182. First Good Snow

We had some snow a while back, it snowed a little overnight but it all melted by 9 in the morning.

This snow had perfect timing.  The ground was a little moist due to some rain and it was a little muddy.  Then the snow came and the ground froze and the snow almost completely covered the ground right before Christmas!

So we had a white Christmas.  Not all of Moldova did, but I was very happy my area did.

Leia Mais…

181. Christmas

I enjoyed this Christmas much more than last year’s Christmas.  I did just about the exact same thing as last year, but this year I understood what events and things were going on in Moldova plus I understand the language so much better now.

During the Christmas weekend I attended a coupe church services, listened to a bunch of poems (Moldovans love saying poems during the winter holidays), listened to a children, youth and young adult choirs, watched skits about the birth of Christ, and I had some good traditional Moldovan food.

The Baptist church in my village celebrate Christmas on December 25^th, the Orthodox Church celebrates Christmas on January 7^th, so I am excited to celebrate Christmas all over again.

Leia Mais…

180. About Moldova

This video was made by a fellow Peace Corps volunteer. The video contains some interesting facts and images from Moldova.

Leia Mais…

179. Merry Christmas

I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!  This week we got our first good snowfall, I learned a few Romanian carols with my Romanian tutor and I have gifts ready for the host family.

The only thing that could be better was if I could be in and in America at the same time!

Leia Mais…

178. Excuse me, where are you from?

I was in a microbus (has about 20 seats) at the bus station waiting to leave to visit a fellow volunteer’s site.  The bus was almost full.  Two girls around 20 years old get onto the bus and one said, “O my God” in English with an accent.  I look at her and we made eye contact, I think she was a little embarrassed because she knew that I understood what she said.

Even if I dressed like a Moldova and spoke perfect Romanian, I bet that Moldovans would still be able to tell that I was not Moldova.  On that day I was wearing a coat I bought in Moldova but I was wearing an Ohio State beanie and sporting a thin goatee.  The facial have defiantly gave me away, very few Moldovans have facial hair, the majority can grow them but it is not fashionable here.

A little while into the trip the two girls were talking to each other.  I could not quite hear everything, but I think they were trying to guess where I was from/what languages I know.  I heard them mention German and French.  A few minutes after that the one sitting next to me says, “Excuse me, where are you from?” in English.

I told them I was a Peace Corps volunteer from America.  She then said, “O, we were in America this summer.”  I asked where and she replied, “Hersey, Pennsylvania.”  I told her I knew where that I was and want to visit, but I have not yet.  She said that I should visit because it is, “The sweetest place on earth.”

This conversation reminded me of a story I read about how the Hershey Chocolate Company and how it had many foreigners working for them and how they were not paid very well (New York Times Article).  I hope that these girls were paid decent and that the company has fixed these problems.

Leia Mais…

177. What's on your hand?

My three year old host nephew who has been living with us for the last few weeks because his parents have recently become very busy with work.  While at times it is difficult to have a young child in the house, most of the time it is a lot of fun.  He is always full of energy and has many questions.  He always greets me when I come home from work and enjoys sitting next to my while I am working on my computer, listening to music or watching a video.  While his Romanian pronunciation is not always the best, he does help improve my language skills.

The other day we were sitting down to eat dinner and he saw that I had some writing on my hand:

Host Nephew (HN):  Tim, Tim, Tim

Me:  Yes.

HN:  Look, what, what *he was excited and starting to stutter, then he jumps out of his chair runs over to me and grabs my hand* what do you have on your hand?

Me:  I wrote on my hand.

HN:  Why?

Me:  Because I want to remember stuff that I have to do for these people.

HN:  Why?

Me:  I have to do work and do not want to forget.

HN:  O.  My dad does the same thing.

I talked with his dad, and it is true that he also makes notes on his hand.

Leia Mais…

176. Gym

One of the many things I enjoy about living in Moldova is the chance to visit villages.  It is always interesting because I get to see another village or city in Moldova and even better when I get to hear about it from an American who lives and works in the community.  I also get new ideas for projects and activities which I could potentially implement in my village.

One interesting idea that I saw while at my friend’s village is a gym.  The gym is open afterschool for extra credit and for at risk youth.  The gym is at the school and there at up to 20 youth that come five days a week to utilize the gym.

Not only was I able to see and experience the project, but I was able to understand how the volunteer was able to work with the school and the teachers to refine the idea and make it plausible and beneficial to the students.

Leia Mais…

175. What's that taste?

Every time I eat an egg over-easy or sunny-side-up there is some unique taste that I could not quite put my finger on.  It was kind of an earthy taste, not really bad, but something that I was not use too.

At first I thought that it was because I had never eaten farm fresh eggs or maybe that is what they taste like when the chickens just eat corn and squash.  Then I thought maybe it was because the outside of the egg was not washed well, but I figured that was a dumb idea and that they would probable taste worse that ‘earthy’.

I then figured out what the mystery taste was… sunflower seed oil.  I have written before about how sunflower seed oil is the main oil used in Moldova and how my host father has an oil press (see post).  I realized that this ‘earthy’ taste did taste like sunflower seeds and because the oil was made at home and was not processed or filtered the taste is not quite as refined.

As the photo shows, the oil is not filtered or processed, so all of the imperfections settle to the bottom.  Now that I know where the taste comes from, I cannot really image eggs without that taste… well, I guess I can imagine eggs fried in bacon grease.

Leia Mais…

174. Scrap Metal

I know many Moldovans that have many different ‘businesses’.  Almost everyone in my village has at least a little land outside of the village which they farm, but on top of that people have bee hives, sell homemade wine, press sunflower seeds into oil, sell homemade vodka, grow mushrooms, woodworking and other activities as a way to make money.  This is common/necessary for many because in my area of Moldova a lot of people have seasonal jobs in the grape growing and wine making industries.

One of my friends has a metal recycling yard at his home.  He buys metal from everyone in the village.  People from all walks of life sell him metal; you can even see young boys with a little wagon full of bolts and scrap pieces of metal so they can make enough money to use the internet lab or purchase some candy to men with some metal on the back of a bicycle to a tractor pulling a full load metal.

Once a month, or whenever his yard is full of metal, he hires a handful of men to help load all of the metal, by hand, into a semi that will take it to a metal recycling facility.  I do not know how profitable this business is, but it is a service to the community.  Because many in the village to not have vehicles, there is no way to get this metal to a recycling facility and most people do not have enough metal to make it profitable to rent a vehicle to take the metal to a facility.

Villages that do not have someone that collects metal generally rely on people/businesses that sent trucks through the village periodically.  One day such a truck was going through our village, it had a loud speaker on the roof and the driver would go up and down every road in the village asking if anyone had any scrap metal.  Needless to say, the man who runs the metal purchasing business in my village was not happy.  If he found out that someone sold metal to the man driving the truck he would make sure to visit the house and let them know that he was purchasing metal in the village and to tell that it would be better to support someone from the village and also to ask the price that the other company offered.

Leia Mais…

173. Soup Kitchen Renovation Celebration

The Austrian organization ‘Concordia’ (www.concordia.or.at/concordia_en/) has opened many soup kitchens and social assistance centers for youth and elderly in many locations throughout Romania, Moldova and Bulgaria.  They opened a soup kitchen for the elderly in my village; currently 35 elderly people eat two meals a day, five days a week at the kitchen.  The main goal is not onlye to feed the elderly, but also give them a social network, host activities, educational events and other things to give the elderly that generally have no family something to do.

I have started to work with this organization's branch in my village a little bit; we are currently working on finding funding to renovate part of the kindergarten to house the soup kitchen.  This move is so that the kitchen can be in a central location in the village, to expand so that more events can take place and because it is a Concordia regulation that the building must be owned by the village, currently the soup kitchen is temporarily using a church’s facilities.

The Peace Corps volunteer that lives the closest to me works with a Concordia soup kitchen in a village about 3 kilometers away.  Their soup kitchen feeds about 70 people a day and is located at the local hospital.  They recently completed a project to repair and paint the walls, install two showers, install a washing machine and install a few benches outside of the entrance.  This may seem like a little project, but many of the poor elderly do not bath or wash their cloths due to the poor conditions of their homes.  So this project will have a huge affect on the hygiene and health of the elderly in this village.

Due in part to Moldovan custom there was a celebration at the completion of the project.  People from the village and neighboring villages came to celebrate.  Children from the school danced, sang and put on a skit about hygiene.  The mayor also spoke and some representatives from the funding organizations also came.

It was quite exciting to be a part of and share the in success of the project.  It is always great to see how so many people work together to make a project like this possible.

*These photos are from the celebration at Concordia’s soup kitchen at a neighboring village

Leia Mais…