Site Visit to Perminent Site!

This weekend I traveled to visit the village that I will be teaching at for the next two years after my training here in Costesti.My new village which is in the north west part of Moldova, has about 5,000 people and the school that I will be working at has around 614 students, 500 of which learn English. The trip there was pretty eventfull. On saturday I met with my school Director in Chisinau (the capital) and we took a buz straight into the village. I had to travel into Chisinau by myself and for anyone who knows me, it won't come as a surprise that I got a little lost. The Peace Corps set a place for us to meet our directors but the map they gave us to find them was hand drawn and for those of us who are directionally challenged, it was difficult. (plus my director does not speak english, so when I was late to getting to our meeting place, you can just imagine how our conversation went on the phone!) But with the right attitude and with a little help from above we finally met each other.

The ride was by bus and it took around 2 hours to get there from Chisinau. Once I got there I got to meet one of my partner teachers and some of the students who go there! My school seems so wonderful. They have a lot of computers with internet for the teachers and the students to use, and they have a seperate English library. I was very impressed with my partner teacher and my director. They were so open to my ideas and it seems like the students are very involved in extra curricular activities. (eventhough some are raising their sibblings by themselves along with taking care of the family garden and house!)

My host family consists of a retired couple. My host mother is 60 and her name is Elfimia and my host father is 67 and is named Nicolaie. It will be a very different experience from my family here in Costesti and I know I will miss my family here very much. But my new host family seems very reseptive and VERY generous. The conditions of the house are very simple and I do not have an indoor toliet like I do here in Costesti..but they gave m the biggest room in there house, and I could tell that they have been preparing for me to come for sometime. It's so amazing how generous people are here, even when life is difficult and they might not have a lot to give. Since my new host parents do not speak any english, our conversations were limited so hopefully in a few months that are left in training I can improve on my romanian.

Later that night, my partner teacher and some of my future students took me out to the center of town and showed me all the buildings and most importantly the disco!! So before I left Chiscarine, I got to dance the hora (the national dance) with most of my future students! Interesting to say the least!

So coming back I got lost again in Chisinau - where it should of taken me 2 hours to get back to Costesti, it took me 4...but my host mother pointed to the word in our english/romanian dictionary that night, which meant to me that the important thing to remember is that I managed and made it home safely without TOO much trouble.