Small Successes: the Mahala Boys

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.

Secondary Projects

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.

Greg Mortenson, and when it’s hard to know how many cups there are in three cups

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.

March Wrap-up and my Great Trek North! aka, Site Visits (slideshow at end)

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 50^th 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.

Biden visits Moldova!

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)

Happy 50th Anniversary Peace Corps!

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 event

You 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.

Youth Club Blog

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/