Moldova is one hot country

Greetings from Moldova!!
Some quick info regarding this blog:

1. I don't have access to the internet at my host family's house so I will post as often as possible. 
2. If you want to get an email notification of when I do actually post something new put your email address in the box to the right and hit "submit" 
3. Peace Corps is a government agency so that means there are approximately 9,000 acronyms used on a daily basis. To the left of the posts is a mini glossary of acronyms and any random Romanian words I use in the posts. 

Ok, now that is out of the way...Moldova is great! I've been here officially for one week. It took the group of us forever to get here (10 hour flight from Philly, 10 hour layover in Turkey) but we made it. There are 68 M27s (Peace Corps Trainees, group 27) but we have been split up into much smaller groups during for the three months of training this summer. 

Some demographics on the M27s: 

• There are four married couples 
• Approximately 10 people over the age of 50 
• Approximately 15 people between the ages of 40-50 
• Roughly 55:45 women to me 
• People from all over the states, no other Montanans :(. The biggest groups are from Washington state, specifically Seattle, Texas and California. 
• Maybe 20% people of color 
• Four people (that I know of) with dual citizenships: Norway, Greece, Mexico and Bulgaria
• People from all different education and experience backgrounds 

There are four programs, or sectors, that PC runs in Moldova: Agribusiness and Rural Development (ARBD), Community and Organizational Development (COD), English Education (EE) and Health Education (HE). 

I am in the HE program which means I will be teaching health education at least 8 hours per week in the schools and will also be partnered with a community organization on health related issues. This won't happen until I get to my permanent site after August 15th. 

For the next three months I am in a suburb of the capital with 7 other HE trainees. Peace Corps has told us not to post pictures, names or locations of our host families and towns for security purposes, hence me not naming the town. My host family is great. My "mom" and "dad" are 29 and 30, which makes calling them my parents weird. My mom has a masters degree in linguistics and speaks near perfect English, which has been totally helpful but also makes me nervous that I'm going to fall behind the others in learning the language (Romanian). They have a five year old boy who is adorable and likes to yell my name over and over. My daily schedule goes something like this:

7:30 wake up, shower quickly, eat breakfast and walk to school 

8:30 - 12:30 Romanian language class

12:30-2:00 Lunch at home or if it is a travel day we eat where ever we are 

2-5:00 Tech Class which is built to prepare us for our projects for the next two years

5-11:00 Free time, dinner, studying

I like being so busy because it distracts me from realizing that I have no idea what is going on around me. My Romanian teachers are incredible, they are both native Moldovans, yet oddly enough I am not fluent yet. It is soooooo frustrating not being able to speak to the people around you. All in all I'm doing ok though in this new country. 

I will try and post again soon and let you all know about the sites, sounds and smells of Moldova.