The Spring That Never Was.

It snowed on Friday...but then it all melted.

So just to make sure we didn't get confused that it was spring, we got even more snow yesterday. 

Spring Has Forsaken Us

There is a myth in Moldova about a woman called Baba Dochia (Baba being the ubiquitous name for all women of a grandmotherly age). Baba Dochia, as the story goes, lived in a village with her goats and after having waited all winter for warmer weather she decided to head out in March for the mountains, anticipating that the weather would soon be warm and pleasant and her goats would have more time to grow strong eating the mountain grass. Unfortunately for her the weather grew worse instead of better and as she got to the mountains she soon perished from the cold and snow. The moral of the story being that Spring will come when it comes and not to get impatient when it doesn't come quick enough. Baba Dochia is also blamed anytime the weather turns cold and wintry after March 1st, the beginning of Spring, specifically if it snows. Long story short Baba Dochia paid us a belated and unwelcome visit today and I was not amused.

The Return of Winter

The weather recently has been rather harsh. It keeps promising beautiful sun-filled days but as soon as you step outside you are smacked in the face with a bitter cold and fierce wind. I struggle to think of any time this winter that I have been this cold which is odd since according to the Moldovan calculations we are technically well into Spring. But I guess this won't be too big of a surprise to anyone on the east coast of America where they are pretty much getting the same strong wintry weather.

Aside from staying warm inside I am currently looking forward to my last home stretch of teaching English in Moldova. I only have ten weeks of school left in addition to a week long break for Easter and I will be done. But I am still trying to keep myself busy. We will be having English Week in about a month so I am trying to keep myself productive by working on that.

I've also heard more rumors that my village might get another volunteer once I leave this year. It would be a Health volunteer like we were suppose to get last summer. I hope everything works out this time it would be a lot easier to stay connected to Moldova and especially with the village I live in if there was another American taking my place after I leave.

Watch this video!

If you ever wanted to really feel like you were in Moldova without buying a plane ticket then all you have to do is watch this video. It was produced by a Moldovan news station as coverage of a Marțișorul celebration in a typical Moldovan village. I keep feeling like I should be doing a better job documenting my time in Moldova and especially making more videos of my experience so that I have something to look back onto when I am in America again. However, my video editing skills/filmography skills are very limited. Luckily for me I saw this special on the television and was able to find it on YouTube. Once again I want to mention that this video literally has everything I could ever mention about Moldova in a single video, and it is only 14 minutes so it's not a time waster either. The video is strictly in Romanian but you really don't need to understand what is being said to understand the video. In fact I think not understanding adds to the experience.

The Tyranny of Winter is Over!

Today marks the first day of spring in Moldova and the weather has changed dramatically to prove it. I wouldn't go so far as to call today a warm day but what it lacked in warmth it made up for in sunshine. So much so that every time I look outside I get the impression that not only has winter left for good but that we are well on our way to summer. After months of absolutely no sunshine the bright, clear sky has left everyone in a great mood. With all the gloom and dreariness of winter it can be easy to fall into depression or be otherwise affected in a negative way by the weather. What a difference a little sun can make.

It was quite a refreshing walk to school with the sun warming my face, although admittedly also chilled by the wind, enjoying the fact that the sun was already having the desired effect of cutting back on the amount of mud I had to deal with.

Arriving at school I was greeted by students wearing their best clothes to wish all the teachers a happy spring and giving them a marțișor, which is a traditional red and white trinket that everyone wears on the first day of March to celebrate the first day of spring. Coincidentally, today was also the last day of school before our Spring Break. The combination of the sunshine with the holiday celebrations and the promise of a vacation made today a great day and now with a week long vacation all I have to do is to sit and enjoy the weather.

What Winter?

            Is it winter? I can’t tell from all the sun and melting snow. It’s beginning to look a lot like spring…but maybe I should hold my tongue I don’t want to jinx myself. Especially since this welcome change in the weather is coming in the same week in which last year I was experiencing the coldest days I had ever been through in my life. Coincidentally while Mr. Groundhog sentenced us to more winter last year he was kind enough to give us a reprieve this year and his prediction has proved accurate for Moldova both times. Perhaps he is channeling European weather spirits when he is making his decision. In either case all the sunlight is great for putting everyone in a great mood after all the short gloomy winter days we have been having for the past few months.

            Aside from the weather, the only other excitement in my life has been focused on finally receiving my leave date. My last day in Moldova is now unofficially set as July 18^th. I say unofficially because while there was a lottery in which everyone was given a leave date, the days that we were given are not finalized until our COS (Close of Service) conference in April. Which gives everyone some time to trade their date around if they so choose. Now that I got that out of the way the only other thing I am waiting for now is a job offer. If you have any lying around feel free to toss one in my direction.

            Finally, my laptop is starting to show its age a little bit, which is understandable since I bought it used and it is now at least 6 years old. Recently, the ‘s’ key has been giving me trouble so every time I wanted an ‘s’ I had to massage the ‘s’ key until it felt like recognizing the attention I was giving it. At first it was only a simple annoyance but over time it took longer and longer of holding down the key to get a response until finally the cap of the key broke in two from all the stress I was putting it through. For a while this was actually a good thing because the ‘s’ key seemed to be a lot more sensitive without the cap in place but over a period of time it start to lose sensitivity until I was back to doing the same thing I had been doing before. Luckily, I am a master of computers so I simply changed the keyboard layout to make my ‘z’ key the ‘s’ key. After years of hammering into my brain where all the letters are on the keyboard I was expecting this simple move to overload my brain and make me incapable of typing without careful thought. However, funnily enough my brain has no problem substituting the ‘z’ key for the ‘s’ key, but for some unknown reason I can never find the ‘x’ key without consciously thinking about it and staring at my keyboard. It’s best not to question it.

Cabin Fever & Waiting for Nothing

One thing I especially hate about winter is the simple fact that doing anything other then staying home seems like too much of a chore because of the amount of work you have to go through to walk any long distance in the snow or in the ice, although I don't think 'walking' would be the appropriate word. More like taking a step, sliding on the ice a few inches, catching your balance and risking the next step, and repeat until you reach your destination in twice the amount of time it would normally take you.  In addition to the dangers awaiting you while you walk you also have to deal with the cold, which I have to say could be worse. It has stayed a pretty constant 20ish range warming up for snow every few days but if I remember correctly it was the first week of February where we started to see the real fun of negative teens weather and frozen water pipes. So I guess I have that to look forward to in the near future.  Contrary to an average winter back home you can never wear just one warm layer, it is always best to cover up as much as possible but no matter how much I try I always realize I missed a layer about 5 minutes into my walk to the train station. "I knew I should have brought my scarf." "Why did I only wear two pair of socks?" "The hood on my sweat shirt is not cutting it. I can't believe I forgot to bring my hat." And so on and so forth. The best part of this is how the cold and the ice play off of one another. The colder I get the faster I try to walk and the faster I walk the more likely I am to fall and walk twice as slow afterward as I was before I attempted to speed it up.

To make a long story short I haven't left my house to go anywhere in a while and after the near blizzard we had on Friday I don't think I'll be able to go anywhere for a while anyway.

But in other news in a week from today, on Super Bowl Sunday as it were, I will finally find out my official departure date from Moldova. Unfortunately for me I have school on Monday so I won't be able to be in Chisinau for the actual lottery but I'm not too worried about that. I am, however, pretty anxious to finally have a real date. It seems like every conversation I have had with people recently has been about when I am going back to America and everyone seems to think I'm not being honest when I tell them it could be anywhere between July and August. It really reminds me of when I was in my last semester of college and everyone kept asking me when I was leaving for the Peace Corps and the only thing I could tell them was that I think I might be going somewhere in Europe sometime in June.

Although whether I know my exact date of departure or not theoretically shouldn't effect me from planning for the future but the more I try and think about it the more my brain gets frustrated with trying to plan things around an unknown timetable.

Which brings me to my next topic. The job search.  I have bookmarked the website that lists all the open West Virginia Teacher positions and I can't help but to refresh that page at least once a day if not more, even though I know they normally don't start really posting positions until about March. I guess that's just my unreasonable fear of the unknown. As soon as I have a date and a job prospect I doubt I'll pay much attention to counting down the days or worrying about the future but until then the anxiousness of waiting is torture.