Moving up in the world

This is going to be a quick blog update because it is an absolute pristine day and the rooster calls are beckoning me to join them outdoors. If any of you readers actually worry about my well-being here, then fret not. I’m pretty sure life doesn’t get much better than this.

Ever since the middle of winter I have been feeling great. Lately, I’ve been feeling more than great. I am experiencing my village and Moldova in new ways, and every time I think this as good as it gets, Moldova goes off and proves me wrong. Do you know that feeling of falling in love? Everything is new to you at first, your stomach is in knots, you walk around with a smile plastered on your face, and people tell you that you are acting exceptionally chipper? That’s me and my lady-love- Moldova. I don’t want to go overboard with this mushy nonsense, because just like a woman, she can really get me riled up and leave me sulking for several days. However, I haven’t had a bad DAY in a long time. Whenever something does go askew, I’ve found I’m quick to get wound up, but quick to cool down, and I can live with that.

I attribute my mood to many factors. First and foremost, the weather is absolutely beautiful. Today is 70 degrees (~22 C), everything is blooming from tulips to the cherry trees that line all the streets. I was talking to the “gardener” at the District Council today and we were talking about lawnmowers, which they most certainly do not have here. He asked if I could get him one, and I laughed and said we could talk about it later. It might make his job a lot easier, but if you could see the front of the building with purple and yellow wild flowers blooming everywhere, with nice beds of red and yellow tulips stretching towards the sun in every direction, it simply wouldn’t be the same with a nicely manicured bed of grass.

Secondly, my Romanian is really starting to kick in. I’m no where near where I want to be, but it’s like a light clicked the other day and I find myself having much more meaningful conversations without getting strange looks when I say certain things. The grammar in this language is completely foreign to English, and I have really come to appreciate its complexity, which you learn after awhile, it is logically consistent which has attributed to my “A-Ha!” moment. I was at my tutor’s house on Wednesday, and she told me me how much improvement I’ve made since beginning my lessons. Let me tell you, I walked out of there feeling like the king of the world. I got on a mini-bus to come back to my village and had a strange, but great conversation with a little old baba who was telling me all about her cow. I was having a peak Romanian moment, so I decided to bump around the village, and ultimately wound up getting a haircut. Sure enough the sky came falling down shortly after. The girl cutting my hair was absolutely drop dead gorgeous. It was one of those instances where I would have had trouble speaking in English, much less Romanian. I had gotten a haircut from her when I first moved to my village, and like a baby lamb I was timid, nervous, and barely said a word much less I screw up and look like a jackass. Well I know I’ve grown here in Moldova, because it now feels normal to blunder my way through conversations and hope people understand what I’m saying. When I sat down she said”So I hear you speak better now”. That’s all it took, I told myself that I had to make a showing for myself this time, and proceeded to try and make routine small-talk. What’s your name, where are you from, how long have you worked here, will you marry me, what do you do for fun, you know the usual. It was going pretty well, the dialogue was going back and forth, and then I started noticing subtleties of her splendor, and that’s what did me in. I simply couldn’t talk. It took me about five tries to spit out “Ce te gîndești?” what do you think, when she asked how short she should cut my hair. The straw that broke the camels back was when I asked her if she had a wife, instead of husband. The other people in the parlor were ease dropping and once I said that, everyone started laughing, including her. Oiff, doamne ferește. The worst part was that I didn’t get a response from that. Tail tucked in between my legs, I thanked her, paid, and went home.

The story doesn’t stop there, because I told my neighbor, a sweet little old grandma about this incident, and she told me not to worry about it and that she was going to fix it. With that she grabbed my hand, pulled me down the path to the center of town, and was determined that I ask her to take a walk with me in the park (the village equivalent of a date). I wouldn’t classify myself as a shy person, but asking a girl out with a little old lady moderating isn’t my style. Someone in the Big House must have felt bad for me, because ten feet from the door to the salon I ran into one of my partners. Never in my life have I been so happy to hear someone tell me that I need to come with them to finish work that was due that evening.

More big news, I am moving into my own place in an hour and a half! Four months of patiently waiting is finally paying off. I don’t know if I will have a dish, pot, or blanket to my name, but at least it will be a place to call my own. I told a couple PC friends that I was moving out this weekend, and automatically was told that they will be coming in to “lend me a hand”. I don’t know how much helping they will be doing since they are coming conveniently twenty-four hours after I move all my stuff, but I am looking forward to having friends come spend the weekend in my village. One of my PC friends coming is in the Russian language group, and it’s always interesting to see the locals reaction when you put them in the Romanian region of the country. I decided today that it wouldn’t be a party if we didn’t invite the locals, so I’ve got some of my Moldovan friends coming who really know the right things to say when you invite them to a party- “What kind of wine should I bring? You like them both right? No problem, I’ll bring both”.

Work is keeping me busy lately. Between seminars, village visits, and other projects, I have something going on everyday now. Lately, I have been working on a project that was introduced to me awhile back about composting. In the villages in Moldova, the majority of the people have animals, usually a cow, chickens, ducks, rabbits, pigs, and a dog. However, most people don’t use fertilizer or compost in their home gardens and in the fields. A Moldovan counterpart and I are trying to start a business where organic waste will be collected from the houses and brought to a demonstration plot to show the benefits of composting, and where fertilizer and compost can be sold at a reduced price. We are still in the beginning stages, but the project shows promise and I have grand plans to turn this into more than a demonstration plot, and will hopefully be able to get my hands on soil and water testing kits, and conduct on-going research in the area that will add to the educational component.

Fiți sanitoș! Paka paka.