141. Tutor

While it varies within the Peace Corps organization, in Peace Corps Moldova volunteers have about two months of language and technical training at the beginning of our service, after that we have around another month worth of technical and language training throughout our service.  Peace Corps does a good job of helping volunteers with the basics of the language, but if volunteers want to take things to the next level they must do it on their own (with Peace Corps’ resources).

Many volunteers develop their language by setting aside time each day to write in their journal, read a book, watch TV and talk to locals.  Another way that is highly popular among volunteers is finding a local person to tutor us in our new language.  Tutors can be extremely beneficial in a volunteer’s life, not only do they help increase the language skill of a volunteer, but they can also be another connection into the community.

My tutor is a French and history teacher at the local school (she teaches classes in elementary up through high school level).  Not only is she a great teacher and she has greatly improved my Romanian, but she is my main connection to the school.  Since I am a volunteer that works with an NGO that works to develop the community and businesses I have little interaction with the school.  If it was not for her, I would not have been invited to be a guest lecturer for a history class about America’s independence.  That is just one example, another is that after the last class in the afternoon, I come to the school for my tutoring session which allows me to interact with teachers and students.

She has also helped me better connect with the community because she always informs me of events and services within the Baptist Church.  My host family is Orthodox Christian, so with my tutor and my host family, I always know what is going on religiously in my village.  As many volunteers have found out, churches are a great way to connect with many people in the community.

I would have to say that my host family, the people I work with and my tutor have been the most important people in my life when it comes to integrating and networking in my community.