The past month has been pretty busy, with lots of longer and shorter vacations. Here’s what I’ve been up to lately.
I continued my English Club. This has continued to be a success, and we’ll be wrapping up the club soon for the end of the school year. Many of my favorite moments and memories have come from this club, which I’ve really enjoyed.
Our country director visited my village. My country director, Tracey, visited my village and attended a meeting of our English Club, along with a fellow volunteer from a nearby village. My students had a number of questions for both of them, and it was nice for my two “jobs”, Peace Corps, and my work at my site, to combine.
We had our Easter Break. This is the second longest break of the year, and I was very ready for it. I spent the entire break at site with my host family relaxing.
We celebrated Orthodox Easter. My first Easter in Moldova was full of learning about different traditions and celebrations. It was pretty laid-back, just my host parents, one host sister, and I.
Moldova was hit with a heavy and very late snowstorm. The snowstorm caused a lot of damage, and we were without power at my host for over two full days. It was a pretty boring two days. Thankfully, the warm weather returned quickly and the damage in my area wasn’t as bad as expected.
We celebrated Memorial Easter. This usually involves going to the cemetery and eating and drinking wine, but because of the snowstorm, my town’s celebration was moved to the church and a simple service (which I didn’t attend). After, we had a small masa with a teacher from the school who lives alone.
We completed and submitted our grant proposal. My school and I worked really hard to get our grant proposal together, and I presented the proposal with a Romanian teacher from school. We are very happy that our proposal was accepted and we were awarded the grant! There are a few things to finalize money-wise, and then we can start our project of renovating and modernizing our school library, which is very exciting!
Moldova celebrated Labor Day and Victory Day. Labor day was a simple day off in my village, but all of the teachers and students gathered at the school then walked to the village’s monument, where we placed flowers on the monument, some veterans did a gun salute, and then we all returned home.
I visited Curchi Monastery, Orhei Vechi, and spent some time in Chisinau. It was a really wonderful mini-vacation.
The Oke Den 