From Trainee to Volunteer

I’ve graduated!!  We just finished up our 8 weeks of pre-service training (although we have two more weeks set aside in Sept), took our language placement test this morning, and presented our technical project this afternoon --- it’s GATA (meaning DONE)!  Yesterday, we also had our final check-out interview with our Country Director, so now all that's left is the swearing-in, scheduled for tomorrow. We go to our new work sites afterwards – for me that’s Baltsi.  I had a wonderful last dinner with my host family this evening where we exchanged parting gifts.  My host family gave me a long nightgown and hand-knit socks (by bunica Zina) to use during the cold winters (definitely will come in handy) and a beautiful tea cup since we’ve exchanged many cups of tea during my stay with this lovely family.  I gave Elena a long skirt, Zina a  new house dress, and Viktoria who is approaching an important 18^th birthday in early August, some money to buy what adolescent girls here like to indulge themselves in (I simply don’t have a clue)!  I will miss them but will be back in late September for completion of additional tech training and we are expected to stay with our Ciorescu host families again – that will be a treat to re-visit them! 

This is a classic depiction of Zina out tending the garden from early morning on.  She's a wonder!

The baby chicks have grown so much - and the baby ducks seem to know they're different from their other feathered brethren and choose to hang around with each other mostly.

 
The past couple of weeks seem grueling with mostly studying, homework, and more studying of Romanian.  Our business development group had a project to present a business plan proposal, and have some sections be translated into Romanian and Russian, and presented as such.  The difficulty there is that some business terms aren’t very easily explained in Romanian.  In fact, they borrow our direct words and put their own endings on them.  For example, “facilitate” is “facilita”, “association” is “asociatsie”, etc.  Most of these terms start out as masculine nouns in the singular form but convert to feminine nouns in the plural form.  And that means you use one type of ending if you use the noun in the singular form (“asociatsia”) as a definite noun, and it switches to a different ending in the plural form of the definite noun (“asociatsii”).  By the way, these Romanian words are spelled out using my English keyboard, but they would be slightly different using the Romanian alphabet.  At any rate, we are absolutely thrilled that this phase of training is GATA!

I will now have to get acculturated with a new host family but this time the term is 2 years.  That’s a long time to get used to living with people who you didn’t choose in the first place.  This time, we have more freedom to negotiate specific conditions to our living arrangement.  We can cook our own meals for ourselves although we’re strongly encouraged to eat at least one meal with our host families.  We can add to the furniture in the living unit if we don’t have what we need.  This is more of a roommate situation as opposed to a guest situation (certainly that’s how I felt in Ciorescu).  We’ll have more ownership over the terms of our living arrangements because we directly hold the purse strings.  We pay our hosts directly for rent and utilities, and then determine any extras we might need from them and at what price.  Yes, it certainly comes across as more of a business transaction but these upfront agreements make the relationship more predictable and less stressful.  Some of the volunteers now are not quite getting along with their host families because there is less room for them to maneuver.  Additionally, volunteers have the option to move to their own apartments after three months with the new host family, and definitely quite a few in the past have done so.  I’d like to remain with my host family for the entire two-year period but will make that decision after I’ve gotten more integrated with the Baltsi situation. 

                                                                                               31 July

Here I am at the swearing-in ceremony .... next to the inspiration for many of us oldsters in my group.  Of course, the vast majority of my fellow volunteers weren't even born when JFK was in office.  We also had a group photo taken to be shared later.  The oath is the very same that Presidents recite when they are inaugurated into office - service to others is a higher calling.  We all felt very special!

Since Thursday, I've been strolling through central Baltsi, getting familiar with places and things, and organizing my room.  Tatiana and Vlad have been away most of the time because of prior social obligations, but I've been enjoying some much needed alone time.  My Ciorescu family was lovely and Zina made sure I was fed, and fed often (never mind that I'd say "destul" or "sunt plina", meaning "enough" and "I'm full") since she maintained that I should have a rounder middle.  Without a doubt, she remembers first hand the years of want in Moldova when crops failed and/or Moscow took their share first before the Moldovans.  Life had been very harsh indeed.  My Baltsi host family will be less hands-on - they both have full-time jobs and we'll likely share perhaps one meal a day together.  And I expect to mix up the cuisine - doesn't have to be Moldovan fare every day.  I cooked myself spaghetti and marinara sauce last night -- YUM!

Some lovely churches are within blocks of my apartment complex:  

Emperor Constantin & St Elena Cathedral

St Grigore Armenian Church

Most of the churches in Moldova are Eastern Orthodox, but usually there are single churches of other denominations.

Archangels Mihaiil, Gavriil, & Rafail Roman Catholic Church
 

The large plaza in front of City Hall has a statue of Stefan Cel Mare, akin to the "George Washington" of Moldova.  Every city (and many towns) has a statue of him erected.

Piatsa Independentie

St. Nicolae Cathedral is to the right of the
Piastsa.

Stefan Cel Mare in front of Mayor's Office

Tank from Soviet era

The Open Market, or Piatsa Comerciale, is in a huge area that's closed off to motor vehicles.  There are agricultural products, of course, but all manner of other goods.  I'm finding that in many cases the first language used by the locals is Russian.  Most of the signage is in Russian, and other remnants of past Russian occupation are evident as well.  When I speak a few fractured Romanian words, they switch but not always even with my look of confusion.  Naturally, they know I'm a foreigner but generally assume I'm Vietnamese or Korean.

Piatsa V. Alecsandri

Around my neighborhood are many parks of varying sizes - open spaces for families to gather outside.  Moldova places emphasis on these green spaces. In the Piatsa V. Alecsandri are restaurants, municipal buildings, and various other merchants.

     

For me, the best part about the outdoors is the sky and the variety of clouds I've seen.Sounds odd to be commenting about the clouds but being from San Francisco, clouds generally don't hover overhead because the winds whip them away.  The Moldovan clouds seem to be within arm's reach, and they're so white and puffy, shifting ever so slightly with the breezes.  I'm reminded of the Simon & Garfunkel song "Cloudy", a lovely, carefree tune "with no borders, no boundaries".  I never get tired of looking up to marvel at another gossamer formation.

The apartment buildings in Baltsi are reminiscent of the Soviet days when standard concrete high-rises were constructed in large numbers.  Now the units are privately owned and the interiors within some of the units have been upgraded and look very nice.  However, the outside facades are generally not well-maintained.  They don't appear to function like condominiums or cooperatives where all the unit owners are responsible for the common areas within the buildings.  The halls and stairways are in very sad shape.

My Baltsi apartment complex

I live in this building on the 6th floor.  My room is actually the living room of a one-bedroom unit.  I sleep on a sofa-bed, and there is another larger sofa and an armchair in my room.  It's spacious but naturally has limited closet space and clothes cabinets.  There is also a small enclosed balcony attached to the room that mostly contains stored articles.  I'm told it has a heating system so I will be looking forward to its functioning in the frigid winter.

Now I'm catching up on the podcasts of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me!!  Miss all of you, dear friends and family, so send me the latest on your lives now that I've caught you up on mine!

                                                                                                         2 Aug