Folclor

I often have dreams in which I have to go onstage, not knowing the plot of a play or the words of any of its songs. In my dreams, I'm never that worried about not knowing what I'm doing; I just go up and do my best.

During today's school play about Moldovan traditions, my dream of unpreparedness became real, and I totally winged it.

The play, as I had gathered from attending only one rehearsal, centered on a husband and wife, played by two 9th-grade students, as they hosted a party for dozens of friends, who sat in a circle, knitted, told jokes and sang songs, "just like in the old days". My part was to sit on a stool close to the hosts, have a short, unscripted dialogue with the wife, and then lead that dialogue into a song that I would sing solo with accordion and flute accompaniment. Later, I would dance the hora with everyone else in the final number.

The song was the least of my worries. I had sung "Buna Seara, Mandro, Buna" many times before, even in the exact same assembly hall that I would sing it in today. But other than the three minutes in which I would sing my song, what else was I going to do on stage? I asked my school's principal, Mrs. Maria, who was also the stage director for the play, this exact question less than one hour before the performance. It didn't seem to bother her that in the 20 minutes between my entrance at the beginning of the play and the time when I sang my song, I had nothing to do and didn't know any of the words to any of the songs the kids were singing. If it didn't bother her, it didn't bother me.

In the fourth minute of the play, I made my entrance, Mrs. Maria feeding me my line two seconds before I needed to say it: "Will you welcome me, too?" I sat down next to the hosts, certain that even though I was sitting on a low stool, I was still blocking the audience's line of sight to several of the 7th, 8th, and 9th-grade girls who were sitting on a table behind me.

Each of the 25 girls in the circle—compared with four boys—was holding some sort of knitting work or another item that you can find in a Moldovan home economics classroom. The kids traded scripted jokes, stories, riddles and tongue-twisters, and joined together several times to sing songs. Even though all of my theatrical experience was in school, choir and church productions and ended before I entered high school, I knew what I was supposed to do in this situation: realize that anyone could be looking at me at any given time, always turn toward whoever was speaking, and mouth fake words to any song that the kids sang so that it wasn't obvious that I didn't know the words. I did that much well.

Then it came time for my big scene. Diana, the 9th-grade host, stood and asked me several questions:

"Mr. Peter [even though everything else was in Romanian, she still said, 'Mr. Peter'], in the time that you've lived here, what traditions have you liked?"

"I've enjoyed all the food in Moldova, and I like how you sing and dance."

"Have you learned any of our traditions?"

"Well, I've learned how to dance in the Moldovan style, and also how to sing Moldovan songs."

"Could you sing us one this evening?

"No problem."

I stood up, the accordion started, and I began to sing.

It was not my best performance of the song, because I have three very memorable performances of it under my belt: once at the Peace Corps Swearing-In ceremony with the other guys from my summer training village in my first three months of living in Moldova; another at last year's school alumni dinner, where we were all a little liquored up; and last summer, when I was vacationing in Romania with my sister and a friend and surprised them one night by performing it with the musicians at a restaurant in Brasov.

It wasn't my best performance, but it was the one during which I thought the most. In the song, the singer says goodbye to his love as they see each other for the last time before he joins the army for two years. When I learned the song at the beginning of my two years of service, the lyrics hit me personally, as I had just left America and for two years would be away from the people and country that I love. But as I faced an audience full of students, over 150 of which I teach at least one subject and sang the words, "I leave you with goodwill, because I'm leaving you today," I nearly choked up as I realized that the tables had turned. Mereseni was no longer my two-year assignment; it was the home that I would be leaving in less than six months. I settled myself, sang the final two verses, and received applause as I returned to my seat on stage.

The kids continued the play with other songs, me mouthing the words the whole time. After my solo, however, Mrs. Maria seemed to have noticed that I didn't have anything to do. She told one of my 7th graders who was sitting behind me to give me her ball of yarn. For the rest of the performance, I held the yarn that Vica was knitting with, slowly un-spooling it so she would have enough to work with; whenever I didn't feed her the yarn fast enough, she would tug on the yarn to get my attention, and I would continue giving her material to work with.

Then the final dance came. The older students left the stage to dance in front of it, leaving the younger students to dance in their own circle on stage. Since I am much closer in height to my 7th, 8th and 9th graders, I assumed I would dance with them. Mrs. Maria had a different idea; she and I would stay on the stage and be partners in a circle with the younger students. As we organized ourselves into pairs, Nadia, one of my 5th graders, came up to Mrs. Maria and said that she didn't have a partner.

"Then you'll just dance alone," Mrs. Maria said.

"Or I can dance with her," I said, resigning my principal to be a wallflower.

"Okay, good," Mrs. Maria said. I joined hands with Nadia on my right side and another student on my left, and the music started.

Nadia and I danced well together, even though her head barely came up to the same level as my chest. She also kept coughing a very wet cough every 10 seconds or so, and I made a mental note to wash my hands extra-thoroughly before I ate lunch.

The performance ended, and I had done it; I had participated in a Moldovan village school play, by no means a goal which I had set out for myself two years ago. It was not a crowning achievement of my time here, but it was fun. Most importantly, I realized today, more than I ever had realized before, that in a short amount of time, I'm going to miss this place.