Doin' It Right

(6/19)

First off, this afternoon I passed a guy in his car listening to Timeflies’ “Doin’ it Right.” Timeflies has made it all the way from Boston to Moldova, good for them!!

Our office

I think I found my “niche” at the hospice today! While researching new developments on hospice and palliative care as well as ostomies and stoma bags, I came across a detailed description of a recent alternative to permanent stoma operations called APPEAR, or Anterior Perineal Plane for ultra-low Anterior Resection. I found the article so interesting and engaging that I ended up spending quite some time reading up on it. I would elaborate but it’s a process that might overwhelm people. I felt a bit queasy myself picturing it.  Here are the articles I was reading if you would like to look at them:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2070375/New-bowel-operation-replace-colostomies.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18438111

I walked around a different part of town today, and came across a big outdoor market with different booths selling hundreds of magnets, jewelry, paintings, and hand carved wooden statues. It was the first place I’d seen selling anything close to souvenirs! Wandering around the “central park” of Chisinau, I came across this terrific chess set! Set in front of a big white church, is a hugely proportioned chessboard and pieces. One can move the pieces around and actually play a game! Not quite at Harry Potter level, but close enough!

(6/21)

Last night I went to an EVS volunteer’s birthday party! Her name is Annely and she is so cool for just letting me come with my knowing her or anything. I walked there with Tomas, Tony, Lasse, and his girlfriend, also an EVS volunteer, Mirjam, from Germany. It was just outside the Center district at a building the volunteers call the Cave.  We stayed there for a while until we decided to go back into the city and look at a couple bars. All this was after watching the Italy vs. Costa Rica game. Unfortunately for Tony who is Italian by ethnicity, Italy lost.

I met many new people at the party last night, finally meeting some people who are not EVS! It turns out that there are only about thirty EVS volunteers in Moldova but it seems like there are a hundred because I’ve met so many of them! Now I have met Jean from France, Charles from Cameroon (studying IR), Stas and Vlad (who are both Moldovan students here, but also mentor some EVS people in Romanian/Russian), and Matt (who is from New Jersey! He is finishing up his Peace Corps assignment. He’s heard of Lehigh!!).  There were a lot more people with whom I didn’t get to chat with but it was so interesting hearing everyone’s stories and backgrounds. Chisinau is so diverse and I love it!

 

 Finally, like promised, the bagged milk! Isn’t it cool??