Vice President Biden made a visit to Moldova this week and spoke about the current situation of Moldova's slow, but progressive, transition to a democratic nation since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. This was the first visit to Moldova by an American president or vice-president. You can partially see my head below the "M" in Moldova in the picture above. The main street in the capital city was lined with Moldovan and American flags to welcome in Biden. All of the Peace Corps volunteers in Moldova were invited to stand behind him on stage as he spoke to a large crowd of Moldovans in the capital city. Afterwards, VP Biden and his wife Dr. Jill Biden invited the Peace Corps Volunteers and embassy employees to a private meet-and-greet. After he, his wife, and the ambassador had spoken, one of his secretaries asked all the Peace Corps Volunteers to stand in a group so that he could get a quick picture with us. When he came over, he asked to get in the middle of our huddle and he spoke to us for about 10 minutes -this was cool. 
I enjoyed him asking us questions about our experience in Moldova and telling us his opinions on the political state of our host country. He spoke a good bit about the importance of empowering women so that human trafficking could be eliminated in Moldova. He also said that Moldova may drop to a "Tier 3" country on the United States' three-tier system of evaluating countries for foreign aid. As of now, Moldova is a Tier 2 country, but is on the borderline of falling to a Tier 3 - if Moldova becomes a Tier 3 country then the United States will cut off all financial aid. VP Biden said that there are three things that the United States won't tolerate and will drop a country to the lower tier: 1) slavery (aka human trafficking), 2) institutional corruption, 3) lack of freedom of the press.I believe and hope that Moldova will continue to evolve productively and the citizens will continue to have more of their rights respected and legal system improved.
