A Good Week

There was really nothing extraordinary about this past week, and still, it was a pretty good week. The weather has been great, for one thing. There have been some occasional rain showers in the evenings, but cool mornings and evenings, and warm, almost hot, comfortable days. It has been just beautiful weather for walking, for being out and enjoying nature, and for playing with the kids. I'm enjoying it while it lasts, that's for sure.

Tuesday morning I went with the kids and another staff person on a long walk over to the vineyards at Purcari. This is one of the most famous and best vineyards in all of Moldova. We got to see the grapes being picked, loaded into wagons attached to tractors, and then moved from the wagons into larger trucks which then were loaded to take the grapes into the factory where they actually make the wine. The workers were happy to show the children the grapes, we ate as many of them as we could manage, and while they didn't stomp the grapes with bare feet, they did wear rubber boots when trampling the grapes in moving them from one wagon into another. At the end of the visit, one of the workers gave us a ride back to the Center in an open horse drawn wagon, and gave us lots and lots of watermelon to eat later! Yum!

Wednesday brought the Peace Corps staff, my program manager and the assistant program manager, to the Center for a site visit. It was pretty benign, neither good nor bad, just one of those things that needs to be done. The nice thing for me was that I made a spontaneous decision to return with them to Chisinau. A free trip is always nice. I wasn't sure that I would be able to run all of my errands and make it back on the last bus, so I checked with friends in the town of Orhei, Macie and Craig, to see if they could be a back-up plan. Macie enthusiastically invited me for Thai curry chicken dinner. It turns out that I almost could have made the 5 pm bus back to the village, but knowing that there was a good dinner and time with friends, the desire to stay overnight was stronger than any desire to rush back. After all, its been over a month since I have been in the capitol. Thursday I visited briefly with Peace Corps staff, got my B12 shot, and headed back in the afternoon. Friday was more working, walking, enjoying the nice weather, and a call from Jen, who is the new volunteer in the village two towns away. We made plans to meet yesterday in Stefan Voda, and had a good time there. We visited the piata, ate some (not very good) pizza, and came back here in the afternoon. Last evening we just watched movies, made hot chocolate, visited. It was low key and very nice. The whole week was sort of low key and very nice. Now, if I could only have spent it with all of you, it would have been perfect. Happy birthday this week to Bob and Donna, and happy anniversary to John and Melba (56 years for my in-laws, Wow!) I miss you all. xoxo, Jami