Merry Christmas!

I hope that you all had a great Christmas, filled with lots of fun with your loved ones, everything that you wanted, and happy and peaceful times. My holiday was sort of like that, more or less. I just got back to my village after spending the last three days with about fifteen fellow volunteers. Fun, not really relaxing, but happy, fun times nonetheless. It goes without saying that I would rather have been home. It was a decent substitute, and definitely better than sitting here in the village feeling sorry for myself. There isn't much to write about this week. Lots of fellow volunteers are heading out of Moldova over the next few days for vacations: Berlin, Prague, London, Italy. You all know that I am happy that I was able to come home twice this past year, and I am counting the days until my time here is done. I am now just about over 104 days, and the days are getting longer, a little bit every single day! I love and miss you all. xoxo, Jami

Blizzard!

It snowed all week. Everyday. Today the sun is finally out, but too quickly headed for the horizon at a little before 3 pm. There was a little snow on Tuesday, a lot on Wednesday, more on Thursday and Friday, and this morning there was another foot or two that had fallen overnight. Overall, there is probably close to four feet on the ground. Pretty, but a big, cold, pain in the patoot. Especially on the trips to the outhouse. The days will start getting longer this week, and even though I won't be able to tell for a few weeks, Spring cannot come soon enough!

Weather is the only real news this week. Work is work, my walking is pretty limited by the weather, there is no transportation out of the village for the foreseeable future, and so I am spending my free time reading, working on projects, and trying to stay warm. I'm trying hard not to think too much of all the fun, and people, I am missing, with somewhat limited success. If I can get out of the village, I am hoping to get to spend some time with other volunteers this Christmas. Last year I spent the day working, as it isn't a celebrated holiday here. This year, if the weather allows, I want to be around some celebrating Americans if I can. It might mean that I don't actually get to Skype until after Christmas, but I can't wait to hear what the holiday was like at home, so as soon as I can, I'll be in touch! Happy birthday today to my friend, Robin, and have a great week preparing for Christmas! I love and miss you all. xoxo, Jami

Gray and Brown

Gray and brown were not only the colors of the Moldovan landscape this past week, but it was a pretty accurate description for my mood earlier this past week. Everyday this week it tried to flurry, but mostly just stayed gray, drizzly, and miserable. The mud is disgusting! It was hard to come back, and for the first few days, it was hard to be here. Oh, what a difference a weekend can make!

I got back to my village on Monday afternoon, and went to work Tuesday morning. The staff had posted signs that said Welcome Back Djemi (Close enough!), and everyone seemed so happy to have me back. The kids were happy to see me, for sure. I saw Natalia on Wednesday morning, and she let me know that she would be in Stefan Voda all day Wednesday, and in Chisinau on Thursday. I let her know that I was planning to go to Chisinau on Friday. That was the extent of our exchange, and so I still don't have a clear sense of how she is feeling. I am guessing that like me, perhaps her emotions are all over the place about this lost opportunity. Just a guess, though. So, work is back to the same routine. Overall, that is a good thing.

Friday morning I was up early and in at Peace Corps first thing in the morning. I love a Peace Corps shower when there is lots and lots of hot water! I like them okay even when there is not unlimited hot water, but getting there first is great. Later in the day I met briefly with Jeffrey, our Country Director. He had read my blog from last week, so he had a better idea of where things fell apart. It was helpful for me to process the whole thing with him, and I really appreciate his support. I felt more at peace and happier about being back here after speaking with him.

The rest of the week-end was spent at a "Dirty South Party in a Northern Village". Several volunteers serving in the North: Toumil, Veronica, Neal, and some others, prepared a weekend long southern eating marathon, along with lots of fun and games. Friday evening was Tex-Mex all the way: queso, quesadillas, onion rings, fried jalapenos, fried pickles(!), all sorts of good eating. Neal, who comes to Moldova from Louisiana, prepared the Jambalaya for Saturday night. Lots of good times, laughter, and a very grateful reminder for me that it is my colleagues who understand this journey like no one else can. Thanks, guys!

Now I am back, ready for another week at work. I still don't like the gray and the mud brown, but I am in a better space. In only eight days it will be the Winter Solstice, and the days will slowly start getting longer again. YAY!! Happy birthdays this week to my niece, Adena, Michele's grandson, Ryan, my sister-in-law, Aleece, my friend, Martha, and to my niece, Emile. I love and miss you all. xoxo, Jami

The Story

Today it is almost a month since I've written, and so much has happened. I'll start at the beginning, the start of the journey home. For those of you who have heard all of this, sorry about the repeat, for everyone else, its a long story, so skip around as you want. As I've been writing for months, I have been working for months to bring my Moldovan work partner to the US for a 'field trip'. I have struggled on how to explain the vision of how services might look, what administrative practices could, or should, be put into place in the Center in the village. My language skills are not that strong, but I realized a while ago that even when I had the vocabulary to describe policies and procedures that we often take for granted, I was not always believed. There are other Residential Centers in Moldova, and most of them are learning from each other on how to improve in areas of administration, documentation, services in general. But beyond what is done here, there is little vision of how things might look with a little more structure and organization. It was, and is, a great idea. I was so excited to be able to show her how we do things. So....

Shortly after my vacation home last Spring, I began to work toward bringing Natalia to the United States. I started with finding a very reasonably priced ticket from Frankfurt, Germany, to Boston. Check. We made application and she received her visa to the United States in mid-August. Check. Around that time I began to look at ways to get to Frankfurt from Moldova, and realized that Air Moldova did not fly to Frankfurt on the day that I had the tickets from Frankfurt to Boston. We talked about options. I asked her to follow-up with the German embassy to find out about transit visas. No check. I bought the tickets from Chisinau to Frankfurt. Natalia waited until November 2 to contact the German embassy, and then felt that the application was too difficult to complete. I did not hold her hand and assure that this was completed. In hindsight, it is the place where the whole thing fell apart, and I probably should have taken control of the whole thing...We got to the airport at 3 am on the morning of 11/11 and she was denied access to the flight to Frankfurt because we were going to be there for more that 24 hours. There was an actual lay-over time of 28 hours. We went to the ticket counter and I purchased an alternate ticket for her to fly from Chisinau to Bucharest, and then from Bucharest to Frankfurt. She was scheduled to arrive at Frankfurt on 11/12 at 10:50 in the morning. Our flight was to leave Frankfurt at 12:15pm that same day. Check. Whoops....the flight from Bucharest to Frankfurt was delayed on the morning of 11/12, and was scheduled to arrive in Frankfurt at 12:30. The authorities in Bucharest denied her access to the flight to Frankfurt because she would be unable to make the connecting flight. They decided to fly her back to Chisinau. At the time, I knew none of this, except that the flight was delayed. I tried to exchange the tickets that I did have for some later the same day. Lufthansa was willing to let me purchase new tickets (at $1500 a piece!!) to fly into JFK later on 11/12. I had already paid out a lot, and to be honest, I wasn't sure where Natalia was at this point. Thank goodness I didn't go ahead and buy more tickets that would have been wasted. I flew on to Boston alone, not sure where in the world Natalia was...Bucharest, Frankfurt, Moldova???

I got home to Boston on Thursday afternoon, met by my parents, but without my Moldovan co-worker, and lots of time to try to figure out what had happened. I have had so many conflicting emotions about this whole thing. I was so excited in planning and thinking about this trip, and I think Natalia was also. I feel like I dropped the ball by not hand-holding and taking more control at every single point. I feel like Natalia didn't do the one and only thing that she needed to do to ensure that she could have this experience. I go back and forth between knowing that things happen the way that they are supposed to, and just being so disappointed that this didn't happen the way it was planned. It is hard for me to be back here now. It was a thousand times harder to leave this time, and I just want to be done. I feel like I have failed to do the good thing that I had planned, and I am frustrated in so many ways right now to be back here.

I am staying focused on the things that I am thankful for, the family and friends who have supported me in so many ways over this journey. It was a wonderful gift to be able to spend time with everyone without the time and energy that translating and entertaining would have expended. Even though I feel like I have let so many people down by not seeing this to the point of fruition, I know I gave it my best shot. The good news is that Natalia still has a good amount of time left on her US visa, and I am still interested in hosting her at some point in the future. At this point, it will be up to her to see if it happens.

So that's the story of the past month. It is disappointing, and a little sad, but it was a wonderful vacation. One hundred and twenty-three days to go....I love and miss you all. xoxo, Jami