Ranting

The entrance to my apartment building. Check out the yellow gas line running above the door.

A corn crib with chickens under it near my apartment.

Box of grapes someone gave me for helping in the fields.

Fall colors on my walkabout.

Random well.

I've been naked in this stream.

Arrrrgggg talk about frustrated. I really have no clue what’s going on with my life right now. Moments like this really bring about a bitter voice in the back of my head screaming “Seriously, what are you doing here?” I’m back on that old rickety rollercoaster called Life, where the major catalyst for the change is good ol’ Moldova. This hostility and frustration is probably, if I had to guess, coming from the fact that no one wants to work with me anymore, I have absolutely zero clean clothes, I haven’t showered in a week, we have no water in my apartment, the electricity is out most days, I don’t have the internet anymore and the only way(s) to get it back is to be exploited for mucho dinero (“prea scump” în limba română), my friends in my village left for work or school, it’s cold, dark, and rainy outside, and to top the ice cream sunday off, I shattered my fly swatter rendering me powerless against my new found archenemies.

Wow, it feels good to get that off my chest. Tomorrow is a new day though, and it marks the four months to the day that I have been in Moldova, and it’s also Thursday, my favorite day of the week. I don’t want to come off that I don’t like where I’m at, on the contrary, I just really need to find some work to keep me occupied or else I’ll go crazy. Working in the fields these past weeks, although exhausting, was exhilarating. It felt good to go out and get my hands dirty. It’s a cheap way to gain respect from the people here, and I was able to learn a lot about agriculture practices, connect with people, and get in a workout in the beautiful countryside. It doesn’t hurt that I was always paid handsomely with meals and praise. I’ve actually been offered land, grapes, wine, chickens, rabbits, and daughters. But now the fields are harvested, and the wine is fermenting and we are all hunkering down for the winter. My fellow volunteers, especially the ones from up North, don’t think I’ll survive the winter. During the months of December and January the temperature hovers around -20 Celsius (-4 F), and the buildings here are insulated where in the summer time it’s blazing hot inside, and in the winter, yep, you guessed it, it’s freezing. Right now I’m sitting in my office building wearing a jacket, but I know that I won’t need it when I step outside. Gotta love it.

This past Sunday I went on a walkabout near my village. It was a beautiful fall day and I was in a village called Banești, about 10 kilometers outside of Telenești (I am on my work keyboard so I get to easily use my fancy romanian letters like ă, î, ș, ț, â. Ш сщгдв фдыщ ензу шт кгыышфт ша ш лтуц рщц- I could also type in Russian if I knew how). The pictures I am posting are from that outing. It was funny because I ended up on an hour long skype phone call from my parents while cars and caruțas-horse carts- were going past me asking if I wanted a ride to my village. When I got close to my village, I didn’t feel like going home, so I picked a mountain about 13 kilometers away, and struck out. I didn’t anticipate being exhausted by the time I got there, and my conversion of kilometers to miles is awful and walking 23 kilometers in a day is a lot more than I thought it would be. I gladly accepted on the ride back. As always, thanks for reading and pray that the water is turned back on when I get home, because pretty soon you´ll be able to smell me from America. Peace.