Back to the Future

Today I was hitchhiking back home from a lesson with my new Romanian tutor when I was starting to really curse myself for not zipping my rain hoody on my jacket before I left. It wasn’t pouring down rain, but you wouldn’t classify it as a drizzle either. All of sudden, I hear the squeal of tires spinning on wet asphalt to my left. Like a flashback from 1985, a beat up, grayish Dalorean-looking car comes barreling around the corner, peels to a halt in front of me, and backfires. As I walked up to the car, I could hear some serious techno beats radiating from the inside, and although pensive about taking another death defying ride in this country, the rain persuaded me otherwise. I open the door, and first see a flashing, multicolored, electronic strobe light mounted on the dashboard, and then a pair of acid wash jeans. I was fully expecting to see Michael J. Fox asking me what year I wanted to travel to- “2010 please, this is too weird”. Instead I see a kid, barely 18, with black-out sunglasses, a black leather jacket lined with rabbit fur on the collar, acid wash jeans, a lit cigarette loosely hanging from his mouth, and the most glorious mullet I’ve ever seen in my life- straight business in the front, total party in the back. Classic.

I asked Marty if he was going to my village, and he replies, “yeah, lets go”. Before I even got a chance to shut the door, the tires started searching for traction on the wet ground. After barreling out the gate, we hit 80 mph (I’m guessing, my mental kph is off) when the driver switched movies, and we were then the cast of Tokyo Drift coming up to a 60-degree turn with a bus coming at us. If I were a religious man, I would have been doing some Hail Mary’s at this point, but instead I held tight and braced myself for death. Well, I’m here writing this, or at least I think I’m here writing this, so you can guess that we made it out alive. Barely. We made some serious mud ruts on the shoulder of the road coming out of the skid. I told the kid I wanted to live, and that maybe we should slow down. I’m pretty sure he even realized that was too close of a call, and he heeded my advice, some. Wanting to make chit-chat so I could get my mind off the looming possibility of death, I realized that it was raining, a little after dusk, and this dude had black-out sunglasses on. I made the mistake of asking how it was driving with the glasses- “I can’t see a damn thing, but don’t worry I know this road really well” was his response. I guess he didn’t know the road as good as he thought, because as we were approaching the margin of my village, he hit the biggest pothole in the road, the one everyone knows to avoid. You know how you always cringe when you accidently hit a pothole in your car and you always feel bad for your tires? Well imagine SLAMMING into a Moldovan sized pothole. I’m glad I wasn’t driving because I would have felt like a total jackass, as I'm sure he did, especially when we both realized that the front right tire had blown. I was pretty impressed with the string of Russian cuss words that he managed to work into one sentence at that point.

Not to let you down, but the ending is unfortunately anticlimactic. While cursing and pacing around the car, he spit on the hood, turned on his heal and marched off leaving me standing there in the rain wondering what the words for “spare tire” and “jack” were. No discussion, no goodbyes, he just took off.

Thanks for the lift man. Tell the Doc I say hello.

Niște fotografii pentru voi

My camera has been in hibernation since my vacation a couple months ago, so I figured I would post some pictures of the pre-spring thaw that we've been having here lately. The snow is melting, and the mud is deeping, but thank goodness spring is coming! Poftim:

Water well outside my apartment.

These are the shacks where the people that live in the apartments keep their firewood, chickens, corn, etc.

I hadn't seen this debris on the side of the path for months now because of the snow. Whenever construction was being done on an apartment, they just dumped all the garbage here.

The girl in the background of this photo kept looking back at me wondering why I was stalking her taking pictures. My bad, you were in my shot.

Getting ready for planting season.

I can't tell you how many times I fell down this icy shoot during the winter. I saw one of the village drunks baby stepping down it a couple days ago, 15 minutes when I came by again he was still there teetering down.

Not so good of a road. Try running down it, not fun.

Typical Moldovan country house

Old Moldovan house behind my apartment.

Good road in town.

In queue next to the Post Office where you pay all your bills.

Old store close to the center of the village.

Wagon hitchin' spot.

"The Bread Van" that sells fresh baked break in the same spot practically everyday.

We can finally dry our clothes outside without them freezing solid!

Another wonderful view of the village from the back of my apartment.

Small house and barn close to where I live.

Nice shot of the hills.

Once again, the famous shot from my bedroom window. No more snow!

Laissez les Bon Temps Rouler

I’m sitting here on this beautiful Fat Tuesday listening to a little Bad Company, cookin’ some kidney beans for lunch, and have a budding feeling that this is exactly where I want, and need to be. As each day passes, I can sense Spring knocking on Winter’s door. This weekend we had a major thaw, and the thick, white blanket covering the countryside now has large, black, earthen patches, and the small, frozen streams now are bulging with melt water and floating ice chunks. On Sunday, we had the best weather in months, and I sat on the third story balcony of Peace Corps’ headquarters reading a book while soaking up the sun on the 50-degree, immaculately blue, bluebird day. It’s truly amazing what six hours of sunshine, a good book, rich coffee, and intermittent, entertaining company does for the soul.

I guess it has been awhile since I last posted, because I see on the last entry that the Saints hadn’t won the Super Bowl yet. It only took 44 years, but I want to congratulate the Saints, New Orleans, and the rest of my fair state for the big victory. I have really enjoyed hearing about the celebration in the French Quarter, and wish that I could have been down there with friends doing it up right. Needless to say though, I had a great time representing from this side of the pond, and was once again reminded how small the world can seem. I went with a group of friend to the Marine’s house who guard the US Embassy to watch the game. Kickoff wasn’t until 1:30 in the morning, and we had been killing time before hand by preemptively celebrating for whichever team was to win. When we got there, I met a Fulbright scholar that lives in New Orleans, and his girlfriend Bailey Edwards, who graduated from Louisiana Sate University at the same time as me. What makes things even more bizarre is that we have a couple friends in common, and she is from a small town in Louisiana called Abbeville, where it happens I worked for a summer and ate everyday at the diner Dupuy’s (Good food and great looking ladies) where she worked. I don’t know what the odds of meeting her in this tiny, underdeveloped country tucked away in Eastern Europe are, but I am guessing that they are quite slim.

Life in the village is going well. My partners and I are rocking and rolling on our water project grant. We got off to a rocky start, and it was quite difficult for me to get a straight answer, but we have come a long way, and we are seeing the first glimpses of the light at the end of the tunnel. When we finish I am planning on throwing a big masa for everyone involved, and try to show my appreciation for putting up with me nagging, hounding, and pestering them everyday trying to get the details clear and consistent, and in a way I could understand due to my level of Romanian. Hopefully by that time I will have moved out, and gotten a place of my own. My dreams of living in a cottage, with a big garden, and a couple chickens are quickly becoming derailed. People seem to think that it would be easiest if I live in an apartment, and even then my partner is worried that I will wither away from malnutrition. Everyday she confronts me about this decision, and I can tell she doesn’t buy the fact that I know how to cook, and I’ve been feeding myself for quite some time now back home in America. I’m pretty sure if she knew English, and had my mother’s phone number, she would call and fact-check me. Lately, she has started up again nagging me to find a woman to take care of me- cooking, cleaning, and whatnot. This is truly one of the more awkward conversations to have when you haven’t quite mastered the language; I’m almost positive that she peppers the conversation with sexual innuendos that would make it all the more awkward if I did understand everything she was saying. Anyways, I’m going tomorrow to check out an apartment near the center that I will probably be able to move into, if everything checks out, mid-March or early April. I’m content with this decision, and as much as I want to live in a remote village with the people, it will be nice to be close to work, the market, the bus station, and my gym. Speaking of the gym, yesterday I was summoned to the trainer’s house instead of working out, to learn wrestling techniques so I can participate in the village-wide wrestling match this spring. Winner gets a ram. I’ll keep you updated on that…

The M22’s are getting ready to depart in less than two months, and my group, the M24’s, are gearing up to integrate the new trainees arriving in country in June. The group coming in this year is the biggest one yet, and there will be 75 people coming in to start the rigorous two to three month training. I found out yesterday that I was selected with three other colleagues in ARBD as mentors to represent our program and to help the soon-to-be PCVs integrate into our surreal world. I’m looking forward to this opportunity, and even though I don’t feel like a veteran, yet, it will be nice to have fresh faces around. I’m off to eat my beans. Happy Mardi Gras to everyone, and good luck with the fast for all that is participating (Started here on Monday for those of the Eastern Orthodox faith). Noroc.

Groundhog's day- six more weeks of winter, 500 more days of Moldova

I’m slipping off my game. It’s been almost two weeks since I’ve written a blog post, and I know how eager all of you are to read about the wondrous life of Neal Collins (I’m trying to get my name out there for Google hits, also please note the sarcasm for, well, everything). Quite frankly I’ve been a man on the go. Last week my fellow Agriculture and Business volunteers had a conference with our partners in the capital for three days. Our partners came with us, and it was Peace Corps’ intention to school us on the latest and greatest techniques for grant writing and project proposals. My lady partner and I (that sounds odd doesn’t it?) gained a lot from our experience together, and we were quasi successful in revamping some project ideas and learning how to become a more effective dynamic duo; too bad my main partner didn’t come because we could have made quite the ménage.

I was somewhat skeptical how the conference was going to shape up when it began, because my partner was a little upset with yours truly from the get-go. To my defense, we had a slight miscommunication problem, which led to her standing on the side of the road for over an hour in 0°F weather. Before you jump to conclusions about how I’m going to hell in a hand basket for letting this poor old lady stand out there for so long, let me explain. We had agreed that I would buy two bus tickets in my village when I went to the bus station and got on the bus in the morning. She lives about fifteen minutes down the road and anyone that wants to get on there must stand on the side of the road and wait for the bus, or car, to pick them up. I told the driver that I had another passenger getting on at her village, and he agreed to stop once we got there and pick her up. Let me mention now that my cell phone had literally a tenth of a penny left of money on it, and I wasn’t able to place any phone calls. We pulled over at her village, a couple people get on, but no Doamna Larissa. “Oh shit this is going to get complicated” was all I could think at the time. Fifteen minutes later after trying to use two peoples’ phones next to me, who also didn’t have money on their cell phones, she called me and asked where I was. I explained that I was on the bus, but that it had already left. Communication error number one- while she thought I meant my village, I thought it was clear that we had already left her village meaning that she needed to get on another bus. An hour down the road she calls me again asking, yelling would be a better verb, where I’m at and why hasn’t the Telenesti bus come by yet. Once again I explain to her that the bus had left a long time ago and I was almost to the capital. The high pitch shrill and goads of God-knows-what language that followed was enough to turn the heads of everyone on the bus in my direction before she hung up on me mid-shriek. Clearly, communication error number two.

At this point I was torn between trying to get off the bus as soon as possible, buy a phone card to recharge so I could call her back, or to wait it out, get to Peace Corps, and let my Program Manager defuse the situation. I chose the latter, not that it mattered much because five minutes later she called back screaming at me. I honestly didn’t catch one word she said, and so as not to waste her money (and breath), and my embarrassment from having gained the unwanted attention of everyone on the bus, I hung up on her. I know this sounds bad, but I swear this isn’t as frowned upon as it is elsewhere in the world. Come to think of it, I rarely have a phone conversation without someone hanging up on me here- they say what they want and get off the phone.

Once I got to Peace Corps I got help from my Program Manager and he called her and helped explain the full extent of my story. That seemed to help calm her down a little, and for the first couple hours in the conference I could tell she was quite agitated. After three days of being forced to sit together and work on our water project we both left in good spirits and everything is back to normal.

I’m back in my village now. Each day blends into the next and if it weren’t for my calendar I would seriously think I was stuck in the movie Groundhog’s Day. There is a subtle, but noticeable change with the length of the days, and instead of getting dark at 4pm like it has been throughout the winter, the sunlight lasts until 5:30. I can’t wait for spring. Warm weather is simply part of who I am. Winter here isn’t bad though, sure it’s cold, there’s ice and snow everywhere and it takes about 20x longer to do anything than in the summer, but the icebreaker for me is the melancholy of the season. I’m not depressed and I feel healthy, but the pep is out of my step. The passing of the time is strange- one week I feel there is a ton going on, lots of good work to do, and then the next it’s like getting slammed into a brick wall. Nothing, nada, zip, time to just hold on, hunker down, and grind out the hours. I went back and read my blog entries that I’ve posted since moving to my village and noticed that every single project idea that I’ve written about has gone nowhere. This is the painstaking part of this job- no progress. I know what we do here has more to do with grass root connections, but you would think on the professional aspect something would have materialized by now. I started to divulge deeper into this, but for your sake, and more for mine, I deleted it.

It’s almost time for dinner now. We eat late at my house, usually around 9:30, entirely too late in my opinion. Dinner is the same day-in, day-out as well. I get called into the kitchen, it’s either going to be mashed potatoes, macaroni, or soup. My host sister complains that she was given too much food and that she is going to be fat. Then we talk about my day. Usually my host sister chimes in claiming that she doesn’t like the egg yoke, or the carrots, or whatever it else it might be that night that serves as an interruption. She then is scolded for not eating, and she tries to sneak the food onto my host mother’s plate. Scolded again. By this point my host mother remembers we need wine and asks us rhetorically if we want a glass. I say yes, my host sister says no. It’s not like it matters much because we get a large shot glass anyways and are told to drink up. My host mother’s cell phone rings constantly and usually she runs off after the shot of wine to answer it, leaving Corina and myself at the table. After one or two failed attempts to get a conversation going (Last night it was me asking if there was any other way to say “yes” or in Romanian “da”, because I got to thinking that in English there is “yes”, “yeah”, “uh-huh”, “yup”, etc, but all I got back from Corina was a blank stare) I give up, finish up the last of my dinner, wash down the rest of the wine, and go back to whatever it was I was doing. In this case, I’ll be back in twenty to finish this blog.

Tonight it was mashed potatoes and a fried egg, and everything else played out just as I detailed above. Tomorrow it will be the same, but at least it’s one step closer to the weekend. I’m headed back into Chisinau this weekend, although probably just for Sunday night. Time to watch the Super Bowl. I don’t know if I would make an hour and a half trip into the capital on a work night to go to the marine’s mansion and watch a football game that starts at 2 or 3 in the morning, but this year calls for special circumstances. Hell has frozen over and the Saints are going to the Super Bowl! The first year I ever move out of my beloved homeland and the Saints get called up to the bigs. What a funny world we live in.

As always, thanks for reading and GUEAX SAINTS!