From Lenin’s Asylum: Two Years in Moldova, by A. A. Weiss (Everytime Press, 2018), Kindle pp. 53-54:
Lyudmila Petrovna asked if I could say a few words.
I’d prepared a stern lecture about the importance of homework and intellectual discipline. Pupils shouldn’t cheat. I wanted to explain why students needed books every day and couldn’t share pencils while taking notes. And though I didn’t wish to lecture anyone on proper parenting skills, I thought I might touch on the need to curb the smoking, drinking, and sexual assault in the school zone.
But I abandoned this prepared lecture. I feared anything negative I shared would lead to beatings.
So instead, using my best Russian, I painted a less dire picture. “Moldova is different than America,” I began. “My pupils are struggling, but that is to be expected. I don’t teach like a Russian. I expect different things and it will take the pupils time to understand these things. They play with each other too much, true, but they understand me more each day and I think soon they will speak English.”
All the faces in the audience smiled at me and I felt pleased with myself. The parents would be patient with their young learners. They would communicate that students should be patient with me, do everything I say, and stop sexually assaulting their classmates. I honestly thought we’d all come to this amicable conclusion.
Lyudmila Petrovna looked at the floor while she considered what to say next. On several occasions she’d rescued me when my classes got out of control. Her room was just down the hall and when she heard more than five kids screaming at once she’d rush into the room and threaten to kill anyone who didn’t shut up and respect me. The little ones feared her. And now she wanted the little ones to fear their parents.
“Any behavior problems?” asked Lyudmila Petrovna.
“Oh, certainly,” I said.
“We demand names!” shouted the parents in unison. And when I failed to list the offenders they shouted family names for me to inform on.
“Crimiac? Does he listen?”
“Osipov? Did he start that fire?”
I placed my palms in the air. I surrendered.
“Okay,” shouted Lyudmila Petrovna. “One at a time.”
We spent the next ten minutes going down the class roster. I named names. Little Sasha didn’t do his homework. Maxim didn’t stay in his seat. Anya habitually cheated. And so on.
The parents promised immediate improvement. I feared for these children.
But I no longer feared repercussions from their parents. These weren’t parents. As Lyudmila Petrovna called on each raised hand, she introduced the woman and her role in the student’s life. Before me were a handful of grandmothers, aunts, distant cousins, neighbors—but few actual parents. Things became clearer for me: many of those who acted up in my class had parents elsewhere in the world, working jobs in Russia or still farther away. Grandmothers looked after grandchildren. Neighbors stepped in. Older siblings took larger roles. I had assumed Andrei was sitting in the audience with his mother, but in fact he was there to represent his younger brother, Maxim. When their mother next called home he would give his report of little Maxim’s poor behavior and she would scold him over the phone from Italy.
Everyone thanked me before I left. One of the grand-mothers asked when I would marry. Seeing this as an opening for questions, others shouted out the suspicions they wished confirmed. How much could I be making per month in America? How well did I speak German? What type of spying had I accomplished in the past? Was the Peace Corps a consequence associated with the American penal system, and if so what had I done?
Far Outliers 