A lot has happened since the last time I posted on this blog and I thank everyone that has contributed to the Peace Corps Basketball League. You have been the best and helped run the best basketball season in Peace Corps Moldova HISTORY! We not only had more entries to the basketball league, but a longer season in terms of games and weeks, more collaboration with FBRM (the professional basketball league here), and the highest funding ever with around $3,800 donated!!! Thanks again.

Well, since that time, I’d like to update you on a couple of things that happen.

1) Dinner with the US embassy
2) Victory Day (End of WWII in Europe)
3) A HIV/AIDS concert by Jessica Ginger (PC Health Volunteer)

The Embassy Dinner
(I'm in the back, can you see me?)

The Edinet Police giving their respects

The morning speech from the town hall

The Lenin statue still stands tall during the speech

The veterans make their way to the ending ceremony

The town follows close behind

There's about 17 thousand people living in Edinet and a lot came to
give their respects to their fellow soldiers that fell in the second World War

The lady statue looks over everyone

The military gives their respects too
(They are the ones with the green hats)

The veterans give their respects

The priests help carry out the moment of silence

At the end, others can approach the memorial

In the background, the church choir sings for the dead

Start of the Drochia HIV/AIDS concert
Pictures taken from Jessica Ginger's Blog

JKC (PC Director) and Jessica Ginger before the concert

The Moldovan kids preparing for the concert

Jam-packed room full of support
Traditional Moldovan dancers

Traditional Russian Dancers

The final Mamaliga eating contest
(Chris M. in the middle won the contest)

Well, that's it for my blog update. Next to come... basketball articles and pictures with my trip to the Balkans. Hurray!!!

PC Basketball League

The Edinet Crew - Thanks you!

As some of you may already know, one of the projects I've been working on in Moldova is leading a team of high school basketball players in my village. In March and April, they'll be playing a five-week season against other teams in their part of the country, and they might go on to the championship in Chisinau. It's an important project because kids here don't have a chance to play organized sports like we do in America, so they miss an opportunity to learn values like teamwork and responsibility.

In order for us to play our season, though, we need your help. Through the Peace Corps Partnership Program, we have written a grant for the league through which you can help finance the league's transportation cost. The total project costs over $9,000, so we need all the help we can get. Your tax-deductible donation will pay for the transportation costs for over 30 teams; Moldovans have paid for every other necessity, including equipment costs, referee salaries,
gym usage and other expenses, by themselves. Moldovans have already contributed over $3,000 to the project, and we suggest that you help them, and specifically my team, by contributing $50 today by clicking on the link below:

PC Moldova Basketball League

Just press the "Contribute to this Project!" link

Then you enter the amount you want to donate in the box next to Moldova National Basketball League (Project # 261-151).

This will lead you to a new window where you will enter your information and confirm your contribution.

You can also call the Peace Corps' Washington office and donate at
(800) 424-8580 ext 2170. Tell them that you want to donate to the
Moldovan National Basketball League, project 261-151.

Thank you in advance for helping me, my team of kids and basketball
in Moldova.

Thanking again

The Bardar Group looking good at the Thanksgiving Feast

Almost 400 years ago, the first American colonists came to American and had their first official dinner with Native Americans to celebrate the new harvest and all the joy that it will bring them in the upcoming year.

The tradition of Thanksgiving might have stemmed from this, but the meaning of Thanksgiving is different for each person. For some, this time has become a time of giving thanks to God. For others, it is a time of gathering with family and friends. For me, the meaning has changed tremendously. I never really put any value into this holiday, but ever since I became a Peace Corps (PC) volunteer, the value that I put in this holiday has increased tremendously. Each year, Peace Corps gives all its volunteers one opportunity to gather together (free of charge) to meet, eat, and have fun with each other. A rare opportunity for most and for most people, it is the only opportunity to meet the younger volunteers or meet the older volunteers that are about to leave.

As an older volunteer, I had the fortune of already having many established friendships in Peace Corps, which made this year so much more meaningful than it did last year. As great as it is to meet new volunteers and share in their newfound enthusiasm for Moldova, this time was spent catching up with my friends, sharing problems, and enjoying each others company as much as possible. You can chuck all of this sappiness to my mid-service blues or my old age, but this week just had a special taste to it (and it wasn’t the turkey either – which I still don’t eat). I didn’t even have to urge to go out to the discoteca (club!). I had just as much fun hanging out with my friends, singing songs, drinking and telling stories. Simple stuff, but enough to bring back my excitement for this place.

After coming back to site, it starts to hit you how connected you’ve become with certain volunteers and how you will probably miss them when you leave this country. I guess, in this way, Thanksgiving takes on a new meaning. Not of gathering with friends and family or giving praise to God, but understanding how much I’ve changing in the last year and how much Peace Corps will always be a part of my life. I can truly say that this week has given me a reason to give thanks again to being a Peace Corps volunteer and has truly revitalized my motivation. I hope that everyone else felt the same way and until next time. Peace.

Nice picture of the dining hall before the feast

Tia and I hanging out

Random photos

Well, I'm officially an insomniac and can't sleep. I've finished calling my friends from the states and now ready to do some blogging. Over the past month, I've been keeping some photos for just a special occasion. Take a look, they are pretty random, but funny nonetheless.

Here's a picture of the "I Love You Bike" ridden by a kid who buys liquor for other townspeople. By the way, this kid is no older than 14. Look at those wheels. No boy will ever have a bike without hearts now. What a trend starter, this kid...

This is a picture of what I saw from the back of my classroom as I sat in one of my tutor's Romanian classes for one day.

Going to the Republic of Moldova isn't complete unless you have played the accordion. One day, I found one laying outside my house and so I strapped that baby on and this is what I get...


After hours of boredom, I tried to use my PK (psychokinesis) for some randomness and this is my result. Don't go telling my parents that I've been mentally bending their fork. Hahaha.
Last picture and then I'm off to bed again... Just wanted to know if you were going my way.
(This picture is of me trying to hitch hike a ride back from the village of Volodeni as the local rutiera decided not to go back to Edinet this day)

Enough with the junk

As the title says, “Enough with the junk!” I know that for some time now, there hasn’t really been any important content relating to my life in the Republic of Moldova. Besides my funny Shatner jokes, there’s hasn't been anything interesting to see here, but wait! I’m going to try and help people realize that yes! I am doing work here and still trying to make a difference.

If you can remember back to my earlier posts, I mentioned a couple times about a USAID funded project called CNFA farmer-to-farmer program (where I learned to castrate a calf). Well, the second US volunteer came over about a month ago and we continued to make progress on this dairy farm to help its expansion. The first thing the volunteer did was to create a feed ration (the relative proportions of grains and minerals) that would maximize the productivity of the cows.

Food ration sheet

Next, we created an electric fence as a training area and also as a grazing area for calves and heifers alike. This was possible because John, the US volunteer, brought over an electric transmitter that we would be able to plug in to a normal 220V electrical outlet. All we had to do was put up some posts and tie up some metal wire to each other. Altogether this took about a day with the help of Ben and Nadia.

It's hard taking a picture of electric wire...

Thirdly, we create a rough sketch of what John liked to call a Homestead Plan. While I was back in my center, Ben and John took the time to measure out the distances of all the building and its surrounding in a nearby clearing. The next morning, we were able to create this lovely drawing, which to much of my pleasure, has been used by Leonid. Finally, we were able to create a silage bunker (though it turned out to me above ground and very simplistic than first planned).

The homestead plan (above) and Leonid's new silage bunker (below)

Also, I was able to host a seminar for one of my demonstration plots with the help of my co-worker, Vasile. He did all the calls and off we went to Gaspar to show people the benefits of having a drip irrigation system. Although the seminar seemed to work out smoothly, there weren’t as many people that attended as I would have liked, but the people from AgroMatico were still just as willing to demonstrate the abilities of their machinery.

Drip irrigation seminar in Gaspar with AgroMatco

The last thing I did in the past couple of months was to create a couple of logos for some organizations that some Peace Corps volunteers started. Take a look. The first one is for the Peace Corps anti-trafficking organization called MoldovaTIP and the second one was a favor for Linda, who is working to market a group called Sustaining Artisans of Moldova. The jury is still out on which logo we would like to use.

MoldovaTIP log (above) and
SAM logos (below - colors are off for this one)

Alright, I guess this is just about enough to sum up some of the things I’ve been doing. Hopefully, the next post won’t be so dry, but it’s good to make sure that people still know that I’m doing stuff and not just talking online all the time.

An Obsession with Myself (Part II)

So another night of staying up late has produced yet another freakish search about myself. As of recent, my obsession has led me to the deep depths of the free source website of wikipedia.com. How great is this site though? Really, you can find anything about everything here. Back on track though. I thought that it might be clever to figure out what my origins of my last name was on Wikipedia, only to find out that I am destined to become either a communist defector, a sci-fi freak, or an evil villain. Wait, isn’t that what I am already? Dang, wikipedia is not only an encyclopedia, it’s a fortune teller. Well see for yourself…

The first result expressed my feelings of wanting to escape from the communist mentality. The result was for a Mr. Chol-Hwan Kang, who apparently is a North Korean defector that was born in Japan. His grandfather was accused for treason when he was 9 years old and was deported back to a North Korean concentration camp. Ten years later, his family and he were released back in to Korean society, but only to be accused again of being a traitor. At that point, he would run away for real and defected to South Korea where he later wrote a book called The Aquariums of Pyongyang. Not bad!

Chol-Hwan Kang shaking hands with Mr. Bush

The next result shows how much of a sci-fi geek I am as I will always have some sort of love for Star Trek engrained into my head (no matter how much I hate it, ha!). How I love how my Klingon self is fighting William Shatner. Almost makes me proud to have a messed up forehead and bad teeth.

Die Shatner! DIE! Why can't you just DIE?

Well, lastly, I have been foretold to be an enemy of any body cool. As the last several results showed characters from Mortal Kombat, the Simpsons, and the Avengers.

kang the mad from mortal kombatkang and kudos from the simpsonskang the conqueror

That’s it for my second obsession with myself. I’m sure they’ll be more to come as boring nights are plenty and my sleep schedule is always messed up. But for right now, I need some rest. PEACE ya'll!

Outhouse CRAZY!

Well, after see how disguisting my workplace outhouse was, I've decided to also show the world the beauty and ugliness of my home toilet and outhouse. And to all those volunteers looking at these pictures, go for it! Take a picture of your outhouse. If there's enough we can make some sort of book of all the outhouses in Moldova. Wouldn't that be great? No, a little weird. Yeah, you're probably right, but whatever, here are the pictures. Enjoy!

Beauty and the Beast: How a couple of feet can make a difference?