pictures of my new nephew Chase Ethan Alex Reitmeyer? Well, merry Christmas! I have shared them with everyone in the office, but not with you. He was born December 15, he was 7 pounds 13 oz, 21 inches long, and he is just the most adorable baby I’ve ever seen. He has lots of hair. [...]
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Until about a month ago, I thought I had learned everything about the things I needed in my life. In Peace Corps, I had learned to live in a smaller space that some people would say was falling apart. The paint was peeling (lead based, we’re guessing … may cause more problems in the future), [...]
So, I don’t think I talk enough about what we actually do here. As a community development volunteer, my job is capacity building. I don’t really help people; I teach them ways that they can help themselves. One of the ways I am trying to do this is through a community playground build in Orhei. [...]
This video is one that has been floating around the Facebook pages lately. Watch it before reading on please. The rest of this will make a lot more sense. For you, the most interesting thing is probably all of these things sound strange, exotic,and even a little romantic. For me, it’s interesting to hear what [...]
Well today was the first day of school again for me. I took some pictures so expect a post soon with details about the “first bell” ceremony. I won’t get into that now, just thought I’d share a conversation I had with one of my new classes. As usual, the class was more interested in [...]
So, some of you might know this, but we recently had a summer art camp. Actually, that’s not entirely true, we actually had two summer art camps. Our initial plan was to have an art camp in our city and then one in a nearby village that is host to a friend of ours. Unfortunately, [...]
Well, it is surprisingly easy to get caught up in your service and completely neglect your blog, so please forgive us. For me, it is summer now which means no school to occupy my time. You might think that would give me all sorts of free time to write posts and be social. As much [...]
We returned last night around 9:30 on Monday night from our (unexpectedly extended) trip to Poland and Ukraine. The train ride from Chisinau to Warsaw was around 36 hours and left at 8:00 on Friday. Our little car was made up of five passengers (including us and the attendant) as we piggy-backed across Ukraine and [...]
Tim and I are working on a project that involves making puppets for a weekly story hour. We have come to an impasse about what kind of puppets these should be. So, we thought we would let you guys decide. We are going for the most interesting and interactive puppets for first and second graders [...]
Another PCV posted this video, and I’ve already cried twice today while watching it. I thought I would share it and let you guys know that you’ve got about one year and four months to get your acts together. Music, choreography, and all. We expect nothing less when we step off that plane in Grand [...]
We moved into our new apartment Friday. It has been a brief weekend affair, but we are in love. We began searching for an apartment several months ago because we were starting to feel the squeeze of living in someone else’s house. This was nothing against our host family. They are a very loving older [...]
Last Wednesday Tim and I hosted a writing competition in one of the local high schools. The competition is an international writing competition held in several Peace Corps countries, and it is called the International Writing Olympics. Each student had one hour to respond to one of three prompts from his or her grade level. [...]
…Jill, his wife! Obviously, the title is to be sung to the theme of The Jetsons. Anyway, Friday was very exciting day for the country of Moldova as it had a visit from none other than Vice President Biden and Dr. Biden, as well as their 12 year old granddaughter. Peace Corps volunteers got to [...]
I almost forgot. Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! Tim and I trade off every year who plans the surprise for whom, and this year is Tim's year. It's not exactly a surprise, I was offered a choice between fake Jimmy John's subs (complete with avocado spread) and the new Greek restaurant in town. While I love [...]
As it has made its way through the official (headquarters) and unofficial (gossip mill) Peace Corps channels, I am happy to announce now that I have officially changed my program. I am no longer and English Education volunteer, but rather and Community and Organizational Development volunteer in Moldova. I am working with an organization called [...]
To be honest, when I first heard I was coming to Moldova and where it was located, I envisioned nearly year-round snow and a landscape that can only be described as arctic. Well, as far as summer and fall go, I was way off. Now, with the heart of winter upon us (at least as [...]
I’m sure you all heard that today, Sergeant Shriver passed away at the age of 95. He was the first director of the Peace Corps, and I have been very moved reading about his life of service today. It is nice to hear about the beginnings of the Peace Corps and remind me of why [...]
Well, in Peace Corps there are three types of people. People who complain about the things they don’t have People who have people send them the things they don’t have People who make the things they don’t have We happen to be in that third group. This comes in handy with food very often, but [...]
Sorry my last post was such a bummer. If you’re here to find out what PC is about, that is definitely one of the aspects of it. One day you feel like you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be and the next you’re ready to sign the papers to go home early. You hate going [...]
I’ve been bad at updating this lately, so let’s just pretend this is all I’m going to write until springtime comes. Then we’ll all be pleasantly surprised if I write anything sooner. If you have anything specific you want to know about, leave a question in the comments, and I’ll respond with a post. I [...]
I hope you are all enjoying an excellent feast with food, family, and friends overflowing from your table today. This is not our first Thanksgiving away from home. As far as married years, it’s quickly becoming a tradition to be traveling instead of at home. That doesn’t mean we’re missing any of you any less. [...]
So recently we’ve been enlightened to a new delicious drink. Apparenty there’s a three day window in the wine-making process where the grapes have begun to fermet just slighty, but not enough to be alcohol yet. When this happens it creates a sort of grape juice that is very sweet and slighty sour at the [...]
Here are our bagels that we made while they were cooking. Not too bad, huh? Here are the bagels after cooking. I was just happy with how they turned out so I wanted to brag about them on the blog. Here is me making the wine. This is one of several barrels of this size [...]
So as Bre alluded to in her last post, wine-making season has come and now gone. There were about two or three weeks where all anyone would talk about was their grapes and their plans with the picking and processing of said grapes. We got a sort of trial experience of being Moldovan as we [...]
That’s not a euphemism, by the way. So, yesterday we were getting ready for our afternoon run. Mama gazda was making the wine for the year (more to come on that later), and there were a lot of people around the yard helping. People were coming in and out of the gate, and I saw [...]
to say the least. I’m sorry neither of have managed to post in more than nearly four weeks. I’m not making excuses, but the pace of life definitely isn’t slower here. I thought it would be just because it’s Peace Corps, but I’m not in Peace Corps. I’m in Posh Corps. I have my own [...]
September 1 was the first day of school in Moldova. It is also a national holiday which translates to “The First Bell.” All of the students gathered in the courtyard of the school for a ceremony. There were speeches by the principal, and every 5th grader was given a rose by an upperclassman. Then they [...]
Well, school has started and so far everything has been good. I have three partner teachers and I teach 18 hours of classes, consisting of 7,8,9,10, and 12th grades (or form, as it is called here). My 12th form class is actually taking English as their second foreign language, with French being their first. Most [...]
Now that we are at our permanent site, things are very different than they were in Răzeni. Răzeni was a small town with roughly 6000 people (The actual number living there is unknown due to people working abroad) and our new city is a raion center (A capital city). One perk of this is that [...]
We are officially Peace Corps Volunteers! As of Wednesday, we are no longer trainees. We had our swearing in ceremony on Wednesday afternoon with the ambassador, our country director, and some other very important people in Peace Corps. Our oath was even the one the U.S. President takes when he is sworn in, because we [...]
We have uploaded a bunch of new pictures to the flickr account. Please take a look at them (P.S. You can always see our pictures on the right side of the screen, down a little ways).
8/1/2010 Moldova: Day 51 As July comes to an end, we have had a pretty intense two weeks. It will stay intense for the next two weeks, and then we will swear in as official volunteers. Currently, we are trainees. Anyway, last week was stressful because we had three projects due. We were required to [...]
Tim is not comfortable putting up some details about our permanent sites and family for security reasons, so I will try to respect that as much as possible. That being said, I’m sure some of you read the last post and thought “Well that was vague.” So I’ll try to remedy that a little while [...]
A few things have happened since my last post. Those that check regularly will notice it has been a while since our last update and that is not without reason. We have had a few major events in our Peace Corps life take place. The first thing to happen was our site announcement. This is [...]
I have wanted to write this post for a while, but I haven’t had the time yet. Fortunately, Sundays are often a slow day so here it goes. One of my biggest concerns for coming in the Peace Corps was having to compromise my vegetarian diet. I have been one since I was 10, and [...]
7/3/10 Moldova: Day 23 First of all … Happy Birthday Grampie! I miss you, and I wish I could see you on your birthday. Light a sparkler for me, and have a great day. I had an amazing time tonight with my host family. My host sister, father, mother, and Tim and I went to [...]
I don’t have much of an update for today but I thought I’d share some pictures/slight news for everyone. There are a few new animals at casa mea gazda (my host house). The first was a few nights ago we decided that the cat was pregnant. The next afternoon we were walking home from class [...]
6/20/10 Moldova: Day 10 Honestly, looking back on last night, the bar scene really isn’t my thing. My favorite part of the night was walking home and seeing how clear the stars were. I would much rather sit around talking with a group of people than dance the night away. It has been hard to [...]
Notice: If you are interested in Skyping with us and you are willing to get up early, we will try to be on Skype every weekday from 1:00-2:00 here. That’s 6:00-7:00 a.m. EST. I know that’s early, and we’re trying to figure something else out. We don’t have internet at our house, and it is [...]
By the way, you should expect updates to be in the style of the below two posts. They will be updates in review, probably a few days old and even more probably in bulk. I don’t have time every day to go to the wifi zone that is located at our school so Bre and [...]
Spoons is a universally wonderful game. And by universal, I mean the places we have been. It has yet to be tested in Australia, South America, Africa, Antarctica, and by unknown life forms. We will see it sweep the world, as we have singlehandedly brought it to Asia and Europe. I’m sure people have played [...]
Buna ziua! (good day!) As I type this we are finishing our first Monday at our PST (Pre-Service Training) site. We are having a wonderful time with our host family. Their home is beautiful and they are more than generous. I will be somewhat limited on details regarding our PST city or our host family [...]
Thailand has several monikers. Among them are the land of the free, due to its history free of colonization. It is also called the land of smiles. If you had to ask me what I enjoyed the most about Thailand, I think it was the smiles. The scenery was beautiful with its mountains, beaches, and [...]
Today marks (I think) our halfway point in Thailand. If anyone is following the conflicts going on here, you’ve seen the exact same amount of trouble as we have. If it weren’t for the internet I’d hardly know there is even any sort of problems here. Even the time we spent in Bangkok was uneventful [...]
I’ll bet that this isn’t exactly what Moldova would like to be remembered for, but it I just thought people might be interested to know that this is a product of Moldova. The person in the video is not, he’s from New Jersey or something, but the song, “Dragostea din tei”, is the biggest hit [...]
Up until recently, I would have told you that one of the many reasons I would be happy about getting an invitation is that it means that most of the paperwork is done. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy filling out a good form, but if you are applying, don’t think that getting all your [...]
I just wanted to get on here and thank everyone at my work for being so supportive and understanding about all of this. I never could have imagined the amount of praise and support I am receiving for essentially quitting my job. It’s possible that this shows that I’m not very good at my job, [...]
I wanted to (and may still at some point) put this in some sort of fancy graphical format, but since our site is hosted on wordpress.com, they don’t allow us to post javascript code due to the malicious things that people could do using it. They also don’t allow flash, but that’s not a problem [...]
If anyone is interested in reading the handbook for family and friends, it is available online. We only have one copy, so if you absolutely want a hard copy, you will have to start a chain letter of some sort. Maybe you can sort it out in the comments. Here is the online copy: http://multimedia.peacecorps.gov/multimedia/pdf/faf/homefront.pdf
Bre doesn’t know this yet since she is at work, but when I came home for lunch I saw this sitting by our door! Expect lots of new information when we open it later.
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