Dictionary launch

The other day Ingrid, one of the other volunteers, and myself went to the launch of the Oxford Univeristy Press’s new dictionary. I was interested and thoguht it may be a good laugh.

It was incredibly weird. The dictionary was advertised as “THE BEST DICTIONARY EVER”. something that the organisers of the event did not want us to forget as they kept on repeating this throughout the night.

This greek woman gave a sort of “interactive speech” on how to use a dictionary and came out with some really crazy stuff, like “the dictionary is your friend, you shoudl treat it as though it is a human being. You should walk through it” (walking through a human being is a pretty gross thoguht, but anyway). It was a sort of guide for teachers as to how to use the dictionary.

However, there is one problem with all of this. The dictionary – surprisingly for the oxford university press, which is a reputable publishing company in my opinion – only allows you to look up English words and the definitions in Romanian. And not the other way round, which means that it is of little use to be honest. Hardly “the best dictionary ever”. Good god.

I’ve not been feeling very good lately. I miss the UK and there is some other stuff which I don’t really want to write about in case someone reads it. Sufficed to say that I am really sick of being shouted at in Russian for really stupid things like not wearing slippers even when it is warm.

One other thing …

… I miss the UK.

I never realised how much until now.

I miss Marmite and Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate.

I miss going to Asian shops in Reading and those weird sweets they sell.

I miss going to a shop and actually being able to pay for your purchases with a card rather than cash.

I miss fucking Subway and Chicken Base ffs.

That is all.

Finally!

This week has been very busy. I’ve finally started at Winrock, which I am very pleased about. Got a lot of stuff to do for them too, such as planning the halloween party. I am so pleased I’ve staretd there as everyone seems to be so nice. Last night my colleague helped my flatmate Lies find a present for a friend she is going to stay with in a village near Soroca.

Unfortunately I’m not well so although I was meant to be going to a training today I chose to stay at home and dose up on paracetamol. I have however purchased two pairs of nice thermal trousers

Been an interesting week, anyway …

Things are starting to get very cold here, after two months of it basically being t-shirt and short weather. It may mean that I can’t check my emails and the like at the weekend as it’s too cold to go into town to get to a library or anything.

I had a really nice evening last night, we went to this restaurant called “Bierplatz” which is … well. It’s like a parody of a German-themed theme park, complete with accordion players wearing lederhosen. It was a bit bizarre to put it mildly, especially since I’ve been told by a few people that it’s a “cool” place to go …

This week, Clowns without Borders came and put on a show at the refugee centre where I work, and at the reception centre (in a field outside the reception centre). The first time I didn’t really think much of it but the second performance they did was actually very good, even though I don’t usually like circus stuff with clowns (I prefer acrobatics, trapeze artists etc). They were really nice people, too, and there’s a possibility that next weekend they’ll do a circus skills workshop. I knew a few people into that sort of thing at uni and I always wanted to get into it but never really had the time, etc, and I wasn’t really very good.

I’ve also managed to somehow come down a clothes size, even though the food I’ve been eating seems to be very fattening. It’s probably the amount of walking I’ve been doing …

Day of Chisinau

Yesterday was an interesting day. I spent most of the day on a stall for the Charity Centre for Refugees, selling African artworks. It was really good fun. It’s been quite a good week in many ways. We met some Swedish clowns at the refugee centre who put on a show, and last night was spent drinking with them as they showed us tricks.

The whole of the main street was closed for a carnival type thing with loads of stalls, markets and music, and perfomances from the various parts of Chisinau, as well as an open air concert later on. If it reminded me of anything it reminded me of the Notting Hill Carnival or of protests I’ve been on. Chisinau is great as there is always stuff going on, usually for free

Last night there was a terrorist attack here, apparently one guy with a grenade. It must have been just after me and my flatmate left as as we were walking past I saw police and loads of cars, and something must have happened. The concert was cancelled thirty minutes afterwards. Apparently 40 people have been injured, by a grenade or something

I’ve only just found out about this now from a friend, it’s fucking horrible

Zdob şi Zdub

On Monday, I went to a free (!) rock concert of this Moldovan band. The German embassy were putting on a show to celebrate 20 years since the Berlin wall came down.

I wasnţ expecting to like the music, especiallx because in my opinion the German band who had been invited to play by the embassy left something to be desired.

But Zdob şi Zdub are really really talented and Id happily buzy their CDs, theyre one of the best bands I’ve heard in a long time. They don’t just play one genre of music, they play loads of different styles, rock, electro, folk, ska etc, and some rapping(!!) and they put on a really great live performance. Sometimes bands aren’t so good live but this didn’t seem to happen here.

Moldovans certainly know how to party …

Yesterday I taught more English classes, this time to a husband and wife who go to the Charity Centre. It was quite funny because I was tryign to talk about the importance of using good grammar in really, really bad Romanian …

Pensioners’ protest

This week, some strange things have been happening with the public transportation system here. There’s been a new government in Moldova and they’ve decided to raise the prices of public transport. A trolleybus, before now, cost 1 lei at a time, which is around 5p. Now, the government have raised it to two lei, apparently because of the economic crisis.

This has caused quite a few protests, and also because in Moldova, pensioners used to go free on public transport, like they do in the UK. Now they can’t – although they can today apparently, because today is “national pensioners’ day” or something. It’s meant that the trolleybuses are going really strange directions, and ending up in a different place to where you expect them to stop. The old people on the protests are carrying signs saying stuff like, “Stop the genocide of pensioners!”

Today I was on the bus and I was given a fine for absolutely no reason at all even though i’d already paid, as were several other people, and I got off feeling quite confused! To be honest I think it’s because people are unhappy about this price thing, it’s getting cold (and the government have also put up the prices for heating one’s home, etc) and they want to flex their muscles a bit and show that they mean business. Not especially good …