Salut! Noroc!! Hello from Moldova!!

Joseph/Ashley Teipel; PCV-26

Corpul Păcii

12 Str. Grigore Ureche

Chişinău, 2001

Republică de Moldova

Just a reminder on our address if anyone needs it :)

I can't believe how blessed we are to keep in touch with our friends and family back home so easily.  


We realized we haven't exactly touched on what our "jobs" are here in Moldova and now seems like the perfect time to give it a shot. :)


I (Ashley) am what you call a HESC volunteer, or a "healthy" as we affectionately call ourselves. :)  As a "healthy" I am required to co-teach 8 hours of health (sănătate) classes every week at the local high school.  I am teaching with two different partner teachers - one is the school psychologist and the other is one of the 4th grade homeroom teachers.  Both are younger teachers and seem excited at the prospect of teaching health and have had a lot (read: A LOT) of patience with my Romanian thus far.  :) 


I will be teaching 2 classes of 4th graders and 2 classes of 5th with Miss (domnisoara) Galina and 3 classes of 6th and one final class of 7th graders with Mrs. (doamna) Ana.  I am also required to co-facilitate with Ana an after school health club.  Although I was (and still am) intimidated by the idea of teaching in Romanian - starting tomorrow!! - I am also very excited to meet the kids and to get started! :)  


The health club is structured to the point of being effective, but also has enough give to allow us (the volunteers) to tailor it to what we want.  I am planning to err more on the side of community health, as I feel community health is an extremely important topic here in Moldova.  I want to try to get some of the youth here invested in Puhoi - and invested in a way that makes sense for them and is still fun!  There is a perfect spot for a mural that I walk by everyday on my way to the school, and I have heard of past volunteers doing murals with their clubs, but I suppose I'm getting ahead of myself a bit... :)  As they say here in Moldova, "o să vădem", or "we will see." 


As a "healthy", I think most volunteers seem to find more comfort in working either in the school or the local health clinic.  That being said I have absolutely no idea what my role is going to look like with the community health clinic, but as always, I am hopeful.  


Now to Joseph...


I.e. 'now to the better program'... hehe, just kidding. I'm an ARBD (PC loves their acronyms in case you haven't noticed), or Agribusiness and Rural Business Development Advisor. Although it sounds official, no one here is really sure what exactly characterizes an ARBD from a COD (Community and Organizational Development volunteers), as we often overlap work placements and types of projects pursued. I am, however, in a bit of a unique placement for PC Moldova (as I mentioned a bit in our July blog post).


My placement with Asconi winery is a bit interesting. Although I have a desk in their extremely nice offices and can go there and work and eat the free lunch that is available to all the factory employees anytime I want, I'm not actually working on anything to do with the factory. I've met with the Director a few times and I gather that he does indeed want to help the local farmers and/or community, but that either he doesn't have any ideas about how to do that, or he hasn't told me yet and is letting me settle in a bit. So although I do go to the factory to use the internet and work on other things a few days a week, most of my energy has been devoted to my other two 'partner' organizations.


One of which is the local ACSA office, basically the agricultural extension office for the town. ACSA is government funded and provides resources for farmers in the area as well as helps organize seminars about different topics that farmers need help with, thereby making experts available to the farmers. In Puhoi, the office is staffed (read, was staffed, the gentleman I've been working with has now officially started as a teacher full-time and therefore there is a search on for a new ag agent) only part-time by one person who earns about $80/month. Since the agent has been in transition away from ACSA towards the school, I haven't really been able to see what I can help the organization with yet, but I have, with his amazing help, met and interviewed a few farmers, and I'm hoping to visit their farms to better understand what issues and problems they're facing.


My other 'partner' is the mayor's office. There was an election in early July and a new Mayor was elected here: Domnul Petru (Peter). He is an amiable guy but very young (26, hmmm, does that mean I'm 'very young' too?) and I get the feeling that, although he really wants to do good, he doesn't have many firm goals with specific objectives and plans to achieve them yet. He initially wanted me to 'just go find an international donor who would pay for redoing all of the town's roads'. Easy peesy. So I took the opportunity to tell him that any international donor agency would want to see a lot of things in place (like mission, goals, strategic plan, demographic information on the town, project costs and timeline, SWOT analyses, etc) before thinking about funding anything. So we've since scaled back and now I'm about to work with him to develop some of those things with the goal of writing a project to repair and rehab one of the local kindergartens. 


So, long story short, I'm not completely clear on what exactly I'll be working on nor how or with whom I'll end up working with the most. Ash and I have both been brainstorming a lot of ideas for projects that we'd love to implement here, but all of them are 100% dependent on the relationships we build and whether or not anyone here is actually interested in any of them. We're trying to work on our patience (which takes on a whole new meaning when we're talking about having patience with how our daily lives look over the span of months), and our Romanian (by finding new ways to study through watching dubbed Disney movies and reading children's books), but we're hopeful that we'll understand things a bit better in a few months.


That's it for now! Pa! (goodbye!)

A year older in Moldova...

It's been a while since our last post, but we’re back in Puhoi, the land of the rolling hill, and this time, we’re here to stay (given no unexpected kidnappings suddenly occur again...). Since our site visit, we’ve managed to each become a year older and finish our PST training.

About that becoming a year older part…

Birthdays have always been a big deal in my (Ash’s) family.  I can still remember, quite vividly some of the amazing birthday parties my mom managed to put together for me between her two jobs and school while I was growing up.  There was a Barbie party complete with Barbie birthday cake, a pirate party with a showing of the movie “Hook” and a treasure chest for a birthday cake, and to top it all off the birthday person always got to eat off of a large red plate that says, “You are special today”.  In fact, last time I was home, I was lucky enough to be there for both of my sister’s birthdays and we still have the same red plate. 

All this to say that I’ve had some pretty incredible birthdays growing up and some since then as well… I can remember a few – card games with friends, homemade birthday cakes done by Mum, no matter where or with whom they have all been full of laughs and love.  This year was no different…  

My incredible group of friends in Budesti and my loving husby set up a surprise party for me on top of a gorgeous hillside in Budesti.  Our group, along with a few other friends, spent the afternoon playing games and enjoying some delicious cappuccino cake that the lovely women of Budesti handpicked from Chisinau just for me.  Needless to say, I was definitely feeling the love. 

Had my celebration stopped there I would have been ridiculously content and I still would have felt humbled by the experience, but that wasn’t the case.  It started the night before my actual birthday with my host mom making me my absolute favorite Moldovan dinner – tocanita (toe-cah-knee-tsa), a mix of tomatoes, peppers, onions, mushrooms, and eggs simmered until boiling and served with bread.  Yummy!!  The next morning I woke up to my favorite breakfast of oatmeal mixed with raspberries and coffee.  Mind you, I’ve never actually told my host mom these are my favorites, she has somehow figured this out all on her own – this is how attentive and caring she is.  For lunch, another of my favorites – homemade pizza.  I’m telling you, this woman can cook!! :)  Throughout the day I received many Happy Birthday’s from my fantastic sitemates and was even sung to, twice, by my LTIs and the entire “healthy” group just before the start of our Tech session in the afternoon – which was only mildly embarrassing. 

Joseph decided he could come into Budesti even though it was a week day because he had to be in Chisinau the next morning anyway, so I also got to see my husby on my actual birthday… honestly, it was incredible.  We arrived home around 6:30 and my host mom told us it would be a few minutes before dinner would be ready, and that she would call us when it was time.  Right around 7, mama gazda called us down… she was waiting for us in the kitchen where we normally have dinner and proceeded to walk out and gesture for us to follow her into one of the rooms of the house I had actually not even seen up until this point.  We rounded the corner and I about burst into tears as I realized there was an entire masa (table of food) set up for my birthday complete with a handmade cake in the shape of a book (as she knows how much I love to read) that had a hand drawn map of Moldova on one “page” and “happy birthday to you” written on the other “page”… it was incredible.  Mama gazda had gone through so much trouble with every detail, it was astounding.

I can’t begin to convey how much I appreciate the love I was shown on my birthday, it blows me away.  I am so blessed by the people I have met here… thank you to you all, you know who you are.    

As for me (Joseph), birthdays have not necessarily been the biggest of deals in my family. I can remember only a couple from early childhood, then all the rest start to blend together after crawling through a brand new sleeping bag with a brand new tiny flashlight on my 9^th. This year I had moved to what would be our permanent home for the next 2 years 4 days before my birthday on August 9^th. I was bummed Ash wouldn’t be there with me, but more because I was sick of being away from her than the fact that it was my birthday. I also had mentioned the fact that my birthday was on Tuesday in passing in conversation to a ‘co-worker’ from the wine factory I’ll be working at and therefore didn’t know if anyone would know it was my birthday or not.

It turned out that she must have told my host mom and they then told the rest of the office. Around 11am I was making myself an espresso (rough life huh?) when Tania, our host mom, and Cornelia, the co-worker I had told, came in with a cake and a bottle of red champagne (there are definitely no rules about drinking at work here). A few other office workers gathered around as the champagne was poured and the cake was sliced to wish me ‘la mulţi ani’ (literally: to many years). I was also presented with a two bottle set of Asconi fine wine (the company I’m semi-working with is Asconi), and an expensive bottle of Moldovan cognac, all from the director of the company. That evening I had dinner with our family and Tania’s parents, and everyone made lengthy toasts to my health and long life J

Listening to long-winded toasts while holding a glass of home-made wine is definitely something I could get used to. Moldovans are so genuine in their well-wishes to others; there is nothing fake in their voiced when they raise their glasses to someone.

All in all, it was a good birthday, and I’m excited to open those bottles of wine at the right occasion in the future.

So that sums up how we came to be a year older in Moldova! We’ll be writing more soon (‘soon’ is a relative word, right?) about our work and first couple weeks together in village J

Land of the Rolling Hill: Puhoi

This is a long one, so grab yourself some good coffee and dig in... :)


Site announcements (where we'd be living for 2 years of service) take 2 happened a week ago Tuesday in Chişinău. At the end of a day of "enthralling" sessions, during which all 54 trainees were focused solely on the prospect of the upcoming site announcements, we were finally shuffled outside of the school and onto the paved parking lot where a large chalk outline of Moldova and many current volunteers were waiting. 


Inside the outline of the country, the volunteers and staff had taped pieces of paper representing different towns and villages in their approximate geographical location (mind you definitely not to scale, nor really that accurate). One by one Jeffrey, the Country Director, called out our names at random, giving us the name of our permanent site. At this point, unless the site was Chişinău or one of the other two large cities, no one had a clue where to go, so we were guided to stand on our respective pieces of paper and handed packets of information about our towns and future work partners (Moldovans with whom we'll be working with most of the time), and organizations.


Puhoi (to get the full effect of this name, one needs to inhale deeply, say "poo" at normal decibel levels, then sharply flex their diaphragm while saying "hoy!" thereby ending the word a few octaves higher). That will be our home for the next 2 years (hopefully for real this time!). Opening our packets, Ash found she'd be teaching 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th graders in the school, as well as the names of who she would be potentially working with in the local health clinic. According to my packet, I would be working with the mayor's office, but then there was another partner's name next to a company's name and yet another letter from an "Economic Council", so I had no idea what was going on (a theme to be carried on through the present time apparently...). It turned out I would be pioneering a new type of set-up for Peace Corps. The director of a very prosperous winery (Asconi: www.asconi.md - you will be blown away..) wanted a volunteer to help him start community development projects in Puhoi, sort of social responsibility projects if you will. Since PC won't place volunteers with private companies, my official partner was supposed to be the mayor's office. Yes, I was (and still am) confused by it all...


Although our piece of paper taped to the pavement implied Puhoi is situated SouthWest of Chişinău, after scouring an actual map we learned it is actually SouthEast of the capitol city by 35 or 40 kilometers.


Fast forward a few days and Ash and I were walking toward the central market and bus station in Chişinău with her medical and school supervisors (who had been in town for Ash's site team conference where partners come in from our sites to learn more about what it means to have a Peace Corps volunteer working with them in their school/clinic.). The minibus to Puhoi was only 12 lei (about $1.05), and after an hour of jostling back and forth over the sub-par roads and sweating through our clothes in the heat, we stepped off into the sun in Puhoi! The husband of Ash's medical supervisor was waiting for us and we all piled in for the drive up the steep hill to our future home. 


A quick side-note. Unfortunately, investment in public infrastructure here is sorely lacking, as is a general attitude towards caring for common property (otherwise known as 'tragedy of the commons', stemming mostly from their Soviet Union history), so not only does that mean there are many paradoxes, such as no or definitely unclean running water in the same house as high-speed wireless internet, but it also means 90% of the roads are not paved and therefore hilly roads (like ours...) get extremely rutted out and take on the appearance of and feel more akin to high-mountain 4-wheel drive roads than village streets.


Back to our future host family...


Near the top of the hill we pull to the side of the street and the diesel engine sends small shutters through the car as it shuts down in front of a black metal gate. Ash and I are nervous and immediately are thrown off when we walk through the gate and see an absolutely gorgeous brick paver driveway - on which an inflatable kiddie pool is being blown up by our bunic gazdă (host grandfather), Mihiel, and our soră (sister), Adriana. Our host 'mother', Tania met us holding our other soră, Alecsandra on the front porch and our jaws continued to drop as we walked into the most beautiful house we'd seen yet in Moldova. Large room, trendy recesses in the ceiling with cool lighting, hot and cold running water, and indoor shower and toilet, complete with stainless steel appliances in the kitchen. This couldn't be right, could it? 


We sat down for a masă (literally 'table', but used to say a meal) with our whole family (grandpa and grandma, who lived a ways down the hill, Tania, Andriana, Alecsandra, and Ash's supervisors). Everyone was so nice, talking to each other and trying to talk to us (ha, definitely comical..). We spent the rest of the day hanging out with our host family until Andrei, our host father, came home from work in Chişinău. We had a relaxing dinner, trying to garner as much information as we could about them, and soon we retired to our room for the night.


Monday morning Ash left with Adriana just before 8 to go to the school to meet her partners. I was under the impression I would be going at 9 with Tania into the wine factory to meet the director. Turns out that Tania was on vacation, so she had arranged for other employees of the factory to pick me up and take me there. Once there, the employees didn't know where I was supposed to go, so they pointed me to the admin offices and walking through the office I thought I had stepped into a plush attorney's firm in Denver. Stuffed leather chairs, espresso machine, artwork on the walls... wow. 


Long story shortened, I ended up finding out the director was also on vacation and had told a couple of his staff an American was coming, but had left out why and what to do with him. So I (and later that afternoon, Ash and I returned so she also) got a walking tour around the factory grounds, and then sat at 'my desk' and tried to look enthralled with agricultural books written in Romanian.


Ash, meanwhile, really enjoyed meeting her teaching partner, Ana, along with other staff, at the school but then had a bit of a rushed and frustrating experience trying to meet anyone at the clinic and the mayor's office. 


The afternoon passed slowly as we just hung out around the house with Tania and the little ones. We picked some vişine (sour cherries) and turned some of them into compot, basically just boiling them in water with sugar to make a sweet juice. The rest we set aside and asked if we could make vişine pancakes in the morning. That night we went to grandpa and grandma's house for a masă, which was amazing. We ate outside under the apricot trees and with the sound of 30 newly born chics and ducklings running free through their garden in the background. We toasted to long lives and health with homemade red wine and laughed together while trying to teach them some words in English and trying to understand them in Romanian.


Tuesday morning we indeed woke up and set about making pancakes from scratch with sour cherries as well as a sour cherry syrup (AMAZING!!!!). The night before, grandma Vera had told us about a group of Americans that were in town offering free basic medical services. Vera needed to go to get her blood sugar checked so we decided to go with her at 9am to see if we could meet the group and see what had brought them here. Turned out they were a church group from Birmingham, Alabama that was partnering with a local pastor to help him start a church and to kick things off they were offering a VBS for kids and medical checkups for adults. We got to meet the local pastor and he invited us to his house for a masă when we came back in August. It also sounds like he might be starting a wrestling club with the youth, which I would love to get involved in.


All in all, it was a crazy site visit. Not necessarily crazy busy, just crazy in that we have so much to process through and think about. We're both excited for what lies ahead even though what lies ahead is definitely not all that clear. 


Noroc (cheers/luck/hello) to Puhoi (and to those who made it all the way through this blog!)!