One of the things I will miss the most here is the relationships I have developed, no matter how big or small.
I love the 5th form girls who like to walk with me to and from school. I was walking home the other day and ran into some of them. These girls are so easy to love. We talked about English class, America, and all sorts of things. The whole time they listened to me and they were so interested in what I had to say. It was so difficult trying to explain to them why I’m going home this summer.
I appreciate the head maintenance man at our school, who never says a word to me and mistook me for a student the first month I was here, but he always greets me with tilt of his head.
Trips the local store are really pleasant because the women who work there recognize me and are very patient with me while I try to tell them what I want to buy.
I’m going to miss Veronica, who is a teacher at my school and she met me in Chisinau to take me to Criuleni for my first visit. She always greets me with a huge hello and a smile on her face, and then proceeds to tell me I look nice or checks to make sure I’m okay.
My host mom is always so kind to me. She’s patient with me when I don’t understand the Romanian. She compliments my cooking. And she often checks with me to make sure everything is okay.
It’s nice to have these good relationships; it’s going to be the people I miss the most when I leave.
I feel like I’ve been kind of whiney lately. I want you to know that I am happy here. Despite the difficulties and oppositions I face, I like my job. And although there are numerous things I would change (if you couldn’t tell from the last couple entries), there no other place I would rather be right now.
But with the difficulties of this job, I can sometimes forget to be happy. I’ve recently heard the phrase that “you choose to be happy”, so I’m trying to make sure I’m happy. And I have plenty to be happy about. But sometimes it’s easy to think about what you don’t have and what else you want instead of what you already have.
I know that’s what I have a problem with here; I always want more. I want more passion or more dedication or more resources. But I wouldn’t be needed here if they had those things. So as it turns out, teaching my partners how to be thrifty with what is available is not only helping them, but helping me as well for it is teaching me to make the most of what you have. Be happy with what you have; there lies true happiness.
I also have a problem with comparing myself to other volunteers. If you ever join PC, the biggest piece of advice I could give you is don’t compare yourself with other volunteers. Each volunteer’s work is relative to the abilities of the village. Every time I hear a success story, I can’t help but think “Why can’t I do that?” I also had decided to focus my work on dedicating my time to building resources rather working on obtaining grant money to purchase things, which limits a lot what I can do as volunteer.
I tend to create this “Super Volunteer” in my head. I hear success story from one volunteer and then a different one from another. In my mind, I add them all together and feel like everyone else is Super Volunteer doing everything.
Well, Super Volunteer does not exist, and I must remind myself of that every once in awhile. But that doesn’t mean I can’t try my hardest and be happy with and I can achieve.
