Staying Positive

I love this country.

I have been sick and injured for the past two weeks, solid. Pre-Service Training (PST) is stressing me out, as usual. I'm hungry, thirsty, and extremely tired. And yet, as I walked home from where the routiera dropped me off, I noticed me shadow stretched out in front of me.

I have tended to be a poet, in the past. Perhaps this is a continuing trend. In any case, I could not help but think, as I observed my casually elongated profile pacing the ground before me, that Moldova (or perhaps someOne) was trying to tell me something. For me, a poet, shadows usually symbolize memories and the past; but here, in the rural landscape of a Moldovan sunset, my shadow crosses the ground ahead of me -- the future, quite literally.

The decision to join the ranks of Peace Corps volunteers and wander off into the developing world was not an easy one, though perhaps too many of us realize this simple fact only after weeks have passed without State-side-quality sanitation, infrastructure, communication, and so forth. I joined because "it felt like the right time," and I still hold to this. But I admit, now, that I had no idea what that really meant, and means still. It means that I am in a completely different place, no matter how similar the climate, the wine, or the people. It means that I am apart from my friends and family, without whom I would have been abysmally without hope, long ago. It means that I can't go see Sigur Ros in concert, when they pass through Portland in October. It means that more responsibility and more expectations rest on my shoulders than ever before. And it means that every day is a challenge.

But seeing that shadow walking in front of me caused me to pause, and to think, and to look around. Moldova is an amazing country, and I consider myself entirely lucky to be here.

For a long time, I have wanted to live on a vineyard. Today, as I looked out over rolling hills covered with grape vines, it occurred to me that I have realized this dream, simply by living within the borders of the remarkable vineyard known as Moldova. Of course, Moldova is so much more than its wine, but this thought brightened my day. It made the particular challenges of the past two weeks seem worth the sweat.

Site Visit

I am a fairly relaxed person, as a general rule. I enjoy challenges, and I may even be known to seek them out from time to time. However, when the challenge has been exhausted or sufficient effort has been consumed to the challenge's end, I appreciate opportunities for me to kick back and decompress. Pre-Service Training (PST) in Peace Corps does not, to my inexpressible dismay, afford such opportunities.

Aside from the usual schedule of language training and cultural orientation, this weekend I was required to visit the site where I will teach English for the two years immediately following August 20. To say that the weekend was overwhelming, exhausting, bewildering, confusing, and mildly understructured would be only the most broad and polite description of my experience. Of course, I should also say that my future site is wonderful and full of innumerable avenues of potential interest. Ultimately, what made my site-visit difficult was the simple fact that I was expected to make a decision, with only a few days' investigation, about which family I prefer to be my host for the next two years -- hardly rock bottom, I know.

To make matters even more difficult, almost every family I visited was absolutely wonderful. Different, yes, but wonderful in their own ways. The differences between potential host families' houses were too often only a matter of the color of the walls and the shape of the toilet. (Perhaps that is an oversimplification. Nonetheless, the differences were menial, by my standards, indeed.)

Now, the site visit is rapidly becoming only a blurred memory of PST, and I still have very little basis for my decision. I know I chose a host family, but only by default; it was an unfortunately hasty requirement, but one that will invariably result in an interesting (and likely pleasant) experience.

Like so many other PST activities, however, the site visit has left me feeling entirely drained of energy. If I did not have such excellent support from my PST host family, from home (in USA), and from my fellow volunteers, I cannot imagine how I could continue. This continues to be an interesting, if trying, experience, and I can't wait to look back on PST with a sigh of relief.

More energetic and enlivened posts to follow, once I regain sufficient energy to see straight.

Post Script: My full report on the nature of Moldovan condensed-water-vapour economics was rejected by all reputable journals on the grounds that no such industrial sector has yet been identified by any leading economics monitoring or research organization. The editor of the Decianual Journal of Applied Atmospheric Hydrodynamics singularly respond with praise for my lovely diagrams. I stand, nonetheless, starkly offended by the lack of scholarly interest by global economics experts. I turn now to the artistic community. See below for diagrams.

Pain in my... back

The first ten weeks of my time in Moldova is being consumed by the much-appreciated and highly productive process of language acquisition and cultural integration. This is a difficult process that involves much more than simple language classes. I am often overwhelmed by the sheer mass of information being thrown at me, and by the (albeit justifiably) long hours. It is entirely common for me to return home with only enough energy to swallow some dinner before collapsing in an unmoving heap on my bed.

My host family seems to be very understanding with respect to my exhaustion. I often say to my friends (and once or twice to neighbors and my host family members, themselves) that I would stay with this host family for my entire two-year assignment, were it possible. Despite some cultural misunderstandings in the beginning, I absolutely love their approach to life. They are happy and relatively calm, which is a perfect match for me. Of course, I feel confident that my next host family will be wonderful, as well, but all change brings with it risks. It is easy to stay positive, though, when the Moldovans I interact with on a regular basis seem so pleasant and amicable.

These positivities have been essential on offsetting certain inconveniences of the past week. Not least of these has been the reinflamation of an old back injury that I had thought (read: hoped) had healed and disappeared. A couple years ago, I was involved in a (body) surfing accident in Hawaii, which injured my lower back in some apparently undiagnosable way. Despite many visits to doctors, the injury remained unidentified. Luckily, it doesn't really incapacitate me -- only slowing me down for about a week. It is almost back to normal, and I am trying to decide whether it is, in fact, the same old injury, or if it is some new ailment.

My communication with friends and family in the State* has been mixed. Some friends and family have been in regular, prompt contact, and the efforts of these individuals has not gone unappreciated (which is to say that I love them SO MUCH for saying "hello" now and then). Their messages, however long or short, are my primary emotional and psychological supports during these difficult initial months in Moldova.

It's always nice to know you are loved, even when that means you are missed. I make serious efforts to let my friends and family know that they are loved and missed, as often as possible.

And so the experience continues...