Looking Back

A year ago I was just about to graduate college, now I am in Romania at the end of the first four months of my Peace Corps service. After finishing my group’s In-service training conference, I look back on the past seven months. So much has changed since I first left my home in Arizona that early Tuesday morning at the end of May. It seems like a lifetime ago. I have traveled half way across the world and lived through great hardship. Three months living in the house of strangers who don’t understand your language was far from easy. Living through days that started at 8:40 am and ran until 5 pm, and eating Romanian food, which disgusts me to no end, has added to the struggle of my first months in Romania but I came through it. My Pre-service training days are gone now, along with the food, the long days and the uncertainty of living with a Gazda or host family. I survived it all. After concluding my In-Service training, a week long conference of language lessons, cultural lessons and technical sessions I see now some of the things I can do better. In the past months of teaching I have found myself struggling to figure out everything from how to remember my kids names, how to discipline them to how do I teach without the help and support of a permanent counterpart? I am hoping with this new knowledge, as well as the understanding that I am not alone in my struggles, will help in the coming months. Time has gone by so fast it is hard to believe all that I have been through. My group has past the point of no return, we are no longer uncertain trainees, we are Peace Corps Volunteers with at least some experience.



To Group 27

To those of you who will be joining us this coming May and have come across my blog while looking for information on Peace Corps Romania, I strongly encourage you to look at the archive of this blog. In the archive, you will find postings about PST and your training site, as well why to pack light. Right now I will advise you to spend a great deal of time with those you love and rest up because you have a wild ride ahead. Remember the other members of your group are going through the same things you are and for the 27 months of your service, they will be some of your best resources. You can also turn to members of the other groups and the PC Romania staff. PST goes by faster then you can image and before you know it you will be at site and beginning your services.