One of the things about being a Peace Corps Volunteer is living my life in a fishbowl. Just like any small town in America it seems everyone knows everyone. I’m the new guy in town, and an American. I can pretty safely assume everything I do will be known by everyone. I can also assume people I don’t know are watching me and trying to figure me out. This isn’t all that new for me because: I lived in a small town growing up; I was homeschooled back when it wasn’t popular; and I was always different because my family traveled the country with a national motorsport. Why am I blogging about this? I get the feeling there are quite a few people checking out my blog (or I just have an over inflated ego) and I’m curious who.

So, please leave a comment with your name so I can have an idea of who the heck reads my ramblings. It will also serve to either help my over inflated ego or shatter it when I find out I’m the only one that reads this.

In other news. I’m really liking my host family. They are hilarious so we joke around a lot. Sometimes they even get my jokes. It’s also been a lot of fun to sit around and look at the photo album of my host dad and his brother’s time in the USSR military. We joke about how they were working to take over America and the world.

One more day here and I’m back to Chisinau for a conference and Thanksgiving dinner!

Thanks! Don’t forget to comment.

As of yesterday I’m officially a Peace Corps Volunteer. The swearing in ceremony was large, attended by probably 300 people including embassy staff, training host families, partners, and the media. For those of you wondering, I didn’t trip when walking across the strange. Some of the volunteers sang and danced. For the benefit of all humanity, I did neither.

After swearing in my partner drove me home. Just after leaving Chisinau the car started shaking a little bit. We pulled over and the driver checked out the problem by kicking the tires, scratching he head, and finally kicking the tire right to determine the left front tire could move forward and back about a half inch. While he was checking it out I decided I would take a look myself (I kinda value living.) Sure enough the left front CV, Ball Joint, and other assorted parts were just plain worn out. Earlier they (partner and driver) mentioned “magazine” (store) so I assumed they knew about the problem and we would stop at a repair shop and have it taken care of. They didn’t, we made it home without incident.

The most interesting thing about the ride home is when I was informed of a slight change. I wasn’t going to be living with the mayor but with another host family. This in and of itself isn’t that big of a deal, with the exception of not having the glory of living with the mayor,  except that two days prior we filed the paper work for my residency and work permit. I guess I’ll have to redo those. This family is one that I visited on my previous visit. My host dad Ion has a fruit dryer which  he built. My host mom Lilia teaches history at the school. I have two host brothers 17 and 14 years old. The house is really nice. I have a washing machine, bath, hot water, gas heat, and …. and outhouse. Oh, being the genious that I am, I forgot a bag at the hotel. It has been found and is safe at the PC office. I’ll have to bring it with me back from the Thanksgiving conference next week.

My partner was gone today so I spent most of the day organizing my room and massive amounts of papers given to me throughout training. Since it is such a nice day I also took a walk through the village. It was interesting. I am the first volunteer here so most people don’t know what the Peace Corps is. My host mom also pointed out that most of the older people were educated under the soviet system which taught that all Americans are evil. I get to work on changing that perception and saying hi and introducing myself in broken Romanian hopefully is a good start. Tonight my partner is going to introduce me to our disco tech. Tomorrow we are supposed to talk about the plan for the next while and what I will be doing.

On an unrelated topic, I received two packages last week! My mom sent my boots, smartwool socks, lint rollers (4 – I asked for 1 ), a bunch of magazines, and fire balls. The fire balls provided the most entertainment because it seems my host family doesn’t like hot food. My sister took one, not knowing what it was and I wasn’t going  to tell her. After about a minute she started making weird faces and looked to be in pain. It was great! Of course every other family member had to try one and had the same reaction. I coolly ate two. The second package was from Sarah K (and crew?). It included a bunch of candy, season 1 of Lost, and a handful of things I asked her to throw in when I heard she was sending a package. It was great to receive the packages. Feel free to keep them coming

BTW, I have a new phone number: My new number is 001 - 373 – 079-095511. It doesn’t work in my house though so if you would like my land line phone please E-Mail me.