If Only In My Dreams

From the mouths of babes

Today my eight and ninth grade classes learned about stereotypes, discrimination and prejudice. The following is a snippet of what happened in one class.



Mrs. Darii: An example of stereotyping would be for me to say that the girls in our village are the prettiest in Moldova.

Rodica: But that's true!

Mihai: No it's not.

Ms. Leone: *Laughs*

Rodica: Hey, Miss. Jessie can understand Romanian!

Mrs. Darii: Yeah, she's getting better.




Yay for progress!

Far from home

For years my friend Hilary has been telling me to try listening to the group Saving Jane and I've been resisting. Mostly out of apathy and laziness. However, a couple of weeks ago I decided I needed some new music for my iPod since I walk to work everyday and listen to my iPod on the trip. I think it makes the walk more enjoyable. Anyway, I decided to give Saving Jane a try and discovered this song. It pretty much sums up this whole adventure I'm on.

Saving Jane- "Far From Home"

By the way, I forgot about this little exchange when I posted last night.

While we were moving furniture:

Host Dad- Come on Lidia (host mom), let's move this.
Host Mom- I can't, I'm a girl. It's too heavy. Have Jessie help you.
HD- What's Jessie? A fish?
HM- She's a strong girl! She's only 23. I'm too old.
HD- You're only 40!

By the end of this, I had already picked up the other end of the bed and started moving it with my host dad. But I thought it was pretty funny.

My room and cats

It has started snowing in my village (you might have noticed in my last post), which means it's really cold out, especially at night. So lately I've been letting the kittens sleep in my room for a couple of hours every night. They curl up in some boxes that I made into beds for them by the radiator when I go to sleep, and after a while they'll wake me up to let them out. My family back in the US has had a cat since I was in high school and I had George while I was at college (my brother is taking care of him now), so I have a soft spot for kitties. I've named the gray one Nermal and the black one Grigore/Scruffy, I haven't really decided for him yet.









In other news, I got new furniture today. Kind of. It's the old stuff from the guest room, which now has brand new furniture. This bed is super comfortable, it's almost as good as a bed in the States. I'm also able to hide a lot of my stuff in the nightstands, which makes the cupboards look less cluttered, which makes my host mom happy because she says it makes my room more "furmos".



You can see the African safari wallpaper in this picture. It is super "furmos," I love it.

Andrea Diefenbach Depicts the Crisis of Children Heading Households in Moldova - NYTimes.com

Andrea Diefenbach Depicts the Crisis of Children Heading Households in Moldova - NYTimes.com: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Snow!

We had our first snow of the season in Chetrosu last Friday. Needless to say, my third grade class was super distracted during their lesson. But then I was distracted a bit too. Luckily I had thrown my camera in my bag that day on a whim and was able to snap some pictures of my village. The first is the abandoned house, the second is some laundry (and the reason why I spent 250 lei on a clothes rack for drying inside), and the last are the chickens that live across the street from us.











So far I like snow better than rain. The road by my house turns into a mud pit and stays that way for several days after every decent rain. This makes my walk to school double in its normal time. However, snow I'm pretty good at walking in after five years of practice in Wyoming. Also, if there was mud before, it will have frozen and that makes it a lot easier for me to get around. I haven't had to break out my yaktrax yet, but I'm a bit excited to get to use them. I wish someone would have told me about them when I was at UW, I feel like it would have been a lot easier when I had one class in Fine Arts and the next in the Classroom Building (for those who don't know, this would involve getting from one side of campus to the exact other in about 10 minutes, not an easy task without snow and nearly impossible when there was).

Bunica gazda (host grandmother)

I've finally had a conversation with my host grandmother that consisted of more than her asking me if I know Russian and me saying no, which has happened on several occasions. Don't ask me what the whole conversation was about, I'm not entirely sure.

The other day no one was home but me, and when my host family goes out they hide the key to the main house in a place I know so that I can get in. I went over to use the use the printer and get some dinner only to find the key not in its normal place. So I stood in front of the door asking the dog what he thought we should do (sometimes the dog is the only living creature that I will speak English with for days on end), when up the path came my host grandmother from her house waving the key at me. I took care of printing my lesson plans while she finished off dinner. Side note: the other day I noticed that we seemed to have fewer chickens in the garden than usual. Guess what we've been eating a lot of lately. Poor things were all butchered and frozen. But the roast chicken is really good, so I'm good with that.

Any-who, she started asking me what religion my family is and I told her we're Lutheran. Yes, it is kind of like Catholic, but Protestant. No, we don't take orders from the pope in Italy. No, we don't cross ourselves either. I asked her about the new church that was being built in our village which is really close to the house. She told me I need to go to church and that I should go when it is finished. I told her that I would love to go to a Moldovan church to see what a service here is like. She seemed to approve of this decision. Then we tried to talk about the family that lives near us that my host family has been helping (see below) because, apparently, they're an "American religion". She said that that's the reason why they have a lot of kids and don't drink alcohol. I asked if they were Baptist, since that's popular in Moldova, but she said no. Then I asked if they were Mormon, since there is an LDS church in Chisinau, but she didn't seem to understand what that was, so she told me to go eat chicken.

This is what I understood of the conversation. The whole thing took about fifteen minutes and we also talked about many other topics. When I say talked about, I mean we tried to, but couldn't understand each other. I've been told I have a strong American accent, and she mumbles a bit, which makes it hard for me to understand her.

It was chicken and boiled potatoes that night. They were really good. But I only took a small amount of potatoes because the Moldovan diet is very carbohydrate heavy. She then instructed me to take more potatoes, I had taken too few. It wasn't a suggestion. So once I had my food and was settled at the table, she had to go feed the pigs and reminded me to lock the house when I leave. By the way, the word for pig in Romanian is "porc". I think it is a little funny.

My new plan when she is in charge of feeding me is to take less than I really want the first time, so I get the amount I actually want after she tells me to take more.

Vacation and Festivals

Hey all, I know it's been a while. We're on vacation now, which is nice. The first week of November is a vacation for all of the schools around Moldova and I plan it relax as much as possible. And write a few lesson plans so I can get a few weeks ahead. But mostly chill.

I meant to write about the festival that happened last weekend a lot sooner, but better late than never I suppose. Poftim:


My host mom was one of the main organizers of the festival that happened in a town near ours last weekend. It was the annual river festival, which they use also as an eco-tourism event (although I'm pretty sure the PC volunteers and a couple of people from Germany who helped sponsor the event were the only foreigners there). This is also where we learned that festivals in America are very different from festivals in Moldova. Normally, in America, there would be vendors around selling their goods, and a stage that people could stop at and watch performances when they wanted, and the such. At this festival there were vendors, but only for a short time before a concert started, which lasted for about four hours. It was pretty good, what me and the other volunteers, saw of it. But after an hour and a half, we needed to take a walk. Below are some pictures. The first is of my host sister and teaching partner's son who were the MCs, followed by performers.



I also noticed the ceiling after a while. I guess the Casa de Cultura (literally House of Culture) was built in Soviet times. Not surprising, most public buildings (schools, mayor's office, etc) are products of the Soviet era.


Anyway, when we went outside we were called over to a car by a man. He told us he wanted us to try his honey. And so we learned a new way to drink vodka in Moldova. Take a shot of vodka, eat a piece of a pickle off a plate, eat a spoonful of honey. I hate vodka, it's like rubbing alcohol to me, but it was worth it to get the honey; which was sitting in a bucket with honeycombs and some bees. Very fresh, very good. He also asked us to take a picture with him and then gave us his daughter's phone number. Apparently she lives in Chicago, and he wanted us to send her the picture. He didn't have an email for her, so Shannon agreed to call her and get it.
Then he told Shannon that he thought Nkoshi was Barack Obama when he first saw him. Why the president would be at this festival is beyond me, but we decided that Shannon was the secret service since she was the only one with sunglasses. Nkoshi always has people asking to take pictures with him, too. Either because they think he's someone famous or because he is the first black person they've ever seen. I have to wonder if white volunteers who are sent to Africa experience this at all?

After this we were invited by the mayor to go with him and this village's chief doctor to the mayor's house to try his house wine.
It should be noted that wine is very prevalent in Moldovan culture. Nearly every family has their own grapes and makes their own house wine. It can be rude to refuse trying someone's house wine. So we agreed to go.


The man in the picture with me is the mayor if this site. He also informed Shannon that he has a son her age and started calling her Nora (daughter-in-law), which everyone found amusing. I have to say that I did like his house wine. My family in the States are wine drinkers and we've been trying to find a wine that I like for years. Guess we'll have to go to that Russian market in Totem Lake to get me Moldovan wine from now on?

So after trying his house wine, the group went back to the festival and enjoyed the rest of the festival.

Family in need

This is a family that lives in my site and is trying to build a new house. They have been refused aid by their government and now have to raise the money themselves. The cost of a new house in Moldova is roughly 140,000 lei or $13,000. The family has nine children (please remember that this is an Orthodox country and many families are deeply religious). Only four of the children are pictured here because the rest were either at school or working in the fields along with their mother when I visited with my host mom.

Here you can see some repairs that the family has tried to start. They are trying to chip away the old outside layer and put in new cement blocks. You can see where the dad is chipping away, that the old layer is made of mud and straw. There are also a few windows that were filled with this material because the family did not have the money for new windows after the old ones were no longer usable. They had to fill them with something to try to keep the cold out.

Above is the inside room of the outside wall where the boy is standing at the top. You can see the hole in the wall where light comes through. It is now October and starting to get very cold at night here, winter is fast approaching. This family does not have heat inside their house. Only the wealthier families in Moldova have gas heating. The rest use the traditional "sobas," theirs is pictured below.

Here is one of the boys next to his napping sister. The oven-looking thing next to her is the soba. The families in Moldova use them as heating sources in the winter and burn coal or wood or whatever else is available in them for warmth. This one is defective, however, leaving the family with no source of heat. In the next picture is the soba on the other side of the same wall. It is currently being used to store food because the family also has no kitchen.

The whole family, made up of eleven people, lives together in this little three roomed house. They eat on the floor or beds because they do not have a table or chairs. They share the three small beds.

My host mom is organizing a collection for them here in Moldova among the townspeople and through out the raion/county. I'm starting a Penny Wars in my classes to help raise the funds, and my family has already donated to them. I have set-up a PayPal account to collect funds from them; the donation button on the side of my blog will lead you to it. Please help this family build a new house. Please donate. Please alert your friends and family to this cause.

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." -Anne Frank

Breakthrough!

Something exciting happened in one of my 8th grade classes today. Wanna know?

We were talking about overcoming obstacles in life, and the assignment was for them to make an inspirational poster to have at home with one of the quotes that my partner and I provided. Now, a lot of the time when you talk with students here in Moldova and use people as examples it is hit and miss whether or not they'll know the person you're talking about. For example, when I did a lesson on success I talked about Donald Trump, Oprah Winfrey, Lady Gaga, and Barrack Obama. The students had no idea who the first two were.
Today I used quotes from several people, among them being Thomas Edison. The students in the first 8th grade class again had no idea who he was. When I asked the second 8th grade class during the next period the boy who never talks because he is basically blind, has no money for an eye doctor, and who does not receive any type of special help as a student with this situation would in the USA, sits up straight in his seat and says clearly and loudly "Thomas Edison was the inventor who created the light bulb!"

Y'all, you could have knocked me over with a feather. I was shocked. This kid never talks. He sits with his face about two centimeters away from his notebook during every lesson and takes notes if he has a pen with him. I have never heard him say a word before. Before today I thought he had some sort of a mental disability, but after class I asked my partner.

New goal: find some way to help this kid in his studies, because he is obviously intelligent. He just needs support of some kind.

Now I know how ice cream feels in the freezer

The cold has begun. The Moldovans have a term for sunny days that are cold which basically translates to "sun with teeth," and today was definitely one of those days.

Now, you have to understand that I lived in Wyoming for five years while attending college. It regularly got down to -20 degrees F. People in Wyoming would wear shorts if it got up to +30 in the early spring because that was considered a heat wave. I believed that I could handle the cold once I got here.

What I didn't take into consideration was that, in America, our buildings have heat. The school I teach at is an old soviet style building, meaning large and concrete. It use to have heating at one point because there are gas heaters installed, but the funding is missing. Today it was colder inside the school than outside.

When I packed for Moldova it was the beginning of June and I wasn't really thinking about winter clothes. Sure, I set aside my winter coat that had gotten me through five years at 7200 feet and a pair of Under Armor leggings for my mom to send me later, but that was it. Now I realize that there exists a whole new level of cold that I could never have imagined before. I also realize that somehow I'm going to have to learn how to teach while wearing a giant coat and how to write on the chalkboard while wearing gloves.

This should be interesting.

PS: North Face gives Peace Corps volunteers a discount, I suggest to anyone who can to use it.

You play like a girl

Today my partner, Maria, and I taught lectures on self-confidence for the ninth and eight grade classes. I am also getting to the point in my language where I can actually sometimes understand what the students are saying and don't just have to smile and nod along with Maria. One of the parts of the lesson plan involved a list of activities and the students would write a plus if they can do it well or a minus if they can't and then write why. The point of this was that it is important for people to know what they can and can't do well. Anyway, one of the activities was playing football, or soccer. A girl in the first class wrote that she can't play football well because it is a boy's sport.

I immediately thought of two women: my sister and Mia Hamm. Since my sister, although wonderful in her own ways, is not world famous I decided to go with Mia Hamm and gave impromptu homework. I told them, the girls especially, that over the next week I wanted them to access the internet. I didn't care if it was at home, a friend's house, the school, the library, an internet cafe, just find the internet and search youtube for "Mia Hamm". Next week they're supposed to tell me who she is and what they think about her. This ended up being homework for all of the subsequent classes. Now I'm just debating whether or not to take my computer with me next week since I know not all of the kids will look her up and I'd like to do a short discussion about her. I'll ask Maria what she thinks.

And now I'm sticky

Monday I was walking back around the house from putting my clothes out on the line to dry and saw my host family picking grapes. I asked if I could help and was handed a bucket. My host mom and I started with the ones we could reach on foot. Pretty sure this is because I wasn't going to be trusted with a ladder. Good call on their part. After a while my host mom, who has a cold, went inside for a nap and I was left to my own devices. It went pretty well, I have to say. I got all the grapes I could on foot and then was allowed to graduate to a chair. About half way through this my host brother got home from the city and started to help. But since my host dad and sister had the ladders and I had the chair, he was reduced to using a barrel. Now, this wasn't a nice, steady barrel. This thing was old, rusty, busted in, and had a hole on the top. But he could jump up and down from it like Tarzan. He was also designated to be my helper for (I think) two reasons:
1. We only had three buckets
2. I needed the help

They also showed me where the juicer was in the garage. Once a bucket is full, we take it to this big machine, pour them in the top and grind away. The juice from the grapes goes into the barrel of this contraption and there is a spicket at the bottom where the juice comes out. Don't ask me what happens to the stuff in the buckets that are not fruit (like vines and leaves) because I have no idea.

I'm not sure what the next few steps are, but I've been told that in a few weeks (maybe it was months?) we'll have house wine. Yay!

Eating good in the neighborhood

I've eaten more new things here in the last three or so months than probably the last few years put together. Moldovans definitely have some dishes which can only be described as "interesting". This includes a dish that is pretty much cold, gelatinous chicken- "interesting". But, there are other dishes that are super tasty. One such dish is named "Sarmale," and I thought I would share the recipe with you all. If you're feeling cooking-adventurous, I would highly recommend you try this out. I will definitely be making it even after I return to America.


Sarmale

2 cups uncooked white rice
4 cups boiling water
1 white onion, minced
2 carrots, peeled and grated
1 cup ground pork
1 1/2 cups broth and/or tomato juice
1 large cabbage
Parsley and dill
Salt and pepper to taste
Vinegar
Lemon salt

Boil water and pour it over the rice and let it soak for 30 minutes. Was cabbage and then boil in water with vinegar and lemon salt to make them pliable; set the cabbage aside. Mix the rice, carrots, onions, herbs, and pork together for the filling. Pull the leaves off the cabbage one by one. Place 2-4 tablespoons of the filling mixture into the center of one leaf, fold into a small, tight form (like a burrito). Place the stuffed and folded cabbage leaves all together in a large, oven-proof pot like a Dutch oven with the seam-side down. Pour broth/tomato juice over the sarmale and cover the sarmale with more flat cabbage leaves. Bake at 350 degrees for one to one and a half hours. Can also be cooked covered on the stove top.

Notes: Some recipes call for a beaten egg to be added to the mix to help hold it together. Other recipes call for minced garlic, currents, or paprika to be added, but this might depend on the region you're in. Also if you're a non-pork eater, ground turkey can be substituted, or left our all together if you're a non-meat eater; it would might work with some sort of meat substitute if you're determined to add in protein. You can also clean and separate the cabbage leaves at the beginning if you wish.


So, there you have it: sarmale. Super tasty. Good for big groups of people or if you want leftovers. It is usually served on holidays, birthdays, and at weddings. But I recommend you break with tradition and whip up a batch if you feel up to it. The results will be worth it.

There's a bus?

Today we do not have electricity, I'm not sure why since the magazine down the street and the medical center have it. Probably there is a very reasonable Moldovan explination that I have yet to discover. However, when we do not have electricity we do not have running water in the house because the pump from the well is electric. I wonder when it will come back...

Today I made it down to my medical center again. Getting there is about an hour on foot, but I had to talk to my partner about the seminar in Chisinau in about two weeks and get some stuff taken care of. I decided to walk today because it looked like rain and I have not yet developed the ability to ride my bike while using an umbrella. So when I finally got there my partner looked at me and said "You know there's a bus every hour between Drochia and Șuri that comes right by here and costs 1 leu, right? Why don't you ever take the bus instead of walking?" So when I went home I caught the bus and my travel time was cut to about 25 minutes, which will be even less without mud.

They say you learn something new every day. Yesterday I learned where the sidewalk is on one road, today I learned there's a bus. Good to know.

First day of school

The first day of school was today and it was way different than any other first day of school I have ever had. First though, before school even started, my host mom declared that I wasn't dressed-up enough and went through my closet with me to find better clothes. She, being the wonderful Moldovan woman that she is, choose the only blouse I have with me that has sparkles on it as the shirt I should wear. Then she made me give her the clothes I was going to wear that day so she could iron them before she would let me leave the house. Thank you, mama gaza, for looking out for me. I was then also told that there was too much mud from the rain and that my host dad would be driving me and my host brother and sister to school today (they go to the high school, I work at the elementary school).

I got to school at a little before 8am, the time my partner told me to be there. I had absolutely no idea what to expect, except that I had been told we didn't have any classes to teach today. So I went to the director's office hoping to find out where to go. One of the teachers told me to just take a seat in the office and wait. While I waited I studied the schedule and found out that, at that time, I was only slated to have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. After a while things kicked off and the director told me to follow her.

Apparently, the first day of school in Moldova includes a school assembly, outside, with all of the students and their parents, the teachers, the mayor, and a police officer. Everyone gave speeches, even me (mine was about who I am, what I did in America, and why I'm in Moldova), and the retired school director presented the geography teachers with three new maps for his classroom. Then the kids recited poems and sang songs and gave all of the teachers flowers.

After this I was asked if I would like to observe a homeroom class. Yes, yes I would. I was taken to the eight grade room and listened to a lecture about the Moldovan national poet who recently passed away. The students recited a bunch of poems, seemingly from memory. I'm not sure if they were given a heads up about the topic today or if they all just knew these poems.
After this I went back to the director's office where the schedule was now posted for all of the teachers to see. This is one thing that has been bugging me for about a week. Anyone who knows me knows that I like to know what's going on well in advance. It's taken a lot of patience for me not to freak-out about the fact that the school didn't have a class schedule until the first day of school. I've also been told to expect it to change throughout the year.

While there I finally got to meet my new partner. I'll be teaching one health class a week with her to third graders. She took me up to meet the class, all of whom stood when I walked in, something way different from schools in America. We then proceeded to teach a health class, on the fly, without any lesson plan. Holy crap! Go-go-gadget Romanian language skills. Did get the kids to have a class discussion about why it is important to learn about health, some basic health knowledge, and what they wanted to learn about this year.

After that I was told I was done for the day and that I should go home and be back at the school at 10am the next morning for class. Walked home, took the long rout to avoid as much mud as I could, didn't succeed, and took a nap. I woke up about an hour later to my partner calling to say that our class schedule had already been changed and we don't have classes tomorrow, be at school on Friday for classes, but she doesn't know when they will be yet.

Okay. Learning to go with the flow.

Monasteries

As I promised, the post about our visit to three monasteries in Moldova. By now this trip happened several weeks ago, but I have pictures that are asking to be posted. Also, I should preempt this post with a short history lesson:

Moldova has their own version of George Washington, and his name was Stephan cel Mare or Stephan the Great (Prince and Saint). He lived about 1450-1500 and fought to keep Moldova independent of the many other empires in the area. As you can guess, he fought a lot of battles, and he actually won a lot of them. As I understand it, after each battle that he won he would build a church or monastery in Moldova. So as a result there are a lot of (very beautiful) churches and monasteries dotting the country.

This is the first one we visited:

There was a modern church with an older one behind it being restored. Some volunteers, myself included, went into the basement/sanctuary of the older one to find some sort of a service in progress. The nuns there were singing in a choir, the music was very beautiful, and people were lighting candles in the dim light under paintings of saints. I was able to catch a couple of pictures of the nuns. I'm not sure what the difference in their habits are, but I think it is the older women who wear the ones in the second picture.

Also, if you happened to forget to wear a skirt that day, you could borrow one from where they were selling headscarves. Our language professor said that women are supposed to wear headscarves in order to discourage them from wearing fancy hairstyles at church.


The second monastery we visited was very nice. Here we met up with some guys from the capital (that spoke English) and told us they biked out there that day. I'm not sure where this monastery was, so I'm not sure how long of a bike ride it was, but good on them. Here I was able to snap a picture of some priests or monks, not entirely sure which they are. This monastery also had beautiful art inside.





This is the last one we visited and was also the one with the least amount of reconstruction done to it. You can see some scaffolding on the right side of the first picture. The second picture is of a nun manning the shop. Most monasteries here has some sort of a little shop where people can buy candles to light, cross necklaces, holy water, pictures of saints and the such.




Outside the grounds were a little worse for wear. It looked like not much landscaping had been done in a while here, while the first two monasteries had very lovely gardens. There was also one lonely headstone; I can't help but wonder who it belongs to.
There was also a gazebo/well with some art painted on the ceiling. You can see Mary holding baby Jesus. Now what I think is interesting is that Renaissance painters would paint children with adult proportions (whereas in real life babies have giant heads, just ask any woman who has given birth, they'll attest to this). In this picture you can see that baby Jesus has these adult proportions. Also in the gazebo we were given bread by some random guy who then walked off (we did eat the bread, we were all pretty hungry by then) and got a history lesson from a random theology student, who confirmed that this monastery was from the Renaissance era.



A lot of the churches and monasteries in Moldova are under reconstruction. During the Soviet era they were either boarded up and left abandoned or used for some other purpose. I can understand how some aspects of communism might work in theory, but I'll never understand why some people think it is okay to strip others of their religions and individuality.

Alright, so here you have some gorgeous pictures. Enjoy.

This will be really funny in about two years

For the last two weeks the health trainees have had practice school. Last Saturday some of us in Rusestii Noi decided to go to Bardar to hang out with the rest of the health trainees and have some pizza and drinks. By the way, pizza here usually comes with mayo on it. Not sure why. Anyway, it came time for us to leave and it came down to we had to walk back to our village.

This didn't seem so bad at the beginning of the trip. We had an older volunteer with us and there was allegedly a path between the two villages that took about 30 minutes to walk. So we set out, got some directions from some locals and found the path.
Or so we thought.

First the path ended in a gate that we thought was locked, but Mia discovered was not by simply pushing on it. So we continued along the path that probably had been somebody's driveway, but we kept walking anyway not really realizing this. After going for a bit more Jessica promptly fell in a ditch. There was a fence on the other side so we got her out of it and the rest of us hopped over. All except for Ahmad (our older volunteer/ male escort for the evening) who also fell in the ditch and then asked "Why is this so hard?" We all climbed over the fence with each others' help (good job team) and continued along the semi-path.

Which promptly ended as a corn field.

We could see the street and cars across the field, but there was absolutely no way through it. So after back-tracking two more times and Jessica falling in another ditch we found what we all figured was probably one of the streams that runs through our village and decided to follow it. This involved fording it, and it was mostly a muddy sink hole. So those of us in back learned from the troubles of those in front and took off our shoes so as not to loose them in this gigantic mud puddle. Mia's shoes were pretty much eaten by the thing and, while she got them back, she was not able to wear them for most of the rest of the trip. While I was crossing the river/ mud some plant decided to have a disagreement with me and ripped into my arm. I'd say it was a similar experience to when I had that nail go through my foot. 1/3 surprise, 1/3 frustration, 1/3 actual physical pain. I don't know how the other girls who walked though the field of thorns barefoot did it, but kudos to them.

Long story short, when we started to see discarded beer bottles on the ground we knew we were getting close to something. I had never before been so excited about trash. That something turned out to be the actual path we should have started on in the first place. We made it back to town, washed ourselves off at the school well, and all got home about an hour and a half later than we planed.

Good times. Kind of.

I found internet!

Hey team, I've been asked for updates. Poftim (here you go, take this, what, over here, excuse me, etc).

It is hot, hot, hot in Moldova. Around 90 or 100 degrees (F) every day. I never wore dresses in the states, but I am here. And skirts. I think this is the real reason why so many women here wear dresses, because it is way to hot for pants in the summer.

It was my host sister's 21st birthday last night and I sent to her "masa" which is like a party/meal. I had a shot of homemade whiskey which burned and listened to them talk in Romanian all night. I gave her some bracelets that I brought with me from the States.

I got to visit my permanent site a few weeks ago. The host family there has had two volunteers before that stayed with them for the full two years. I believe this to be a good sign.

Lunch is over and I have to go now. Love y'all.

Sad news. My host family's internet has died. So no more pictures or videos until I get a reliable source back that I can connect my computer to.

Other than that, doing good. I've found out my permanant site, it'll be in the north. The family has had two volunteers before that both lived with them the whole time. I think that's a good sign. They also have an indoor bathroom, which makes me really happy. I'll get to visit them this weekend. I'll report back to y'all about that after the visit.

If you want to send me a care package, email me and I'll sent you my mailing address (if I know you). My email is leonejm@broadstripe.net

Later!

Happy Independence Day!

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, we've been having troubles with our internet at my host family's house. But the good news is that we find out our permanant sites in two days, at which time I'll find out if a wireless USB will work in the village I'm assingned to. If so I plan on buying one, so no more worries. I have to run now, I'm at the village's internet cafe and can't stay long. As soon as my host family's internet is working again I'll update with pictures of the monestaries we visited yesterday.

Happy Independence Day!

Glod

Moldova giveth, and Moldova taketh away. For the last few days it has been cold enough to wear sweaters and the streets have turned into huge mud puddles from the amount of rain. The little creek by my host family's house turned into a full on river because of the downpour we got. The local word for mud is "glod". Mult glod. Lots of mud everywhere you turn. The only pair of remotely sturdy shoes I brought with me is a pair of light weight summer tennis shoes. They are covered in mud. It should clear up soon though, we've been told this isn't normal at all for summer. I hope so.

Today we got to go to the cultural center and see a local dance group perform traditional dances and songs. Here's a picture. I tried video, but they won't upload. Probably too slow of a connection.



This group was very good and performed for about two hours. At the end they were dancing the Hora and came down into the audience and started pulling the volunteers into the dance with them until we were all going in a huge circle around the auditorium.

My host family's dog just had puppies. Most Moldovan families will have a dog stationed at their front gate as a kind of "door bell". She is so cute. For a week she barked at me angrily every time I came in the gate (she's chained up, so no danger). Then I started sneaking her salami and pieces of chicken from my meals. We're friends now. Her puppies are still too little to play with, but I have two more months here. It's a goal to play with them before I leave.

Mom would be proud

Moldova is the poorest country in Europe. From what I know, most people here live on about $2 a day. But while food from the store is expensive, you'll never go hungry as a guest here. Most Moldovan families live on a micro-farm. My host family has their own chickens, ducks, and a large garden. And by large, I mean Michelle Obama would weep with joy at the size of this family's vegetable garden. They have onions, potatoes, squash, cucumber, grapes, cherry trees, tomatoes, and a lot of other plants I have no idea what they are.

Today for dinner I was served an egg scramble of some kind. It had a green veggie in it, still not entirely sure what it was. My host mom went and got one. I think it's some sort of squash. I ate it, and it was good.

You can't be a picky eater in the Peace Corps. I've gotten to the point of if it smells good and looks safe, I'll eat it. Mom would be proud.

Don't miss the bus

If you know me, you know that I usually go to bed late and get up late. That has changed. My new alarm clock is the family rooster (as well as a plethora of birds and chickens) who feels the need to tell everyone that the sun is up around 4am. It usually wakes me up and then I do a half-sleep until about 6:45. The good news is that I usually go to bed around nine now.

My host family is pretty well off from what I can tell. They have an inside bathroom, internet, tv, inside kitchen, etc. The water isn't working right now because repairs are being done to the town's pipes. They assure us it will be fixed tomorrow. Who knows when tomorrow really is though. :) So in the mean time, to shower, I use the outside solar shower. It is in the duck pen and the ducks love to try to get at the water while you're using it. Cheeky ducks.

The other morning the water ran out mid-shower. I told my host mom "Nu apa," no water. She went and got four buckets from the well and climbed the ladder to pour them in the barrel while I stood in my towel covered in soap. This didn't seem to alleviate the problem, so I finished using a bucket and my washcloth. Normally a bucket bath in Moldova would have been fine, nothing out of the norm. However, I had not allotted time for this side track of 20 minutes or so. This is what caused me, an exercise induced asthmatic, to be running down a dusty road, dodging chickens, in a foreign country, being that weird "Americanca" trying to catch my bus.
This is the good life. Este bine.

I am in Moldova safe and sound. Training is keeping us super busy. One of the current volunteers said that he had almost no time to talk to his family during PST, but now talks to them several times a week. My host family is amazing. They're pretty well off for Moldovians. They have an inside kitchen and a bathroom with a shower. It isn't working now because repairs are being done to the pipes. So I've been using an outside solar shower in the mornings, although I might switch to a night shower-er. The solar shower is through the chicken coop in the duck pen. Or geese, I'm not entirely sure which they are. They also have internet in my host sister's bedroom. I'm taking advantage of the fact that she's out with her friends now.

I'm exhausted and have to go to bed soon, so I'm just going to upload some pictures for you guys to see. They're of the New York City skyline, the airport, the volunteers who sat behind me on Air Moldova sacked out, traveling to Moldova, the welcome ceremonies, the church and the view from the church. Love and miss you all!

I am packed. It only took a few hours of laying things out, eliminating about 1/3 of what I thought I was going to take, my mom promising to mail me my winter coat, and switching suitcases when the seam on the first one turned out to be torn. I am now going to attempt before and after photos.
Before (ignore the cat and stuffed pig, they were not part of the planned packing):



After:

Not bad, if I do say so myself. My nephew even tried to help

.


I'll put up the requisite packing list at a later date. Half because I need to sleep now, and half because I'm not entirely sure what survived the final cut. Goodnight!