Well, it’s been a few days since I have written here so I thought I would give my 12 followers a quick update, even if 11 of my followers I talk to on a regular basis.

When I last wrote I had just experienced a devastating storm here that destroyed homes, tree, and crops. The local grape crop was destroyed which meant that much of the house wine that is so popular in Moldova couldn’t be made.

Since then I have been working on a project with a lady that I work with on a daily basis. Her name is Tatiana and without her I would not be able to speak a word of Romanian. She is one of the only people who has conversations with me that go past the point of my everyday conversations that I have with my host family and random people. The project involves what is called a Rocket Mass Heater (check it out here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtFvdMk3eLM). I will be putting this heater in a greenhouse to extend the growth period of different vegetables. The heater is 5 times more efficient than a normal wood burning stove and because it is so efficient the only exhaust from the heater is steam and small amounts of CO2. I have written up a PCPP application to get this project funded. Although the total cost is only about ~$480. If anyone is interested in donating to my project you can go here: http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate, but not yet because it won’t be there, but keep an eye out! If you are in the States reading this… ask my parents because my whole application will be sent to them. You can look at all the details there.

As far as legitimate work goes…. that’s about it. Suzette and I have our Debate Club that we took over from another Volunteer who now lives in Chisinau. It’s only once a week though so it doesn’t provide much work. It is however one of the things I look forward to every week because I get to hang out with some of the smartest kids that I have ever been around. They all know English very well and are able to debate on topics that would stump many kids in the States. And they do this in ENGLISH!

Some of my aspirations for the near future include, a basketball team because there is a brand new gym in one of the schools here in Leova, another basketball team in another school here in Leova, but for a younger group of kids, organization of a basketball league in which these teams can compete during the winter months, and a computer training project that Katie McNabb and I want to do because the MS Office programs are not being used to their full potential in our organizations.

In 10 days I will be off on my first real vacation of my Peace Corps experience. Suzette and I are going to Berlin, Germany. I have been counting days down to this vacation since I bought my plane ticket. We are going to Berlin especially because of the Christmas markets that are famous during Christmas. I have done a little research on what exactly is involved in these markets and I have determined that basically the whole city is covered in Christmas. There will be a 4,000 sq ft market set up in front of a castle and that will be just one of the markets. Here is a video that can do a whole hell of a lot better job explaining that I can.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP7JlK6FQZA&feature=player_embedded

Another high point of this trip will be the FOOD! We plan to eat Mexican, Chinese, I’m sure German, and much much more! I would for sure say that I am most excited for Mexican though, it won’t be La Hacienda, but it will do!

The perfect storm....s

Hello anyone?

I thought I would give a quick update of somethings have have happened in the last week.

On Tuesday August 31st a very large storm hit Leova, knocking trees over that we 2ft. in diameter, killing power, and water for over 24 hours. Many houses were damaged due to the strong wind and....trees falling on them, and devastated all of the frumos decorations form the weekends holidays.

This particular clip, which yours truly took, made it on NATIONAL news! Yeah I'm famous NBD!

A few days later while I was hanging out at Suzette's apt. eating really thin pancakes it started raining incredibly hard and I was able to get this video of the aftermath.

And here are a few random pictures that I took on my way home from eating really thin pancakes.

Innovation

I thought I would type something up about flat tires and my partner.

In Moldova there are many roads that are in real need of a repair, especially the back roads of most villages or cities.

Well my partner has the roughest of times navigating these roads without getting a flat tire. It could be the 20km drive to work on dirt roads with 3ft deep ruts everyday or it could just be that he has bad luck. In my 2 1/2 weeks in site he has gotten 2 flat tires with me in the car. This only makes me wonder how many he gets daily/weekly/monthly.

Any way my partner has quite the strategy for getting out of these predicaments. He always keeps a bicycle pump in his passenger seat. When we get a flat tire I jump out and pump it up as much as possible, hopefully enough to drive on. Then I jump in the car as fast as I possibly can with pump in hand and he drives as fast as he can to the next repair station before enough of the air leaks out to make the car un-drivable. We stop at no intersections (what Moldovans do?), stop for no pedestrians, stop for no speed bumps (better known as ruts), we stop for nothing. At that moment the only worry we have is not having to get back out of the car to pump the tire up again.

Both times we have successfully completed this task and have driven into the repair shop at least an inch off the rim. Success!

I don't know how they do it, but they DO IT

Hello,

This last week has been interesting for me and I'm sure all the rest of my MP's (Milești peeps). I have been hanging out with my host brothers who are probably two of the most well known and loved people in town. Last Saturday at the Disco-Tech my bro Artur(sp?) left for a little while only to return with a huge case of beers for everyone. He just walked around the club and handed it out. I'm not sure, but I think that may have something to do with why everyone loves those two so much.

On Thursday I was out again with my brothers and their friends and I was invited to my brothers girlfriend's birthday party. I was very excited because all of her friends are the typical standard of Moldovan girl.... Beautiful. So I obviously accepted the invitation. So on Friday I had Suzette help me find an appropriate gift for the party and I ended up buying chocolates with brandy in them. Who knew people made chocolate with alcohol.

At about 7 my brothers and I headed over to the home of the birthday girl (I still cant understand her when she says her name so I'll call her the birthday girl) and got the party started! I forgot my camera as usual, but it was really cool. I had heard stories and seen pictures of Masa's, but had never been to one. It is basically a table with to many people sitting around it and WAY to much food on it. It's was like thanksgiving, but more food. So we ate, danced, ate some more, danced some more, then ate again. After that we went to the disco-tech just for good measure.

One little rant... I don't know how to dance to techno music!!!!! I just learned how to dance, amazingly, in America! Now I have to learn how to dance all over again. Everyone is like "Matt, you don't need to be afraid to dance with us. We are all friends!" So I try to dance, but here the boys don't dance with girls. When I try to dance jaws hit the floor because I try to dance with one of the girls! I need to learn how to dance with myself. Oh and when I do get a girl to dance with me they say "Matt! thats enough!" hahahaha I need to knock the DJ out and play Grind on me by Pretty Ricky just to teach them how we do it in 'merica! So, long story short. I need to go to the disco-tech and pretend I have glow sticks or whatever those crazy kids are doing in the cracked out underground dance clubs in the States. Maybe I'll watch some youtube videos and teach myself to dance Techno. That way all the women will be droppin (insert phrase from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBRL7D0wcXM).

I am going fishing either tomorrow or Sunday so I'll bring my camera and take some pictures of Jaws on the end of my line.

I'm back

Hi everyone... I'm back. Not happy about it but I'm back.

Just a disclaimer to all my fellow PCV's that might be reading this. I'm not as good of a writer than you so back off!

Last Friday I was officially sworn in as a PCV. No more of this PCT stuff, I'm a legit PCV. The ceremony was a great experience. The U.S. Ambassador came to talk to us which was pretty cool, also the vice principal of agriculture (or something) came to talk to us. I actually do feel a little bad that I don't remember his true title because to date he is the funniest Moldovan person that I have met. I'm not really sure why he strikes me so funny, but all of his jokes just hit me as a "did he really just say that" type of joke. Our Country director, Jeff also gave a short talk which was nice. Jeff is a great guy and I look forward to getting to work with him and know him better over the next two years. Finally we had 2 of my fellow M25's talk. Some girl named Katie Ender Mcnabb rocked the stage with her booming voice and sparkling jewelry.

After the ceremony my host mom and partner took me to my new site where I will be living for the next two years. The town is located in a great place in the country snuggled right next to the Prut River which makes up the western border of Moldova. I have read that if you swim out to far the Romanian border patrol will shoot you so I'll probably see how far I can push the envelope on that one. The guy that was here before me also stated in his site history letter that a large amount of volunteers that serve in this city have been married off to a Moldovan national (4 of 5 i think). As far as the rest of the town goes, it's great. Lots of people watching opportunities, green of course, and every kind of store that I could possibly want.

Today was my first day of work. I got to meet all the important people in town such as the man known as the Mayor, but as a different name which I won't put because I don't want to slay the spelling. Also, I met, in my partners words, the agriculture boss, and a few guys that work in the ag. industry in my city. These meeting were great for the future, but I really was to shy to try to attempt any of my Romanian. I guess I'll have to get over that sooner than later.

That's all that has really happened in the new site, but I would like to talk about how spoiled I have been during training. During training I had my own shower, bathroom, and toilet. I had my own little world to myself because I was in a house known as a "casa mica" which is basically a little house set apart from the main house. At my new site I have none of that. I'm not saying its a bad thing because I didn't even have those things in the states, it's just really hard to leave such a great place behind. However, I do love my host family. They are great. I have 2 brothers who took me with their friends out to a lake on Saturday where we swam, and ate watermelon. Later that night they took me out to the disco-tech where they surprised me with how much everyone loves them. They have the club scene on lock and I'm pretty sure they go every night. My host parents are great too. I get the sense that my host dad and I are going to get a long really well. I can tell he/we don't feel really comfortable with each other yet, but he is making huge strides to involve me in everything and keep me talking. He is a very curious man and wants to know everything about me which I sometimes can convey in my really crappy Romanian. My host mom takes care of me really well. She tells me over and over again that if I'm hungry I need to go to the kitchen and eat. I can tell that we will get along just fine as well.

And I'm going to....

Hey all,

I know this is kinda late, but last Friday I revieved my invite in the mail and I'm going to.........Moldova! Shocker right? Leaving June 8th as a ARBD volunteer! Lots of paper work, more shots, more reading (3 books in the mail), get to know everyone on facebook!

Well to be honest I kinda find blogging kinda lame so I doubt I'll write on this till I get to Moldova. So until then.... La Revedere!

MMMMMMMMMM HMMMMMMMMMM

Hello all!

I was in San Diego this past week spring breaking it up and missed a call from my placement officer :-( , but its okay because she called on Monday asked me a few follow up questions from my interview and told me to look for an envelope in the mail in about a week to a week and a half.

Next morning I wake up to see a toolkit update and guess what! I am getting my invite! It was sent out on the 22nd so I am anxiously waiting the arrival of my invitation. I am 98.56% sure that I am going to Moldova which is kinda funny cuz when I was nominated for Eastern Europe I said that Moldova would be my last choice of country to go to. Its okay though I am just really excited to go have the adventure of my life.

My Nas

The title of this not only describes my favorite rapper, but also describes jump in speed that my application has all of the sudden taken.
For the past month I have been patiently waiting for any word from a placement officer, tool kit update, email saying hi, or anything, but nothing had come. I actually was getting so down that I almost gave up hope on being invited and began looking at alternative roads to wander my life down. I told myself that if I didn't hear anything by my birthday (feb 22) that I would email my recruiter and see whats up.
So last weekend I spent in my home town of Coalville being birthday spoiled by my parents because my birthday landed on the worst day (in my opinion) to have a birthday, Monday. I was treated to breakfast, lunch, and dinner at my favorite places to eat. On Monday I woke up early because I had to travel to Logan, which is 2hr. from Coalville, to make it to work. Upon arrival to my apartment I went through my daily ritual of checking my email, checking my peace corps took kit in case some how there was an update which didn't send an email, and looking at blogs. After another disappointing ritual I decided to take part in the next step of my mornings by making my 2 1/2 cups of coffee. After drinking my coffee I decided to check my email one more time and.... I got an email! woot!
It was nothing too exciting, but news none the less. It asked for a new transcript that showed the completion of my degrees, updated resume, and due to the fact that I am a really crappy writer a request to add to or rewrite my cross-cultural essay with more specific example of cross-cultural experiences that I have had. So I got to work right away. I rewrote my cross-cultural essay, totally redid my resume with a lot more volunteer hours that I have done recently or forgot about the first time writing my resume. Finally today I walked to my college campus and ordered a new transcript that hopefully has all the information required.
What a great birthday! So needless to say my morale has been lifted and I am once again hopeful that my invitation will come soon! Too all those stuck in limbo I feel your pain, but know that any news is good news! Unless its bad news...

My preparedness

Prepared for Eastern Europe? Check!
This just fell within 5 mins

My suspense

The suspense is getting to me! I honestly didn't think it would be as hard to wait for an invite as everyone says, but now that the estimated time of arrival (late jan early feb) is upon me I understand what everyone is talking about. It's amazing to me that the simplicity of human emotion has enable the Peace Corps to give you a time line of your feelings during your application process that is on point.
I also have a word of advice for those applicants who may not be along as far as me. And I say this from experience. Make sure to make it as clear as possible to people that you must be invited and it is not a 100% sure thing that you are going. This little mistake of mine has given me a sizable pit in my stomach because if in fact I am not invited, I get the opportunity of explaining to all of my friends and family that even though you have given me congratulations and in some cases extra graduation money specifically for my stay in the Peace Corps, I'm not actually going now. Now please don't take this as me being depressed or even upset with my situation because in all actuality I find my little mistake very funny.
I would have to say that this point, weeks before my invite SHOULD arrive, is the most difficult part of the application process. This is mostly due to the fact that I have graduated and work at an elementary school for 4 hours a day. The other 8 hours have become dedicated to scouring the internet for new articles written by RPCV's about their experiences, watching Peace Corps cribs videos (which are VERY entertaining), reading every blog written by an Eastern Europe PCV (mostly Moldova.... stinking suspicion), sitting by my phone in much the same way as a teen girl would who is waiting for a call from a cute boy, and checking my email for any news.