Bugs, Snakes and The European Commission, Oh My!
Bugs have infested Vilnius. Here’s the story, Ariana and I were innocently walking to work when we stumbled upon a pile of white things on the sidewalk. It appeared to be a bunch of little flower petals or like a chicken had exploded. We didn't think to much of it and continued to the office unperturbed. The next day we are walking the same route when we see many more of these piles and a man sweeping them off the ground. This is when Ariana made the mistake of taking a closer look, as it turns out, THEY ARE BUGS. Hundreds of bugs! With wormy little bodies and white wings, all dead, all over the ground. This was deeply disturbing to me. When we arrived at the office we asked our co-workers about them, assuming it was a yearly mass bug extinction event of some sort. But they had no idea what we were talking about! They had never noticed these bugs! Ariana took a picture and we were able to prove that we had not imagined them, but it did not alleviate my intense squeamishness. I think these bugs are a sign from the spirits that my time in Lithuania has come to an end.
We told Algis about the bugs and he countered it with a tale about the invasive potato beetle. When this beetle was introduced to Lithuania, the USSR spread a rumor that America had purposely planted the beetle in an effort to destroy the Soviet Union through potato destruction! I found this funny, but at the same time, not completely implausible.
He then told us that he had been about to sign the contract to buy a piece of property for a project he’s working on when he changed his mind because there were garden snakes in the house. I told him that would have made me change my mind as well, but he explained that during Pagan times Lithuanians worshiped snakes as gods and bred them in their houses. Because of this tradition it is still believed that if you chase snakes out of your house you, and your family, will be cursed. We then talked about perceptions of snakes in America with Algis concluding that our opinion of snakes is a result of Catholicism efforts to demonize Pagan gods, again definitely not implausible. All in all, I learned a lot about bugs and snakes this week, which was unexpected but pretty cool.
We spent this week proofreading documents for Algis, but today we were given a big assignment, we are each to draft a proposal for the European Commission! Mine will be focused on a transnational project to enhance the rights of victims of crime, Ariana’s will focus on how to encourage bystanders to report domestic abuse. Submitting a proposal to the EC is a big undertaking, and since I will be leaving Lithuania in just one week, we will likely spend most of our weekend working on our proposals. The proposal needs to include everything from a budget and ethical considerations, to deliverables and an analysis of the long-term impact.
My proposal will be focused on how to get local communities to support victims of crime. Currently there are no institutions providing victim support in Lithuania, and VILIAS thinks the most effective support will be fostered at the community level. The project will consist of seven communities from four countries, one from the North, South, East and West of Europe. The process, which I will be defining in the proposal, will begin by researching the current attitudes and values of the community through surveys, interviews and focus groups. We will then create a model demonstrating how the community can support victims and the final step will be training community leaders to enact these programs. I am excited for this lesson in grant writing!
This week I had a lovely piece of cake, so lovely in fact I forgot to take a picture. But can you really blame me? There are bugs everywhere and I'm doing my best.