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.