COS!

I completed my Peace Corps service and am now officially Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV)! In Moldova, the tradition is to ring the COS bell on the day of COSing.

Me, Elvira (my awesome program manager!!), & Aana (who COS'd with me).

Rakiu season...again

I woke up this morning to Mama-G telling me to come to the chicken coop for fresh rakiu (think moonshine)...at 9:30am. 

Mama-G makes her rakiu from apricots grown on her apricot tree.

This is a tool they use to determine the alcohol content.

According to this tool, it's 70 proof. 

Nice way to start the day... ;op

Floarea-soarelui!

July in Moldova is sunflower season! They're everywhere!! Sunflowers are big business in Moldova - for seeds and oil primarily, so they litter the countryside with beauty every July :o]

This is a sunflower Mama-G is growing.

New Traditions

Over the past 2 years there has been A LOT of changes in PC staff and policies here in Moldova. With that, a lot of PCVs have left before completing their services...whether they left by their own choices or not. 

PC Moldova has a bell ringing ceremony for people who make it to their COS (Close of Service) dates. But, since so many PCVs leave before their times, some of us decided to start a new tradition: squeezing the pig. So, for those who don't complete their services, by choice or not, they can now squeeze the pig for a final farewell. :o]

Above is our "crew": Aana, Scott, me, Nate, and Rosie. Scott was the first to get to squeeze the pig. Farewell Scott...we miss you! See you on the other side!!

Connecting to where my food comes from...

So, i decided i need to take part in connecting to where my food comes from...if i can eat it, i should be able to do whatever's necessary to prepare it...hence the chicken head and axe. I killed a chicken while Mama-G laughed uncontrollably. I prayed beforehand and told the chicken i was sorry. The worse part was definitely the actual killing (except for Mama-G's laughter). Everything else was fun - feathering, gutting, and eating! 

They use EVERY part of the chicken, which is really great. Whatever is not eaten is given to the dog and cat to eat. Even the stomach contents were used for some kind of compost/fertilization.

Wildlife in Moldova: broască (frog)

OK, my wildlife encounters in Moldova has increased somewhat...YAY! The current score is multiple birds,  4 squirrels (but i think i saw one of them twice), 4 hedgehogs, 2 frogs, 1 fox (i think...it was running really fast, and was definitely not a dog), 1 dead rat.

This frog was on the stairs to our beci (cellar). I picked it up and it sqirted (peed?) on me. Mama-G was shocked, disgusted, and amused, all at the same time about me picking up the frog (she didn't know about the squirting). Then we went to a late night masa and she told everyone that i picked up a frog and everyone had pretty much the same disgusted/amused reaction as Mama-G. :op

Kayaking on the Nistru!

I went on a 4 day kayaking trip with fellow PCVs (13 of us total) with the Moldovan tour group: Hai la țară. The tour guide, Alex, is from Transnistria and he started this tour guide business over a year ago and is doing really well! He's tapping into a pretty much untapped potential gold mine of tourism in Moldova. 

The trip is usually 5 days, but he condensed it into 4 days for us (some of the other PCVs couldn't commit to the full 5 days). The tour included 4 days (about 6ish hours per day) of kayaking down the Nistru River, with stops for lunch, hiking around, waterfalls, monasteries - all with very interesting history lessons from Alex (he speaks Romanian, Russian, and English...maybe more). 

Two of the three nights we stayed with host families who prepared traditional Moldovan mese (feasts) with us. The last night we stayed in a dorm-style hotel with more traditional food served.

It was a really great time and definitely something to do if ever in Moldova!

Amazing Thunderstorm!

We experienced the greatest thunderstorm of my life the other night! It lasted for a good hour. I've never seen anything like it. This picture really doesn't do it justice.

Random Moldovan Weirdness

I love Moldova, if not for the people, for the radomness of things like, this toilet seat lid...?...

Or this gelatinous/pudding thingy molded like a fish...for dessert...

Or this amazing shirt that a 10 year old(?) is wearing...i guarantee he or his parents or anyone he is in normal contact with knows what it says...i just wonder where he got it... :op

Chicken feet...It's What's for Dinner

We raise our own chickens here and we use it all! Usually Mama-G keeps the parts she thinks i might find weird to herself, but one night i noticed she was eating a chicken foot and i told her i wanted to try it, so the next night that's what i got! It was actually pretty good! Way more tender than i was expecting. I thought it would be more cartilaginous. I'd definitely eat it again! :o]

Last Bell! :oD

May 31st was the last day of school, aka "Last Bell". Similar to First Bell (1st day of school) it is a day of celebration, speeches (by staff, students, the local priest, mayor, etc.), songs, etc. 

Below is the 9th grade graduating class.

Here is the 1st grade class (youngest in the school).

After all the speeches and diplomas, the 9th graders walk around encircled by all the other classes.

Then they release their balloons into the air.

Left-to-right: me, Natalia (my main partner teacher), Iuliana (the director), a dude i don't know ;op, and the priest.

This is my FAVORITE student, Grigore. He was in my 6th grade class.

This is Marin. He was the first student to befriend me outside of class. He's a sweetie.

Me with some of the cleaning crew (who were super cool ladies).

As with most (all?) school celebrations, flowers are essential.

My speech that Mama-G helped me write.

Dear Teachers and dear students,
It has already been 2 years! I think it has gone by very quickly. Thank you for your collaboration and for allowing me to teach health education. It has been a great honor for me to work with my parteners, Mrs. Natalia and Mrs. Elena, and with all of my dear students. Thank you for your hospitality, patience, and kindness towards me. Everyone here, including Mrs. Iuliana, Mrs. Valentina, Mrs. Nina, and all the teachers and staff, and of course, every student, has become a part of my heart, with memories i will have for my whole life. I have beautiful memories from Vasilcău, and from all of Moldova. If i said something wrong or incorrectly, excuse me, but i want everyone to always have beautiful memories. I wish everyone health and success in everything! I hope to return again. Thank you beautifully!

Transatlantic Pen Pals

Did you ever have a pen pal? I had a couple growing up, and I really enjoyed it. So when I found out about the Worldwise Schoolprogram during my Peace Corps application process, I was really excited to participate. The program matches PCVs with a teacher in America, and their students can exchange letters. This lines up perfectly with Goals 2 and 3 of Peace Corps, the sharing of American culture with our host country, and vice versa. Unfortunately, Worldwise Schools had some technical difficulties the last couple years, and the three attempts I made at signing up came to naught. Colii also tried to sign up a couple times, and never heard back from them. (Side note - they have restructured the program and made improvements, so hopefully it will work much better for PCVs and American teachers in the future. It's such a cool idea.)

Luckily, Colii and I are PCVs, so we are practiced at having to be creative and resourceful to get things done. We decided to have the students in my Library Club exchange letters with the students in her Health Club. We had all the kids write letters, and then we matched them up together.

The Moldovan Pen Pals

               

The Malawian Pen Pals

I even gave my students a little one-page info sheet on Moldova, with a map and a photocopy of a postcard I got in Soroca when I visited there. Colii passed on some Romanian phrases to me, and I included those on the sheet as well. The Romanian phrases have really caught on, and now I regularly hear “Buna dimineata” and “pa pa” at school from my Malawian students! Even from kids that were not even involved in the pen pal program.

Letter writing was a great way for the students to practice their English and writing skills. It also taught them about another country. Sharing the culture of your host country with the people of your PCV friend’s host country isn’t one of the three PC goals, but it sure was a lot of fun!

Educație pentru Sănătate certificate :o]

I made certificate de realizare (certificates of achievement/diplomas) for my students and partner teachers. Below is an example (for one of my partner teachers). The kids, my partners, my school director, and adjunct directors LOVED them! :o] The triangle in the background is „Triunghiul de sănătate” (The Triangle of Health), which includes physical, mental, and social health. It was what i used as the foundation for my 2 years of teaching Health Ed. 

On the bottom it says, "Mesajul de sănătate: „Sănătatea este o stare de completă bunăstare fizică, mentală, și socială, și nu doar absența bolii sau infirmității.”" (The health message: "Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.") Every class we had a health message, basically summarizing the topic of the day in 1 or 2 sentences that the students wrote in their notebooks. The quote I used on the diplomas is a definition of health that was their very first health message and was taped to the wall for the whole 2 years.

Below is my 5th grade class with my partner teacher, Elena. :o]

The rest of my classes (6th-9th) i teach with my partner teacher, Natalia. Below is our 7th grade class with Natalia near the center with the pink scarf. :o]

Here should be my 8th grade class photo, but i forgot :o[... I'll try to get them together next week on the last day of school.

This is my 6th grade class, whom i love dearly. They were my worst class last year, but this year the school split them into 2 classes, so i got the privilege of being able to teach this class. They went from my worst to my very very BEST class! I love them and will truly miss them! Natalia and i are standing on the far right. 

Left-to-right: Alina, Alexandra, Nicoleta, Tudora, Lilia, Ion T., Vlad, Vadim, Grigore (my very favorite student :o]), Marionela, Valeriu, me, Natalia. 2 of my students, Cristian, and Ion G. weren't there yesterday. 

And lastly, our 9th graders. 

Overall, all my classes were pretty great (7th grade was my worst this year, but i still liked them individually...just as a class, they were pretty chaotic).

I'm so grateful that i had the opportunity to teach health ed for the past 2 years. I've always wanted to be a teacher, and now i can say, that after teaching for 2 years in a foreign language, that i really do LOVE teaching! I'd love to have the opportunity to teach in my native tongue...maybe someday :o]

Really Moldova??

So, I have a sudden bald spot. It's been there for a month now. It doesn't hurt or itch. It's not discolored. There was no injury. Just a bigass, round, smooth-as-a-baby's-butt, bald spot. Thanks Moldova.

Just carrying some chickens...

Mama-G bought about 30 adolescent chickens. She arrived to the house in a van with like 5 other helpers & a probably 3 y/o little girl to help deliver them to the coop. 

As they were carrying them in, the little girl started swinging on the porch swing. Then everyone left except for this little girl, whom I've never met, & me. She quickly realized my language difficulties & left...I guess she went home...?

A little later Mama-G returned & asked me to help her move the older chickens to a different area closed off from the newer chickens cuz the older chickens would fight with the newer ones. My job was to receive the older chickens, one by one over the fence from Mama-G and put them in their new coop...for someone who has never held a live chicken before (me, duh), that 1st chicken proved to be quite comical for Mama-G to witness. She handed it over to me, but I didn't understand how to hold it exactly, & let it go before putting it in its new coop & then it tried to escape & was running all around me bawking & flapping its wings... meanwhile, Mama-G was cracking up on the other side of the fence watching me try to re-pick-up the chicken as its bawking, flying, & running all around me. Eventually I was able to pick it up & put it in the coop... 1 down, about 20 more to go...

CIREȘE!!

Yesterday Mama-G came home with her hand behind her back and asked me if i wanted a surprise (duh...of course i do!...i LOVE surprises!!). So i said, "Duh...of course i do! I LOVE surprises!" She told me it was something from the garden...CHERRIES!!

Apparently they were the talk of the town. She said she noticed kids eating them from her tree when she came home and she asked them what they were eating and they said "cherries" and she couldn't believe she hadn't noticed them. She said they're early this year. 

ey

They're mighty delicios!