Cheating

I called this post "cheating", because I am planning to cut and paste most of the posting from other sources. Maybe I'll write more, but it's almost midnight here, so I doubt that I will do more than this. The first thing I wanted to share was a poem written by one of my fellow M-22 volunteers, Na'Ima Perkins:

5/15/08
“Moldova – Month 2.5”
People constantly ask me how I like Moldova.
And they watch me intently for a response
I always give the simplest response I know, which is “I like it a lot.”
But the truth is that right now, I like it as much as I like walking into a deep, dark cave in the middle of a pefectly
bright and sunny day.
I like it as much as I do those first terrifying moments when I breach the mouth of a cave and I have difficultly
catching my breath because I cannot sense the true depth of the cavity into which I’ve hurled myself.
It’s at this moment that my reality becomes suspended and my body clamors to adjust to my drastically changed
environment.
All of my senses are engaged to this end.
My eyes struggle to perform their solitary task of illuminating the strange and unknown world I’ve entered,
begging it to unfold and reveal itself to me.
This is the moment that is currently my life.
It has stretched itself unnaturally through time and persists daily.
Don’t get me wrong.
I love caves.
A lot.
A whole lot in fact.
They are wondrous monuments and testaments to the deliciously complex world in which we live and they never cease to amaze or disappoint me.
I will always love exploring caves despite those initial moments of what can only be described as suffocating and alarming.
Once my eyes adjust and I can make out the forms around me and learn to appreciate the complexity that surrounds me, I’m sure that I’ll love Moldova, too.
Until then, I’ll keep trying to catch my breath in the darkness.
- Na’Ima Perkins

Thanks, Na'Ima. Sums it up pretty well...

The other thing that I wanted to include here was an email that I received from another reader, David's mother. David is currently serving here with me, also as a member of our M-22 group. He is in the far north, so I don't imagine I'll see him often. Here is the note I received from his mother, specifically about mail:

Hi Jami,

You don’t know me, but I’m a faithful reader of your blog. My son David is in your M-22 group. He was in Ratus for training; now in Criva. I’m following a few blogs of other Moldovan volunteers; sort of my own sanity preserver for news and reflections on the experience in between times David manages his own blog update.

Anyway, I mail things to David regularly. So far only one package has not made it to the PC office, a box my daughter sent. We think the problem there was that she was too literal in her customs declaration. She recorded ‘chocolate’ and ‘DVD’ where I have been writing ‘motion picture’ and ‘sweet edibles’ on my form, etc. for any word that might be easily recognized.

That doesn’t answer your concern about the greeting cards (how frustrating!!!) but I read a suggestion on yet another volunteer’s blog once, and I think it’s a good one. Suggest to your friends and family that they enclose those cards in a bubble wrap envelope. The bubble envelope adds negligible weight and therefore postage, but it becomes a package instead of a letter and seemingly less likely to be opened to look for money.

I mostly send David books using flat-rate priority mail envelopes. I can usually get two books in there; sometimes I need to open one in the middle to make it flatter. The priority rate (now $11.85 for the envelope) includes insurance on the contents, so if someone mails things of value, like DVDs or books, there’s recourse if it doesn’t arrive. Of course, the postage is already quite the investment! All of my priority mail has arrived, in about 10 days it seems. Maybe the envelope looks somewhat official, and that reduces the temptation to open it.

I wish you luck on your communications. David is able to text message me when he’d like to chat, and so far I’ve always been able to call him, including on his cell phone. It makes all the difference in the world, for those of us at home as well as for David, I think.

Sincerely,


Carol

So there is my cheating blog. Better than nothing, a good poem and some good advice about mail. I'll write again this week-end about the week, but it's been slow. Later, 'gator. Jami