My Site

Well, it’s official – at the end of training I’ll be working in a mayor’s office in a village of about 10,000 people at the southern tip of Moldova. I found out on Wednesday and on Saturday I’ll be headed there alone for 3 days to meet my counterpart (the mayor) and my new host family. I’m really looking forward to it and will let you all know how the trip turned out towards the end of next week.

Our placement ceremony was uniquely presented. A large map of the country was drawn on the floor of a gymnasium and chairs were placed at each site throughout the country with the names of cities, towns, or villages on them. As PCVs’ names were pulled out of a hat, their sites were announced and each of us went to sit in our chair. By the end of the ceremony, you could look around and see who was near and who was far away – though in such a small country no one is really that far away.

The process by which PCVs’ sites are determined is different than it was in Uzbekistan. There, PCVs had several interviews with staff members in which they answered questions about their preferences – rural vs. urban, east vs. west, proximity to other PCVs, desire to work on a particular issue, etc. Then, toward the end of training each PCV was handed a manila envelope and on the count of 3 we all tore open our packages and found where we were headed for 2 years.

Not so in Moldova. Here, we are given the applications that organizations filled out to get a PCV and have about a week to review them. [Of course, we’re only given the applications that Peace Corps approved. I don’t know how many organizations apply for a Volunteer or how many are approved or rejected, but there must be some that get turned down. Or at least I hope there are.] Then we rank our top-3 and turn in our choices. PC staff tries to accommodate our preferences, but ultimately the decision rests with them.