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!