9 months in Moldova!

I have officially lived in Moldova for 9 months! It's another milestone, and makes me think about what my experience in Moldova has been like so far. In the past month, I have finally started language tutoring again, and I finally feel like I am overcoming the language barrier. It's still a challenge, but not as much, and it's not nearly as stressful as it was for the previous 8 months. I'm really enjoying learning more vocabulary and grammar, instead of being overwhelmed by it. I'm thankful to all of the wonderful language teachers I have had in Moldova. They are the reason I am able to feel at ease here!

In the last few weeks, I've been thinking a lot about the new group of trainees that will arrive here in about 3 months, and how I felt in the months prior to arriving here. So much has happened since then. I will say that I am very thankful not to have to start over from scratch learning a new language all summer this year! However, I won't say that I wouldn't do it again at some point. Just not yet. :) Actually, I'm really hoping that once I feel like my Romanian skills are more solid, I can have some tutoring in Russian. Most people in Moldova speak Romanian and Russian, and there is a sizable population of people in Cahul who only speak Russian. When I go to events here like the Women's Day dance concert last night at the Palatul de Cultură, or even just go to the piața (outdoor market) or check out at the grocery store, I can't communicate well with the Russian speakers. It's not a huge problem, but it would definitely be nice to at least know a little bit. Fortunately, some Russian words are very similar to Croatian/Serbian words, so I can understand a word here and there occasionally (for example, I understood the Russian word for 19 when a vendor at the piața told me the price for the mandarins I wanted to buy), but the words are still different and pronounced differently, so I certainly can't speak Russian at this point.

Now that my language skills have improved, I'm able to communicate better with my host family and my colleagues at the library. This has been great. I still can't express myself in Romanian like I can in English, but it has been wonderful to be able to understand more of what they say to me, and to be able to say more to them than just rudimentary statements. I'm looking forward to getting to know and understand them better in the coming months!

This winter has felt slow in some ways, including the pace of getting projects going. Some days it feels like I'm rushing, and other days it feels like there is no progress at all. That's the hazard out working on projects with a team. But I don't mind. I love working on team projects, and I know that the reality of doing that is that you have to deal with everyone's different schedules. However, I do think we have been making progress. This week my Technovation team had its first meeting! I'm excited to have a fantastic group of young women on my team. They are intelligent and determined, and I believe they will learn a lot and create something great! Additionally, my counterparts and I have nearly completed the grant application for the Documentary Club that we plan to start this spring. We have been trying to coordinate schedules to meet and finalize things like the budget and dates, and I'm hoping we can do that this week so we can submit the application. Then we need to work on publicity and recruiting participants. Hoping that youth here will be interested in participating!

Kids' English has been running smoothly, thanks in large part to my sitemate, Okxy. She is wonderful with the kids and can translate for me when I don't understand what the kids are saying. Thursday afternoons are pretty fun! Youth English is also going well, even though we only have a few people coming each week. This spring, we are adding leadership and service components to the mix, and will have weekly discussion topics including leadership, volunteering, self-confidence, health, the environment, etc. And hopefully by the end of spring, the group will plan and carry out a small service project in our town. I love working with youth, and the students who come to the youth club are wonderful. I hope these topics will encourage and inspire them to see that they have the ability to make a difference in their world. Adult English has somewhat fizzled. I feel bad about that because I know that adults in Cahul want to learn/practice English. But it was a lot of work for me on top of everything else, and just teaching English classes doesn't actually fit the requirements of Peace Corps' Community and Organizational Development program. It was really challenging to host weekly drop-in sessions, and try to plan for any number of people with varied levels of English experience. I know that some people were frustrated that it was too easy, and some were overwhelmed because it was too difficult, and I would never know whether we would have 2 or 20 people. I personally like to do the best I can for people, and what we were doing with the drop-in sessions just wasn't working well for anyone, so I wasn't too sad that it ended in that format. However, I would really like to offer something that would be much more beneficial for people, so I've asked my other sitemate, Valerie, who is in Peace Corps' English teaching program, if she'd like to collaborate on a summer adult English intensive course with me. She was excited about the idea, so I'm hoping we can come up with a great 1-2 week curriculum so people can really get a solid chance to practice and improve their English! And then maybe we can do something similar quarterly or something.