March 2, 2008

Buna Dimeanat,a! (good morning!)

Pay no attention to the actual date this is posted. I have no idea when I'm going to be able to upload this, really, but I know I should try to keep a semi-regular update of some sort, and now that I'm living with my first host family, I really really really miss my own.

This heart- sickness is, no doubt, heightened by the fact that I have finally gotten sick. And everyone knows that you only ever want your mommy when you're sick.

I've been in country for five days now - we're already heavily into the language classes, and I'm already heavily petrified that I'm never going to get it. I find myself answering questions in spanish - when I can answer questions at all. Who knew that I was so amazing in spanish?

I seem to be able to get pronounciation really easily, somewhat able to get the vocab, but once you put me into a situation of actually having to utilize what I've learned - to converse - I'm screwed. I kind of freeze and freak out. I don't think I'm alone in this boat, luckily.

We have 29 people in my group - I think I mentioned this. We're split up into groups of four and sent out to different villages to have intense language training and "community oriented learning." This basically means: we're going to throw you in with a family to sink or swim."

I'm in a town called Perecisina. It's about 40 minutes outside of the capital of Chisanau and it's going to be what's called a "hub site." All of the other groups are going to come to our town each week for extra special classes. Lucky us. This means we don't have to get up extra special early to ride van buses.

I'm really happy with my host family. I'm living with Ion (35), Tatiana (33), Katya (14), and Adriana (7). I really emphasized my desire for a family, and that emphasis turned out to be a right one. Katya knows a fair bit of English, and Adriana is working on learning it. Ion really wants his daughters to learn English, and is heavily pushing them to garner as much info from me as they can gather in the time they can.

I think I made a fairly good impression. We had gone out to buy presents for our family in Chisanau - chocolates and flowers (the flowers I got were amazing, and were from this unbelievable flower market - more to follow). I practiced and practiced the two sentences "I don't know any Romanian, but I hope you'll help me learn" so that when I met them i could be somewhat charming. So we all got ushered into the room to be introduced and I met my lovely host "mom" and promptly forgot everything after "I don't know any Roman...." I felt incredibly stupid, which really sucks considering that one of the sentences uses the word "soma" and I had used the word trick "stupify" because of the drug, and that was the first word I forgot, which led to my train reaction of stupid. I'll never live down my internal shame. So I just blushed a lot and gave her a hug, and that was it.

The kids were easily charmed by my gifts of candy necklaces and coloring books, as well as the ever amazing-ness of mac computers. They loved the photo booth application, and used that widely.

We pretty much ate the same things for lunch and for dinner - schnitzel of some sort, though no doubt with some other name, bread, more meat, cole slaw, and the kicker for me, rice wrapped in some kind of skin covered with sour cream. Yum. "Maninc, Rian, Maninc!" "Eat, Eat!" I actually have no idea what made me sick, and actually none of it was home made, unlike a latter meal which I will tell you about later. todays meal,

As for the house I'm staying in - it's actually quite gorgeous. Spacious - laid out like pieces of it were built on in different stages, which it probably was. There are doors that lead to places I haven't discovered yet.

I'm staying in a different wing than the rest of the family which is great and all, but also has the unenviable aspect of making my room - and the hallways leading to it specially, flipping freezing. It's not even that cold here, I don't get it! It's like the house is built into a cave or something. And they put an electric blanket on the bed, only I noticed last night that the fuze was shot and thus - sparking, so I had a choice of setting my bed on fire or freezing.

I have to admit that for a few hours I chanced the fire. Peace Corps provided us with a fire extinguisher after all, and it was sooooo cold.

I do have running water in the house - and even a toilet! However, if you want to go number 2, you do have to go outside. And, not only that, it's a squat outhouse. So yes, Rian has successfully taken a poop, squatting, in a hole, twice. As such things go, however, it's a very nice hole - it flushes, and has tiles. I just really wish it had hand grips or something. People here much have thighs of steel. In my sickened state, I really was not into it. I doubt that I'll ever really be into it, honestly. But the thing is, I know it could be a whoooole lot worse.


Today is Sunday, and all the Perecesina volunteers were welcomed in a ceremony i the school. My host sister, Katya, was chosen to be the official speaker - a great honor. The ceremony went as followed: these adorable little kids in native dress came out and did dances and songs, then the high school kids came out and did a dance and made us dance with them. The dance is supposed to represent the stomping of the wheat during the harvest, and was really easy. But we still got heartily laughed at.

Then, the mayor came and spoke to us about Perecesina. At a whopping 8,200 people, it's one of the largest villages in Moldova, and one of the oldest on record. It may mean "Dried Pears" or it may mean "Crossroads." The Perecesinians abdjured the feudal lifestyle of the surrounding countryside, instead choosing to live equally as peasants and cattle herders.

After the ceremony, i was taken to my host-dad's parent's house, where we had a traditional "massa." "La Massa" means table - to partake in a "massa" is to have a feast. Their home was significantly different than the one I'm staying in - one room, heated by a "soba" oven, and everything - but everything, is made in house. The cheese, the bread, the wine, the pork was home slaughtered, the chicken as well, the sausage was home made... I didn't actually get sick from any of this though, which shocked me.

Oh, many of you may have heard me speaking of the delicacy here in Moldova - the cold chicken jelly? Well it's not only a chicken dish, it's a pork dish, too! And now I've had both. I swear I really tried to like it! But to no avail, I barely kept from openly gagging.

I don't want to give the impression that the food here is bad though - most of it is really quite good - but the jelly thing... that's never going to get fun, and I'm always going to have to at least sample it.

The entire family was really into my camera, and looking at pictures of my friends and family. They were scandalized by the fact that Sally kept a goat in the house! They took a buuuunch of photos with the camera, and I think I'm going to try and send the digitals home and get copies sent here. It would be a great gift.

As I mentioned, there are six volunteers here with me. One boy, Tommy from Virginia, and five girls - Eden, Sarah, Pan, Christine and me. Sarah and I are what Moldovans think are typical Americans (aka white and english looking), but Eden, Christine and Pan are a little different. Pan, first of all, is 62. She's a retired Michigan legislator who was a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) when she was in her 20s in the 60s. Christine and Eden are of Asian descent. The entire family that I'm living with are really confused by their presence here - they don't quite understand what Pan is doing here, period... how can such an older person be a volunteer? And with Eden and Christine, they just don't fit into the box that Moldovans have established for what an American should be. They kept slanting their eyelids and laughing. Ah, the very first case of cultural differences.

There's also a lot of curiosity as to why I'm not married. 27 is quite an old age here to be single I'm practically an old maid! I'm telling people that my parents won't allow it, and that I'm young in America to be married.

Off to school.