So I have failed to update by blog up until this point, but I am now committing to update my blog at least once a week. I have now been a Peace Corps Trainee for a little over three weeks. I started my training in Philadelphia on Tuesday, May 8, 2009. I actually arrived in Philadelphia the night before, on May 7th. I ran into a few volunteers at the airport and we all went together to dinner and to get a drink at McGillen's Pub.
Arriving early gave me a chance to go see the Liberty Bell on the morning of the 8th. After walking around lost with a group of other PC people for an hour or so, we finally located the Bell. After locating to Bell, I fought a large group of school children to take the picture below:
We all registered as Peace Corps Trainees starting at noon on the 8th. We then had about 8 hours of staging where we got to know some of our fellow trainees and discussed our expectations for our PC service. After the staging was over I went out for a Philly Cheese Steak (Sooo Unvegan!) and a few beers. I ended up staying up way too late and having way to much to drink to really enjoy waking up at 5:30 in the morning on the 9th to prepare to get on a bus leaving for JFK at 7:00am. It was exciting to see NYC for the first time, even if it was only from the window of the bus.
We arrived at JFK and the bus drivers managed to drop all 70-something of us off at the wrong terminal. After we all trekked with our bags to the correct terminal, there was a problem with our tickets. We had to wait an hour and a half or so for the problem with our tickets to be solved. We finally made it to the gate and had to wait about an hour to beard the plane. Our flight to Frankfort was roughly 8 hours. I was unable to actually sleep on the plane, but I did catch a few hours of sleep during our nine hour layover (most boring layover ever!). When our Air Moldova flight finally started boring, we all got on a bus which drove us to the farthest reaches of the Frankfort Airport, where we boarded a fairly ting plane.
On the Air Moldova flight, I sat next to a Moldovan woman who was headed home to visit her family. I asked her where she was coming from and she told me she lived in Rancho Cordova. What a coincidence?!?! We finally arrived in Moldova after about 24 hours in transit. Our Peace Corps mentors met us at the airport and accompanied us to our hotel in Chisinau. We then had pizza for dinner and headed our for a beer with the mentors. At the bar, I met a Moldovan named Yuri who worked on telecommunications policy in Chisinau. We had a very interesting conversation (he spoke excellent English) about telco policy in the US and California. Small world, hunh?!?
We started our language training on Friday the 11th at a school in Chisinau. The Mentors walked us from the hotel to the school and back. I never would have found either with out their help. The streets in Chisinau are in somewhat of a grid, but not really. We continued our training Saturday.
My mentor, Vince, went out and found a hair dryer for me. It cost 80 lei, which is about $7USD. I must say, it is an awesome hair dryer!!! On Saturday night, hair dryer in hand, I met my host family in the village where I will be spending the next eight weeks. It is an upper- middle class Moldovan Village and is the home of the largest wine cellar in the world and the cellar is a huge source of income for the community. My host family is wonderful and their home is quite posh. My host mom's name is Veronica. Veronica's son Alex (Sasha) and daughter Tatiana (Tanya) both live with her, as well as her grand daughter, Paula (1.5). Below is Tanya and Paula:
On Sunday, we had a welcome celebration with traditional Moldovan singing and dancing. There is video below:
All the Agribusiness and Rural Business Development volunteers go to training together Monday-Sunday. We have language training roughly 5 hours a day and technical training for 3 hours a day. Once a week we head to the hubsite for training with all of the other PC Trainees. Sunday is our only free day, this is hard for me because I am used to having a two-day weekend, but Moldovens work six days a week so I guess this is park of integrating.
On an exciting note, my host family just got a puppy. It doesn't have a name yet, any ideas??
Well, I am sure I will have more to post next week. La revedere!
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