can't bring me down

2.08.08

Here is a little flash back to PST when phil and I were racing in this mini competition with our host moms to see who could make this type of food sounded out ... cultsunash. it was chaotic! im going to date that picture in mid november

Ok, it is friday. I am at work its snowing outside and my back hurts an awful lot. Let me tell you why… ok well I will start with wendesday. Wednesday was a normal day. I had work then got to play with the kids, dominate farina in chess at the center with the kids. Followed by a fun filled day at boxing.

unfortunately the power went out at the school when we were all warming up so we went outside to play soccer to warm up instead and wait till the lights went back on. Im horrible at soccer and made a fool of myself as I slid around the concrete trying to keep up with younger more energetic kids who have grown up playing soccer all their life. The rest of practice was normal nothing too exciting to report.

Thursday was a fun day. I did my laundry Wednesday night because I had been putting it off cause it had been kind of over cast and the clothes take forever to dry in that kind of weather. So finally on my last pair of underwear and socks I decided that night was the night…. So Thursday… I wake up with a splitting headache… I have no idea why but its killing me. I guess I had one Wednesday as well but I thought it would have gone away after I slept.

… so anyway its pouring outside. My clothes that were supposed to try are now soaked. Bummer. I have a horrible headache clothes are soaked and I get to walk in the rain for 20 minutes to work! Sweet! So I am walking to work right watching people give me bizarre looks as normal… I guess I look weird cause I have this orange northface jacket on with my hood up and stomping outdoor boots and lighter jeans then I have seen in all of moldova even though they are a darker shade… but outside of the normal weird looks I am getting a few horrified looks. Now that’s a new look. I don’t normally get horrified looks from people because I am just not a scary person. Anyway this starts to alarm me…when I notice a weird taste on my lips. I have a savage nose bleed. I quickly wipe it with my hand and realize it is a pretty good bleed. So I get it under control, wipe it off and not is all over my hands. I have nothing to wipe my hands off on and have to use the muddy wet grassy mud water. Anyway that goes on for the remainder of my 20 min walk making for a wonderful start to a wonderful day.

For some reason though nothing is brining me down, not the headache, not the rain, not the wet clothes, not the nose bleed nothing! I get to work it stops thankfully and I go about my day. On the way home I wish I was joking I get splashed by a car as it drives by me. Now im muddy. No worries! The rest of my day I have a horrible headache but nothing gets me down. I am happy at my Romanian lesson, happy at workout, happy at basketball. So that night I go to lay my sleeping bag down when I realize there are ants all over the floor. WHAT THE HECK!? My trash sack I guess has a colony of ants in it. And they now own my room. And its so dark in my room because only one working bulb is ever on ( to save power and the electricity bill no doubt) its hard to really see anything on the ground. So anyway this explains why I have ants on my from time to time, or I wake up in the night swatting one or two or when im walking to work I have one on me. It all clicks! So I put the trash bag outside not knowing what to do with it. (it was gone this morning and I assume my host dad took care of it but I never got a chance to explain why it was outside or anything). So I spent the rest of the night with a flash light and a slipper killing those little buggers with a passion before settling down to watch along came polly. I didn’t sleep on the floor and had to resolve sleeping on my bed, so now my back hurts because of how soft the dang thing is.

Ok well done with that story. Thought it was fun how so many wonderful things can happen in one day. Today I am preparing my papers I wrote in Romanian to give my little pitch to this group of volunteers on how to go about identifying a problem in the community, what resources do they have in their community to solve the problem without using grant money, but if its necessary I will show them how to write a grant and what things are required to write a grant so they don’t’ have to rely on outsiders to write the grants for them like they are now.

Im a little nervous about the whole thing because im shooting from the hip on this one, my language is not amazing! And I am talking about things like sustainability, ranking possible projects by problems, needs, desires.. and so forth. It will be interesting to see if they even understand me or take me serious. Tomorrow I am going to chisnianu to get some boxing gloves, mouth guard, and helmet. As well as meet up with some friends and hopefully see my old host family for a little bit.

Until I decide to write more… 2007.