Somethings you can only experience in Moldova

As I approach my third month here in Moldova many thoughts reminisce through my mind.. Times of laughter with new friends, times of heart aches as I long for people back home, times of growth as I make my impact through Moldova...

Where does one begin to understand the difference a person can make in another if the results are only seen within the heart? There are many things we value as people such as money, cars, houses, clothes, friendships, family, love... However my life in Moldova is with out the majority of what I just mentioned...

 I have friends.. yes.. however they are new to me...

I have family.. yes.. but one that doesn't know me or understand me...

Love... maybe.. however I often feel none....

Money-cars-house-clothes- well these are the least of my importance and don't matter to me much here...

However my objective of experience in Moldova is to help others to understand the thought process of my every day life and the struggle a person can have with in themselves, along with the rejoice one feels as well..  My life back in America is amazing and I have every thing I need and I will forever say that I am happy with my life in the states and I am the luckiest person in the world... However, my life is Moldova has brought things to my heart that I would of NEVER experienced in the states..

The question now is what could Moldova of given me that I would of been able to buy or have back home? Well that was my experience with the Rise Group on August 28th. This group is full of amazing volunteers with very giving and dedicated hearts. It is a group that shows their gentleness to young children who don't have anything. Not only do something of these young people not have money, but many don't have parents, an adequate home, water, health care, or shoes to walk in every day.. Rise helps me to feel what I needed to feel when I came to Moldova. An opportunity to feel happiness with doing the right thing, and to feel a tug on my heart that I can show others Peace and friendship, love and strength, just by being there..

On this day we went to the village of Mingir and handed out over 60 Roma boots to these young children. As we arrived in the village, my eyes swelled up as I felt I would cry as I watched all these young children running for our bus, smiling and oh so excited that we arrived for them! It was amazing to see the happiness a young child can have, even if they have little at home...

On our way to Mingir

As the day proceeded we played games with the kids such as "duck duck goose, green light-red light, and attempted good ole leap frog... This was a day of happiness, a day of refreshment, a day of Peace and Friendship... and over all the first day in Moldova in three months that I could say I am proud to be a volunteer and today I did something great!

I have included the description of this group from the facebook group "Rise." To give all of you a better understanding of what these means to me. Please reference below.

Inequality and intolerance continue to be the greatest challenges for Roma inclusion and progression in Moldova. A study conducted by the United Nations Development Programme titled Roma in the Republic of Moldova shows that Roma consistently fall behind their non-Roma counter-parts in regards to educational success, employment, health, housing conditions, and security. The findings show that compared to their non-Roma counter-parts Romas face: a two times higher risk of poverty, a higher illiteracy and drop out rate, two-times higher probability of unemployment, fall short on all core health indicators relevant to the human development index, 80 percent live in homes with no basic housing conditions, and two thirds of the population frequently suffer from food insecurity.

At one point or another during our Peace Corps service we have all seen or heard about the situation of the Roma in Moldova. The Roma struggle has not reached mainstream America hence we often come to Moldova knowing little of this growing movement and even less about how to get involved in it. R.I.S.E the Roma, Inclusion, Support and Education Group, wishes to change all that. This group began as a request from our partners who wish to address the wide information gap within the Roma community that continues to be one of their greatest challenges. R.I.S.E's goal is to act as a conduit between Peace Corps and the Roma community here in Moldova.

Trying the boots on!

Family with their boots!

Rise!

The tugs on my heart...

There are many things that I have taken for granted in my life and never realized until this point...  From morning to night my life in America was mine, filled with my choices, my freedom, and essentially only the things that made me happy...

As for Moldova every day is a new journey where I get to experience new frustrations all over again. How I have recently described my feelings to friends and loved ones is that of a person whom is in high-school all over again.

To understand the feeling of uncomfort one has to experience this type of adventure.. To move in with two different families in such a short amount of time, and slowly adhere oneself to unknown peoples likes and dislikes, faults and admirations... This has been the most difficult for me...

To the people I am close to I am a very open person will always share my deepest darkest secrets. With these people I don't mind sharing what I did the night before, what man I talked to, who I like or have a crush on, or how I am feeling towards a person... However here in Moldova I feel like I can't be myself... I constantly have to talk about things I don't necessarily feel comfortable with, and knowing that if I open my mouth to anything, several people, including my whole host family will know the next day of my adventures, feelings, and overall every move... So the true question is...

When does my life become my own again? When can I feel like I am a human being, verses "the American."

The technicalities of my life are very difficult to understand unless you are a patient person who can move around my tedious manner.. An example of this is my drive for work.. My whole life I have had several jobs, and would work at least 15-20 hour days... seven days a week..This is normal for me and this is what made me feel whole and comfortable with myself.... I always believed that the things I wanted in life I needed to work for myself, and I hated asking anyone for anything... Moldova has challenged me with this and needless to say my mind is in a war zone, and I could explode at any minute...

To describe this adventure I will try to create my work day here in Moldova.. Daily I walk thirty minutes to work around the 9:00 hour... As I arrive I usually see around five children at the center playing board games, making bracelets, or drawing... With this I usually find my co-workers painting their finger nails, talking, or they are on the computer.. My work day seems forever, and its only four hours... Four hours of endless hell... Four hours where I sit and drink coffee, and accomplish literally nothing.. Most volunteers tell me this is normal, this will pass, it takes time to build credibility, build language, and overall respect to do work..... I so so so want to hear what my fellow volunteers tell me, but my mind is screaming, its screaming at me to get out, to find work, to do something that makes me feel of worth... But day by day for the past two weeks.. I have done nothing... The question that lingers in my mind is "How will I find work?" And how can I regain my sanity with out my my overwhelming work days that made me feel of worth...

Most people may laugh when they read this blog, most may say why is Jamie a volunteer... But like I said the people who are patient and know me as a person understand why I am here.. But on the contrast I reach out for people every day to find the guidance that I need here in Moldova... God has led me here for a reason.. to make an impact in one form or another... Patience is the key and the light to my path.. Setting small goals for myself, giving myself credit, and most of all recognizing the power within myself for even reaching this point in my life... Which is a light that I have begun to discover, and always a voice that has been haunting me for years.. Many of my friends and family have constantly told me I am to busy, I work to much, and I NEVER SLOW DOWN... Well Moldova has actually made me see what they were talking about.. and I can truly say I hate a slow paced lifestyle..

There are alot of people who couldn't possibly live like volunteers do in Moldova.. Living in a new family, around new people, not knowing the language.. not having cable t.v, a car, fast food, work out facilities.. etc... But some how, some way I am doing it.. Already its been near three months since I left the states.. most days feels like three years.. But already I can see myself changing and I can feel the impact that Peace Corps has placed on my life.. no matter if I hate some of the days I exist here...

However, I believe there is a fine line of reality that one can deal with.. For me as a human my heart lies with helping others, and for the past six years this is all I have done.. Helping others with their substance abuse problems... Again Moldova has challenged me to the point of explosion. Every day I see numerous drunk people wandering the streets of my village.. Drunker then I have ever seen in my life.. Yet with this experience I have kept moving forward.. It wasn't until the day that I saw a ten month old baby drinking alcohol that my mouth dropped, my heart wrenched and ached and screamed and WANTED OUT... Tears could fill my eyes every day for the children in Moldova and inability to recognize what their parents are doing to their minds, body and soul at such a young age.. There are many things I want to do with my time in Moldova and helping people with alcoholism is one of them, but seriously where do I begin.. The destruction is already done.. the mindset of the majority of Moldovans is made up.. and yet my heart and soul is not in sync with theirs... I need some guidance...

As I speak of these things that I truly feel passionate about I want people to understand that I don't say these things because Moldova is a bad place, a bad country and has bad people... Because I feel the exact opposite, Moldova has wonderful people, is a beautiful country, and is a place that I will forever remember...  I more so speak of these things because they have affected me to the point of exhaustion.. It hurts every day to think about the experiences that I have seen here in Moldova.. It hurts that I can't help each individual right now and make an impact on the children that need help so badly.. And overall I believe it hurts me because my life in Moldova doesn't feel like its my own... Its not my own because I don't have a say anymore in my life(or as I feel), every day I am surrounded by something I utterly hate(people supporting alcoholism), and overall because I am not understood amongst my community and won't be for a very long time....

Time is the keeper of all things we have in life.. For me today my heart is tugging at me saying "you don't have much time left.." But as reality we all know that we have time.. time to make a difference... time to grow.. and overall time to impact self and others.... Remember every day we need to create our own happiness and our own path that leads us to this place.. Today this path was hard for me, however my friends, loved ones, and my savior has led me down the correct path several times and I have faith it will arrive again...

http://en.rian.ru/health/20110218/162664925.html

Please check out this site- About Moldova and alcoholism and why I want to help!

A feel for my life...

Things have been interesting. That is the best way I can put my thoughts right now..

Officially the exciting news for me is I was sworn in as a volunteer in the country of Moldova on August 5th! It was a very exciting time for me.. Many tears were shed. The most exciting aspect was doing the oath, because the oath we do is the same oath the president of the US takes himself before he is sworn in! Isn't that a story to tell :)

It was pretty difficult for me on this day as well because I had to leave the family I had been living with for 2 months during language training. But it feels amazing to hold a conversation in romanian now and to know that I have gained an amazing family and new friends in the village of Stauceni. When I left my host mom cried, which of course made me cry, but it feel awesome that she cared that much. The night before my family threw a dinner for me to say goodbye, they cooked all my favorite moldovan food and we celebrated with wine. I bought my host family all gifts. For my host mom I bought a mask for her face, she never takes time to relax so I thought it'd help, for my host sister I bought Cool Water perfume, she loved mine so I thought she would be very happy(and she was), my host brother I bought this awesome digging kit(he loved it), and for my host dad we get along great because of our love for hot sauce so I want and bought him so american style hot sauce! Overall an amazing last night with them.. Luckily we go back for 2 weeks of training in Sept-Oct and I get to stay with them again, plus they invited me for holidays and whenever I want to visit!

Transition to new village:

I am currently living in the Village of Iargara Moldova. Its a village of 4000 people. My host family is decent. Host mom is a little over bearing and tells me alot of werid stories, and wants to tell me all the time how great her son is in English. Guess she likes to brag :)... And she loves to be noisy, I went to dinner with my work partner and she asked me several times if I talked about her family and what I talked about. As for everything else with her,the cooking is pretty good, I havent been to sick in my village yet. So far I have been sick around 5 times. Moldova is a very dirty place and its very easy to get sick, and I have chipped my tooth now 3 times on their food, because they cook everything together, bones and all, and you dont know what your biting into.. Luckily the dentist is great!

In my family I have a host mom, dad, brother and a sister. Hosts mom is Domana Vera 54, Host dad is Demnitru 47,Ana is 14, and Maxim is 17. Maxim speaks pretty good english if I talk slow to him, Ana speaks a little english. And we have every animal known to man besides a cat :( at our house. Host dad doesnt really talk to me, I am not really sure why, its not normal in Moldova. My host dad in Stauceni talked with me for about 3 hours every evening. However my host family here is huge into drinking. They want to drink for breakfast, lunch and dinner.. However I get the excuse that I am a Peace Corps volunteer and I dont want to drink and plus I would get in huge trouble if I drank from 8am-5pm. Thank goodness for this rule because its just not appealing to me. 

To describe my host sister, she works alot around the house and is pretty self sufficient.. however every time I do something she asks me "why?" For instance if I am full and I dont want to eat any more she will ask me "but why." And if I walk fast, she asks me why, If I am tired she ask me why, If I want to shower she asks me why. LOL

As for my host brother.. he is to him self or with his friends. He is pretty open to talking to me as the days go on. We get along well with this space :)

His friend(our neighbor) has a huge crush on me, pretty sure because he wants me to take him to America(not going to happen).

To describe my home.. It kind of has two levels: the first level is the bedrooms, and winter kitchen, the second level is my host brothers room and the outside kitchen for summer time. We dont have a place to wash dishes so we do it in a bucket. My host mom didnt believe in soap until I moved in, and I expressed my concern for my health and how important this is. Can you imagine cooking and then not washing your dishes with soap?? I was wondering why everything was so greasy looking! And they cook with so much oil over here its crazy! I had to go to the doctor recently, I am having gal bladder problems from all the oil in the foods.. May have to get it taken out... Lovely! But needless to say we have soap in the house now and my host mom makes sure she does the dishes with soap, or I just do them myself. Peace Corps also gave me a water distiller because the water is really bad here in Moldova.. My language instructor lives here as well and she wont even drank the water its so awful. Lets just say after its done distilling there is this nasty cottage cheese stuff in my distiller left over.. Yummy!

My room is pretty decent.. I have internet in my room, my host mom doesn't make me pay for it, because I am teaching her kids english, so thats always a plus. I have a bed, cupboards and a dresser, along with a computer desk. However in my room are many creatures- spiders, centipeids, the works.. gross!! But I have adjusted if you can believe that for the people who know my hatred for bugs!

And the rest of our house is mess right now, everything is under construction- its common in Moldova during this time for your house to be getting new materials so my family is redoing about everything in our house.. Which can be a really awesome things, it will be interesting to see when its done.

As for my daily activities.. I work at Pentru Tine and how I get there is by good old walking(which I walk 30 minutes to work on dirt roads as I watch goats, pigs, dogs, chicken, geese, all animals cross my path), there are many horse and buggies around here for transporation, and many old ladies that sit outside in the morning gossiping as I walk by all shouting buna dimensata(which means good morning).. And it rained all day today so imagine the roads. muddy to say the least or what we call here GLUD

My place in the community is interesting, I am an alien.. Moldovan people dont believe in anything cold... So I am weird because I drank cold water, use a fan in my room, go to work with my hair wet, ride in a car with the window down.. All these things are looked at to make you sick here in Moldova.. But I wont budge on these, and they have adjusted to that.. However my host mom FREAKS when I use a fork to eat, she says your in Moldova quit it! And If I dont eat everything at one time she is trying to shovel food on my plate, I usually just ignore her at this point acting like I dont understand :).. I dont want to gain 100 pounds! Also I am werid because I like privacy, werid because of the clothes I wear, werid because I shower daily.. Werid in every way! :) Oh and get this when I run for exercise my family talks non stop about it, and how I need to get my host sister to run so she loses weight and they say this in front of her(how rude, right?) So I invite her to run if she wants...

Theres a taste of my daily life :)

As for my work... Let me take a deep breath before I right this... :)

Pentru Tine: Is a center for children who have no place to go after school. We provide this service because most of these children's families are alcoholics or drug addicts, prostitutes, in prison  and most of the children don't want to be at home. Also most of them don't get fed at home, and/or their parents don't want to pay any attention to them. So we provide them with activities such as: soccer, basketball, board games, painting, arts and crafts, etc.

How I feel about working there is another story. I feel worthless most days, because its very unstructured over here, and nothing is every documented or planned.  Yesterday was fulfilling though because I had a conversation with a 12 year old girl about her brother who is in prison for beating someone up, with my little romanian we were able to talk about her anger towards him and how she feels about drinking.. So that was productive.. 

However my frustration with Moldova is seeing four year old children drink alcohol like it is water! I grit my teeth and it hurts so bad to see this! I can't sit there and lecture them because it would ruin myself in my community. So I am going to take the approach on doing a presentation on the affects of alcohol and drugs in the ways that young children can understand. 

Theres many things in my village that I want to help with, but recognizing this is their way of life here, and I have to approach it in a healthy and productive way. Life is much different in America, and all I can say is I am thankful for the things I have back home and pray I will make a difference here.

Lost in the quicksand...

My new friends!!

As I lay here tonight... barely keeping my eyes open.. There is this bitter taste in my mouth that reminds me of the necessary words that need to pour out of my mouth.. These are those words:

Today is surreal, today is the truth.. Today is the example of all things that are possible.. With-in a new country, with-in your heart, and most importantly with-in friendship..

As I began my last week here in Stauceni reality set it and everything soon become focused.. I realized that reality once again would be sweeping in front of my face letting me know that it’s time for change, time for fear, and time for excitement..  As we all know Peace Corps is about change…. We also know there is only so much that a human mind can absorb and handle at one time.. 

With the time that I have had in Stauceni I have gained new found friendships, a wonderful family and a growth in my heart that will last a lifetime... At the same time the surreal aspect of this adventure is I have had the same friends in my life for many years, some of them for 18, others around 7... To now discuss intimate thoughts, heartaches, fears, excitements, and struggles with new people has been an adventure... some disappointments, some wonders, and overall reality within it self that lets me know that the world is forever changing and that I can be happy where ever I am...

However as the hours count down... reality sets in... I recognize that tomorrow.. Tomorrow I will be an official Peace Corps Volunteer.. My heart pounds... my head stirs.. and I ask myself... Am I ready.??.

Am I ready for this true commitment.. ? Or should I give up now and go home to my perfect life, in a perfect home, with no challenges like the ones I have endured here...

I laugh at myself for even having those thoughts.... However, they were there and that’s reality... But what is my true desire... My desire is to swear in tomorrow as a volunteer... Do great things! And accomplish amazing goals within Moldova!!

................Until Tomorrow.............

My eyes open... my heart races... today is the day.. 

Today I have to leave my beloved Moldovan family.. The people who have taken me in as their own, their new daughter.. sister and granddaughter... The tears start to flow and my heart starts to ache as I prepare myself for the biggest step in my life...

My host father Peter and his god son Sasha.

Memories reminisce through my head of the night before.. Watching my host family open the gifts that I got for them.. Watching the happiness in their eyes and the love in their hearts. I can’t do anything but smile and be happy about the time I had with the wonderful "Titco Family." The smile on Nichole's face every time I am around, the funny jokes from Katya every day, the hospitality and loving heart of my host mother Caroline... and the many eventful nights with lots of laughter and jokes with my host father Peter... I couldn't be more lucky to of met these wonderful people...

My host sister and great friend Katya!

Yet as I prepare myself for a new family I feel myself sinking in the sand in which I created.. I chose this for myself, but at the same time I find myself sinking so deep into the quick sand that wants to drag me under with each new challenging experience.. Thoughts fill my mind.... Will I like my new family? Will they like me?? Will it be a good experience?? Will I make it the two years with them??

This is where a person.. myself.. has to dig deep, dig quickly, try to breath.. knowing that this may be my last chance of success, knowing that giving up brings nothing but a bad bitter taste to my mouth... 

As the day goes on and I stand on the stage in front of Peace Corps officials.. raising my right hand... swearing in my oath.. the same oath that the President of the US took the day he had to swear in to lead our country.. My eyes fill up with tears and all negative thoughts leave my mind... This is what I am here for…  I have been giving the change to extend the love that I was blessed with in my heart for others..  What a wonderful feeling...

My host mom and partner enter the room.. my heart begins to race again.. knowing these two people will be a huge part of my life for the next two years.. My work partner Valeria enters with a huge smile and a loving heart, I feel connected… My host mom also enters with a smile, however I struggle to feel the connection.. but recognize within my self that I want to feel that with her and in time this may come true.. This is my reality on this day…

My Partner Valeria

I ask my self why I share my deepest thoughts for others to read, the struggles I have within myself and with others… And the answer for me is the most important people in my life already know I have these thoughts and I recognize that ALL of you that are reading this blog are important in my life and I want to thank you for helping me get to the point of being able to share my feelings on this evening.. To be able to of made it officially 2 months today in Peace Corps!! Words won’t ever express the happiness I feel..

My life is a quick sand.. constantly changing.. taking me in further… sometimes I can’t breath, others times I can grasp small amounts.. I thank my savior for the small amounts of air that I have been served, because look at where I am today… life is hard to determine, but know matter what we are served… any person can be successful…