Pics

                                                                My first little snowflake

Some more snowflakes

My host sister Valeria on the steps of the house

Walking to school

Me walking back from the store during break

The hill down

English Club girls outside of school

                                              The finished product of my snowflake tutorial

Celebrating 6 months in Moldova-dinner at Tulip, a Thai restaurant 12.10.12



Winter Wonderland

Winter is here in Moldova….well, technically winter starts on Tuesday but it started to snow here on December 1st. How appropriate is that? Rewind back to the 1st...I woke up for breakfast at 7am and went to the kitchen, which is under the house (think basement) so I have to walk outside of the house to get to it…anyways…it was cold so I hurried in the warm kitchen to eat my oatmeal with raisins and tea and then when I left to go back in the house and it  had started to snow! It was so pretty. It was only a little bit snow, but I don’t think I had ever had snow fall from the sky and land on me. I usually have just seen it on the ground already after it fell. Make sense? Needless to say, I was excited! I ran in to get my camera and took a pic of my first snowflake. This also shocked me too…because I could make out the shape of the snowflake…like the ones you cut out of paper as a kid.


So I have obviously never lived in snow before…I have visited Lake Tahoe before and seen the snow, and maybe stayed in cabin for the weekend…but never lived in the snow. It is so beautiful….but cold. Everything looks like a Christmas card out here…the big open fields, covered in a thick blanket of sparkling white snow. And then when I see the horse carts/sleighs on the streets and it’s perfect!

I made snowflakes with my English Club kids and taught them a wide vocabulary of Christmas words, which was fun because when I worked at an elementary school back in CA we weren’t allowed to talk about Christmas….so I’m happy I can talk all I want about Christmas here in Moldova. We even watched Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer but I’m not sure how much they understood because I wasn’t able to find Romanian subtitles and just had English ones.

I finally got my pair of Sorel boots that I ordered online and had sent home to me in CA. (Thanks Stacy for sending them to me!) They are really nice and warm and prefect for the snow. I haven’t broke down and bought a pair of leather boot like a true Moldoveanca. I just don’t see how walking in the snow in leather boots, usually with heels, makes sense. Knowing me, I probably would fall down and break my arm if I was wearing those type of boots…so I will have to deal with not being “frumos” (beautiful). Plus…I’m not a big fan of leather…and don’t see a need in buying animal skin products.

So anyways, there is a huge hill that I have to climb to make it to work but it only takes about 8 minutes to get there…but it’s pretty steep. I put on all these layers every morning and bundle up to make my snowy trek to school and by the time I get there, I am hot. I get to school and take off the majority of my layers off because I’m sweating now and then just get cold later. It’s a funny game that my body likes to play with me, and all I can hear is Katie Perry playing in my head…”cause you’re hot then you’re cold…”

So, so far, so good. I have only fell once, knock on wood. Of course it was coming down the steep hill home after school. I’m not sure who saw me, but I quickly got up and pretended like nothing happened. I have heard from other volunteers that have fallen and by the time they get home, their host family has already heard about their spill….because word spreads quick in a village. I wasn’t wearing my Yak Trax either…so I probably deserved it. Peace Corps gives us these cool little things to put over our shoes that provide traction on ice and snow but when I leave school, there really isn’t a place for me to sit down and put these things on so I figure I’ll be okay without them…until I fall. Then, if it is warmer one day out than the previous, the snow starts to melt and then it will just freeze over the next cold day and that makes for ice, which is not a clumsy gal’s friend. It’s cute though because the kids at school play on the ice and run and slide on it during their breakds from class while I try to avoid it at all costs.

They tell me it will get colder in January, which I can’t even fathom right now because it’s pretty damn cold to me know. If it stayed like this…I think I could handle it…but we shall see what January has in store for me. All I know is that there is one week left of school before winter break and I'm not sure who's more excited....me or the kids? Liz and I leave for Turkey on the 28th and will be back on Jan. 5th just in time to celebrate orthodox Christmas here on the 7th. My host mom told me that she wants to celebrate the 25th of December as well, since I am living with them, which I thought was really nice of her. So Feliz Navidad and Merry Christmas to all my loved ones,

Love, Neet

One month teaching in Moldova!.

October is here and the 1st marked my first month teaching English here in Moldova which was followed by Teacher's Day on October 5th. On the Friday before Teacher's Day as I arrived to school, there was a bunch of students standing on the steps and they applauded as I walked into school. They then gave me a certificate on behalf of the 12th grade students and a little thank you speech in English. It was soo cute and unexpected. (They did it for all the teacher's that day when they arrived to school, not just me.) Later, my partner teacher told me how we were going to pick a student who would teach all our classes on Tuesday because on Teacher's Day, the teachers don't have to do a thing. Wow! After a few minutes thinking about our best students....we picked a girl in the 10th form (grade) to teach the classes. On Monday, we gave her the lesson plans and explained to her what she had to do and wished her luck!

On Monday night, I got a text from my partner teacher (Tatiana) saying that she wasn't going to come to school until 1pm so we could plan for Wednesday's classes.....I later learned that a lot of teachers don't even bother coming to school that day. I got up on Tuesday and as I was getting ready for school  my host sister gave me flowers and a box of chocolates. Very cool! I decided to text Tatiana and ask her what to do since she wouldn't be in class....do I just sit in the back of class and watch the student we chose teach the lessons...or what? Luckily she texted me back because she said that I should just sit in the teacher's lounge with all of the other teachers. If I hadn't got her text, I would have just gone to class and sat there and I'm sure all of the kids would have wondered what was wrong with me. So I get to school, go to the teacher's lounge and there is a nice little spread with coffee/tea set up, cookies, chocolate and fruit. Students would enter throughout the day to give their teacher's flowers and some of my students came in and presented me with flowers and kisses on the cheeks. I enjoyed some tea since it was quite chilly and later decided to run to the market down the road to buy a phone card. On the way....I saw a group of teachers who apparently did their shopping and were heading to their houses. It was soo strange to me that they didn't have to show up at school if they didn't want to. Oh well....I'm glad I was there to get my flowers. :)

On October 7th I held a meeting after school to see if kids were interested in joining an English Club at school. I made a little sign up sheet and brought with me some stickers and Chic-o-sticks to give to the students who showed up (not a bribe at all! Ha!). Two of my 5th grade students showed up 30 minutes early! Lol....I guess they were really excited about joining the club. I had a good turn out...the youngest girl was in the 2nd grade and the oldest was in the 11th grade. The 2nd grader's mother asked me how much the club would cost, and I explained to her that it would be free because I am a volunteer and am not allowed to take any money for my services. 

I was hoping there would be more students from the lower grades and older grades so I could split them up and do a club with the younger kids on Tuesdays and one with the older kids on Thursdays.....but we only had around 15 students so it looks as thought we are going to stick to one group. I asked the students what they wanted to get out of this club and told them what I wanted to teach them. I want to show a movie once a month, in English with Romanian subtitles (fingers crossed that I can download them), teach them about holidays and traditions in America, play games with them, like Uno or Phase 10, and teach them English of course! I just want them to have fun and have an interest in learning English....after all, the student who come to the club would do so on their own free will, not because they have to like class. 

During the week...I got a lot of students who heard about the club through friends who wanted to join. I am only teaching 8 classes so I there a lot of students who I don't teach who want a little piece of the Americanca. Our first "official" meeting

First day of school! First day of school!

Okay, so if you know me well...you too will hear Nemo yelling my title of this entry when you read it, or picture a fat cat wearing a tiny backpack. If not, I'm sorry.

So today was the much anticipated first day of school, also known as "Primul Sunet" meaning the First Bell. After being told to show up at 8am and given no further instructions, I wasn't really sure what to expect. I got plenty of rest though for the big day since our power went out yesterday due to the rain....I was in bed by 9pm. Crazy. Everytime I am getting ready for bed that early I can't help but say to myself, "back home I would still have one more hour to shop at Target still." Hahaha. I know, I am pathetic. But at least I am truthful.

So I got up at 6:15am, took a bath and started getting ready for school. It wasn't raining now, so I figured I could wear the dress I planned on and not the "alternative" outfit I had planned on if it was raining. My host mom even bought me a snazzy pair of rain shoes to walk to school in yesterday. I say rain shoes and not boots because they are shoe length and not tall like boots, but get the job done. I had planned to leave the house at 7:45am and it took me a little longer to get ready than I had first thought. I actually wore make up today, and not just mascara, which is usually the extent of my make up in Moldova thus far. So time is approaching to leave for school and I go to the bathroom to brush my teeth and my host mom runs in and says that I need to eat breakfast. Bless her heart...she always is telling me I need to eat more and that I am going to die of starvation, which I am pretty sure is impossible. I tell her that I don't have time for breakfast today since I have to leave for school in 5 minutes and have already brushed my teeth, or at least that's what I attempted to say in my choppy Romanian. She then tells me that she even made a cake for me and my host sister, who attends the school that I work at. I now feel horrible but don't want to be late for the first day of school, so tell her that I can't eat because I don't have time and apologize.

As I walk outside the door to head to school, my host mom takes a picture of my host sister and I feel like I did on the first day of kindergarten all over again. It was super cute and I am so lucky to have such an awesome host mom. Plus the lady made me cake, so she's already won me over.

I walk to school with my sister and there are a bunch of kids waiting outside of school with flowers and I figure I will just hang out there, when this old baba escorts me to the back of the school and inside where the teachers are. Thankfully I had "New American Teacher" printed on my forehead or else she might not have know who I was.

I get inside and meet my partner teacher, Tania (or Tatiana) and we hang out for a minute in our classroom and then make out way to the auditorium. I'm sure that's not what it's called but that's what it was to me. They normally hold the First Bell ceremony outside, but due to the weather it was held indoors this year. All the students line up according to their class and then the 1st graders are led into the school by the graduating seniors. It was very cute. All the students dressed up really nice and formal, there were boys in suits or slacks and dress pants and most girls had dresses on, while some stayed "modern" and wore their skinny jeans and athletic shoes.

The ceremony lasted a long time, I was introduced by the director of my school, Zina, and there were some speeches from students and a orthodox priest. After the ceremony ended, I went with my partner teacher to our classroom with our 9th form class. My partner teacher, Tania, is the "dirigente" or homeroom teacher for this class and has been since they were in 5th form and will continue to be until they are in 11th form. As the dirigente, she was responsible to get all the books for the students for all of their classes. She left the room for a while with some students to get the books and some of the students, who I had previously met, crowded around me asking me questions about California and how long I would be staying in Moldova. They also took some pictures of me and them and asked for my name so they could find me on Facebook.

After they had all received their books, and paid the rental fee (I didn't even know they had to pay to use the books), the students were free to go home and my partner teacher and I started working on lesson plans. We made 4 lesson plans for tomorrow and are still working on the schedule with splitting up the hours between her and the other English teacher at school that I will be working with. I will be team teaching grades 4th-12th. I didn't think I would be working with that many different classes. Tania said that all of the students learning English will want to have me teach them at least for one class so she had to spread the American around. It's neat to think that these students have never had the opportunity to learn English from a native English speaker before, so I feel honored to be that person, but worried that my English won't be "proper" enough for them. They learn British English from their textbooks here and not my Cali-slang. Heaven help us all.

After working on our lesson plans for a bit, with both of our tummies rumbling, we decided to call it a day. I got home around 5pm and my host mom asked me if I was hungry and I said yes. I hadn't eaten all day gladly had some soup (which isn't one of my favs), pasta and sauce, a slice of cake and tea. After I finished up my dessert, it started to rain a little bit and I was happy it waited until after I got home to rain. Today was a good day, I am very tired but look forward to tomorrow when I will get to meet more students and actually bust out some English knowledge on them!

I know...I've been bad.

Okay, so I know…it’s been long overdue and there is so much to say. Let’s see if I can pull this off. I have been in Moldova now for 2 months and 2 weeks. The first 10 weeks were for training. I lived in a beautiful village named Razeni and lived with a host family that consisted of a host mom, dad, brother, sister, her husband, and their 2 year old daughter. Every day was a busy one, my schedule as a “trainee” was as follows: leave the house at 8am to get to school by 8:30am, Romanian class til 1pm, lunch from 1-2pm, then tech sessions about teaching English from 2-5pm. After class I would try to use the internet at school or just hang out with the other trainees, and then head back home around 6ish. I would usually have dinner around 7 or 8 with my host family and do my Romanian homework afterwards and crash by 9 or 10. These days were exhausting. I felt really bad since I felt like I was always at school and never spending time with my host family. We even had language classes on Saturday mornings but were free the rest of the afternoon and on Sunday of course.

On August 18th, I left Razeni and headed to Chisinau for my swearing in as an official Peace Corps volunteer. Very exciting! I’m official now. After the ceremony, which was very cool, (our oath is the same as the president of the United State), I went home with the director from the school that I will be working at in Varzaresti, (my new village where I will be living for 2 years). Once I got to my new home, I was surprised to find out that we had family visiting from Siberia. How crazy is that? Siberia. We had a full house for my first 4 days, but on Sunday, after our visitors left, I was able to unpack my luggage and get settled into my room. We also installed a bookshelf and a mirror and now my room feels like mine.

I have been going to my school in the mornings but haven’t been able to do any planning thus far. P.S. My house is only a short 5-7 minute walk away from the front entrance of the school. My school is undergoing last minute repairs and my classroom now has brand new windows and lovely wallpaper that was put up by students. Our floors are being painted and hopefully on Friday we will be able to move in all the desks and start planning for the year.

Nisporeni is a larger village next mine and there is a bank there and some other stores that will come in handy. I already bought some bed sheets, an electric tea kettle to help me in the boiling and filtering process of my drinking water, some hangers for my beautiful new wardrobe/closet, a trash can for my room and some little plastic containers to take lunch to school in. I am not sure what everyone else is buying with their “resettlement allowance” but that is what I needed so far. The other day I walked to Nisporeni with Ohad, another volunteer with Peace Corps, and we made a big circle from my house, to his work, to his house and then back to my house. My host dad said it was 10km, which is like 6 miles or so I think. I am still getting used to the metric system. So that has been my life for the past 2 months and some change...I promise to try to kep this updated on a regular basis from here on out. Girl Scout honor.

Philadelphia

I left Sacramento yesterday morning bright and early after being up late packing. I love how I always wait til the last minute to do anything. Thank goodness for Brooke, Jen and Stacy...they basically packed me. After saying my goodbyes, Liz and I boarded the plane to Philly. The flight was only 4 hours long but it seemed like an eternity to me. I AM SO SCREWED. Wednesday's flights will be crazy. Maybe I'll just take some sleeping pills and wake up in a pile of drool in Moldova. Lol. In line to board the plane we met another girl who is going to Moldova with us, so there are three of us representing Sac now!

Once we arrived at the airport, around 4pm, we met up with 2 other girls who were headed to the hotel and our little group now had five. We took a shuttle to the hotel, which ran us $70 total. At first we thought this was kind of pricey but come to find out someone paid $50 for a taxi. I felt a little better for only paying $14 after that. We got to the hotel around 5:30pm and were STARVED. Skipping breakfast was not a good idea, and sorry Jen, the little cookies you gave me for the plane didn't make it with me. I had no room. :( We walked to a little sandwich/pizza shop right behind the hotel and had cheesesteaks. Yummm. It was sooo freaking good. Quote me on that. We then went back to our rooms and met up again around 8pm to go to this little place called Mc Gillin's Old Ale House. It has been around since Lincoln was elected for president-yeah, that long. There we got to meet a handful of other volunteers and chat for a few but we were tired and Liz and I cut out early and headed back to the hotel.

Now it's Tuesday and we have training at noon. We had our continental breakfast and soon I'll be putting on my business casual. We leave first thing in the morning so I'm not sure when I will be able to post again, but once I do I will be in Moldova!!! Yea!

The beginning of my Gypsy tales

Sooo...I'm new at this whole blog thing but I guess this is the most effective way to keep my family and friends up to date with my whole Peace Corps journey. I had a hard time thinking of a blog name...but in the end think the one I chose suits me and my humor. I read something in a packet sent to me from PC saying that Moldovans might perceive people of Hispanic orgin as Gypsies because of their dark skin. This automatically made me laugh becuase I have a running joke with a friend about Gypsies and now my blog has a name.

In 2 weeks I will head out on a plane to Philadelphia with 2 suit cases that will carry all my earthly possesions for the next 2 years. I leave Sacramento on the morning of June 7th headed to Philadelphia where I will spend 2 nights and one day for PC staging. I am very lucky to have met someone who is leaving with me from Sac to share this journey with...(shout-out to Liz); she will be my travel buddy and partner in crime whether she knows it or not. I am excited to meet the rest of the volunteers who will be going to Moldova with us in Philadelphia. We then caravan (such a Gypsy thing to do!) to JFK airport in New York, early on the morning of June 9th. After a super looooong layover in Frankfurt, we will finally arrive in Chisinau, the capitol of Moldova.

Two weeks; 14 days; 344 hours left until my journey begins.....