Everything is moving a lot faster now that everyday has something new for me to do instead of the same routine for the whole week. Yesterday was my last language class and I am now on my own with whatever Romanian I was able to soak up in two months, hopefully it is enough...Peace Corps pays me a little extra lei for a tutor so I hope to find someone who would be willing to teach me more Romanian, my partner teacher mentioned that the history teacher at the school is younger and speaks a little English so she is my first choice for a Romanian tutor but who knows....
After my language class I went to Chisinau and ate at one of the nicest restaurants I have ever been in. It was Uzbek and even though Ive never even heard of Uzbek food I will have to say that it is now one of my favorites. At the restaurant I shared a dinner of rice, veal, carrots, and pomegranate seeds, warm bread and a pot of tea that came with honey and dates. Altogether it only cost about 7 dollars.
Today was great because I was able to meet with my new host family which consist of just one woman and she rode the train five hours to come to Chisinau so that Peace Corps could inform her of lots of important information and so that we could hammer out some ground rules and payment amounts. Afterward she took the five hour train back to Scumpia, an intense day of travel for her. My Romanian was failing me pretty badly because working out a contract is not something we had studied in my language classes and having completed one before with my host family now did not make the process any easier. But for the most part she was able to understand me when I formed the most grammatically incorrect sentence in my thick American accent so I think I will be able to survive pretty well at my new site. Especially since she has a grandson that will be living with us for two weeks until he goes back to school and he speaks English. So any major issues I have at my new site I hope to settle before he leaves in two weeks and I am really own my own....
After the conference I went with a few others to the supermarket and was amazed to find almost everything that I had been unable to find in any other store so far in Moldova. Some notoriously hard to find objects include, peanut butter, vanilla extract, spices of any kind, and brown sugar. I am still unsuccessful finding brown sugar but everything else was obtainable at this supermarket. I indulged myself by buying vanilla extract, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and chili powder for about three dollars. We celebrated our success with lunch in the park and then split up and I wondered Chisinau on my own buying miscellaneous items that I had been meaning to buy but had never really had the time. You can only buy some things in certain places and I always forget. The piata (market) in Chisinau is awesome and for me resembles a flee market. There is about three city blocks full of tables and people selling things but good luck finding someone selling what you are looking for even though I have been able to find everything I want for the most part the hard part is just searching through the entire market until you find the right table. Usually I reserve a full hour for the process and just walk through the entire market and talk with people as I go until I find what I am looking for. Today was also great for my self esteem because after the conference and failing to be able to discuss as fluently as I would like with my new host it was nice to be able to talk successfully to the venders at the piata and haggle for a few important item I needed before I leave for Scumpia on Wednesday.
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