Today has been very exciting! I woke up early and found BBC in English on my radio--(always a good hour when it's in English)--so was able to hear John McCain's concession speech and other updates. It was strange not being in the US for the election, but I voted absentee--hope it was counted--and spent some time speaking with people in my village about the election. My family and others have asked me how I feel about the election, candidates, etc. I've tried to stay relatively neutral since I represent PC, but it's kind of hard when you're happy. One or two people in my village that have asked me about the election expressed interest in Obama... my partner's husband described him as being the more progressive choice.

I came into Chisinau today to do a little bit of grocery shopping, clothing shopping (in the loot-me bin in PC office...I'm building a new wardrobe with past volunteers' donations), and vorbire/conversation with our safety and security man + medical.
Good news: I do not have anemia. That's nice. I started preparing my own meals at the beginning of this month and I am incredibly happy. I think I will start paying my family for bread, though, because they make fresh and it's delicious. As far as produce, cabbage, apples, and carrots should be available fresh during the winter months. I have a lot of apples in our cellar and cabbage is incredibly inexpensive. $0.20 for a head. I made some yummy soup the other day. Hrisca (not sure what this is in English, but it's like a rice?), carrots, cabbage, lentils, white beans, onion, garlic, soup seasoning (thanks Mom:), curry powder. It was delicious. The unfortunate new news is that our refrigerator is broken. I think the motor broke when my host mom and grandma moved it from my bedroom to the kitchen area in my casa mica. The good news is that winter is approaching and if my family can't afford to buy a new refrigerator for a bit, I can leave things outside. I usually just fix enough for one meal.

During the past few weeks I've had the chance to visit my friend Suzanne in her village, and my friend Rebecca came this past weekend to visit with me. Visiting Suzanne was cool. She's probably my closest friend here. Her village is about 20-30 min from Chisinau and looks very suburbian. Rebecca lives in a Rayon center (a larger city that surrounds villages) and shares an apartment with a family. I don't think I realized how out-there I am until I visit Suzanne and then gave Rebecca directions into my village. "You take a bus to Sangeri about an hour and a half from Chisinau... then you get off at an intersection with a gas-station by another village... and then you hitch hike and go about 20 minutes down a dirtroad that leads you to what is Pepeni." Oh, Pepeni. The hitch hiking I could do without and try to do without when I can find a bus. There's usually no other way. The other day a man asked me for 100 lei when I tried to hitch hike out of the village. It's usually 5 lei. At least now I speak well enough now that I can say to people I'm foreign, but I'm not stupid.

Life at home is going well... except that there is a leak in my soba and my Carbon Monoxide detector went off the other night. Sigh. My Moldovan home-life needs to stop being so colorful. I don't think I can handle moving again so hopefully this can be fixed. I spoke with someone in security about this today. I've been sleeping in the main house the past couple of nights, but I have to find a bedroom with a soba where I can sleep once it starts getting colder. My mom is going to try to patch up the chimney because we think the soba is leaking gas and smoke from where the soba reaches the ceiling in my bedroom. It's nice and cozy and warm... but CO is kind of a big deal.

All is well with work. This week we're on vacation from school. I prefer to be in class with more things to do. I spent one day planning with Viorica and will also plan with her more tomorrow. Viorica is quite the side-kick. I need a few hours to sit down and type about our experiences together. I can't begin to describe the interesting conversations and interactions I've had with her. My stories are becoming legendary in my circle of volunteer friends. I had my site visit by Peace Corps and it went awesome... so that's good. I think she's feeling very motivated to work and I like that. We're still working on the corporul punishment issue, but she's kind of calmed down a bit. Everything has been anticlimatic since I took a stick away from her in class. Sticks are for trees, not for hitting children.

I hate always being on a run when I get to Chisinau. I have to wrap this up and make sure I catch my bus so I don't have to hitch hike into Pen in the dark. It gets dark around 5:30 now which isn't fun. Another one of my volunteer friends has decided to leave PC and go back to the states so that's kind of a downer. A lot of our friends in the group have gone home since June. PC presents a lot of interesting and highly stressful situations... in work and living. I can't blame anyone for what they decide to do... whether they stay or decide it's not for them. My friend who is leaving had a very difficult time integrating into his community and one of his partners quit working with him while the other told him that she didn't need him there. (As an interesting side-note this partner also thought that PC was a conspiracy to slowly form a US Army in Moldova that would eventually attack Russia). Each person's experience and the situations they are put into are so different. It's like a grab bag. That's exciting, right?

We'll talk soon. Thanks for the updates, everyone!