Ziua Absolventiilor

As I stood in the middle of a circle of dancers and sang with liveВ accompaniment to a crowd of over 100 people from my village, one thought kept coming to mind: "This is better than any five-year reunion my high school could have had."

For those who dread the American high school reunion, a gathering of the 20 people you hung out with and another 200 whom you never talked to, Moldova offers a slightly different solution. Every year, on the first Saturday of February, the current graduating class puts on a reunion dinner for the graduates of five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, etc. In my village, the graduating class is usually fewer than 20 students, and the students become close after sitting in the same classroom together for 30 hours a week for 11 years—select members of my inner circle may remember that this stifling social situation is what I despise most about my elementary Catholic schooling, but it seems to work fine in Moldova, and it bypasses the whole "I have no idea who that person is" problem.

The dinner was scheduled to start at 6 p.m. I came at 7 p.m. and was the fourth teacher to show up; as far as timing goes, I'm on my way toward being Moldovan, but I'm not there yet. The 11th graders opened the ceremony with some poems and songs, which is the only way to start any ceremony in this country. Then the students took the microphone to each group of graduates and asked them a few questions, such as what they remembered most about school, what advice they had for the current graduating class, and other questions. The question to one of the 15-year graduates was "What was the first poem you learned in school, and could you please recite it?" The woman thought for a moment, then looked in my direction from across the cafeteria and recited the English poem that every Moldovan knows:

"Good morning. Good morning.

Good morning to you.

Good morning, dear teacher.

It's nice to see you."

Cue the applause and laughter. I made a gesture to her that was half a tip of the hat and half telling her that she was now permitted to take her seat for class. For the record, I have admonished students in my eighth grade class for using the phrase "dear teacher," and I will immediately fail any student of mine who recites this poem in class.

Another graduate was of great interest to me. He was a 30 year old named Sergiu, and is an economist and translator who routinely works in France and England. When asked by the 11th graders to say a few words, he spoke inspirationally on the virtues of coming from the countryside. Because of the comparative weakness of the education system in the villages and because of the increasing status of living in Chisinau as Moldova develops, villagers who move to the city can develop quite an inferiority complex. Although he was addressing the 11th graders, I think Sergiu spoke to everyone in the room when he told them to never be ashamed to come from the village. He quoted a Frenchman who said that the best wine and the best people come from the countryside. "Be proud to be from the village," he told his audience. "You have an experience that others will never have."

There is some truth to this. I already feel different after just eight months living in a village; I barely do any of the manual labor associated with village life, but there are plenty of other village experiences that people who stay in America or Chisinau will never experience. Waiting 30 minutes on the side of the road for transportation in the freezing cold just so I can pick up a package and buy a bucket and pens, as I did this morning, builds patience. Teaching for more than a month with temperatures in my classroom hovering between 3Вє and 10Вє C (37-50Вє F) makes me appreciate the things that city-dwellers take for granted. I think that Sergiu is correct; village life here is an important part of many people's "roots," just as life in the projects is a vital formative experience for the Americans who are able to attend college, find good work and move on to a better life. What Sergiu didn't say in his short speech is that only the best achievers and the luckiest people are able to escape the village. The majority of villagers seem to alternate between working locally for less than $60 a month and performing menial labor while living abroad illegally.

When I talked with Sergriu later—he spoke English perfectly with a slight mix of Moldovan and Scottish accents—he admitted that the opportunities are fewer here. What I gathered from his tone is that while it is difficult to come out of the village and have success, that is not the message that young people need to hear. There is enough negativity in their lives, and they need encouragement. As I write this, I realize that I should get his phone number from his family so that I can have him speak to my students. His number won't be difficult to find, since giving my host dad a brief physical description and his first name got me Sergiu's last name and the location of the house where his parents live.

As for the people who had already graduated and were currently eating dinner and dancing, they were partying like mad Moldovans. I was asked to dance many times by members of the 2001 class, and so I joined them.В  It was fitting, since I had also graduated high school five years ago. We danced to all sorts of music, including the Chicken Dance, which is inexplicably popular at parties in Moldova and has its own Romanian lyrics.

At about midnight, my director and assistant director both came to me, begging me to sing. It didn't take too much prodding, although IВ feignedВ resistance. I was escorted toward the keyboard player and was told to sing the melody for him. He learned it quickly, and we were ready to go.

My introduction was brief, and I was handed the microphone. I sang "Buna seara, mandro buna," the same song I sang with the other Costesti men at our swearing-in ceremony. I nailed it, and the surrealness of it all was completed with about 25 people dancing the hora around me, stepping gingerly over my microphone cable. I have now been recruited to sing in some sort of faculty talent show later in the semester, and I think I will renew my effort to learn some more Moldovan songs. Soon, I'll be like Bill Murray at the piano at the end of Groundhog Day, able to crank out a classic crowd-pleaser with only a moment's thought.

I left the party at 1:15 a.m. so that I could wake up and go to Chisinau the next morning. I was one of the first to leave; the party lasted until after 5 a.m. I'll have to see if I can repeat my traditional Moldovan singing at my own high school class's 10-year reunion.