A Gypsy's tale in Moldova: 2011 International Writing Olympics

Daniel and I with his award certificate

The I.W.O. is a creative writing competition that was created by Peace Corps volunteers in Armenia a few years back and currently has extended to include 11 Peace Corps countries from all over the world, including Moldova, the Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Albania, Georgia, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Mongolia.

This is only the second year being held here in Moldova and I was very excited to have the opportunity for my students to participate. It is offered to students from 6th form all the way up to the university level and each form/grade was given three writing prompts and they get to choose which one they like best.

I posted a sign about when the event was going to be held and offered two different days that they could come, in case one day was better than the other. I went out and bought 25 little notebooks and was hoping I would get some students to show up. Some of my students seemed a little worried, they had to write an essay, in English….which sounded difficult, but I told them that the essays would be judged by creativity solely and not grammar or spelling mistakes. This seemed to ease some of their worries.

The first day of the competition, I only got a few students that showed up, but I would have been happy even if just one had shown up. I figured that the 10 students total who decided by their own free will to participate in an essay writing competition in English was a huge success for me, and next year, there would be more students.

I later turned in the essays to Peace Corps where they were to be judged by a group of volunteers and Peace Corps staff. I then received an email stating that one of my students in the 6th form had received 2nd place in the essay competition! How exciting! At school the next day, I told my student that he had placed in the competition and now was invited to a reception at the Peace Corps office in Chisinau on April 18th to receive his award and meet the other students who had placed. He was very excited about this, and since it was on a Monday, we both got to miss a day of school to attend.

I couldn’t have been happier for my student, Daniel. He is the first student at my school to have caught my attention because of his love of the English language and his eagerness to learn. He is also pretty darn cute! He always tells me that he loves America and is always happy to talk to me in English and ask me questions about music, family and friends. He also told me that I was his new favorite teacher when I first started the school year, which made me smile.

Opening the door to Peace Corps

So the day of the event, I met Daniel at school and we then caught a taxi to the bus station in our raion center, which is only a few minutes away by car. Normally the 2 hour bus/rutiera ride to Chisinau is boring one, and I usually just listen to my iPod and/or nod off and fall asleep but sitting with Daniel, there was no time for that. He asked me tons of questions about my life back in California and places where I had traveled to and I think it was the most interesting rutiera ride to Chisinau thus far. A lot of people stared at us because we were speaking English the whole trip but I didn’t mind. When we arrived at the bus station in Chisinau, we had a little bit of time to kill so I suggested we go to the piaţa (open air market) because I needed to buy a few things. He offered to help me buy things at the piaţa from the vendors, and was a little surprised when he saw me talk to them without a problem. He was very anxious to get to Peace Corps and kept asking me where the office was and I assured him that it was just around the corner. I thought it was cute when we got to the building and I asked him to pose for a picture before we went in and he told me that he “had emotions,” which when translated properly from Romanian means he was excited.

Walking into Peace Corps

I took a lot of pictures of him at Peace Corps, gave him a tour, and he met a lot of volunteers and other students who participated in the competition and had placed just like him. After the wonderful reception, we went to MallDOVA, which is the shopping mall in Chisinau where we had lunch at Mc Donald’s, did a little bit of shopping and then came back to our village, after a long, exciting day. I know Daniel had a fun day and loved every minute of it and it made me smile and remember why I left my home for 2 years to come to Moldova…..for moments like this.