What have I been up to?

Hmmm, what have I been up to? Not a whole lot! I have complained to a few about my lack of activities and my work as a secretary but lately that has begn to change. Maybe because my program manager came to talk with me and my counterpart and we sat down and actually defined my role. And for some reason it didn't include typing and making xerox copies. Hmm...so since Tuesday, when she came, I have done....um...not much. Yesterday we went to another village to conduct trainings for girls there about human trafficking. It was interesting, I guess. And then today I tried to start my art class but only three kids showed up and two of them had to leave after 15 minutes. Not off to a good start. Buy hey, I still have 19 and a half months, right?

But on a really good note I did eat a little piece of heaven last night. My wonderful and loving boyfriend sent me a bottle of syrup (it doesn't exist here). Last night my host mom made pancakes, a weekly dinner for us, and instead of eating them with the usual jam or jam with peanut butter, I ate them with PB and syrup. Oh my goodness!!!! It was amazing! My host mom tried some on a pancake, without PB, and loved it also. But she can't figure out how we can have syrup that isn't from fruit. I tried to explain about trees and sap but she didn't understand. It was even harder to explain when I read the ingredients and trying to explain corn syrup, you know I like the fake syrup better then the real stuff. But I do have a favor to ask, more like a plea. I am down to my last half a jar of peanut butter and need reinforcements. If anyone is even thinking about sending a package, please, please, please include a jar of peanut butter (and maybe a couple frisbees if possible). You are wonderful!

Other than trying to start some type of work, I have just been enjoying our wonderful weather! We have had sun every day his month except for three days when it stormed here. It has been so great to be able to run outside in the sun, especially now that it is light later (we just had our daylight savings this past weekend). I really love it here in Moldova!

Annie's Birthday

I love, love, love getting together with other PCVs and making dinner. Last night was annie's birthday and 5 of us rented an apartment for the night and attempted to make phad thai. The attempt was a success! Our meal was amazing and followed by real brownies!

My old host brother and new host brother been silly

Michelle, Annie, and me back during PST.

The "beautiful" silver gate

I picture I think is really cool!

Joe, Ben, Walt, me, and Angela being silly

Snow in a graveyard

My little host brother who I am in love with!

My counterpart' son. I was playing with my camera and colors.

Her son and daughter.

Me and my host brother

Son random kids in Chişinău

8 Martie

As I have said many times, Moldovans love to celebrate. The 8th of March was yet another holiday for us where we had big masas and did no work. Many of you probably don't know this but the 8th of March was International Women's Day. Moldova takes this holiday very seriously. The whole week the kids have vacation, there are concerts in the villages, and on the 8th we have a masa and give gifts to women. I think it is awesome that Moldovans celebrate women in this way yet it is a very condratictory holiday because the women work very hard all day preparing the masa and clean the table and dishes afterwards. But it is a start.

So the 8th of March is preceeded by another holiday, Marţişor. It is a holiday on the 1st of March celebrating spring. Nothing too exiting happens on this day except that people give eachother marţişoare. These are little red and white things you where on your shirt, like a pin. I ended the day with five pinned to me from some of the kids in my village. The kids like this day because it is the start of what we call spring break. The funny thing about March 1st this year is that as soon as it hit the sun came out and melted all the snow in one day and we have had beautiful weather ever since, spring is here!!!!!

March 1st our village had an "awesome" concert. And in awesome I mean the same "wonderfulness" that is at every other concert. If you have seen one concert you never need to go to another one because it is the exact same. My counterpart's daughter sings the same song (which I absolutley hate!), her son does the saem dance, and there are about 3 adults who sing about 10 Moldovan popular songs i.e. hora music. This type of music involves pipes, accordians, and what not that are played at amazing speed, or as my friend Amy as explained "frantic, spastic music that sounds like Moldovans were just given a bunch of instruments and told to just play them as fast as they can." When I I first got to Moldova I really liked the music, but now I can't say the same thing. When I hear it now for more than 2 minutes I want to gouge my eyes out. And for some reason at the concerts they play the music as loud as possible and some of the songs still have the original lyrics in them and you can't hear the person on stage at all, which sometimes is a good thing. So not only do I have to bear the same thing all the time but then I have to sit for two hours ina freezing cold autitorium. I think one of the criteria for a casa de cultura is that it can have no heat what so ever, that you have to wobble out of there with frozen toes.

I am usually pretty lucky that these concerts don't happen too often or that I happen to be in Chisinau for Peace Corps related activities. However, for the month of May, I have been to two already and it isn't even the middle of the month already. Our village held a second concert on the 7th to celebrate women. My counterpart of course guilted me into coming, she is very good at that. She told me it would start around 7pm. I of course showed up to the casa de cultura around 6:30, because that it was you do right? You show up early to get a seat. Well I know I should have learned by now that nothing in Moldova starts on time. But I figured there should be at least some type of preparations going on there. Boy was I wrong. There wasn't a single person there. Curious I walked to my counterparts hosue to find out what was going on. She informed me the concert wasn't goign to start until 8 or so. Umm, ok, only an hour late. So I hung out at her house until 8:30 or so before she woke her kids from their nap to get them ready for the concert. In short, the cocnert didn't start until 9:30, way after my last bus, which meant that I would be staying the night at my counterpart's house. The concert ended up lasting until 11:30pm! I wasn't too bummed about this becuase the concert ended up being very different than normal. It was like a talent show almost, though it could have been shorter and there was still lots of bad music being sung.

A couple of the boys dressed up as girls!