It's not Easter in Moldova

Happy Easter to everyone who is celebrating Easter today! In Moldova, they follow the Eastern Orthodox calendar, which means that we will celebrate Easter on the 26th of April, and also, traditionally, they celebrate Christmas on the7th of January and New Year's on the 14th of January. As they have moved to more western ways, they also celebrate Christmas on 12/25, and New Years on 1/1, I think just because they like to celebrate, and the winters' are long and dark. That is a long way away, but today is just another Sunday. Next week-end we move to whatever the equivalent of Daylight savings time is, so I think we will go back to a 7 hour difference to the east coast. It has been only 6 hours difference, but only for a week or two.

This past week was very busy, with lots of travel. Last Sunday we came into Chisinau, and were very rushed in looking around town. Even though we were here most of the day, we traveled in large packs of Americans, and had to compromise our time to the needs of the larger group. This week fewer of us made the excursion, and have greater flexibility to meet our own needs. Many of us are online, as we don't have access at our host homes. Almost all of us have the ability to access dial-up, but it seems like an imposition that I do not want to make on the generosity of my family here. Monday, we came back into Chisinau in the afternoon, after language class, to open bank accounts in both dollars and lei. The lei is the local currency, and there are about 10 lei to a dollar.

Tuesday afternoon we were at our hubsite in the afternoon, and on Wednesday we got to go on a field trip to see different sites. Six of us went to see a current volunteer who has been working in a mayor's office since she was placed there in November. It was a really small town, and very rural, but close to a bigger town. This town was about 45 minutes south west of Chisinau. The drive was nice, lots of farmland. It looks sort of like Pennsylvania, hilly and lots of agriculture. On Thursday we were at Peresecina for the day for cultural training. On Friday we met with the director and the teachers of the preschool program with our language coaches. We have to do a community service project during these first ten weeks, along with all the other training, and language classes. I think this is a great idea, but it does contribute to the volume of tasks that need to be completed during this very short training period of ten weeks.

Yesterday, we had a awesome day of traveling. The PC provided a tour sit bus, and we traveled about 3 hours north to Soroca. We toured a fortress from the 14th century, a synagogue, had an awesome lunch with music and traditional dancing. In the afternoon we met some Roma people, and then went for a hike to an overlook site with a shrine. This site overlooks the city of Soroca, the Nistru river, and the Ukraine. Overall, a really great day!

So to all my family and friends, I hope you have a great Easter Holiday! As soon as I am able, I'll write again....xoxo, Jami