New trails to blaze

Good people, glad to see that you’ve made it to the end. I’ve had an abysmal showing these last several months with my blog posts, but after two years things have become a tad blasé, making it hard to come up with original, intriguing posts. I have a little less than two weeks left in Moldova, and it finally has started to set-in that my time here is dwindling. Constantly I have been asked how I feel about leaving, and although I have lots of conflicting emotions, I have found a surprising undercurrent of calm satisfaction that I didn’t think would exist within me.

Two years ago I was fraught with nerves before leaving for Peace Corps. I couldn’t sleep well, I couldn’t concentrate on my work, expectations and daydreams permeated my thoughts twenty-four hours a day, and I was anxious to embark on my journey. As I close this chapter I am still eager for the next adventure to begin, but there is a noticeable change in my attitude that I believe is due to a confidence I have found within myself. Under no circumstances do I think I have changed the world during my service, if anything I am more pragmatic after this experience. However, after two years of riding roller coasters, battling cultural differences, and enduring the most awkward situations you could believe, I have found a resiliency resonating within myself.

If you ask a Peace Corps Volunteer to reflect on their service, I guarantee you that the overwhelming majority will tell you that they received more than they gave. I am no exception. I have had the privilege to work with extremely capable, dedicated, and sincere Moldovans in my site, and I know that we have accomplished a great deal together. I can only hope that our efforts have, and will continue to make an impact in the community. It almost seems inhumane to invest so much time and energy into personal relationships to one day say goodbye and leave forever. Even if I never return, I will always hold a soft spot in my heart for my community and this country.

It wouldn’t be proper to end my blog without mentioning what I am most looking forward to and what I will miss, as cliché as it is. I will start off by saying that I am looking forward to going back to school and pursuing my master’s degree. Other things that I am looking forward to, and in no particular order are: winters with proper heating, clean clothes, drinkable tap water, bathrooms that don’t flood, hopefully a lack of alcoholic neighbors, not worrying about catching drug-resistant tuberculosis (and herpes), comfortable beds, a functional kitchen, being close to my family, and last but not least, spicy food.

As for what I will miss: I will miss my host family- Olga and Tudor are family, and I could not have made it this long without them. My friends that I have made here have also been my foundation. They have made the good times the best times, and assuaged the tough times. I will miss having my own apartment, even as shitty as it is. I will miss the sounds of the village- the roosters crowing all day, the clucking of hens, the children giggling outside. I will miss natural, organic, garden-fresh cheap produce, brinza cheese, impromptu masas, the congeniality and open-arm hospitality even when the host has next to nothing to give, a national identity, my running trails, house wine, village markets, Moldovaneste, bucolic scenery of vineyards, the randomness of each day, Saints’ Days and traditions, sarmale, and Ladas.

It isn’t important what I will not miss. As time goes on I am sure that my selective memory will fade out the negative, and only the good will remain. Moldova has changed during my two years here, and I only hope that life will become easier for the Moldovans. It is through the struggles of this country that I have learned just how precious freedom and democracy really are, and how difficult it can be to achieve. I have come to realize that when something is broken, it is our responsibility to fix it. It is our duty as Americans and citizens of the world to stand up and fight for our justice, democracy, and freedom to ensure that we will live in a world that is brighter tomorrow than it is today.

Thank you Moldova for helping me gain my sense of self, for concreting my values and morals, for opening my eyes to a new world, and providing me with a lifetime of memories. Thanks to everyone that has supported me, my projects, my family, or has simply read my blog during this time. I am off to Indonesia for the summer to learn the Bahasa Indonesia language, study sustainable tropical agriculture, and trail blaze around the world’s largest archipelago.

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill

365 Days of Peace and Friendship Blog Post

I recently posted a blog post for Peace Corps Moldova's blog that celebrates the 50th Anniversary of Peace Corps. Each day a volunteer writes a story about their work, their day, etcetera in efforts to highlight our work and our mission- spread peace and friendship worldwide. If you would like to read other stories and posts besides mine you can find them on the website www.365peaceandfriendship.com/home.

March 7th, 2011

Unpredictability is the name of the game in Peace Corps Moldova. That isn’t to say that we don’t have generalized routines, but after twenty-one months in Moldova I have come to embrace the fact that I usually do not know, nor do I want to know how my day will unfold. Some days I will wake up to the District Council’s driver at my door telling me that we have a seminar in another village that I am expected to attend, other days I will walk to work to find that I am the only person at my agriculture extension office that day. Monday March 7^th, 2011 was no exception, and it started off much like every morning begins for me.

Slowly but surely the weather is warming up, and by 7:30am the sun had permeated throughout my room. I prefer to wake up naturally instead of a blaring alarm, and the morning sun is a welcome development after months of cold, dark winter mornings. That’s not to say that the weather is warm outside. The ground is still frozen, the sidewalks (or sidewalk-esc paths alongside the road) are covered with hardened mud and ice, and my apartment still doesn’t have running water due to frozen pipes. However unpredictable my day, I can always count on my morning routine: Wake up, fetch water from the well outside, fire up the stove to make coffee and cașha (oatemeal), and then settle down to the previous day’s Daily Show and breakfast in bed (Who said spreading peace and friendship didn’t have its perks?)

I live on the outskirts of a small commercial center and have a twenty-minute walk to work. Usually I greet my neighbors going to work, babas coming back from the market, and children playing hookie from school. However on this particular day I noticed that I didn’t pass anyone on the street, nor were there any cars or horse carts going into town. I reached the center and happened to pass my neighbor Ion, an old păznic (security guard) getting off his graveyard shift at a construction firm. We exchanged the formal greetings before I curiously asked him why the town was so quiet. Quite matter-of-factly he explained that everyone had the day off because the next day was the Women’s Day holiday.

I decided to keep on keeping on and made it to my office to find that I was the only one in the building. This isn’t my first rodeo, and I am quite accustomed to being generally out of the loop when it comes to Moldovan holidays. Normally I am inadequately informed the day of about meetings, seminars, and holidays (religious, quasi-religious, or fictitious), and it isn’t unusual for my partners to forget to mention that we don’t have work on a particular day. It is assumed that I am in the know about every birthday party planned for someone working on our floor, and every holiday warranting a meat platter and a bottle of house wine, which are in no shortage in Moldova.

Not to let the holiday deter me from having a somewhat productive day, I decided to make the most of the downtime at the office to finish up some on-going work. Several hours went by before I started to hear the bass bumping of an Akon song, laughter, and the whooping sounds of a gaggle of Moldovan women getting down to a pre-Women’s Day celebration. One of the best things about Moldova is that the people are extremely hospitable and open, and Women’s Day is no exception. Out of curiosity (boredom) I made my way down to the office where the noise was originating. I found nine women that work in the building dancing, laughing, and eating. I knew several of them, and was immediately instructed to join in on the festivities.

Usually I’m not big on midday dance parties, and Moldovan house wine imbibing makes it hard to go on an afternoon run in the fields. However, I have come to deeply respect the role of the Moldovan woman, and am in constant awe of their resilience to their expected responsibilities. Not only do they rear the children, but they also cook every meal, keep the house clean, work the gardens and the fields, do the shopping, hold a full time job, and take care of the animals all while assuming a subservient role to their husbands and men in general. At the office party I made sure to express my sincere respect for the women, and they seemed to enjoy the part where I said that the country truly would not be able to function if it wasn’t for their efforts and determination.

I stayed at the party for nearly two hours, and I reveled in my role as the only male in the dance circle. It is days like this that make me appreciate my job, and it is because of days like this that help me realize that to truly excel at being a PCV you need to be open to anything, and ready to celebrate each day and all it’s opportunities. Finally and most importantly, I want to give all of you reading this the chance to participate in Peace Corps’ mission of spreading peace and friendship across the world, no matter if you are man or woman, old or young, RPCV or hopeful PCV. I charge you all to call the women most important in your life and express your gratitude and your love. As true as it is here in Moldova, I believe that the world and all the countries in it would not be able to function without the un-praised efforts of women.

Happy (pre) Women’s Day!

Women's Day also happened to be on Mardi Gras and instead of buying flowers I decided to keep to my roots and make a homemade king cake. I learned several things from this experience- King cakes are ridiculously harder to make than regular cakes. Villages in Moldova do not sell food coloring or miniature plastic babies. Lastly, do not underestimate the power of yeast, or else you will end up with a huge, round king cake with no hole in the center. It did come out quite tasty though.

This is the picture of my host family reenacting the events of the morning when their grandson Vlad and my host dad Tudor gave Olega, host mom, flowers for Women's Day.

Moldovan Masas

Well hello there. Bine ai venit. I would like to say that I’ve been neglecting my blog because of work demands, but that might be overdoing it. I’m not saying that I haven’t been working, quite the contrary actually, however it is just that we’ve been in holiday season for a month and a half and ordinary life is just now resuming. This past Thursday the 20^th marked the last of the major celebrations (hopefully) with the passing of Saint John the Baptist Day. There was a striking contrast between the holidays this year and last, and it was nice to know before hand what I was getting myself into this go round. It is quite shocking the first year when you barely speak the language and then are subjected to Christmas on December 25, New Years on January 1, Old Christmas on January 7, Old New Year on January 14, St. John the Baptist Day on the 20, and a host of other random, quasi-religious holidays thrown in between. Not misconstrue and overhype the celebrations I think it is necessary to clarify what goes down at a Moldovan sarbartoare .

Moldovan holidays, birthdays, village celebrations, and any other run-of-the-mill holiday you can think are practically interchangeable. First and foremost you must have your meat patties. These come in two types, the first is called perijoale and are tastly, egg-shaped meaty morsels delicately spiced with salt, pepper, garlic, and onions. The second type that usually shares a plate with the perijoale is your haphazard, mashed and fried mystery meat cut into finger-long strips. These can be quite delicious, but only if you catch them freshly out of the kitchen. Believe you me, there is nothing more bland than that of two-day old soft-battered mystery meat. Then you’ve got your plate(s) of sausage and cheese. Nothing very fancy here, and sometimes this is the safest bet to go with when you are unsure how many hours/days the rest of the food has been sitting out. Now we move onto the fish. Typically for larger masas, you’ll find what I believe to be smoked sardines out of a can, and a type of raw fish swimming in oil. Not once have I seen the fish served without a lemon slice and a jar of pickled black olives. Then you’ve got a plate full of baked chicken, stuffed grape leafs or stuffed peppers, and a hot plate of stewed cabbage, carrots, onions, and meat. These will be the last items served since the progression of a masa is from cold, to warm or once warm, and finally your hot food. It takes time to develop masa-pacing skills, and it’s a rookie move to fill up too early. Guaranteed you will be forced to eat the remaining courses no matter how much you protest or how full you are. Side dishes include potato-mayo-corn-fake crab salads, chicken salad, and copious amounts of bread stacked next to your plate.

Throughout each meal there is always a bottle of carbonated water, house wine, and possibly champagne or cognac. In almost two years I’ve only been to one dry masa, and man was it weird (In the hosts defense they are Mormons, and no matter what a Mormon masa is strange place for non-Mormons due to abstinence of caffeine and booze). If there is champagne then that will come first, then the cognac shots follow, but these can be substituted for house wine. The house wine is more of staple, like water at an American meal, and I can’t begin to recount the times I’ve been told, “Neal, you’re young. You should be the one drinking the cognac and us drinking the (insert water or wine here).” Hospitality methods are not universally exchangeable, and the sooner this is realized the sooner one can start to really appreciate the culture and start to relax. It just so happens that in Moldova the face of hospitality is a large Moldovan woman demanding you eat more food while her husband snidely fills up your shot glass and gives you this look that says “Ah-ha! Gotcha! Now you have to drink it since I’ve poured it.” They make quite the dynamic duo, and bless their hearts, it is sometimes the easiest form of communication between a host and a foreigner barely grasping the language. It only gets easier with time though.

As for exceptions, there is always a slightly differing smorgasbord offered from house to house, naturally. However the dishes I have described are numai decît always, and I do mean always, going to be at a masa. Occasionally you will have rachituri, a bowlful of salty gelatin with a cold piece of baked chicken or pork congealed in the center. It’s a shame that the American palate is only accustomed to sweet foods being in this coagulated state, because Moldovans seemingly love this stuff and lick the bowls clean while their foreign guests sit back in a state of awe and disbelief. Other than that you have dyed red eggs and lamb for Easter, and overflowing platefuls of cake and sweets for desert.

In closing I’ll give you several anecdotes I’ve come to notice about this fair country and myself:

· Besides the roma there is an overwhelming monoculture of racial diversity in Moldova. There are absolutely zero, no joke, zero people of minorities that live in my town, and it seems that Romania and the rest of Europe have attracted the majority of the roma away from Moldova. Whenever I was in Oslo recently I found myself jaw-on-the-floor staring at black people, Indians, and hajib totting Muslims due simply to the fact that I have been surrounded by anglos for the past year and a half. In no way am I prejudice towards people of different ethnic backgrounds or religious beliefs, it is simply an alarming part of culture shock after being in the trenches for so long (figure of speech).

· Moldovans are always fascinated by how much money people make in other countries, how good the quality of life is, and like to follow it up by stating that they have a tough life but “Moldova isn’t Africa”.

· It is a merciless environment at times for learning a language and Moldovans have a habit of carping every aspect of your life. For instance- If you are with another volunteer that has a better Romanian accent than you then you can bet on them commenting that she/he speaks way better than you do. If you didn’t sleep very well/gained a little weight during masa season/have mud on your shoes then you should expect the comments “Wow what happened? You look (fat/terrible/like you need a woman to wash your clothes and shoes).

· A sustained alcohol binge is called “being in delirium”. Word to the wise, if your electrician has been delirious for the past two weeks, it might not be a good idea for him to work with the electricity in your house.

· It can sometimes be rude to say that someone is drunk, and often times women will tell you that their husbands are tired or resting instead of passed out cold.

· As a male I am always asked if I have a woman. No matter what the answer I am told that I need a Moldovan woman. Many times I am told I need an additional woman to the one previously entailed- or as literally translated “You need a whore on the side”.

· For two weeks after St. John the Baptist Day you cannot wash your clothes. If you are unaware of this social norm, then your neighbors will passively ridicule your landlords for not keeping their American in-line.

· Instead of telling the children (or the local Peace Corps volunteer) that the family pet died or “went to a farm”, Moldovans will tell them that the dog or cat was stolen.

· Because of Romanian I now speak more affected English, and am constantly referring to moods or preferences as a “disposition”.