MoldovAnn

The long awaited site assignments were announced this afternoon, and my home for the next two years will be Tvarditsa (pronounced Tvar’-dits-uh). Here’s the limited information I have at this time:

The name of the organization is “Tvarditsa”, located in the town of Tvarditsa, in the raion (region) of Taraclia. The director/coordinators are: Lidia Iazadju and Dominichia Bobikova, and Dominichia Bobikova will be my counterpart. As I understand it, her “regular” job is with the Village Mayoralty, and she is listed as being an expert in children, youth, and sport problems within the Village Mayoralty office.

Here’s what they wrote in their application for a PC Volunteer:

Target Group/Beneficiaries of the activities as:
People living in the village (development of their community activity, protection of their civil, economic, social and cultural rights).

Short description of organization’s goals and activities:
- Establishment of an Information Center with the main goal to receive and spread information among the people in the community
- Create conditions for satisfying professional and personal interests in various fields of knowledge
- Get the people in the community involved in charitable activities
- Contribution to acquisition of materials needed for the pedagogical, cultural, entrepreneur activity

History of organization’s activities (list both finished and current projects):
- Finished project: “National customs, traditions, children, youth, and women of the village”

# of staff/volunteers: 7 people

I will be their first PCV, which is exciting. It is my understanding that this particular area of Moldova has a large ethnic Bulgarian population, and they indicate on their application that their primary operating languages are both Russian and Bulgarian. In particular, they asked for a PCV with experience in establishing NGOs and skills in working with NGOs, grant writing and project implementation. They describe my specific activities rather vaguely (which is quite common, especially for an organization getting their first PCV): work with NGO; establishment of long term NGOs; consulting and collaborative grant writing; and work for project implementation. I will share Dominichia’s office in the village mayoralty.

We are constantly reminded by PC staff and current volunteers that reality often turns out to be quite different from the applications organizations submit, so I am keeping an open mind and expecting just about anything. However, it does sound like my experience in organizational development, staff and volunteer development and management, and project management will be useful.

So, what do we know about Tvardita? Not a whole lot yet. Their application indicates it is a village of about 6400 people, which is pretty large for a village (I think you officially become a “town” when you get to about 10,000 people in Moldova). It is about 120 km south of Chisinau, close to the eastern border and Ukraine. It is part of the raion Taraclia, but that raion is rather odd and has disconnected bits and pieces all along the south-central and eastern Moldova. The closest city is Ceadir-Lunga, to the south west of Tvardita, which is actually in the semi-autonomous region of Gagauz. Taraclia, the capital of the Taraclian raion, is further south west of Ceadir-Lunga. Matt will be working in the Mayoralty in Taraclia, and Emily will be further south still in a small village called Ciumai (Choo’-my), right smack on the Ukrainian border, working with a Parent-Teacher Association in a Russian school.

There are a good number of PCVs heading south this year, with 3 or 4 folks going to Cahul on the western side of the southern part of Moldova. There are 2 PCVs in Ceadir-Lunga from last year’s groups (one TEFL and one EOD), and I think one or two folks in Comrat from last year’s groups, but I will actually be fairly isolated (which isn’t saying much in a country smaller than Maryland) from other PCVs. This is actually good, in my opinion, as I can get to people when I want to, but I won’t be tempted or obliged to spend tons of time with the PCVs since it will take effort to get to them. As I told my host family, I didn’t come to Moldova to spend all my time with Americans! But, it’s nice to know that they are near enough, when I do want and need to talk to a fellow American. Emily and I already started talking about how and where to meet up with each other, and I am glad that we will be within in an hour or so of each other.

The announcement of the sites was a creative and fun event. They’ve kept us on pins and needles for a couple weeks now, and the PC staff made the actual announcement “ceremony” quite a deal. David Reside, Country Director, came and said a few words. Many M12s (last year’s Ag and EOD group) were on hand as well. We all went to the school’s gymnasium, where a very rough outline of Moldova had been drawn on the floor. Chairs with village and town names on them were set around the “country”, more or less based on geography. Names were drawn one at a time, and our project coordinator’s announced our site and NGO, gave us each a large and beautiful map of Moldova, and led us by the hand to our “site.” It was really neat to see at the end how we are spread out all over the country. Current PCVs then spread out amongst us, talking with folks who will be living near to them. We “Russians” knew that we were all going to a new area of the country for PC, but again, it’s a small country and no one is really that far away. My program’s application indicates that Tvardita is about 3.5 hours by bus from Chisinau, or 2 hours by car (strangely enough, it is 7 hours by train!). We will experience this first hand on Sunday when we head out to meet our counterparts, visit with prospective host families, and check out our new homes! It’s very exciting and I’m looking forward to getting to work.