Perhaps it has been this resolve, or perhaps it is simply the passing of time as I near the one year mark since my arrival, but in the two months since my return this effort has begun to bear fruit, and nowhere more so than in my mahala.

On the other hand, perhaps my success is merely seasonal, as spring has breathed new life into the mahala, drawing its tenants out from under the thick blankets of their hibernation. People are out working in their gardens and gossiping over their fences again. Friends stop by to trade a rabbit as they get ready to breed them, diversifying their livestock’s genetic pool. Ilie, our neighbors’ son, cradles a chick, returning it to our coop from which it has managed to escape. Walking to school one still-crisp spring morning not so long ago, even animals seem to have picked up the trend, loudly trading their gossip across yards and streets – it was only then that I realized how much quieter even the roosters are during Moldovan winters.

Whatever the cause, it is clear that I am increasingly the one being called out to from the gate, or the one stopping to trade gossip with neighbors as they seize the opportunity for momentary respite from whatever labors await them beyond their fence.

With spring, I have also begun jogging again, or as it is referred to here, simply “cross” (said with a Romanian flip of the r). In Moldova, jogging is a clear identifier of somebody who is either crazy or actively fleeing something. Hence when my host mother sees me putting on my running shoes, she does not ask whether I am about to go running, but rather if I am about to go fleeing.

Recently, some of the boys in my mahala took a less skeptical notice. In yet another sign of how odd the activity is, the news that Domnul Zachariah jogs quickly became regularly discussed amongst the 350 student body. Then students started asking when I would next be jogging. And eventually, some of those mahala boys even joined me.

I have been teaching Health Education in Moldova for a year now, and it is often unclear what, if anything, even my best students are taking to heart. With a single exception, the mahala boys who have joined me are not amongst those best students. But stretching before and after, measuring our pulses, and making us take a cool down walk together, I cannot help but think I am definitely succeeding in some small health education outside the classroom. As we jog, I slip in casual references to aerobic exercise and cardiovascular health. They cut me off to show me the alleys and shortcuts of our mahala, but I know they’re listening.

Jogging with an older student – the aforementioned “single exception” – our conversation follows the road through the mahala, twisting me through the histories of the families and fields we pass. Veering towards the country, these breathless histories follow as our conversation turns towards Moldova’s path to democracy, a path that has been as rough as that we are jogging, filled with muddy patches and long ruts. Treading upon the topic of his graduation just a few days future, we move to the high level of outward migration from Moldova. I put to him the paradox of his own good versus that of his country: he is amongst the most able to leave the country and find a good job abroad, but it is exactly those capable individuals like him who will be necessary if his country is ever to pull itself out of this rut. He considers this silently. By now, we are far from our mahala, past the outskirts of the city, and breathlessness has finally caught up to us, turning thoughts inward and sparing our lungs any extra labor.

Jogging in silence, I appreciate that these are the students I can most influence, and that my best lessons may be taught in classroom of my mahala. As we near the village again, our labored conversation resumes, my student pointing out his aunt’s field in the dwindling blaze of the sunset. I make a mental note – his aunt is also the Chief Nurse at my medical center. And so it is that while I push him to consider his future, he is also giving me the tools needed to succeed in my next year, slowly extending the network of neighbors I can call upon in this or that project. And then we stretch as the mahala stares, perhaps not such a small success after all.

In PC lingo, a “secondary project” is any project that falls outside of one’s primary program goals and partnerships. In my case, that would be anything outside of the health education domain.

Most, if not all, PCVs worldwide have secondary projects. For many, in fact, secondary projects often become primary projects, if not formally at least in the amount of time they take up. There are a number of reasons for this. First, it’s often unclear where a program ends and a secondary project begins. At my site, for example, my work at the mayor’s office and the soup kitchen are both outside of the primary assignments at the school and health center that the HESC program manager set up for me. But both include a significant health promotion component. So is it primary, or secondary?

Second, the very nature of long-term intensive grassroots work in rural communities is such that the partnerships Peace Corps arranges for a PCV before they get there are often not the most fruitful collaborations. Sometimes the organization doesn’t have two years of work, sometimes the local counterpart didn’t fully understand that a PCV normally means more work, or sometimes everybody just agrees there’s a different local organization the PCV can better help. Peace Corps understands this, and it’s one of the reasons the organization is flexible and encourages secondary projects as a way to find the best uses for one’s time.

Finally, contrary to popular opinion, PCVs are human beings, and few human beings find total life fulfillment in their work life. It just so happens that PC is so all-life encompassing that just about any non-work non-familial social activity is likely to be a secondary project, whether it’s playing basketball with community members or playing with kids at the pre-school.

There are two main categories of secondary activities: the kind one does at site, and the country wide Peace Corps activities. Posts tend to have a number of these activities, which are run by volunteers and tend to focus on key national level development priorities.

Besides working at the soup kitchen and mayor’s office, I’ve also been working on a number of the country wide initiatives. It’s fun to work with other volunteers, as it so often seems much more straightforward and there’s no language barrier. At this level, my main secondary activities have been the Gender Workgroup (GWG), the Small Project Assistance Program (SPA), Girls Leading Our World (GLOW), and Haiducii.

GLOW is a global Peace Corps girls empowerment program based around summer camps that was started by volunteers in Romania in 1995. Most (if not all) Peace Corps posts (countries) have a GLOW program run by volunteers for young women of the host country. The traditional format is a summer camp, but as these are very expensive and reach a limited audience, GLOW Moldova has been experimenting with a new format this year by teaching short day seminars that are hosted in interested communities when requested by a local organization. The topics run a gamut of topics that if predictable, are also highly important: leadership, human trafficking, alcohol/traffic, career development. Seminars are for girls and young women exclusively, and all topics are couched within the general framework of building the leadership potential and aspirations of future generations of women. I’ve helped teach two of these seminars so far, and consider it one of the most important projects PC Moldova supports, event though it’s technically “secondary.”

The Gender Workgroup is a collection of Moldova PCVs also organizing around gender and sexual identity issues. So far, most of our work has been with Gender Doc-M, Moldova’s only queer organization. I’ll probably be helping organize some safer sex seminars for Gender Doc next month. It’s also an excellent example of the blurred line between primary and secondary projects, as well as demonstrative of the enjoyment that can come from secondary activities. For me, it’s an example to pursue a personal interest (queer issues) and be involved with the local community – a small door to my village sized closet at site.

SPA is perhaps the most interesting of my various secondary activities. SPA is basically a grant making body specifically for PCV supported projects, i.e. local initiatives that have a PCV working with them as a primary work assignment. The money is actually from USAID (the U.S. Agency for International Development), but the nature of the agreement between PC and USAID effectively allows each post to administer its SPA funds independently. In practice, this means posts decide who gets the money while making sure that grants meet USAID standards and reporting the results to the local USAID mission. Posts differ on how much funding they receive and how grants are reviewed. In Moldova, we have a committee of three staff plus one PCV from each program. Thus, for two years, I will be the HESC volunteer on the committee.

Worldwide, the SPA program exists to:To increase the capabilities of local communities to conduct low-cost, grassroots sustainable development. The SPA Grant Program supports the efforts of local communities to carry out projects that address their own priorities…Projects should include a clear training or capacity-building component.SPA Moldova has an annual budget of $54,000. To remain consistent with the emphasis on small sustainable projects, grants are capped at $3,000 and require at least 25% community funding. We just wrapped up the grant-making period of the year, humorously referred to as the “SPA season” due to the relaxing nature of 8 hour Saturdays spent interviewing applicants and debating the merits of various projects. While meetings have been exhausting, I’ve found this to be excellent experience for a post-PC career in international development and have learned a lot about how to facilitate better grant writing by “kicking the tires” of the applications we’ve reviewed. And believe me, when working in a developing country, even when a PCV has been intimately involved in putting together a grant project, it’s amazing what will fall off when you kick the tires.

Lastly, there is Haiducii (pronounced Hi-do-chi). Probably the coolest of my groups, Haiducii – which is a Robin Hood like character in Balkan folklore – is an injustice-fighting band of superheroes who go around Moldova teaching teamwork and leadership skills to youth through outdoor teambuilding activities (the type common in U.S. summer camps and low ropes courses). We won’t really ramp up until the summer season, but as a throw back to my Boy Scout days, I’m looking forward to this group. It involves lots of hitchhiking around Moldova, but then, isn’t that how Robin Hood travelled too?

The humanitarian philanthropic world is aflutter this week over the news of Greg Mortenson – literally, he became a trending topic on Twitter two days ago. For those unfamiliar, Greg Mortenson is the co-author and main protagonist along with his charity the Central Asia Institute (CAI) of the bestselling book Three Cups of Tea and its recent follow-up Stones Into Schools.

The mountaineer turned humanitarian started building schools, primarily for girls, in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan after a failed attempt summiting K2. Or so everybody thought, until 60 Minutes aired an investigative wackjob last Sunday that called a number of books’ claims and CAI’s finances into question.

Some serious questions are already being asked of 60 Minutes’ reporting, but if its story holds – and indeed it has been followed this week by a much more in-depth, researched, and less sensationalist work by Jon Krakauer – then Greg Mortenson is in danger of becoming the Bernie Madoff of international philanthropic humanitarianism, not because Mortenson is being accused of anything criminal (yet), but because he risks becoming the symbol of something much larger.

Establishing the truth in this particular case will take a long time and will forever remain subjective, as hagiography always is. In becoming a patron saint for a generation of a do-gooders, Mortenson long ago lost any ability to have an objective history.

Yet taking a step back, the case is certain to raise some larger questions as well. Enter Mortenson the symbol, whose role is already being written in the press as a stand in for a much larger debate about foreign aid.

Within Peace Corps, Mortenson is a polarizing figure: for many he is a selfless personal hero, for others the paradigm of much that is wrong in international development. For some, like myself, he is both things at the same time.

I first read Three Cups of Tea about a year ago. At the time, the message resonated with me as a first hand account of the harrowing struggle of doing good against tall obstacles and also as treatise on the cultural integration on-the-ground approach to development. The former appealed to the struggles I was slogging through getting Vitality In Action Foundation off the ground, the latter appealed to the archetypical cultural integration approach to development work I would soon be living as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Of course, the book is also a very good story.

By the time I read the follow-up Stones Into Schools, however, my skepticism was growing. True, the book still resonated with fundamental aspects of Peace Corps service, (Mortenson in fact donated copies of his book to PC posts worldwide). If cultural integration was my take-away development lesson of the first book, the “end of the road” approach, where one starts in the rural peripheries instead of the urban hubs, was the motto of the second. As “Europe’s poorest country”, Moldova is flooded with international aid and donor organizations. Working in a small rural village, I’ve seen how little of that aid makes it out of the capital, and how none of those international organizations make it all the way to villages, where the needs are arguably largest. So once again, Mortenson captured a personal reality in his own story.

Living development on the ground, however, the gaping holes in Mortenson’s approach became more troubling. There is nothing sustainable about the CAI method, and even over the short term its solutions to education are single dimensional. The “build it and they will come” fiction is attractive in its simplicity, but if such a parsimonious solution existed, the development professionals who have been tirelessly scratching away at this problem for over a half a century would have long ago figured it out. Indeed, that’s part of the beauty of the CAI solution: it taps into that American spirit that is animated by the outsider who goes against the grain and figures out the solutions the professionals had been missing all along. But while outsiders are essential to figuring out new approaches, they also tend to make a lot of mistakes the experts have already worked through.

In Mortenson’s work, experience happens to point to the necessity of quality teaching, cultural factors (environments and attitudes), non-infrastructure material needs (rested and nourished students), and household factors. Take the CAI approach out over the medium term and it becomes even more problematic. Even if you build it and they come, will they maintain it? In my ten short months here I have already seen enough abandoned projects concocted in foreign capitals. It’s the natural result of poorly planned giving. If you offer me a Ferrari, I’m unlikely to refuse it, regardless of whether I have any use for one (or even know how to drive a stick…)

To those working out in the field, there is likely to be little revelatory in any of the stories to come. But much of the media attention is likely to be fleeting, which will be more than sufficient to do serious damage to the opinions of those who simply want to trust that a charitable donation will go to a good cause.

Take for example the BBC piece that investigated 60 Minutes’ claim of mission schools: it casts some doubt on 60 Minutes’ accusations, revealing that the news team may be just as amateurish in understanding development environments as Mortenson was back in 1993. More than anything, it shows the messy affair of tracking development dollars on the ground. No shock there – the reality is that there is probably sufficient ambiguity in many development projects to cook up a sensational story of malfeasance. In my own village, it is nearly impossible to get to the bottom of project funding, a rival politician can always claim credit and his followers will, well, follow.

The uncomfortable truth is that a charitable American public cannot receive American quality auditing of dollars spent in these environments; that’s part of the problem causing a country to be “undeveloped” in the first place. The Mortenson “shock story” pales next to the present recession’s waste and fraud of the private sector, yet Madoff’s fraud of billions is no opiate for the comparative pennies the CAI deals in. We are less offended by even massive greed when we expect it than minor greed when we don’t.

The jury is still out on Mortenson. As both an admirer and critic, even if I do not always agree with his solutions, I respect how he brought increased attention to a very real problem. This week’s news is an invitation to further bring the public into this dialogue. We can all hope the attentions outlives the sound bite media’s obsession with Twitter’s current trending topics, because Mortenson deserves a fair hearing just as any man. More importantly, however, so does the issue he has devoted so much energy too.

Well, March was certainly an action packed month! At site, school had a week of spring break, my nurse partner and I held our second public health education activity for the community, my work with the soup kitchen has been going full speed ahead as we finished off a grant application, I planned my first seminar for the teachers at my school, and I facilitated a raft of needs assessments with partners.

A lot of these projects were long on the to do list, so spring break came at a welcome time to do some catch up. Break it was not, and come to think of it, neither was it spring (though the latter was finally making some progress this past week, with the exception of last Monday’s rather unfortunate snow…)

Both for better and for worse, action packed also meant a month when I was away from my site far more than normal – a full third of the month by my tally. Previous posts have already covered the exciting 50th Anniversary Kickoff and even more exciting visit by Vice President Biden. Aside from that, other travels that pulled me away from my non-routine routine at site included facilitating two GLOW seminars (Girls Leading Our World, a global Peace Corps girls empowerment program) and an extended trek through the north of Moldova to 5 other volunteers’ sites during the final week of the month.

“Site visits” are a practice heavily encouraged by Peace Corps. There are a number of reasons for site visits, but they generally involve some combination of work, learning through observation of fellow volunteers, and cultural curiosity/travel. I’ve hosted a number of volunteers on visits at my site. Melissa came to facilitate a Schimb de Experienta for my youth club – twice, in fact, as the you may recall the first one was snowed out. Craig came out of a general curiosity in the HESC program, and another time just to keep me company when my host family was away. Most recently, Lindsay (my BFF here in Moldova) spent the night after we co-facilitated a GLOW seminar in a neighboring village. Yet despite all my own hosting and Peace Corps’ encouragement, I had yet to pay visit to other volunteers.

My own trek north was an odyssey of long-overdue social visits, youth programs, and classroom observations. It was my first time north of Chişinău, and in the space of a week I doubled the number of raions (districts) I’ve visited, from four to eight.

Slideshow of the tripClick to enlarge

I left on a Saturday from Chişinău’s north bus station (another first), and my first stop was with Melissa in Sîngerei, the district “center” (capital) of the raion of… Sîngerei. Just about all of Moldova’s 37 raions are named for their center, leading to a confusing situation of always having to clarify whether one is referring to the district seat or the district more generally. Since Moldova is only slightly larger than Maryland, raions are effectively large counties.

Melissa lives with three women in an apartment overlooking the “city.” At around 12,000 people on paper, I use the word city contextually. Even here, Melissa’s family has the old home out in the country, where they spend much of their time engaged in traditional manual agricultural labor. Still, with their single bus line, a few restaurants, and youth with time for extracurricular activities and parents with salaried jobs, Sîngerei has the veneer of a life that more resembles a European town than my village, which wholly rotates around the agricultural calendar. Of course, with this veneer comes a very real set of different problems as well, the problems that typically come from youth who lack healthy and stimulating opportunities.

I was in Sîngerei for an open house hosted by Melissa’s youth council. Her full description of the event can be found here.

After a night with Melissa, my remaining four stops were all with health volunteers: Lindsay W. (the BFF), Mackenzie, Lindsay T., and Amanda in the raions of Teleneşti, Floreşti, and Edineţ. All live in villages, and consequently, the rest of my week involved an ever shifting combination of hiking, hitchhiking, and busses headed in the right direction. Public transportation in Moldova is fairly decent if one is headed to the capital or a raion center. Going from one village to another is more of an adventure. And so it was that I found myself walking along gravel roads, balanced next to a swishing tub of field spray, exploring new bus stations, and negotiating with bus drivers to drop me at locations I had very little understanding of. The good thing about Moldova is that since this is how many Moldovans get from one place to another, none of it is very out of the ordinary.

With Lindsay W., I got to observe some excellent classes and see the house she’s about to move into to go it alone. Until now, she has lived with the “Martha Stewart of her village,” a gift with obvious tradeoffs. With Mackenzie, I saw the definition of the rustic idyllic, a village set between two hills over a stream that cuts a deep path through the middle, all overlooked by a monastery and bordered by a forested lake. His host mother, more of a host grandmother, is a similar caricature of the hardworking and kindly Moldovan grandmother everyone wants as a host. Lindsay T. lives at the edge of a large wood, a former stop on the way to a summer retreat in the Soviet times. And finally, there is Amanda, who has the best of all worlds, a beautiful village surrounded by rocky hills. Just 15 minutes from the raion center where her best friend Miranda teaches English, she even has a site-mate from my group, Alex, another awesome English teacher. Both joined us for an incredible “masa” (feast) her host uncle and aunt put on for us, the perfect topping for a week of good food and cultural exchange.

Of the four health volunteers I visited, the two Lindsays are from my group, and Mackenzie and Amanda are both in their second year. Amanda was my mentor during PST (Pre-Service Training) last summer, and Mackenzie taught many of our tech sessions. All four are good friends and great teachers, so it was a wonderful learning opportunity that generated a lot of good ideas.

It would be disingenuous, however, to neglect the significant travel/cultural appeal of the trip as well. I’ve been in Moldova almost 10 months now, and still seen little of the country outside my raion and Chişinău. Then there was also the fact that I’ve felt myself burning out at work in general and at school in particular much quicker this semester. I think that’s not so unusual in education more broadly, and it’s especially something a lot of volunteers here face during the winter. So, while I’ve long wanted to do a series of classroom observations, it was the combination of burnout and the lure of cultural excursion that really brought me to the willingness to take a week away and let my partners teach alone.

And indeed, the cultural impressions proved revealing and well worth the travel. One often hears Moldovans say that though they are a small country, the traditions vary widely even between neighboring villages. The cliché is definitely grounded in truth. After a week of repeatedly being asked by my hosts to remark on the differences, it’s clear that most of them deny easy generalization. I imagine this vast difference between villages wouldn’t have been so alien 100 years ago in the U.S. either, before the age of mass communication. And it’s certainly true of other European regions, steeped in history as they are.

Still, there are a couple notable differences that I fell back on when describing my impressions of the north for Moldovans. Most of these idiosyncrasies are best seen in the slideshow above, so I’ll limit the explanation here. From my admittedly limited glimpse, it all starts with the geography.

Ştefan Voda, my raion in the southeast, is flat, rural, and consequently characterized by large scale agriculture. The weather is heavily influenced by the Black Sea, which is just 60 km away over the border with Ukraine. We’re more sparsely populated, stuck out on a peninsula of Moldova, surrounded on three sides by Ukraine and the breakaway region of Transnistria.

The north, on the other hand, is hilly, at times even rocky, resulting in smaller parcels of land. It is wetter, with forests and many more streams and rivers. It also has a slightly shorter summer, which combined with the hills means many more orchards and many fewer vineyards. As a result, they drink a lot less wine and a lot more rachiu, a brandy-like spirit made from fruits, beets, and just about anything else at hand. (Also, the house wine is of noticeably lesser quality, an observation I offered less frequently to my hosts.)

The dialects are expectedly different, and in the far north, the cultural makeup includes many more Russians and Ukrainians. (My raion is heavily predominated by Romanian speaking Moldovans, surprising give our proximity to Ukraine.)

One thing that is certainly not different, however, is the Moldovan feed-you-till-you-burst hospitality, which makes even Iowa’s farm tables look puritanical in their modesty. Thus, along the way, I was repeatedly greeted warmly. In Peace Corps Moldova, a friend of a volunteer is a friend of the family, and a friend of the family is often not so far away from family itself. There was nowhere I was able to leave before repeated promises to come back, even in families where the volunteer will soon be closing their service and departing Moldova. Clearly, my first trek north will not be my last.

Opera house decorated for the visit.I know I’m a little behind on this one, but on March 11, Moldova played host to a very exciting visit from our Vice President, the Honorable Joseph Biden. In case you missed it (his visit happened the same day as Japan’s earthquake and tsunami), here is the AP story.

The Vice President’s visit marked the highest level visit of a U.S. official to Moldova in its history. Though he was only on the ground in Moldova for 6 hours, you wouldn’t have known it from the country’s enthrallment in all things Biden for a good solid week before, and many days after as well.

Biden met with the government while Second Lady Dr. Jill Biden toured a wine cellar outside the capital with the Prime Minister’s wife. The Vice President then gave a speech to a large crowd in front of the opera house (video embedded at the end of the post), which was followed with further meetings, and then a closed door event for U.S. Embassy Staff and Peace Corps Volunteers. Needless to say, volunteers were more excited than even the Moldovans, and I’m not just talking about your own political junkie of a blogger here.

The only picture I've been able to find that offers proof I met the Vice President.

Where's Zach? Look to the left, in the top row. It's a little like Where's Waldo...

(click to enlarge)

Perhaps the most fascinating thing for me about this visit is getting to see the “story behind the news story.” The article linked to above makes some questionable generalizations about Moldova and then goes on to mention a lot of the standard things one reads about these types of visits. Types of things like, “cheering crowds of Moldovans gathered waving American flags.”

What the news stories didn’t capture is just how many Americans were in that crowd, or the fact that those American flags were handed out by the Vice President’s advance team (along with Moldovan flags). Nor does it mention the fact that we shut down the entire capital city of a country for three days before the event.

Apparently, the seal is carried in

a small bag not unlike a laptop case.I almost, in fact, didn't make it in past the first security check point. It was vacation and we figured two hours early was more than sufficient. But the Moldovan police controlling the first check point were nervous, and we were unwilling to use our passports to gain "special" access. Not so of the Moldovan friend I luckily had brought with me. He understood that when the police said "No more admission", what they really meant was "Stick around for a bit and convince us." The almost-irony is that after the friend convinced the police that as Americans really must be allowed to enter, they didn't want to let him through. At this point, however, we Americans had caught on, and stuck around standing one the "in" side of the perimeter arguing that he was here with us, also by special invitation. It worked. Eventually, we ended up on the stage right behind Biden.

The Vice President's motorcade,

note the D.C. plates.

(click to enlarge)Watching the spotters on the roof of the opera house above where Biden spoke, the three concentric circles of airport security set up around the perimeter, and the fleet of armored SUVs that were flown on a separate plane from D.C., the overwhelming sentiment, a sentiment not captured by the press, is that these are the trappings of an empire. It’s a statement I have always pushed back against, but standing at street level in the midst of an impoverished country, sharing the same vantage point as Moldovans, the contrasts become a lot sharper. None of that is to question the Vice President’s security precautions, or suggest that the visit wasn’t an extremely positive development. It’s just striking, seeing the difference between the printed and lived version of events.

And it was then, that my thoughts turned back to something I had been wondering about earlier: the meaning of the spectacle. It was an easy parlor game before the Vice President got here, predicting what he would say. The content of the speech itself was indeed entirely predictable, as of course it should be – surprises make for poor diplomacy. Still, listening as Biden carefully kept to the inspirational and avoided the previous administration’s penchant for lecturing, I kept wondering if even this positive tone would seem trite in a country that plunged itself into poverty and instability in pursuit of democracy.

It was much easier to set analytics aside during the separate meet and greet for Americans. Biden delivered another speech, largely geared at the Embassy Staff, in which he emphasized the talent of our diplomats, and the career and lifestyle sacrifices their spouses make.

Biden speaking to Americans: PCVs and Embassy Staff.Finally, we got to what we all considered the main event for the day: when Biden came over to speak with PCVs personally. It may not sound like much, but those 10-15 minutes of the VP’s time when there was a plane and a budget battle waiting meant a lot. He even asked our opinion on a few things. When speaking with us, he emphasized the importance of progress against human trafficking, which has been a huge problem for Moldova. We’re not sure if he was told ahead of time, but that’s an initiative Peace Corps Moldova spends a lot of time working with, so it was gratifying to hear. My friend Melissa, a board member of our anti-trafficking initiative, was so excited she basically dedicated her whole blog post about his visit to the issue.

Later that night, I visited my old PST host family in Bardar, not far from the capital. The visit was long overdue, so I was thankful for the distraction of Biden’s visit to break the tension and move us beyond the conversation of why I hadn’t been back to visit earlier. We watched the news – twice, once for the bias of each political faction – and never once heard mention of the nuclear and humanitarian crises unfolding half a world away. No, on this night, Moldova’s attention was turned entirely toward the U.S and Biden.

Watching the news that night, it would have been just as easy to predict what each channel was going to say. The thing about being an empire, if that is in fact what we are, is that omnipresence becomes self-inflating, a blank canvas onto which people can paint all their hopes, or all the world’s problems.

Biden speaking to Peace Corps.And so it was. The communists mostly complained about the blocked traffic, the cost to Moldova (far less than the quarter of a billion dollar Millennium Challenge Corporation grant Biden announced), and noted that when Brezhnev visited it was much more transparent, as evidenced by the fact that he rode in an open top car. The pro-Western government, meanwhile, said the visit is was historic occasion, marking Moldova’s democratic progress, a reward bestowed for the virtues of the government’s reforms. Both sides seemed to neglect the problems of human trafficking and harder reforms ahead that Biden alluded to.

During commercial breaks and in between news hours, my old host parents remarked on just how important this visit was. About what it meant to them, as former citizens of a country forcibly added to the USSR as a compromise at the end of WWII, to have the Vice President of the United States visit their country, and how they never thought they would see that day. About how for the majority of their lives, they had been told we were evil, the enemy, the other out to destroy their way of life. And how after forty years of this, they had opened their home and culture and family to not one but 5 Americans, and now, they were seeing the Vice President speak to their people, a sign of just how far they had come.

And so my thoughts returned to the question of the value of these visits. The meaning of the spectacle. We hear a lot that official visits are “symbolic”, but symbolism is a vague concept, and especially in international relations, it can feel a bit impossible to pin down what a “symbolic visit” means in tangible terms. As it turns out, what it means depends a lot on where one stands. For my host parents, at least, it was the crystallization of the struggles of the past twenty years.

All that time, while we volunteers had been looking at the fact that Biden was here just six hours, we were missing the story. For many Moldovans, Biden was here for a whole six hours. Within that subtle change of vocabulary lies a world of meaning.

I made it onto the stage behind the Vice President, though the most you'll probably be able to catch of me is the occasional wave of my flag. Many of the people in the shot behind Biden are Peace Corps Volunteers, albeit ones who had arrived earlier than I.

Last Tuesday, March 1, marked 50 years to the day since President John F. Kennedy - less than two months into his presidency - signed the Executive Order 10924 establishing the Peace Corps. It would take Congress an amazingly short additional six months before approving the final legislation on September 22, but the first group of volunteers were already in training by June. Since that time, over 200,000 American men and women have served their country as Peace Corps Volunteers, working at the grass roots levels in 139 countries.

Those early days were heady times, filled with idealism, learning moments, and a healthy dose of experimentally making things up on the go. It's hard to remember sometimes in todays globalized world that the notion of volunteering abroad was a radical new idea in 1961. Today, many (most?) volunteers have already studied abroad in college before beginning their service. In 2008, over 1 million Americans reported doing some form of volunteering abroad.

Despite the change a half century inevitably brings, however, Peace Corps remains unique in the length, depth, and quality of that service. We stay for two years, living in our communities, learning the local language, and participating in the events of a daily life, from work to celebrations. We don't helicopter in and disappear, and we're not paying a travel agency or firm for the opportunity to do our work. We have host country nationals as bosses and co-workers, and we grind through work with them on a daily basis. And in the end, well, it's probably still a little too early for me to finish that sentence...

The 50th Anniversary is more than just a one day commemoration, it is a yearlong period of reflection and celebration, both for the organization and those of us here in Moldova. Check out Peace Corps' 50th Anniversary website, where I particularly recommend the interactive 50 year timeline.

My Health Education poster for the Coffee House eventYou can also discover the action closer to home - well, my home - at Peace Corps Moldova's 50th Anniversary website, "365 Days of Peace & Friendship."

Here in Moldova, we kicked off the anniversary year with a round table and coffee house event in Chisinau. Volunteers from each program were asked to prepare posters at this event, and yours truly was one of the representatives for the Health Education program. Check out the full story here! (If you just want to see me, mom, scroll to the bottom.)

This is unlikely to be my last reflection on this unique American tradition, but as it is my first, I'll let President Kennedy have the final word. I find those words to be as relevant today as they were in 1961.

Hey readers! It's been almost a month, and I've been heckled a bit for that vacation update. Well, instead, today you get a whole new blog: http://carahasani.cetatenieactiva.com/

This blog follows my youth club at the school (described in general as a program objective here, tangentially here, and by Melissa here).

The youth in my club are 10th - 12th graders, the age group I've probably enjoyed working with more than any other. Back in PST when my Program Manager was interviewing us for site placements I stressed that I wanted to work with high schoolers. Only a few of us healthies teach students this old, and most of the health clubs are for 5th and 6th graders. She listened to my request and it's been one of the best decisions I've made in "making my service my own," (a mantra emphasized by our Country Director).

My youth chose the very descriptive title "Club de Sanatate" for our group, which can literally be translated as "Health Club". Since choosing the title, however, we've gone more in a civic engagement direction. In the HESC program objectives, these clubs are designed to teach youth to be peer health educators, but with this age group, I find it important to give the youth leadership over their group's direction. For me, as long as they're learning, we're succeeding. And as they take control over activities and lead their own projects, there is no doubt they're learning.

Their first activity was organizing a Halloween party. After that, my partner and I attended a training on Public Achievement, a program designed in the U.S. but now used around the world. The training was organized by awesome second year COD volunteer Vince N., his wife Jessica (a fellow Healthy), and his partner NGO Speranta as part of their Active Citizenship Initiative ("Cetatenie Activa" in Romanian). The youth agreed to give the Public Achievement method a try, and now they're working on a community project they initiated: building a park where local students can sit and relax next to the school.

Unfortunately for readers back home, this is a Romanian language blog - it's designed as part of our reporting requirements for the Public Achievement program. But it will also include lots of pictures and even the occasional video of the club's activities. So, if pictures know no languages, and we combine that with another cliche, then there are thousands of words there that anyone can understand! So, check it out and watch our progress from project idea to completion!

One more time, here's the link: http://carahasani.cetatenieactiva.com/

R. Sargent Shriver, the founding director of the Peace Corps, passed away at the age of 95 last week. The timing is significant, as the Peace Corps approaches its 50th Anniversary in March. In his New York Times obituary, he is quoted as saying:‎"Break mirrors. Yes, indeed. Shatter the glass. In our society that is so self-absorbed, begin to look less at yourself and more at each other. Learn more about the face of your neighbor and less about your own.”Below the jump is a historical excerpt from his time as Peace Corps' Founding Director. R. Sargent Shriver left a lasting legacy of public service, not just amongst the more than 200,000 volunteers who have served in the agency's 50 years, but amongst all Americans. The Peace Corps family is grieving the loss of this incredible public servant this week, but more importantly, we are remembering his call to service.

Thank you Sargent, for all you taught us.

History of the Peace Corps during Shriver’s tenure as founder and first Director (1960-1966):“The Peace Corps represents some, if not all, of the best virtues in this society. It stands for everything that America has ever stood for. It stands for everything we believe in and hope to achieve in the world.” - Sargent Shriver

The idea of the Peace Corps was born out of the optimism, idealism, and energy that coalesced around the presidential candidacy of President John F. Kennedy. It was on Oct.14, 1960, when then-Sen. Kennedy issued a challenge to students at the University of Michigan to serve their country and live and work in the developing world. Kennedy’s speech lasted only a few minutes, but he outlined a vision that would become the Peace Corps.A few months later, President Kennedy was sworn-in and his inaugural address reverberated throughout the country and the world when he said, “Let the word go forth that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans…To those peoples in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves…” A large part of “our best efforts to help” would be realized through the Peace Corps, which was still a vague idea until President Kennedy called on his brother in law, Sargent Shriver, the next day, asking him to lead a task force to establish the agency.Fifty years later, it seems all but unimaginable that Shriver and his task force, in just one month, could draft a report outlining the current mission and design of the agency and submit it to the White House. Soon thereafter, on March 1, President Kennedy signed Executive Order 10924, establishing the Peace Corps, and on March 4, he named Shriver the agency’s first director.Then in August 1961 – just 10 months after President Kennedy’s speech at the University of Michigan – the first group of Peace Corps volunteers headed to their assignments in Ghana. Between March and September, Shriver found the time to travel to developing countries to ask foreign leaders to host Peace Corps Volunteers, to persuade Congress to pass legislation to fund and operate the Peace Corps, to oversee the initial staffing and running of a federal agency, and to ensure the agency’s independence from the foreign policy establishment. In September 1961, Congress approved legislation for the Peace Corps, giving us the mandate to “promote world peace and friendship.” Our mission remains the same today.Sargent Shriver talks to a group of potential Peace Corps Volunteers. 1961By December of 1961, there were more than 500 Peace Corps volunteers serving in nine host countries: Chile, Colombia, Ghana, India, Nigeria, the Philippines, St. Lucia, Tanzania, and Pakistan, with an additional 200 Americans in training for service across the U.S.By 1963, Shriver was leading an agency with more than 6,500 volunteers serving in nearly 50 countries. It was an extraordinary effort that only could have been accomplished by a leader with immense skill, audacious vision, and indefatigable energy. Shriver’s idealism and enthusiasm were essential to the creation and character of the agency; he is the founding father of the Peace Corps.Shriver concluded his service as the Peace Corps’ first director on Feb. 28, 1966.Since that time, Shriver’s spirit and dedication to service have remained ever present in the agency. Shriver once wrote: “Working with the Peace Corps should not be like working with another government agency. We have a special mission which can only be accomplished if everyone believes in it and works for it in a manner consistent with the ideals of service and volunteerism.”The Peace Corps remains committed to Shriver’s principles and we are honored to call him our founding father.For more information on his life visit www.sargentshriver.orgFrom http://shriver.peacecorps.gov

The semester is done. Six months + in Moldova done. Goals completed, more work added. Probably a good time for reflection. But a better time for vacation!

So with that, I scurried around my site for the past two days, saying goodbyes and reviewing where we'll start up again after the holidays are over and I return. I've gotten very good at saying Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year in Romanian over the past 48 hours.

Now, dear friends, I am off for my first vacation in 6.5 months. I'm not taking my computer, so don't be surprised if you don't hear from me. If there's time, I'll sneak in a blog or too of my travels.

The Plan

12/24 - to Chisinau12/25 - to Balti12/26 - to Budapest via Iasi and Cluj, RomaniaChilling with Bill and haunting my old haunts12/29 - to Brasov, RomaniaNew Years, friends, Couch Surfing, and skiing! (What more could I want?)1/5 - Depart for Chisinau, arrive in the wee hours1/6 - First bus back to site, in time for Orthodox Christmas on 1/7That, plus the schedule for 1 of my trains is about as much as I have planned. Wish me luck!

My friend and colleague Melissa visited my site last week, braving the first Moldovan blizzard we've had down here in the South in order to facilitate a youth experience exchange between my youth club and a neighboring village. Melissa is a COD (Community Organization and Development) volunteer, so she has a bit of an outside perspective on my job. Not being me, she also has the amazing ability to take photos of yours truly while he works.

So, for those wanting some pictures ranging from work to a surprise masa, head on over to Melissa's blog and check out her post on her visit to Carahasani!

p.s. - the youth exchange comes with a (not so) surprising ending.

This is the final part of a three post series introducing the work component of my life as a Health Education Specialist in Peace Corps Moldova. The series has moved from the broad to the specific, so Part III will conclude by a look at what my work actually involves on a daily basis. Part I is a general introduction to the public health situation in Moldova, and Part II examines my different projects at the general level.

When I started writing this series at the end of October – yeah, it’s been a long time in the making – I had just passed the point where I had been at site longer than in training, and it was really starting to show in my work life.

The soaring towers of paper accumulating on my desk are only the most visual sign that this work life is finding traction. Those who have lived around me know me to be a crowded desk person. Some say “crowded” is just a euphemism for “messy”, but in my opinion the difference is that there is a logic to my system. That’s probably in the eyes of the beholder…my dad claims the same thing. My desk hasn’t yet reached the state of his fire hazard, but then I also don’t have many bills to pay.

In what may have been an indication of concern, my host family recently put a second desk in my room. This was one of the happiest days of my life, though they didn’t seem to understand the natural logic of the law of desk space: desk piles will expand to occupy the space available. (On the other hand, my host family probably considered it a victory simply that these piles moved out of my bed and off the floor…) What might concern them more is the fact that what’s going on in my head at any given moment tends to resemble my desks… It also, however, provides a glimpse at my daily work life.

Starting our tour a desk #1, we find the computer in the dominant position. In the HESC program, we are directed to develop all materials electronically. Lesson plans, long term plans, learning activities – all of it gets typed. The idea is that at the end of my two years, it will all get compiled and handed to my partners, to help them as they continue a local health education program without me. Slowly, it’s also showing the benefits of ICT tools.

Crowded, not messyImmediately to the right of my computer is the prized position of my to do lists and notebooks. These are normally balanced precariously atop a pile of teaching and lesson plan materials. Teaching and lesson planning occupies more of my work than any other activity, and there is rarely a day when I don’t spend some time preparing lessons. In the photo to the right, the open book is the state’s curriculum for Health Education, next to that is the long term plan for my 5th graders. Further back, there is a pile dedicated to teachers’ guides for Health Education (though it's hidden under another long term plan). It’s an inclusive pile, covering classes 1 through 12.

In the back corner of my first desk is my Romanian pile, representing my continuing linguistic education. After Pre-Service Training, Peace Corps pays for 4 hours of tutoring every week with a language instructor chosen by the volunteer. My Romanian pile includes a dictionary, reading materials, my notebooks, and workbooks, as well as a set of pamphlets on health topics I’m using to improve my health specific vocabulary.

Space in between these piles is filled with notes and (generally empty) coffee cups.

The "Christmas Desk"Desk #2 is kind of like my back up desk, a place to pile books and binders I need regularly but not daily. Christmas has now invaded this desk, which is half occupied by a small fir tree tied to my skis on display behind it. It’s an added bit of cheer, but it’s been a struggle not to feel a Scrooge-like ill will toward the loss of desk space. In lieu of presents or a manger, under my Christmas tree there are:· books on Participatory Analysis for Community Action (PACA), strategic planning, working with youth, and Moldovan Youth Councils· my heavily notated copy of the village’s most recent strategic plan· my binder of medical center projects and book of common diseases (tuberculosis, chronic heart disease, etc.)· the most recent issue of World View (a quarterly Peace Corps magazine)· three books I’m trying to read in my spare time (The Children, Predictably Irrational, and The Russian Debutante’s Handbook)

All books under that first bullet concern techniques I’m working to apply in one aspect or another of my work here. The strategic plan represents my present project with the mayor’s office, where we’re in the process of drafting the next strategic plan. My medical center binder is currently open to a draft seminar on TB, which I’ll be teaching with my nurse partner next week. The magazine is my bit of inspiration and new ideas, a way to stay connected with the global Peace Corps mission. And those spare reading books represent something I rarely have time to crack open.

Chairs next to the desks are an extension of the desk. They’re for my briefcase, not guests.

On any given day, I get up and grab whatever materials I prepared the night before, shove it all into my briefcase, realize I probably need my computer as well, and then set out with what Moldovans constantly refer to as a “difficult bag.”

This is my basic weekly work schedule:

Monday 9:00-13:00 Primăria (mayor’s office) 15:00-17:00 Romanian tutoringTuesday 8:00-13:00 Class 13:00-15:00 Lesson planning (with partner teacher)Wednesday 9:00-10:30 Lesson planning (with partner teacher) 10:30-13:30 ClassThursday 8:30-10:30 Romanian turoring 11:00-13:00 Health Center 14:00-16:00 Lesson planning for Club (with partner teacher) 16:00-18:00 Youth ClubFriday 9:00-11:00 Preschool (as needed) 11:00-13:00 Health Center

Before the second desk's addition;

note the prominence of the floorIn any case, between the difficult bag and crowded desk, the general picture of my typical day slowly emerges to include some combination of teaching classes, planning a lesson with my partner teachers, going to a meeting at the primaria, facilitating a youth club, planning community health activities with my nurse partner, and meeting with other local leaders to discuss potential community projects ranging from getting running water for the preschool to fixing up a small rec center in the empty wing of the Health Center.

At night, I go home, unpack my difficult bag, and look over my day’s notes as I try to figure out the best strategy for achieving those tasks. Almost inevitably, that involves teaching myself new skills, such as participatory needs assessment, and figuring out how to transfer those skills to my partners. After some reflection and the research that generally follows it, I set about planning the next day’s meetings. On good days, this includes figuring out how that meeting contributes to my big picture vision for a comprehensive village health education program. On the less good days, it means figuring out what needs to be shoved into my difficult bag the next morning.

I like to think that if Moldovans had to bounce around between as many locations and meeting topics, their bags would be a little more difficult too. But it may just be that my difficult bag is an extension of my crowded desk.

And that, dear readers, is more or less what I “do” as a Health PCV here in Moldova.

This is Part II of a three post series introducing the work component of my life as a PCV, in which we’ll look at my program’s objectives and major projects at the general level. The series is moving from the broad to the specific; Part I is a general introduction to the public health situation in Moldova and Part III will conclude by a look at what my work involves on a daily basis.

Every Peace Corps Volunteer worldwide works in a program; here in Moldova, I work in the Health Education in Schools and Communities (HESC) program. My formal title is Health Education Specialist – yes, even as a volunteer one gets a snappy title. In PC Moldova parlance, I’m referred to as a “Healthy.”

As a HESC PCV my primary work focuses on building local capacity for the educative aspects of a public health program. As I explained in my previous post, Moldova has one of the highest health care provider ratios in the world, but the concept of public and preventative health is still taking root here. It also has a decent public education system, considering the local resources available. But again, health education is still struggling to be integrated in an intentional and coherent manner. The local providers, in short, aren’t yet accustomed to being educators, and the local educators aren’t yet accustomed to the specifics of health education. I’m here to facilitate that step.

That step is broken down into two overarching goals and seven objectives:Goal 1: Improved Health for YouthObjective 1.1: Develop School Health Educators (i.e., teachers)Objective 1.2: Improve Students’ LearningObjective 1.3: Promote Peer Education in Extra-curricular ActivitiesObjective 1.4: Increase Parental Involvement in SchoolsGoal 2: Improved Community HealthObjective 2.1: Develop Community Health Educators (i.e., medical staff)Objective 2.2: Enhance Community Involvement in Community ActivitiesObjective 2.3: Improve Use of ICT to Support Community Health and Education

Peace Corps is different from a lot of development work in that we do nothing, absolutely nothing, alone. I’m not here to teach classes, lead seminars, or organize public health campaigns, but rather to assist Moldovans to do that themselves. In practice, I transfer skills by doing these activities with partners, i.e., co-planning classes, seminars, and public health campaigns. This distinction may seem subtle, but there is a world of difference between doing for the sake of teaching students, and doing in order to teach a partner. Whereas the former collapses the moment the PCV leaves, the latter is (hopefully) sustainable. It’s not that PCVs always accomplish the latter – it’s a much harder mission than just doing things oneself – but that’s the bar we aim for.

Consequently, PCVs are embedded in host organizations and paired with specific partners who are selected by program staff before we arrive at site. Reflecting the dual nature of my program, HESC is unique in that we have two partner agencies: the school and the local health center (the community aspect).

At the school, we work with two partner teachers, with whom we co-teach 8 hours of health education plus a youth health club. This work is designed to accomplish goals 1.1-3, which can be thought of as teachers, students, and peer-educators. A lot of the second and third objective resides in implementing participatory teaching methods.

At the health center, Healthies work with a nurse partner for about four hours a week. Much of this work is focused on objective 2.1, or helping the medical staff develop health education programming for the community. This can range from seminars to public campaigns. The Ministry of Health has recently started requiring medical staff to conduct activities to promote healthy lifestyles, but didn’t really provide the training to go along with this requirement, so my work in this domain also ties in with broader government objectives. Objective 2.3 – ICT use – is something that happens almost inevitably as partners observe how much work volunteers accomplish electronically.

That is my program in its basic design. Each program varies in how similar volunteers’ work is, in the Community Organization and Development program, for example, volunteers’ work varies from youth development to local government. HESC happens to be a program where volunteers all start out with a very similar structure.

On the other hand, regardless of one’s program, Peace Corps always emphasizes making one’s service one’s own. So, even from our similar starting point there can be a lot of variation in the health program. And of course, no program is perfect. The HESC partnerships are well designed to handle objective 1.1-1.3, 2.1, and 2.3, but the partnerships are a little weaker on 1.4 and 2.2. To what is written here, then, I’ve already added a few extra partners, most importantly the primaria (mayor’s office and local public administration).

There are four programs currently running here in Moldova. Besides HESC, there is: English Education (EE), Community Organization and Development (COD), and Agriculture and Rural Business Development (ARBD). Education tends to be more structured, whereas COD and ARBD rely more on volunteers’ initiative to find their own work. There are pros and cons to both. One of the big challenges of the HESC program is that we somewhat straddle programs. Our work at the school is highly structured, but at the health centers, it’s very open and flexible.

Ultimately, health education tends to aim at one specific domain of public health: behavior change. Health knowledge, after all, is not an ends, but rather a means to a healthier lifestyle, and that almost always involves some element of change. (How many of us, after all, have perfect health habits? Now imagine those habits in the context I described in Pt. I…) Knowledge may be power, but only if acted on.

As alluded to in the previous post, given that Moldova is already doing well for its economic context without much public health education, its prospects are truly bright indeed. The bad news, however, is that the medical workforce in particular is aging, and it has never been asked to be teachers before. Moreover, behavior change in health domains is incredibly hard to achieve, which can make motivating that workforce very hard. But the challenges of how are ultimately issues to be tackled in future posts. For now, it’s enough to have started answering the question what it is I’m trying to do.

So we all know how much Zachariah loves Thanksgiving. It’s basically an entire day spent with loved ones doing one of my favorite activities: cooking. A LOT of cooking. Not the whipping up dinner kind, but cooking imbued with the meaning of three other themes dear to my heart.

Orange Basil turkey comes out of the oven.

Note it does not entirely fit in the pan.Loved ones.Coordinating entire meals, the one thing better than cooking, and the kind of complex logistical task generally left to militaries, which I nevertheless prefer to meet with at least a little improvisation.Food as cultural process worthy of great respect and eating as a political act, because eating locally in today’s world inherently is an act of dissention from a powerful political economic system. In such a world, Thanksgiving is a radically ecological holiday. It’s food is seasonal, and it is one of the few days left when many American families cook, and are thankful, for having plenty to eat.It says something that even during my years of vegetarianism, Thanksgiving was always an exception.

This year's lesson: removing that extra something, or,

"Whoa, that's a lot of neck."Okay, so I love Thanksgiving, digression done. I also, however, happen to have chosen an international lifestyle, meaning I often find myself outside the States, and certainly away from home, at the holidays. Ask any expat and this is often one of the hardest parts of the job. Once one embraces it, however, it can also be an incredible opportunity for holidays that, if not orthodox, are certainly memorable. I’ll never forget my first Thanksgiving abroad, crowded onto the floor of a small flat in Budapest, or learning how to finish de-feathering a turkey by hand on the spot that Christmas in Spain with Hunter and Yeshe (and then brining it in an unused wastebasket…)

The turkey teamThis Thanksgiving was no less memorable. In Moldova, volunteers come together in Chisinau to execute a giant cross-cultural Thanksgiving. We invite the Moldovan staff, and turnout averages between 70-90 people. This year, that required four turkeys, four kitchens, and somewhere around 15 cooks divided into four teams. In a moment of either extreme folly or hubris, yours truly volunteered to lead the turkey team. Yes, that turkey. As in, that one thing you can’t screw up on Thanksgiving. Or in this case, those four things. Luckily, I was cooking with two incredibly talented and experienced co-chefs.

Normally, one doesn’t get to experiment much with the turkey, but since we had four, I wanted to try something a little wacky. So we did two normal turkeys, and on the other two we used an Orange Basil rub from The Splendid Table (recipes at end of post).

5 kg of potatoes, comin' right up!One of my favorite things about this Thanksgiving was that it is easily the most locally sourced feast I’ve ever eaten. We are lucky here in Moldova in that the climate means just about all the holiday staples can be grown right here. With the exception of a few spices, hardly anything came from more than 100 miles away. With the exception of a little dairy, this year’s Pumpkin Curry Soup, for example, all came from my own garden.

Lindsey, fresh from

killing turkeys, after I

outsourced my Pumpkin

Curry Soup to her.This local sourcing included the turkeys, which made for quite the logistical operation. We held our feast the Saturday before Thanksgiving. The turkey’s were procured from a volunteer’s family, and were killed and cleaned Friday before. The next morning, this four person killing team had to be on a bus at the crack of dawn to get them to Chisinau by 9am so that we could get the first two in the oven by 10:30 and hopefully have all four done shortly after the first wave of eating began at 3:00 in the afternoon. For more on what was certainly a Black Friday for Moldovan turkeys, see Lindsey’s post, Thanksgiving OR: Oh My God There’s Blood Everywhere.

Some friends are more

helpful than others.

Watcha doin Craig?

As turkey team, we cooked at Peace Corps. We shared the kitchen with a team tasked with making somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 kg of mashed potatoes. This was my other favorite thing about Thanksgiving, a big kitchen full of friends (including Lindsey, my bestie here in Moldova).Moving turkey with ladles.

One of the compromises of cooking in non-American kitchens is you either get creative or go down in a charred disaster real quick. Measuring devices? More like, “if it’s used to stir tea it must be a teaspoon.” Condensed milk? Condense it yourself. Baking sheets? Substitute frying pans. Plus other fun surprises like single knife kitchens.

The feast!The thing is, all those extra gizmos we’ve gotten used to in American kitchens, they don’t generally effect the taste much. And you’re bound to end up laughing as three people try to move a hot turkey with a ladle that is bending under the strain. (This is not, by any means, to say I don’t miss those gizmos, which definitely do have a time saving effect…)

All told, we managed quite well, or, at least well enough that more people said thank you than shouted about bad turkey. And really, that’s what the day is all about. When I finally sat down after 8 hours in the kitchen and Melissa asked me what I was thankful for, my response was one of the easiest thanks ever given: I’m thankful for serving in a country where we are all close enough to have the opportunity to come together as a Peace Corps family on Thanksgiving. And for not being on the cleanup team.

Bob shows us how to carve a turkey.Okay, everyone helped a little.

RecipesIn general, plan for: 12-15lbs (5.4-6.8kgs) turkey for 10-12 people / 16-18lbs (7.25-8.16kgs) turkey for 14-16 people / 19-22lbs (8.61-9.97kgs) turkey for 20-22 people

Orange Basil Turkey #1Basil Orange Roast Turkey, From American Public Media’s The Splendid TableIngredients:· Seasoning Blend:1/2 of a medium red onion6 large cloves garlic1 tightly-packed cup fresh basil leavesGrated zest of a large orange1 teaspoon mild chile powder1 teaspoon each dry oregano and ground allspice3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil1/4 cup dry white wineJuice of half the orange1/4 teaspoon each salt and fresh ground black pepper· The Turkey:16 to 18 pound turkey (set aside neck, giblets and wing tips for gravy)2 carrots, peeled2 stalks celery1 bottle dry white wine Directions:1. Combine all seasoning blend ingredients in food processor and finely chop.2. Preheat oven to 325°F. and set a single rack as low as possible in the oven. Slip the seasonings under the turkey's skin wherever you can. Rub the rest over the interior and exterior of the bird.3. Line a large shallow roasting pan with the carrots and celery. Set turkey on them breast side down. Roast 15 minutes to the pound, or until an instant-read thermometer tucked into the thickest part of the thigh reads 175°. Shift the turkey every so often to keep breast from sticking.4. After turkey has been in oven for 30 minutes, pour 1/3 of the wine over the bird, and baste frequently with pan juices. Continue adding wine over the next hour. Then baste with pan juices. During the last 30 minutes, carefully turn over turkey to brown breast area. Remove turkey from oven, arrange on a large platter, tent loosely with foil, and let rest 30 to 45 minutes in a warm place while making gravy and finishing the rest of the meal. Carve turkey at table.

Turkey: Traditional RecipeIngredients:1 turkey, approx. 15 lbs (6.8kgs)Juice of a lemonSalt and pepperOlive oil or melted butter1/2 yellow onion, peeled and quarteredTops and bottoms of a bunch of celery2 carrotsParsleySprigs of fresh rosemary, thymeTurkey Preparation:Remove the neck and giblets (heart, gizzard, liver). Use the heart and gizzard for making stock for the stuffing. The neck can be cooked along side the turkey or saved for turkey soup.

Directions:1. Preheat the oven to 400 F (204C).2. Wash out the turkey with water. Pull out any remaining feather stubs in the turkey skin. Pat the turkey dry with paper towels. 3. Lather the inside of the cavity with the juice of half a lemon. 4. Take a small handful of salt and rub all over the inside of the turkey.5. For flavor, put in inside the turkey a half a yellow onion, peeled and quartered, a bunch of parsley, a couple of carrots, and some tops and bottoms of celery. 6. Close up the turkey cavity with either string (not nylon string!) or metal skewers. Make sure that the turkey's legs are tied together, held close to the body, and tie a string around the turkey body to hold the wings in close.7. Rub either melted butter or olive oil all over the outside of the turkey. Sprinkle salt generously all over the outside of the turkey (or have had it soaking in salt-water brine before starting this process). Sprinkle pepper over the turkey.8. Place turkey BREAST DOWN on the bottom of a rack over a sturdy roasting pan big enough to catch all the drippings. Cooking the turkey breast down means the skin over the breast will not get so brown. However, all of the juices from the cooking turkey will fall down into the breast while cooking.

9. Add several sprigs of fresh (if possible) thyme and rosemary to the outside of the turkey.No I did not know how to carve

a turkey before this experience.

Or after.10. Put the turkey in the oven. Recommended cooking time is about 15 minutes for every pound. For the 15 lb turkey, start the cooking at 400F (204C) for the first 1/2 hour. Then reduce the heat to 350F (176C) for the next 2 hours. Then reduce the heat further to 225F (107C) for the next hour to hour and a half.11. If you want the breast to be browned as well, you can turn the bird over so that the breast is on top, and put it in a 500F (260C) oven or under the broiler for 4-5 minutes, just enough to brown the breast. Note that if you do this, you will have a higher risk of overcooking the turkey breast. 12. Start taking temperature readings with a meat thermometer, inserted deep into the thickest part of the turkey breast and thigh, a half hour before the turkey should be done. The dark meat in the thigh should be about 175F (79C). The white meat in the breast should be 160F (71C) to 165F (73C). If you don't have a meat thermometer, spear the breast with a knife. The turkey juices should be clear, not pink.13. Once you remove the turkey from the oven, let it rest for 15-20 minutes. 14. Turn the turkey breast side up to carve it.

Mmmm....thick cream for a Pumpkin Curry Soup!NotesWe used the pan juices to make some excellent gravy the traditional way. Due to the wine, the orange basil turkey had a lot more juices for the gravy base, but surprisingly the Traditional turkey produces much more flavorful pan juices. Adding some red house wine to the water in which the necks boiled also added some nice flavor to the gravy. We also put the traditional turkey on a vegetable rack; these racks plus those from inside the traditional turkey made for an extra easy side of delicious roasted vegetables.

I’ve been getting more questions recently about what the work side of my life actually entails. It’s a huge topic, so I’m tackling it in three parts. The series will move from the broad to the specific. This is Part I, a general introduction to the public health situation in Moldova. This article is by far the lengthiest, and if the background is boring, I won’t begrudge you for skipping it. But it also contains the roots of the problems I struggle with daily, so it’s an important part of my work here. Part II will look at my specific projects, and Part III will focus on what I do on a daily basis.

Moldova has what’s known as a “dual health profile,” meaning that it has elements of a health care system of a fully developed nation, but simultaneously struggles with problems typically associated with less developed countries. As an example, while Moldova has high vaccination rates and one of the highest doctor and nurse to patient ratios in the world, it also faces a high prevalence of TB, and access to safe drinking water and sanitation standards remain a pressing problem in rural areas.

Moldova is often summed up as “Europe’s poorest country.” Obviously, this depends on a lot of definitions, but based on GDP per capita and given the broadest possible conception of Europe, only Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are poorer, so the general point is well taken. Despite this fact, however, at Moldova has a higher life expectancy (by 2 to 5 years) than other significantly richer post-Soviet states.Life Expectancy: 68.5 years (WHO, 2007), 70.8 years (CIA World Fact Book, 2010)On other key indicators of health such as infant and maternal mortality, Moldova is also outperforming the rest of the Eastern European WHO region (WHO 2005).Infant Mortality: 13.13 deaths/1000 live births (CIA World Fact Book, 2010)Arguably, then, Moldova is doing pretty well given the context – it’s significantly below the global economic average, but nevertheless can boast health outcomes somewhat above the global average. This fact is impressive, because wealth is a key predictor of health outcomes – though not by any stretch the only important indicator, remember the U.S. has a lower life expectancy than Bosnia and Herzegovina. The point is, clearly systems and public policy matter too. And “doing well given the context” isn’t much consolation to those people dying at young ages from preventable causes.

Looking at key challenges, demographics are a big picture concern: mortality rates are higher than regional averages, pointing to an underlying trend of an aging population resulting from very low fertility rates and net outward migration. This explains the overall shrinking population.Fertility rate: 1.28 children born/woman (rank 213 of 225 countries; CIA World Fact Book)Population growth: -.079% (CIA World Fact Book)Epidemiologically, rates of many major communicable and non-communicable diseases are on the rise (this is called a “double epidemiological burden”). Key causes of mortality include: liver disease (primarily linked to alcohol consumption), cardiovascular disease, cancer (particularly pulmonary and digestive/colorectal), HIV/AIDS, and TB.

Water and sanitation are another key concern. The primary source of water in rural areas is wells, less than 25% of which were found to meet sanitary standards in 1999. While things have improved since then, this is an area where Moldova still lags its more developed neighbors, Ukraine and Romania. This issue has wide ranging effects, and is linked to some of the communicable and non-communicable diseases above. Contaminated drinking water is a huge potential carrier of diseases; the presence of minerals and other impurities in the water could also be part of the cause of the high rates digestive/colorectal cancer. And then there are the very basic problems: when indoor plumbing is rare, so is hand washing.

And then there’s the communist legacy…State communism was an all encompassing political, economic, and socio-cultural system, so as with all things in this region, it’s necessary to consider the legacy, because it has profound effects for public health. Most importantly, healthcare was free and of high standards. Preventative health education was absent from this system. This fueled a perception that “my health is somebody else’s responsibility.” Now, this is a problem we suffer from in the U.S. as well, but the difference in degrees is palpable.

It remains common in Moldova to go to the doctor only when sick, a fact which is readily on display at any medical center, where virtually all the patients are elderly. School age children have their school nurse and annual exams from the doctor, but essentially, the entire working population is absent from the health system until a problem develops, at which point solutions are much more costly and much less successful.

Add to this a post-Soviet economic crisis, during which the economy lost up to 80% of its value. In a time of such crisis, the country struggled simply to try to maintain its existing health and sanitation infrastructure as the health of the population – as measured by every major indicator – plummeted. People cut corners, that’s how one gets by. But that corner cutting led to that decline in health, and a crisis is a hard time to embark on a new project like building an effective health education system.

Putting it all together, or, what any of this means for meIn short, there is only the most limited conception of preventative healthcare. Public health education, itself, is a very new concept. Coming from the States, it has been shocking to realize just how much public health messaging has become a normal and accepted part of our lives. Take hand washing: parents teach this lesson to their kids from an early age. The message is then reinforced with practice everywhere they go, from school to the doctors office. Every flu season, signs will crop up reminding us lest we forget, as well as giving very specific instructions on how to wash our hands properly. Later in school, we learn about viruses and bacteria in science classes – the depth of information tracks our neurological capacity to absorb it, and our need for more sophisticated explanations. And then we become parents, and a whole host of pediatricians, classes, and parenting books tell us how to teach our kids the same lesson, starting the process all over again.

Taking a step back, it’s really a pretty sophisticated operation. The intervention has been effective too, dramatically so. And while we might not consider this odd today, none of it existed 100 years ago.

Putting this all together, many of the health problems facing Moldova are at least partially preventable. These problems are also in areas where public health interventions have shown high levels of success. As a result of this history, however, the concept of preventative health is still taking root. The Ministry of Health recognizes this, and has made the promotion of healthy lifestyles a major priority of late. Prevention requires many things, but more than anything else, what it requires most is public health educators. The government can coordinate curricula and run big campaigns, but effective interventions require local health providers to also become teachers and leaders, because these messages have to be taught by trusted authorities, and reinforced constantly.

The good news is, given the high ratio of doctors and nurses, there is already a large and local workforce being directed to implement health education campaigns, but this is a new job for them, and it’s a big one. And that, in a nutshell, is why I am here: to facilitate the development and implementation of effective health education at the local level.

Just finished Philip Gourevitch’s “Alms Dealer,” in October’s The New Yorker. One part review of Linda Polman’s “The Crisis Caravan: What’s Wrong with Humanitarian Aid?”, it’s a very powerful and thought provoking article its own right. The article was posted to my Facebook wall by Lindsay Toler, one of the brightest fellow volunteers I have the pleasure to serve with here in Moldova (and a healthy, which clearly speaks to her good character). I’ve been thinking a lot lately about international aid – its ethics, its effectiveness, and its unintended consequences. Until now, my thoughts have been mostly focused on development aid, so this article struck a chord and made me think about development’s humanitarian cousin. What follows are some unorganized thoughts that originally began as a FB comment but grew too long for that medium. Not the update friends and family back home were probably hoping for, but it’s the one that got written. Preemptive forgiveness given if you decide to skip it.

The article starts on the familiar terrain of the greed v. grievance debate within conflict studies. The whole argument is premised heavily on the greed side of this debate, within the academic camp of liberal rationality. In short, people are rational, including warlords.

The initial problem then that this article forces is that constructivist bane of all rationalist attempts to remake the world into a better place (realism and liberalism alike): rules are not stable, and as soon as the rules of the game are known, rational actors adjust to manipulate the rules in their favor. The result is a constantly shifting arms race of changing rules. Unfortunately, as the tomes of failed humanitarian interventions show, the “bad guys” seem to figure out how to work the old rules in their favor much quicker than the “good guys” can come with new rules to prevent them from doing so.

Very quickly, however, the article leaves behind technical questions of why intervention might fuel conflict, and goes for the moral jugular of humanitarianism, whether there can truly be any neutral or unambiguously good intervention. The single most prescient sentence: "The scenes of suffering that we tend to call humanitarian crises are almost always symptoms of political circumstances, and there’s no apolitical way of responding to them—no way to act without having a political effect."

Unsurprisingly, the press is not spared implication in these misguided good intentions. But rather than simply casting blame on an uncritical press, it’s worth asking: How does the press deal with difficult issues in an industry that doesn't want nuance? Do we risk alienating a readership that wants to do good by revealing there are none with clean hands in war?

On the Peace Corps, the author quotes disillusioned humanitarian and former volunteer Michael Maren as referring to the PC as “send[ing] Western kids to tell the elders of ancient agrarian cultures how to feed themselves better.” I'm not sure what Maren did in the Peace Corps, but my understanding is that’s exactly the opposite of what we are here to do today. If the PC was founded as an "opportunity to forge a different kind of relationship with the Third World...in the post-Vietnam world," then today, the PC is arguably an alternative to the entire development/humanitarian aid paradigm. In fact, every PC Training Officer I know would stop us mid-sentence were we to say something about "telling" any local how to do things. The Health Education Program Manager, Elvira, has explicitly disallowed even the word "help" from our vocabulary.

The quoting of Craig Calhoun arguing “Humanitarianism flourishes as an ethical response to emergencies not just because bad things happen in the world, but also because many people have lost faith in both economic development and political struggle as ways of trying to improve the human lot,” draws the obvious and parallel motivations that are lingering in humanitarianism’s shadows. Objective social science makes it impossible not to observe that many critiques of economic development assistance also apply to humanitarian aid. Yet many a would-be development worker has retreated to humanitarianism, somewhat safer behind the powerful moral shield of Max Chevalier’s defensive question, “Yes, but, good grief, should we just do nothing at all then?”

And that is what makes humanitarianism the hard case, because we’re not just considering socio-economic survival, but individual cases of torture and death. It is the single most pressing ethical question, but as Gourevitch/Polman insinuate, ethics is not served if the question is employed to prevent the issues from even being considered.

Another parallel between humanitarian aid and development aid, a critique that is attracting a growing following today. “Aid organizations and their workers are entirely self-policing, which means that when it comes to the political consequences of their actions they are simply not policed…‘As far as I’m aware,’ she [Polman] remarks, ‘no aid worker or aid organization has ever been dragged before the courts for failures or mistakes, let alone for complicity in crimes committed by rebels and regimes.’” It’s a good question most presciently raised on this Speaking of Faith podcast discussion with Binyavanga Wainaina, when it is asked “how does one critique a gift, even if it isn’t a very good gift?”

Gourevitch doesn’t spare Polman from criticism, pointing out her book’s approach is “less that of investigative reporting than the cumulative anecdotalism of travelogue pointed by polemic.” She does not offer suggestions, and she doesn’t attempt to grapple with the gravity of the question, “how do we stand aside and do nothing?” Polman is content to problematize our good motives, raising the point that we may ultimately be more concerned with salvaging our own conscience than others’ lives. Of course, this is not a topic for a single book. And as both Polman and Gourevitch would no doubt agree, before we can begin to offer suggestions, it is first necessary to grapple with our own morality. Humanitarianism, they agree, has too long avoided this difficult question.

I’ll leave with a poem quoted in the article:A man tries hard to help you find your lost camels.He works more tirelessly than even you,But in truth he does not want you to find them, ever.Ali Dhux (Somali poet)

I love having a September birthday. Being a nerd, it has always struck me as appropriate that my birthday comes just as classes are starting, and happens to fall in my favorite season (punny, right?). My birthday also is perfectly spaced during the run-up to my favorite set of holidays: Halloween and Thanksgiving. Throw in Christmas and New Years and September 19th basically becomes the kickoff to a whole holiday season.

September has also, however, tended to be my month of settling into new homes, which has made birthday celebrations a constant unknown. Take, for example, my first year in college, when nobody even knew it was my birthday. (This was pre-Facebook, kids…) But I learned my lesson that year, and since then, have never shied away from making sure people know ahead of time my exact moment of birth.

This year was no exception: having only arrived at my permanent site at the end of August, and with my birthday falling on a Sunday, I knew any celebration would depend on my Moldovan hosts. Well, never again will I doubt their party-planning capacities. They delivered with a full-scale Moldovan style birthday bash. From the top!

The weekend started Friday night, when my host parents’ daughter and boyfriend Rodica and Adrien arrived from Chişinău. There aren’t a lot of people my own age in the village, so it was nice to have another couple twenty-somethings in the house. Plus, they came laden with gifts. For me, there was a recipe book, so that I can take notes on all the Moldovan cooking I learn here. Yup, they already know me that well! There was also a sparkly golden umbrella – because the previous flowery umbrella I was using was “too feminine”. Better yet, it matches the sparkly golden day planner the school gave me at the First Bell ceremony. For the house, Rodica and Adrien brought a glistening new microwave. This provided an evening of entertainment, basking in the warm radioactive magnificence and practicing various settings on a cup of water.

Saturday was a day of work. Typically, my family is content to let me work at my desk inside while they go about the various chores, so I generally have to be pretty persistent to get in on the work. Today we were painting the house’s trim, and I just wasn’t going to take no for an answer. When my host mom, Ana, came home from work and saw her husband, daughter’s boyfriend, and host son, all standing on scaffolding shoulder to shoulder and painting, she doubled over right there in the road and it took her five minutes to stop laughing.

Sunday, of course, was the main event. Waking up without the harassment of an alarm is a rare gift, and then I grabbed a cup of coffee and mulled it over while writing a blog post. Mornings are generally my most productive time, but it’s unusual to be able to devote them to activities of my choosing. There are few things more enjoyable than listening to the village awaken, enjoying a cup of coffee, and pouring a little creativity into a satisfying piece of writing.

By 10:00, the house had come alive, and I could hold out no longer. My host mom brought in a full vase of roses, and then pulled me to the kitchen, where there was a big breakfast and big congratulations to go with. Around the table, there was the general air of a holiday, that untouchable sense of excitement and joy that hangs in the air on the mornings of days that will felicitously be devoted to guilt-free relaxation and festivity.

Birthday Masa: round 1.After breakfast, preparations got underway for the main event: the birthday masa. A masa is a general term for any celebratory meal, and they generally err on the side of a feast. There are birthday masas and holiday masas and funeral masas and masas simply for the sake of a masa. Already, there was a good deal of food laid out, including răcituri, a special Moldovan dish of rooster in a gelatinous gravy.

Having purchased Mexican and Asian ingredients in Chişinău the weekend before, my chore for the masa was to contribute an international flair. Ana, in particular, had been asking me to make Mexican since the day I arrived, the request always posed with an excited glimmer in her eyes. Having no tortillas, I improvised, and eventually we ended up with lime fried pork, fajita vegetables, and refried-esque beans. We just heaped it all together on a plate. It may not have passed as one of the normal dishes at a Mexican restaurant, but luckily when one brings a whole new style of cooking to a place, it comes with a certain amount of freedom. In any case, the Moldovans couldn’t know that, and the flavors were about right.

Congratulatory phone calls, emails, and bday cards all started rolling in the week before, but they picked up with a vengeance Sunday morning with the Facebook notes, such that after I started cooking, every time I ducked into my room to take a break for the rest of the day there were another 10 or 15 notes and ecards to read. Thank you everyone!

Finally, the masa got underway, a number of relatives coming from all over to ensure that there was a proper crowd around the table. Various German host parents have never much cared for the Southwest palette of flavors, so I was skeptical about Mexican, but it turned out to be a smash. For my own part, răcituri is one of the foods a lot of volunteers draw the line at, but I found it surprisingly delicious. The meal was filled with lots of house wine, house champagne, and toasts. The most memorable was the “third son” toast, when my host parents officially promoted me to the level of one of their own children. (The first two sons are their two daughters’ longtime boyfriends.) I followed this by a second parents toast, which may have lacked some of the linguistic beauty of their short speech, but nevertheless came across as touching. As the party went on, so did the toasts, eventually gaining that special boozy sentimentality I’d only previously observed at weddings.

Shannon really like the kitten playing

with the chicken so she took a pic.As the day wound on, new guests arrived, and old ones left. Birthday masas, in particular, tend to take on the quality of an evolving set of meals in this country. A particularly special appearance was put in by Shannon, a volunteer from a village in my district, and providing just a little bit of America for the day.

We snuck away for a short while under the pretense of discussing a project we’re working on, but in reality, we just needed a reason to stop eating for a few minutes. The break didn’t last long, however, with new relatives arriving and the second round of eating commencing simultaneously. (The eating doesn’t ever really stop, but can generally be divided into “rounds,” each round bringing a whole new set of untouched dishes with it, which Moldovans seem capable of conjuring at will.)

Round two included barbecue, and finding common ground between America and Moldova, it was declared that barbecue couldn’t be eaten without beer. I stayed and skewered the meet.

Finally, as the sun set, we said our goodbyes, and piled five people into the Lada to drive Shannon home (yes, somebody actually stayed sober in order to accomplish this). Shannon lives next to the River Nistru, and as we left town under cover of dark, we could see the lights of Ukraine twinkling just a kilometer away.

Exhausted, we arrive home, capable only of relaxing in the living room by this point. Ready for bed, Bill – who was still working diligently at 8pm on a Sunday night in Budapest – nevertheless insisted on taking a homework break so that we could skype.

Finally, crawling into bed that night, I felt more at home than ever before in Moldova. Over the next two days, my partner teachers presented me with gifts and my students brought flowers. Without a doubt, it was a wonderful birthday, and there’s nothing like a wonderful birthday hosted by new friends to make one feel welcome in a place.

Also: everything tastes better when the medical officers say you shouldn’t eat it.

After three weeks at site, many of the volunteers headed into Chisinau for a few days of birthday parties and meetings last weekend. Being amongst the September babies, I wasn’t about to be left out. I’d negotiated a compact teaching schedule – all my classes Tuesday and Wednesday – just to facilitate occasions like this, and the rough bus schedule I’m confined to in my village.

So, Friday morning, well before the sun was even hinting at being up, I set out with my host father to negotiate our muddy road in the dark. He packed two large bags of fresh homegrown fruit onto the bus for his daughter and niece in the city, and then said his goodbye to return home as the bus rumbled out of town into the first rays of the morning’s light. A full-sized bus leaving crawling at snail’s pace along a dirt road out of a village of just 3,000 is one of those things that would have seemed odd a few months ago; now, just another day in the life.

Except this time, I was folded up against the window, watching from the inside of the bus. My excitement was palpable – even having been to Chisinau before, even loving my village, even having only been there for three weeks – adventure hung in the crisp autumn air. Settling in for the three hour ride, tinny pop music from the speaker directly overhead competed with my headphones to provide the soundtrack to my journey. Determined not to give up, I switched from bluegrass to the Talking Heads, figuring my own pop music stood better ground in this battle to come. I had learned lesson 2 of the busses: find a place far away from the speakers. (Lesson 1 is to strategically place oneself near a vent during the summer, a task complicated by local fear of “the current.”)

Eventually drifting off, I awoke hours later, something internal telling me the stops had become too frequent to be the villages and raion centers dotting the road to Chisinau. Peering out the window, the signs of the city were all around – busses, traffic, and people who clearly had places to be, not people with the leisurely pace of a village morning, but people with jobs that required suits and briefcases. Still, tucked behind the window of the bus, it’s possible to close one’s eyes, draw the curtains, and shut this world out for a few minutes longer. At last, however, the bus pulls into the central station, and with a final shutter as the engine is killed, it gives that final whooshing sound, as if the bus itself is exhaling a great sigh of exhaustion with the journey.

And suddenly, the doors are opened, and though still in a state of half sleep, the busy world outside pushes its way in. Grabbing my bags, paying the driver, I check to see that the daughter and niece did in fact get their fruits at an earlier stop. One of the first things that strikes me about the city is the noise, then the smell. In the village, one hears roosters and dogs, always from a distinct direction. But in the city has a constant low roar, and the smell of cigarettes hangs in the air, regardless if there is a smoker anywhere in sight.The piata

The central bus station forms a disorganized heart of the central district, a square block of busses and people surrounded by streets to small for their collective missions. And right next to it is the central piaţa, the main market, another square block crammed with alleys winding their way through stalls ranging from produce to clothes to unrecognizable electronic trinkets.

Sitting in the Peace Corps office later that day, overwhelmed by my options, what struck me as the source of overstimulation was the very presence of choice itself in my life. In the village, there is very little decision making regarding my activities; I get up and spend my day working with various partners on various projects, my schedule largely dictated by their more structured lives. I eat at home at the regular meal times, and my work generally follows a logic of which task is most pressing. But in Chisinau, my routines crumble to reveal almost total flexibility in how and when I pursue the items on my weekend to do list.

Ultimately, I seized the freedom, and had a wonderful weekend catching up with friends, hearing their stories of the first amazing weeks at site, as well as making new friends. During PST, social life was rather coherently structured according to training village and program. Now, the doors are wide open to learn more about those in the other programs and their (sometimes very different) way of looking at our work in Moldova.

The Victory Arch illuminated with lasersI also took care of overdue paperwork, took care of an eclectic shopping list, met with my program manager, snagged a new book (Stones into Schools), went to a meeting of the Gender Workgroup, and saw an opera (Aida, one of my favorites). And of course, there were the evenings: a wonderful night of birthdays as well as a random street concert we happened upon after leaving the opera. (Yes, we went from tragic arias straight to a rock concert complete with lasers and teeny boppers.)

By the time I made my way back onto the bus Sunday afternoon, it was with tired eyes but a happy heart, as well as an extra bag stuffed full of school supplies and ingredients for Mexican and Asian food (soy sauce is not to be found in the village, or even the district centers). There is no bus directly to my village on Sundays, so the standard procedure is to hitchhike. Catching a rough break, only three cars passed me, all of them full. Not to worry, however – it was a beautiful day. The walk provided time to finish listening to a podcast of This American Life, and slowly soak back into the more leisurely pace of the country, where an unplanned hour walk is no large inconvenience.

Still, by the time I curled up in bed that night, the serenade of roosters and dogs did not last long before I was deep in sleep.

Today was September 1st, and in Moldova, that means Prima Sună – First Bell, the first day of school. Every once in a while there is a moment here that seems larger then Moldova, touching on some emotion deeper than whatever singular experience triggers it; an emotion connected with grander ideals or distant memories.

If swearing in was the first of these moments, First Bell was most certainly the second. The first day of school is an experience that transcends cultures – the excitement that hangs in the air, accentuated by the crisp smell of an early fall morning, as students dawn their best clothes along with their emotions.

Having always been a bit nerdy, I always loved the first day of school. Even in college I was one of the rare ones who never missed Opening Convocation. But today, for the first time in a long time, I was nervous again, as if transported back to Washington Elementary. After all, this year, for the first time, I was going to school not as a student, but as a teacher, cultural ambassador, and in a new language to boot, rendering me some kind of odd teacher-foreign exchange student hybrid.

First Bell starts with a ceremony. There’s music and speeches by various VIPs – the director, the mayor, an official from the Raion ministry, and yours truly – who stand on the steps facing the rows of students arranged by class to face a long central aisle. The new teachers also graced the stairs, and after the three of us were introduced, presented with flowers, and an awesome sparkly golden daily planner that not even the most fabulously gay man would sport in the U.S., it was my chance to say a few words and butcher the beautiful Romanian language in the spirit of cultural exchange. Being shameless, I also plugged my health club, seizing upon my moment with the microphone and the fifteen minutes of intrigue that still surrounds me.

After our speeches, the new class was presented in one of the cutest ceremonies ever. They walked down the balloon festooned aisle, and then proceeded to recite First Bell poems and sing songs, forgetting a good half of each an account of their nerves. When six year olds forget poems, everybody coos. If only it were the same for 24 year old volunteers…

I think the most awesomely Moldovan thing about this ceremony was the giant white bows smothering each girl’s hair, complementing their various takes on the ubiquitous black and white ensemble. The guys were a bit more staid in the standard suit – certainly very European in dressing up, true, but the suit is a bit more blasé than the full on Christmas tree trimmings perched upon the girls’ heads. Not all of them were outrageous, the generally accepted proportion seemed to be two bows that when taken together approximated the size of the child’s head.

The ceremony was followed by another rite one wouldn’t find in the States – champagne in the Director’s office (VIPs only – most teachers had to attend to their homeroom classes). This was followed by work with my partners, a teachers’ meeting, and finally a masa (celebratory meal) which included a good deal more wine, beer, and something else a little stronger.

If the teachers were stoic in the midst of the children’s giddiness at the ceremony, they sure let it all out at the party once they sent the students on their way. Meetings and large gatherings tend to exhaust me on account of the amount of linguistic effort the events require – those who work with me regularly know to talk more slowly and minimize the slurred local dialect, and we tend not to work more than an hour or two at a go. But all bets are off at the ceremonies and parties, and between the shouting and extra attention an American begets, a seven hour day like today feels much like running a linguistic marathon. Throw in a bit of booze, and, by the time I finally crawled home this afternoon, it took a long nap to recuperate.

Meanwhile, the most popular topic of conversation surrounding my work here continues to be my impending marriage to a nice Moldovan woman.

Having had enough public excitement today, this evening I sought the refuge of my host mother Ana’s kitchen, where I taught her how to make banana bread. It was my first time doing self-directed cooking since coming here, and it felt good. This led to another Moldovan moment today, when I found myself grinding cloves with an honest-to-god mortar and pestle. Yup, apothecary style.

The banana bread went over so-so – my host mom isn’t big on sweet desserts, but Grigorii (my host dad) loved it. A couple other visitors had it, but I couldn’t really tell if they liked it or were just being polite. Variety is a rare spice here in Moldova.

Finally, not content merely to cook, I engaged in a revolutionary act: washing the dishes. This is another first for me here in Moldova, and it’s taken a solid three months to work my way up to it. Men, in Moldova, might cook. Sometimes. And only the odd modern and progressive ones like Grigorii. But never would they do dishes. It’s as if they’re deathly allergic to detergents. I’ve seen a man cook when his wife is away, but the dishes stay on the counter until her return.

All in all, quite the day. After this, teaching will seem like a rest.

Posts are a bit out of order, I know. I'll go through in the coming days and put things in their proper places, at which point this will be filed as an August 18, 2010 post. In the meantime, pleasant reading!

Speaking to US Ambassador Chaudry

after the ceremonyWednesday, August 18th, was a special day for all the M25 HESC and EE PCTs – we swore in as volunteers and officially launched our service. Let me decipher that sentence:Wednesday, August 18th – hopefully clearM25 – my training class, Moldova 25 (we’re the 25th group of volunteers in Moldova; these days there’s one training class a year)HESC – Health Education in Schools and Communities, my program; commonly known as “Healthies”EE – English Education program, commonly known as EEs; collectively we’re referred to as Education Volunteers as compared to the Development VolunteersPCT – Peace Corps Trainee, what one is for the first 8-12 weeks in country; not volunteer in privileges, allowances, status, or jobPCV – Peace Corps Volunteer, what one becomes after successfully completing training and taking the oath; the formal beginning of the 2 years of serviceIn short, I stopped being a trainee, and started being a volunteer. If the distinction sounds small to those who began thinking of Zach in terms of Peace Corps Moldova back in June, the distinction is quite large within the Peace Corps itself.

Along with the change in status comes a big life change: leaving the training site, where one has been within close range of the capital and PC Moldova HQ, comfortably in the care of two language professors and frequent classes with the program manager and older mentors, as well as being in a community with a handful of other Americans going through the same thing, and generally staying with host families that have hosted trainees before. All this is left behind for our permanent sites, normally rural villages, many far flung (admittedly a relative term in this small country – I’m still only 3 hours from the Chişinau, less than a weekend trip to see Lindsey and Katie in the Roaring Fork Valley). There are no language teachers to clarify the un-understandable, and instead of homework, we’re expected to begin doing actual work in communities that often have heroic conceptions of what volunteer will do.

Nevertheless, after 10 weeks of a grueling instruction program, most trainees are chomping at the bit to get out into the “real” PC world.

So we assembled in Bardar early in the morning, with all our worldly possessions, which have now doubled with the addition of various supplies and materials from the PC. Then we went into Chişinau and were suddenly transferred from the dusty village world to the buzzing city. Taking our oath in the Embassy District, we found ourselves amongst some of the glitziest settings in Moldova (again, a relative term), temporarily to be honored and congratulated before being whisked away back to a new dusty village.

Giving my speechBen makes his speechThe ceremony itself was quite nice. There were a number of nice speeches during which people said nice things about us and our service and cultural exchange and diplomacy, and our oath was administered by American Ambassador to Moldova Asif Chaudhry. I gave a speech in Romanian on behalf of all the Healthies, and my good friend Ben gave a speech in Russian on behalf of all the English volunteers. This earned us a second round of cordialities from the Ambassador and the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign and European Integration of Moldova.

Speaking with Deputy PM Iurie LeancăFinally, there was the oath. Now, having to give a speech in a foreign language in front of dignitaries had generally occupied most of my attention when I thought about the ceremony in the days leading up to the event, so I hadn’t given this oath much thought before hand. In my mind, it was merely a formality – like a wedding, it’s just the excuse to dress up and eat cake, which is what everybody is really there for. But standing up on stage next to an American flag and listening to The Star Spangled Banner, a sensation of proud chills suddenly tingled down my spine. As we raised our right hands and took the same oath that the President and every other official in the Federal Government of the United States of America takes, the moment took on a significance bigger than me and my daily work to improve public health programming in Moldova, and my decision to join Peace Corps became more than just an exciting personal and professional step.

The heady mix of anthem, oath, and dignitaries combined and multiplied. I was just one small piece of a much larger and more ambitious mission; a mission of world peace. And I was, in fact, joining millions of other men and women around the world in serving our nation, which imperfect as it may be, is still the greatest I have ever known.

M25s take our oath,

What a fine lookin' group!

As I coaxed my eyes open this morning, they were greeted by the perfect conditions for a lazy morning in bed. Wandering over to the clock, they pleasantly noted that it wasn’t even seven yet. The light that found its way into the room seemed to face an extra struggle today…it was a bit too dark for even this early hour. It lacked that reddish fall tint of individual rays; instead the light was muted and unspecific, seeming slightly to obscure rather than illuminate the lines and colors of everything it touched. Yes, in fact, it was cloudy, and in the States I would have curled up with a book and cup of tea with that comfortable weekend feeling – that feeling where one can revel in being awake, only because there is no mandate to actually be awake.

But here in my corner of Moldova, Sunday morning means the big piaţa (market), over in Olaneşti. We have our own piaţa in my village on Saturday mornings, but the Sunday piaţa in Olaneşti is the real deal, with vendors coming from all over to hawk their wares in this ancient commercial center on the banks of the Nistru River. Olaneşti is just a few kilometers away and only 2,000 or so people larger, but the river and the piaţa make all the difference. On a Sunday morning when barely a person can be seen in my village, Olaneşti is buzzing with excitement, and one is more likely to meet a neighbor from my village there than on our own deserted streets.

I’ve been here for a week and a half now, and have been looking forward to a chance to make this trip, so when my host parents mentioned they’d be going this week I jumped at the chance. Piaţa happens early though, and thus it was that we found ourselves piling into the old Lada at 7:30, defying the rain that had by this time begun. Besides, it’s harder to slight the rain when living with a close connection to the earth; it hasn’t rained in over six weeks here, and the crops – which supply the majority of the food every family eats here – are badly showing it.

So rather than depress the mood, the rain lent a heady feeling of excitement to piaţa day, which already has something of the feeling of a carnival. Vendors lined the main streets, much like in a Midwestern town’s summer fair, and the air was filled with the smell of fried food and fresh produce. Jostling our way through the crowd, we scavenged from one section to another, constantly making the acquaintance of new friends of my host family.

The only discernible organization to the piaţa seems reminiscent of medieval guilds – stalls are grouped by similarity, such that all the dairy producers occupy the same long row, each selling almost exactly the same three products: butter, smîntina (a heavy cream resembling sour cream), and brinza (a homemade cheese resembling feta). Then there’s the pork hall, a narrow low ceilinged warehouse with mound after mound of every imaginable cut of pork imaginable. This is where I got to observe a man splitting a pig’s head with an axe on a stout tree stump. Sometime when it’s not raining, I’ll be sure to grab a picture of this.

Mostly, I was just there to observe. Amongst the various stalls of odds and ends – the flee market guild, if you will – there is normally a bike seller. He seems to have sat today out on account of the rain though. I did, however, have the chance to find bananas (not available at the local village shops), with which I plan to make my host family banana bread. (They’ve been dropping numerous hints that they’re looking forward to me introducing them to some new foods…)

And finally, there’s another volunteer from my training group in Olaneşti. It was my first in-person contact with another American in 11 days, so we relished the chance to share a hurried half hour conversation, huddled together over a cup of tea and placenta (fried cheese stuffed dough). We were probably quite the sight – two oddly dressed foreigners under a dripping tree, laden with a bag of bananas and keeping an eye on the time to make sure they didn’t overspend their half hour. Of course, we recognized it as the beginning of a quite regular routine – Sunday mornings at the piaţa. Once I have a bike, the ride is quite reasonable, and I could see it being quite the beautiful ride on a crisp autumn day.

But maybe, once this all becomes routine, I’ll sit the rainy days out…

One might observe the slight gap in postings. While rumors of my demise were generally overstated, I was, in fact, enduring what is normally described as the most trying part of Pre-Service Training (PST) for Health Volunteers in Moldova: Practice School. (Imagine that’s written in a scary Halloween font and is accompanied by a far-off scream of terror…)

In short, practice school brings our future partner teachers to our training site, where we spend the final two weeks teaching real children real health lessons in a real classroom setting using real Romanian for two really long weeks.

PST is largely oriented around the technical skills volunteers will need to succeed at work. And indeed, in daily life, volunteers tend to spend a lot of time thinking about how we can best accomplish the technical component of our mandate. So during life in general, and practice school in particular, it’s easy to forget that “helping the people of developing countries meet their basic needs” is only one of what are actually Peace Corps’ three goals, all of which are subsumed under a larger guiding mission of promoting world peace.

Our Country Director, Jeffrey, is a remarkable leader, and has a knack for succinct empathy. He put it well when acknowledging that Peace Corps takes a pretty strange approach to building world peace. And indeed, pausing to consider the specific dynamics of practice school, this does seem to be a very strange way to build peace:A bunch of unpaid volunteers, most of whom have never been teachers, but do have experience in health education, and who have been through an intensive summer teacher training program and come from a country that promotes engaging educational environments.Thrown together with:A bunch of professional teachers from a very rigid system, none of whom have any experience in health.In the midst of all of this, there are:Two radically different work cultures colliding.Add:The hottest week of summer,A foreign language that the volunteers only began learning 8 weeks prior,An open-ended and abstract subject matter, including concepts like self esteem and behavior-induced chronic diseases,A complete lack of sufficient preparation time,Different forms of stress on all parties involved, making empathy all the more difficult.And that’s a rough approximation of the final two weeks of training.

Nevertheless, even in these circumstances Jeffrey has reminded us that “If we’re not building peace in our every action, we’re not doing our job.” Regardless of how much technical assistance we’re providing.

Figuring out how to promote peace in such circumstances is a process, but already in two weeks of practice school there were no wars, only a few tears, and afterwards, the beginnings of some new friendships. Certainly, it quickly made me value the meditation retreat I took time for before coming, for that was also an exercise in cultivating the patience and compassion necessary to pursue any large goal. And perhaps this will become my most enduring lesson here: to not lose sight of the fundamental goal that motivates not just Peace Corps, but all development work.

Rocking the vote from Moldova!

The Colorado Primaries were Tuesday, and after weeks of wrangling, I just barely managed to get my ballot sent in the nick of time. Voting from overseas is no small feat – I had to be extra attentive to make sure the proper paperwork was filed before leaving the States, and there was a lot of back and forth to ensure that my ballot arrived in time. Amongst my Peace Corps colleagues, I’m about as on the ball as it comes with voting from abroad, and still, it was in just under the wire.

For other overseas voters who may be reading this, I urge you to visit the Overseas Vote Foundation’s website for comprehensive state-specific information, including election dates (general and primaries) and filing requirements.

At this point, my generation’s poor voting record is borderline cliché, but what is less well known are that the barriers to voting abroad make this another demographic with consistently low turnout. The ironic of this story is that many of us overseas are engaged directly in some form of service to our country: Foreign Service Officers, military service members, and of course, Peace Corps Volunteers (to name just a few).

As a volunteer, voting is more than just a civic responsibility: I take an oath to promote the three goals of the Peace Corps. The second of these goals is to “Promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.” For me, it’s hard to feel like I’m living up fully to the spirit of that goal without participating in what is arguably the most revered American political institution. At my nation’s inception, voting (even if narrowly conceived at the time) went to the core of what set us apart. Since then, it has occupied a central thread of our national narrative. The right to cast a ballot has been bound up in America’s greatest national struggles and discourses: class struggle, the Civil War, feminism and women’s suffrage, the Civil Rights movement, and the Vietnam War. (And today, perhaps the role of concentrated economic interests’ influence…)

My curriculum for Health Education/Life Skills this coming year includes civic education. How am I to dig into this topic with my students if voting is treated like something one checks at the airport check-in counter, valued less than the luggage one would never fail to pick up on the other end of a flight? Moreover, the issue takes immediate relevance in Moldova, where an ongoing political crisis was first triggered by popular protest against an electoral system widely perceived as being merely a public formality.

Fellow volunteers looked on with a bemused curiosity that failed to hide a decent amount of skeptical cynicism. That’s okay though – I have another month or to get them to register for the general election this fall. In the meantime, should my ballot fail to be counted, at least it is on account of a system ill-suited to handle the international voter, and not a personal disenfranchisement.

But rather than look at all the barriers, I prefer to look at all the help I received. Big shout outs go to:The Peace Corps, which was extremely helpful in getting the required paperwork printed and scanned.The Denver Elections Office, which has an incredible staffer handling overseas voting, andThe Overseas Vote Foundation, which is the excellent organization which first got me involved in overseas get out the vote operations back in 2008 when I was living in Budapest.

With so much conspiring to help the American abroad to vote, any excuse is really just that: an excuse.

Post Script for the Expatriate:If you presently reside abroad, and are interested in voting issues, the Overseas Vote Foundation is in constant need of volunteers for its non-partisan get out the vote operation. Visit their website, follow the org on Facebook, and help spread the word wherever you are based. OVF also operates special branches:Youth Vote OverseasMilitary Voter Services

The Democratic and Republican parties both offer special sites geared toward members living overseas as well (Democrats Abroad and Republicans Abroad).

Yesterday marked two months to the day since I left Denver, and also brought to a close the eighth week of Pre-Service Training (PST). Incredibly, in less than two weeks I’ll be sworn in as a full Peace Corps Volunteer, and depart the comfortable routine of my summer in Bardar for a new set of challenges. Which leads me to notice, most readers have very little idea of just what that summer routine has entailed, instead being lost in an eclectic assortment of anecdotes!

So, what has Zach been doing in Moldova this whole summer exactly? Mostly learning. For the past two months, my week has more or less been fixed to the following schedule:

Monday:Get up, go to 4.5 hours of language class.Eat lunch for an hour (bread, tomatoes, cucumbers, and cheese or salami).Go to 3 hours of “tech” training on the Health Education Program.Go home. Be exhausted. Butcher Romanian for my host family.Do homework.Eat dinner. More butchering Romanian over glasses of house wine. Occasionally watch the news (way over my head) or Bollywood films (dubbed into Russian) with Georghe (host-dad).Read/write for an hour or so.Collapse into bed, tired but satisfied.

Tuesday: repeat.Wednesday: repeat again.Thursday: Go to Ialoveni for “hub site” days with all PCTs (Peace Corps Trainees). Basically, a day of admin sessions.Friday: Repeast Monday’s schedule.Saturday: Repeat again, except no tech, so we’re free for the afternoon.Sunday: Exhaustion, homework, or mischief. Often all 3.

This schedule has been interspersed with special trips, sometimes cultural, sometimes personal, sometimes PC related (like the visit to my future site a few weeks ago). Sundays in particular have been a constant source of amusement and cultural integration, including some of my favorite days like birthday parties or helping in the fields.

The structure doesn’t leave much free time, and many volunteers find PST to be one of the most trying times in their service. In combination with the presence of other Americans in my training class, however, it has provided a comforting cocoon of structure for the initial adjustment period. After 7.5 weeks, I was able to achieve the required “Intermediate-mid” level in Romanian (a big relief as this is the level trainees are required to reach before swearing in). Perhaps more importantly, I’ve formed a number of close friendships with my fellow trainees – the friendships I’ll need to make it through the next two years.

Please note, the past week (week 8), has not been fixed to the normal schedule, but rather to a pressure cooker the culmination of our training program: practice school. But that’s a topic for a future post.

See the post below for the picture tour of “A Day in the Life (of PST).”

Pictures from my life in Bardar during PST. See post above for the narrative.

The road to my door.

The beautiful house where I am a guest.

Door sill : detail.

Making rachiu (kinda like moonshine).

The hills around Bardar.

Another view from the top of Bardar.

Goodbye comrades! (Ubiquitous Soviet era statue to the victims of fascism)

A few weeks ago I helped my host mom pick cherries. We had done this the week before too, so there wasn't much low hanging fruit. Now, I assumed the natural course of action would be to use a ladder. Right? Wrong. I'm in Moldova.

Instead, we pulled the branches down, far past a point I would consider safe for the tree, and then picked the newly accessible fruit. Twice during this process we heard significant branches breaking, and had to quickly let go. Each time, my host mom looked surprised. Both times, I asked myself how, if this is the normal way of picking cherries, this could surprise her. Then I asked myself why after 58 years of this nonsense they hadn't bought a ladder. Then I thought maybe they had a ladder and it's broken or on loan to a neighbor. Then I looked at the poor tree, remembered I was in Moldova, and decided "no, they probably just break branches every year."

Then we went to go get a hoe. A garden hoe. An implement of destruction. NOT harvesting.

She then handed me the hoe, and not knowing what else to do, I began hoeing the cherries from the unreachable parts of the tree, such that they plummeted to the ground, which is covered with rotten cherries. My host mom looked aghast, snatched the hoe, and then used it to pull a higher branch down, after which we proceeded to pick more cherries, until the branch started to break. She looked surprised, and we moved on to another branch. We repeated a few times. Then, looking thoroughly annoyed with the tree, my host mom began to shake it, after which cherries plummeted to the aforementioned ground. Then we went about trying to find the good ones in the rotten mess. We later went back to collect the rotten ones, which got fed to the pig. I’ve consistently been impressed with how nothing is wasted in Moldova.

Then we laughed. Then we finished. The top third of the tree, easily reachable with a 15 foot ladder, remained covered in perfectly good cherries.

Throughout this process, my host mom alternated between laughter, bemusement, and annoyance. Consistently, however, she looked like she was discovering this process along with me for the first time.

And this is why I adore my host mom. Just about every experience is like this: hilarious, fun, and just a little care free. And that makes the cultural integration that much easier.

Maybe they've never picked the cherries before?

I returned from my first visit to my future home (“site”) about a week ago. As I mentioned last time, my village is way off in the southeast, closer to the beaches of Ukraine than Moldova’s capital Chisinau. It’s a little warmer there, which was a relief, because otherwise sitting in the sun during a bumpy 3 hour bus ride on a 95 degree day would have been just too pleasant a material experience for Peace Corps life. (And no, they don’t open windows in Moldova, as any resulting “current” is well known to be the leading factor causing illnesses ranging from the common cold to death).

With the exception of a failed attempt at phone communication with the director of the school, I pretty much linguistically handled myself with my 5 weeks of Romanian during the visit (no sarcasm there). The phone call went something like this:

While enjoying light conversation with host family on first evening, cell phone rings.

I answer: “Hello?”

Romanian Romanian Romanian

Me (in Romanian): “I’m sorry, what?”

Romanian Romanian Romanian

Me (still not understanding a word): “Ah, something about me you say?”

Romanian Romanian Romanian

Me: “Yes, I DO think you have the wrong number.” (Unclear whether this had been suggested.)

Romanian Romanian Romanian

Me: “Yes. My number is…hold on a minute, yes, it’s etc. etc.”

Romanian Romanian Romanian

Me: “You don’t have the wrong number? Well that just can’t be…”

Awkward silence

Me: “Okay then, well, have a good evening!”

After I hung up, the house phone rang. My host mom told me it was the director of the school, and relayed instructions for the following day to me. I thought, “Ah, good. I was wondering about that, and was afraid what a phone call might be a bit tricky.” I did not draw the connection till the next day, when my director explained that “Romanian Romanian Romanian” was actually being spoken by her, in an attempt to communicate important scheduling info to me.

Phones are hard. I’m going to give it another month before I attempt anything beyond in-person communication.

Otherwise, it didn’t take long to fall in love with just about everything in my town.

I have a great host family - obsequiously welcoming, incessantly curious, and very open to me joining any activity I’m interested in. They have two daughters, but both are in their twenties and no longer live at home. The family was motivated to host me because both daughters lived in the States for a while and were welcomed openly by Americans. As they explained it, they wanted to repay the favor. If things go extremely well and I end up staying there for two years, that’s going to turn out to be a lot of repayment, especially at their level of hospitality.

My host mom is also a great cook, and even bakes their own bread! They’ve raised two nieces (whose parents are working in Italy), and I think the dad is looking forward to having another guy in the house. He’s already agreed that I can help make wine this fall.

After a leisurely evening getting to know my host family, the next morning began abruptly and continued at a breakneck pace as I was whisked from one meeting to the next. Joining the director of my school in her office, I was subsequently taken to meet the mayor, then back to the school to meet the assistant directors and school nurse, then back to the mayor’s office for a community meeting, then a local soup kitchen that operates out of the health center, then on to the health center itself, then home for lunch, then back to the school for a long meeting with my two future partner teachers.

Besides being a bit exhausting, the meetings were very encouraging. The mayor, in particular, was very enthused by my presence, and seems to have enjoyed working with the last volunteer (who was doing community development work). He was so enthused, in fact, that he invited me to a meeting later that morning on social issues with just about every community leader other than the priest. Most of said meeting was way above my head, but I was quick enough to stand and emphasize my excitement to be coming to the community when I was being introduced.

In addition to a local development NGO, the community also has an Austrian funded soup kitchen operating out of the health center. The kitchen’s director seemed like an excellent additional potential partner; the presence of even this single additional community organizer makes a potentially huge difference in this country.

In fact, overall, I was quite impressed with the level of community activity, interest in international involvement, and provision of technological resources in the community. In particular, the mayor has posted the town’s budget, with all revenues and expenditures, in the town hall. (Again, it seems like a small thing, but in a country where corruption is endemic, this is a huge step forward in transparency). The mayor, school director, and soup kitchen’s director each had computers in their office, which further mean technological resources are at a pretty good level. It also means there’s somebody with a computer in each location I’ll be working.

The village gave such a good impression that I was actually left wondering if: a) there’s much assistance I can provide, OR b) whether it was all a well-choreographed show (definitely a possibility; knowing how to impress international donors is a valuable skill here).

Even if it’s the former, I’m sure I’ll find projects. After all, when has under-involvement ever really been a problem for me?

This goes along with the post above about my site visit last week. Yup, they were that happy to see me!

Look close, and you can actually see people moving around, ringing the bells in the tower.

Tuesday was a very exciting day for PC Trainees in Moldova; after being here almost a month, we were given our permanent site assignments!

After swearing in as an official volunteer on August 18, I’ll be headed to Stefan Voda Raion. (A raion, pronounced rayon, is the administrative level above a municipality; it is like a county or state in the U.S.)

Stefan Voda is in the very east part of the country, in the southern part of that “leg,” and is bordered by Ukraine on three sides. (If you look at the shape of Moldova, it kind of has two legs; Stefan Voda is in the eastern leg). The region is warm and sunny, renowned for its wine. And this is a country renowned for its wine, so this is kind of the Bordeaux of Moldova. The region is only separated from the Black Sea by a sliver of Ukraine (that used to belong to Moldova before Stalin rearranged things).

In any case, I am spitting distance from Ukraine; in fact, I could easily hike to Ukraine and back in a day. My village has about 3,000 people, probably a little smaller given that a lot of Moldovans work abroad. It’s primary industry is agriculture; a farm coop employs about 500 people producing dried fruits, tobacco, and other products, and a winery employs about 300 people. These are VERY big business ventures in Moldovan terms.

I’ll be working at the town health center and the one school, which has about 250 students (1st through 12th grade). I’m preliminarily slated to teach health to 5, 6, 7, 8, and 11 grades. It is unique to have 11 graders in the Health Program; I am one of only 3 people (out of 15) from my program’s training class who will be teaching that grade. I am very excited for this happy; I requested older students and my program manager clearly agreed that I would work well with that group.

As for the health center, I don’t know much about it yet, but the health centers vary a lot from town to town.

This weekend, we will have our “Site Team Conference” in Chisinau, which will be the first time I meet my future partners (two teachers and one health care provider from the clinic). After two days of conferencing, I leave Chisinau to spend two more nights in my village, where I will stay with my future host family and meet more potential partners and community leaders.

There will be five volunteers in my Raion in total, two from the Community Organization and Development program and three of us from the Health Program. Two volunteers have been there for a year already; the rest of us will be new this fall.

Needless to say, I’m pretty darn excited. More to come once I’m back to site!