O surpriza la primaria

Since summer, I have wanted to invite a non-governmental organization, Noi Perspective pentru Femei (New Perspectives for Women) to begin seminars in my village. The organization works with the disadvantaged, orphans and young women, teaching them about some of the unpleasant realities of working abroad, and building up their ability to be employed or start their own business here in Moldova. New Perspectives for Women is funded by both the Winrock Foundation and by USAID, and its funding allows it to conduct these seminars free of charge. The only thing they need before conducting a series of seminars are some statistics about the village.

That was why I went to the primaria, or mayor's office, on Monday. I spoke with the secretary, Tatiana, and asked her for the number of girls in the village aged 16-24, the total number of orphans and the approximate number of girls and young women aged 16-35 who are currently abroad. Tatiana was happy to help, but said it would take a few days; she would have to sort through the village's 12 record books for this year and calculate these statistics by hand.

"That takes a lot of time," I said. "It'll be much easier in two or three years when you have a computer in the office."

"Actually, we have one now," Tatiana said. "We bought it two weeks ago, but we haven't installed it yet."

I did a double-take that would have made a Saturday-morning cartoon character proud.

"You have a computer?" I asked, astonished. "Can I see it?"

Tatiana took me into the mayor's office and showed me the computer boxes. While I didn't plug it in to find out exact specifications, it looked promising. The computer was assembled by hand, not in a factory, and included several USB 1.1 ports, a floppy disk drive, sound and a 52x CD-ROM drive. This thing wasn't going to play Doom 3 at 100 frames per second, but it was powerful enough to crunch through Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and Access databases.

Without even thinking of how it would work into my schedule, I offered to teach all five primaria employees how to use the computer. Other volunteers, namely Brad Dakake, have had a lot of success with computer classes at the primaria. Unlike teaching the kids, these women have already seen their counterparts in other villages using computers and know that computer skills will make their jobs much easier. Mereseni is the last village in the county to get a computer, but hopefully I can help them make up for lost time.

Until then, poor Tatiana will have to count up my statistics by hand. And I'll have to wait a week.