Our first week in our new home town...new people...new jobs....new experiences.

After dropping by my office on Tuesday morning to ensure that my partner had indeed agreed to “loan me out” for a few days and to introduce him to Marilyn we walked over to the incubator ready to work.  Oh boy, were we in for a surprise!  Many, many things needed to be done but there was no dirt, no plan for the required landscaping, no electricity, no water anywhere but on the third floor, no tenants ready to move in, no ladders to reach the high, filthy windows; not even a mop.  Another whole day of frustration towards the end of which we were informed that the incubator had to be ready to open on Thursday because the prime minister of Moldova, the European Union representative, the Raion Council President and many of the mayors of the surrounding area would be arriving at noon in order to perform a ribbon cutting ceremony and make a few speeches.

We were then informed that the courtyard in the rear would need to be completely finished.  About one third of this derelict building had been nicely refurbished in order to house the incubator and I cannot adequately describe the condition of this rear courtyard without using the term “urban vacant lot”. 

This was approximately a half acre area covered with weeds, some waist high and filled with garbage, rocks, broken roof tiles, broken bottles, plumbing fixtures, syringes, you name it.  We left for the day assuming that first thing in the morning there would be weed-eaters working, enough dirt to cover the area closest to the building and plenty of manpower.

That evening our host family took us to a private session/concert performed by a band from Chișinău.  Apparently this doesn’t occur too often in our small town and the evening was surprisingly fun although we were out a little later than us old folks are used to.  We shared a wonderful bottle of wine with our hosts and posed for pictures enjoying a few shots of vodka chased by orange slices with our newfound friends.  Yes, I realized I was drinking vodka with men who speak Russian and I was careful not to overdo it, and Marilyn skiped the vodka altogether.

Wednesday we arrived to find some dirt, two men, one wheelbarrow, one shovel and one hoe and one rake.  We were informed that the entire courtyard would need to be cut down and covered with a layer of topsoil that day.  I grabbed a hoe, Marilyn grabbed a rake and we started clearing the area.  Have you ever cleared waist high, established weeds and grasses growing from hard, dry ground that has roof tile and broken pieces of concrete and glass embedded in the soil with a hoe?  I hope to never repeat the experience.

After about two hours, Victor brought us some gloves which we pulled on thankfully.  By noon, tired, sweaty, dirty and dehydrated we decided to break for lunch.  We had cleared about a sixth of the area and only because we had the assistance of Victor and another man who cleared some of the major garbage by hand or in some cases with an axe.  Before we left we were assured that a couple of men and a couple of hoes would arrive in the afternoon to help.

Back from a quick lunch of sarmale and french fries (and a liter of juice and a liter of water) we noticed a couple of new men with hoes and a shovel.  By four o’clock we had finished clearing the area and hauling the waste to the street and exhaustedly we returned to Marilyn’s office thinking our day was finished, the only thing left was to spread the new topsoil.  A half hour later I waved at the men who were moving the topsoil as they said good-bye and went to see the finished courtyard amazed that they were already done.

The courtyard was not finished and there were only two men working, one in his dress slacks, collared shirt and polished loafers.  I grabbed my gloves and returned to work outside while Marilyn started tackling windows inside.  This was hard to do since we both had already formed and shredded a couple of blisters on our hands.  Two and a half hard hours later we were nearly finished and one of the vice presidents of the Raion Council who had been working with us brought us placinta and beer.  The rest we were told would have to wait until morning.

We were so exhausted we could barely walk home, take a shower, eat a little soup and fall into bed.  The next morning came quickly as we stiffly dressed and headed to our offices.  My partner was surprised to see me and sent me back to the incubator to assist with the opening. 

After a bit of moving furniture and other last minute preparations, the prime minister and the EU ambassador arrived and the ceremonies commenced, to an audience of about 120 people. 

After the speeches the Prime Minister had an open session with the mayors and other important folks from the raion in the conference room, while the EU representative visited each of the businesses in the incubator.  Each business had a small glass of wine and something for him to taste…..are you getting the idea that food and wine are an important element of any celebration in Moldova?

Everything appeared to go well.  Marilyn and I met several important members of the community both local and national.  The lunch buffet was incredible and we headed home tired and happy.  That evening, as we were strolling down the main street of our little town the raion council president called to us from across the street.  He had a friend and consultant from Romania with him who spoke English and was able to translate and facilitate our conversation in which he expressed his goals for the raion, the projects he had planned and his hopes that we would be able to help him achieve them while thanking us for coming.  All in all, a very interesting first week in our new home.

After training for 8 weeks and swearing in....then what?

Our time in our training village flew by and we are down to the last few Romanian lessons and the last few tips and suggestions for making our service successful.  Everything gets packed back up (even more stuff than we came with) we all dress up in our Sunday best and are loaded up in minibuses to head to Chisinau for our “swearing in” ceremony so that our service can officially start.  Of the 51 of us who got on the plane in New York, 50 of us are still here and are as prepared as we are going to be to start this new adventure.

Bidding a fond farewell to Iulia was difficult, we would miss her and her family for more reasons than we could find words for. 

Her fabulous cooking, and the marvelous garden fresh vegetables with flavor like nothing you have ever tasted, and the wonderful homemade wine were just the tip of the iceberg.

But finally, we and all of our baggage were picked up and loaded onto a private rutierra with 5 other volunteers and taken to the hub site in Chisinau where we unloaded all of our baggage and put it into a small coat room (which overflowed all the way out into the lobby) along with that of 21 others.  Then we were off to the swearing in ceremony with Country Director Janet Utrecht.

The new host families were then supposed to attend a host family conference, first with the Peace Corps Staff and then a later session with us volunteers.  This was to establish the host agreement regarding the cost of meals, use of washing machine, who cleans the rooms, etc.  Then our partners were scheduled to arrive in the early afternoon to transport us and all of our baggage (quite a lot since the Peace Corps has provided us with fire extinguishers, large language dictionaries, procedure manuals, technical manuals, smoke alarms, pitchers with filters and on, and on, ..) to our new locations where we would settle in for our two years of service.

True to form, my partner did not come and Marilyn technically did not yet have a partner.  Our host family had agreed to come to the host family conference and provide our transportation.  After the ceremony we had an hour and a half to grab a cup of coffee and basically relax while the staff explained the contract to the host family representatives.  The idea was for the host family to obtain an understanding of the contract and then negotiate and settle on an arrangement with the volunteers while the Peace Corps staff was available to facilitate any language barriers.   We were expecting Andrei to arrive by himself.

By 11:30 we were asked to keep an eye out for our family whose arrival was imminent.  So we kept watch in the plaza while all the other volunteers scattered to enjoy the city of Chisinau.  By one o’clock, all volunteers had returned and the conference began.  Our family had still not arrived so we sat in the room and waited while a majority of the other volunteers worked out the details of their contracts. 

This process was completed quickly and the volunteers began to load their baggage and leave.  In the spirit of the Peace Corps, the remaining volunteers lent a hand.  More and more volunteers left and we were still waiting for our family.  Finally, there were only us and one other volunteer and we were exhausted from helping with all the other baggage.  Our host family arrived at around 3:30 and Lilia had decided to come to and they had given Lilia’s oldest son, Ion, a ride to Chisinau.

Cramming all our stuff their small SUV, we climbed in the back seat, with a large bag standing on end between us, and the journey to our permanent site began.  Two hours later, after stopping for watermelon, tomatoes and peppers and a roadside stand, we arrived at our new home only to learn that our rooms would not be available because a family of friends were also staying there through the weekend.  It was Thursday.

Stacking our bags in the hallway underneath a table and taking the bare minimum to the only available room on the third floor (toothbrush, change of underwear, shorts and a t-shirt) we changed and joined the group outside where Andrei was busily preparing a barbeque.

The food and company was wonderful with English, Romanian, Russian and German being spoken around the table.

  Some of us even had a little Spanish and French and overall it was a very enjoyable European evening. 

We were told that our partners weren’t expecting us in the office on this first Friday in our new location and that was a good thing because we couldn’t get near the shower or the bathroom until nearly 10 a.m. because of all the people in the house.  Later on that morning we cleaned up, dressed casually and went out into the beautiful summer day to explore our new small town.  Saturday was more of the same, with a big dinner together in the evening again with more food and wine than we could all comsume.

Sunday we spent moving our baggage and unpacking.  We desperately needed to do a load of laundry but were informed that it was a day of rest and there should be no work done on this day.  Welcome to community integration.  It turned out to be a nice, lazy, restful day. 

The one thing we did accomplish on Sunday was we worked out the details of the contract with Andrei and Lilia, I think.  They were as uncomfortable as we were discussing and we didn’t have any readily available assistance.  We really wished they had attended the host family conference because they really didn’t know what to expect.  We executed all of the copies of the contract and Marilyn and I thankfully handed over a majority of the cash we had been carrying around and we were done.

I showed up at my partner’s office bright and early Monday morning and found it locked.  When my partner did arrive we shook hands and I was able to use my slightly improved Romanian to exchange pleasantries and speak a little about the day’s agenda.  It appeared that he really did not have any particular agenda to execute with me and introduced me to a local farmer that he was apparently working with that day.  It was good to listen to the language being spoken but I found I could only follow about a third of what was being said and very quickly became unable to answer the questions they rapidly fired my way from time to time.

A watermelon was sliced up and there was quite a bit of fun conversation (most of which I missed) and later, amid what may have been some frustration, my partner left after indicating I should stay in the office.  I spent a couple of hours communicating with the secretary through Google Translate (not very accurate) and she provided me with some information about their company which I read and then, with nothing better to do, I opened my language notes and started working on the language.

Later, in answer to my questions my partner indicated that his ideas for working with a volunteer were limited to my visiting the surrounding 30 or 40 small villages in our raion (county) and looking for community projects to perform.  I would then bring those projects to him, in proposal form.  Wow!  I had been told that he had worked with a volunteer before but this is absolutely NOT how this is supposed to work.  Since I am not an agricultural expert (like the last volunteer 5 years ago) and his business does not really need any assistance, it seemed we were at a standstill as to how we might work together. 

I thought to myself that it might have been effective if my partner had attended the partner conference with me the previous month in order to work on exactly these types of issues rather than sending an employee that did not know why she was there or what she was supposed to do.  Well, flexibility and resiliency.  I figured we’d find a way to work together.

Meanwhile, the business incubator Marilyn is working with had identified a potential partner for her (the soon to be confirmed manager of the incubator) and it appeared that against all outside expectations, that the incubator was going to be opened the following Thursday.  There was quite a bit to do first however.  A large amount of landscaping needed to be done, all three floors of the building needed to be cleaned and most of the initial 14 tenants still needed to be moved in.  Did I mention that the electricity and water needed to be turned on?

At one o’clock my partner told me to take an hour and a half for lunch and that he would take me around the raion and introduce me to various community members later that afternoon.  I returned from lunch and continued to work on my language notebook but by four I realized he was not going to return so after saying goodbye to the secretary I packed up and left the office for the day.

Victor from the raion was at the incubator with Marilyn and he contacted me and requested my assistance for a few days in order to help get the incubator open.  I told him that he would need to ask my partner and later I was informed that he readily agreed to this.  Yea!  I have something to do tomorrow and the next day!

New experiences, with both the best of life and the most tragic times.

In mid-July we came home from our afternoon training session to discover that it was Sasha’s 73^rd birthday.  Iulia’s youngest sister Nadia and her husband Sergei were there along with Lilia’s whole family.  Iulia had again made way more food than could possibly be eaten, and they served their own wine and samagon and Valeri brought a bottle of champagne as well.  We have learned that being invited to a birthday masa is lovely but you have to approach the food knowing that it is a marathon, not a sprint. 

We all sit around the table eating, drinking and chatting for hours.  The food never stops coming, the family will eat left overs for the next three days at least!  This is the Moldovan version of hospitality, and it is very important to them.  One Moldovan tradition is that they must make you say “no” at least three times in order to be properly hospitable and they take it seriously which most Americans have trouble dealing with.

A few days later I developed a nasty bug that had me in bed for a day.  In the early afternoon I was awakened by Iulia shouting my name.  Coming to my senses slowly I looked outside and saw the wind blowing and clouds developing and I thought Iulia was telling me to get our laundry off the line and inside before the storm approached.  Later I found that I couldn’t have been more wrong.

It turns out that Sasha had collapsed while working in the garden and Iulia, by herself, had picked him up and carried him to the house and called the ambulance.  I can’t tell you how badly I felt about my inability to understand what Iulia had been saying during the emergency.  Sasha was taken by ambulance to the hospital where to our shock, he died the next day.

We informed our LTI’s and they put us in contact with the medical office.  All of the Moldovan staff, LTI’s and doctors felt that we should spend a few days in the medical facility in Chișinău in order to avoid the Moldovan funeral traditions which they told us would be difficult for us.  Through Danni, our family interpreter we told Iulia that we could spend a few days away or were willing to stay and support her, whichever was more comfortable for her.  She told us to stay, of course although in hindsight we wonder if this was part of the “say no three times” tradition.  Against the better judgment of our LTI’s and the medical team we were going to participate in the family’s Moldovan funeral rites for our friend Sasha.

Although we had only been with Sasha and Iulia for a few weeks we had been together every day and they had truly made us feel like family and our hearts were heavy with grief.  Valeri and Sergei went to the hospital on Saturday morning to pick up Sasha.  Iulia and her sister Nadia went to Chisinau to shop for all the things they needed for the funeral.  While we are sure family traditions vary, we understand that what we were about to experience is very typical of an Orthodox funeral in a Moldovan village.

The room we were staying in was the largest room in the house, the summer room, known as the “camera mare”.  At Iulia’s request we packed everything up and moved into a room in the main house so that our room could be used for the viewing.  Iulia’s sisters arrived and the house had to be cleaned from top to bottom before the casket arrived.  Inside and out the house and garden were cleaned polished and swept.   Iulia’s oldest sister was in charge of the kitchen and food was prepared so that if anyone needed to eat it was available. 

Big boxes filled with the wreath shaped loaves of specialty bread called “colac” were brought in along with boxes of candy and cookies.  Iulia and Nadia returned with huge bags of all kinds of gift items as though they had to provide Christmas for the whole village….little did we know.  Weddings and funerals are the most expensive events in the life of Moldovans families; in this case, we found, it is traditional for the spouse of the deceased to give a gift, of relative importance to everyone in the village that was part of their lives, in remembrance. 

The gifts were amazing, an entire dining service, table (must be from the grandparent’s house) and chairs with cloths, dishes, flatware and glassware to match are traditionally given to the oldest grandchild.  With this gift comes the obligation to help care for the remaining grandparent.  The younger grandchildren received a complete set of bedding, sheets, pillows, and blanket.  The pall bearers each received beautiful blankets for their homes and a brand new bucket half filled with wine or samagon that Sasha had made.  Later, after the casket was placed in the cemetery these men carried the buckets around with a cup and gave everyone a drink in memory of Sasha.  The priest was handed cash and a live chicken, close family and friends received all manner of household items, even people from the village who were not particularly close to the family all received a cup filled with cookies and candy or a tea towel with candy tied in the ends. 

When Valeri arrived home with Sasha’s body the sisters washed and dressed him in his best suit and then he was laid in the casket on the floor in the camera mare with a table that had flowers, an empty bowl for people to leave money in, wine with glasses, candy and a bowl of flour with a whole pile of unlit candles next to it and a few lit candles standing up in the flour.  As people came to visit and pay their respects they would light a candle, sip some wine or eat a candy and visit with Iulia and Lilia for a few minutes.

Everyone who stopped by seemed to bring an armful of flowers which were put in big buckets by the door so they could make the trip to the cemetery the next day.  It is traditional in Moldova to give flowers for many occasions, for birthdays and celebrations you always give an odd number of flowers, for a funeral it is always an even number.

After Valeri had brought Sasha home and had run the errands necessary for the funeral, he had the very difficult task of driving out to the summer camp where 11 year old Iuliana was to be for two weeks, to break the news and bring her home for the funeral.  Lilia and Daniela had been helping with all the arrangements and when Valeri arrived back with Iuliana it was a very emotional time for the whole family.  These beautiful children loved their grandfather very much and it was heartbreaking to see them grieving.

The family stays up all night before the funeral and they do not bathe, shave or change clothes from the time of the death until three days after the funeral.  On the day of the funeral people do not great each other nor do they introduce people to each other by name or shake hands.  Fortunately one of Iulia’s sisters used charades and a friend with a few words of English to help us understand that there was a reason why all these people were not introducing themselves, and that we should not introduce ourselves either.

The morning of the funeral the casket (the casket lid is a separate piece and the casket is left open until just before it is interred) was brought outside so that Iulia could give her gifts to everyone.  Iulia stood on one side of the casket and called out people’s names and they came forward to say a final good-bye to Sasha and to receive their gift over the body in remembrance of Sasha.  After all the gifts are given (in this case it was easily 40-50 people) the priest begins the blessings over the body and soon we are all in a procession walking to the church.

In Moldova the Orthodox services are all sung, the priests are very talented and it was moving, even though we understood only a few words.  Everyone stood in the church (there are no benches or chairs in this church) during the service, the women all had their heads covered with a scarf and everyone, including us, were holding burning candles during the service.

When we left the church the casket with all the flowers was loaded onto the back of a flatbed truck that had been completely covered in carpets and Iulia and a few other family members climbed up to ride with Sasha to the cemetery.  The cemetery is in the next village so all the mourners got on a bus and into minibuses (hired for the day) and were driven over for the rest of the service.  The priests lead the way and they carried incense and sang blessings all the way to the grave site. 

The pall bearers brought the casket from the truck to the site, set it on the mound of soil next to the grave, and began serving the wine from their buckets.  The priests gave a final blessing, and sprinkled wine over the body after which the lid was brought up and nailed in place.  The casket was lowered and everyone walked past and threw a handful of soil into the grave and said their final good-byes.  The grave was then filled immediately by men from the village (possibly some family members), using shovels.

At this point everyone returned to the buses and were taken back to the village where a large restaurant had been set up for a memorial masa (which the family is paying for) for about 100 people.  Outside there were a couple of friends with buckets of clean water and towels so that everyone could wash their hands after handling the soil at the cemetery.  We all took our seats and after a brief prayer the food was served and the wine began to flow and with them people told stories and spoke of their memories about Sasha.  When the masa ended everyone went home and the family was left alone for the first time in days. 

We had contacted James, a volunteer that had stayed with Sasha and Iulia during PST the previous year, about the funeral and he managed to arrive in the village during the masa.  Iulia was very happy to see him again during this difficult time and we were glad that he was able come to the village and help support the family during this very sad and difficult time.

We wish that our language had been good enough to completely understand the rituals and traditions; unfortunately we probably missed a lot and assuredly there were things we did not understand, but what we do understand is that losing a loved one causes the same pain, everywhere in the world, regardless of the traditions that surround the event.

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.