So. The worst has happened. I kept putting off and putting off writing another blog post and suddenly, 6 weeks have passed and I am ashamed of how many stories I have begun writing and walked away from. Well, never fear! I am getting my act together (or so I say now) and finding my way onto your Facebook timelines once again.
Without further ado, salut! We have wrapped up our sixth week of pre-service training and are hot and heavy in our daily preparations for practice school that started on Monday. Friday morning we met our resource teachers, the ones who will be advising us for the next two weeks on everything we need and want to know about lesson planning, direct teaching, and co-teaching. After a few morning sessions and lunch, we were able to sit down with our resource teachers and take some time to go over what we will be tackling in the next two weeks. My RT (Diana) is absolutely lovely; obviously talented, seemingly practical in her approach to teaching, and full of tips and tricks for me. I am increasingly excited to soak up all of her advice and feel very lucky to be under her care for the time being. I will be teaching something like 18 lessons during practice school to the 4th form (28 students and counting...) with separate lesson plans and activities for each. It seems like a mountain to climb, but accomplishment awaits at the finish line.
In the midst of all of this preparation and regular 8:00-5:30 sessions, I have been becoming more comfortable in my new home each day. So much so that last Monday, I asked mama mea gazdă if I could bake a cake for my friend Megan's birthday (which was fast approaching and to whom I had already promised said cake). Thankfully, mama gazdă said yes! I was told I was to use the bucătărie de vară (summer kitchen) which sits at the back of our garden, next to our duck enclosure. I enrolled my friends to come to the magazine with me to buy ingredients. I knew where exactly one thing I needed was: the powdered sugar. Armed with this powerful knowledge, I walked confidently into the magazine and straight to the familiar shelf and grabbed my powdered sugar bag. At this point I was feeling good; smooth, smart, suave... and then I joined Katie at the fridge to get the milk and butter. Honestly, who knew how many varieties of butter-looking cubes there would be staring back at me through those glass doors? Katie and I stood baffled for a moment before she took out her phone and tried using the camera feature of google translate to figure out what exactly all of these cubes were. Unfortunately for us, this did not yield the kind of results we were looking for, and after what probably felt like 4 very long minutes to the women working that day, two employees approached us and asked us what we needed. After some confusion about whether I wanted margarine or butter, and me somehow explaining that I was making frosting for a cake, she assured me that I was looking for butter and proceeded to tell me which was the best one. After seeing the price for the best one, I asked for the most "așa-și-așa" one and we settled on one in a shiny gold package. The other employee helped Katie find the bagged milk that was hiding on a low shelf out of sights, and the women could've left us to our own devices with a good conscious. However, the woman who helped me, who happened to be one of the regular cashiers for us when we grab self-care snacks, asked what else I needed and walked me through the store to find it. She helped me find non-expired cocoa powder, locate the baking soda, and decide on the vanilla powder. She tried her hardest to convince me that I didn't need both baking powder and baking soda (and that if I used baking soda then I needed to use vinegar) but I convinced her that I needed them both, though only after agreeing to also buy the vinegar.
The day after our shopping excursion, I was able to bake for the first time in 6 weeks. I can't remember the last time I went without baking for that long... maybe college? Anyhow I successfully baked a Repp-family chocolate cake under the watchful eyes of my friends (just kidding, they were eating placintă and deciding how short to cut Anna Maria's hair), made up a chocolate frosting, and left my cake to sleep overnight and await my return to the summer kitchen the next evening. All turned out deliciously, and thank goodness for that because we deserved it after Katie led us on a "short 15-minute inclined walk" that felt more like walking up a mountain for a half hour... though she has since been forgiven. We were met with spectacular views along the way and greeted a horse and her foal just as we rounded the corner to our destination. We spent much of the evening enjoying each others company, delving deeper into our lives (and our tattoos) and eating a majority of the cake after devouring a hodgepodge picnic dinner. About an hour into our celebration and after we bid our neighboring village trainees (Hannah and Lindsey) farewell, the volunteer who had spent the last two years in our training village came out of the forest and greeted us. He came down the hill and through the trees a multiple times, accompanying a new guest with each treacherous trek through the trees. On the last visit, the mayor's wife joined him and invited us to the masa in honor of the mayor's birthday. Long story short, we climbed the steep hill to the masa, sang happy birthday to the mayor- to whom we gifted the rest of the cake, which was received happily by the guests. As I remember it, one gentleman said, "I don't want to dance because I would rather eat this cake". Taking that one as a win.
After my success with the cake and few long days of sessions and training, my host mom decided to make pizza. She asked if I wanted to join her in the summer kitchen as she prepared it and I trailed behind her with my three host cats through the garden to a welcoming chair near the stove. Soon after I sat down, however, she realized she needed more cheese. So she asked, "Are you tired? Are you hungry?", to which I answered a decisive, "yes", and she responded with, "Go buy cheese for pizza, then we will eat sooner and you will go to sleep sooner". I couldn't argue with her logic nor turn down an opportunity to practice my Romanian at the local magazine. I checked with her about 8 times that I just needed to ask for "cașcaval pentru pizza" (cheese for pizza) and she assured me that that was all I needed to know. As always, she was right, though I threw in a "eu am 30 lei" (I have 30 lei) just in case I was handed a cheese that did not match the money I was given to run this errand. I was absolutely chuffed with myself for completing my task correctly and quickly, and I was in bed before 10 that night.
My host parents have had their daughter visiting from Portugal for a few weeks now and I welcome the life that my host niece and nephew bring to the house. If you've ever attended a holiday with the Repps, it will come as no surprise that I feel comfortable in familial chaos. I adore my host family and my fellow village trainees and am already feeling the pang of having to leave them in a few short weeks to settle into yet another home.
That's all for now! I will try not to leave it so long next time.
Love to all from Moldova x
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