Yes Please

Congratulations are in order for myself. I have made it seven months thus far to date in Moldova. There won’t be much celebrating though, because as it turns out my host family is away for an undetermined amount of time, I am sitting alone in my cold apartment, my internet isn’t working, and now, my Kindle doesn’t want to turn on. To top it off, I am on medication for my stomach because I picked up giardia in Turkey and now am prohibited from eating anything but rice and can’t even grab a beer if I wanted.

My vacation to Turkey was amazing. The weather was perfectly sunny when I flew into Istanbul and I spent the first day and a half lazily wandering through the city trying to take it all the new signs, sounds, and smells. I won’t get too in-depth about my vacation except that I couldn’t have picked a better place to kick back an unwind. We spent two days in Istanbul, and then traveled inland to Cappadocia where we took a hot air balloon ride over the lunar landscape. After celebrating my friend’s birthday and New Years there, we spent several days on the Aegean Sea touring Ephesus, the Virgin Mary’s House, St. John’s Basilica, etc. We ended our trip back in Istanbul and were able to finish up some shopping and enjoy some wonderful cuisine.

The hard part has definitely been coming back. Turkey has such a rich and vibrant culture, where most everyone you meet there is nice and wants to show you how beautiful their country is. The country is quite modern, and has a booming tourism industry and it shows that they know how to treat/react to the presence of foreigners. That isn’t the case in Moldova. People are quite shocked that you are here, and a lot of the time you can mistake their stoic-ness for unfriendliness. The hardest part is walking through the drab surroundings, slugging through ice and mud up to an apartment that you know will be cold, to food that you know will be bland, to conversations that you know you will not be able to understand, and all the while missing your family, your friends, your vacation, and the assurance that when you turn that water facet/light switch on, it will do exactly what you want it to.

Today has been one of the toughest days mentally to be here. Depression is a bitch, and I’m hoping that once I start working again and get my mind actively engaged that I won’t continue to feel this shitty. The killer for me is feeling so alone. I need interactions to survive. I was talking with other PC volunteers getting back from vacation, and we all agreed that we can be happy here, but it isn’t the same gratification that you get when you are back home. In the mean time, I’m grateful to be alive, healthy, and have such a great family and friends. I’ll be singing a different tune once springtime rolls around. Peace.