Dancing and Singing in Romanian!

Host sister Eugenia and our dog Tom.

This is the Primarie in town. It's the mayor's office.

The famous OK Pizza. We hang out here all the time. It has one of the only indoor toilets in Costesti!

Tata gazda Gheorghe and me after our performance. I tried to make him smile with teeth; he wouldn't :(

Mama gazda Alexandra. She wouldn't show her teeth either :(

A delicious meal of chicken, potatoes, salad, and of course house wine.

Today was our performance for our host families. Each group (healthies and English Education) performed songs, dances, and speeches. My group danced and sang a song. I was quite impressed with how awesomely well all the groups did!
After the performance, which lasted about an hour, we ate food with our families that we prepared. The dishes were supposed to be "American" foods. My group made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and cookies. Other groups made macaroni and cheese (which was shipped specially from the US!) cucumber sandwiches, banana bread, deviled eggs, egg salad, salsa, and quesodillas. Quite tasty indeed. However, the American volunteers ended up eating most of the American food.
Tomorrow I'm heading to Chisinau with my mom and sister to do some back to school shopping. I'll probably pick up some gifts for my next host family while we're there.
Huge language assessment on Monday. This one's a "real" one, as opposed to the others being practice.
Tuesday we swear in and become official volunteers. After the swearing in, we are picked up by our future school directors and brought to our permanent sites. Super scary.

I Want Free Ice Water

In 8 days, I will be leaving my village for my permanent site. I will be at that site for the next 2 years of my life. Needless to say, I'm a bit nervous. However, I cannot begin to describe how excited I am to almost be done with PST (Pre-Service Training). It has been a hectic past 8 (or is it 9?) weeks, and I'm ready to head to my permanent site.
On Saturday, all of us EE kids and the Healthies will be getting together to have a big bash for our families. We are going to be performing dances, songs, skits, and speeches, and we are going to make American food. My group is making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (very simple and very American!) and I think the other EE group is making macaronie and cheese.
Monday we have a huge language assessment, and then on Tuesday we swear in. Yes, that's right! I will finally be an official Peace Corps Volunteer, not just a trainee! After swearing in, I head to my next site.
I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with how quickly things have gone. Although there have been times when I've hated PST and wanted it to be over NOW, it has gone surprisingly fast.

I really miss ice. Ice water, ice in pop, ice, ice, ice.
I also really miss getting a free glass of water at restaurants. It was something I completely took advantage of in America. Here in Moldova, you don't get a free glass of water. You have to buy a bottle. I didn't realize that would be something I would miss.

What Does TDY Stand For? Not sure...

I'm currently sitting at the Peace Corps office in TDY. I'm not sure what TDY means, temporary duty something. I think it's a military term.
Saturday night I woke up at least 15 times with the worst stomach ache intestine thing going on. It continued through Sunday and Monday. Monday afternoon I came to Peace Corps where I was told I have food poisoning and given some medicine. I was sent home to rest.
Tuesday morning it wasn't better, so my language instructor made me call Peace Corps again. I was picked up and brought back to Chisinau and put into TDY. I got here yesterday around 10 in the morning. I slept most of the day.
Now it's Wednesday morning, and I'm still here. I'm supposed to stay another night, which is ok with me because they have toilets and showers and tv in English! Hey, it's ok to be spoiled when you're sick.
My stomach is better, but it's still cramping up every so often. I'm on a bread and rice diet, although I've been eating only crackers instead. I don't know how to make rice tasty with just rice. If I could add some soy sauce and vegetables, then we'd be in business!
*Side note: Have lost about 15 pounds so far! Or at least that's what the scale in my family's garage told me!

Practice School - The Busiest Week of My Life

Practice school started on Monday. Practice school is basically student-teaching in a nutshell. I am teaching a 5th grade class with a different number of students every day. The first day was 21 students, then it gradually grew as we gained students each day. Most of the students in my class are going into 6th grade when the school year, but I also had a few girls who are going into 5th grade.

As I teach, my resource teacher (who has been teaching in Moldova for 30 years) sits in the back and takes notes on everything I do.

My days this week have consisted of: language class in the morning for 2 hours followed by a half hour break, then teaching starts at 11:00 to 11:45 with another 15 minute break, then more teaching until 12:45. After that I have an hour lunch break, then I meet with my resource teacher to discuss the lesson and plan for the next day. After a couple hours of that, I head home to write my plan for the next day and make materials.

As you can see, this week and the next two to come are the craziest weeks ever.

On Monday I'm giving my class a test, and then I have tech sessions until Thursday. Thursday I start team teaching 8th grade.

I'm an early childhood major teaching 5th and 8th graders. I am freaking out.

Cookin' with the 90's

Yesterday I was making placenta with my host mom. Placenta (while spelled the same as certain female parts but really sounds like pla-chen-ta) is a very popular food here in Moldova. I think I've had it at just about every celebration and at every masa. It's quite tasty! Placenta is different depending on who makes it, but generally it is a doughy outside with some sort of filling on the inside, usually fried or baked. The most common thing to put inside placenta is brinza. Brinza is a type of cheese. There are 2 types of cheese in Moldova: Cascaval which is processed cheese you can buy in a store, and Brinza which is homemade. Brinza has a stronger flavor and usually comes from either a cow or goat. Mama gazda taught me how to make placenta the other day, so now I've been making it like a maniac. We cut the pre-made dough into smaller pieces, spread margarine onto the dough, put a brinza/egg mixture onto it, roll it up, and "paint" it in an egg wash. Then we bake it for a while. Not sure how long; it's different everytime. Last night I made some with brinza, some with potatoes, and one with helva (smashed up sunflower seeds and oil) because I was being experimental. The Helva Placenta was surprisingly awesome!
My family has realized that I love to sing and dance, so an English radio station is always on in the kitchen when we are there. I think they think I'm a musical genious because I know every single American song that comes on including all the words and who sings it. However, musical genious I am not. It's that every song is from the 90's! Many of them are Madonna songs. So I get my groove on while cooking/eating/hanging in the kitchen, and hopefully they have just learned to accept it. :)

What a Weekend!

Saturday morning I woke up bright and early at 6:30 to get ready to leave my village for the weekend. I left my village at 7:15, arrived in Chisinau and met my partner teacher at 8:45, and left for my new village at 9:30. The rutiera ride was three hours long. We drove past the biggest forest in Moldova. Also, I have never seen so many sunflower fields in my life. It was beautiful!
We arrived in my village around 1:30 in the afternoon and we went to my school. It was in the process of being repainted, so I could only see part of it. It was absolutely huge!
My host family met us there and we went to their house to eat lunch. They live in the "suburb" of the town where there are tons of beautiful big houses. We ate zama (soup), chicken, and an eggplant salad thing. It was actually quite delicious! Later that night we had leftovers for supper.
We mostly just hung out and talked on Saturday and Sunday until I left at 2:15 in the afternoon.
My family is awesome! My mom sells Mary Kay and is a Russian and Romanian teacher, and the dad is a chief firefighter, but he only goes out in extreme circumstances. I have a 17 year old sister who like theater, Harry Potter, and Twilight! My brother is 6 and he's the cutest little boy ever (besides my own brother Aaron of course).
We have two dogs, one is a boxer pup who will be a year old in October and the other one I have no idea! We also have a HUGE turkey and lots of chickens. There is a neighbor who actually lives in the backyard, and she has kittens. I played with them forever.
My sister speaks English pretty well, but I hardly needed her to translate anything. I was able to speak fairly good Romanian. I was pretty proud of myself.
The rutiera ride back to Chisinau wasn't too pleasant. It was hot hot hot and they wouldn't open the windows because it was raining. There was also a guy sitting next to me who was passed out but kept putting his arm on my leg.
I am really excited to go stay with this new family, but I am also very sad to leave my current family. They are both very awesome families.
I got back my results from my language assessment and I rocked it! I only made a few mistakes. Woo!
It's currently 1:22 in the afternoon. A few volunteers are getting together later to study. It isn't too hot today which is awesome because it's been raining a lot lately.

Interesante Moldova

I met my partner teacher today! It was a great experience! She gave me a hug and kissed my cheek. She speaks perfect English. We chatted about her family and mine, and she also gave me information about my future host family. I'm definitely excited to meet them tomorrow. But I'm also very nervous because on the way home back to my village, I will have to take public transportation by myself!! I hope I don't end up getting lost in Chisinau, but with my luck I probably will. Oh well, either way it will be an adventure!

I also had my first language assessment today. I was soooo nervous for it, but it ended up being awesome! I think that's pretty much how it was with everyone anyway.

My cousin and grandma who are visiting from Ukraine are leaving tomorrow. I'm pretty sad. I've gotten pretty close to my cousin. We have been talking boys and many other things.

There are lots of animals here. Everywhere I go I see an animal. Unfortunately very few cats however. But goats and cows cross the streets, and momma turkeys sit on the sides of the roads with their baby turkeys.