Ploiesti Times

As of February 19, 2007 I have left for the Peace Corps. I am currently in training in a town called Ploiesti, 60 miles north of Bucharest. I will be here for language and development training until the 1st week of May and then to my permanent site for two years. I find out my permanent site and assignment on Friday March 30th.

I have been living with a Gazda (host) family since Sunday, February 26th. They are a younger couple (Dana and Cornel Farcas) , in their 40s with an 11 yr old son (Chiprian). When I go to my permanent site, I will live with a Gazda again for one month and then will have my own place after that.

What have I been doing up until now? Here is what my schedule looks like on a daily basis:
Breakfast; cheese, bread, salami, some kind of cheese sometimes pork spread, tea and sometimes coffee.
Transportation: Usually walk to school since it is my only exercise and usually takes me about 1 hr (or I can take two busses). A group of us and specifically myself live the furthest from school, on the South Side.
School; we share a school with a gradeschool and sometimes its havoc, close to anarchy.
8:30 until 12:30 - language training from and it is intense.
10:30 break - Gogosi time! sweet bread with a filling with sugar on it. Tradition with our group.
12:30-1:30 Lunch - 2 sandwhiches; 1 butter and/or cheese and 1 ham. One piece of fruit (apple or bannana or orange).
1:30 - 5:00 usually development training or we go to our practicum group. we are all assigned a temporary project to work on in Ploiesti.
5:00 - 7:00 study cafe, quick bite sometime, start walking home.
7:30 - Dinner: Ciorba (soup) everyday with another meat dish and sometimes the traditional small glass of tsuika (like sake to Japan).
8:30 - ? study, grab a drink, hop online, misc.
11:00 or so - sleep

Practicum Project:
Currently I am working with CDE an NGO (non-government organization) that is a micro-lending house that provides small loans to individuals in agriculture. Usually these people cannot apply for a loan at a bank since they don't have enough collateral or their repayment schedule would need to start after they sell their crops. My partner and I are currently translating a brochure to English as well as creating a powerpoint presentation for them since they have no English material. They needs this since they have non-romanian speaking sponsors at times visiting them and they don't have a common medium that they can use which is most of the time English (which is what they know if they don't know Romanian). This group is really committed to helping the very small businesses. It is very interesting to see how micro-finance works in a developing community.

Some additional notes:

Went hiking in Perdeal which is part of the Carpethian Mountains.

Only been to Bucharest a couple of times.

Weekends we usually have to ourselves.
The weekend of March 30th, I will be in Pitesti with Habitat for Humanity (this is where I will probably be digging ditches).
La Revedere for now !

My Romanian phone number: 0751584850

dial 011-407-515-848-50 from the States to call or text

you can text message me at this address or call if you feel like it.