Teaching in Moldova

January 18th is always a date which sticks in my mind because that was the day I arrived in Chisinau, the capital of the ex-Soviet republic Moldova, to start my first overseas teaching job. Just after it got light, after a three-day journey across Europe in a variety of vehicles, my train stopped in the middle of a field. Everyone seemed to be getting out so I did too and trudged across a couple of tracks to a big shed like place, which turned out to be Chisinau railway station. Someone wrapped up in several layers greeted me with a hoarse 'Hello' and bundled me away in a rickety taxi to meet my host family. The taxi couldn't stop outside our block of flats because the road had petered out, so we had to struggle the last bit up a muddy hill. Thus began a year and a half in Moldova.

The first few weeks I was completely culture shocked. This was nothing like the quaint Eastern Europe I had seen in the travel pages of glossy Sunday supplements. The reality was pretty depressing: people cramming into trolley buses, shops with nothing to buy, roads that turned into rivers when it rained, frequent power cuts… If I hadn't been living with a family, I wouldn't have coped. Shopping alone would have been a full time job. I was so stressed I had to go to bed about nine o'clock most days (not that there was much else to do in the evenings).

Things changed as I started to pick up some of the language - people speak both Moldovan, which is actually Romanian, and Russian - and met some friends. It is incredibly easy to get to know people in Moldova. On the trolleybus, in the park, outside the post office, people would just come up and chat, usually ending up in them inviting you to their flat to meet the family and gorge yourself on Moldovan food and wine. I've been invited to lots of Moldovan villages too and that was always a treat. There are no mountains or spectacular waterfalls or anything like that in this land-locked republic but the quiet unspoiledness of the countryside is just enchanting. Plus, the people who live in the village would be even more hospitable, if that were possible, than their urban counterparts.

Oh, then there was the teaching. I started off teaching in a state school. The older kids were pretty apathetic but the young learners were fantastic and we had great fun in the lessons. I felt more like a circus performer - clown or lion-tamer, depending on the class! - than a teacher, but I was learning. When the school year ended I was sent to a summer camp in the countryside, teaching students from the Polytechnical University. Conditions in the camp were fairly basic (we'd head into Chisinau at weekends to treat ourselves!), but the students were brilliant and we spent a lot of time outside lessons together. Two weddings sprang out of friendships formed during that summer camp, none involving myself, sadly. The academic year started in September and I was posted to the Academy of Economics to teach a mixture of business and general English. Resources or conditions were no better in higher education but most students wanted to learn and I began to feel that teaching was something I might be able to do beyond Moldova, ideally somewhere they heated the rooms in Winter. (I have a class now at the Plekhanov Academy of Economics and the rooms are freezing there too, so in a sense I've come full circle!).

I'm wary of romanticising Moldova. The country is desperately poor and living and working there can be very frustrating. It is definitely not a place to earn money nor is there a lot of entertainment in the sense of bars and nightlife. Life for ordinary people remains very hard. However, the hospitality and warmth of the people is fantastic. That is what I remember most.

Wayne Rimmer - DOS Satellite Schools, In Company