10-23-07 11:32
Just got back from language class today. It was a shorter session so I have a little more brain left currently. It rained this morning, It was cold, wet, muddy, gloomy. I was in a good mood even though I was getting wet on the way to class. I came up behind an older man in his early 60’s or thereabouts who began talking to me. I quickly turned off the volume on my I-pod (that’s right plug for the I-pod) and asked him to repeat it for me (as if it made a difference that I had my volume on and that’s why I could not understand him). He quickly repeated what he said or should I say mumbled it a second time and I still had no idea what he was saying. He looked at me as if I was dense and this made me feel great because maybe this guy thought I was a local and was just trying to talk to me wondering why I didn’t understand him. He repeated a third time and this time with some miming as to say if you listen to music on your head phones you will go deaf. It was bad for my health to listen to it. As he is telling me this he lit up a cigarette and proceeded to go about taking care of his own health. I thought about countering by showing him the label on his pack but I thought better of it thanked him for his suggestion and kept my head phones off for the rest of the trip incase he wanted to say anything else to me. He didn’t which was good because early in the morning with no warm up in the language I fail even more miserably at the language.
Also despite the rain and cold and mud and the fact that the chickens ate my jack-o-lantern I made for some kids I was going to show what we do in America for Halloween. I carved it up and everything with my handy Leatherman knife. (that’s right pluggin the Leatherman knife). So despite all of this I was still in a good mood. Then I went through 2 hours of language class and began my 30 min fun stroll home along the main highway. And on this fun hike a couple of things happened, first I thought about why people were so gloomy when I passed by them. I always smile like a complete tourist and tell them hello and wonder why they are all pissed off. Then I look at the weather its crappy outside.. the roads are crappy.. some people are going to the wells along the street to get water frothier house because they have no running water and they are not happy about it. It begins to bring my mood down a little..i carefully avoid mud and puddles as I continue to make my way towards my house when I stumble and look down to realize I nearly stepped on a dead dog and then stepped in horse crap followed by no joke a semi driving on my left nailing a puddle of water and soaking the complete left side of me. At this moment my i-pod is playing “we didn’t start the fire” by Billy Joel and listing all of these people in the song. This gets me thinking about just how great America is by contrast. I go on thinking about all the opportunities you have in America, and how here people are pissed off because their futures are unclear and for the most part depressing. I, as an American can go anywhere in the world for the most part with my pass port, work anywhere, even AMERICA and make money. As a Moldovan it is very hard to travel, they can’t afford it and in most cases don’t’ have permission to really travel with their passports is what I have come to understand…. That little blurb doesn’t really capture everything I was thinking but its more then I would have remembered if I waited a week to write about it.
Just about 30 minutes ago I was down in the kitchen eating a meat roll, (some kind of meat in bread that just sits out on the counter all the time , no need to refrigerate it I guess…) when I noticed a rabbit carcass sitting in a bowl on the counter. I was a little grossed out about seeing it laying there while I was eating my meat roll but hey its just everyday life here. My mom asked me if I wanted to watch the next time they kill a rabbit. I declined for now and she asked me why showing the universal sign for crying with her finger under her eye and I just said ya that is why I didn’t want to see it because I would feel bad and cry.
Lets see ok, yesterday evening I had dance class with about 75% of the volunteers that wanted to do it. We had a “professional” dance instructor and accordionist help us with the music and dance steps. I learned the basics of the Hurrah? I don’t know how to spell it but that is how you say it. It was an experience that is all I have to say. I am glad that I am learning it though because it is the staple dance at any wedding or festival. I tried some of the moves at home last night after I got back after my family encouraged me to show them and then they all whooped and hollered as I completely butchered the dance. My mom said I dance like a little babe in kindergarten. Sigh… lets see what else.. Oh yes I have gotten Veronica my host sister here to play cards with me. She is one of the most boring people I have ever met (not in a really horrible way .. I say this in a joking manner because she is fun to hang around with as long as you find something to do). Every day I ask her what she wants to do she says she doesn’t have anything planned. She ends up doing her homework.. then watches tv and texts her friends the whole day. Every suggestion had been shot down for the most part because she just doesn’t want to do them and she doesn’t have any suggestions for what she wants to do…. Anyway I got her into the card game Egyptian Rat Screw. I don’t know why its called this but it is.. I have my own thoughts on this subject but the story doesn’t really make too much sense and will end up just confusing more people then it would help. Alright.. the point is she loves this game and has beat me every time we have played. I just don’t have what it takes.. I guess.
Also thanks Sarah for getting mom and dad set up with the web cam, it was great seeing you all Saturday. A note to anybody reading this.. once again I hear stories of other volunteers parents reading my blog and that makes me laugh. If anybody wants to chat online, possibly with a web cam if you0 have one I am on MSN messenger from time to time around 9pm at night my time so that would be 1pm central time. But that really varies. If you want to talk just let me know when you can get on and Id love to chat it up :--). My name on msn is just kylestremme@hotmail.com
Love Yall.
10-24-07 14:46
Some days the only way I can eat is to pretend I am William Wallace (From Braveheart) and I am sitting around with my fellow comrades eating the food we just caught around the camp fire talking about old war stories and planning our next attack. If i didn’t do things like this there is no way I would sit there and eat the organs of a rabbit or the head of a chicken. Wine with meals that are not quite as appealing as your host family thinks they are is also a good way of taking the edge off of something you would have never dreamt of eating and now the situation presents itself where if you don’t eat it you are insulting the people you have grown to love and if you do indeed it you might lose everything you ate on the table in front of everyone. I love days like these. On a side not I have begun the book “A Primate’s Memoir” by Robert M. Sapolsky and have laughed out loud 4 times and I am only on the 20th page. I highly recommend it. Ok.. I demand you read it.
Update 21:19
Since my last entry I was able to go visit my dads family. One of his coworkers with a car drove us for about 5 minutes saving us about an hour of walking in the mud witch really made the whole experience 20 times better. I met his mother and father and got to see their “betch” or cellar drink some wine and have a masa. His dad told me over and over again “bravo” American and how happy he was that I came here and how tall I am and how good I speak Romanian…. I have to say this because it really made feel great. I discussed with his mom about how old my mom was and my grandmother. I also watched my dad use a 40 year old sewing machine that you crank with your hand to repair some of his pants. I was impressed and I told him I learned the art of sewing when I was in 8th grade. He laughed but said it is important that I know it. I told him it was like 10 years ago and I remember very little but he said when the time comes ill learn again. I finished off the night with cards with veronica and a dinner then some language studying. Veronica beat me again at Egyptian rat screw… still I yet to win. My only excuse is that they only have 35 cards because the only games they play require 35 cards….
That’s it.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
Picture Update
Photo on the top left is my future office I will be working in and out of for 2 years. That is my partner on the Elena on the bottom right of the photo and my other partner Alexei on the left. The photo to the right of the office photo is photograph I took of Lennin that is a huge statue right next to the building I will be working in. The photo directly below the office photo is a picture of me with my future host family, notice the height difference :0. To the right of that photo is a recent event I talked about having a masa at my current fathers brothers house. That is my sister Veronica on the left and Mother to her left. Then my fathers brothers family with little Misha in the center who received the flashlight. Finish it off I have a photo of Chisinau looking out of the hotel I was staying at about a week ago.Saturday, October 20, 2007
Awakward is the word
10-20-07 15:07
I failed again to keep this blog updated every other day. This time it was not because I did not have enough to talk about but because there was just too much going on for me to sit down and type this all out. The biggest problem with this is that I forgot a lot of the smaller details in what was going on but I will try my best to recap this last week.
Ok well lets see what happened this past weekend. I had an adventure getting into Chisinau for the festival of wine day. I was asked to go with some friends to hang out in the biggest city in Moldova for the festival of wine day. On this day I also had to clean my room from top to bottom including getting on my hands and knees to make sure that the floor was completely spick and span. My room needed it so it was good that I took the time to go over it all. After doing some cleaning I did some much needed reading. Currently I am reading “Three Cups of Tea” By Mortonson and really enjoying it. A big thank you to Jessica for lending it out to me.
It was fairly cold outside so the fam was sitting around the tv watching the festival of wine going on 20 min away in Chisinau while I was trying to convince them to go with me to meet my friends. They weren’t having any of it so I thought I would go by myself to meet my friends. This was my first time venturing out to Chisinau alone and I was looking forward to getting lost in a city that I had very little experience in. To be quick and brief I took an unreliable way of transportation and ended up somewhere on the outskirts of the city where I proceeded tot hen get completely lost and then found my way talking in horrible Romanian to passing strangers.
The festival was interesting. There was a large stage in the center of the city where traditional dances were being performed to traditional music. All around the stage was wine tents made up of different producers trying to win the passerbyers into buying either a small shot of wine or a whole bottle. Lets just say there were a lot of people having a very good time. I wondered around the city with my friends ate some really good food and then we made our way home.
The next day was judgment day. I was to travel again to Chisinau alone to meet with a PCV who has been working in Moldova for a year now. I met her so that I would travel with her to my future site in North Chisinau. The ride wasn’t too interesting but it was long. As soon as I arrived I was left alone with my partner who I just then met and driven to meet my first potential host family for dinner. My partner seems very nice and doesn’t speak a lick of English. I felt I did surprisingly well communicating with her and the family I was visiting. I was given some great food and then stayed the night at that house. It was a little awkward there with the first family for multiple reasons that I will not get into on this blog but it was an experience.
Monday I was picked up by my partner outside of the house and driven to “work”. I was able to sit in the office and talk with my future colleges… or try to talk as my language is about the equivalent of a 3 year old. For the first part of the day I went on some errands with my other partner which consisted of us driving to a gas station while he went in and had some papers signed. While he did that I was given the fun job of sitting in the car which I was completely comfortable doing because I it relieved pressure for me to talk with them or for me to understand what they were trying to say to me. We made several trips like this back and forth and then I sat in the office copying words off the walls where books hung translating with my dictionary words like horse, or cabbage.
I then awkwardly expressed my desire to see another potential host family that I would be living with when I did finally move up there. I was given blank looks by my partner even though I knew she knew what I was talking about. After some reluctancy she took me to see the second and final host family I was to see. It is a good 30 minute walk from work but it is worth it. The family is awesome. There is currently only the mom and dad living in the house because the daughter is married to an American and living In America and the son is working in Chisinau. Their ages are roughly 24-26. The parents look to be in their low 40s and very friendly. The host mother cooked some food that was out of this world. Really great food that I ate in mass quantities. After we then proceeded back to work where I sat for a while longer trying my best to look constructive when my new friend Andrea who is living in the same city came by to show me around the town and speak to me in English. She has been working in this town for just nearly a year and she showed me what kinds of things she has been doing as well as the best ways to traverse through the city. I was able to walk through a beautiful park that was even more beautiful because it is autumn and all of the leaves are colored. I took some pictures of what I could before my battery died. It made me think of my dad in America because of how much he enjoys autumn and how much he would have loved to see the trees in the park. (miss you dad). To my surprise guess what this city has? A gym full of every type of work out equipment I thought I was going to be without while serving in the peace corps. WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
After walking for nearly 3 hours and visiting her house and her adorable pets ( 2 eight week year old puppies and newborn kittens) we went back to that second host family’s house to eat dinner ( we had pancakes with syrup and an assortment of meets and vegetables (truly wonderful food). I then stayed the night there and in the morning was given a ride by my family there back to Chisinau with my partner for a kind of get to know each other conference with the rest of the 38 trainees. The conference was informative and it gave each my partner and me a good idea of what kinds of obstacles we are going to come up to with regards to the language barrier or just finding things for me to do during my first 6 moths of attempting to learn the language or local community.
I was able to eat my first piece of pizza in a good 2 months at a local pizza shop in the city with some friends and then the next day eat my first hamburger known as a “big mac” here in Moldova. If you order a hamburger you get a piece of ham on bread ;-).
Finally Wednesday I was able to come back to my village to my family who I missed and continue with the language class routine. It is going to be sad leaving my family. They keep asking why I have to leave and why I can’t just stay with them. A part of me doesn’t want to leave but then again I want to see more of the country. I hope I am able to visit them when I do leave.
Thursday passed without any crazy things happening but I was informed that we will be having the opportunity to learn a traditional dance that will be performed for all of our host families and peace corps at the end of our training. I am excited to learn some new dance moves given the sorry state I am in when it comes to dancing now.
Friday was just another day in language class followed by some work in the garden. I also took used this day to photograph my entire house in and out. I took some video with my camera as well of my family eating lunch. They got a kick out of themselves when they watched the video on my computer. I also took an excursion with my mom and sister down into the valley about 20 minutes from our house to my moms brothers house to watch my dad work. My dad works in construction was busy building a house when we arrived. We of course brought with us some beer and snacks. I greeted him and his fellow workers then played football with some of the cousins and their friends. I am really not very good at football (soccer) but I have the intimidation factor given I am 22 and they are anywhere from 10-14. My team got slaughtered and but we had a good time and I was able to teach my team the art of intimidation by beating our chest and making grunting noises before we took the field to show the other team we ment business but I digress.
On our way home from the valley we stopped by my fathers brothers house for a masa ( or a dinner thrown when guests arrive). I was first taken to the cellar to take a shot of wine with my uncle then we sat around for a good 2 hours eating and conversing. I busted out the camera and gave everyone a good laugh and gave one of my favorite little cousins one of my two flashlights. I decided to give him my flash light because I noticed when he had to go to the bath room he was getting scared because there are no lights outside of their house and it is a good 20 yards to the out house in the dark. He was clearly scared and I thought this guy needs a flashlight! Once he used it he came back with a big smile and I was like that’s yours now buddy J. Making a difference just one person at a time ;-). My uncle who the previous week I danced the hora with at the city festival gave me some Russian money the equivalent to 20 cents in American dollars and wrote his name on it and a message so that I would remember then when I went back to America.
I then crashed with the rest of my family back out our house at about 8:30 partly because of the wine and partly because of all the walking and soccer I played.
Today I have gone to language class, washed some clothes and am preparing to have a little frizzbee action going on in the near future. Hopefully I will be talking with my parents via web cam today 8:30pm my time and 12:30pm their time but I am not sure if they have gotten the message. If anybody would like to chat with me I will be on MSN messenger at 12:30pm central time under the name kylestremme@hotmail.com if your not on no problem, let me know another day that works for you and I will try to make it on.
At my new house I should have DSL connection which I can possibly make wireless with a router so I will be more available online to send pictures and videos online and even talk on skype J
Hope everyone is well, send me more emails… I want to know what is going on over there. Thanks to everyone who does send me messages.
_kyle_
I failed again to keep this blog updated every other day. This time it was not because I did not have enough to talk about but because there was just too much going on for me to sit down and type this all out. The biggest problem with this is that I forgot a lot of the smaller details in what was going on but I will try my best to recap this last week.
Ok well lets see what happened this past weekend. I had an adventure getting into Chisinau for the festival of wine day. I was asked to go with some friends to hang out in the biggest city in Moldova for the festival of wine day. On this day I also had to clean my room from top to bottom including getting on my hands and knees to make sure that the floor was completely spick and span. My room needed it so it was good that I took the time to go over it all. After doing some cleaning I did some much needed reading. Currently I am reading “Three Cups of Tea” By Mortonson and really enjoying it. A big thank you to Jessica for lending it out to me.
It was fairly cold outside so the fam was sitting around the tv watching the festival of wine going on 20 min away in Chisinau while I was trying to convince them to go with me to meet my friends. They weren’t having any of it so I thought I would go by myself to meet my friends. This was my first time venturing out to Chisinau alone and I was looking forward to getting lost in a city that I had very little experience in. To be quick and brief I took an unreliable way of transportation and ended up somewhere on the outskirts of the city where I proceeded tot hen get completely lost and then found my way talking in horrible Romanian to passing strangers.
The festival was interesting. There was a large stage in the center of the city where traditional dances were being performed to traditional music. All around the stage was wine tents made up of different producers trying to win the passerbyers into buying either a small shot of wine or a whole bottle. Lets just say there were a lot of people having a very good time. I wondered around the city with my friends ate some really good food and then we made our way home.
The next day was judgment day. I was to travel again to Chisinau alone to meet with a PCV who has been working in Moldova for a year now. I met her so that I would travel with her to my future site in North Chisinau. The ride wasn’t too interesting but it was long. As soon as I arrived I was left alone with my partner who I just then met and driven to meet my first potential host family for dinner. My partner seems very nice and doesn’t speak a lick of English. I felt I did surprisingly well communicating with her and the family I was visiting. I was given some great food and then stayed the night at that house. It was a little awkward there with the first family for multiple reasons that I will not get into on this blog but it was an experience.
Monday I was picked up by my partner outside of the house and driven to “work”. I was able to sit in the office and talk with my future colleges… or try to talk as my language is about the equivalent of a 3 year old. For the first part of the day I went on some errands with my other partner which consisted of us driving to a gas station while he went in and had some papers signed. While he did that I was given the fun job of sitting in the car which I was completely comfortable doing because I it relieved pressure for me to talk with them or for me to understand what they were trying to say to me. We made several trips like this back and forth and then I sat in the office copying words off the walls where books hung translating with my dictionary words like horse, or cabbage.
I then awkwardly expressed my desire to see another potential host family that I would be living with when I did finally move up there. I was given blank looks by my partner even though I knew she knew what I was talking about. After some reluctancy she took me to see the second and final host family I was to see. It is a good 30 minute walk from work but it is worth it. The family is awesome. There is currently only the mom and dad living in the house because the daughter is married to an American and living In America and the son is working in Chisinau. Their ages are roughly 24-26. The parents look to be in their low 40s and very friendly. The host mother cooked some food that was out of this world. Really great food that I ate in mass quantities. After we then proceeded back to work where I sat for a while longer trying my best to look constructive when my new friend Andrea who is living in the same city came by to show me around the town and speak to me in English. She has been working in this town for just nearly a year and she showed me what kinds of things she has been doing as well as the best ways to traverse through the city. I was able to walk through a beautiful park that was even more beautiful because it is autumn and all of the leaves are colored. I took some pictures of what I could before my battery died. It made me think of my dad in America because of how much he enjoys autumn and how much he would have loved to see the trees in the park. (miss you dad). To my surprise guess what this city has? A gym full of every type of work out equipment I thought I was going to be without while serving in the peace corps. WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
After walking for nearly 3 hours and visiting her house and her adorable pets ( 2 eight week year old puppies and newborn kittens) we went back to that second host family’s house to eat dinner ( we had pancakes with syrup and an assortment of meets and vegetables (truly wonderful food). I then stayed the night there and in the morning was given a ride by my family there back to Chisinau with my partner for a kind of get to know each other conference with the rest of the 38 trainees. The conference was informative and it gave each my partner and me a good idea of what kinds of obstacles we are going to come up to with regards to the language barrier or just finding things for me to do during my first 6 moths of attempting to learn the language or local community.
I was able to eat my first piece of pizza in a good 2 months at a local pizza shop in the city with some friends and then the next day eat my first hamburger known as a “big mac” here in Moldova. If you order a hamburger you get a piece of ham on bread ;-).
Finally Wednesday I was able to come back to my village to my family who I missed and continue with the language class routine. It is going to be sad leaving my family. They keep asking why I have to leave and why I can’t just stay with them. A part of me doesn’t want to leave but then again I want to see more of the country. I hope I am able to visit them when I do leave.
Thursday passed without any crazy things happening but I was informed that we will be having the opportunity to learn a traditional dance that will be performed for all of our host families and peace corps at the end of our training. I am excited to learn some new dance moves given the sorry state I am in when it comes to dancing now.
Friday was just another day in language class followed by some work in the garden. I also took used this day to photograph my entire house in and out. I took some video with my camera as well of my family eating lunch. They got a kick out of themselves when they watched the video on my computer. I also took an excursion with my mom and sister down into the valley about 20 minutes from our house to my moms brothers house to watch my dad work. My dad works in construction was busy building a house when we arrived. We of course brought with us some beer and snacks. I greeted him and his fellow workers then played football with some of the cousins and their friends. I am really not very good at football (soccer) but I have the intimidation factor given I am 22 and they are anywhere from 10-14. My team got slaughtered and but we had a good time and I was able to teach my team the art of intimidation by beating our chest and making grunting noises before we took the field to show the other team we ment business but I digress.
On our way home from the valley we stopped by my fathers brothers house for a masa ( or a dinner thrown when guests arrive). I was first taken to the cellar to take a shot of wine with my uncle then we sat around for a good 2 hours eating and conversing. I busted out the camera and gave everyone a good laugh and gave one of my favorite little cousins one of my two flashlights. I decided to give him my flash light because I noticed when he had to go to the bath room he was getting scared because there are no lights outside of their house and it is a good 20 yards to the out house in the dark. He was clearly scared and I thought this guy needs a flashlight! Once he used it he came back with a big smile and I was like that’s yours now buddy J. Making a difference just one person at a time ;-). My uncle who the previous week I danced the hora with at the city festival gave me some Russian money the equivalent to 20 cents in American dollars and wrote his name on it and a message so that I would remember then when I went back to America.
I then crashed with the rest of my family back out our house at about 8:30 partly because of the wine and partly because of all the walking and soccer I played.
Today I have gone to language class, washed some clothes and am preparing to have a little frizzbee action going on in the near future. Hopefully I will be talking with my parents via web cam today 8:30pm my time and 12:30pm their time but I am not sure if they have gotten the message. If anybody would like to chat with me I will be on MSN messenger at 12:30pm central time under the name kylestremme@hotmail.com if your not on no problem, let me know another day that works for you and I will try to make it on.
At my new house I should have DSL connection which I can possibly make wireless with a router so I will be more available online to send pictures and videos online and even talk on skype J
Hope everyone is well, send me more emails… I want to know what is going on over there. Thanks to everyone who does send me messages.
_kyle_
Saturday, October 13, 2007
No thanks I don't eat that
10-11-07 20:45
Lets see what has happened in these past few days since I last wrote. Lets start with Sunday. That was our first free day as a PCV in about a week. We had no classes or trips to go on and most importantly no lectures. I enjoy a good lecture every now and then but its rough when you listen to one every other day about safety procedures or health procedures or even cultural procedures. They are all very necessary but all that information cramming is rough on a guy when he is being crammed with Romanian till its coming out of his ears.
Back to Sunday… no class or lecture… I woke up around 9 which was great to be able to sleep in and then proceeded to live my day out at the house. I was able to eat a nice breakfast then study get all of my homework done for language class done three hours. Then I roamed around the house for something to do or someone to hang with. I spent some time chatting it up with mama then watched as my brother and his friends attempted to combat a virus on his computer that he contracted from all of his pirated music and games finally teaching why nothing in life is free.
From after that strolled the 30 minutes to hang out with some fellow PCV down by their houses to the south of me. We were going to play Frisbee but someone, I won’t name names forgot it so we found our fun at a local bar. The rest of the day went on to be unproductive but fun.
I am having trouble remembering anything interesting that happened on Monday except maybe a conversation relating to what they would want from America. So mom if your reading this, I know you asked me what you should send in a package to me if you did send one and I have been thinking … you asked me if there was anything you could send to my family here so I asked them awkwardly at dinner where the majority of the fun conversations happen. After about 5 minutes of explaining in remaining and English that my mom was wondering if they wanted anything then we discussed about why in the world my mom would want to send them anything. They were hesitant to ask for anything but told me to write things down on a list and they would choose from that list what they would want.
I am open to ideas here on to what to put on that list… They need a new hair drier which I plan on purchasing for them before I leave here in the city… I dunno if anyone has an idea that they think someone in Moldova would want from America please let me know. I know I want a good towel. Not a large one because I don’t have room for it anywhere but a nice one that dries me because the current towel I am using which I purchased in the central market is nice and soft but really fails to dry me well. Also if mom would get the girls togather and take some pictures and possible a copy of our family portrait we took before I left and put it on a cd so that I can show my host family that would be great.
Wow did I digress from interesting things happening on Monday. Lets remember Tuesday. It was party time in our village and the day all the PCVs found out their assignments. Just so you know PCV stands for Peace Corps Volunteers. After going through language class and then a presentation on Jewish heritage and Romi heritage here in Moldova we were escorted outside behind the building with all38 pre service training volunteers around a chalk drawing of the map of Moldova with chair situated on top of it. Each chair and a name of a city on it and then one by one the director read aloud our names and we were escorted to our assignment. It was a little nerve racking but like I said in my interview the previous week I had no preference. I let them choose where I was going and what I am going to do. My placement is in the north western corner of Moldova. Romania to my west and Ukraine to my east. Fantastic! J. I will go more into that later.
After our announcements I went home and ate with the family a wonderfully large meal that had been prepared for sometime by mama. (mama is my host mother here because that’s what I call her and it is just easier then saying My host mother…plus she laughs when I call her that) At this meal I was introduced to something I had only heard about from loose sources around the village and from other volunteers…. What is it you ask? Chicken Jell-o. That’s right.. its jell-0 that is clear but it tastes like chicken. I should have taken a picture I really meant to. It is a plate with chicken in the middle with jell-0 surrounding it. It is really bizarre looking but it tasted fairly good. Not great because I can’t get over how weird the concept is to combine the two things but it wasn’t horrible by any means. Quite the delicacy. During this I took a couple of hits of wine with the family and that was that. The plan after that was to go the center of town with my brother and sister and her friend and then I would break off meet up with other PCV and then do our thing.
The telephone rang for me and it was the neighbors asking if I would please join them for a little bit in their party. I went over there took a hit of coniac with the family and their friends and rambled in my best Romanian for about 10 minutes. Sometimes I am very goo with the language and during that visit I was really on. I understood most of what was said and was able to respond fairly well that is a big confidence booster even if it was for such a short period of time. My sentences are now elongated because I learned the word “because, but, and, about. Now I can link up my nouns and verbs and elongate my sentences into even more obscurity. For example I could say… “I works in Moldova because I want to we help people but now I need to learn the language more good.” That sentence would fly out with some ease but as shown my grammar more good is not exactly correct nore is my conjugation. Oh well they understand me for the most part and I am happy about that.
After doing a fair well wine salute and telling them thanks for having me and how nice it was to meet them I headed off into town with the next door neighbor, brother and fellow PCV. I met up with some other friends there at the central party which was most of the towns teenagers and kids and parents all hanging out in this town square dancing to music in little circles doing the hurrah or just dancing around talking. For some freak reason our ground happened to run into several groups of adults and kids I had met with my family so I looked really popular in our town. I was greeting everyone with big hand shakes pats on the back and smiles accompanied by excited loud hello good to see you! Then introduce them to y colleagues and then proceed to dance with them. This all went on for several hours before I decided I had enough and went to back to my house and then to bed.
Wednesday was spent reading and hanging out with my family after language class. It was a relaxing day but nothing really to speak of except I did show my host family the town I was going to be staying in and working and explaining to them I would visit them when I did come by this way. My dad apparently works about 20 minutes away at a nearby city in the summers so I might have to visit him when I can. I also showed the neighbors pictures on my laptop of my family and they were very impressed. That reminds me, Mom take pictures of some of the food you make so I can show them what you types of foods we eat.
Tonight its Thursday, and the day went by fairly quickly. At dinner tonight we talked about my visit this weekend to my future site. I am taking a bus to the north part of Moldova to meet my partner and meet some possible families. This will be a extremely awkward time given that nobody I will be around will speak English and I am to make a choice of which family I will live with after sitting down the dinner with them and looking around the house. My future location is about 4 hours away from my current site and about 4 and a half hours from the biggest city Chisinau which is not spelled right and probably never will be by me. At dinner I looked at a chickens foot and shook my head that no I did not feel like eating any tonight and then I was asked if we ate them in America. My answer was No I don’t eat them in America and I don’t know anybody who does but I am sure someone does eat them. Another question that is fun to be asked and we get asked often is if it is raining right now in America. My answer is always yes because somewhere most likely it is raining in America.
I also listened to an earful from mama about my knuckles being all black and blue because I am starting to do knuckle pushups again. I laughed at her and told her my mom in America doesn’t like me to do them either and that for now on I will pad up my hands so that they don’t get all bruised up. Moms are the same everywhere in the world I have concluded.
That’s all I am going to say right now because I am tired and ready to get some sleep… lets see its about 1:45 in Kansas on a Thursday so my sisters are all in school and my mom is doing mom stuff and my dad is most likely at work. And I am in Moldova… how cool is that? Thank you to everyone who sends me emails with encouraging things to say I appreciate them I wish everyone well. I will continue to finish up my thoughts with much love to you all. I am a Ninja.
Lets see what has happened in these past few days since I last wrote. Lets start with Sunday. That was our first free day as a PCV in about a week. We had no classes or trips to go on and most importantly no lectures. I enjoy a good lecture every now and then but its rough when you listen to one every other day about safety procedures or health procedures or even cultural procedures. They are all very necessary but all that information cramming is rough on a guy when he is being crammed with Romanian till its coming out of his ears.
Back to Sunday… no class or lecture… I woke up around 9 which was great to be able to sleep in and then proceeded to live my day out at the house. I was able to eat a nice breakfast then study get all of my homework done for language class done three hours. Then I roamed around the house for something to do or someone to hang with. I spent some time chatting it up with mama then watched as my brother and his friends attempted to combat a virus on his computer that he contracted from all of his pirated music and games finally teaching why nothing in life is free.
From after that strolled the 30 minutes to hang out with some fellow PCV down by their houses to the south of me. We were going to play Frisbee but someone, I won’t name names forgot it so we found our fun at a local bar. The rest of the day went on to be unproductive but fun.
I am having trouble remembering anything interesting that happened on Monday except maybe a conversation relating to what they would want from America. So mom if your reading this, I know you asked me what you should send in a package to me if you did send one and I have been thinking … you asked me if there was anything you could send to my family here so I asked them awkwardly at dinner where the majority of the fun conversations happen. After about 5 minutes of explaining in remaining and English that my mom was wondering if they wanted anything then we discussed about why in the world my mom would want to send them anything. They were hesitant to ask for anything but told me to write things down on a list and they would choose from that list what they would want.
I am open to ideas here on to what to put on that list… They need a new hair drier which I plan on purchasing for them before I leave here in the city… I dunno if anyone has an idea that they think someone in Moldova would want from America please let me know. I know I want a good towel. Not a large one because I don’t have room for it anywhere but a nice one that dries me because the current towel I am using which I purchased in the central market is nice and soft but really fails to dry me well. Also if mom would get the girls togather and take some pictures and possible a copy of our family portrait we took before I left and put it on a cd so that I can show my host family that would be great.
Wow did I digress from interesting things happening on Monday. Lets remember Tuesday. It was party time in our village and the day all the PCVs found out their assignments. Just so you know PCV stands for Peace Corps Volunteers. After going through language class and then a presentation on Jewish heritage and Romi heritage here in Moldova we were escorted outside behind the building with all38 pre service training volunteers around a chalk drawing of the map of Moldova with chair situated on top of it. Each chair and a name of a city on it and then one by one the director read aloud our names and we were escorted to our assignment. It was a little nerve racking but like I said in my interview the previous week I had no preference. I let them choose where I was going and what I am going to do. My placement is in the north western corner of Moldova. Romania to my west and Ukraine to my east. Fantastic! J. I will go more into that later.
After our announcements I went home and ate with the family a wonderfully large meal that had been prepared for sometime by mama. (mama is my host mother here because that’s what I call her and it is just easier then saying My host mother…plus she laughs when I call her that) At this meal I was introduced to something I had only heard about from loose sources around the village and from other volunteers…. What is it you ask? Chicken Jell-o. That’s right.. its jell-0 that is clear but it tastes like chicken. I should have taken a picture I really meant to. It is a plate with chicken in the middle with jell-0 surrounding it. It is really bizarre looking but it tasted fairly good. Not great because I can’t get over how weird the concept is to combine the two things but it wasn’t horrible by any means. Quite the delicacy. During this I took a couple of hits of wine with the family and that was that. The plan after that was to go the center of town with my brother and sister and her friend and then I would break off meet up with other PCV and then do our thing.
The telephone rang for me and it was the neighbors asking if I would please join them for a little bit in their party. I went over there took a hit of coniac with the family and their friends and rambled in my best Romanian for about 10 minutes. Sometimes I am very goo with the language and during that visit I was really on. I understood most of what was said and was able to respond fairly well that is a big confidence booster even if it was for such a short period of time. My sentences are now elongated because I learned the word “because, but, and, about. Now I can link up my nouns and verbs and elongate my sentences into even more obscurity. For example I could say… “I works in Moldova because I want to we help people but now I need to learn the language more good.” That sentence would fly out with some ease but as shown my grammar more good is not exactly correct nore is my conjugation. Oh well they understand me for the most part and I am happy about that.
After doing a fair well wine salute and telling them thanks for having me and how nice it was to meet them I headed off into town with the next door neighbor, brother and fellow PCV. I met up with some other friends there at the central party which was most of the towns teenagers and kids and parents all hanging out in this town square dancing to music in little circles doing the hurrah or just dancing around talking. For some freak reason our ground happened to run into several groups of adults and kids I had met with my family so I looked really popular in our town. I was greeting everyone with big hand shakes pats on the back and smiles accompanied by excited loud hello good to see you! Then introduce them to y colleagues and then proceed to dance with them. This all went on for several hours before I decided I had enough and went to back to my house and then to bed.
Wednesday was spent reading and hanging out with my family after language class. It was a relaxing day but nothing really to speak of except I did show my host family the town I was going to be staying in and working and explaining to them I would visit them when I did come by this way. My dad apparently works about 20 minutes away at a nearby city in the summers so I might have to visit him when I can. I also showed the neighbors pictures on my laptop of my family and they were very impressed. That reminds me, Mom take pictures of some of the food you make so I can show them what you types of foods we eat.
Tonight its Thursday, and the day went by fairly quickly. At dinner tonight we talked about my visit this weekend to my future site. I am taking a bus to the north part of Moldova to meet my partner and meet some possible families. This will be a extremely awkward time given that nobody I will be around will speak English and I am to make a choice of which family I will live with after sitting down the dinner with them and looking around the house. My future location is about 4 hours away from my current site and about 4 and a half hours from the biggest city Chisinau which is not spelled right and probably never will be by me. At dinner I looked at a chickens foot and shook my head that no I did not feel like eating any tonight and then I was asked if we ate them in America. My answer was No I don’t eat them in America and I don’t know anybody who does but I am sure someone does eat them. Another question that is fun to be asked and we get asked often is if it is raining right now in America. My answer is always yes because somewhere most likely it is raining in America.
I also listened to an earful from mama about my knuckles being all black and blue because I am starting to do knuckle pushups again. I laughed at her and told her my mom in America doesn’t like me to do them either and that for now on I will pad up my hands so that they don’t get all bruised up. Moms are the same everywhere in the world I have concluded.
That’s all I am going to say right now because I am tired and ready to get some sleep… lets see its about 1:45 in Kansas on a Thursday so my sisters are all in school and my mom is doing mom stuff and my dad is most likely at work. And I am in Moldova… how cool is that? Thank you to everyone who sends me emails with encouraging things to say I appreciate them I wish everyone well. I will continue to finish up my thoughts with much love to you all. I am a Ninja.
10-11-07 20:45
Lets see what has happened in these past few days since I last wrote. Lets start with Sunday. That was our first free day as a PCV in about a week. We had no classes or trips to go on and most importantly no lectures. I enjoy a good lecture every now and then but its rough when you listen to one every other day about safety procedures or health procedures or even cultural procedures. They are all very necessary but all that information cramming is rough on a guy when he is being crammed with Romanian till its coming out of his ears.
Back to Sunday… no class or lecture… I woke up around 9 which was great to be able to sleep in and then proceeded to live my day out at the house. I was able to eat a nice breakfast then study get all of my homework done for language class done three hours. Then I roamed around the house for something to do or someone to hang with. I spent some time chatting it up with mama then watched as my brother and his friends attempted to combat a virus on his computer that he contracted from all of his pirated music and games finally teaching why nothing in life is free.
From after that strolled the 30 minutes to hang out with some fellow PCV down by their houses to the south of me. We were going to play Frisbee but someone, I won’t name names forgot it so we found our fun at a local bar. The rest of the day went on to be unproductive but fun.
I am having trouble remembering anything interesting that happened on Monday except maybe a conversation relating to what they would want from America. So mom if your reading this, I know you asked me what you should send in a package to me if you did send one and I have been thinking … you asked me if there was anything you could send to my family here so I asked them awkwardly at dinner where the majority of the fun conversations happen. After about 5 minutes of explaining in remaining and English that my mom was wondering if they wanted anything then we discussed about why in the world my mom would want to send them anything. They were hesitant to ask for anything but told me to write things down on a list and they would choose from that list what they would want.
I am open to ideas here on to what to put on that list… They need a new hair drier which I plan on purchasing for them before I leave here in the city… I dunno if anyone has an idea that they think someone in Moldova would want from America please let me know. I know I want a good towel. Not a large one because I don’t have room for it anywhere but a nice one that dries me because the current towel I am using which I purchased in the central market is nice and soft but really fails to dry me well. Also if mom would get the girls togather and take some pictures and possible a copy of our family portrait we took before I left and put it on a cd so that I can show my host family that would be great.
Wow did I digress from interesting things happening on Monday. Lets remember Tuesday. It was party time in our village and the day all the PCVs found out their assignments. Just so you know PCV stands for Peace Corps Volunteers. After going through language class and then a presentation on Jewish heritage and Romi heritage here in Moldova we were escorted outside behind the building with all38 pre service training volunteers around a chalk drawing of the map of Moldova with chair situated on top of it. Each chair and a name of a city on it and then one by one the director read aloud our names and we were escorted to our assignment. It was a little nerve racking but like I said in my interview the previous week I had no preference. I let them choose where I was going and what I am going to do. My placement is in the north western corner of Moldova. Romania to my west and Ukraine to my east. Fantastic! J. I will go more into that later.
After our announcements I went home and ate with the family a wonderfully large meal that had been prepared for sometime by mama. (mama is my host mother here because that’s what I call her and it is just easier then saying My host mother…plus she laughs when I call her that) At this meal I was introduced to something I had only heard about from loose sources around the village and from other volunteers…. What is it you ask? Chicken Jell-o. That’s right.. its jell-0 that is clear but it tastes like chicken. I should have taken a picture I really meant to. It is a plate with chicken in the middle with jell-0 surrounding it. It is really bizarre looking but it tasted fairly good. Not great because I can’t get over how weird the concept is to combine the two things but it wasn’t horrible by any means. Quite the delicacy. During this I took a couple of hits of wine with the family and that was that. The plan after that was to go the center of town with my brother and sister and her friend and then I would break off meet up with other PCV and then do our thing.
The telephone rang for me and it was the neighbors asking if I would please join them for a little bit in their party. I went over there took a hit of coniac with the family and their friends and rambled in my best Romanian for about 10 minutes. Sometimes I am very goo with the language and during that visit I was really on. I understood most of what was said and was able to respond fairly well that is a big confidence booster even if it was for such a short period of time. My sentences are now elongated because I learned the word “because, but, and, about. Now I can link up my nouns and verbs and elongate my sentences into even more obscurity. For example I could say… “I works in Moldova because I want to we help people but now I need to learn the language more good.” That sentence would fly out with some ease but as shown my grammar more good is not exactly correct nore is my conjugation. Oh well they understand me for the most part and I am happy about that.
After doing a fair well wine salute and telling them thanks for having me and how nice it was to meet them I headed off into town with the next door neighbor, brother and fellow PCV. I met up with some other friends there at the central party which was most of the towns teenagers and kids and parents all hanging out in this town square dancing to music in little circles doing the hurrah or just dancing around talking. For some freak reason our ground happened to run into several groups of adults and kids I had met with my family so I looked really popular in our town. I was greeting everyone with big hand shakes pats on the back and smiles accompanied by excited loud hello good to see you! Then introduce them to y colleagues and then proceed to dance with them. This all went on for several hours before I decided I had enough and went to back to my house and then to bed.
Wednesday was spent reading and hanging out with my family after language class. It was a relaxing day but nothing really to speak of except I did show my host family the town I was going to be staying in and working and explaining to them I would visit them when I did come by this way. My dad apparently works about 20 minutes away at a nearby city in the summers so I might have to visit him when I can. I also showed the neighbors pictures on my laptop of my family and they were very impressed. That reminds me, Mom take pictures of some of the food you make so I can show them what you types of foods we eat.
Tonight its Thursday, and the day went by fairly quickly. At dinner tonight we talked about my visit this weekend to my future site. I am taking a bus to the north part of Moldova to meet my partner and meet some possible families. This will be a extremely awkward time given that nobody I will be around will speak English and I am to make a choice of which family I will live with after sitting down the dinner with them and looking around the house. My future location is about 4 hours away from my current site and about 4 and a half hours from the biggest city Chisinau which is not spelled right and probably never will be by me. At dinner I looked at a chickens foot and shook my head that no I did not feel like eating any tonight and then I was asked if we ate them in America. My answer was No I don’t eat them in America and I don’t know anybody who does but I am sure someone does eat them. Another question that is fun to be asked and we get asked often is if it is raining right now in America. My answer is always yes because somewhere most likely it is raining in America.
I also listened to an earful from mama about my knuckles being all black and blue because I am starting to do knuckle pushups again. I laughed at her and told her my mom in America doesn’t like me to do them either and that for now on I will pad up my hands so that they don’t get all bruised up. Moms are the same everywhere in the world I have concluded.
That’s all I am going to say right now because I am tired and ready to get some sleep… lets see its about 1:45 in Kansas on a Thursday so my sisters are all in school and my mom is doing mom stuff and my dad is most likely at work. And I am in Moldova… how cool is that? Thank you to everyone who sends me emails with encouraging things to say I appreciate them I wish everyone well. I will continue to finish up my thoughts with much love to you all. I am a Ninja.
Lets see what has happened in these past few days since I last wrote. Lets start with Sunday. That was our first free day as a PCV in about a week. We had no classes or trips to go on and most importantly no lectures. I enjoy a good lecture every now and then but its rough when you listen to one every other day about safety procedures or health procedures or even cultural procedures. They are all very necessary but all that information cramming is rough on a guy when he is being crammed with Romanian till its coming out of his ears.
Back to Sunday… no class or lecture… I woke up around 9 which was great to be able to sleep in and then proceeded to live my day out at the house. I was able to eat a nice breakfast then study get all of my homework done for language class done three hours. Then I roamed around the house for something to do or someone to hang with. I spent some time chatting it up with mama then watched as my brother and his friends attempted to combat a virus on his computer that he contracted from all of his pirated music and games finally teaching why nothing in life is free.
From after that strolled the 30 minutes to hang out with some fellow PCV down by their houses to the south of me. We were going to play Frisbee but someone, I won’t name names forgot it so we found our fun at a local bar. The rest of the day went on to be unproductive but fun.
I am having trouble remembering anything interesting that happened on Monday except maybe a conversation relating to what they would want from America. So mom if your reading this, I know you asked me what you should send in a package to me if you did send one and I have been thinking … you asked me if there was anything you could send to my family here so I asked them awkwardly at dinner where the majority of the fun conversations happen. After about 5 minutes of explaining in remaining and English that my mom was wondering if they wanted anything then we discussed about why in the world my mom would want to send them anything. They were hesitant to ask for anything but told me to write things down on a list and they would choose from that list what they would want.
I am open to ideas here on to what to put on that list… They need a new hair drier which I plan on purchasing for them before I leave here in the city… I dunno if anyone has an idea that they think someone in Moldova would want from America please let me know. I know I want a good towel. Not a large one because I don’t have room for it anywhere but a nice one that dries me because the current towel I am using which I purchased in the central market is nice and soft but really fails to dry me well. Also if mom would get the girls togather and take some pictures and possible a copy of our family portrait we took before I left and put it on a cd so that I can show my host family that would be great.
Wow did I digress from interesting things happening on Monday. Lets remember Tuesday. It was party time in our village and the day all the PCVs found out their assignments. Just so you know PCV stands for Peace Corps Volunteers. After going through language class and then a presentation on Jewish heritage and Romi heritage here in Moldova we were escorted outside behind the building with all38 pre service training volunteers around a chalk drawing of the map of Moldova with chair situated on top of it. Each chair and a name of a city on it and then one by one the director read aloud our names and we were escorted to our assignment. It was a little nerve racking but like I said in my interview the previous week I had no preference. I let them choose where I was going and what I am going to do. My placement is in the north western corner of Moldova. Romania to my west and Ukraine to my east. Fantastic! J. I will go more into that later.
After our announcements I went home and ate with the family a wonderfully large meal that had been prepared for sometime by mama. (mama is my host mother here because that’s what I call her and it is just easier then saying My host mother…plus she laughs when I call her that) At this meal I was introduced to something I had only heard about from loose sources around the village and from other volunteers…. What is it you ask? Chicken Jell-o. That’s right.. its jell-0 that is clear but it tastes like chicken. I should have taken a picture I really meant to. It is a plate with chicken in the middle with jell-0 surrounding it. It is really bizarre looking but it tasted fairly good. Not great because I can’t get over how weird the concept is to combine the two things but it wasn’t horrible by any means. Quite the delicacy. During this I took a couple of hits of wine with the family and that was that. The plan after that was to go the center of town with my brother and sister and her friend and then I would break off meet up with other PCV and then do our thing.
The telephone rang for me and it was the neighbors asking if I would please join them for a little bit in their party. I went over there took a hit of coniac with the family and their friends and rambled in my best Romanian for about 10 minutes. Sometimes I am very goo with the language and during that visit I was really on. I understood most of what was said and was able to respond fairly well that is a big confidence booster even if it was for such a short period of time. My sentences are now elongated because I learned the word “because, but, and, about. Now I can link up my nouns and verbs and elongate my sentences into even more obscurity. For example I could say… “I works in Moldova because I want to we help people but now I need to learn the language more good.” That sentence would fly out with some ease but as shown my grammar more good is not exactly correct nore is my conjugation. Oh well they understand me for the most part and I am happy about that.
After doing a fair well wine salute and telling them thanks for having me and how nice it was to meet them I headed off into town with the next door neighbor, brother and fellow PCV. I met up with some other friends there at the central party which was most of the towns teenagers and kids and parents all hanging out in this town square dancing to music in little circles doing the hurrah or just dancing around talking. For some freak reason our ground happened to run into several groups of adults and kids I had met with my family so I looked really popular in our town. I was greeting everyone with big hand shakes pats on the back and smiles accompanied by excited loud hello good to see you! Then introduce them to y colleagues and then proceed to dance with them. This all went on for several hours before I decided I had enough and went to back to my house and then to bed.
Wednesday was spent reading and hanging out with my family after language class. It was a relaxing day but nothing really to speak of except I did show my host family the town I was going to be staying in and working and explaining to them I would visit them when I did come by this way. My dad apparently works about 20 minutes away at a nearby city in the summers so I might have to visit him when I can. I also showed the neighbors pictures on my laptop of my family and they were very impressed. That reminds me, Mom take pictures of some of the food you make so I can show them what you types of foods we eat.
Tonight its Thursday, and the day went by fairly quickly. At dinner tonight we talked about my visit this weekend to my future site. I am taking a bus to the north part of Moldova to meet my partner and meet some possible families. This will be a extremely awkward time given that nobody I will be around will speak English and I am to make a choice of which family I will live with after sitting down the dinner with them and looking around the house. My future location is about 4 hours away from my current site and about 4 and a half hours from the biggest city Chisinau which is not spelled right and probably never will be by me. At dinner I looked at a chickens foot and shook my head that no I did not feel like eating any tonight and then I was asked if we ate them in America. My answer was No I don’t eat them in America and I don’t know anybody who does but I am sure someone does eat them. Another question that is fun to be asked and we get asked often is if it is raining right now in America. My answer is always yes because somewhere most likely it is raining in America.
I also listened to an earful from mama about my knuckles being all black and blue because I am starting to do knuckle pushups again. I laughed at her and told her my mom in America doesn’t like me to do them either and that for now on I will pad up my hands so that they don’t get all bruised up. Moms are the same everywhere in the world I have concluded.
That’s all I am going to say right now because I am tired and ready to get some sleep… lets see its about 1:45 in Kansas on a Thursday so my sisters are all in school and my mom is doing mom stuff and my dad is most likely at work. And I am in Moldova… how cool is that? Thank you to everyone who sends me emails with encouraging things to say I appreciate them I wish everyone well. I will continue to finish up my thoughts with much love to you all. I am a Ninja.
Monday, October 8, 2007
10-8-07
10-07-07 0:39
Well it is Saturday night here. I will attempt to recap my week the best I can because I have neglected to write anything for a week now. Alright well lets see a week from tonight I went to the Discoteca. Myself and some other volunteers in my village got together around 9 or so to play some hearts (my new card game of choice) and listen to music. This went on for a couple of hours until we were escorted to the club about 5 minutes from my house by my host sister and her boyfriend. I was not really thrilled about the idea of going to this but went to it with a little optimism telling myself that it is not going to be as bad as I thought it was going to be.
Boy was I wrong. We show up and the place is exactly like I would have pictured a Moldovan dance club to be. Snazzy dressed teenagers violently thrashing their bodies to what else? (American pop music mixed into techno with some Romanian pop techno songs thrown in. I am not much of a dancer as it is but I can sit there and mingle in with a crowed if I have to without making a complete fool of my self under normal circumstances. This was not normal circum stances. I was with 3 other Americans and all eyes were on us. I stood on the wall just taking in the scene for a while with my friends and my sister nagging me to go dance and have fun.. and then why am I not dancing.. am I having fun.. why am I not dancing…
After about 20 minutes of feeling creepy and bored and I just left the disco to stand outside while some of my friends attempted to move to the music. I followed my sisters boyfriend outside to see where he was going then found a new crowed of people hanging out there. It was here that I my sisters boy friend asked me to go over to his car so that he could attempt to speak in his best English that I should not attempt to mess around with his girlfriend or else he would have to get hostile with me. After a fun little lost in translation moment where upon I told him I don’t appreciate hostilities pointed in my direction with a few choice words and preparation for a fight telling him I have no intention of stealing his love but if he wants to have a go at me he is more then welcome to do it now. He quickly changed his tone realizing I was A: sincerely not interested in his girlfriend and B: didn’t take too kindly to intimidation and he could not bully me or C: he had no idea what I said . The end result was him patting me on the back telling me he and I would be friends and then we proceeded about our night as if nothing happened.
My friends ended up coming out of the disco because of the horrible music and interesting dance moves that were in abundance inside there ro they just wanted to see me. I stood around outside talking to some kids I had met at one time or another on the street or met through my host siblings and then proceeded back in to the dance arena with the promise to my sister that I would dance to 5 songs then I would leave along with the other PCVs who were ready to leave as well. I went in did my dance moves with all eyes on me because I am so freaking tall and because my dance moves had to have looked ridiculous as they looked nothing like the dance moves of a Justin Timberlake or some current American Pop star they were comparing me to but more of a mixture of Michael Jackson and Bill Cosby (meaning I kept it conservative with a few crazy moves thrown in every once in a while to keep things interesting for the spectators.
I quickly went to bed after making it home. The next day Sunday our group met up with our mentors for a tour of the big city Chisinau. This was a fun time and I was able to purchase a cell phone along with some other amenities. The day was uneventful for the most part but I did get to do a great deal of walking and talking in which has become a staple here for me.
The rest of the week really just consisted of more language class in the mornings followed by some technical training in the evening followed by studying at night then repeating that again and again. Some highlights of this week were going on a site visit to the south of my current location about an hour where we met up with a current volunteer at his site. We got to hear him talk about what he does there and how things are going for him. What I got out of that visit is; initiative is a key ingratiate in success. Without it nothing really gets done here, and because my goal here is to facilitate some degree of change or positive action I plan to use a lot of it.
Lets see yesterday an interesting event graced me with its presence. I was sitting in language class whooping it up as usual when the lights go out ( witch is not too odd an occurrence) and my teacher goes to the front to investigate a sound she heard. She comes back all excited jumping up and down until we run to the door to see what has got her all jumbled to realize that the power box has exploded to a small degree and flames and sparks are dancing from it. I quickly do the most appropriate thing I could think of and that is to save all of our shoes underneath the flaming spectacle. After grabbing our shoes and throwing them behind us we watch the flames and smell the see smell of a burning electrical fire. A college of mine comes out with water which we quickly suppress before we all die watching her throw water into an electrical fire. Someone gets a smart idea to grab dirt and throw it at the fire so we all do and that was the end of the fire. The owner of the house came home about an hour after the ordeal without much surprise on his face as if this kind of thing happens everyday . we seem him later on that day with some wires and tools as he goes to repair whatever caused our fun earlier that morning.
Yesterday night I would also like to throw in I ate chicken organ stew. This “stew” consisted of a skillet placed in the middle of the table and in it were cooked potatoes and what looked to be some kind of meat. After consuming a good portion of it I began to question what it was I was eating. My family then explained to me that they had killed three chickens that day and we were eating a very tasty meal that consisted of the hearts, livers, stomachs and anything else you could pull out of a chicken that I had yet to eat ever in my life or thought about eating in my life. It was not all that bad but I did have a rough time getting down to get what I have come to accept as the stomach after I found out what it was.
Also at this meal I was able to provide my sister with a first. Let me give you a little background on this first by telling you that the previous night to last night I asked her if she had ever laughed so hard milk came out of her nose. She responded no a little surprised that this would happen to a person or why this would happen. This really made me sad that she had not experienced this fun situation or seen anybody that had. I am to assume that in her 17 years nobody made jokes while liquids are being consumed.
Any back to last night after the organ stew my mom and sister were sitting around the dinner table “communicating” with hands and broken English/Romanian when I made a comment which I recall to have something to do with my pants that I brought with me were too large and that I had too many pairs then something about how maybe their father would like a pair if he could fit in them. I must have really butchered my Romanian at this point because in the middle of a sip of tea my sister performed her right of passage into taking liquids in through the mouth and out through the nose/eyes/ hysteria.
Today all most all of the Pre service training volunteers took a 3 hour bus ride south to visit a museum and listen to some traditional music and watch a very impressive dance spectacle that that local performers did for us to show us their culture and heritage. I was in awe at their dancing. It was just like you would expect from a former soviet union culture with the fur caps and squatting and extending of the legs followed by some shouts and rhythm.
GREAT FUN, This week is going to be a big one. I find out where I am to be stationed in Moldova for the next two years and what organization I will be loosely working with, our village has a horram ( Not spelled right but that is how it is pronounced) which is a big party where everyone visits each others houses and drinks wine and eats till they can’t walk anymore. Directly following that night is a language assessment examination in the morning… of course.
I hope everyone is well who is reading this… all three or four of you : - ). I also want to thank personal emails I have been receiving from a few good friends. That makes me feel good when you take the time out of yoru day to send me a message. I also apologize for the delayed responses but I do read them and think about you so just to let you all know I appreciate it.
I did eat at McDonalds this week In the city and to quote their most recent marketing slogan that is global. “I’m Lovin it”
Here is a picture
Well it is Saturday night here. I will attempt to recap my week the best I can because I have neglected to write anything for a week now. Alright well lets see a week from tonight I went to the Discoteca. Myself and some other volunteers in my village got together around 9 or so to play some hearts (my new card game of choice) and listen to music. This went on for a couple of hours until we were escorted to the club about 5 minutes from my house by my host sister and her boyfriend. I was not really thrilled about the idea of going to this but went to it with a little optimism telling myself that it is not going to be as bad as I thought it was going to be.
Boy was I wrong. We show up and the place is exactly like I would have pictured a Moldovan dance club to be. Snazzy dressed teenagers violently thrashing their bodies to what else? (American pop music mixed into techno with some Romanian pop techno songs thrown in. I am not much of a dancer as it is but I can sit there and mingle in with a crowed if I have to without making a complete fool of my self under normal circumstances. This was not normal circum stances. I was with 3 other Americans and all eyes were on us. I stood on the wall just taking in the scene for a while with my friends and my sister nagging me to go dance and have fun.. and then why am I not dancing.. am I having fun.. why am I not dancing…
After about 20 minutes of feeling creepy and bored and I just left the disco to stand outside while some of my friends attempted to move to the music. I followed my sisters boyfriend outside to see where he was going then found a new crowed of people hanging out there. It was here that I my sisters boy friend asked me to go over to his car so that he could attempt to speak in his best English that I should not attempt to mess around with his girlfriend or else he would have to get hostile with me. After a fun little lost in translation moment where upon I told him I don’t appreciate hostilities pointed in my direction with a few choice words and preparation for a fight telling him I have no intention of stealing his love but if he wants to have a go at me he is more then welcome to do it now. He quickly changed his tone realizing I was A: sincerely not interested in his girlfriend and B: didn’t take too kindly to intimidation and he could not bully me or C: he had no idea what I said . The end result was him patting me on the back telling me he and I would be friends and then we proceeded about our night as if nothing happened.
My friends ended up coming out of the disco because of the horrible music and interesting dance moves that were in abundance inside there ro they just wanted to see me. I stood around outside talking to some kids I had met at one time or another on the street or met through my host siblings and then proceeded back in to the dance arena with the promise to my sister that I would dance to 5 songs then I would leave along with the other PCVs who were ready to leave as well. I went in did my dance moves with all eyes on me because I am so freaking tall and because my dance moves had to have looked ridiculous as they looked nothing like the dance moves of a Justin Timberlake or some current American Pop star they were comparing me to but more of a mixture of Michael Jackson and Bill Cosby (meaning I kept it conservative with a few crazy moves thrown in every once in a while to keep things interesting for the spectators.
I quickly went to bed after making it home. The next day Sunday our group met up with our mentors for a tour of the big city Chisinau. This was a fun time and I was able to purchase a cell phone along with some other amenities. The day was uneventful for the most part but I did get to do a great deal of walking and talking in which has become a staple here for me.
The rest of the week really just consisted of more language class in the mornings followed by some technical training in the evening followed by studying at night then repeating that again and again. Some highlights of this week were going on a site visit to the south of my current location about an hour where we met up with a current volunteer at his site. We got to hear him talk about what he does there and how things are going for him. What I got out of that visit is; initiative is a key ingratiate in success. Without it nothing really gets done here, and because my goal here is to facilitate some degree of change or positive action I plan to use a lot of it.
Lets see yesterday an interesting event graced me with its presence. I was sitting in language class whooping it up as usual when the lights go out ( witch is not too odd an occurrence) and my teacher goes to the front to investigate a sound she heard. She comes back all excited jumping up and down until we run to the door to see what has got her all jumbled to realize that the power box has exploded to a small degree and flames and sparks are dancing from it. I quickly do the most appropriate thing I could think of and that is to save all of our shoes underneath the flaming spectacle. After grabbing our shoes and throwing them behind us we watch the flames and smell the see smell of a burning electrical fire. A college of mine comes out with water which we quickly suppress before we all die watching her throw water into an electrical fire. Someone gets a smart idea to grab dirt and throw it at the fire so we all do and that was the end of the fire. The owner of the house came home about an hour after the ordeal without much surprise on his face as if this kind of thing happens everyday . we seem him later on that day with some wires and tools as he goes to repair whatever caused our fun earlier that morning.
Yesterday night I would also like to throw in I ate chicken organ stew. This “stew” consisted of a skillet placed in the middle of the table and in it were cooked potatoes and what looked to be some kind of meat. After consuming a good portion of it I began to question what it was I was eating. My family then explained to me that they had killed three chickens that day and we were eating a very tasty meal that consisted of the hearts, livers, stomachs and anything else you could pull out of a chicken that I had yet to eat ever in my life or thought about eating in my life. It was not all that bad but I did have a rough time getting down to get what I have come to accept as the stomach after I found out what it was.
Also at this meal I was able to provide my sister with a first. Let me give you a little background on this first by telling you that the previous night to last night I asked her if she had ever laughed so hard milk came out of her nose. She responded no a little surprised that this would happen to a person or why this would happen. This really made me sad that she had not experienced this fun situation or seen anybody that had. I am to assume that in her 17 years nobody made jokes while liquids are being consumed.
Any back to last night after the organ stew my mom and sister were sitting around the dinner table “communicating” with hands and broken English/Romanian when I made a comment which I recall to have something to do with my pants that I brought with me were too large and that I had too many pairs then something about how maybe their father would like a pair if he could fit in them. I must have really butchered my Romanian at this point because in the middle of a sip of tea my sister performed her right of passage into taking liquids in through the mouth and out through the nose/eyes/ hysteria.
Today all most all of the Pre service training volunteers took a 3 hour bus ride south to visit a museum and listen to some traditional music and watch a very impressive dance spectacle that that local performers did for us to show us their culture and heritage. I was in awe at their dancing. It was just like you would expect from a former soviet union culture with the fur caps and squatting and extending of the legs followed by some shouts and rhythm.
GREAT FUN, This week is going to be a big one. I find out where I am to be stationed in Moldova for the next two years and what organization I will be loosely working with, our village has a horram ( Not spelled right but that is how it is pronounced) which is a big party where everyone visits each others houses and drinks wine and eats till they can’t walk anymore. Directly following that night is a language assessment examination in the morning… of course.
I hope everyone is well who is reading this… all three or four of you : - ). I also want to thank personal emails I have been receiving from a few good friends. That makes me feel good when you take the time out of yoru day to send me a message. I also apologize for the delayed responses but I do read them and think about you so just to let you all know I appreciate it.
I did eat at McDonalds this week In the city and to quote their most recent marketing slogan that is global. “I’m Lovin it”
Here is a picture
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