Buna Ziua!
Yet again I
have relocated. I could have made my blog title be "Where in the World is
Kate Van Oostburg? but it just dosn't sound right. Plus, for the next two years
I know I will be residing in the Republic of Moldova, a former communist,
former Soviet country near the Black sea no bigger than the size of Maryland. I
took an opportunity to volunteer here with the Peace Corps and so far, after
about a week of struggling through daily language lessons, I have absolutely no
regrets.
I realy do
have an addiction to being in transit and traveling to a completely new,
unaquainted area and I have met 67 other volunteeree people with the same
mentality or atleast part of the same mentality. Its realy cool how different
our backgrounds, reasons for joining and goals while in service really are.
Getting to Moldova took a long time to travel to, I think we were traveling for
about 48 hours straightish but I wasn't a complainer...I would say the top
three things during the march to Moldova include:
1.
Completed homework for a NY Lambert Airport security guard with another PCT, he
was nice.. I think there is a picture of us somewhere I will try and get...
2.
Peoplewatching and sampling just about every kind of perfume/ colonge known to
man in the huge duty-free shops in Istanbul's airport with a fellow PCT
(because we had so much time to kill, not because we are smell snobs) and
mooched samples of just about everything else we could get our hands on (Uzo=
gross, Turkish delights and Kinder chocolate= delightful).
3. Talked
instead of sleep throughout the flights with fellow volunteers who were just as
excited as I was to make new friendships (when I really should have slept).
Alrighty,
so I am here. But where is really here!?!
For the
next two months I will live with Vera (age 51), Miheal (53) and Miheala (17);
my awesome host family in my training site where I will try and learn Romanian
and more about my job as an Agri-Business Rual Business Development volunteer.
Life is good here. Besides being overly suprised that I don't squat over a hole
outside to do my 1's and 2's and bathe in a bucket, I live in a house where the
daughter speaks English, the back yard is one big fruit and veggie garden and
its not a far walk to and from my language/training classes. My town has a bar,
small market, Russian school and regular school, an auto service shop, a party
place where people are always getting married, a hospital, and not much else.
And goats. There are goats that hang out and eat the grass behind the school,
goats on the side of the roads and goats in this town field thing. The people
are nice and the kids are pretty curious about our strange group. I would say
this is more like a vacation from reality but to be honest, if my brain could
burn calories with how much it worked, after one week of classes I think I
would look like I have exercise-induced anorexia.
Its not
every job that you get paid to learn a second language and live with a host
family that thinks you need to eat up. I gotta say, Moldova so far is pretty
sweet. I hope to speak Romanian well enough soon that its not wierd if I try
and play soccer with the boys in town. My mentality towards not being able to
learn the language? Study, practice, get used to being completely out of my
English speaking bubble. Not showering daily? Enjoy the musk and get used to
it. Noisey dogs and roosters screeching 24 hours a day including the neighbor
"guard" dog who's location conveniently echos directly into my room
and the constant I-will-eat-you-lunge of dogs chained behind fences as I walk
through my town? Learn how to sleep through just about anything and have some
hot dog from my lunch saved as sacrifice and deal with it.
Homeworkman in NYC
The countryside outside Chinsinau
