Country Mouse and City Mouse

So... we spent a few days in Chisinau and then went back to the village for a little while. We really wanted the host family to let us help them with some work since Peace Corps isn't paying them anything for us to stay there anymore. I think they thought that we were joking.

The first day I was instructed to listen for the sheep to come home. Apparently all the sheep owners take turns herding them around for the day. There are probably 20 some-odd families who have sheep so two or three people from these families watch the sheep for the day and bring them home at night.

"How do I know when the sheep are home?" This was apparently a stupid question.

"You look outside the gate and if you see their heads at the gate then you let them in".

"Ok... Where do I put them when they come in?"

"You put them where the sheep live in the back of the house". Duh.

I had to get my host mom to help me with all of this and I don't think we were trusted to do things without having a chaperone from here on out. We tried to let them know that we needed things to do, that we were desperately bored and we need to learn things like gardening. Again, I feel like my request wasn't taken seriously.

Eventually we talked them into letting us help them de-kernel some corn. This can be a tough task. The corn is dried out from the year before and it can sometimes be stuck to the cob. You have to use another cob to lever the kernels off the corn cob one at a time or else your hands can get all jacked up.

Amanda was determined to fight through her hurt hands (after probably 10 cobs or so) and she wanted to show everyone that she was capable of doing work but she developed a blister. She was very brave and didn't even complain! Not until the evening anyway. She's still nursing her war wound.

Besides de-kerneling corn we didn't really get very far in our learning process. While my host mom was at work the turkeys got out along with one of the geese that the turkeys live with and we had to chase them around the garden back into their home. We bragged to my host mom about our feat but she just said thanks. We didn't try very hard to get involved after this.

We went back to the city (Chisinau) to speak to a group of Peace Corps volunteers who were getting ready to complete their service and we were able to do some networking with a few former volunteers who were on the same panel.

We were able to get a place to stay for the next week. Consequently the guy we're staying with is a "Couchsurfer". Dang it. Good thing we were doing all this awesome networking. On the other hand, it is a place to stay that is far, far away from sheep and escaped turkeys. After this week we plan to move in with a girl that one of the former Peace Corps volunteers knows named Olga. We met her and saw the apartment and it looks like a good deal.

We'll be staying in the "Riscani" region of Chisinau which is about a 20-minute bus ride from the center of town. The apartment is on the 13th floor in one of those awesomely ugly commie bloc buildings that is amazingly nice looking on the inside. In our free time we'll be volunteering at the "American Councils" language training center. When we volunteered for Peace Corps we worked with these guys on the aforementioned FLEX program.

So this is what we're up to now. I am trying to find someplace to do some grappling and maybe Jiu-Jitsu. As I understand Moldova is void of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu trainers so maybe I can get something going out here. Again. I bought some shorts in case the opportunity arises.