A Year of Health Club

Health club has been a blast this year. We accomplished a lot in a year's time.

We celebrated these accomplishments at a year-end party where we ate way too many cookies, drank some Kool Aid (Thanks Mom!), played musical chairs and took some goofy pictures.

We also watched this little video with some of the highlights of the year:

Some translations and explanations:

Petrecere Halloweenului = Halloween Party

Teatru de Papuși: Spalarea mîinilor = Puppet Theater: Handwashing

The little song they sing was written by another volunteer, basically, they just list a bunch of actions (I played with a cat, I used the bathroom, I wiped my nose, etc.) and then STOP, I wash my hands.

Postere: Spalarea mîinilor = Posters: Handwashing

The posters list the proper method for handwashing and are going to be placed above the sinks at the school and at the medical center after they are installed.

Viața fară violența = Life Without Violence

We did a little social theater activity for other students at school and talked about what to do in cases of abuse.

Ziua femeilor = Women's Day

Women's Day is a national holiday in Moldova. Here's a little more about our event.

Hai Moldova și hai Scorțeni = Let's go Moldova and Let's go Scorțeni

This was part of a nation-wide clean-up campaign.

Facem acțiune = Do Actions

This was a physical exercise event. More details on that here.

Mulțumesc pentru un an de suces. = Thanks for a successful year.

Also, thanks to all of YOU for checking out this blog post. : )

Exercițiile Fizice (Say what?!)

Yep, physical exercise.

Beyonce style.

OK, maybe not exactly Beyonce style, but my health club kids, 50+ younger kids who participated, and I exercised today.

We split into three groups and did some aerobic exercises,

some strengthening exercises,

and a bit of flexibility training.

Also these cute little babies came by.

It was a good time.

Did you know that physical exercise can:

Boost your energy levels?

Help you maintain a healthy weight?

Prevent certain chronic diseases?

Improve your mood?

Give you better, more restful sleep?

Be FUN?

Now you know . . . Get on it!

Preventing Infectious Diseases

For the past several months, my grant team and I have been working on a BIG project.

Currently, we don't have sinks at the school or the medical center. This a problem, right? Right. But, it turns out, it's not the root problem.

At a grant-writing conference my partner and I were trained to ask, "Why?" until we reached the problem root. We started with our identified issue:

There are not sinks for hand washing at the school or the medical center.

So, why aren't there sinks at the school and at the medical center? It's not a priority.

Why isn't it a priority? There is a lack of education.

There you have it: The community of Scorțeni had a lack of education regarding methods for the prevention of infectious illnesses. We set to work educating as many members of the community as possible.

At the school, we had an information session with all of the teachers and staff. We talked about methods for preventing infectious illness and focused on the first line of defense: hand washing.

The teachers in turn educated students.

The students (the kids in my health club), in turn, educated younger students through a puppet show and a song.

We wanted to be sure that what students were learning at school would be reinforced and practiced at home, so we also did an education session with parents.

And we didn't just want the parents to be educated, but as many people as possible in our community, so we did education sessions at the medical center for both the medical staff and for as many patients as possible.

We also plan to do some education at the mayor's office and at the church for other community members, but haven't gotten there yet.

Once community members were educated about the importance of hand washing and it became a priority, we asked them to help us with our goal of installing sinks at the school and medical center with financial donations.

Teachers at school and nurses at the medical center each donated 50 lei (about $4.50) to the cause. (A little perspective: The average Moldovan teacher makes around 22oo lei per month and the average Moldovan nurse makes about 14 lei an hour.)

Kids at the school had a penny war.

The winning class had a "Night at the Cinema."

In total, the students raised 3701 lei (about $340).

We also placed donation jars at the mayor's office and at the medical center, wrote donation request letters to some local businesses, and asked for individual donations from community members.

We were able to raise around 9,000 lei in the community. YAY!

With fingers and toes crossed, we presented our project to a group at the Peace Corps in hopes of winning a Small Projects Assistance grant.

WE WERE FUNDED in the amount of $2,440!

If you have not already seen it on Facebook, here is a little video that we put together for our grant presentation:

By September 1, 2011 look for some pictures of sinks and lots and lots of pictures people washing their hands.

By the end of the first semester of 2011, I hope to be reporting a 25% decrease in the number of people addressing the doctor with preventable diseases and a 25% reduction in the number of students missing school due to illness.

YAY PROGRESS!!! : )

Women's Day

March 8th was a big celebration here in Moldova (as well as internationally). We celebrated women and girls across the country with Ziua femeilor, Women's Day. Our school was on a vacation on the 8th, so my health club and I decided to start the celebrations a little early on the March 4th.

We made over 200 little paper corsages with little notes of appreciation (Examples: You're beautiful, You're like a star, You're intelligent, etc.) to hand out to all of the girls and women at school.

We wanted to do a little something extra special for the female teachers and staff, so we practiced and gave hand massages.

Hand massaging was a new thing for the kids so they practiced at home on their mothers. They told me they used oil because they didn't have lotion.

Here are some pictures of the actual event. (I forgot to take pictures of the kids passing out the corsages.)

Translation: Welcome to the massage room.

Translation: We wish you a Happy Women's Day from the Health Club

It was a good time. : )

Life thus far . . .

I'm jumping on the blogging bandwagon a little late. (Sorry, Mom.)

Living in Moldova for the last seven and a half months, I have had lots of great experiences, met many interesting people, learned a lot about a new culture and quite a bit about myself. I most definitely will not be able to summarize all that I have learned or experienced in one blog entry, but here are some of the highlights:

I'm living in a small town of about 2400 people called Scorțeni (pronounced Scort-sen).

Bine ați venit. (Welcome.) Scorțeni is beautiful.

We have a a lake

and hills

and vineyards

and lots of really friendly, generous, and hospitable people.

I live with a wonderful retired couple who have become like family-- meet Tamara and Leonid, aka mama and tata gazda.

I live in my own adorable little house. Here's a view of my front door:

Here at the Frunză household, we like to chill. We read lots of books. We cook and eat a lot of delicious (and some not-so-delicious) foods. We drink house wine. We listen to a lot of the Voice of Basarabia radio station and watch Russian programs on television. We take walks. We occasionally do yoga. We do a little embroidery. We do a lot of discussing.

We have animals- chickens, rabbits, ducks, turkeys, . . .

and a dog named Bagira.

We also have insects- two families of bees. (pictured below with my host niece, Leontina)

We LOVE our lives.

When I am not chilling at home with mama and tata gazda, I'm probably working.

I teach health (with partner teachers) to kids in the 5th-9th grades eight hours a week at the school. I also have a once-weekly after-school health club. The kids are adorable the majority of the time. The minority of the time, when they are not adorable, they make up for it by bringing me apples or being super polite by saying things like "va rog frumos" (rough translation: handsomely, pretty, pretty please). Here's a shot of the school:

I also spend about four hours a week working at the medical center. The Peace Corps is not clinical, so I don't draw blood or give medicine. This is more than okay with me. I was VERY READY for a break from the fast-paced hospital environment when I left.

I really enjoy my work at the medical center where my partner and I write a lot of presentations that we give in the community on various health promotion/disease prevention topics. (We do quite a bit of chilling and tea-sipping here at the medical center as well.) Here it is:

So, you've probably done the math, 8 hours of classes + 1 hour of health club + 4 hours at the medical center = a whopping total of 13 per week, and you're wondering what on earth I do with my OODLES of spare time.

I actually stay pretty busy. I have to prepare for my eight classes per week, which are taught completely in Romanian, a language in which I couldn't have even said hello eight months ago. So researching, reading, writing, and discussing lesson planning take a big chunk of time.

You may have read partner earlier and understood translator. This, is definitely NOT the case. Peace Corps really wants for the work that a volunteer does to be sustainable after the volunteer leaves. For this reason, every project I undertake MUST be undertaken along with a partner. The hope is that by working with me in my two-year term of service, a partner will be capable to work without me after I leave. We work together, write together, and teach/present together ALL IN ROMANIAN.

I (with the exception of the little boy who greets me every morning with "hello" and responds with "thank you" when I ask how he's doing) am the sole English-speaker in my community. So, language learning is important. I do about four hours of Romanian tutoring a week and then a little studying outside of tutoring sessions. Here is a picture of me with my Romanian tutor, Angela:

I'm hoping to start a once-weekly, after-school English club this semester. This would not likely be super sustainable after I leave, but all of my students seem really interested in learning some English, so it should be fun.

Another chunk of my time will soon be consumed with grant proposals and grant ideas as well. I recently attended a grant-writing conference (along with a partner from the community) and am really excited about the possibilities. Soon I hope to be displaying pictures of beautiful new sinks in the school's cafeteria and near the school's outhouses where the kids can wash their hands before lunch and after the bathroom.

Even with all of these activities, there is spare time. A good portion of that spare time is spent missing a lot of you at home. Hopefully blogging will be a good way for us to stay a little more closely connected and will allow you to get a better picture of my life in far-away Moldova.

Thanks for visiting. : )