Sunday, June 21, 2009

Colegi (colleagues)

So who am I preparing to serve with? Well...with the last one arriving today, we have a grand total of thirteen trainees in my village. The oldest is 72 and a former Foreign Service administrator. The youngest is yours truly. We hail from LA, Phoenix, Milwaukee, Chicago, Fairfax, and Seabeck/Port Orchard, Wa. W e have guitar players, Frisbee tossers, half of a married couple (the other half is training in another village), walkers, runners, former YMCA camp counselors, and disco freaks.

We are all COD trainees and will be working as “Community Consultants” throughout the country. Some will be placed in mayor’s offices, some with partnering non-governmental organizations. NGOs are a new trend in Moldova since the former Soviet state has continued to develop its independence. Two weeks from Monday our permanent sites are revealed to us and we start to go visit them. In some ways I hope to be headed south (closer to the beaches of the black sea), but there is so much I don’t know about Moldova yet I am hard pressed to state a preference. I can only hope to be placed in a community where I can be of use.

Special note: PCVs are not sent to random communities, the communities go through an application process to receive a volunteer. Peace Corps only goes where its invited!

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