Well fans, it’s been a busy 2 months since my last post in March so warning now, this is a long post-but I have plenty of pictures to break it up with.
So a brief recap of my time so far:
After my spring vacation in Istanbul, I got back to teaching. However, with the arrival of spring the students (and admittedly me as well) were not able to concentrate as well. The sun, song birds and general busyness of the street outside draws their attention. I too am tempted to stare out the windows. Spring in Moldova is so colorful and beautiful after the monotone winter. And it seemed almost overnight that the sun now sets much later which means more time for outdoor activities. Everyone is itching to be outdoors either for planting, playing or general pleasantness.
Bolnav-ed (Bolnav is Romanian for sick)
The time between the March spring break and the April break was mostly filled with school during the week and trips to visit other volunteers on the weekends. However, I did have an unexpected and unwelcome visitor for about 2 weeks during that period. I mentioned in a previous post (Winter Blues and The Blue Mosque) that I was having some intestinal issues. Well those “issues” turned out to be the result of Giardia (jar-dee-ah). This is a very common illness among volunteers but I was hopeful that I would be able to make it through my whole service without it. And I was so close!! Alas, that was not to be the case. Giardia is a lovely intestinal parasite that can be found in unwashed food or in water that is contaminated by animal feces infected with the parasite. I’m not entirely sure where or how these little parasites came to live in my stomach, but without going into detail it was a painful and horrible week and a half but on the flip side I really got to know my toilet and I lost about 8lbs in that time from eating only rice and tea and the aforementioned special time with my toilet. Moving on…
Birthday-ed (1)
Fortunately my stomach and intestines recovered in time for me to attend a birthday masa in my friend Vince’s village of Zgurita (zger-ee-za) on April 10th. This was my first time visiting Vince in his village and I was really happy to be there. Not only did we get to eat some yummy Moldovan food but it was just a great time with some of my favorite people. The masa was held at Vince’s partner’s house and they were the lucky recipients of about 13 Americans descending on their home. But in Moldovan fashion they greeted us with open doors, lots of food, laughs and of course wine. Now a masa in Moldova is not a sprint, it’s a marathon of eating…think Thanksgiving but about 8 hours longer! We all sat around that table exchanging stories, jokes, songs and toasts to Vince for about 9 hours. It was hands down one of the best times I’ve had in Moldova. I especially loved that we were all together in one room and at any given time you could hear conversations in English, Romanian and Russian. Yet we all conversed and laughed together. Some of the volunteers learned Romanian like me while others learned Russian so we all helped translate for each other depending on what language was being used. I remember sitting there at one point not talking but just listening to bits and pieces of the conversations around me thinking that there would never be a moment in my life like this; two cultures and three languages coming together in such an easy and wonderful way. Vince’s partner and his family are fantastic people and they absolutely love Vince. He’s a really great volunteer and you can see that he is well respected and loved by those in his community.
Vince getting his ear tugged for each year
Vince with his partner next to him and friends at one end of the table. Notice all the food-we barely put a dent in it even after 8 hours of eating!
Blessed and Bathed (at the same time)
Last year's Easter found me waiting for a car that Tom, MacKenzie and I could take across the Moldova-Romania border so we could catch our plane to Vienna. Being that this was my last Easter in Moldova I wanted to be here for the festivities. My partner Elena invited me to spend the weekend with her and her family. I absolutely love her daughters and I am trying to spend as much time with Elena as I can. I was in Chisinau earlier in the day on Saturday but was at her apartment by the evening. I helped her make food for the next day, talk with her and her cousin while enjoying some cocktails and of course play with her twin 9 year old daughters-Dina and Dana. We stayed up until 11pm but decided that it was best for us to take a little cat nap since we wanted to be at the church around 2am. Devout Moldovans arrive at the church around 9pm the night before Easter for the Easter mass. When we arrived there were a handful of people lining up in the courtyard with their baskets filled with some of the food and wine that they will eat over the following week. The point of lining up with baskets full of food is so at nearly sunrise, the priest can walk down the lines and bless the food and the people in a wash of holy water, incense and laughter (which was unexpected for me). I had a great time taking pictures of everything that was going on around me and talking with Elena and the friends we met at the church. As the dawn approached and we knew the priest would be finishing his Easter service, people set up their baskets around them and lit their candles. It was beautiful (and the lit candles helped warm things up a little bit). In the two and a half hours that we stood in the courtyard I watched as we went from about 50 people to about 300 people; everyone with their baskets, food, candles and scarves. The priest came out with his entourage (someone preceding him with incense and someone to hold the bucket of holy water that he dipped his bundle of sage into) around 4:30am. I debated with myself if I would stand in line, but I figured this was my last year, I should soak it all in….soak being the operative word. I was expecting a light dusting of water flicked on my face and the food. No way!! The priest uses a very large bundle of sage that he dips into his bucket of holy water and flings it all over your face and the food at your feet. I got soaked. It was a blessing and a bath all at the same time!! As he walked up and down the lines splashing everyone and their belongings and giving blessings, I noticed that he was making jokes with some of the people he was more familiar with. He even stopped at one particular man and double blessed him joking that he really needed it. The whole evening was quiet and beautiful and sort of ceremonial that this joking caught me off guard but in a really good way. I thought it was great that he took the time to not just bless but crack a joke with people who had been waiting hours in the chilly April morning. I don’t fully understand all the traditions of the Moldovan Easter, but from an ignorant outsider’s perspective it’s really quite beautiful. I did however find amusement in the fact that as soon as the priest moved on from a person, they started packing up. So the lines emptied at the same rate as the priest blessed them. People wanted to get home and eat their blessed food and drink their blessed wine in celebration of Jesus’ resurrection. I finally got home around 6AM. Took a few pictures of the sun rise and promptly fell asleep. A few hours I woke up, I got the phone call to enjoy a masa at a friend’s house and so the celebration continued. Hristos a inviat – Adevarat a inviat!! (Christ is risen – True he is risen).
This is me with my partner's daughters
My partner Elena making "tea" to take with us. Funny that the tea has juice and Martini Rosso mix in it?!?
I was the Quality Assurance Manager
The priest walking down the line
Elena and I after being blessed (and bathed)
The sunrise from my balcony
Visitors
After the long Easter weekend, I got the apartment all set up for my guests. Two other volunteers had traveled to a city north of Floresti for their Easter celebration then stopped in for a night to visit me on their way back down to the south of Moldova. Na’Ima and Ryne both live in a raion (county) center called Cahul. It’s bigger than Floresti and I believe is the 3rd largest in Moldova. Na’Ima is a volunteer who came in with the M22 group (which my former sitemate Kyle was part of). She is still in Moldova because she had extended a third year. She was also my adopted mentor when I first landed in Moldova. She is saucy, outgoing, highly intelligent, warm hearted and wonderful. I don’t get to see her as often as I would like because she is about 7 hours away from me and she is rarely in Chisinau. So I was super excited that she was going to come for a visit – especially since her last day in Moldova was on May 10th. I knew this would be one of my last chances to see her before she left. My other visitor was Ryne. He is a volunteer from my group and one of the funniest guys in our group. I just love this kid!! By the time they left my stomach muscles hurt and my eyes were raw from laughing and crying so much. Those two together were the funniest things I’ve ever seen. I know he has got to be lost without her in Cahul now that she has gone back to America. It was one of my most memorable nights (I’m trying to savior as many as I can).
Later in the week Dan came for a visit and it was great just hanging out the two of us. Even though I was tied up working on a project, it was nice having him here to pull me away and make me be social. Dan is probably one of the easiest volunteers for me to be around. He’s become family for me.
Meet the Kocians
Now, I have to tell you about something that meant a lot to me. Matt Kocian is one of my closest friends and one of the first volunteers that I became close to. He and I along with others went to Spain during our first winter and I traveled with him to Odessa last summer and Istanbul this past March. He is horrible about posting pictures and didn’t start a blog until most of the way through his service here in Moldova. It was a long standing joke in our first summer during our training and for many months after that the only way his parents knew anything about him or saw any pictures was because of my blog and the photos I posted of him. So fast forward to the end of April of this year and I get a phone call from Matt asking me if I was planning to be in Chisinau at all that coming weekend. I had no plans to be there and in fact was hoping to avoid going because I had been away from Floresti so much and thought it would be nice to have a few days at home before our COS conference (more on that later). But then he followed up his question with “…because my parents are here and they have specifically asked to meet you.” Well, there was no way I was going to pass up meeting Matt’s parents, especially because they asked to meet me. So I found myself heading to our favorite Greek restaurant in Chisinau on a Friday. His parents are two of the nicest, most wonderful people I’ve met. I really enjoyed talking with them about their travels around the world and their views of Moldova. We all get so used to talking to each other about being an American in Moldova that it’s nice to have a fresh pair of American eyes looking at this country I’ve come to love so much. I can see why Matt is such a great person after meeting his parents. A definite highlight for me in what became a good month!!
Burdened
While the month of April may have been a good month, its last day was not so much! After having lunch with Matt’s parents, I headed to Dan’s house for the night just to hang out (Dan and I ended up having a lot of time together during the Easter break and COS break and we are still good friends and never once tried to kill each other-but I’m getting to that). So the next morning, April 30, I headed home. I was so happy to be home. I had big plans of relaxing, watching a little “Tudors” and working some more on the project I mentioned earlier. However, Floresti had other ideas for me. When I got home, I realized there was no electricity in my apartment nor in my building. This is not unusual so I figured after a few hours it might come back on. Two hours passed and nothing. So I went across the hall and talked to a neighbor who informed me that the power had gone out that morning and had been out for the whole day. Hmmm, this was not a good sign. Fortunately I was still able to cook (gas stove and oven) and I still had water so it wasn’t a horrible thing. But sadly, my computer had died and my phone was on its last bar. I spent most of the day reading which was wonderful. I even read after the sun went down using my headlamp. At one point shortly before I went to bed that night I looked out my balcony windows and realized that most of the town was without electricity. Hmmm, this was not a good sign. When I woke up the next morning, still no power. Back to reading for me! The power did eventually come back on for about an hour and a half. Just long enough for me to charge my phone, iPod and computer. But it again went out leaving me with my book and headlamp for entertainment. I read three books that weekend. The next morning (Monday by now) I was still without power so I packed my bag and headed to Dan’s since he had power and I had a project to finish.
This is Dan. He mentioned once to me that he wants to see more pictures of him on my blog...poftim Dan (here ya go Dan).
Bye-Byed
After the Easter break school resumed, but not for the M24 volunteer teachers. Our whole group (all four programs) got together for our COS conference. COS stands for Close Of Service. The point of this conference is to bring everyone together from our entire M24 group, reminisce, share stories and experiences, learn about all the fun medical and administrative paperwork we have to do before we are allowed to leave and have one last celebration before we all start leaving Moldova. The conference was wonderful and incredibly fun.
Our first day of the conference we had to put a volunteer, that was assigned to us, on the hot seat and talk about what we will remember about them. It was suppose to a kind of toasting, although it was more like a light hearted roasting. Because of the nature of Peace Corps, you sort of form a family with the volunteers you come to country with. So of course we had to mix in embarrassing or funny stories with our sincerity and toasts. It made for a whole lot of laughs, a few tears and lots of hugs.
While the hot seat was fun, the best part of the whole conference for me was what happen after dinner on the second night. During the day one of the activities we did was to answer question given to us on big pieces of flip chart paper (e.g. What was your favorite Facebook status update? What will you miss about Moldova? What won’t you miss about Moldova?, etc…). One of the questions was “What was your favorite PC story?”. This sheet was filled with one liner titles to our favorite stories. Most were stories I had heard but there were several I had not. Another volunteer during dinner made the comment that he thought we should get the flip chart paper from the conference room and explain the stories so that we can all hear them. And so it was that after dinner and a run to the little market in the next village our group sat around the resort restaurant for 3 hours drinking beer or wine or soda, telling some of our favorite and funniest stories about our time here and laughing our asses off. I remember sitting there at one point looking around the room at all the friends and family I had made over the last two years and realized that it was the last time we would all be together like this and there was no other way more perfect than what were doing to say Goodbye as a group.
The final day was filled with information about the medical and administrative requirements but I still had a smile on my face from the night before. Not only was it great to see everyone, especially those I don’t normally get to spend time with, but I found that I was re-energized about finishing my service after having so much time to reflect back on my time here. Our day ended with group pictures and an uplifting and inspirational speech by the US Ambassador to Moldova. The only down side to the whole conference was that by the end, I was completely drained (mentally, physically and emotionally). I went back to Dan’s village with him (see we spent a lot of time together over two weeks) and as we sat down on his bus we just looked at each other silently as we pulled out our headphones and iPods both of us needing a little “me” time even if it was just for the 45 minute bus ride to his village.
Below are a few random fun pics of our three days
These picture are groups pictures by program
1)English Education 2) Health Education 3) Agriculture and Rural Business Development 4) Community and Organization Development
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This is our country director Jeffrey (left) with the US Ambassador to Moldova and his wife
Group picture of all the volunteers with Jeffrey and the Ambassador
Me and my program manager Nina!
The bell we ring as we exit for the last time the Peace Corps office on our last day.
Birthday-ed (2)
Sixty-five years ago on May 12th my favorite person was born-my mom. While I have loved mostly every minute of my Peace Corps experience and my mom has been supportive of my being here, its been rough for her. I’m the baby of the family and I've now missed two birthdays, two mother’s days, a Christmas and two Thanksgivings. She’s told me that she’s ready for me to come home. And while I think that my going home at Christmas helped, we still miss each other a lot!! Since I cannot be there for her birthday, I try to do what I can to at least be there in spirit. Last year for her birthday I sent her Sunflowers, a VERY common flower here in Moldova. This year since it was Tulip time I sent her 30 Tulips and my 6th graders (one of my favorite class) helped me with a project for her. We recorded a video of us singing Multi Ani Traiasca (pronounced multz an tray-a-ska) a birthday song in Romanian and of course since they are learning English we sang for her the Happy Birthday song. They had so much fun with it and were eager to hear if my mom had liked the video when I saw them again this past Monday. When I got home from class on the 12th I was able to upload the video long before she even woke up in America. This is when I love being 10 hours ahead! I anxiously waited to call and wish her a happy birthday until it was 7:30am in Sacramento. I knew that we were going to Skype a few hours later, but I didn't want to wait. She was really happy with her day of birthday surprises – her morning birthday song video and later in the afternoon her flowers. At least next year, I’ll be there in person.
Branded
Even before I left for Moldova I had kicked around the idea of getting a tattoo that was related to Peace Corps while I was here. In the beginning I was not sure about it because after all this is Moldova and I did not know if they even had tattoo parlors here. Throughout my first year there were several volunteers who got tattoos. But I was not always overly impressed with the quality. And for me, a tattoo is not something that you skimp on quality. One of the guys, Matt (different than Matt Kocian), who came in last summer as part of the M25 group has a lot of tats and we talked about the possibility of getting one here. He asked around and found a studio that was actually legit. We took a look at the tattoo artist’s work (his name is Sergiu), booked our appointment and jumped on a rutiera to another part of Chisinau where the studio is located. It was a great experience and I loved that Matt and I both remarked after we left the studio that neither of us had the least bit of doubt about getting our tattoos and that we are both considering another one while I am still here. Sergiu is regarded as the best in Chisinau (which subsequently makes him the best in Moldova hahaha) and has been doing tattoos for about 20 years. He was really friendly and talkative-he told us about his family and asked us about our time in Moldova and where in America we were from. He was willing to show us whatever we wanted to see, used all brand new equipment and even at one point had to answer his cell phone with a gloved hand, then changed the glove after he was finished. I never felt a moment of discomfort (except for the whole needle and tattoo part but even that wasn’t too bad). Matt had more discomfort than I did, but he did get his tattoo on his ribs while mine is on my wrist. I wanted a tattoo that signified my time in Moldova and in the Peace Corps. I took part of the Peace Corps logo (a star that is turns into a dove in three parts) and instead of using the colors in the logo I used the colors of the Moldova flag (blue, yellow and red). I’ve included pictures. It’s been 3 days and I am still in love with my tattoo (and my kids at school are too-they are enamored).
That’s a wrap!
School is wrapping up. In fact we have to have most of our grading done by this Friday even though we still have a whole other week of school. But that is Moldova and I’ve found that most of the teachers won’t have their grades in on time so I think it’s the Ministry of Education’s way of ensuring that they do get all the grades by the last day of school. The last month of school is typically busy with testing or test preparation. This semester our 10th and 11th graders have special exams called Teze (tay-zay) for specific subjects. While they are working on those, our 9th and 12th grades are preparing for their exit exams. Mostly we are trying to finish up with our text books and get the kids ready for the end of semester tests. It’s a crazy time because there are rumors that our school will combine with another school either next school year or the year after. Everyone is trying to look good so as to secure their teaching position when that happens. O sa vedem (We will see).
A thank you masa - American style
So that brings us to today. While I type this post (or at the time that I started writing this post) I have pumpkin muffins baking in the oven and chocolate chip cookie bars cooling on the counter. Tomorrow I will be baking lemon squares, banana bread and apple-lemon bread, making deviled eggs and an assorted fruit tray as well as a salami and cheese tray. Why the baking and cooking frinzy you ask - well I have been saving up and planning to have a small masa as a thank you for all the teachers at my school. Normally when we have a masa there is a ton of Moldovan food, but I am one lowly volunteer and American to boot so I decided to do a “Tea and Coffee Masa”. I am making a bunch of American inspired finger foods along with hot tea and coffee. Normally the wine and vodka is flowing but again I am poor and cannot afford to have alcohol for 30 Moldovan adults. Plus, I want to keep this an alcohol free event. The masa itself will be on Thursday, May 19 after the last lesson at the school. My partner Elena does not teach that day and I only have one class so she is going to help me get everything set up so that its all ready in time. She even called me today to see if I needed any help with the baking. I am going to miss her most of all. She really has become like a sister to me. But I digress and will get overly sappy if I think about it, so instead… fingers crossed that it all goes off without a hitch! I will of course be taking pictures and will post them soon, I promise.
Glimpsing my future
On my immediate horizon (after the school masa) is the visit of one of my closest friends from America-Leslie. She is visiting friends in Spain and decided that when was she going to get another chance to visit me in Moldova than now. So she got her tax return and booked her flight and I could not be more excited. I’m not going to lie, I’ve been a little jealous of other volunteers who have had friends and/or family visit them in Moldova. I know things have been rough back in the States for a lot of my friends and my dad is already coming to Europe at the end of my service for a family trip so I get why it hasn’t been until now that someone is coming. But I’m not gonna lie - I’m feeling a whole lotta love that she is coming. And I’m really excited that I get to share a bit of my Peace Corps experience with her especially because she has contemplated joining the Peace Corps as well.
I believe I’ve mentioned in a previous post that my dad and I are planning a European trip after I leave Moldova. He and I are going to meet in Prague and make our way to Glasgow via Berlin, Paris, London and Edinburgh. I have been looking forward to this trip for many, many moons now. But to make things even better, my brother is going to be joining us for part of the trip. I am so excited that he is coming. We haven’t had a family trip in a really long time (not since I was in junior high school) and with my brother and his family living in Denver, we don’t get to see him often. I think it has been almost 4 years since I’ve seen my brother which makes this even better. We are still working out the details, but I foresee booking airline tickets and hostel in my not so distant future. I will post more about that as details get worked out.
Oh and one last thing...as of this posting I have 70 days until I COS and 92 days until I land in Sacramento!
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