Running through a soviet winter

I’m a four o’clock type of runner. I can’t find the energy to get up in the morning, strap on my shoes before breakfast, and hit the trails. My brain needs caffeine and my stomach needs food. By four o’clock in the afternoon I’ve had a chance digest lunch, I’ve put in a full day at work, and I’m ready to turn up the music and let my mind loose.

Today is shaping up to be a good day to run- it’s not snowing anymore, no wind, and the temperature isn’t too cold, about 14° F (-10 C). I’ve been meaning to take my camera with me running since I got to my village half a year ago, because usually it is quite a scenic run, except in the winter. I layer up, first the long johns, top and bottom, the sweats, a jacket, gloves, and a cap. Thanks to some very lovely ladies I adorn a pair of waterproof socks that were a going away present before coming here, and let me tell you, they make a world of difference. My earplugs for my iPod are pretty shotty, for some reason Apple makes great electronics except when it comes to earphones. The buds are falling apart, but with a beanie to secure them in place it works just fine for me. As you can see below, I rock the YakTraks when I run, if not I would be slipping and sliding all over the place.

I debate what to listen to today, I usually go for a premade playlist, but I listened to the “Pool-Time” playlist on my last run and there is just something too bizarre about running through a nearly white-out snowstorm jamming Bob Marley, Slightly Stoopid, and Sublime. I decide to go with an Australian hip-hop group called Hilltop Hoods (Play this link to make your blog reading experience closer to mine, although make sure to click on Open in New Window or Sigh-O-Nara). On the way out of my apartment building I run into a neighbor and give him a “Buna ziua Domnul”, which he replies back to, but the music muffles his response which makes it sound like a foreign language, err, yeah. The road that leads out to the pasture lands has four other Soviet style apartment buildings that look identical to mine on the left, and several small houses on the right. A group of teenagers spot me, and start to laugh at the ludicrousness of me running in these conditions. Seven months ago I might have been more self conscious, but I’ve found that teenagers will probably laugh or smirk at you no matter what you are doing so I keep on keeping on (We tend to put too much emphasis on nationalities, teenagers are the same on every continent). Plus, we’ve all been there, their capricious lifestyle wacked out from hormones makes the joke really on them. I make it to the end of the road, and zip straight across to head out into the fields, only now they are large bowls of snow and ice. There is a small, mounded road that I take that leads off into the hills and eventually will lead you to another village about 40 kilometers away. I try to stay on the far right or left of the road where the ground is built up and there is less snow. There is more traction to run on, but it feels like running on a balance beam because if you miss the seven inch stripe, you are either going to roll your ankle, or fall into about four feet of snow, or both. Other times I’ll simply plot a course in the middle of the road and plow right through the foot and a halfish of white powder. It calls for harder running, much more like running on sand except there is uneven, frozen mud clumps that lurk underneath the blanket of snow, but it’s enjoyable to high-knee it through that much snow and really burn some energy.

My thoughts are mostly scattered, as they should be when one runs. I just got off the phone with a friend from home, and my mind keeps wandering back to our conversation, about how my day is winding down while hers is just starting, and then I suddenly become aware of the song lyrics that are playing. The music is on quite loud to distract me from the cold. I’m only ten minutes into the run and the chill is still stinging slightly, but the music surprisingly helps.

It seems strange to me that it is now winter, when only a few short months ago I was running along this same path in shorts and no shirt. I start to wonder what the weather is like in Haiti, and how the country is fairing in the earthquake’s aftermath. A large part of me wants to be there to lend a helping hand, and after experiencing Hurricane Katrina first hand, it seems that a young, able-bodied volunteer would go along way. I understand that there is a large, probably almost unmanageable amount of human aide flowing into that country, and I am awestruck at people’s selflessness and humility at times. These highly trained professionals are going into the heart of God’s warzone, and I can only imagine that they are doing it because they know that they have the capability, the qualification, the and the mindset that it is our moral responsibility as a human race to help others when we can.

Life in a dysfunctional, new-to-the-ball-game capitalist economy has made me see more clearly the benefits and disadvantages that prevail in our free market society. I’m not bashing on bettering oneself financially or corporate gains, but I think we all tend to miss the bus on occasion by not giving back to our communities. Do some pro-bono work every now and then, volunteer at a local soup kitchen or animal care shelter, pick up a piece of trash you see on the side of the road at least (or donate funds to Peace Corps projects J); I guarantee you will feel better about yourself by giving back. I don’t want to sound too preachy here, because lord knows I am far from figuring out all the answers, but I do know the satisfaction gained from a selfless act. It may have taken me most of my life to figure that out, but better late than never right? Not to bring up teenagers again (can you tell that I live with one?), but I was on Facebook the other day and a friend of mine put up a “Text this number and donate funds for Haiti”, and her teenage younger brother responded, “Yeah, if your gay”. You see what I mean about missing the bus…

Song change. Back to reality. I make it to my halfway bridge about 25 minutes into the run. I’m feeling good at this point, my blood is circulating, my muscles are relaxed, and there is a nice trail of frozen snot plastered to my upper lip. When it’s this cold, there is no way my nose won’t not run, so I’ve learned to just let it freeze or else I’ll constantly have to wipe it off on my jacket or my gloves. I haven’t made it very far distance wise, when there isn’t any snow I can make it to this bridge in thirteen minutes, but since I’m simply shooting for a slow and steady timed run, I turn back. I’ve been trucking up the middle of the road for ten minutes now and turning around is welcomed. This time I make sure to run on the far right hand side and pick up some speed while I can run on quasi hard surface. I feel as if I’m in the Norwegian army doing basic training. I’m not sure if this is a very accurate thought though and will have to verify it with a friend of mine that was actually in their army, but it can’t be too far off.

Work related thoughts start to permeate into my mind. This morning was a slight disaster, or “brush fire” as my father likes to call it. I live in the raion center (a raion functions much like a county or parish) and my office oversees ten consultants throughout the region. Most of our projects occur in smaller villages than where I actually live, and I expect to be doing a fair amount of intra-raion traveling this spring. I’m in charge of spearheading a trash project in the village of Chiștilniță, or so I thought it was a trash project. I was handed a project proposal, in English, that my partners said I need to revise and turn it into a grant proposal. After reading the thing I find out that no, it’s not a garbage project at all, but instead it vaguely describes a composting demonstration plot. When I mean vague, it was close to incomprehensible. Calling around and asking the consultant there provided no luck as to the answers I need to go further with this project, and my first real project seems to be at a complete standstill until I can find someone to tell me what the actual goal is here. There is a lot riding on this one for me, and it would be nice to show my partners, my community, my colleagues, and you, that I’m capable of doing something on my own. O să vedem- we shall see.

Woooooaaahhh! My trapeze act comes to an abrupt halt while I fall face first into the snow while awkwardly twisting my knee in the process. I spy a dead, frozen dog ten meters from me that makes me think we came close to having similar fates. It doesn’t really matter that I’ve got on waterproof socks now, because I’m covered head to toe in snow with a fair amount in all the crevices where my bare flesh meets the cold with a cringe. I dust myself off, my knee still throb’s, but its bearable. It’s probably not the best idea to get up and run right now so I am going to do what my high school gym teacher, Coach Broussard, would always tell us, walk it out. Slowly the pain dulls, but doesn’t quite go away. Good enough for me, it’s too damn cold to walk all the way back anyways. I make it back without anymore original thoughts or spills. Mostly I think about what I want to do this weekend- read my book while sipping instant coffee next to the fire with intermittent Romanian study breaks sounds quite intriguing. I checked Weather Underground earlier today and it said that temperatures this weekend should hover around -13° F (-25 C), a perfectly good excuse to be worthless and not leave the house (You see now why I think today’s weather is nice?).

My concerned face after I fell, not to flip the camera off or anything.

I feel better now that I’ve ran; not that I felt bad going into it, I just am a lot calmer than I was before. Yes it might be out of the ordinary to do this three times a week, but there is that marathon goal looming over my head, and I feel like a badass coming from Louisiana and running through a “Soviet” winter. I know my blog has had a dark edge so far this year, but things are changing around for me. I’m living the dream one day at a time. Life is good.

Getting close to halfway

Halfway bridge

Orthodox New Years

For the past several days children have been going from door to door armed with bells and other noise makers and singing, or in most cases, screaming non-comprehendible ditties. In exchange for their carols the children expect, and vehemently demand money and/or candy. Let me tell you, these little lambs hold no reserve to giving you the death stare when you don’t dish out their desired reward. It wasn’t that I was unimpressed with their enthusiasm- I was simply wiped out of petty cash after two spontaneous choirs had come to the door and mopped up. After several rounds of dirty looks when I came up empty handed for subsequent groups I decided to Ebenezer myself out of St. Vascile’s Day and let them pound away at the door while I read a book inside.

Upon waking up this morning, I stumbled out of my warm bed and groggily dragged myself into the kitchen anticipating a large, steaming mug of instant coffee. Before I even had the chance to fully open my eyes my host mother showered me with rice and wished me luck and much success for the New Year. My Romanian doesn’t click in until at least ten minutes after my mind has gotten a chance to wake up, and all I could muster was a muttered “You too”. That was my first encounter with the New Year on the Orthodox calendar, which they cleverly now call the Old New Year (see also New Christmas, and Regular Christmas, which is on January 7th). Throughout the rest of my day I have been showered by fistfuls of corn, rice, and sunflower seeds and wished a blessed new year. I wish I could have seen the celebration on January 1st, because they say that the old New Years isn’t widely celebrated as that one, but by the looks of all the offices and sidewalks, I would say it was quite a success for the pigeons.

I know in my last blog post I was pretty down on myself, and my situation. “Situation” might not be the right word for it, because that sounds more like someone getting knocked up out of wedlock than it does for choosing to volunteer in the second world and feeling depressed. I won’t lie and say that is has been an easy adjustment back to site. I have had to do a lot of self-reflection and try to piece together what my priorities are in life, and what my Peace Corps service means, and has meant to me. It can be frustrating to look back on the past seven months in country and not see any tangible results that I have made in my community. At times it feels as if the host country nationals are purposely trying to make things harder by having such close-minded mentalities. I want to be fair and say that not all Moldovans are close-minded. I have met many progressive and forward-thinking individuals here; I just feel that there is a certain clash of mindsets when a young, enthusiastic American volunteer comes into a small village and tries to start projects with farmers and community members that have grown up with a Communist regime; For the most part they were given everything they had during this time, and stole what they didn’t. I want to make my point very, very clear here, I am not bashing on Moldova, Moldovans, or the USSR. Talking with the people here I have heard stories of families raiding the collective farms at night for more food and unimaginable corruption from governmental officials during the Soviet era, and it is no mystery that it has been a difficult and taxing transition into a democratic state over the past eighteen years. The government now is teetering by, Parliament has been unsuccessful to elect a president for about a year now, and everyone will tell you the main problem here in Moldova is lack of money. That is where my frustration comes in. If I even mention the word project, they think of grants and money. I would say 90% of my project ideas have been shut down because of lack of enthusiasm because of some sort of monetary issue. I am getting to the point where I cringe when I hear the word ‘grant’.

Another pressing source of anxiety for me has been the feeling that I am letting life pass me by. The slow paced life here definitely wears away at the notion of high adventure in the Peace Corps. It is all too easy to forget that I voluntarily signed up for the loneliness, aggravation, and detachment that comes along with the grass roots work we are doing here. I hope this message rings clear to everyone reading this that is thinking of joining the Peace Corps- This is not a vacation. If you want to go into a program where the PC says you must be a self-starter, they aren’t bullshitting you. I knew this would be hard coming into it, but I didn’t know what that meant until now. Everyday I have struggled with my test of faith, so to speak. The question of “Can I possibly do this for the next eighteen months?” is always in the back of my mind, but somewhere deep, deep down, I know that I can. I will probably be posing that question to myself everyday for the remainder of my time here, but the internal disappointment I would go through for the rest of my life would be too great if I were give into it and quit. This internal drive is crucial, but with that being said, if it weren’t for talking with my friends, family, and the extremely supportive Peace Corps medical officer I would be in a lot worse shape. Many thanks are due to my fellow PCVs for feeling as equally shitty coming back from vacation as I did. I know this sounds quite sadistic, but if I were going through this slump alone, well, it wouldn’t be pretty.

On the brighter side, my partners collaborated with me today about a future project that I can spearhead. They want a water tower to be constructed in the village. Potable water is something to be desired here and sanitary, functioning water towers have quite a high value. My partners don’t know it yet, but I have a burning desire to paint my face on the side of a water tower that I construct; it’s a weird fascination, but then again, I have had a lot of time to daydream. It’s just really nice to get feedback from my partners instead of shooting into the dark and proposing project ideas that I think will work without any input until they reject them. Did you know that blind people are legally allowed to hunt in Texas (no surprise there actually) and Michigan? That’s how I’ve felt proposing projects.

For now things are picking up. I guess that’s the good thing about slumps, you have nowhere to go but up. To my amusement, I decided to grow a beard. If my village didn’t know what to make of me before I went off and committed hygienic taboo, they really think I’m off my rocker now. Lately there has been a lot of speculation that I left for two weeks and joined the Church, since only the Orthodox priests have beards here. I was coming in from a mud/ice/snow run today that even I admit was quite insane to run in, but had to smile when I overheard someone say, “There goes that crazy foreigner”. As for now, Happy Old New Years.

Yes Please

Congratulations are in order for myself. I have made it seven months thus far to date in Moldova. There won’t be much celebrating though, because as it turns out my host family is away for an undetermined amount of time, I am sitting alone in my cold apartment, my internet isn’t working, and now, my Kindle doesn’t want to turn on. To top it off, I am on medication for my stomach because I picked up giardia in Turkey and now am prohibited from eating anything but rice and can’t even grab a beer if I wanted.

My vacation to Turkey was amazing. The weather was perfectly sunny when I flew into Istanbul and I spent the first day and a half lazily wandering through the city trying to take it all the new signs, sounds, and smells. I won’t get too in-depth about my vacation except that I couldn’t have picked a better place to kick back an unwind. We spent two days in Istanbul, and then traveled inland to Cappadocia where we took a hot air balloon ride over the lunar landscape. After celebrating my friend’s birthday and New Years there, we spent several days on the Aegean Sea touring Ephesus, the Virgin Mary’s House, St. John’s Basilica, etc. We ended our trip back in Istanbul and were able to finish up some shopping and enjoy some wonderful cuisine.

The hard part has definitely been coming back. Turkey has such a rich and vibrant culture, where most everyone you meet there is nice and wants to show you how beautiful their country is. The country is quite modern, and has a booming tourism industry and it shows that they know how to treat/react to the presence of foreigners. That isn’t the case in Moldova. People are quite shocked that you are here, and a lot of the time you can mistake their stoic-ness for unfriendliness. The hardest part is walking through the drab surroundings, slugging through ice and mud up to an apartment that you know will be cold, to food that you know will be bland, to conversations that you know you will not be able to understand, and all the while missing your family, your friends, your vacation, and the assurance that when you turn that water facet/light switch on, it will do exactly what you want it to.

Today has been one of the toughest days mentally to be here. Depression is a bitch, and I’m hoping that once I start working again and get my mind actively engaged that I won’t continue to feel this shitty. The killer for me is feeling so alone. I need interactions to survive. I was talking with other PC volunteers getting back from vacation, and we all agreed that we can be happy here, but it isn’t the same gratification that you get when you are back home. In the mean time, I’m grateful to be alive, healthy, and have such a great family and friends. I’ll be singing a different tune once springtime rolls around. Peace.