Here we are at the old host familys house doing the masa thing. thats phil lower left followed by darren, johan, angela, new voluteers i forgot thier names... i think that guy on the right is thomas and then sarah next to my host mom. sarah is the new voluteer at my old house.
Is this wierd or what. thats the old host parents when they were younger holding veronica as a baby. I will start with yesterday and work backwards because going the other way is too difficult. Hopefully by the time I need to remember what happened over a week ago my brain will start working. So yesterday I had work… I had a red bull upon waking up because I get one caffeine drink a week though it has been more or less a month or more since the last time I had one. I then took myself to the school to do my jungle gym workout routine that I have begun to grow fond of though it was really cold yesterday morning and my hands were nearly frozen to the bar.
On my way there I met some soldiers outside of my house looking for something though I never did find out what. They looked at me a little strange in the early morning and asked me something.. I answered im sorry what did you say? The guy repeated and I said I had no idea and don’t understand, this made the guy a little un trusting like I was hiding something. And they walked with me as I headed to the park. They asked where I was from and upon telling them they answered awww that’s why you don’t understand, hes not hiding anything hes just American. I left them with a hand shake and a nice have a successful day!
Well back to the red bull I was way to awake for my own good. On the walk to work my brain was on overdrive thinking about my future here in moldova and what I was to accomplish or do here. Needless to say a little red bull goes along way. I brainstormed on the way to work and by the time I got there said my hellos then went right to the desk to write out my thoughts on a little chart.
I decided on the way that I wanted to have two goals. One with my current organization or partners and then another with the community. For the community I decided I would lead a youth empowerment group. Kinda rally the students who are wanted to enact change but don’t know how or have the means to do so. I will educate them in project design, give them the confidence to just go out and do it and then send them off. Sounds all fine and good but there is more to it then that but until I do it im not writing to much more on it. Working with my organization and my new found knowledge from this weekends meeting with peace corps and the other volunteers is that my organization is going down the drain in 2010. They are not getting funded anymore. So its all about sustainability for them. I am really not a fan of their set up now and either are they so I think it will just fall apart so my goal is to get all there set up with work for the future. Because one of my partners is an enterprising man he has ideas on what he wants to do.
For him it will be the dried plums or a fish farm he already has the plans for. I will try to get him hooked up with credit at a low credit rate that a couple of world wide organizations offer to encourage entrepreneur ship because credit here is somewhere around 30% a year. Combine that with a small business startup grant that this organization Soros offers I think we can get him funded. My other partner is interested in green houses and has most of one built he just needs a way to heat it. So we will decide on what kind of heater and go from there with his plans and funding.
Earlier this week at work I also poked around and one of my partners to help him with excel again. I might get involved walking around the piatza (the local market) and gathering price information and putting that information into a spread shit with a graphs showing historical trends. Really easy but also really fulfilling given my lack of contribution thus far.
At the center for children that same day I drank the red bull I played chess after the kids left with farina. I was pretty down trodden. Farina had my queen both bishops knight and one rook. It was not looking good for me but with the power of the red bull I came back out of nowhere and dominated here again.
It was also my site mates birthday so I gave her a couple of diet cokes and a bar of chocolate. She loves diet coke and shes giving up chocolate and coke for a month before her vacation so I thought she might as well drink it all down tonight before she goes on her fast. It was fun, a volunteer from the south came up to hang with her, farina and I came over too and they made spaghetti. Wow it was great with beef and everything. First time I have had it like that since last summer cooking in my apartment. I had quite the case of homesickness after it but what are ya gonna do.
Ok so I just remembered I dreamed last night that my host mom in perescina died. How awful is that? I was crying in my dream and it was just a really horrible dream… I think there was also ww2 bombers hitting the coliseum as I was running through some jungle. Must have been the red bull.
Well the previous day I got my hair cut. I walked to the frizeria (hair cut place) about 9:15 and sat down to wait. As I sat there I called my work and told them im getting my hair cut and Id come in later. They responded with oh don’t’ worry about it your getting your hair cut today. Whatever … so I sit there.. an hour goes by and 2 people had gone infront of me. They turn on the Russian television and I wait another hour watching the tv understanding nothing. I swear 2 people cut me in line but I don’t know cause they all were speaking Russian. And I was getting a little heated but I had already waited 2 hours so I could not very well leave. Long story short I didn’t get out of there until 12:30 but my hair looks pretty good. (very Moldovan, or too normal according to farina).
Later that day I had a masa with my host mom and her friend from Chisinau her friends daughter. Her daughter was very pretty and I could tell this was a set up for me to meet her. I made convo with the daughter and ate a little bit. Then my host mom points to my forehead (I have a huge zit) and gasps with this oh what is that!. I look at her in disbelief and just say what do you think it is? She starts fretting over it and goes to the med kit to get some ointment or something I tell her its fine its not mortal ( though at this point my confidence with this girl is mortally wounded). She backs off finally only to have the subject revisited at dinner that night with my host dad where upon they lecture me on how to use medicine on my face for zits. I could only imagine what they would do if they knew me in high school when I really had an acne problem.
Going to try to skip around here and wrap up this entry. I can’t really remember anything that happened last week all that well but that only means it was just normal days flowing entirely to fast for my liking. This last weekend I was in Chisinau and played baseball. We got destroyed by a local team here. We were playing actually baseball like I did in high school. Fast pitch full 90 ft plate distances and everything! It was really great. I caught the first 3 innings before my body just couldn’t take it anymore. My back acted up towards the end. I felt like it was just yesterday I was playing ball in high school sitting behind the plate there catching. I threw a guy out at second but made my share of over throws to first and third in attempt to catching overzealous base runner leadoffs. I even hit a line drive down third base and stole a couple bases. It was a good time.
I also got to visit the old host family and hang out with a couple of the new volunteers. Phil came down with me along with Darren and angela and johann (who are all in my group) we had a masa at my old house and just shared stories and laughed. Awww good times.
That’s all I have.
On my way there I met some soldiers outside of my house looking for something though I never did find out what. They looked at me a little strange in the early morning and asked me something.. I answered im sorry what did you say? The guy repeated and I said I had no idea and don’t understand, this made the guy a little un trusting like I was hiding something. And they walked with me as I headed to the park. They asked where I was from and upon telling them they answered awww that’s why you don’t understand, hes not hiding anything hes just American. I left them with a hand shake and a nice have a successful day!
Well back to the red bull I was way to awake for my own good. On the walk to work my brain was on overdrive thinking about my future here in moldova and what I was to accomplish or do here. Needless to say a little red bull goes along way. I brainstormed on the way to work and by the time I got there said my hellos then went right to the desk to write out my thoughts on a little chart.
I decided on the way that I wanted to have two goals. One with my current organization or partners and then another with the community. For the community I decided I would lead a youth empowerment group. Kinda rally the students who are wanted to enact change but don’t know how or have the means to do so. I will educate them in project design, give them the confidence to just go out and do it and then send them off. Sounds all fine and good but there is more to it then that but until I do it im not writing to much more on it. Working with my organization and my new found knowledge from this weekends meeting with peace corps and the other volunteers is that my organization is going down the drain in 2010. They are not getting funded anymore. So its all about sustainability for them. I am really not a fan of their set up now and either are they so I think it will just fall apart so my goal is to get all there set up with work for the future. Because one of my partners is an enterprising man he has ideas on what he wants to do.
For him it will be the dried plums or a fish farm he already has the plans for. I will try to get him hooked up with credit at a low credit rate that a couple of world wide organizations offer to encourage entrepreneur ship because credit here is somewhere around 30% a year. Combine that with a small business startup grant that this organization Soros offers I think we can get him funded. My other partner is interested in green houses and has most of one built he just needs a way to heat it. So we will decide on what kind of heater and go from there with his plans and funding.
Earlier this week at work I also poked around and one of my partners to help him with excel again. I might get involved walking around the piatza (the local market) and gathering price information and putting that information into a spread shit with a graphs showing historical trends. Really easy but also really fulfilling given my lack of contribution thus far.
At the center for children that same day I drank the red bull I played chess after the kids left with farina. I was pretty down trodden. Farina had my queen both bishops knight and one rook. It was not looking good for me but with the power of the red bull I came back out of nowhere and dominated here again.
It was also my site mates birthday so I gave her a couple of diet cokes and a bar of chocolate. She loves diet coke and shes giving up chocolate and coke for a month before her vacation so I thought she might as well drink it all down tonight before she goes on her fast. It was fun, a volunteer from the south came up to hang with her, farina and I came over too and they made spaghetti. Wow it was great with beef and everything. First time I have had it like that since last summer cooking in my apartment. I had quite the case of homesickness after it but what are ya gonna do.
Ok so I just remembered I dreamed last night that my host mom in perescina died. How awful is that? I was crying in my dream and it was just a really horrible dream… I think there was also ww2 bombers hitting the coliseum as I was running through some jungle. Must have been the red bull.
Well the previous day I got my hair cut. I walked to the frizeria (hair cut place) about 9:15 and sat down to wait. As I sat there I called my work and told them im getting my hair cut and Id come in later. They responded with oh don’t’ worry about it your getting your hair cut today. Whatever … so I sit there.. an hour goes by and 2 people had gone infront of me. They turn on the Russian television and I wait another hour watching the tv understanding nothing. I swear 2 people cut me in line but I don’t know cause they all were speaking Russian. And I was getting a little heated but I had already waited 2 hours so I could not very well leave. Long story short I didn’t get out of there until 12:30 but my hair looks pretty good. (very Moldovan, or too normal according to farina).
Later that day I had a masa with my host mom and her friend from Chisinau her friends daughter. Her daughter was very pretty and I could tell this was a set up for me to meet her. I made convo with the daughter and ate a little bit. Then my host mom points to my forehead (I have a huge zit) and gasps with this oh what is that!. I look at her in disbelief and just say what do you think it is? She starts fretting over it and goes to the med kit to get some ointment or something I tell her its fine its not mortal ( though at this point my confidence with this girl is mortally wounded). She backs off finally only to have the subject revisited at dinner that night with my host dad where upon they lecture me on how to use medicine on my face for zits. I could only imagine what they would do if they knew me in high school when I really had an acne problem.
Going to try to skip around here and wrap up this entry. I can’t really remember anything that happened last week all that well but that only means it was just normal days flowing entirely to fast for my liking. This last weekend I was in Chisinau and played baseball. We got destroyed by a local team here. We were playing actually baseball like I did in high school. Fast pitch full 90 ft plate distances and everything! It was really great. I caught the first 3 innings before my body just couldn’t take it anymore. My back acted up towards the end. I felt like it was just yesterday I was playing ball in high school sitting behind the plate there catching. I threw a guy out at second but made my share of over throws to first and third in attempt to catching overzealous base runner leadoffs. I even hit a line drive down third base and stole a couple bases. It was a good time.
I also got to visit the old host family and hang out with a couple of the new volunteers. Phil came down with me along with Darren and angela and johann (who are all in my group) we had a masa at my old house and just shared stories and laughed. Awww good times.
That’s all I have.
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