March 23, 2013

I'm sitting in my room on a relaxing Saturday. I was supposed to go to the capital, Chisinau, today with the school nurse and school director to purchase some things for our most recent project but unfortunately it's snowing. Yeah, snowing. What a beautiful spring day :)

Last week the school nurse and I finished our health campaign at the school. The 11th graders created posters about healthy relationships, smoking, alcohol, human trafficking and self esteem which were hung around the school. On Tuesday and Wednesday we passed out brochures about the aforementioned topics and on Thursday the 11th graders led a seminar. Each class (8-12) presented a skit and/or video about one topic and then the 11th graders led a discussion with the audience. It was a bit unorganized, but we got good feedback, and I think the kids enjoyed it.

Through this health campaign project, we were able to purchase books and other resources for the school library.

I've been working for the past few months with the physical education teacher to create a fitness room at the school complete with elliptical machines, weights, stationary bicycles, etc. We won the grant and will be working on that project for the next few months!

So, while writing this post, I decided to calculate exactly how many days that I have left in Moldova. Drum roll please.... 109 days. Is that a small amount or a long amount of time? I have no idea.

I wanted to explain, hopefully more simply, what I actually do here. (I don't think that I've ever made it very clear).

I teach 8 health classes per week with two different Moldovan biology teachers- Vera and Angela. With Angela, I co-teach grades 5 and 6 and with Vera, grades 7 and 8. This means that I talk for 10 minutes and explain one topic then Angela/Vera will take over and explain the next topic, it's basically a back and forth exchange. Why do we co-teach? Everything I do in Peace Corps is supposed to be done with a Moldovan. Why? Transfer of skills. When we co-teach, the students learn the information and the Moldovan teacher learns a new set of teaching skills (different classroom activities, modes of discipline, etc.). There is not a health education curriculum for Moldova so, with Vera and Angela, I created a long term (year long) plan for each grade and then, each week, we create a lesson plan. This is difficult and time consuming, but it gives us the freedom to teach the topics that we think are most important.

As I said earlier, I worked with 1) the school nurse and 2) a PE teacher to develop two separate projects. This is another aspect of my work here. I identify people that are interested in working with me, and together we develop whatever project or activity is needed at that time.

I also work at the village health center. Once again, with a Moldovan partner, Natalia who is a nurse. We have completed two projects at the health center- 1) an HIV/AIDS prevention mural and 2) we purchased resources (telephones, copy machine, etc.). Natalia and I have also taught seminars at the health center regarding HIV/AIDS and domestic violence. I currently meet with her every Sunday (to teach her English) and occasionally during the week to discuss activity/project ideas.

So, that was a bit long, but I thought it would be helpful to clarify (sorry it's about 21 months late) what it is that I'm doing in Moldova.

Dahnika