As I move into the first week of January here in Moldova I have realized something is missing in my life... SNOW.. Being born and raised in Iowa, snow has always been a part of my life.. Not going to lead you astray and say I like the stuff, but it makes my winters feel whole...
Moldova has the strangest weather during the winter months, but the locals say its far from normal. We have had a lot of sun and stayed in the 40's and 50's, and also some rain off and on which caused nasty mud pits.. The adventure I have had the past few days here in Moldova is going to my host moms house or to the bathroom. Both make me venture outside and down a hill... well needless to say the hill is made of mud!! I fear for my life every time I do this thinking I will fall... Not that I care about being dirty, it's more of the fact I know I won't be able to shower for a couple days and possibly get made fun of by the locals that I fell in a mud hole. :)
This week has been some what joyful. My host brother has been home all week and he keeps me company. It's nice to talk to someone every once in a while :)... The funniest thing he has continued to say his the idea of Moldovan "black snow." This topic came up with Ion asking me if I like Moldova and what are my thoughts of the village. The more interesting thing is he asked me this after he saw me struggling to get across our street because I was sinking in each mud hole! haha... can you imagine?
Other events that have went on this week is "Moldovan Christmas." Here they celebrate Christmas on January 7th. In which this morning we got up early and had our Christmas dinner at 10am. The hardest part for me was drinking wine and champagne that early... Host dad offered me vodka but I refused in the nicest way possible.. He wasn't having that answer, so I told him it makes me vomit and I hate the smell.. that worked....
The Christmas was interesting with meeting my host families relatives. One man said "WHAT! Your American..?? Well, now what do we talk about when there is an American in our house?" Well.. you guessed it-- Barack Obama and alcohol..
The simple conversation about Obama was for me to send my compliments about our wonderful president...
And about the alcohol was about how American people don't know how to drink wine. How this got started is they noticed I was sipping my wine.. And the man asked what I was doing and I said I don't like to drink the whole glass like a shot. He didn't quite understand that. Well in that case I decided to show him what we do in American and how it's proper to taste a sip of wine. He laughed at me and didn't think it was the right way to do it, and in lamens terms I believe he called us pussys. To add on my host mom said "Moldovans don't drink every day they only drink on special occasions. I didn't respond to this fact, but most of us volunteers know that Moldovans drink more then on special occasions, they drink almost every day.. Not every person, but a lot of them.
Really the Christmas was great, and I have to admit this "I tried the meat jello." I can't believe I did, but I can now mark that off my book. For those of you who don't know what I am talking about, I would gladly explain. Meat Jello is chicken in a yellow substance thats cold. Some say it taste like gravy but in a gelatin form. Not my favorite, but it's a moldovan tradition and a must try.
Another thing I had the pleasure of viewing today was the children singing. A tradition here on Christmas is children will visit peoples houses and sing Christmas songs. I couldn't quite understand them because I haven't learned those words in Romanian yet, but it was quite beautiful. After the children are done singing the parents or guests will give them money. Something I wish I had when I was a child! But to add in I did get some gifts of my own: bananas, oranges and some sweets. These came from my host mom and one of the guests which was my hosts mom's brother. Was very generous of them.
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Now moving onto what has been happening outside these events.. Recently I have had a series of things happen during my service that have made life a little more difficult. As I described in my last blog there was a break-in, assualt, and food poisoning. This week there was a break-in at my center, a drunk man confronted me about talking with the police, and one of our directors passed away here in Peace Corps Moldova.
It's been a hard week when I look at more of the internal aspects of my life. Every night it's very hard to go to sleep and most nights I stay up until 4 or 5am just so I know it will be safer. This isn't a good answer to my problems, but right now this is all I have. Hopeful in time that things will change and this village will become a safer place. But from the reports of the officers, I don't believe that will be happening any time soon.
The drunk man that approached me is our "town drunk." What I mean by that is he is homeless, yet lives in an abandon house with no water, electricity or heating. He begs for money and alcohol every day on the street that I walk on that takes me to my center. I had been noticing that he was watching me for a couple days and on Thursday he decided to approach my work partner and I. He expressed that he didn't appreciate me talking with the cops and telling them that he had tried talking with me. Continued to talk about who I was and where I was from. My partner and I simply walked away from him, he is never up to any good and not worth listening too..
My director who passed away... My deepest regards goes out to her family. Margaret was back in the US visiting her family over the holidays when it was said she complained of a headache. She passed away due to a brain aneursym. She will be greatly missed here in Peace Corps Moldova.
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Graduate School
On January 3, 2012 was the beginning of my masters in Criminal Justice. This first week was an experience in itself. Never did I expect the amount of reading that I received, but I feel like I more then excelled at it. Haven't received any of my grades back yet on my first 2 discussion questions and 2 papers, but I am confident that I have done well. It really feels great to be at school and advancing my education. I have many hopes and dreams in my life and I am more than determined to achieve each and every one of them.
Hopes for the future is to obtained my masters by December 10, 2012. After that I hope to get a teaching job along side my counseling/probation career. Life is good
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