One Hundred and Counting

First off, I owe an apology to the people who I promised that I'd keep them posted. So far, I've done little more than send a couple mass emails, and I've become lazy in taking pictures because they're a hassle to upload. I know this overview of what I'm doing is a bit overdue and that most of you know what I'm up to by now, but I had to start somewhere. I'll try to do better from here on out.

Moving on, today is my one-hundredth day living in Moldova as a volunteer in the United States Peace Corps. So far, it's been some kind of ride. We began with a very full summer of training-- I and a handful of strangers who are now my very dear friends lived together in a village not far from the capital of the country and shared in the experience of language (Romanian), technical (English Education), and cross-cultural (How Moldova is Different from America) trainings for around eight hours a day, no less than six days a week. It was exhausting, stressful, challenging in more ways than I can count, and quite possibly the best summer of my life. I wouldn't trade it for anything, but I'm glad it's done.

Now I'm living in the raion center (≈ capital) of the raion (≈ district) called Edineţ. The town is fairly large for Moldova with a population of somewhere around 20,000 (though many work abroad) and a downtown stretch with a lovely public park, two supermarkets, a handful of restaurants and bars, and a fair selection of shops. There are three schools (two for Romanian-speaking students and one for Russian-speakers), the primaria (mayor's office), a police station, and if you walk far enough, a soccer field where people take their sheep to graze. I worried when I arrived that I wouldn't get comfortable in a place that felt so much less rural than I expected, but I'm becoming pretty attached to my site, and I think I'll spend a happy two years here.


The program to which I've been assigned by the Peace Corps is English Education. PC Moldova's setup doesn't fall entirely into the categories typically outlined in the Peace Corps's Education programs, as it has been designed to correspond to the Moldovan Ministry of Education's strict national curriculum. The goal for the program is that volunteers work alongside Moldovan teachers as part of an equal partnership, and the exchange of ideas between the two provides better English language education for students in the schools served while opening the eyes of Moldovan teachers to a variety of new possibilities in teaching. Ultimately, it is hoped that when the volunteer leaves, his or her influence will have impacted the teacher who remains in Moldova so significantly as to impact future years' students.

Realistically, not every teacher wants some younger, less experienced teacher coming into their classroom to try to make changes, so the program's goals aren't always necessarily met. In a perfect world, I'm hoping to ultimately leave some bit of a legacy of teaching ideas with the school in which I work at the end of two years, but since I'm just getting started, I'm willing to set my sites at the hope that my teachers will collaborate with me and allow me a role in their English classes. Those who know me best know that really, what I want most is to get out there and teach. I've encountered a few bumps in that road so far since I've been at site, but I have a meeting planned on Tuesday with me partners and I'm hopeful that we'll get rolling on the right track from there, so that we can develop some sort of healthy partnership.

While I do have (almost) reliable internet access here, I'm still working on figuring out the best way to upload pictures, as my connection is painfully slow. So far, I've uploaded a pile of the earliest ones I took to Facebook in an album that you're certainly welcome to explore. The bad news is that I haven't quite been able to edit the album to get rid of the silly ones I never intended to publish, and I haven't managed to add all the ones I took after that first week just yet. They're a good start, though, and a bit of an idea of what the country looks like, which is fun.

I am able to add a few pictures at a time to this blog even with my slow connection, so I think I'll take the time to tack on a little collection of my favorites so far:

The wildflowers in Moldova are just awesome-- everything that grows here is...

...including the snails...

... and the fruit.

One of our most exciting adventures was a hike to the top of the village's tallest hill to this huge stone cross.

My last day of "practice school" at the end of training, posing with my tenth-graders and my partner, Oxana.

On our last day of language training before swearing in, posing with our instructors Svetlana and Nadia.

It's not a wildly impressive photo-- I just really like all the cypresses I see here. They make me think Starry Night.

Our village happened to have a castle...

... which we later learned sits atop a huge, gorgeous wine cellar. We got a tour and tasting on our last night in the village.

I've seen an absurd number of goats since my arrival. This one had found a particularly unique place to graze.

This baby cow was one of my most important landmarks throughout training.

Okay, adding pictures proved a little more challenging than I thought. I was kind of inserting them blindly because the thumbnails couldn't load. I'll try a better approach next time.