Can you tell that we like Photoshop?

I don’t know if I mentioned before to anyone but I picked up some classes at one of the German schools here in Bucharest.  So if you are trying to figure it all out in your head, I am teaching English at a German school in Romania.  I know, it sounds strange.  Even stranger is the fact that I find myself teaching English to kids that don’t even know how to read.  And those of you who know me know that I absolutely loathe little kids but I continue to find myself stuck with them.

I don’t know if anyone has seen that blockbuster of a movie, “Kindergarten Cop”, but Aaahnold’s first class experience in the movie (where the kids pretty much just go ape-shit) is what I go through for about 30 minutes every Thursday.  Even worse, the Governator’s role in the movie and my real-life role are kind of reversed because I don’t know any German, and ol’ Schwarzenegger still doesn’t know any English (kidding… God!).

Thankfully the class is only for 30 minutes.  But then I have the “older kids” (i.e. 2^nd graders) for another 30 minutes.  I do get paid though, praise Jesus.  The older kids are actually my saving grace because they can comprehend the English language, and they can even read and write!  This makes mass-producing worksheets and taking up class time so much easier.  Plus, there are no stupid songs and singing involved.  All I have to do is keep my eye out for the booger-pickers and chastise them in front of the whole group in English and that pretty much solves the problems on its own.

The kindergartners are another story.  They are evil incarnate.  They haven’t yet learned that they should turn against each other and make fun of their classmates who have their fingers up their noses.  Even worse, they don’t understand English, and I don’t understand the language of these descendents of the “godless hordes” who defended themselves against the Roman Empire.  In Romanian, Germans are commonly referred to as “nemti”, which literally translates as “barbarians”.  It becomes obvious as to why they received this moniker after working with one of the worst German inventions ever, the kindergarten.

Every parent wants their precious child to be fluent in millions of languages and fortunately enough I happen to be a native speaker of one of the most sought-after languages in the world, English… and I have to make a living somehow.  The problem is not that the parents want their little German/Romanian-speaking angel to be completely fluent in the world’s dominant language but that the kids themselves don’t care to learn a friggin’ word of English.  They just want to play/fight/cry/pick boogers with each other in a language that they can communicate in.  And that’s not English.  I really can’t blame them though.

I usually come in about an hour ahead of time, plan a lesson, take a deep breath and head to the classroom.  The kids have been showing up earlier and earlier since their parents have gotten word that there is a native English speaker in town and the other teachers (pretty much all female) get a kick out of this quasi-homeless-looking American dude trying to teach colors to kids who don’t even know how to dress themselves.

Lately I have had the luxury of working with one of the other teachers who sits there and translates everything I say to the kids so they adequately understand the rules of “duck duck goose”, “Simon says”, and “head, shoulders, knees and toes”.  The kids continue to not care though.  I really wish they understood everything I say to them because sometimes I can use some pretty flowery English words.  Those don’t always get translated.  The bad thing is that the translating kindergarten teacher brings all the kids she’s supposed to be watching with her and it’s all of a sudden double booger-picking time.

All of that being said, I have already achieved one of my most rewarding experiences ever as an educator.  One of the kindergarten parents wrote a thank-you note to the German school’s class coordinator which found its way to me.  Here’s what it said:

I am writing to you in relation with the new English language professor, as I feel that you equally need positive feedback for outstanding results. Since the new professor took off the English language lessons, I have noticed an impressive progress in [nose spelunker]'s ability to express herself in English, as well as a genuine interest in English language - which was not the case before. She is asking me to watch cartoon movies in English instead of Romanian, she became - almost overnight - able to express herself in English and she is happy to talk about the English lessons and the English teacher, 'who only knows English, Mom, so we have to help him out by making the effort of talking in English to him'. She is always happy to anticipate the English lessons and has an extra-reason to enjoy the Thursdays in kindergarten.

Please receive my sincere congratulations for your choice and my gratitude for my child's amazing progress. Until I will personally meet and greet the teacher, please pass these congratulations to him as well.

Mit freundlichen Grussen,

-Mrs. Booger-Picker’s Mom

Ok, so that’s not entirely fair… her daughter has never been caught digging for goober goblins and she’s actually very pleasant to have in class.  I just really don’t understand why, after 6 years of working with smelly children and painful teenagers professionally, this is the first bit of positive feedback that I have ever received.  Ever.  I mean… I’m supposed to have one of those “Dangerous Minds”/”Stand and Deliver”/”Lean on Me” etc. experiences  after working in some of the most jacked-up places in the US and poorest villages in Europe. 

Why do I finally get a movie-worthy letter like this teaching kids who have trophy moms waiting outside the kindergarten for them in their 2010 Audis with German plates, and all I had to do was teach a few 30-minute sessions on Thursdays?  I mean… I went through things way worse than anything you saw in the movies and I think the best feedback that I got was getting cussed out a little bit less severely on the phone by someone’s mom or talked to a little less condescendingly by an overpaid boss.  I should have been in Romania this whole time!  What was I thinking?!

Ok, just had to get that off my chest.  I feel better now.  I really like the folks at the German school, so I was just kidding about all that barbarian talk.  All in all, spending my days having occasional lessons and making a fraction of what I made in the US is overall still better than how things were when we were home.  The kids here really aren’t that bad.  This is where I will leave it for today.  Got to go get a haircut for the first time in over a year!  More on this later.

The Jiu-Jitsu Jesus and Me

So I just got back from about 5 days in Moldova.  Every time I get back to Romania I always breathe a sigh of relief because it means no more Russian.  For a while I always thought it was because I had a deep-seeded hate for the language; Russian has always kind of sounded like nails on a chalkboard to me.  But I think I have changed my mind on where this sense of relief comes from, deciding that the culprits are God-awful Russian pop music and movies that are dubbed in Russian.

My 5 days in Moldova were spent with a guy named Christ… er… Christian from Denmark who is traveling the world, teaching Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in exchange for a place to sleep and food to eat (see my last post and check out his blog for more pictures and stories).  Since we went to Chisinau, we spent time with lots of Russian speakers and obviously there was a lot of Russian going on.  This didn’t bother me so much I think because I enjoyed the company.

Then came the bus rides.  Guess what was playing on the radios, TV screens and passengers’ cell phones (occasionally at the same time)?  You guessed it.  Crappy Russian stuff.  Don’t get me wrong, one of my favorite songs of all time is “Chornye Glaza”, and it’s in Russian.  But if you can find anything redeemable about the music like this then please let me know.  Also, if you can find anything that tickles your fancy about Nicholas Cage screaming something in a particularly harsh, unintelligible language at 3am while you are trying to sleep, then you are crazy.  For real.

ANYWAY…

So we picked Christian up at the crap-tastic Baneasa airport (also see my earlier post for a description of this airport) and got him to Jiu-Jitsu practice.  He was super tired as he just came in from France but he got right in to it and showed some fancy-pants techniques to the Bucharest crew.  Christian fielded some questions about Jiu-Jitsu, his travels and why he was only spending less than 24 hours in Romania while at the same time he would be spending 5 days in that armpit of a country, Moldova.  And by the way did we know that Moldova used to be part of Romania?  The fact that anyone would want to see Moldova is always something that is difficult to explain to Romanians, I think because many feel that they need a hierarchy of crappiness and Moldova is consistently below Romania on their list.

The next day we went on a quick walking tour of parts of Bucharest.  If we would have had more time we would have went to a park because Bucharest has awesome parks.  We didn’t have much time so we went to a more historical district of Bucharest that, like most of Bucharest, is still “under construction”.  Christian got some good pictures and then we went to Jiu-Jitsu practice again.  Christian introduced some cool new warm-ups and positioning techniques, took some pictures with all his new disciples and then went back to our apartment to get ready for the bus to Chisinau.

We picked up a hamburger from “Spring Time”, a Romanian fast-food joint that should probably just be closed down because they have some sad hamburgers and not much else.  Amazingly there was a long line and we got our food just in time to eat before we got on the bus.  Christian, Sandu and I were just riding along, minding our own business. I was going over the cultural rules of the Moldovan village with Christian while Sandu was glued to the Russian garbage blasting on the TV when all of a sudden the bus started skidding out of control.

Then, a brilliant burst of light came from the sky.  It engulfed the entire bus and seemed otherworldly and I was totally focused on this fact probably so that I could forget for a second that we were in the middle of a car crash.  The light turned out to be just some snow flying over the bus with the bus’ headlights shining on it.  Miraculously we hit one of the only places on the side of the road with no trees.  Also, just as miraculously there happened to be a big snow plow coming from the other direction.  It took about 20 minutes to pull the huge bus out of the snow bank and get back on the road.  I looked at my travel companion next to me and wondered if he understood the extent of our luck.  He seemed eerily un-phased as if he expected this to happen.  Like this was all part of the plan. We pressed on into the night.

We arrived in Cahul at about 1:30am with no problems at the border and as I pulled out my map, trying to make sense of these strange markings on my piece of paper, we made our way toward our place to crash for the night.  I was unable to translate the strange hieroglyphs that made up the map.  Luckily there was a savior among us.  Within minutes, Christian walked us down the street to the correct apartment and we slept the whole night, long into the morning after manually blowing up an air mattress and eating some tasty food (thanks, Na’Ima!). Christian seemed disappointed that we insisted he sleep on the mattress and not in the manger but he was kind of tall so we insisted.

The next morning we ate a hearty brunch at Na’Ima’s (thanks again!) and went to one of the classiest establishments in the city, “La Placinta”.  We ordered some placinta, which is kind of like a small pie but with various things in the middle like meat or potatoes, cheese or cabbage.  We also ordered what I expected to be water because that’s obviously what I always order at such a fine place as “La Placinta”, but it turned out to be wine.  This was strange.  Again, Christian was un-phased, as if he expected this to happen.  We enjoyed our order and pressed on to the village.

I gave a quick tour to our guest as Sandu went on his way.  We decided to meet up with him the next day at 12pm to recruit a couple Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu teams.  We agreed to meet at the local bar and later on that night we went to the bone-chilling village bar and had a few drinks.  Unfortunately we couldn’t move on to the village “discoteca” because, as the bartender put it, she wasn’t going to do anything unless some girls showed up.  They never showed so it was just a bunch of dudes, some beer and some vodka.  Christian said something about fish and bread but all that showed up was more beer.

We slept well in our respective rooms, under our respective “Hello Kitty” blankets with a little bit of heat from the stove and a lot of alcohol to keep us warm.  We woke up in the morning and as I enjoyed some Russian TV, Christian went to the old sports hall to take some pictures.  We met at twelve and struggled to get some kids together for some Jiu-Jitsu.  Luckily we happened upon the mayor and the former mayor of the village (who is now one of the vice-directors of the school).  They said it would be no problem to open up the gym and do some training.

I met up with one of the other vice-directors later on and although she was happy to see me, she wasn’t trying to let us do any Jiu-Jitsu training whatsoever for whatever nonsensical internal reason she had.  I assured her that we had been given the OK by the mayor so it was all good.  We went to see the gym teacher who is also Sandu’s dad and along with showing us some fabulous gymnastic moves on the parallel bar, he gave us an extra key to get into the school just in case and he helped us get the mats set up for our training.

We met outside the school at 4pm for the training.  It was the little guys’ turn first and we sat outside and joked until everyone showed.  We went to get dressed and watched as their eyes lit up as they got their gis on.  Some of them were new to the gis and belts so we had to demonstrate how to put on a belt and all that.  Christian did some fun drills and games and afterward we had a little time to roll before the bigger kids came in.  Most of the kids were new to Jiu-Jitsu so it was fun showing the ropes to the new generation of Burlacu fighters.

Sandu went outside to meet the bigger kids and after getting dressed and warming up, we had the chance to go over some new moves and drills for them too.  It was really good because these were all drills they could do regardless of the level that they understood the real game.  The Jiu-Jitsu Jesus was getting cold so we shut down slightly early and headed to Sandu’s house.  We engaged in some typical conversation with the family, including “how much money do you make”, and “what is better, Moldova or Denmark”.  This was normal of course.

The next morning we went to “the big city” (Chisinau).  Christian declined to check out the worst public bathroom in the country along the way after having already seen the bathroom at the school the previous day.  Good choice.  Upon reaching Chisinau, I decided to hunt down one of the notorious bus stop Moldovan hamburgers for Christian before going to our next training.  He ordered two.

One of my old acquaintances, Vanya, said that he would meet us at the bus stop.  Up until this point we were referring to him and his colleagues as “the ninjas”.  This was in part due to a misnomer that had long been established before we even decided to meet the guys.  Vanya didn’t appear in a poof of smoke before our eyes wearing all black so we decided that he wasn’t a ninja after all.  Vanya was actually one of the instructors at a traditional Jiu-Jitsu school that I had trained at the previous summer and they wanted to meet Jesus and learn some new stuff.

Even though Christian hadn’t walked on water over to Chisinau, he was treated like he had.  He was afforded the very best of Moldovan hospitality, getting taken all over the city and I was lucky enough to be along for the ride.  Since the translating situation switched to a Russian one, I was finally off the hook as far as translations go.  Christian wasn’t so fortunate with the questions.  It was a non-stop wide-eyed question-and-answer fest for the entire stint.  We went for an afternoon practice session with some of the guys where Christian was filmed, sufficiently interrogated and commented on for a couple hours.  I have never seen such a display of admiration for another person in real life before this.  He was the man who would bring a new philosophy of life, and only he knew how this religion worked.

At the end both Christian and I received one of the most awesome t-shirts I have ever owned.  It read “BJJ Globetrotter, Martisor Grappling Fest”, and then it had the name of their school along with the location of the event.  I will probably keep this t-shirt for years to come.  After the umpteenth round of photos, some of which I was asked to participate in (and not just holding the camera!) we went to take a shower and then were treated to lunch by Vanya, Kiril and Alexei (aka “Sensei”).

We went on a quick driving tour of the city in Sensei’s car and then went to the huge wrestling/Judo hall where there were adults and kids warming up for the seminar.  The entire group had a grim look on their faces and it was clear that this grappling fest was a serious matter.  Nobody was laughing.  The Jiu-Jitsu Jesus turned to me and said something to the effect of, “my son, I will bring smiles to the faces of my disciples”.  I wasn’t entirely convinced that this would work but I agreed to help him with whatever he needed.

We warmed up with some body mechanic drills and there was not a smile being cracked on any of the hard faces in the sports hall.  Even the kids were concentrating so hard on the silly techniques that they had no time to enjoy themselves.  I happened to be laughing like a fool because my belly was preventing me from moving as flawlessly as Christian.  The next drill was the “sumo” drill and it was guaranteed to make people start laughing.  Or so I thought.  Half the group was smiling and having fun and the other half was seriously trying to win at this ridiculous game.  How could you not laugh at a game called “sumo”?

Finally, we played “the Jiu-Jitsu Virus” game.  This game is the same idea as “bulldog”, or any other name for that one game where a couple guys stay in the middle of the floor and try to scoot around, tackling others on the ground and then they become “viruses”, or “bulldogs” as well.  People were absolutely smiling and laughing after this game.  Christian had reached his goal but his teachings weren’t over yet.  We transitioned to the “non-stop grappling fest”, where one guy with a stop-watch times 3 minutes for wrestling with one partner and then one minute for switching partners and then you start all over again.

I rolled with Christian for the first 3 minutes and I was totally schooling him of course but then he used the power of his magnetic personality to attract Sensei to wrestle with for the second round.  I never saw him again.  He stayed on the first mat, surrounded by his new followers watching in awe while I rolled around with the kids for about an hour or so.  After a while people stopped paying attention to the timer guy and everyone was just watching Christian roll with the big wigs.

After all the pictures and talking and rolling, Sensei came to me with a huge grin on his face saying that he had never been beat like that before.  He was a convert.  We went out for some tea afterwards and then we went to see a picturesque view of the city at night in Sensei’s car.  They said that in addition to teaching traditional Jiu-Jitsu and self-defense techniques, they would also concentrate on learning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.  I agreed to bring out more top-level grapplers should they happen to come through the area.

The next day we went to Transnistria to meet up with Andrey, my friend from Tiraspol.  We didn’t know what to expect but we heard rumors that we would go to a Tae Kwon Do school.  We got through the “border”, no problem and went to have some tea with Andrey.  I finally got to meet his daughter who was quiet and crawling around the house.  Maybe Christian had some sort of calming effect because the dog didn’t bark and there were no crying baby noises in the house.  On our way out we saw a switch-blade lying in the middle of the street.  We didn’t know what to do except to take some pictures.  We picked up the blade and moved it out of the street just when Andrey’s wife came around the corner.  She told us to keep it so I folded it up and put it in my pocket.

Armed with a pocket full of Transnistrian Rubles and a Transnistrian switch-blade, we made our way to get another burger.  After a surprisingly sub-par meal at “Andy’s Pizza”, we walked around the city, took pictures, got some cognac for people at home and then headed back to Chisinau.  The next day we went to visit Petru, the head of the Judo Federation of Moldova.  He promised Christian that he would be going to Denmark soon to visit, and of course Christian welcomed him.  We didn’t get the full Judo Federation experience because we met Petru in the hotel lobby instead of his office.  Maybe next time.

We went for some coffee with Vanya who informed us that they had tried some of the exercises and warm-ups that Christian had showed and that they decided that Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was something that they would start trying to learn with more effort.  Christian was very inspiring, telling them that he had started his program from scratch with just some youtube videos to help.  We said goodbye to Vanya and headed for the airport.

Christian checked in, we shook hands and said goodbye, and then just like that the Jiu-Jitsu Jesus ascended into the heavens in a Turkish Airlines passenger jet.  I was on my own now and I headed to the center to buy my bus ticket for Bucharest.  I had a good meal, got on the bus and put my headphones in to drown out the horrible Russian pop music playing on the radio.  The border experience was one of the most bootleg experiences I have yet to have at the Romania-Moldova border.

After waiting for about a half hour for the border patrol to show up, the Moldovan border guard asked if I had any cigarettes and asked me to open my bag to prove it.  He saw that I had some cognac but he totally missed the Transnistrian switch-blade at the bottom of the bag.  As I zipped up the bag I was asked if I had any marijuana.  I laughed and said no.  The guard wasn’t laughing but he let me by.

We drove for one minute to the Romanian check point and after waiting for another half hour the guards showed up and asked us to put our bags through an x-ray machine.  This was the first time I had seen the machine actually working.  I put my bag on the conveyor belt and guess what?  Yup, they didn’t see any evidence of any illegal amounts of cognac or switch-blades.  I went through and got back on the bus.

Unfortunately my mp3 player ran out of battery life half-way through the trip and I was trapped in my own version of hell at about 2am.  Despite plenty of open seats on the bus, one guy had to sit right next to me by the window and talk loudly on a cell phone while Russian pop music blared in the background.  I didn’t sleep until after I got home, took a shower, and passed right out in my nice warm bed next to my wife.

The Jiu-Jitsu Jesus was on to his next adventure in Ankara and I was fully enjoying warmth, silence and cleanliness for the first time in a week.  Hopefully Christian will continue having success teaching his way of life to the masses but I think it’s gonna take a lot to beat this trip to an unknown country full of forgotten people.  Despite the Russian, the cold, and the chaos, I would go back in a heartbeat.  I love Moldova, and their people won’t be forgotten to me.  I have no problem bringing the next Jiu-Jitsu Buddha, the Submission Wrestling Muhammad or the MMA Zeus to visit one of my most favorite places on earth.