Summer in Moldova, an entirely new experience.

It is summer in Moldova and we were freed up to leave our village during our free time which many of the younger volunteers took advantage of to travel to Chișinău.  We were happy to spend the afternoons doing language homework, reading or trying to talk with Iulia and Sasha.  We were finding that we were understanding a bit more of the language and were feeling pretty good about this part of our training.

Culturally we are “integrating”, we are accomplished “bucket bathers” but will use the summer shower any chance we get.  The summer shower is a lovely contraption that consists of a shower stall in the garden with a big plastic 100 litre barrel on top.  A tube runs from a hole in the bottom of the barrel straight through a hole in the roof, there is usually a valve attached just inside the ceiling with a shower head just beneath.  You reach up and turn the valve on and have a great gravity shower.  The water is filled from the well in the morning so that it sits in the sun all day, if the weather turns cold or you have a few days of rain with no sun you just go heat a bucket of water on the stove and add it to the barrel (by climbing the ladder in the chicken coop to reach the roof of the shower) so you can have a warm shower.  It is heaven compared to a bucket bath!

We have dinner at home every night and depending on Iulia’s work schedule, we have Sasha or one of the grand-daughters for company, or we have Iulia and Sasha.  We love the homemade wine and enjoy the food that Iulia prepares for us.  We had our first experience with “racitura” and like many other volunteers found it very difficult to eat, it is a jellied meat dish (usually pork or chicken) that takes a lot of time and effort to prepare, it is a specialty here and they make it for special occasions. I am afraid we may never acquire a taste for it.

We had the opportunity to attend a birthday “masa” for Lilia, Sasha and Iulia’s daughter.  She is the mother of Daniela, the 17 year old English speaker, Iuliana, age 11 and a new baby boy named Bodgan who was just 8 months old (at the time of this writing in summer 2013).  Lilia and her husband Valeri have a new home on the other side of the village.  It is more modern and has an indoor bathroom with an actual hot water heater and working shower.  Valeri works in the Cricova winery not far from Ciorescu and his job, we think, has something to do with the manufacturing of their Champagne.  The birthday dinner (or masa) was, as usual, way more food than any of us could eat.  We all gathered around a big table with family and friends talking a million miles a minute, in Russian or the local dialect known as Moldovanesti. 

Dani made a point to try to talk with us a bit and translate a little, then she went off to tend the baby and we found that these lovely folks would switch to Romanian to try to talk to us.  We know it had to sound like baby talk to them and we are sure that we are very difficult for them to understand but they asked us simple questions about the U.S. and in particular about our family, things we could answer, somewhat anyway.   The choice of beverages was cognac or champagne….for several hours……good thing everybody was walking home!

Late June through early July is cherry season in Moldova.  There are loaded trees everywhere you go, two varieties are very common and everyone seems to have access to both, a sour cherry similar to a bing, and a dark sweet cherry that you could easily eat enough of to make yourself sick if you are not careful.  Lilia with Daniela and Iuliana came over one evening to pick cherries for bottling.

  We all picked until we couldn’t get to any more cherries and then Iulia made some compote, the Moldovan version of juice made by cooking the fruit in water for about half an hour and then letting it cool overnight before bottling.  She also made preserves from some of the cherries and we had them on crepes for breakfast, the cherries in Moldova are absolutely wonderful.

The huge garden behind the house is producing onions, garlic, cucumbers, potatoes, beans and herbs of all kinds.  The grapes on the vines are beginning to ripen and the carrots, cabbage, beets, corn and tomatoes are just coming on.  We have never lived anywhere else that you could literally walk out and pick your dinner.  The chickens provide fresh eggs and occasionally meat for the table.  Rabbits are in hutches at the bottom of the garden and provide the staple meat for the house, and every year Sasha and Valeri buy a pig and have it slaughtered and each family takes half of the meat to freeze and use throughout the year.  The food is simple, fresh and nutritious during the summer.

We are starting to better understand when and who to greet and interact with.  This is particularly difficult for me as a woman because my normal behavior is to greet and talk to everyone.  In Moldova, it is very common for men to greet each other and shake hands but they do not normally greet women unless they know them very well and they very rarely shake hands with a woman.  In more formal situations when we are introduced to men, I generally find that the men kiss my hand if I extend it rather than shaking it. 

We can competently order beer or wine at the local bar (of course) and get a bag of chips if we want it.  We are slowly making friends with the bartender; she now smiles at us, (our first few times in the bar she was definitely scowling).  The local drunk has joined us once, uninvited of course, and he spoke to us in uninterrupted Russian for about 10 minutes.

Our language instructors have changed up the classes and we now have different teachers.  It is probably a good thing to have put us in separate classes; I guess they got tired of asking us what we did the day before and getting the same story twice using only the “we” personal pronoun.  All three classes are studying the same material but each teacher has a slightly different style.  We are really enjoying the language learning even if it is incredibly difficult.   For our technical training they have had some of the volunteers who have been here for a while come in and talk with us about the projects they have going and the experiences they have had.  If there is one thing that has become abundantly clear already it is that the “Peace Corps” experience is unique to each volunteer.

Peace Corps training, the first glimpse of our new "site".

Our new home would be in a Raion center (like a county seat) and like many raion in Moldova, it is an almost exclusively agricultural area with very little else in the way of business.  Mike’s primary partner, Costa (short for Constantine) was the head of a government extension program for farmers called ACSA, his application for a Peace Corps Volunteer stated that he wanted help with the business side of things and was well connected with the farmers in the region so there was the hope that some new business opportunities could be created. 

My primary partner had not been confirmed by the Raion council when we first arrived but a wonderful woman, Tamara, stepped in as a volunteer to show me around and try to talk with me about my future assignment.  I had been assigned to the brand new Incubator de Afaceri  (business incubator) that was just being finished and was scheduled to open in August.  The Raion council had requested the volunteer but my primary partner would be whoever they chose to manage the incubator.

After a 45 minute bus ride into Chisinau, a 15 minute walk to “Gara de Nord” the bus station for travel to the north,  a 45 minute wait for the right bus, and a 2 hour rutiera (mini bus) ride we arrived at the bus station a bit tired but mostly just nervous!  I guess we were easily identifiable because Costa came up to us immediately and motioned for us to get in his car, Mike rode up front with him and I rode in the back with Tamara.

They took us on a ride to see the town, it is quite spread out and covers a lot of ground for only having about 17,000 people (with almost a third living and working abroad that means only about 12,000 really live there at any one time).  Since we were not able to understand much of what was said to us they mostly pointed to things and gave us one or two word descriptions in the hope we could pick up some of it.  We learned some new vocabulary, and came to understand that the town was long and narrow roughly following and old river bed along the bottom of a small valley with the town growing up the hill from the river bottom to the north.   “Centru” the center of town has the Raion Council building (think county government) the Primaria (think city government) and the “Casa de Cultura” (think Soviet style theatre/auditorium) a huge park, two monuments and a couple of high schools.  A small assortment of shops and two or three restaurants/bars kind rounded out what we could see.

One of the things that really struck us both immediately was the huge number of trees, gardens and open green space.  It turned out that our new host family lived on the edge of a beautiful wooded area, the long drive was lined with big old chestnut, walnut and pine trees.  We were met by Lilia, our new “host mother” who quickly became “host sister” as she was many years younger than us.  She set up a table in the garden and brought food and drinks outside so we could enjoy the beautiful summer day.  Costa headed out and Tamara, who was friends with Lilia stayed to visit (think lots of charades and looks of confusion with bits and pieces of information getting through).   Lilia’s husband Andrei arrived soon after and brought beautiful, huge sunflowers to each of the ladies and a bottle of vodka to share.

Andrei spoke a few words of high school English, but he had his laptop handy and fired up google translate so we could manage to actually exchange some information.  We had our laptops but did not have internet access so it had been beyond us to this point.  Tamara suggested that we should all have a barbeque, we were not quite sure what this entailed in Moldova but we were game if they were. We thought we understood that she would go home and get her husband and be back in a little while and we would barbeque then.  Tamara returned a half hour or so later and we all piled into a big van and headed out to what turned out to be a very small village, where Tamara and Petru have the old family house, no running water, an outhouse at the far end of the garden, no electricity or gas.  They had all brought food and drink, and shortly after we arrived had a roaring fire.  There are no charcoal briquettes here, just build a bonfire and the coals will make themselves.  They walked us around the large garden filled with grape vines, cherry, apricot, apple and pear trees, vegetables of all kinds and a large raspberry patch.  Up near the outhouse across the back end of the property were hives of happy bees producing fabulous honey.

Another couple joined us, Igor and Ala, no one spoke any English (and very little Romanian as we were to find later) and there was no WiFi so we played a lot of charades, and laughed a lot as we all tried to understand one another. We had enough spoken language to tell them about our family and a little about our background (our language instructors had made us practice these things before we left) but understanding what they were saying to us was quite another matter.  They quickly started talking very fast among themselves in Russian or Ukrainian (their native languages) and then one of them would try very slowly in Romanian to explain something or ask us a question.  Believe it or not, we actually found that we did learn a bit about each of them and we had a marvelous time.   Many hours and much food and homemade wine later, it was beginning to feel like we might really learn to like our new “site”.

The following morning Costa picked Mike up to take him off to see some of the farms and meet some farmers in the area.  Lilia and Tamara had conspired to have me meet them at the Raion Council building later in the morning to meet some people and then to get a tour of the incubator.  I was introduced to the Raion Council President and several other important people, needless to say, I could not even understand most of the names and remembering them was out of the question, but it was a lovely gesture on their part to try to make me feel welcome.

A young man in the Economic development section of the Raion, Victor was detailed take me to the Incubator because he spoke a little English.  Wow, first chance I had to actually ask a bunch of questions in my own language, he tried valiantly to understand and answer my questions but needless to say it was a challenge all the way around.  The building was not completed and was a major construction zone when I saw it; I was very surprised that they were all convinced it would open on time in just 5 weeks.  I was destined to learn more about this cultural trait over time.

Costa brought Mike back to “centru” and we met up at the house to find that we had been invited to dinner at Andrei’s parent’s home.  Igor and Ala supplied their 14 year old daughter, Dacia as a translator for us; she was by far the best English speaker we had met in town and was a very impressive young woman.

Dinner was lovely, we ate out in the garden and with Dacia’s help were able to communicate with the family and enjoyed ourselves immensely.  

The following morning we headed out for a two day “partner conference” in Chisinau, kind of a misnomer for us, Costa was unable to go so he sent a consultant from his organization with Mike, and since I did not have a partner yet the Raion council made Victor go with me.  It was supposed to be a planning and prioritizing time for partners to set initial expectations with volunteers.  We went through the motions knowing that our actual partners would have to do this with us after we arrived at site in August... or not.

PST Pre-Service Training in Moldova

Four very quick hours of language class and one massive headache later we sat outside the school with the other volunteers to compare and eat what was provided to us for lunch.  I have never been a big fan of cucumbers but the flavor of these Moldovan produced cucumbers was so good that I couldn't help chomping away on two or three along with the other volunteers.

Ciorescu in the summer time is a beautiful place to learn a language and we quickly noted the similarities and differences between the Peace Corps method of teaching the language and what we had experienced with Castila in Spain the year before.  The Peace Corps focuses upon teaching volunteers “survival language” as quickly as possible and it seemed to work well for us.

Waking up in our training village of Ciorescu (pronounced “chore-es-coo”) for the first full day of PST we found that Iulia (our host mom) had made Moldovan pancakes for breakfast and a packet for our lunch consisting of sausages, bread, cucumbers and tomatoes.  After brushing our teeth and negotiating our way past the huge garden and through the chicken coop to the outhouse we were off to language class which began at eight o’clock.

We had been told that since we had learned Spanish (a little bit anyway) learning Romanian would be easier for us.  This turned out to be true and not true at the same time.  Yes, we knew what to expect and could make comparisons with the process of learning a new language but in reality, the grammar structure, pronunciation and vocabulary of Romanian is significantly different so in many ways we needed to unlearn things we had developed while learning Spanish.  In our opinion, the languages are different and each has to be approached differently.

The Peace Corps keeps its new trainees under “lockdown” status (can’t leave our training village unaccompanied) for the first three weeks for safety purposes.  Our language trainers (LTI’s) were responsible for us and lived in the village with us during the week only going home to their families for Saturday evening and Sunday (they were on call however).  We could wander the village but could not leave without being accompanied by an LTI, or a member of our host family.  Our routine quickly became four hours of language in the morning (in groups of three or four volunteers) and a bit of cultural and technical training about business in Moldova with some small projects to work on in the afternoon.

The small afternoon projects were useful because they caused us to wander around the village, familiarizing ourselves with the place and in some cases, starting to use the language.  Our host families provided everything we needed and the Peace Corps provided about 29 lei ($2.25) per day of walking around money.  This would buy a beer, a glass of wine and a package of cigarettes.  Since Marilyn and I each received 29 lei per day sometimes we would have another beer or wine……or buy something useful like toilet paper.  Some of the volunteers quickly developed the habit of meeting at the local bar for a drink at the end of the day.

One day per week we traveled on the bus, with our LTI’s to Chișinău for Administrative training.  We really learned to dislike these days as the Peace Corps staff delivered the required information in the specified manner.  On the positive side we did get to see the other volunteers that had come over with us, serving in the other programs, and that was nice.  Meanwhile, the two doctors in charge of the 100 or so volunteers in Moldova interviewed, poked, prodded and vaccinated us over and over again.  Personally, our focus was on acquiring the language which we felt was the most important thing to our future success as volunteers.

The bus between Chișinău and Ciorescu takes 45 minutes and runs several times per day.  Inevitably, with 11 volunteers and 3 LTI’s added to the regulars, the bus became extremely crowded and hot by the time it arrived at our destination.  While it is not particularly hot in Moldova in the summer (it rarely exceeds 30-32 degrees) it is very humid (regularly over 80%). 

Since bathing in a bucket (a Peace Corp norm that can’t be imagined until you try it) was difficult for us new volunteers (it never becomes easy) and washing clothes is not an everyday occurrence it becomes important to try and avoid sweating through your clothes whenever possible.  One complicating factor; many Moldovans believe that a breeze, blowing past you (called “curent”) was a one-way, non-stop ticket to sickness.  The result was that on almost every crowded, hot bus, somebody would insist that the windows be shut to cut off the “curent”.

Our cultural integration seemed to be going well and we think our experiences in Spain and Uruguay helped.  Iulia and Sasha’s grandaughter Daniela, a 17 year old who was learning English in school, came over on our first couple of nights to interpret for us which really helped, and made us feel at home.  Thanks so much Dani!  We had to learn how to take a “bucket bath” in our first day or two because the outdoor, summer shower was not yet finished (a wonderful luxury that I wished we’d had in Arizona).  The house did not have a hot water heater, if you wanted hot water for your bath you heated it in a big kettle on the stove and put it in your bucket to use.  There are no instructions for taking a bucket bath.  It is an individual thing. 

The Peace Corps joke is; “an optimist sees the glass half full, a pessimist sees it half empty and a Peace Corps volunteer thinks ‘I could take a bath in that!’” 

The family provided homemade wine, both red and white with dinner and both were incredibly delicious.  We had lucked out; our host mother was a very good cook.  Iulia and Sasha took the time to speak with us every chance they got and we appreciated their efforts.  It was important for us to learn to understand the language although we later learned that Sasha was speaking mostly Russian!  Iulia would talk to us non-stop and laugh because she knew we couldn't understand much at all and we learned to appreciate her efforts.

Sasha was 73 and retired.  He worked around the house and in the garden and distilled the local hard spirits known as “samagon” from various fruits, usually apricots.  Iulia, we came to find out, worked two jobs; in the mornings she worked in a bank in Chișinău and a couple of nights per week she had the overnight shift at the Primaria (Mayor’s office) in Ciorescu.  We are not entirely sure what all was involved with this overnight job but we knew she cleaned and worked in the gardens and also answered the 24 hour emergency number for the entire village of 7 thousand people.  We later found that Iulia was one of 6 sisters, all born and raised in Ciorescu, with 5 of them still living there, the night job at the Primaria was shared by her and two of her sisters on a rotation.

By the end of June after 4 weeks of intensive language instruction, specifically designed for Peace Corps volunteers, we could say some basic phrases and were starting to understand how the language was supposed to work grammatically.  But carrying on conversation was still a long way off.  We could understand very basic instructions when spoken slowly and clearly (Moldovans speak rapidly, with a heavy accent and throw in lots of Russian words in regular conversation) but beyond that we were still hopeless with our Romanian.  As with our Spanish, some days we felt better about our language acquisition than others.  But we both were a little more patient with ourselves than we had been with Spanish; we knew it would just take time and patience.

Towards the end of the month we all went to an Administrative session in Chisinau and they had the big REVEAL.  Oh bloody joy!  We all were together as a group with many of the already serving volunteers and they gave us each our assignment, and revealed our new home towns where we would be expected to serve for the next two years. Rounds of applause and lot's of giggling and screaming later, we were starting to wonder if we were too cynical or simply too old for this kind of thing, but we did now have our assignments which was a useful outcome.

With 4 weeks of Romanian language training, we were sent off on our own for a “site visit” to meet our new partners and spend the night with our new host family during the first weekend in July.  Our partners had sent us letters of instruction about how to navigate trains or buses and were expected to meet us when we arrived. 

Needless to say, we met this challenge with much trepidation, and plenty of anxiety, but also with the hope that we would find the community welcoming and the people as lovely as our family in Ciroescu!

Peace Corps Staging for Moldova

Now it officially starts – we are in the PeaceCorps.  All volunteers who are headed out of the US at the same time are gathered together in one hotel to go through the final paperwork and to get some general orientation that applies to all volunteers regardless of where you serve.  It is a chance to meet other volunteers and to start the process of becoming a somewhat cohesive group and - M28 (the 28^th group of volunteers to be sent to Moldova) a designation that will forever be part of your Peace Corps identity.

The Crowne Plaza in Philadelphia was the staging site for volunteers heading for Moldova, and 5 or 6 other post around the world.  Moldova has four programs so we met volunteers who would be English Teachers, Health Teachers, Community and Organizational volunteers and a few more like us who would be doing Small and Medium Enterprise Development.

Those of us coming from the west coast had to arrive on Sunday, in order to be there for the morning meetings on Monday.  Some folks came in early to see Philadelphia or just because they wanted a more relaxing pace to the beginning of this adventure.  A few of us had connected on the Facebook page for our group and met for dinner in the hotel restaurant that evening.  The food wasn’t bad and by chance we were able to meet the two other married couples who were serving in Moldova with us, as well as half a dozen other volunteers who would be serving alone.  It was a chance to compare notes and just talk about expectations and trepidations, hopes and fears, and to begin to understand that we all had more in common than we might have thought.

Monday morning started off with making sure we had completed all the paperwork that needed to be done before we left.  Insurance forms and beneficiary designation, personal effects insurance if you wanted it, signing off on anything else that had not been completed and sent in electronically in advance.  Mike and I had done all of our forms meticulously on line and had scanned and emailed every possible form in advance so we had very little to do and were sent into the staging conference room for Moldova.

One of the things we had received by email was a schedule that was daunting to say the least.  Knowing that we would be leaving the Crown Plaza Tuesday morning for a transit to JFK airport by bus – then enduring hours in the JFK airport as we were all processed and situated for the flight with all of our luggage, then flying overnight to Munich, connecting there to another flight to get to Chisinau, this was the schedule of events upon arrival in Moldova beginning on Wednesday:

PC MOLDOVA 2013  M 28 PST ORIENTATION TRAINING AENDA
JUNE 5,  WEDNESDAY	M 28 GROUP ARRIVAL & HUB SITE
12:25 PM	M 28 PCTs Arrive in Moldova at Chisinau Airport.  Meet PCTs,  PC Staff (CD, DPT, TM, SSC) and PCVs Mentors
1:30-2:00 PM	M 28 PCTs Arrive at the HUB SITE, PCTs, Mentors (Luggage Processing)
2:00-2:30 PM	Snack
2:30-3:00 PM	Welcome to PC Moldova, CD, PC Moldova Staff
3:00-3:20 PM	Safety Briefing, CD
3:20-3:50 PM	PCT Welcome Folder and Orientation Week Agenda, TM
4:00-5:00 PM	PCT Walk-Around Allowance, PC Cell Phones, PC Equipment, Luggage Processing, Mentors, AAs, PCTs
5:00 PM	Leave to PST Sites, PCTs, LTIs
JUNE 6 THURSDAY	HUB SITE
8:30-11:30 AM	Language Classes in the PST Site, LTIs
11:30-12:30 PM	Leave to Hub Site, PCTs, LTIs
12:30-1:30 PM	Lunch
1:30-2:00 PM	PST Overview. Trainee Assessment, TM, DPT
2:10-3:40 PM	PC  Approach to Development, DPT
3:50-5:00 PM	ADMIN Session
JUNE 7, FRIDAY	HUB SITE
8:30-11:30 AM	Language Classes in the PST Site, LTIs
11:30-12:30 PM	Leave to Hub Site, PCTs, LTIs
12:30-1:30 PM	Lunch
1:30-3:00 PM	Accomplishing the PCs’ First Goal, DPT
3:10-5:10 PM	TECH Intro. Get to Know You Discussions, PMs
JUNE 8, SATURDAY	PST SITE
8:30-12:30 PM	Language Classes in the PST Site, LTIs
	SDAs

I guess there is no time for jet lag!  So arriving in our new country with absolutely no language skill, we would be heading to a host family the very first night in country.  What a frightening thought.

We spent all day in the conference room being briefed on the Peace Corps, Safety and Security issues, some Moldovan post specific information and doing a little “team building”.  They actually did an activity to show us that we could communicate fairly effectively without saying a word.  I think that was supposed to make us feel better about heading to Moldova with no language skill…..not sure it worked but it was kind of fun.

Next thing we knew, Tuesday we were all on board the buses and headed for JFK, at 9 in the morning for a 5pm flight!   We were asked to arrive in Chisinau dressed in “business casual” some volunteers wore sweats for the first part of the trip and then changed clothes in the airport in Munich.  That seemed like a lot of work to us for we just chose comfy clothes that would pass as business casual and hoped for the best.  The Munich connection was on time and with little fuss we were on the final leg to Chisinau.

Arriving at the airport we could see signs and banners welcoming us and as we disembarked we could hear the volunteers that had come to greet us screaming and hollering their welcome.  Exhausted after many hours of travel with little sleep we managed to identify our luggage – get through Passport control and land on the sidewalk in front of the airport. 

Volunteers who were already here (M27s) were assigned to help and they managed to get all of the luggage into a truck and all of us into a bus.  The airport in Chisinau is about 20 minutes from the city center so it was not long before were deposited at ASEM (The University of Economics) which we found would be our training center for the days that we would all be together in Chisinau.

After some Moldovan pizza and a little cultural welcome ceremony we were herded into a conference room for some training, which we do not remember at all.  We were then hustled into our various groups SED, COD, EE, HE and given phones, fire extinguishers and filtered water bottles, to take to our sites along with the 100 pounds of luggage we were each already toting.  Out to the parking lot – into minivans, 5 or 6 volunteers to a van since we all had  so much luggage, and off to be deposited with our host families in the neighboring villages.

Exhaustion and anxiety were the key words for the arrival in our new home.  

Back in the USA....briefly.

Culture shock!  We are back in the USA for the first time in over a year.   Of course our plans for airport pick up changed at the last minute but our wonderful friends Ken and Herme came to the rescue and met us at the airport in Phoenix.  They hauled us and our luggage out to my brother Ed’s house – since we had sold our house before we left he had graciously offered to put us up for the duration.  Thank heaven for little brothers and fabulous friends!

While still in Spain we knew we would need to acquire a good amount of stuff for our sojourn in the Peace Corps.  We had hit Amazon.com and ordered a bunch of items to be delivered to the house before we arrived, one of them being a prepaid phone and the minutes to use while we were in the US since neither our Spanish nor our Uruguayan phones would work in the US.  Imagine our surprise when only a couple of items had shown up, and the phone was not one of them.   I had checked the web site before leaving Spain and it had shown that all the items had already been delivered, hmm….

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Somehow, part of the way through the orders, the address in our Amazon account had reverted to our old home address.  The house we had sold over a year ago.  I called the realtor and fortunately Melissa Schwartz was on the ball as usual and was able to give me an email address for the new owners.  It turns out they had a whole stack of boxes sitting in their garage waiting for us.  Everything was there including the phone, so now we could actually communicate with our friends and family.

While we were in Spain we had set our dental appointments (thanks Susan) for the first couple of days after we got back.  Mike found out that the tooth that had abscessed in Spain really needed to come out before he could get his dental stuff signed off.  My appointment with Dr. Michael Thompson at Kierland Dental Center was the best dental appointment I have ever had.  He took care of everything including the lengthy forms for the Peace Corps while I was there and I left with the hard copies and a promise to send the electronic X-rays and report later the same day.  Very impressive, when I next signed into my email they were all there!

Mike was a different story, he was unhappy with the way his dentist, a former golf buddy, had handled his appointment and then when they decided that an extraction was necessary  he sent Mike to someone else who could not even get him in until the following week.  Quick phone call back to Dr. Thompson and we had the extraction done in two days and the follow up appointment the following Monday with all paperwork completed and signed off.  If you ever need a great dentist in the Phoenix/Scottsdale area, they just don’t get any better than Dr. Thompson.

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Our appointments at Patient's Choice Labs were a great surprise as well. TB and HIV tests handled professionally and quickly, by the time we went back for the TB skin test to be checked the other results were already in our email and TB results followed just as quickly and painlessly.

With the last of the paperwork finally off to the Peace Corps we were able to relax and enjoy visiting with family and friends for the remainder of our short time in Arizona.  My brother’s home became the BBQ haven and he is a marvelous cook so every meal was a delight.  Fortunately our friends were mindful of how little time we had and they got together in groups to see us.  Mike and I actually got to play a round of golf with the friends who are baby-sitting our clubs, Guy and DeeDee and Mike shot 78 without having touched a club in over a year, I lost count at some point so my score will go without saying.

Our oldest daughter Jasel had managed her work schedule so she could spend some “mom” time with me and I cherished every moment of it.  She also played chauffeur for us and drove us all over the valley in the first few days so we could manage all our appointments.  My sister came up from Tucson and spent time with us and also played chauffeur so I could get all the last minute shopping done.

One of our great friends Lloyd was leaving town just a few days after we got there and offered us the loan of his car for the rest of our stay. We dropped him at the airport and suddenly found ourselves driving a vehicle again, for the first time in over a year.  I can tell you, that is one thing I had not missed!

Mike managed another round or two of golf with friends and I spent his golf course time drinking champagne and eating great food with MaryBeth, Robin and Royce around the pool or spending time with Jasel.  What a life!   We had dinner with Herme and Ken so we could actually enjoy their company (when they picked us up we were so exhausted that we were useless) and catch up on their lives.

Two weeks flew by and we found ourselves saying our good-byes again, this time knowing that in all probability we would not be back to the states for over two years.  Many of our friends still think we are absolutely nuts, and maybe we are, but at least we are never bored! 

Our staging for the Peace Corps was set in Philadelphia,  a non-stop flight on Sunday afternoon had us at the Crowne Plaza in plenty of time to meet a few of our fellow volunteers and to get a good night’s sleep before we started our orientation the following day.

Saying Good-bye to Granada...

The time had come.  It was mid-May and we were catching a flight back to Arizona.  First we tried to say goodbye to all of our friends.  We spent a week trying to see everybody which was almost impossible, and then spent our last morning and early afternoon with Kellie, Brit, Nando, Paloma, Adrian, Daniela and Jose at Puerta de las Pesas.  Where else?

When the time came to say our final goodbyes (we had no idea how long it would be until we’d see them again) it was much harder than any of us had imagined.  Hugs all around and we found ourselves in tears as we left this wonderful family who had helped us with the culture, history, and yes, the language of Spain and Granada. 

They had been such a large part of our lives for the past year.  Even a few of the “hippies” Juan and Oscar waved and called “adios” as we returned to our apartment for the last time.

We had no idea what our future in the Peace Corps would bring and our Spanish friends struggled to understand, as they put it, “our desire to help” other people. 

Suddenly we had loaded our bags into Jose’s car and were on the way to the bus station.  A final hug from Jose and our magical year free of responsibilities was over.

The five hour bus ride passed in silence as we both were lost in our thoughts.  It was time to pamper ourselves so we caught a cab from the bus station in Madrid to our hotel near the airport.  We stayed at the HoteltaCH and it was perfect.  It had a small café/bar on the ground floor, a nicely equipped workout room and our room was clean and comfortable.  A good business hotel yet, it was just what we needed as we nursed our drinks and talked about what we were about to do.

A good night’s rest and a short hotel shuttle ride to the airport and we were checking in for our flight to Phoenix via Dulles in Washington D.C.  It was a little hard to imagine that we had left our youngest daughter in Granada, for a second time. 

After the usual airport hassles (less in Madrid than other places) we settled into our seats for the long journey back to Phoenix.  For once, our travel plans had gone off without a hitch.

Peace Corps Medical ,,,,,while in Spain.

Well, the big decision had been made in Uruguay.  We going to go to Moldova and serve in the Peace Corps.  Then we get the bad news.  It has been just over one year since we cleared the medical screening process and we need to update our information.  This includes a follow up visit with our primary care physician, urine and blood analysis, HIV and tuberculosis tests (again since we have been in Uruguay) and a completely new dental workup.  Great!

This may sound simple but not so for us.  We were living in Uruguay when we found out, our health insurance was in Spain and they want all of this information in just a few weeks.  We have had no plans to return to the U.S. except for a couple of weeks prior to the Peace Corps staging process and are facing an expensive flight and uncovered medical expenses because it has taken the Peace Corps so long to place us.

We have to admit that the office of medical services worked with us really well.  They understood our challenges and helped us as we developed solutions.  What was our solution?  Return to Spain for 10 weeks, get our medical information mostly updated and see our daughter and our friends in Spain before returning to the U.S. for a whirlwind couple of weeks to finish our medical and dental updates, see some friends in Arizona and get ready to go to Moldova for two years.

We found an English speaking physician in our insurance network in Granada and after a little bit of discussion, she understood that we needed a very basic physical examination which she performed.  She ordered the labwork (gave us a prescription basically) and agreed to provide the documentation necessary for the Peace Corps.  In fact she worked with us to translate the documents from Spanish.

We went to the lab and had a very humorous few moments as we learned a new word in Spanish; orina.  Expecting to only get blood drawn we were absolutely flummoxed when this came up and of course, as is normal in Spain, there was no English speakers in site to assist us.  And we thought our Spanish was pretty good.

As you can probably guess by now, the work means urine and apparently our doctor had ordered a urinalysis as well.  This was Thursday and we were told the results would be available the following Monday.  Wonderful. 

Next step, acquire the “certificate of good health” reporting form that the doctor needs.  These can be obtained at the nearest “estanco” or tobacco store; go figure.  Two weeks and four euros poorer we returned to the doctor’s office where she wrote up our results (lab-work delivered by us of course), gave us a little common sense advice (stay hydrated, drink in moderation, etc.) and sent us on our way.  The doctor visits and the lab work cost us a total of 24 euro for the copays.  You just can’t beat that.

We decided that the dental workup requirements were complicated enough that we would never be able to explain it to a Spanish dentist so we would wait until we returned to the States to get that done.  Besides, we didn’t have dental coverage in Spain either.

Sure enough, two weeks before we returned to the States Mike developed an abscess around a tooth he had been fighting for years.  After two days of increasing swelling and pain while unsuccessfully trying to catch one of the dentists in the Albaycin in their offices we went to a local pharmacy and explained the problem.  After a few questions the pharmacist gave Mike some anti-inflammatories, post-inflammation pain relievers and put him on a course of antibiotics.  This would all have to have been done prior to the dentist working on the tooth anyway. 

What an incredibly efficient way for health care to work!  The tooth improved of course and we decided to wait until we returned to the States to have the tooth removed as a part of our dental workup update.  The office of medical services understood and approved the fact that our dental work would be submitted less than two weeks before we would arrive in Philadelphia for staging.

The final pieces we’d have to put together would be the HIV and tuberculosis tests that had to be done in the U.S.  We found a company People’s Choice Labs in Phoenix that allowed you to order your own lab work for very reasonable prices, were able to schedule appointments for the TB test and HIV blood draw right after we returned and were assured results within just a few days.  The nurse in charge of our files was wonderful (Thank you Nancy!) as we finally ground to the end of what was, for us, a long, long (almost 2 years) application process.