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 7th, 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!
