Spring in my step | The Randomness

I am anxious for spring and can't help but notice all the randomness in my life this week. Here's what I mean:

-I think I just agreed to help an eleven year old neighbor boy with his homework twice a week in exchange for homemade honey.

-I played hours of the card game Uno with three neighbor kids. In order to appease the parents and make it more English based, I made them say a simile for every turn they took (ex: red like sour cherries, green like the grass)

-I broke both my Yaktrax (like snow tires for your boots) over a period of three days.

-The snow melted away and I no longer need my Yaktrax.

-Grant money we've been waiting on since October FINALLY arrived from a donor in Hungary.

-I ate potatoes in crepes, pastries, and pasta.

-I switched back to coffee from tea and now every morning is like an adrenaline rush.

-I decided Moldovan cottage cheese kinda leaves the American stuff in the dust.

-A colleague called and asked if I would consider joining the leadership team in charge of this summer's girls empowerment camp.

-I booked a plane ticket to Greece for May, and already previewed some ticket prices for this time next year.

-Having late night tea with my host aunt, I learned that she once considered going abroad illegally to work. Now she is so glad she didn't because of the stories she is hearing about poor working conditions and human trafficking.

-My nine year-old cousin asked me if he could write a report for school about me. The topic is "someone I admire." Aaawwww.

-I still haven't finished reading Three Cups of Tea.

-Via the always trusty Facebook I learned about another college friend's engagement.

-Just now, I overheard my host Mom telling her son that she is making a dish I requested to eat. Hmmm....don't recall that one :)

Winter, winter go away! Come again another day!

So when you get an email from a dear friend that says "I can't wait to read your new blog posts"...you know it's time to write some. Honestly, the last couple of weeks haven't been overly exciting. But I am just praying the above freezing temps are here to stay, along with the sun we've been blessed with recently. I have decided that human beings, do in fact use photosynthesis to take energy from the sun. When I get the chance to see the sun these days, I have no qualms with skipping the morning coffee and going outside to walk myself (because in Romanian, taking a walk just doesn't make sense).

The sun came just in time because last week was a tough one. Winter started to get the best of me, but now that I can see the proverbial light in my tunnel's end, all is on the mend. Though, I admit, vacation planning is probably responsible for 60 percent of my improvement this week. I'm going to meet Mom and Dad in Greece! Eu vreau sa ma bronzez. I want a tan!

The rough times do have a way of bringing people together though. I have made some pretty good friends here in Peace Corps Moldova. I especially appreciate the ones who, like me, get down only because they feel like they aren't doing enough, not that they don't have anything to do. We have to be self-starters in the COD program. On a daily basis, I am accountable only to myself.

Since my work at the youth center has been a little slow, I've actually spent a good deal of time on my language this week. I met with a Peace Corps tutor in Balti last weekend to study vocabulary for human trafficking. Then about 10 of us participated in a two-day refresher course that Peace Corps offered, this week. Just past the six month mark.

I feel a trace of guilt because I sometimes think that my secondary project (with the anti-human trafficking organization) is more interesting than my primary project. In some ways, I feel more productive there too. I've always loved constitutional law, but I've come to think of human rights issues as constitutional law applied to all people in all spaces. And when I mean all people, I don't mean Locke's people. I mean ALL people.

So there's a quick update. Stay tuned. A speech I was supposed to give last October recently got rescheduled for next weekend. Timely, I know. So maybe that will make for an interesting post. I kind of hope someone records it so I can count the mistakes.

Oh, and if you are one of the new invitees to Peace Corps Moldova, congrats! Felicitari! See you soon in the 'Dova!

Little Dancing Man

I think my real purpose for being in Moldova is to dance the hora on Friday afternoons with these amazing kids. This little dancing man, as you will see near the end of the video, really likes the spotlight!

Four laps to a mile

On a standard, 400 meter track, there are four laps to a mile. Four equal lengths with the wind at your back, and four with the wind in your face. The first lap is always the hardest, you have to get the rhythm flowing. You have to find your breath, and you have to get the form right before settling into a pace.

Next week, I will finish my first lap and pass the stopwatch at an even six months. That's how long I've been at site. That's how long I've lived in my host mom's house. That's how long I've worked with my partner. That's how long I've tried to make Moldovan friends. That's how long it takes to finish one-quarter of your Peace Corps service. But this is where the metaphor breaks down. This does not, in any way, mark one-quarter of my productivity in Moldova. I fully anticipate that the bulk of my productivity will take place on the second and third laps, because by the fourth, I'll be preparing for a sprint to the finish like never before.

Our country director loves to share tidbits of information from close of service interviews he does with Volunteers preparing to get one last exit stamp at the vama. His favorite question, we all know, is "what are you most proud of?" Let's pretend this is the close of the lap interview. Humor me people.

My response is different this week than I think it would have been last week. I spent the last working days of January at a Project Design and Management training with my partner, my fellow PCVs, and their partners. Compared to the other conferences I have attended with my partner, this time for collaboration clearly conveyed the change I helped make in one person's capacity. This is what I am most proud of at the end of lap one.

My partner now uses Microsoft Office (including Excel!), asks questions about methodology, and just yesterday discussed "indicators of success" in a manner that strove for excellence, not just putting words on the page.

Sure, there are still plenty of places where I trip over my own feet (or more literally, LANGUAGE!), where other runners cut me off, or try to distract me from my goal, asa e viata. I don't even pretend that I am not faced with those challenges each and every day. But it makes the successes all that more important, all that more valuable.

One lap down, three to go.