Here is a video of my summer home and school in Moldova. My host family is incredible and I will miss them when I have to leave at the end of the summer.

here's a quick video i took of jess this weekend visiting my host family :)

I had my first trip to Jess host site (Bardar) last weekend. I asked my host mother is I could take a flower from the garden to Jess' host mother, when I came back from class my host mother Maria had prepared two large buquets, one for Jess and one for her host mom. Unfortunately I didn't know that it is customary to carry flowerstop down in Moldova until you present them, otherwise you may be mistaken for a man going to propose.


Here are some pics of our first true time together since we arrived. It had been a long three weeks and we finally had a chance to walk the vinyards surrounding Bardar, to talk and pray together.

We we able to go to Chisinau (the capital) last week and walk through the massive piatsa (open market). There's a really nice section where the vendors have everything nicely labled and then there are sections towards the edges where you can find a person selling their 1 ipori (rabbit) sold on the ground next to a few heads of varza.

Pumpa

Here's tatul meu (my host dad) Radu and I digging an enclosure for a new pump he's installing for potable water. It was nice to roll up my sleeves and do some manual labor here in Moldova.

Entry 2- 19 Veniri, Junie 2009

The first week felt like almost a month. The daily challenge of uncertainty, combined with the volume of language intake and the rigor of the PC training schedule made everything appear rapid and immensely slow all at the same time. I was struggling with dizzy spells all last week but they are definitely lessoning this week. It is astonishing how much language we are taking in because we have four hours of language training a day and we are living with host families. The first week was filled with tons of simple victories like successfully interacting with people in the village or using simple phrases around the house. Now that we are in the second week the expectations have stiffened due to the sheer volume of things we should know how to say (ie. verbs to have, to want to be able to…). This week however has been more frustrating because we should know how to say a variety the recall is simply not there yet. Everyday there are moments where you simply desire to give up, go to your room and shut the door--this I will not do. Below are pictures of my LTI (language trainers) and a great pgoto of the public transportatyion in Moldova , which consists of minibuses with a few seats and literally unliited capacity.