Walt’s in Moldova!

My mom came to visit! It was fun. We bounced around Moldova a little bit and were in my village for the Easter celebration.  I’ll try to get some pics of Soroca up (it’s a cool old castle/fortress) when I can, but unfortunately my digital cam broke so we only had her disposable one to use which is obviously in the states.  Another day we did a trip with my counterpart Ion and another guy from work, Sergiu, to see 3 old monasteries around Chisinau.  That was pretty cool too.  We visited a few museums in Chisinau as well, and it was interesting to see the art and history of Moldova.

I’ll be home in nearly 2 weeks!!!!!  *officially excited*

I’m tired. Unrelatedly, I notice that spam bots have found my blog and are able to leave comments. Should I require login names for people to post? It would require one simple registration and then you’d just have to type your password to post. Would that be too annoying? Let me know.

Also, I feel very restricted in what I’m able to write due to the fact that this blog is occasionally reviewed by the powers that be and sometimes I just want to say things that I don’t want everyone who knows about this blog to read. What I’m going to do is this: I have the ability to make posts that have unique passwords. As I create these posts, I will mail out the password to a pre-configured mailing list. So, when you see these posts appear, check your email for a password. If you didn’t get one, don’t worry, it’s nothing personal. Some things just aren’t for everyone.

Ok, I know how ironic it is that every month I post about how I’m gonna start posting more, and then I don’t. Well, I’ve been pretty busy lately, here’s a brief overview:

My current project is switching the computers at work from Windows to Linux (for those who don’t know, Linux is a totally free and functional operating system). This is due to the fact that some branch of Moldova’s police have been showing up at computer centers and verifying whether or not they have legitimate copies of Windows. If they don’t, they get shut down and slapped with major fines. Ironically, I have yet to see a legal copy of Windows available in Moldova… so how can people buy legal copies if they aren’t available? Furthermore, legal copies would very likely have to be donated even if they were available, due to adverse financial situations.

Of course, switching our computers to Linux is no easy task for someone who’s only used it as a hobby. The main goals are meeting all of the potentials that we already have with Windows. We’ve been using Ubuntu Linux (www.ubuntu.com), which is great because they will mail anyone 10 CDs for free, and is far less tech-heavy than many versions of Linux. The main requirements are: We must have the ability to control all of the computers from our main computer (since sometimes games lock up or kids do things we don’t want them to do); we must have games! Games are our main source of revenue, and without it, our NGO will not be sustained; Office applications, web browsers, etc. Fortunately all these come included with Ubuntu for free! (note: www.openoffice.org – this is a free and better, in my opinion, substitute for Microsoft Office.)

That’s it for the geeky tech session of the post…

I’ve also been keeping busy coaching basketball twice a week. I think the kids really enjoy it; they keep pushing me to do it three times a week, but I unfortunately am spread fairly thin as it is. I’m hoping to talk to my previous host dad from Costesti, because he is the PE teacher at one of their schools, and see if he wants to put together a team to play against mine. I think that would be fun for the kids and give them a practical application for what they’ve been learning.

We had a language training session last week (also known as IST – In Service Training) in Chisinau, and it was really great. I again had the same teacher I had when I lived in Costesti, and I think she is one of the best Peace Corps has. We have another IST next week, but it is a technical session. We will be studying how to apply for grant money, how to write our applications, etc. The training sessions are great because all of us Americans get a few days to spend together speaking English and just being American for a little while.

I guess that’s all for now…Thanks to everyone who’s been commenting, it helps keep me interested in writing! And you can thank my lovely girlfriend Heather for reminding me to update this today

I’m going to write more, soon! I promise. I had a few cool thoughts today to share, so I’ll write them on my laptop when I get home and then post them later when I have time.

As usual, when I’m actually online, I’m frantically dashing between a variety of websites to get as much information as I can in as little time as possible.

Today is the celebration of the first day of March! (There’s no other way to translate the one single word they have for it.) It’s a celebration of the anticipation of spring, and everyone wears a little flower pinned to their shirt! Also it snowed a lot (a LOT) last week, and some this week, but it’s warm this week, so the roads have turned into miniature rivers. I’m damp.

I dunno, what’s new with you?

Lately I’ve just been working out a schedule, trying to find something to call normal… I’ve got basketball running twice a week currently, Weds and Sundays, and I’m still meeting with my tutor fairly regularly.  The mayor’s office proposed two fairly large-scale project ideas to me recently, so I’m currently working on finding grant sources (if anyone knows any specific organizations that fund youth and/or health projects, let me know).

Lockdown’s finally over and we had a grand celebration all weekend in Chisinau.  We also had meetings most of the day on Saturday and Sunday, so I wasn’t just in Chis goofing off   The meetings were training for the Peer Support Network, which is sometimes referred to as “grass roots ET prevention” (ET stands for Early Termination, in other words, quitting).  The training was enjoyable (as far as trainings go anyway), and I learned a lot.  The aim is to reduce ET rates, as EMA (Europe, Mediterranean, Asia) has the highest rate of ETs of all Peace Corps regions.  The tricky part about living in EMA is that, unlike Africa or other regions, things actually look, at face value, reasonably similar to what we’re used to, but once you get past the superficial surfaces of the societies, they’re extremely different, so you tend to get hit with the culture shock over a longer period of time (or so is my opinion).  I’m certainly not over it yet, but I guess it’s getting easier.  I think

Lockdown ends in 3 days. That is all.

I finally put up some more pics!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/weaseal/ — check it!

Ok, so maybe I’ve been living in Moldova for too long (subject to daily poultry beheadings), but why didn’t they just kill it like they had intended anyway?

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/01/28/tough.duck.ap/index.html

Ok, so I finally got some real projects underway. Not to say that other stuff I have been doing doesn’t count, but it was pretty small scale.

I started putting together a basketball team (that’s getting a pretty big turnout, with some luck, I may even be able to start an intramural league, but that might be getting ahead of myself). I also started a frisbee group too.

Peace Corps sponsors a basketball tournament every winter (too late for this year, but I’m gonna get a team or league going within my village first) and I’d like to have a team from Razeni go.

Earlier this week I attended a meeting about youth activities in our village. It was attended by the vice mayor and some other people from the mayor’s office, as well as a regional government official, and about 20 people from the village. I gave a small speech introducing myself and expressing my interest in working with youth development activities (mainly referencing my sport teams and some classes I’m hoping to get underway, which I’ll address shortly.)

I proposed an idea to the people in my NGO a few days ago about starting a lecture for internet use — most people here know how to use chat programs and little else (some have quite an impressive internet knowledge, and I intend to recruit them to help me…), and with the ever-globalizing economy, internet communication and data research is essential.  So, my counterpart set up a meeting with a possible grant organization for Tuesday, so we get to go on a little trip to meet with some people to ask for money to fund the project.  We already have computers and a place to hold it, but we need a little money to turn the internet on during the classes.

I’m sure there’s something else I wanted to say but I forgot what.

Oh, yeah, lockdown ends in 2 weeks. Rock!

So, I had two strange things happen the other day.

First, a random girl (about 10 or so) basically ordered me to move to her house.  I don’t even know this kid!  We’ve talked maybe once or twice, never even got her name.

Later the same day, a little girl (maybe 6 or so) called work and asked for me.  I happened to be the one talking already, so I said “yeah this is Walt” (in Romanian of course) and then she fired off a few English phrases.  The discussion went something like this:

Girl: HOW ARE YOU?

Me: I’m fine, how are you?

Girl: WHAT IS YOUR NAME?

Me: I’m Walt, what is your name?

Girl: WHERE ARE YOU FROM?

Etc.

I don’t know what’s weird anymore.  I guess it was weird.  Cute, though.