First day of school

The first day of school was today and it was way different than any other first day of school I have ever had. First though, before school even started, my host mom declared that I wasn't dressed-up enough and went through my closet with me to find better clothes. She, being the wonderful Moldovan woman that she is, choose the only blouse I have with me that has sparkles on it as the shirt I should wear. Then she made me give her the clothes I was going to wear that day so she could iron them before she would let me leave the house. Thank you, mama gaza, for looking out for me. I was then also told that there was too much mud from the rain and that my host dad would be driving me and my host brother and sister to school today (they go to the high school, I work at the elementary school).

I got to school at a little before 8am, the time my partner told me to be there. I had absolutely no idea what to expect, except that I had been told we didn't have any classes to teach today. So I went to the director's office hoping to find out where to go. One of the teachers told me to just take a seat in the office and wait. While I waited I studied the schedule and found out that, at that time, I was only slated to have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. After a while things kicked off and the director told me to follow her.

Apparently, the first day of school in Moldova includes a school assembly, outside, with all of the students and their parents, the teachers, the mayor, and a police officer. Everyone gave speeches, even me (mine was about who I am, what I did in America, and why I'm in Moldova), and the retired school director presented the geography teachers with three new maps for his classroom. Then the kids recited poems and sang songs and gave all of the teachers flowers.

After this I was asked if I would like to observe a homeroom class. Yes, yes I would. I was taken to the eight grade room and listened to a lecture about the Moldovan national poet who recently passed away. The students recited a bunch of poems, seemingly from memory. I'm not sure if they were given a heads up about the topic today or if they all just knew these poems.
After this I went back to the director's office where the schedule was now posted for all of the teachers to see. This is one thing that has been bugging me for about a week. Anyone who knows me knows that I like to know what's going on well in advance. It's taken a lot of patience for me not to freak-out about the fact that the school didn't have a class schedule until the first day of school. I've also been told to expect it to change throughout the year.

While there I finally got to meet my new partner. I'll be teaching one health class a week with her to third graders. She took me up to meet the class, all of whom stood when I walked in, something way different from schools in America. We then proceeded to teach a health class, on the fly, without any lesson plan. Holy crap! Go-go-gadget Romanian language skills. Did get the kids to have a class discussion about why it is important to learn about health, some basic health knowledge, and what they wanted to learn about this year.

After that I was told I was done for the day and that I should go home and be back at the school at 10am the next morning for class. Walked home, took the long rout to avoid as much mud as I could, didn't succeed, and took a nap. I woke up about an hour later to my partner calling to say that our class schedule had already been changed and we don't have classes tomorrow, be at school on Friday for classes, but she doesn't know when they will be yet.

Okay. Learning to go with the flow.