27 Luni

Wednesday, the final full official day of my site visit to Valea Călugărească maintained the quick pace and complete schedule as had the previous two days.  Breakfast again was served at 7:30 a.m. sharp along side several students and was followed by a ‘free period’ in which I was to plan activities for an afternoon session; more to come on that later.  Immediately after this planning session, I was taken to the school’s Experimental Orchard where a demonstration had been planned by one of the agriculture teachers and his students.  They mixed a solution that is designed to kill the weeds around the base of the trees.  The solution was dispensed via a large plastic backpack style sprayer that is manually pressurized by a long hand crank extending out from the bottom of the apparatus and around to the front of the operator’s waist.  During the demonstration, a young man in full riding gear road up to us on a bicycle.  As I understand it, he is some kind of Romanian national champion bicycler, and either a current or former student at the high school.  Regardless, it appeared to be a real treat for the other students, as there were several photo ops with him and the bicycle.

The next two sessions consisted of English lesson demonstrations focusing on video and listening activities.  For the video activities the instructor provided a handout to which the students could follow along, see new vocabulary and answer comprehension questions.  The videos themselves were clearly excerpts from older British comedies, but were cleverly selected for their simple, clear yet humorous dialog.  The secondary lesson of the comedy video was vocabulary for a hospital setting, as the star of the slapstick routine was hospitalized after a mock accident.  For the next session using listening techniques the vocabulary focus was on shopping; various stores and what they sell.  The British influence was obvious here as well with the more proper sounding terminology for some store names and products.  Among my favorites are trousers and trainers, for pants and tennis shoes; funny enough they actually call most tennis shoes addidaș, clearly influenced by the global sports shoe company.

After lunch in the Cantina, two of my counterparts and I went into the community again, to the center of Valea to visit the Secondary school.  A smaller facility than the high school, they had also clearly benefited from the reconstruction money that had previously been made available by the Romanian Government.  The classrooms and hallways were clean and freshly painted with lots of student work posted on the walls.  The students were well dressed in uniforms and quite attentive when a teacher walked into the room.  They have a computer lab, and even a club for amateur radio operators.  Within the last few years they had a Peace Corps Volunteer stationed there, but not for the full two year period, rather another shorter two to three month program.  The entire faculty was busily running around the school offices trying to close out the books, getting final grades and attendance marks in for the year; the same pressure was evident in my high school as well all week.

In an effort to more formally and personally introduce me to the student body, my counterparts organized a meet and greet for an hour in which the students and I could exchange dialog in an open discussion.  My counterparts elected not to participate hoping that this would relax the students enough that they could speak freely.  Taking into account the lower level of English some of the students spoke and their apprehension about speaking with a new faculty member, let alone American, the session went well.  I was able to communicate my own background, reasons for being there and some of my thoughts for the upcoming year.  Generally the students were quite receptive and as the hour went on opened up more and more.

The next session at 5 p.m. was actually hosted by yours truly.  After a small snafu with student attendance, my counterpart managed to round up ten that live in the school’s hostel for and afternoon of fun activities with the aim of encompassing some English lessons.  This was a great opportunity for me to evaluate the language skills of this small sample of students.  Assuming the group is representative of the whole, then their level of English runs the gambit from Beginner Low to Advanced, with the bulk of the class at the former.  Fortunately, one of my counterparts was there to assist with translation of the directions.  Since we were outside, there was no blackboard to use, but fortunately the students did have paper and pencils to write some ideas down.  The first game we played was one that I stole from another Peace Corps Volunteer who recently presented to our group and he likely stole it from somewhere else.  The game is called “move your feet” and the rules are simple.  All of the students form a circle around one teacher or student in the middle.  The person in the middle makes a statement about something he or she likes or is wearing.  Everyone in the circle who agrees with the statement or is wearing what the caller describes has to run across the circle to a now newly open spot.  The last person left without a spot becomes the new caller.  The purpose of the game is to work on vocabulary and once the directions are explained is quite simple for students of all skill levels to play.  As an example of a more complex game that we played, “hot air balloon” involves the formation of groups, each with at least one stronger English speaker for support.  Each group has to select their favorite actor, politician or person in general, dead or alive.  Then the following scenario is presented:  “The characters that you have selected are all afloat in a hot air balloon.  Suddenly they realize that the balloon is sinking and if they don’t lighten the load they will all perish.  The only solution is to democratically select one person to toss overboard.”  This game leads to some quite lively debate.  The first round included Enrique Eglacious, Michael Jackson, Barack Obama and Christopher Columbus; who do you think was cast out?  The benefit of this game is that it gets the students talking in a more lively and comfortable manner.  In the last round, Romania’s President Traian Basescu lost against a famous national poet, popular musician and a heavy weight wrestler: tough result for the politician.  To finish up the day the students and I went to dinner at the Cantina and then enjoyed a few relaxing games of pool at local establishment down the street from the school.

Thursday was my travel day back to Tărgoviște, and fortunately one of my counterparts had business to take care of in my destination city and hence I was able to hitch a ride.  Earlier in the day on Thursday, I was taken to a local “Country Club” that has a pool.  A few of the teachers indicated that it might be a good place for me to relax during my free time during the summer and to meet members of the community.  Though I don’t know how much downtime I will have as the summer activities are starting to pile up.  On the list are already two summer camps, a weeklong TEFL conference and a special visit from an American friend.  On top of getting settled into my housing, learning the way around and beginning the process of integration into the community, I will be quite busy.  Fortunately, I have been placed in a supportive community that I could not have picked better myself.