Mărțișor

Moldova has so many holidays, but Mărțișor is my favorite. Mărțișor is celebrated on the first day of March. People celebrate the beginning of Spring by decorating with red and white charms called mărțișors, and snowdrop flowers. Mărțișors can be large and decorative, but usually they are small pins that friends and family exchange. You can wear your mărțișors for the whole month of March, and then at the end of the month some people tie their mărțișors to tree branches (although most of us keep them).

Yesterday was Mărțișor in Moldova and my town had many festivities, from art expositions to dancing. I LOVE to watch Moldovan dancing, and had been looking forward to this since last year.

    
 
  

Just a Tuesday

With only about 5 months left in my service in Peace Corps Moldova, I feel like I should be writing profound - or at least interesting - things on this blog while I am still here. But to be honest, although I enjoy my time here, my days often don't seem very exciting. Not in the way that would compel one to share with the world. But then again, I suppose that might be one of the best things to share about Peace Corps service. Just like like at home, there are exciting days and big events sometimes, but most days are regular days. Although "regular" might have a different look in another country than it does at home, once you fall into a pattern of life, each day seems just like a normal day. For example, today I wrote some emails for work, started trying to organize a project/event, taught English, worked on my quarterly M&E report for Peace Corps, studied Romanian, and chatted with some friends online. That is a slightly different sort of day than I had in the U.S., but honestly not so different. And although I know I have previously said there is no "typical" day in Peace Corps, I do most of these things pretty frequently. So it's not such an unusual day. There were no huge events, no surprising encounters. It was just a Tuesday. And it was great. I think one of the greatest things about Peace Corps is that it gives you opportunities to see the mundane in another country. Often when people travel outside the U.S., they move quickly from event to historical site to activity, never seeing the day-to-day lives of the people in the countries they visit. I appreciate the time I have been afforded here in Moldova to live my daily life in my community: to shop at the stores and markets here, to meet local friends for lunch, to take a walk to the park. I enjoy getting to be part of the fabric of this place. Maybe the most profound thing I can share after having served 20 months in the Peace Corps is that life is life, no matter where you are.

6 Months Left

Yesterday was the "COS Lottery" (COS = Close of Service) for my PC Moldova cohort, the M32s (32nd group of PCVs in Moldova). We met at the Peace Corps office in Chisinau to choose the dates we will officially become "Returned Peace Corps Volunteers" (RPCVs). Each of us submitted a favorite song before the event, and then during the lottery the playlist was put on shuffle. When each person's song came on, that person would sign their name on the giant calendar next to the date they chose. Because of all the paperwork required to process us out of our service and out of the country, PC Moldova is only able to process out 6 Volunteers per day. So this is why we have to COS on different days. And the lottery makes the process more fair because the order we get to choose our COS dates is random. Initially when I arrived in Moldova, I thought I'd like to stay here longer than the typical 2-year service (plus training), so I have been planning to choose a late COS date. But, as I have discovered while living in Moldova, anything you plan probably won't turn out how you expect. Thus, I ended up deciding to COS the first week possible if I could. In the past week, I settled on the date July 19. It sounded like a good COS date to me, because it is a Friday and it is exactly 6 months from the COS lottery date. I like the nice round number and the closure at the end of a week. They feel satisfying. Fortunately, when my song came on there were still spots available on July 19! And my friend Courtney, who was my roomie for Staging back in Philadelphia, my seat mate on the flight to Moldova, and is my neighbor in southern Moldova, was able to get the same COS date. We started together and we'll finish together. That feels satisfying, too. As I counted back the days to see how long I have left in PC Moldova, I also realized that my birthday is 100 days from my COS date. It just seems like this date fits very well.

So what does this all mean? People keep asking me when I'm "coming home." Well, that's not as simple of a question as it seems. Beyond the whole metaphorical "where is home?" question, my COS date is not necessarily the date I will leave Moldova or the date I will come back to the U.S. It's the date my Peace Corps service in Moldova will end, which means I can leave Moldova at any point after July 19. However, the date I actually leave Moldova and the date I actually go back to the U.S. will depend on what I will be doing after my Peace Corps Moldova service, and that is still in limbo. I have applied for another Peace Corps post, but I hadn't received an interview offer before the U.S. government shutdown. Peace Corps is not processing any applications, interviewing any candidates, or selecting any cohorts for any countries during the shutdown. So a month into the shutdown I still don't know whether that possibility will pan out. In any case, I decided to pick an early COS date just in case I'm offered a post with a Staging date in the Fall, because I want to have time to travel a bit in Eastern Europe before I go back to the U.S., and I want to have some time in the U.S. before leaving again.

One skill you really have the opportunity to develop in Peace Corps is FLEXIBILITY. You will be told this over and over and over, to the point that it becomes kind of a joke among Volunteers. But it's true. In the year and a half that I have lived in Moldova, plans have changed at the last minute more often than not, and I have learned that I can never count on anything I think will or want to happen. It's ok. Things usually turn out just fine. And it means that I'm much better at waiting and not knowing what to expect. So for everyone who is asking when I will "come home," all I can tell you is that you'll know when I know. :)

And for the record, my song was Switchfoot's "If the House Burns Down Tonight." What we need will find us.

 

 

Exploring Cahul

As the year winds down, I am thinking about how fast the days are passing. Even though I still have more than 8 month left of my service, I know that every month will pass faster than the one before it. Each day now I feel the urgency of exploring the parts of Moldova I haven't seen yet before my time here ends. This week we had some beautiful weather, and I was able to explore more of Cahul.

When I arrived at my host family's house, there was a map of Cahul in my room. It doesn't have a publish date, but it has to be at least 5 or 6 years old based on the lack of renovation around the Piața Independenței. On the cover of the map is a photo of a church, but it is red with white trim unlike the yellow of the church in the park (which is currently under renovation). I have seen the domes and crosses on top of this church from a distance from various parts of town, and I mapped in on my phone, but I hadn't been able to walk to it yet. Finally today I decided to find this church. It's beautiful. It didn't have a sign, and it was locked, so I don't know what it's called and I didn't go inside. When I arrived the gate was open so I walked through it to take a few photos. As was was photographing, a man walked through the gate and said something to me in Russian. All I understood were the words for "our church." I apologized and explained in Romanian that I didn't understand. He said it again, and I told him "Я не говорю по-русски (ya 'ne gava'ryu pa'ruski)" - I don't speak Russian. He kind of shrugged and so did I. I walked out the gate and he locked it behind me. I hope to go back another day and see if I can go inside and learn more about this beautiful church. It's not far from the bus station, and maybe only a 20 minute walk from my house, but in the opposite direction than I go toward town.

By the time I got back to my neighborhood, the sun was setting and I knew it would be dark soon. But I have plans for tomorrow. Another site I learned about from the old map is a MiG-19 airplane that is supposed to be on the other side of my neighborhood. I've also wanted to see it since learning about it last Fall, but haven't had a chance yet. I am hoping to take advantage of the nice weather before it starts getting cold.

I never imagined that I would live in Moldova, but now it feels like home. I'm grateful for this opportunity to see a beautiful corner of the world.

25 years of Peace Corps Moldova

This is a little glimpse into the lives of PCVs in Moldova. I'm very thankful to be here, and to have these colleagues and friends. Bravo to the volunteers in this video (Sam, Fritz, Ellen, Jon, Alex, Anne, and Bartosz), and the rest of the M30s, M31s, M32s, and M33s I have had the honor of serving with in Moldova. 🇲🇩

Peace Corps Moldova 25th Anniversary video

Serving Under Conditions of Hardship

It's one of the first things you are told about Peace Corps, and you have to agree to it upon accepting your invitation to serve:

Expectation #3 of the Core Expectations for Peace Corps Volunteers states that PCVs must:

"Serve where the Peace Corps asks you to go, under conditions of hardship if necessary, and with the flexibility needed for effective service."

Obviously, this means different things for each Volunteer, country, site, context, etc. Living in a town and in an Eastern European country means the hardships I face are different than the hardships faced by Volunteers living in rural contexts or other parts of the world. I really have no complaints about physical hardships in my site. For example, I don't have to chop my own wood or coal, I don't have to get my water from a well, I don't have to walk or bike miles to the nearest market. The biggest challenge I face here regarding resources is that twice a year my town turns off the water to clean the water pipes - which is happening this weekend, so I showered last night and have stockpiled bottles of water to use for the next two days while the water will be off.

However, there are non-physical hardships that all PCVs face: we miss our friends and families, we miss favorite foods, we miss events and experiences at home.

I have been thinking about this recently, as I have now been in Moldova for nearly 17 months. I've missed a few friends' weddings, I've missed friends' babies being born, I will miss the national convention of my sorority - which will happen for the first time ever in my hometown of Seattle, and which I had hoped to attend. And just yesterday, I found out that my favorite band will tour their new album in the Spring and I will miss the show they play in my hometown on my birthday.

But when we accept our invitations to serve as Peace Corps Volunteers, we understand that we are giving up the conveniences of home and that we might miss important events during our service. In my case, it was a choice I made with open eyes and willingly. Certainly, I am sorry to miss these experiences, and I absolutely miss my friends and family at home. But at the same time, what I have given up feels like a small price to pay for the extraordinary opportunity to gain new skills, knowledge, friendships, and experiences through my Peace Corps Service.

I am grateful for the people and communities that have welcomed me here in Moldova, and I would not trade this experience for anything.

A day in the life

Have you ever wondered what a typical day as a Peace Corps Volunteer looks like? Well, I'm not sure if there is a "typical" day. But I can give you a snapshot of one day. 

Today, I worked on my tri-annual report for Peace Corps, had lunch with a friend, taught an English lesson for kids along with my fellow PCV sitemate, tried to study language but ended up chatting with my sitemates instead, participated in the English conversation group organized by the Fulbright in our town, chatted with local kids on the way home (I love hearing them yell, "Hee-lar-eee!" when they see me, and seeing them come running over), ate with my host family, and helped translate a conversation between my host family and the PCV they hosted before me who is back in the U.S. now. 

I love that every day in Peace Corps is different and holds new challenges and surprises. The thing I love most is the opportunity to develop relationships and work on interesting projects with great colleagues.