Another Winter Update

Hello Amazing blog audience. Long time no blog post. As I mentioned before it is a lot harder to blog when the weather is cold and miserable but right now I am in my warm classroom in between classes so you are in luck. Not too much has occurred since my last blog post so you aren’t too out of the loop. We did have another after school program with the 12^th formers celebrating their coming graduation with other graduating classes. The event was like most of the other events we have had. The students put on a little program full with singing, dancing, and speeches and then later the singing, dancing, and speeches moves from the stage to the audience and everyone joins in. Luckily there wasn’t as much modern dancing as at the Christmas party and I was only called upon to dance the Hora, which is doable. It was interesting to me because in America we usually just have each graduating class celebrate the anniversary of their graduation together. But in Moldova they just have one party and everyone comes and celebrates together. The graduating classes from 2007, 2002, 1992, 1982, and 1972 were all represented. Although in 1982 the table was quite lonely with only one woman attending from that year. And like all the other events that have taken place at the school the graduation celebration started later in the evening, 7 o’clock, and by the time me and my host mother escaped around 12 o’clock it was still going strong.

While the event was great for breaking the monotony of the winter weather, the evening was made immensely more entertaining after I was told by the director that next year my village would be getting another American Volunteer. I was so surprised and caught off guard because Peace Corps very rarely places to Peace Corps volunteers in the same village and so far I hadn’t heard any gossip through the Peace Corps grapevine having to do with my village or next years volunteers. However, when Peace Corps does place two volunteers in the same village they are never in the same program. For instance my program is English Education, in Peace Corps Moldova there is also a program for Business/Agriculture, Community Development, and Health Education. Business and Community Volunteers work in the Primaria (Mayor’s office) while Health volunteers work at the school. So to make the situation even more amazing my Director said that the volunteer we would be getting would be a Health Volunteer. Not only another American in my village but another American in my school! Now we just have to wait until July to make it official. There is a slight chance that even though our school has been picked we might not get a volunteer. For instance Truseni the town I lived in for training was scheduled to receive a volunteer after our training but because of one volunteer switching programs Truseni did not end up getting a volunteer. So at this point I am cautiously optimistic but it is something to look forward too in any case.

In other news the cord to my computer died (frayed wires + electricity = smoke + burning plastic) and I had to live with just my kindle and the agonizingly frustrating Internet that I was able to get it to provide me. I was starting to wonder how I would ever survive the eternity until a package from America made it to Moldova with a new cord. However, luckily for me Moldovans are very handy and one of my students was so distraught by not having my computer providing some multimedia relief to our English lessons that he took my cord home and brought it back to me a few hours later looking better than new. I was amazed. Luckily now that I had a working cord again I was finally able to check my email because Peace Corps sent me a message canceling my Romanian training this weekend and moved it to the first weekend of March (Update: Peace Corps has changed the date yet again and it is now scheduled for next weekend) because of the amount of snow the south of Moldova has been getting. We don’t have as much here, about a foot or more, but in some places in the south it is more than a meter. Is it springtime yet?

Finally, my baby goat is celebrating her 3 week old birthday. She has been growing at an extraordinary rate. A couple of days after she was born she was already running around, and a few days after that she was jumping out of her box and making a run for the door to get back to her mother. Now after about 3 weeks she enjoys trotting around nibbling on everything and gnashing her teeth like she is eating something even when she has nothing in her mouth. Her other favorite activity is to butt heads with anything that butts back. Such as an unsuspecting leg or foot. Her newest talent is to jump back into her box and go to sleep without being forced or even instructed.

Don’t expect another blog post until I am thawed out and have running water again (our running water is frozen in the pipe).