Moldova+Mania

Our class is very fortunate to have been selected by Peace Corps volunteer Erin Culp to fulfill her program requirement of sharing her experiences with a school in the United States. Ms. Culp attended Pace Academy with my son, Andy, and then graduated from Elon in North Carolina. This summer she was moved to Moldova for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer. She is teaching English to Moldovan students.

Enjoy her updates as she teaches us about life in Moldova!




 * ERIN'S (MS. CULP'S) FIRST COMMUNICATION TO MRS. DRINKARD'S GEOGRAPHY CLASSES

Hello! My name is Erin Culp, and I’m a native of Atlanta. In June I joined the Peace Corps, and am currently living and teaching English in the village of Pîrlița, in the west of Moldova.

Moldova is a very small country in Eastern Europe. It is west of Ukraine and east of Romania. Moldova is about the size of Maryland, and has a population of about four million (fewer people than the city of Atlanta). It is the poorest country in Europe, and has a very interesting history. It was part of the Soviet Union, and gained its independence August 27, 1991. Moldova is a democracy, and the ruling party is currently the communist party. I believe it is the only democratically elected communist government in the world. The official national language here is called either Moldovan or Romanian, depending on who you ask. Moldovan and Romanian are essentially the same language, about as different as British and American English. Russian is also very widely spoken here, and almost everyone living here understands both languages (even if they can only speak one). There are also villages here that speak primarily Gagauzian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, or Roma.

Moldova is divided into 32 raions, which are similar to counties or states. Each raion is named after its raion center, which is the largest city in the raion (it is similar to the capital of a state). There is also a semi-autonomous region here (Gagauzia), and a breakaway region (Trans-Nistria) which declared its own independence in the early 1990s but is not recognized as independent by any country.

I am living in the Ungheni raion, which is in the west of the country, about 20 KM from Romania and less than 100 KM from the capital (Chișinău). Pîrlița is a large village (about 5000 people). For the next two years, I will be teaching English as a foreign language at the high school here (called a lyceum). I will be teaching 7th, 8th, 10th, and 11th grade this year. The school year here starts on September 1st and goes until May 31st.

For at least the first six months, and probably for the entire two years, I will be living with a host family. I have a host mother, father, two sisters, a brother in law, and two nieces. Currently only my host mother lives at home. My host father works in Moscow. One of my host sisters is living in America and the other sister (with her husband and two daughters) lives in Chisinau, the capital city.

Many homes here in Moldova have a main house and a “casa mica,” which is a guest house. I live in the casa mica. My host family has a large vegetable garden where they grow tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, and grapes. We also have lots of chickens, roosters, and a dog. We have running water, telephone, and electricity at my house, and they are installing natural gas in my village. My host mother currently buys propane tanks of gas to cook with, and there is a well down the street because the water sometimes doesn’t work. We also have an outhouse.

I have been in Moldova for almost three months now. For the first ten weeks, I was in pre-service training. I lived with a different host family in a different village. There was a group of eight volunteers in that village, and we had Romanian language classes every day. We also had training about teaching in Moldova and how to teach English as a foreign language. We were also trained in how to keep ourselves healthy and safe while in Moldova.

So far, I am really enjoying living in Moldova. Life is very different here than it is in America, and it’s very difficult to live in a country where you don’t speak the language very well. However, the people that I have met here have been very understanding about my language ability. They seem to appreciate that I am trying to learn the language. I have been told many times that I speak excellent Romanian, even though all I have said to that person is, “It’s nice to meet you. My name is Erin.” People so far have also been kind, welcoming, and very curious to know about my life in America.

I look forward to corresponding with y’all over the next two years! Erin**