Pictures from PST

Well it's that time of year again, the Moldova 26's have been chosen and the volunteers here are eagerly awaiting their arrival. I realize that a lot of the traffic on this blog is from soon-to-be volunteers, so I'd like to say congratulations! Here's a post dedicated to you.

I'm sure you're hoping to get a sense of what your first few months in Moldova will be like,and I encourage you to go back and read some of my earlier posts. Here are some pictures from my training I never got around to posting.

These pictures were taken during my host sister's birthday celebration. A hot saturday afternoon in August, we went to a lake and danced, ate food, sang, and played sports. This is typical for all kinds of celebrations in Moldova - they never miss a chance to take advantage of the good weather!

Next, some pictures are from the M24 Community Development training village. Not only was the village beautiful and friendly (most of us had exceptional host families), it was a great location to learn about the culture in the rural countryside.

One of the village's two Orthodox churches, known as a basirica. Typically the basirica is the most ornate building in a Moldovan village

Location of the Vasieni basketball match

In most villages you can find shrines, crosses, and other religious symbols placed periodically around the village and next to water sources like wells.

Farmland and rolling hills stretch as far as they eye can see

This was my host families outhouse. No explanation required.

Most households in the village have fenced in properties. The family spends a lot of time in the courtyard, and much effort is put into making sure it's clean, orderly and organized.

We lived in our training village with different host families, and also living there were our language and cultural facilitators, or LCF's (one of many acronyms you'll learn as a "PCV"). We had language lessons four hours a day, for six days a week at the local school, as well as technical training twice a week at a school in the regional center.

Pre-Service Training might have been a summer of strenuous work, but it was extremely rewarding work. I learned a new language, made new, lifelong friends (both Moldovan and American), and became acquainted with a culture I had known little about. So to all of the new volunteers coming in, good luck, şi e bine că veniţi!