I was not able as the last entry stated to get much on my blog the last time I was in Chisinau. I am trying again and will put the more recent stuff at the top of this blog.By the way this picture is of a road, not un like the one I live on. But notice the make of the car on the right.
I have been in Moldova now for a little over four weeks. Today was a looong day as we had our first language exam. The effort was to get a third party’s assessment of our language progress. I managed to get assigned to the last paring of the day, which made for a long nervous wait. I have a hard time understanding what folks say to me but this week I have been able to explain to my host sister when I don’t need her to make me lunch even though I will not be home for lunch. I think that she understands me. Something of a break through!
We find out tomorrow how we did. Up until now we have stayed in our same grouping with three of us in each class and the same teacher. It is expected that maybe our groupings will be changed along with our teacher after the test, which by the way was all oral.
We also have a project that we are working on involving a fund raiser. We are working with some high school students to have a talent type concert that will benefit the preschool across the street from our Peace Corps school. After the test this afternoon we had a meeting with the mayor and we thought we had a meeting with the parents of the preschool. But apparently the parent meeting, more like a PTA, was moved to yesterday and not knowing this we missed it.
It is said that training is nothing like time in your village. I seem to remember that from the last time I was in the Peace Corps. We have little time to ourselves now but will have lots later.
Also if I can get them on, these murals are in the basement room of the preschool. In Soviet time, this school and two others in our village housed all the too young to go to primary school students while their parents worked. One of the preschools has been closed down and the other two are running below capacity. When the Soviet Union collapsed the infrastructure that held much of the activity in this country together went with it. Now that Romania has become apart of the EU, Moldova has become even more isolated. There are not a lot of choices in the way of jobs. Many families have members that are working out of this country and many are doing it legally.
But I will get to that in future blogs.
What follows is what should have been post two weeks ago, enjoy:
I have been in my host family’s home for two weeks this weekend and only away from home for three weeks. Two days were spent in Philadelphia, two days were spend traveling to Moldova and two days were spent in Chisinau.
My days start with Moldovan/Romanian language classes except on Thursday and Sunday. On Thursday we spend the whole day doing all the other stuff besides language that will fill these ten weeks of training. I have to keep reminding myself that I have only been studying Romanian for two weeks as I get frustrated trying to speak. There are very few people in our small town who speak any English and thus all communication has to happen in Romanian. Bingo, frustration.
My training group left Philadelphia with twenty nine of us. Last week one of number opted to return home. Most likely we will loose more before our ten weeks is complete and we are sworn in as Peace Corps volunteers the first week in May. The Peace Corps is working hard to make sure we all make it but at the same time they want us to know what we will face.
While we are near the same latitude as northern Michigan, spring is arriving. Most yards have been tilled and seeds are going in. The roads are filling up with mud as the rains water the seeds. Our grandfather is in charge of our garden. We are still eating food from last year’s garden. We have a rabbit and chickens in our yard. And we are all greeted by a small fluffy white dog when we come in the gate. I think he might be getting use to me as he only barks occasionally when I come home. He serves as our door bell.
My home for the next weeks is new with a nice inside bathroom, including a flush toilet and a washing machine. The washing machine is German made but the instructions are in Russian. I bought a Snickers bar the other day and with the exception of the word Snickers all the writing on the wrapper is in Russian.
