Finishing training

We are about 2 weeks away from being sworn in as official Peace Corps volunteers and have completed our site visits. We had a 'partner conference' with our Moldovan counterpart, the person we will be working with over the next two years.

My partner is Ilina and she is a young, motivated, and very friendly woman... we got along great and identified a few issues to address when I begin working in August. I will be working at a domestic voilence shelter and am really excited about this opportunity.

Conrad's partner is Vitalie and he is also young, ambitious, and very friendly. I'll let him describe more about that later...

In addition to meeting out new partners, we met our new host family in Chisinau, since we will be moving from the suburb of Chisinau into the city on August 5th. We really lucked out again with a very nice couple that lives in a very beautiful, updated apartment overlooking a large park. They have family that lives in the States so they spoke a little more English and they have INTERNET!! And SKYPE!! So after August 5th, we will be in better, more consistent contact!

Some other interesting things we've done since our site visit:

-Conrad cooked 'Sarmale' with our host mother

-Lindsay made apricot jam with our host mother

-Went on a wine tour in Cricova (see picture)

-Attended our host-mom's sister's birthday party

-Went to work on a project at another volunteers house on Sunday and ended up having a party (or masa) with lots of music and dancing

-Discussed with the mayor (in Romanian) about creating a 'Day of Friendship and Peace' for the children of Cricova in 2 weeks, which he was very supportive of!