I recently had a seminar on AIDS/HIV (for older students) with Viorica and we will have another seminar (for teachers) on breast cancer, Thursday. I need to spend a lot of time with her and Valentina these next few weeks solidifying our topics for next semester's classes.


This past weekend in Chisinau was nice. All of the volunteers cooked for a large post-Thanksgiving meal. We ate together and had good times. A new (well, quite possibly the first of its kind) mall was built in Moldova:

Some sort of animated view that is very much like the real thing.

"Malldova" on the outside before construction was finished...

I went with some of the other girls last Saturday to check it out. The mall looks identical to something new and modern that you would find at home. I really liked it, but at the same time something about it rubs me the wrong way. It's beautiful with marble floors and new stores with tons of expensive merchandise... glass elevators and escalators to take you up and down the four stories. Everyone hanging out there appears to be from the upper crust of Moldovan society. I think the segregation that still exists in Moldova becomes more evident when you go from Malldova to the village in one day. I spent the night with my friend, Terri, in her village near Chisinau. Her mom told me I speak with a lot of slang words... Hah. Terri hasn't learned many of the words I use because people speak more properly where she lives. I sometimes don't know what is slang and what isn't slang. The kids use an interesting mix of vocabulary in the classroom and Viorica's slang is out of control... so I speak country bumpkin Romanian as my second language. I wonder if I'll be able to communicate with anyone in Romania if I travel there. Anyway, it was interesting meeting Terri's host parents and speaking with them about their lives, random subjects, etc. I will elaborate on that later, I'm sure.

I submitted my request form for vacation over December and I am counting the days until I fly out. My program manager has kind of given me a hard time about the permission forms for taking a vacation, but I think things will be fine. I've also been given a hard time by my program manager about wanting to participate with the GLOW camp. I don't see them denying me permission in participating, but it's still kind of stressing me out. There are just a lot of limitations in what activities volunteers can participate in and during what days or time period they can participate. Everything is okay, I've just felt kind of down recently and feel like I need a week or two outside of Moldova. Germany is going to be amazing. Johanna's mom sent me an email telling me they're excited about my visit which is really sweet. I actually have another friend, Raphael, who is currently working on his Masters at Johanna's university in Karlshure (sp?). He studied at NCSU the year before Johanna came to Raleigh and we became good friends after both living in Wolf Village. He wants me to visit him in Karlshure and/or Johanna and I can spend new year with him and his friends. I haven't seen him in a year and a half so that would be cool. It's going to be a great vacation.