Practice School

We just completed our first week of practice school. I worked with a Moldovan teacher, but taught the classes solo. She was great to work with and incredibly helpful. Students from our village volunteered to sit through two hours of class each day so we can practice our teaching skills (and I think they had fun learning from the Americans). The experience was great. There is a lot of prep (lesson plans, creating word charts and grammar charts) which can be very time consuming, but as the week went on, I was able to get through it all in less time. But the actual teaching is GREAT. I have really enjoyed it so far. I was teaching 6th form (6th grade) students. I had 14-16 students each day at various levels of english speaking ability. But they seemed to really enjoy the classes. On Monday I will give the "test" for the unit I taught, then we (all the volunteers in my side of the village) will be leading a game/activity day as a thank you to the students.

Next Thursday starts the second week of practice school. During this week, I will work with Elena, my partner teacher from Floresti. I am looking forward to the partner teaching structure and am interested to see how it will work. We will be teaching 11th form (11th grade) which will definitely be new for me since I am used to working with little kids. I guess that semester of english tutoring at Sac State will come in handy haha.

Our swear in date is August 18th. And so far, looks like I will be ok to swear in and become an official volunteer with the Peace Corps. I just have to pass my second langague assessment. But I think I will do well enough to get past it. Although we have all noticed our Romanian skills have slipped a bit since we started practice school. Its tough going from being a Romanian student to an English teacher. The brain doesn't like the transition!

Yesterday we went into Chisinau to meet with our new host families and sign the contract with them. It was nice to see my new host mother again. It was a good experience and she complimented me on how much better my language was from two weeks ago when I visited her for the first time haha.

Once I get to my permanent site, I will be getting USB internet for my computer so I will post more often and hopefully can get some pictures up. This is a really beaustiful country and I can't wait to share some of that with you.

One last couple of notes, I have become very attached to my current host family and they to me. They are now referring to me as their daughter and I to them as mama and tata (mom and dad). I really lucked out having such a warm and welcoming host family at the beginning of my experience. They definitely help make the transition easier. Also, the hill that was hell to walk up 6 weeks ago has actually started becoming my friend. I know it well and I can actually walk up it with only one break to catch my breath. I will try to get a picture of it so you can see what I'm working with. I will say that I am getting some really good looking calves haha!!

Please feel free to email or write me. It is the best feeling to get news from home no matter how boring you may think it is. Package day is one of the best days during training. Its like Christmas among the volunteers to see what we all got from home!

The Thesis is turned in!!!

Normally, this blog is for my life in Moldova, but I have to share this.

I was checking my Facebook page and my friend Desiree posted THE best picture in the whole world. The picture of her turning in MY thesis. It is official-I am done. The last step of my graduate school career was taken by my good friend Desiree!! Thanks Des!!! And congrats to you as well.

Where in world is Becca Niles (for 2 yrs)

As I previously posted, this past Monday we were told where in Moldova we will be spending the next two years of our lives. At first I was surprised to see that 4 weeks into PST (pre-service training) we were told about our sites. All this time I had assumed we wouldn’t find out until closer to the end of training. But now that I am 4 weeks into training I can understand why. Coming into the 4 week we were all starting to feel a bit rough around the edges. We are tired (mentally and physically) and the reality starts kicking in since the newness of being here and the novelty of “Hey I joined the Peace Corps” wears off. So just as you are starting to question things and are in need of a little pick me up or reminder of why you are doing this, the staff announce where you will be going. It was like Christmas, especially towards the end of the day as we got closer to 5pm. You could see it in everyone. The anxiousness, worry, and excitement were almost tangible!!
The announcement was done in a very cool way. Outside on the playground of the school we meet at in Ialovine, the staff drew an outline of Moldova and inside the drawing they placed little chairs with signs that had the names of our sites on the back. Each chair was placed basically where the site is within Moldova. Then they pulled each volunteer’s name out of a basket and announced which site they were assigned to. Mine was the first name called and of course, I was hanging out towards the back so I had to snake my way through a few people. But it was so great once everyone was standing at the chair then you could see who was close, who was far and how close to Chisinau we all are. But Monday was only half of our total M24 group (English Education [me] and Agri-Business Development) and we are scattered all over. Tuesday, the volunteers who are in Community Development and Health Education found out their assignments. I heard a rumor that there was going to be a Community Dev volunteer near me, but I’m still waiting to find out.
So, now that I have rambled on I will pass on my site info. I am being placed in a town called Floresti (Flor-esht). Floresti is in the north east part of Moldova. I am about 2 hours from Chisinau (140 km). I also have a site mate. His name is Kyle Johnson and he has been in Moldova for a year already. He is a Agri-business volunteer. I have talked to him a couple of times before and we are both excited to be placed in the same town.
The town has a population of about 16,000 people and is a raion center for surrounding villages (like Ialoveni is the raion center for my current village-Costesti). I will be teaching at a gymnasium/lyceum which is grades 6-12. The school has two other English teachers and I will work with them both, but one will be my main partner teacher the whole two years. French and Russian are two other languages offered at my school, but 70% of the students there are studying English. There is a total of 419 students at my school. The town is made up primarily of Moldovans, but some Russians, Ukrainians and Romas (not people from Rome haha). There are a total of 4 lyceums, several primary (elementary) schools and 3 kindergarten schools in Floresti. There is also an art school, a music school and a sports school. Because it is a raion center there are a lot of stores, banks, a post office and restaurants (at least according to the write we were given about our sites). I am only 35 km from Balti (Bal-tz) which is a bigger town than mine. I also have several other volunteers both EE and AgriBus who are around me as well. We figure we can get together in Baltz from time to time to hang and catch up since it is kind of in the center of us all and easy to get to for most of us.
Now for my host family. They are similar to what I have now. A married couple who are in their 50s (Valriu 51 and Galina 52). My host mother teaches kindergarten and my host father is a former policeman who is now a guard. I have a brother, Octavian who is 30 but doesn’t live at home and a sister, Diana who is 25 and lives in Italy. I will be in a 4 bedroom house with indoor plumbing (woohoo) and running water (woohoo). They also have some outdoor pets, a dog, goats, hens and rabbits!! I will be staying in the main house with the family, but I will have my own room. I’m very excited to meet them and see the new digs, but sad at the same time because I have become attached to my host family here in Costesti. But after I get settled, I can come down to Costesti to visit with them (they already said I should). They are very happy that I am in the northern part of Moldova.
On Friday, I meet with my new school director and will either visit my new site then or on Saturday. But it’s a quick trip, I come back on Sunday. So I will have more to say after I get back.

On a completely new note, I made a friend here in the village. A woman (Lara-remember to roll the r when you say that) was at the house Monday night cutting my mother and our neighbor’s hair. She stayed for dinner and we got to talk about America and her life and kids here in Moldova. She is the same age as me. She has two daughters 4 & 2. Sadly, her husband died not so long ago, but she is managing well enough on her own. She is really nice and I had a great time talking with her. She understands English so when we hit a rough spot in Romanian, she was able to understand most of my English. At the end of the night she asked if I was able to go and visit others (by myself) and I said yes so she invited me to come over sometime and meet her daughters and hang. I was so excited to get my first invitation in Moldova!!

Happy Independence Day

So this past weekend was America's Independence day (as you all know) and the US Embassy here in Moldova hosted a celebration for all American citizens living and working in Moldova. It was incredibly fun and packed!
US embassy staff, Peace Corps staff and volunteers, American working in Moldova and ex-pats living here were all invited. It was nice having a little slice of home in the middle of a foreign country. And it gave us newbies a chance to meet other Americans and chat with other volunteers who were not part of the mentor program.
We enjoyed potato salad, cole slaw, bbq'd chicken, hot dogs, hamburgers and for dessert....McDonald's apple pies and strawberry sundaes. They even had a McDonald's kids corner with balloons and games (that's for you Staci). There was of course beer, wine, sodas and water. Almost felt like a bbq at home! We spent about 4.5 hours there then sadly had to head back to Costesti. But it was a welcomed break from the chaos of training.
Sadly, I do not have any photos because I forgot my camera, but as I get some from fellow volunteers smart enough to remember their camera I will try to post.

On another note, today is a big day for all us newbie volunteers. Today is the day that we find out where we will be permanently placed. Next weekend (July 10-12) we will be visiting our new sites meeting the school director, partner teachers and of course our new host family. I will post my placement in a blog hopefully on Wednesday.

All in all, things are going well. I have my first language assessment on Friday (ahhh). And after this week we are almost to the half way mark!! Woohoo!!!