Going to chill with the Ambassador

I hate the computer I'm on, I promise more pictures will be up soon.

July 3, 2009

I’ve gotten into the habit of wearing wife beaters because of the heat. It has the bonus affect of making me feel like one badass Russian comrade. All I need now is a gold chain around my neck and a Red & White cigarette in my mouth. The real deal would probably drive down the road, see the gold chain, and jump me. I would only make matters worse if I tried to stop it because the majority of my Russian vocab is cuss words. It’s such a beautiful language to swear in, because even the phrase “Cheers to our health”, the most sincere of my Russian repertoire, comes out sounding harsh and insulting.

All the ARBDs went on a field trip yesterday to a current volunteer’s village. He lives across the river from Transdniestr, a breakaway republic from Moldova that has soviet ties. Peace Corps won’t let us travel there, and no other country in the world, except for probably Russia, recognizes it as its own country, even though they have their own government and currency. It was really cool getting that close to such a political hotbed, and I might have to “accidently forget” about that rule once I can travel in country by myself. The volunteer who we visited has been working with a family to setup an Heirloom tomato farm; these are the tasty tomatoes that vary in shape, color and size. It is the first of its kind in Moldova, and currently the family is enjoying the benefits of such a niche market and sells to restaurants and embassies in Chisinau. If you were to sell these tomatoes in the markets Moldovans wouldn’t dare to buy them, thinking that they were radioactive, because god forbid they aren’t red. It was great to get out of our little village and the family let us take bags of tomatoes back to our host families (I’ll get back to that later). While at the farm, I was exhausted from the heat and sat on the front steps of the house. The woman of the household came running over with a chair for me and, quite frantically, told me I can’t sit on the ground. Thinking that she was just being hospitable, I told her she could sit in the chair, I was fine sitting on the stoop, which she countered with the question of “Do you want to have kids?”…Where in the hell did that come from? I’m getting accustomed to bizarre questions, and so I replied that yes, someday I would like a couple runts to call my own. Immediately she grabbed my arm, yanked me off the ground, firmly rooted me in the chair, and told me, more like yelled at me with frantic hand gestures, that I was going to freeze my balls to the concrete and not be able to procreate. It was 85 degrees outside.

After some investigation I did find out that women also have the potential to ruin their chances of maternity by freezing their ovaries if they dare sit on the ground. Bear in mind this conversation with the woman was in very broken Romanian, and if I ever end up playing a game of Charades here (not like I don’t do that every time I meet someone who doesn’t know English) I will call this lady up to be on my team.

I brought my bag full of redish-green, yellow, and orange tomatoes home to my host family. It was hilarious to try and convince them that not only were the tomatoes edible, but they were ripe, juicy, and sweet. Once I told them that these went for a premium price in the capital and that the embassies order them, they lost hesitation. Slowly, but surely, they are gaining trust in their strange new American pet. I haven’t grown a giant tumor yet from using my laptop while not being in the presence of a cactus to absorb the radiation, and I usually win most of the arm wrestling matches I’m propositioned into on a regular basis; respect, and trust, can be built in the strangest of ways.

I had a history lesson this afternoon and learned that where I live in the village is a breakaway subdivision, dubbed Transdniestr (Vince and I live by far the furthest away from the school out of everyone and have a nice half hour walk to town). Also, the wine cellar of the big winery extends literally underneath our houses. The teachers said this is why some people here have problems getting water from their wells. Vince can attest this because he will wake up and the family will be doing all their cooking and cleaning out of buckets because their water in the house stopped running. Because of this situation, he takes a bath once a week. However, I’m still a little confused by the fact that I live twenty feet away and our water, although at times can have low pressure, never stops running and I take a shower everyday.

I received letters today after my history lesson. Surprisingly three got through without a big X over a dollar sign on the outside. The act of receiving a letter is pure jubilation, until you realize that there is nothing in it. Someone, somewhere (I’m not pointing fingers to any particular country), opened my envelope, took the letter out, and instead of putting the card back in after seeing there was no money, sealed it back up and sent it on through. Bastards. Way to darken my mood a bit. I perked up quickly after when I was sitting around the table hanging out with my host family drinking Community Coffee (dark roast is my favorite, hint hint) and noticed that the green and red Tabasco bottles are now permanent fixtures at the dinner table. The family, like always, was first wary about my foreign coffee that doesn’t dissolve in water, and the liquid fire sauce I copiously put on everything. Sure enough though, a little dash of southern charm and a whole lot of tenacity won them over, and now they are just as bad as I am with the Tabasco. There are a couple things I miss more than I thought would, Tony Sacheries, peanut butter, and something else, but regrettably will have to wait until a little after Christmas to get this present shipped to me. Happy Independence Day all, hopefully I will be able to sneak off tomorrow afternoon to post this before I go kick it with the Ambassador at the embassy for a party.