Here are a people with soul. Here are people who live every day with issues and challenges and overcome them as best they can and still manage to toast to every one's health and welfare with a glass (or two) of house wine. Here are people who take the time to get together with friends and family on a regular basis, laugh and cry (but mostly laugh) together. Moldova is a country ready to break out of its shell and truly make a name for itself.
Nowhere is this more true than in the faces and souls of the young people. Truly, I've fallen deeply in love with the students. Are there no bad (obraznici - oh-brahz-neech - literally "cheeky") students here? Sure, but the students who want to learn, who care deeply about their surroundings, who want to make a world of difference both on the global stage and here in Moldova outshine the others greatly. This year, I have worked with some of the best of the best. I have worked with students here in Ialoveni, university students in Chișinau, students in other towns and in other raions (counties or districts). And, they glow with learning. They gleam with aspirations. They beam with understanding. Sorry, to be superlative, but there it is.
And now, after one year, I have the melancholy duty to encourage many of my favorites (especially from 12A) to fly high and chase their dreams. Students like Dima, Sanda, Ilie, Andrei Rudoi, Constanța, Lucian, Nick, Renata, Ștefan, Alina, Victoria, Virginia, Eugenia, Mihaela, Ghenadie, Irina and Valentin all have the power and the will to transform Moldova. Others such as Vlad, Carolina, Nastea, Andrei Constantinov, Adrian, Constantin and Iacob may not be as dramatic, but will quietly encourage others and make a new world for themselves here at home. I especially want to thank Dumitru, Sanda, Ilie and Andrei Rudoi for thinking outside the box and being such incredibly wonderful human beings. Go, fly and don't let anyone tell you what you can't do.
To quote Willy Wonka - "You are the makers of the music. You are the dreamers of the dream."
And I'll close this post with a poem that I wrote for clasa a XII-a A -
Leavings
like golden leaves
upon the river,
bob and weave
a current
of meetings and leavings.
We eddy into the calm times
laughing and remembering when
and charge rapids of adversity head on.
We spin in icy ripples
keeping each other strong,
and part again
to reflect on sun dappled moments.
Upon
these clear waters I send you
warm
thoughts,joyous
in the knowledge that the river
will decide if and when
we meet again.
But
know this, my friend
as
you sail forth:the river is always sure
of its direction,
and I am certain
that my heart
is forever changed
for having encountered yours.
