Ecology Speech Olympiad in Moldova

From Lenin's Asylum: Two Years in Moldova, by A. A. Weiss (Everytime Press, 2018), Kindle pp. 104-105:

Each year every school in the country competed in contests of Language Arts, Science and Mathematics to determine Moldova’s top scholars. Teachers of winning pupils were also rewarded. The Russian School of Riscani, known regionally for subpar students, perennially lost to the rival Moldovan Lyceum up the hill. But this year the odds were in the Russians’ favor, as I—Mr. Aaron, the town’s foreign expert—would be the guest Olympiad judge.

Today’s contest was in ecology, a subject of which I knew nothing. Regardless, the presentations would be in English and I was therefore the authority. The entire event transpired over a hectic two-hour period.

We arrived at the Moldovan Lyceum, a castle with narrow windows that had once been the residence of the town’s founder. A legend stated the fortress had withstood an assault by raiding Turks. Once inside, I was introduced to the Moldovan half of the judging panel: a biology teacher from the Moldovan Lyceum and a Romanian language teacher from Mihaileni, one of the competing lyceums from a village within the district. Nadezhda and I were the other two panel members. The two Moldovan teachers knew Nadezhda and hated her. I did not know where this animosity came from, but I witnessed it in the side-whisper conversations and the politely sterile manner in which they greeted her by her full name, Nadezhda Ivanovna.

The competition began; presentations would precede a multiple-choice test.

The Moldovan team presented first, speaking about the need to use conservationist principles when building houses. I thought the presentation very fair. The two girls presenting were polite when they addressed the panel, spoke clearly, and despite repeating each sentence for effect, made some decent points about man’s impact on nature.

The Russian team went next, speaking about the need to clean apartments regularly unless one wanted to kill his family with the poisons that the human body produced every day and shed into the environment. I left the presentation unconvinced of the scientific rigor of the team’s investigations, but they’d presented with loud voices and had clearly convinced Nadezhda of their superior ecological intellect. She poked me in the ribs and nodded as though to say, winners.

The village team from Mihaileni went last, presenting about the need to protect well water. Their presentation was exceptionally well researched; however, I felt they’d relied too heavily on the bilingual dictionary. I audibly groaned when a young girl used the phrases “excrement cocktail” and “repeated, daily consumption” in the same sentence. Nadezhda—an English teacher herself—found no objection in that usage. And though I’d expected as much, I then knew for certain that the other Moldovan panelists did not speak English, and were merely grading these presentations on the volume and emotional conviction of the speakers.

The judging panel stepped outside during the multiple-choice test. The biology teacher from the Moldovan Lyceum tried to speak to me in Romanian so that Nadezhda wouldn’t understand the conversation. “He only speaks Russian,” said Nadezhda. “He speaks only modern languages.”