Trivia Night!

Oof I have got to work on my updating skills! It's been a while...

On Wednesday night Hospice Angelus hosted Trivia Night at Gallo Pub. This event has been happening every second Wednesday of the month and is a great night for everyone who attends. We created eight rounds of trivia questions, with categories such as geography, local knowledge, history, music, a connections round (with Netherlands for the connection), top 10 movies, etc. During "intermission," we had a raffle for various prizes like restaurant vouchers and gift cards. We drew after all the rounds before the winner of the trivia was announced. Participants were allowed to have teams of up to six people. This month we had 28 teams register, which is pretty good apparently! We raised 378 euros (about $515)!

Origami!!!!

The night before I found the origami I brought with me in my suitcase and showed Amelia how to make a crane. She was fascinated and a day later had made a dozen of them, all beautifully done, after learning with me only twice! Most adults would never be able to manage that!

I also began teaching English to four of the Hospice medical team on Tuesday! To be honest, I was so nervous beforehand, but I arrived about fifteen minutes early to the office, and Diana, one of the women I am teaching, was also early. She had learned enough conversation English for me to understand her so we talked easily until the person with the key came. That conversation really helped me to relax and feel comfortable before the lesson so I am grateful to her. Once the class began, I got to know my three other coworkers. As this was their first lesson not taught by Raluca, they were a little off-put by the fact that I couldn't speak and translate to Romanian. I was not sure they enjoyed the lesson but strangely enough I had loved it and went to American Councils the next day to borrow some teaching materials which I'll now use for the rest of the time I am here.

That first day I had prepared a lesson around the simple past tense with regular verbs, but I also spontaneously included prepositions, as they were desperate for definitions and examples of them. My lessons will continue every Tuesday and Thursday for the rest of my time here. I am going to try to integrate a lot more speaking and listening, as I believe that is the only way to truly become fluent. I am excited to continue! I also promised them that after I leave I will try to find them a native-speaking teacher from American Councils so I hope that works out, as they were dismayed to hear today that I would be leaving so soon!

To wrap up the weekday's events, we held a volunteer party at the office on Friday night. But because the sky decided to downpour and thunderstorm for the entire duration of the party, and the fact that maxi taxis (the most widely used transportation) were not running, only about eight to ten people were at the party! But it was definitely an a great way to bond with the people who worked there!

Just a side note on why the maxi taxis were not running: the government recently decided to increase the transportation fee from 3 lei to 5 lei, and the residents of Chisinau were not too happy about it. The government then shut down most of the marshrutkas, as they're called. It has been quite peaceful without scary white Mercedes-Benz trucks trying to run you over every other second! Finally today they signed an agreement that decreased the number of marshrutkas that will run throughout the city, in an attempt to increase the safety of pedestrians. The people also win as the fee will remain 3 lei!