Hello all,

I have returned from the Holy Land aka. Israel! This has been my second trip from Moldova and was amazing! In this post I am going to be posting a few of my favorite pictures along with some commentary.

First things first though I need to throw a special thank you out to Ohad Benjamin Sternberg. This man busted his ass for 12 of his bestest of friends to plan the best vacation that any of us have ever had. So thank you very much sir.

First Picture!

Katie McNabb!!! In all her glory. There is talk going around that there may in fact be a whole album dedicated to pictures such as these catching her in all of her glory. I have many more pictures just like this which captures the beauty of this wonderful ginger.

In this picture I stand where Jesus, yes Jesus, was baptized! Only the Jordan River is all. While we were here there were roughly 100 Japanese people in white taking their turn to pay and be baptized. It is really sad how touristy of a place this has become. You walk into a gift shop upon entrance to the site after which you walk onto a patio with a restaurant, area to buy your white robe to be baptized in, and a changing area. I assume that if Jesus were being baptized today he might not choose this location to be baptized in.

Not much to say here except that I had never picked an orange from an orange tree until now! Although, the oranges in Israel were very sour. It may had just been the time of year.

In my opinion most Moldovan girls have the exact same pictures in their facebook pages. This is one of a whole series that I took on a nature walk. I want to be perfectly clear that if you are a girl from Moldova and have one of these pictures don’t be sad! I still think your beautiful!

In this picture you can see a huge white building. Although, it’s not a building at all! It’s a tent. Throughout the country they had greenhouses that would make my partners drool! This particular green house contains banana trees.

The Moldovan roll! I had to take advantage of the warm weather to practice my Moldovan roll. The roll is perfected by the Moldovan people in the summer however one must have a larger belly to keep ones shirt up allowing the sun’s rays to bronze ones belly. I will be sporting this roll in the upcoming summer regardless if I don’t have a manly belly. I can do one better a sport all of my manly belly hair.

This picture was taken in a city called Acco. It was probably my favorite city that I went to. We arrived here just before sunset and were able to eat and then head to the sea side to watch the sun set. The weather was perfect; people were outside having a good time, and made me really look forward to watching the sun set over Romania this summer.

This picture is of some really cool crosses that were carved in the stone walls of Jerusalem. The crusaders apparently carved them. There were areas of the city where whole walls were covered in them.

The valley of death: The dead travel down this valley to reach hell…

Katie McNabb drank 10 diet sprites a day

Everyone has got a little captain in them. This is not only a great picture because we are doing the captain, but as you can see there was something down below us sparking an interest. Notice Nkosi and Sam’s lack of interest in the picture.

This is us covered in mud! If you take time to really look at this picture you can see how ridiculous we were all acting. If you look closely you can see that I am sporting a 6 pack of mud. If the world only knew that one bath in the Dead Sea and you instantly become swole!

If you look closely you can see Saudi Arabia in the distance. This was the first trip across the Red Sea for the captain of our sea bearing vessel and he didn’t quite know where to dock. Therefore we went just a little too far and ended up in Saudi Arabia and were headed off by a Jordanian military boat that proceeded to escort us to our correct port in Jordan.

Funny story: Our captain was in the dock for a total of 15min after we left and threw a used cigarette in the water and was therefore fined $700. So in one morning our captain went in Saudi Arabia water and was fined $700 for something very small! It is safe to say he had a no good terribly bad day.

This picture was taken at Petra. It’s cool because it shows how the people living here carved gutters to collect rain water that flowed off the cliffs. The water would run down hill to the main area of the city.

Indiana Jones anyone? Our tour guide made us line up against a side of the cliff in a single file line to see some cliff formations of spiders and alligators, but when he tried to point them only one of us could see them. He then proceeded to tell us to turn around revealing the “treasury”. This is the most famous building in Petra and I’m sure all of you have seen it in Indiana Jones. Funny thing is it’s not really a treasury at all, but a tomb.

All the holes in the rocks are homes of citizens. Fun fact they were also tombs. That’s right the people lived with their dead. I’m sure they were sealed up, but still… I don’t know that I would want my dead relatives rolling out of their graves and falling on me in the middle of the night.

This is me in my awesome garb at the royal tomb over looking all of my subjects. “One day Simba…. All this will be yours.”

Doing my best Moldovan squat. My knees don’t bend all the way so it makes this move a little more uncomfortable looking than the Moldovan people make it look.

Well there you have it. A taste of Israel and all the fun we have had. Just another shout out to all the people who helped plan this trip. And look at me go! 2 posts in 2 days!!!! Word!

Change? Shit is guess change is good for any of us.

Hello all,

I have decided to write down a few things that I find interesting about myself now that I live in a far far away land. This morning I was sitting on my bed drinking my 2 cups of coffee and watching my one episode of Dexter before I get out of bed and get swollen working out with my tension bands in my room and it occurred to me that my daily behaviors have changed a lot now that I am here.

1- In the States I would eat because I was bored or lazy. Now I don’t eat because I am too lazy to walk my lazy ass down the road two blocks to buy food. As you might imagine this new behavior has lost me 20labs (lbs. but more fun to say labs). My snacks in the State included waking up at 11 PM and driving to a gas station for a Dr. Pepper and a bag of Nibs. Now my snacks include me rooting through my packages sent from home hoping with all my might that I missed a sucker, candy cane, or better yet a 1lab bag of skittles. Most of the time this activity ends up in disappointment, other times I find a stale yet satisfying Sees’ sucker.

So I have made a decision! From now on I need to start eating all day everyday if I am going to gain any of my weight back. I am going to become the most ghastly, repulsive, disgusting pig a Moldovan has ever seen and with time I will gain my 20labs back and arrive at my glorious, handsome, bigger self.

2- Sharing. I love to share now. I do it all the time! Back home I hated it! I always thought to myself… go get your own bag of Nibs! Now with a little behavioral conditioning from the very generous Moldovan people I find myself leaving work to get something to eat to get me through the gap between lunch and dinner, which can sometimes be 8 hours, and returning with 50 lei worth of Snickers bars for everyone that works in my office. It actually brings me joy because when I share with people they will actually pretend to understand my Romanian. Most of the time I can see exactly what they are thinking when I am rattling off long strings of non-comprehendible Romanian, “What?” “Who is this kid?” “He can’t be Moldovan” “If I just smile and nod he will stop” “Why did I engage him?” “How does he not understand the difference between dative and accusative?” just to name a few thoughts that go through people’s heads.

So! The moral of this story is, if you share in another country people want to talk to you.

3- I have learned that regardless of how long, cold, or how much snow there is in a winter I always hate it! I constantly have to remind myself that it’s not Moldova’s fault. I don’t hate my life in Moldova I hate my life in winter in any country. Spring is on its way here (that’s what I’m told anyway) and when it does come I will revert back to sickeningly positive self. As of now though I keep my winter face, coat, boots, and scarf on, close my eyes and hope that when I open them the ice, mud, freezing temperatures, grey, and snow will be gone!

Finally I would just like to mention that I just returned from Israel and will be posting pictures/links to pictures on here along with some explanation….. Maybe…

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.