Life Lately in Moldova

This month has been a bit of a whirlwind, so here’s a bit of an update on my life.

I was featured on DesignMom.  

I’ve read this blog for a really long time, and was happy to share an overview of my day-to-day life here in Moldova.  You can check out the link here.

We celebrated the Orthodox New Year.

Moldovans celebrated the “Old” New Year on January 14th.  My host sisters and their husbands/families surprised us with a visit.  My host mom had been pretty sad that no one was coming to celebrate with us, and just after she said that, a car pulled up outside.  One of the traditions is to throw seeds (sunflower, birdseed, etc.) at one another along with wishes for success, health, and happiness in the new year.  Several groups of students also visited our door and received bread, candy, and money in return.

We had a training on planning for projects and writing grants.

This past week I went to the capital with one of the Romanian teachers from my school to participate in a Peace Corps training on project planning and grant writing.  It was a long week.  This is not at all my area of expertise, so it was a very exhausting 4 days of training.  Our school partners headed back on Friday afternoon and evening, but we had an additional session to meet with our country director, so we stayed until Saturday.

Visited MallDova for the first time.

Moldova has one large and very modern mall in Chisinau, which I visited for the first time this past week.  It’s huge and has a mix of clothing stores, stores for children, and even a huge food court.  I bought my first item of clothing in Moldova at LC Waikiki (a turtleneck sweater).  I was also able to find Dry Shampoo at the mall!  I am almost out of the supply I brought with me and thought I wouldn’t be able to find any in Moldova, so that was a very pleasant surprise!

Received some awesome packages from friends and family.

A group of my college friends got together and set me a package of my most missed food items from home, along with letters and drawings,.  I also got a couple of small packages my parents sent me and another college friend sent me a Christmas care package.  The package from my friends including maple syrup and pancake mix, so I made some pancakes this morning!  They were so yummy!