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.

A great week

This has been a great week so far, and it's only Wednesday! They say that your service picks up speed and feels more fulfilling after you've been at site for 6 months. Well, I have certainly found that to be the case. Last week I was feeling a little bored and feeling like everything was just moving so slowly. But this week, that all changed.

As of yesterday I finally found a language tutor (I had been looking since my tutor moved away in November), and then found another one! So I went from having no tutor to having two tutors in one day! Amazing. My first lesson with one of them was today and it was really helpful. I am so glad to finally have tutoring again. :)

I have also been hoping to get a team together to participate in the Technovation Challenge, but it has been difficult to recruit participants. However, some of the recruiting I have done over the past weeks has paid off and as of this evening, we have a Technovation team from Cahul! I'm excited to work with them!

Yesterday, I finally started working on the grant application for the Communication and Documentary Club that I will be starting with my library counterpart and a local NGO called MOLDOX hopefully next month. We have been working on plans for the past 2 months, and now it's finally time to get rolling on applying for funds to purchase equipment and start recruiting participants. I am really excited about this club. I think it will be beneficial to participants and the our town, and I also think it will be really fun!

Peace Corps is hard because sometimes it feels like you aren't doing anything. But sometimes you get to see all the foundational work you have been doing start to pay off, and on those days being a Peace Corps Volunteer is the best job in the world.

6 months at site!!

Today I have lived in Cahul for 6 months! My deepest thanks to everyone in Cahul who has welcomed me. I love Cahul and I am grateful for all of you.

These are some of my favorite photos from the last 6 months. 
(*more photos and captions coming soon, but the photos are taking forever to sync from my phone to my computer and I have to go to a meeting now!)

Why library-PCV partnerships are great!

This week, my library counterparts asked me to film a short video about why it's great to be a PCV working with the library. It definitely tested my Romanian language skills!

Visitors in Cahul!

This week, the other PCVs in my town and I were pleased to host our Peace Corps Moldova Country Director, Tracey, along with Peter Redmond, Chief of Operations for our region (who travelled all the way from Peace Corps headquarters in Washington, DC!). We enjoyed sharing about our work and our great community here in Cahul! 

Inside the American Resource Center in the public library that was established by a previous PCV

My counterpart, raion library director Doamna Rodica, gives a tour of the library, 

including the computer room that was funded by the Novateca program

Poftim!

Poftim is, without question, my favorite Romanian word. Like "frumos," "poftim" has many meanings, such as "here you go," "hello?" (when answering the phone), "excuse me?" or "whatever/suit yourself."

It can also take on different connotation depending on the tone you say it with (much like the word "dude" in English). 

It's versatile, plus it's fun to say. Poftim!

Art from https://www.catsuthecat.com

Rice: A case study in different perspectives

Rice. My favorite food since I was a little kid. Despite the fact that my parents preferred potatoes and pasta. My mom joked that she knew I was hers because I was born at home so I couldn't have been switched at the hospital, but she couldn't understand where my obsession with rice came from. People eat rice here in Moldova, so it's readily available at the stores here, but they prepare it differently than I am used to. Moldova has some sushi and Asian food restaurants in the capital, but here in my town there are no Asian food restaurants, so if you want something you have to make it yourself. I am very fortunate and thankful that rice, nori, and soy sauce are available at the grocery store in my town, though! And I was able to find sweet chili sauce and lime juice at a grocery store in the capital. So today I had decided that I would make rice and put a mixture of soy sauce, chili sauce, sriracha sauce, lime juice, and green onions on it. I had started boiling water when my host mom came out to see what I was doing. She thought my rice needed more water, so she poured some more in (oh! but...), and then after a few minutes she added even more (wait, but...!). Oh well, I thought. I will see what happens. Turns out what I thought would happen did: gelatinous rice. Not quite what I was hoping for. However, I explained to her that it wasn't how I wanted my rice and we agreed that we had different ideas about how the rice should turn out, but there was no problem. I made new rice (which turned out great!) and I offered her the first batch. She added butter and sugar to it, and said it was delicious! One thing that I've experienced while living in Moldova is that often my host family/counterparts/local friends and I have different ideas or understandings about how something should turn out that we don't realize at first. Not better or worse, just different. It's interesting to find out what the other person had imagined, and try to explain what I had imagined. In the end, we learn new things from each other, so I consider it a good learning experience. Sorry, there are no photos of my rice because I ate it immediately when it was finished! :D

*Edit: just as good the second day!!