The Peace Corps Headquarters is a great big white building in the capital of Moldova. I like it very much. The top floor is the volunteer lounge, where I am currently. It has internet and AC, flushing toilets, showers and english speaking people, unlike everywhere else in the country.
I'm almost done with my training. At first I couldn't wait for training to be over, I wanted to get out and be on my own, away from these other Americans, What am I here for? etc. etc. But in the last week I've finally started feeling close to a couple of them and will be sad to see them go. Ah well. I really can't wait to start doing the things I wanna do here.
I'm starting to plan my secondary projects in my head already. As an English teacher, teachingEnglish is my primary project. In addition to that we're encouraged to find a need in our community and fulfill it as a secondary project. My ideas are: debate team, school newspaper, contradance club.
I have two teachers I'm going to be working with in my village, Renata and Natalia, and when I told them I'd been a journalist, they were exceedingly jealous. Its their dream to be journalists and its almost impossible to do in this country. This is where the newspaper comes in. I feel it will be a good thing for the students, obviously, but if I can teach two very intelligent young women (they are 23 and 25, by far the youngest english teachers any volunteer will be working with in the whold country) how to operate and maintain a newspaper, I will feel doubly useful and proud!
IE. if anyone wants to send me newspapers, school or otherwise -- please do so.
My Romanian comes along nicely. Its really noticable to me how my english speaking skill deteriorate as I get better at Romanian. My sentences all get restructured into Romanian grammar and some words just dissapear completlely. I think I may have plateaued in my learning curve, but that just means my sentences are becoming more consistently good.
Unfortunately, I am in a place where I must vacate to free up a rare computer for other volunteers so I cannot write you all emails, but I love you all and hope to write to you personally soon.
