Happy Birthday Mom!

Today is my last official day as a trainee, and tomorrow I become a real Peace Corps Volunteer and move to my village! I am excited and nervous at the same time. The past two weeks have been filled with holiday time here in Moldova, and it is finally warm most days, even though it rains every day. The Orthodox Easter is a big deal here, even bigger than Christmas I've been told. On Easter Eve there is a Church service that lasts all night long, and families take food to the Church to be blessed by the priest. When the service is over, usually around 6 in the morning, families return home with their blessed food and eat and drink and then sleep most of the day, and visit with family and friends. It was a nice holiday, but sort of low key. I guess I was expecting something more. Monday was more of the same, visiting and eating and drinking. The rest of the week we had our final classes and our language assessment on Friday morning. We haven't gotten the results yet, but I did the best that I could, so we'll see.

Saturday night we had our going away party in our village, which was a lot of fun. On Sunday was another holiday, this one called Blajinilor Pastele. On Sunday we went to the cemetery and had a lovely picnic with Maria and her whole family, Again, there was some blessing of the food, but it was a much more festive feeling day. Yesterday was a day of rest, and a gathering of the six volunteers who live in Magdacesti. And here we are at today.

Today is my Mom's birthday, so this goes out to you, Mom. I know it is maybe not the best of all your birthdays, with the news of Uncle Ed's passing, but I hope you have a great day! I think after tomorrow I will be able to have more regular email access, and I hope to be able to post more regularly. I miss you and hope you are all well!