Rain, Rain Go Away!

The weather here is ridiculous this year. Winter was too warm, barely any snow, but now it won’t warm up. The temperature hovers right around freezing, and I think I’ve seen the sun a total of 4 days in the last month. It is windy, rainy, muddy, and depressing. All of my pants have mud splashes at the bottom, and no matter how hard I try to preserve their cleanliness my boots are beyond help. Plus I have worn them so much on the rocky village roads that holes have been worn into the bottom, so if I happen to step into a puddle (every fifth step or so), my feet get soaked. Grrr. Not to mention it’s hard to run every day, as I’d like to.

But in other news, I’ve been pretty busy at site. The local savings and loan where I work gives out loans in cycles, and this month a lot of people had to make their last payments. In addition, we were collecting all requests for new loans, so that we can go to the bank in Soroca and take out one large loan. So there have been lots of people coming in and out. I’ve been busy explaining the crediting process to people, helping them fill out requests, and receiving payments on outstanding loans. With my counterpart I’ve been working on advertising the savings and loan, as well as on stream-lining the crediting process (eliminating paperwork, using the computer to make calculations, creating a database of members, etc.).

I’ve finally given in to persistent requests to start up another English group. But then it ended up being two more groups, since the age range was too large. So now I’m still going with my 7th graders that I’ve been working with for a year and a half now, as well starting from the beginning with two new groups, one of 10 5th-graders, and another of 10 students who go to high school in Soroca. It’s a lot easier with the older group!

The rabbit project is well underway now. On Sunday we took a full car-load of people down to a village near Chisinau where we purchased the first 14 rabbits (12 females and 2 males) and had a seminar. We were hoping to have purchased all the rabbits by now, but we didn’t physically receive the money in time, and now no one is selling because it’s breeding time. So in May we will purchase another 14 rabbits. In the meantime, the first two farms have been started, and we will be inseminating the females in a few weeks.

At the end of February beginning of March I spent a lot of time rehearsing with the village choir ladies. We had two performances within a short period of time, and it was kind of stressful for me, since I had to learn 8 songs within 1 week. And I didn’t even get to practice them...I heard it once, sang it once while reading the words, then went home and memorized the words, and tried to remember the melody. So I went to the concert having never actually sung some of the songs from memory. I had a bit of a freak out right before we got into the mini-bus that was to take us to the neighboring village where the concert was, but the ladies convinced me to go anyways. It turned out to be fine. We sang at the cultural activities hall, and there were about 75 people, mostly younger kids and older ladies, but a few adult men who part of a music group. It was a very casual and laid-back atmosphere, and afterward the men struck up an impromptu band and we danced a bit. Then just as we were leaving in the mini-bus (really just a large van), the 6 men in the music group crammed themselves in an started passing out chunks of bread with salami and vodka shots. Classic.

The social worker with whom I used to share an office has gone on maternity leave now. She’s due in May! I’m working on knitting a blanket for the baby, but it’s very slow going. I’m getting help from the home ec teacher at the school. I thought that it was going to be very sad at work now without her, but her replacement is another very nice lady, and we have already become quite good friends. She has already invited me over for lunch a few times, and a couple days ago I met her husband. He said he has been waiting a long time to talk to me because it is the first time he has ever talked with a ‘live’ American. So I spent about 4 hours answering all of his questions and looking at all the pictures in their house...about 500 hundred or so. And he showed me who was in each one and what the occasion was. It actually was pretty interesting when there were old black and white photos of him and his dad and grandpa in the Soviet army.

I suppose that’s about all I got for now...numai bine!