Horse carts everywhere

After a big farewell party for our host families, I am finally settled in to my new village. The village I live in has about 3,000 people, and it's about four hours from the capital. In Moldova, it seems the further you are from the capital the more rural and traditional the villages get. For example, in my last village of Milestii Mici, I only saw one horse cart being used for transportation. Here, I pass one on the road every 5 minutes or so. I played baseball with some village kids yesterday, and it was evident that a lot of people in my village speak russian. Some even speak ukranian. However, everyone knows romanian, so I'm going to keep studying romanian for the next year or so. Maybe I'll study russian after that.

I will be collaborating with two organizations (made up of two people): one agricultural and rural business and the other community development. Basically, there are two people in my village who are the "shakers and movers". They both own a lot land, know everyone, and give a lot back to the village by running these two organizations. For now, I pretty much hang out with them and go around my village getting to know people. The language barrier is tough again, because the dialect and speed of their language is lot different here than it was in my last village. However, they seem to love me, and I'm still being fed every waking minute of the day.

For now, I've got limited internet access, but that should change in the next week. I've got some good pics and videos, so stay tuned.

Thanks for all the support and kind words. I miss everyone, and I wish you all could be here to experience this culture. It's great.