Almost home

Today, we spent more time learning language and learning what is expected of us as representatives of Peace Corps and the United States. I’m glad we have had this time at the hotel for the past few days to get accustomed to Moldova, learn useful information, and get to know each other better. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the nice weather. It has been a little too warm during the afternoon when I’m tired and trying to learn language, but fine otherwise. In fact, I was expecting hot and humid weather like the day we arrived and it has been much better than that. I’m over the jet lag enough that I’m sitting outside in the cool evening air as I write this, listening to birds and the sound of other trainees practicing their Romanian language. I can also hear music and smell barbecue coming from nearby. I’m honestly so happy to be back in Eastern Europe. I do feel at home here and I am glad to be back. Although I’ve never been to Moldova before, there are many things that are familiar to me here, from electrical outlets to food. Sometimes I have to remind myself I am in a new country. I’m excited to learn the things that are uniquely Moldovan.

Tomorrow, we will move to the communities where we will live for the next 10 weeks during Pre-Service Training (PST) and meet our host families. I feel like I know enough language to be able to communicate a little bit with my host family and I’m excited to be in an environment where I will have the opportunity to use the language I already know and learn more. We will be divided up in 6 communities by type of work: 2 communities each for Health Education, English Education, and Community and Organizational Development (COD). I’m in the COD group, and I’ll be living in a town that is a regional capital. The town I will be living in is also the place that the whole group will meet in once each week during PST for combined training. On a different day each week, the group of COD trainees in my town will travel to the town where the other COD trainees are living and participate in combined COD training. It will be different living with a family, and not seeing all the other M32s every day, but there will be about 10 of us in the same town and we will see each other nearly every day for language training.