VRF

The VRF - Volunteer Reporting Form - is part of every Peace Corps Volunteer's service (at least if they served recently). It's how we report to Peace Corps what activities we have done in our communities, who was involved, the goals, and the outcomes. My program submits VRFs 3 times per year, and one of the deadlines is coming up this week. As much as I believe in the importance of Monitoring and Reporting in community development work, it doesn't make it easier to get my VRF done!

Integrated

I know I'm very lucky to live the life I live. Days like today make me very aware of this. This was the type of day that make all the challenges of Peace Corps worthwhile. This is the type of day when you feel "integrated."

It started like any other day; I got ready for work and ate breakfast. However, when I stepped outside I saw my 80-year old neighbor standing outside her house, across from our gate. When I walked out the gate, I said "bună ziua" and planned to continue on my way to work. But she wanted to chat, so I stopped to talk to her. Soon, she took me by the hand and said she wanted to show me something. She led me through her gate and behind her house. She hadn't invited me in before, so I knew this was a new closeness in our relationship. When she stopped she put her hand out and gestured to a patch in her garden. It was fuullllll of ghiocei (snowdrops)!!! They are the symbol of Spring in Moldova, but I had lamented both this year and last not actually seeing very many of them around town. Her garden full of ghiocei was amazing! She told me to take photos of the ghiocei, and we even took a photo together. We talked for half an hour, and would have talked even longer but I actually did have to go to work.

Later after my afternoon English club, I met my PC counterpart, the Director of the regional library. One evening last week, I was walking to the park as I like to do when the weather is nice, and I saw her chatting with someone in one of the squares in town. She motioned me over, and we spent the next hour walking and talking together. She took me to the edge of town, beyond the park, to see the sunset. It was magnificent. That evening she invited me over for tea but I had to go home, so we arranged to meet today. This was also the first time that I had been over to her home. We had a nice time drinking tea, eating, and talking.

Each of these encounters would have made my day. But to have both in one day? Amazing. In the past week I have also been invited to accompany people to events in town, which hasn't happened very often before. And I come home each evening looking forward to good conversation with my host family around the dinner table. I feel like I have become part of my community, and I am grateful for the wonderful people here who have accepted me and helped me feel at home.

The whole way home this evening, I looked up at the night sky and thanked my lucky stars for the wonderful language training I have had here that makes these experiences possible.

 



   

    

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