Remember what I have mentioned about unpredictability? This Friday everything seemed to be “normal”. I walked around the village, shot the breeze with a couple people, had a meeting with the director of the school, went to tutoring, and had a nice dinner. After 8 o’clock I’m pretty much in the clear for unexpected adventures, and I like to talk with my host family, read a book, or pop in a movie; I live in a village and the discotech here isn’t really my thing (big room, no bar, big groups of 14 year olds). Anyways, it was about 10 pm, I had just finished going over my day’s language lesson and was looking forward to finishing Vonnegut’s Sirens of Titan. I heard the doorbell ring and could tell right away from the voices that it was my neighbor, Igor the bus driver. I first met him at the funeral party I went to on my site visit to Telenesti. He is a jovial sort of man that loves to ramble away in Russian forgetting that I only know Romanian. He is a classic repeater. Some people here will be talking to you, then when they can see that they’ve lost you, or a word has stumped you, they will try a different approach to the conversation, and hope that you know a synonym of the word they are trying to get across. This seems to be the most practical method, at least for me. However, there are others, the repeaters, that will repeat the word over, and over, and over, hoping that somehow after ten times of hearing the word, the meaning will suddenly make sense to you. The best part is that people won’t simply repeat the word, but they get louder each time. This seems to be a classic universal mistake, and at first it’s frustrating because you want to tell them that you aren’t deaf or stupid, you just haven’t learned the word yet in the four months you’ve been in the country. If I feel the situation at hand is informal enough, I will shout back at them “NU INTELEG ACEEA CUVENT”- I DON’T UNDERSTAND THAT WORD. Works like a charm, and you can see the wheels turning trying to come up with a new way to explain what they are talking about instead of writing you off as the linguistically challenged foreigner. Anyways, old Igor the bus driver, came over to tell me, against my host mothers wishes, that I was to go night fishing with him and his buddy Viscile. I had to get up early the next morning to help a family harvest grapes, but Igor the bus driver wouldn’t have it any other way, we were going fishing.
Twenty minutes later, sitting in the soft mud next to a large pond used to water the local cows, sheep, and goats, we had poles in hand and lines in the water. It’s been quite sometime since I’ve been fresh water fishing, and I was trying to explain that the kind of fishing I do back home is pretty far from what we were doing. Finally after freezing my tail off for about an hour and a half with nothing to show for it except a stomach full of fresh goat cheese and wine, we decided to pack it in. I’m pretty sure there aren’t even fish in the pond, but all in all I really enjoyed the camaraderie of sitting on the bank, listening to stories about Soviet times, and taking in the dark landscape only barely visible from the sliver of the moon peaking through the clouds and the orange glow of Igor the bus driver’s cigarette.
The next morning at 6:45 I was roused out of bed, again by Igor the bus driver. To make up for our fruitless labors the night before he came bearing gift of fish sandwiches. Nothing like waking up to the day with a cup of coffee, and rich, oily canned fish paste spread over a slice of bread. Surprisingly enough, that was the second time in ten days to have fish paste sandwiches for breakfast, and I am really starting to enjoy them.
After a couple hours working my magic with sheers on grape vines, the family I was helping decided to call it a day. I forgot to bring my camera, but I’m sure there will be more photo ops to see me in action, don’t worry. After saying goodbye and promising I would come back to help make wine, I walked to the main road near their farm, and instead of hitching back to my village, I found myself getting on a bus to Chisinau going the opposite direction. My host family would be gone all weekend, and I really didn’t feel like sitting at home by myself. An hour and a half later, after a nice cat nap induced by the warmth of 50 people in roughly the size of a cardboard box with no open windows, I made it into the capital. I picked the right weekend to go in because 3/4ths of PC Moldova was in town for the weekend. I spend the weekend bumping around the big city, grabbing snacks in the piata, enjoying the weather on the terrace of a local bar, and jamming out to a great cover band that our Safety and Security Officer for PC plays the harmonica in. Sunday morning, I was able to lethargically lounge around PC headquaters watching ESPN, trying to find the energy to make it to the auto Gara de Nord (North Bus Station) and head back home. Next weekend I’ll be back in the capital for two days of language lessons, and soon it will be Wine Fest in October kicked off with a 10K road race that I’m looking forward to. In the mean time, I’ve got a case of the Monday’s and I really need to get up and go to work. Multi ani si success aceasta saptamâna, paka paka.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Living Rural: 101 Days
At an old Jewish cemetery helping to clean it up.
Selling produce in the Sunday morning market.
I’m having a hard time starting this blog post. It’s not that I haven’t been doing anything, quite on the contrary, I have been very busy, yet mildly productive. Actually, I’m not really sure what “productive” means right now. America is a society based upon results, of action, and much of what inspired me to come to the Peace Corps is from hearing about previous success stories (go check out Peace Corps website and you’ll see what I mean, I’m pretty sure I decided that I wanted to join whenever I read the entire site on my iPhone driving back from a fishing trip). What they didn’t tell me is that productivity can be very strange; I know now that by simply being in my village and showing the people that I am dedicated to living here by learning their language, making friends, going to work, and living like they do is productive, but whenever your used to “doing” something, and able to see tangible outputs, it makes me stir crazy to get a project going. I’ve actually got a couple projects floating around in the old steal trap that I want to get started with, but I still have a good amount of prep work before I can start getting my hands dirty. A friend of mine in the village bought a really nice sewing machine, and he and his wife want to start a sewing business. It’s ironic because I had just heard what another PCV did earlier in another site where he and his partner helped setup a sewing business, geared more for tailoring. The guy in my village wants to make embroideries and sell them in a local/regional market. We also collaborated on the possibilities of getting more sewing machines, and renting them out Internet café style per hour. The idea is in very early stages, but there is promise. I told him that my mother owns her own needlepoint shop, and the guy almost fell out of his chair thinking that I was God’s personal gift to him. In the grand scheme of things that doesn’t mean squat, but I don’t want to deflate the wind out of my own sails and am really eager to work with this couple.
I also have a couple Ag specific projects that I’ve been thinking about. I’m more drawn to projects in the agriculture sector here. Call me crazy, but there is something romantic in working the land, helping to refine a practice that has been around for thousands of years, and literally is, our life source. There’s a lot of need for improving greenhouses here, and other volunteers have really sparked my interest in solar battery powered greenhouses where the sun heats up barrels of water and regulates the temperature in the winter time, making it much more cost efficient than burning fuel in a heat source. I’m not sure how enthused farmers would be about portable greenhouses, but I think it’s a pretty cool concept. Essentially, you can plant, for example lettuce, earlier than most crops because they are more resilient to cold weather; once these have started to grow, you get your tractor and pull your greenhouse (usually on rails or something similar) to another plot where you are starting the next type of crop, and so forth until all the crops don’t need a greenhouse anymore. The next project is a dreamer, and is simply an idea, but if someone would build a produce refrigeration unit in my raoin, the farmers could store their produce longer and market them in the winter. As for now, there isn’t any option for locally grown produce in the winter, and the fresh produce they can get is expensive. I might just want to see this project go through because the thought of canned watermelon (no joke, I’ll tell you how it tastes in a couple months) really turns my stomach. And last, but definitely not the least, I would like to introduce sweet potatoes to Moldovans. It’s one of those “If you build it, they will come” type of deals, because the Moldovans go crazy over their potatoes. I had potatoes at all three meals today. They can be baked, boiled, smashed, diced, roasted, or toasted and they will eat them. Not only does the nutritional content of sweet potatoes blow the hell out of regular potatoes, but they taste better too (please refer to my disclaimer on the right-hand side of my blog about my opinions). I’m pretty certain that if they will accept the fact that the inside of the potato is orange, they will love them, and I will be given my own holiday in Moldova, and statues of Lenin, as you see blow, will be taken down and replaced by me. A guy can dream…
Sunday morning market in Cortova, that really is a statue of Lenin in the background.
This past weekend I went up to visit another volunteer that lives near the border of Ukraine. He had a project that involved cleaning up an old Jewish cemetery that he needed help with. It was a great weekend, and it was really nice to be able to see my fellow PCVs in action. Talk about some impressive language abilities, these guys have been in site for 18 months and were rattling off Romanian and Moldovaneasca (blend of Romanian and Russian) like it was nothing. Needless to say, I’m quite jealous. I had an epiphany while there when we were walking to the morning market trying to buy some snacks for later in the day, and somehow ended up in someone’s car, where we were then shown the corn meal factory, ended up in the fields supervising a boy learn how to prune raspberry plants, and then were deposited at a table where we ate bread, cheese, and pig fat washed down with homemade wine. I love the unpredictability of my days here. Time is quite an irrelevant concept, and if you go with the flow, it is truly amazing where you will end up at the end of the day. I actually experienced that quite literally last Monday when my partner told me we were going to a masa (like a party) at this family’s house in another village. After we ate, my partner and I said our goodbyes, and we were preparing to leave when he told me that I would be staying with that family for the next two days. No extra clothes, toothbrush, phone charger, or whatever other convenience I usually would bring on a similar outing. I spent the next two days wandering around the farm, learning how to milk a cow, harvest grapes, and watching the grass grow, and the best part of it, I loved every second of it. Since then I’ve been daydreaming of the day I can move out of my host family’s apartment, rent out a little cottage with a nice fruit and vegetable garden, and even have some chickens, ducks, and rabbits. Before I get distracted and go into detail, I will end it there because I feel like I’ve hit you with a lot of agriculture related material today. Although before I do go, I must say that the news that’s coming out of America is quite repulsive. It’s either someone screaming at the president in Congress, a popstar dying or being defamed, or a bloody mess with healthcare reform, I’m pretty sure I’m going to be hanging up to towel on my news sites and simply “be” for awhile, so hopefully by the time I get back the economy will be in full swing, healthcare will be affordable for all, and the south is no longer in racist-shock that there is a black president. Have fun sorting out that mess, I'm sticking to language lessons.
Language lessons
Monday, September 7, 2009
Muddy fields and horse carts
This is a monument in my village for a famous Moldovan poet.
The political situation in Moldova is fascinating and I’ve settled into a nice routine of printing out the latest political news here and translating them into English. The struggle between the Communists and the Democrats to elect a president still continues, even after three subsequent elections.
Last week was a great week. It was the first week where I really started to feel comfortable with the notion that this village is my home for the next 20-someodd months. I’m not doing much at work besides showing up, translating articles and books, reading, and doing my song-and-dance whenever people wander in and want to talk with me. There are reoccurring questions that I get without fail: “How do you like Moldova?; “What is better, America or Moldova?”; “What do you think of our women?”; “Do you live near New York or California?”; and “What do you think about Obama?”. I don’t care one way or another what your political leanings are, it’s nice to travel when other countries like your president and you aren’t ostracized for having an American passport.
I’ve made friends with a family in my village with four kids whom all speak very good English. They learned English from a PCV nine years ago that spent three years in my village. It’s fascinating listening to them talk about the PCV and how much he has helped change their lives. Not only did he teach them a valuable skill that helped get them a better education in Romania, but he also showed them a new perspective of the world. PCVs in over 100 countries are teaching people the value of having an open mind. I didn’t want to start an English club before coming to my village because I don’t know the first thing about teaching a foreign language. But I’ve changed my mind, and have found five kids that are very eager to work with me, and if the only thing I do here for the next two years is teach them English, I know this impact will go far beyond the scope of my time here. People are looking for a way out of poverty in Moldova, and their best chances to do this is to get a good education. The future truly lies in the hands of the youth, and if they can get a good education and put it into practice here in Moldova, the country will have a much brighter future. It is humbling to know that I can be a part of this, even on the grassroots level, and there is no greater feeling than that of helping people and making a difference. It is a privilege to call this my job, and I know that these experiences will mold me for the rest of my life.
Apart from starting an English club, I helped with a leadership conference for high schoolers this past Saturday. Thirty students attended and listened to speakers (a mayor, auditor, journalist, economist, teacher, and a police officer) talk about their jobs and qualifications. After that, the kids learned how to assemble a CV and a resume, and then they had two sessions on Pro-activity and Leadership. I guided a group of students on the Delegation style of leadership. The kids’ conception of delegation was that the boss simply hands out work and tells people what to do. We did different skits and situations to show them that an effective leader is one that utilizes the assets of his/her employees. I wanted to show them that you don’t have to be the smartest person, or the most talented, to be an effective leader. All the students seemed to have a good time, and I learned just as much as they did, and I look forward to putting on more informational sessions similar to this one.
This is a group of students that I was leading on Leadership styles...in Romanian.
This is a group shot of the professionals we had come speak for the kids at the conference.
Last week I was able to get a tutor for Romanian, no thanks to my partner or my host family. I was getting tired, annoyed is a better word, of “bride shopping” as my partner put it. I threw him a curve ball the other day just to see what his reaction would be, and I told him that I wanted to get a guy to tutor me because we would have more in common. That was when he stopped “helping” me find a tutor; probably for the best because my patience was starting to wear thin. Along with a tutor, I was also able to find a workout partner. I was getting really worried what kind of physical activity I would be able to do during the winter because the snow, mud, ice, and weather are supposed to make it difficult to run through the fields. I met a police officer that said I could work out with him at the police gym since there’s no other gym in my village. A couple free weights and a bar, and I’m a happy camper. In the mean time, I’ve made more Moldovan friends, and we play basketball a couple times a week. Which ever previous volunteer that was here that played basketball in college, thank you for very much for making me look like a horrible basketball player. The guys matched me against a 6’7 giant that is an incredible player, thinking that all Americans are really good at the sport (because of that other volunteer). The guy ran me into the ground the first day, but I’ve been able to hold my weight for the most part since then. It’s just fun getting out with the locals and playing.
This is a wedding driving through my village. They decorate the cars and honk all the way down the street.
This little house is a Crochet and stitching shop in my village.
One of the many horse carts, called a caruta.
A couple kiosks near my work, I love the one called "Lactate" on the left.
In the background is my apartment building, and the foreground is an abandoned Orthodox Church and someone's horse grazing on the side of the road.
My buddy Dave in Balti reading what this monument says in Russian. Apparently it is a monument for Chernobyl.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Ziua Limba
When I say I have free time, I'm not being facetious, I really have nothing better to do than play around with PhotoBooth on my computer
I used to have a reoccurring dream that I was a Siamese twin. I don't think it would be that bad...
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Happy holidays to everyone reading this, be it a Kyrgyzstani celebrating your Independence Day from the USSR, a Malaysian celebrating Merdeka Day, or a Moldovan celebrating National Language Day. August 31 here is the national holiday when Moldova switched over from the Cyrillic alphabet to the Latin alphabet. Besides an all day concert going down in Chisinau, I’m not sure what the Moldovans are doing to celebrate. I spent the day recuperating from the four previous days of feasting, celebrating, and being gluttonous. I’ll go over some highlights mai tirzui, or “more later” for you Romanian challenged folks. I first want to start of this blog wishing students everywhere good luck with your semesters. It feels really strange for me not to be gearing up for classes, doing last minute scheduling changes, and getting psyched for football season.
Life here is going, for the most part, well. I have settled in nicely with my new host family. I thought it was going to be a difficult adjustment going from my PST host family with lots of kids around, to it simply being my new host mom and sister in Telenesti, but there is always extended family coming over and lots of surprise, at least for me, parties that my h. mom throws. The food here is pretty good, nothing fancy, lots of salami, potatoes, soup, bread, cheese, and cabbage, but I’m not hard to please and I’m sticking to my guns that I’ll try anything once (The PC medical office would probably cringe to hear me say that, sorry Illiana). Work has been a tad stagnant lately, and since my partner is having back problems I have been opening and closing the office. Remember the guy that came in a week or two ago that wanted to immigrate to Canada? Well he’s back, except this time he doesn’t have any forms for me to fill out. He is about 65 years old, skinny as a rail, and has a big, dark mustache, and the most important detail as of lately, shirtless. This dude is priceless. He comes barging up into my office wearing the biggest grin on his face and trousers up to his belly button, and shakes my hand. Before I could even ask why he wasn't wearing a shirt, he goes off into this whole spiel about how the floor that our offices are located on is a furnace in the summer, and a refrigerator in the winter. I’ve gotten used to his lack of attire now seeing that he has done this three or four times, and am becoming immune to the fact that I have a shirtless old man chilling in the chair pulled up to my desk either talking to me, or if I’m busy, reading a pamphlet about agriculture or economic development. Truth be told, I’m a little jealous, because it can get a little hot up there. Soon enough though I’ll be freezing my you-know-whats off dreaming of the warm, sunny days of August.
Tomorrow I go back to work, but like I said I have had the previous four days off, as well as today, so a nice five day stretch without seeing my scrawny-shirtless friend at the office (Picture the naked guy in the movie Waking Ned Divine, now put a black mustache on him, BINGO), anyways I’ll move off him and recount my holidays. Thursday was Moldova’s Independence Day. I knew that they gained their independence from the USSR in 1991, but whenever you have a limited vocabulary in a foreign language you take what you can get, so I asked multiple people about the holiday. I was pretty shocked that some gave me the wrong years- 1990, 1992, and one guy even told me they were celebrating their independence from Germany in 1945. Riiiggghhhtttt. There wasn’t much going on that day in the village, my host mother told me that there was a celebration in the center at 10am, and I made it down there for 10:20, which should have been either right on time here, or still early. Either the celebration never happened, or by an act of God it had occurred on time because I didn’t see any celebration, but I’m putting my money on the former because 20 minutes seems like a really short time to celebrate Independence Day.
Friday was, from what I gather, the closest thing to the birthday of the village. I knew we were going to be going down to the center for a concert that started at 9pm (in reality it was kicked off at 10:30). I was trying to get a nap in so I would be well rested for the festivities when my host mom knocked on my bedroom door around 2:30 and asked if she could put a table in my room. I thought she was just rearranging, nothing new because she has been cleaning and rearranging like a madwoman for days now (In retrospect I should have picked up on this foreshadowing because what does it mean when people get their houses clean as whistle?…Company). No sooner than she had deposited a table in my bedroom, I was seated at it with 15 guests staring at me probably wondering why I looked like I had just rolled out of bed. You know how your brain doesn’t function immediately after a nice slumber? I was doing my best at small talk, but the words just weren’t coming to me. It was a pretty awkward situation. But after seven and a half hours of eating and drinking, I was back to fine form. Actually we all were, you should have seen us all trying to make our way down to the center for the concert, it was a train wreck. The concert was held in front of my office building, and before the show got kicked off we went inside because my h. mom had to use the internet. The next thing I know, eight girls ranging in ages from 16 to 25 came barging in the office and start changing clothes. It was like Christmas came early, but before I could appreciate my surroundings, two guys came in and started talking to me about the girls and how they were the bands that were performing tonight. My American status definitely scored some celebrity points, and I was able to take in a lot of the concert backstage with the performers, mayor, and other VIPs-yeah, that’s how I roll. After the concert ended somewhere between 12 and 1, the girls wanted to know what I thought, if they would do well in America, if I wanted to go out and celebrate with them, etc. The 16 year olds, god this sounds awful, were really hott, but it weirded me out that their entire concert was a striptease and I’m sure many guys that night went to sleep with really impure, improper, and illegal thoughts conjured up from the temptresses tweens. I’m not sure mainstream America is quite ready for them. Give it two years and they’ll be breaking the hearts of every pimple-faced American boy.
This is a disclaimer for my mother. I know you internalize my struggles here, and I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your willingness to hear out my problems, and try to be there for me. However, I know that you can get worked up over some of the events and emotions going on with me right now, so you can either skip to the paragraph below this one, or you can read on, just understand that I’m having the time of my life right now, no matter all the ups and downs that come along with it. With that being said, I took a day trip to visit friends in the 2nd largest city in Moldova, Balti. I somehow managed to make it out of bed for 7 the morning after the concert and on a bus 30 minutes later for the hour ride north. It was really nice getting to see friends and we ran into several other PCVs. Balti is a really nice city, except they only speak Russian there so it was fun making my friend Dave order for me at restaurants (although slightly emasculating, but I was really impressed with his Russian skills). I ended up taking an “illegal” bus back at the end of the day. These are the vans that are parked kind of close to the bus station that are direct routes straight to Chisinau, and are considered illegal because they aren’t state owned and don’t pay the $5 entrance fee to get into the bus station. I’m pretty sure the mafia has this market cornered. I asked the driver how much it was to go only half the distance to Chisinau, dropping me off on the side of the highway in a village about ten miles from mine, since my village isn’t on the route. I could have sworn he said 15 lei, and considering that it cost me 20 lei to go from my village to Balti, I thought that was fair. Half way into the trip, one of the mafia minions started collecting the money, and that’s when I started running into problems. Instead of it being 15 lei, it was really 50 lei, and of course, I only had 30 some odd lei on me. Man! I hate getting yelled at in Russian and was pretty sure they were going to kick me out of the van right then and there in the middle of nowhere. But for some reason, the gods smiled down upon me and they didn’t kick me out, I was just yelled at in a strange language and given dirty looks for the rest of the trip. Once we got to the village I needed to get dropped off at, the crony collecting the money let me out, gave me some lovely parting obscenities detailing how I need to go back to America, and planted a fist firmly in my stomach. It’s a strange feeling to be doubled over trying to catch your breath on the side of a highway, in the pitch dark, nowhere close to your own village, with no money, in a foreign country. I had the choice of either walking back and arriving home around 5am, or try hitching it back with no money. The way it works here is that you give the same amount of money to the driver willing to pick you up, as you would have spent for a bus or rutiera. So to keep a short story short, I found a ride after only thirty minutes of waiting, and luckily the guys were very hospitable and said they wouldn’t have accepted money even if I had any.
Yesterday I thought I would be lounging and was really appreciating the fact that I was in bed at 10:30 in the morning drinking a cup of coffee and reading a book. That didn’t last long though and after an hour or so my phone started ringing and I was off to meet up with another PCV that lives in a village not too far from mine who was in my village for the day. I had never met her and she has been here for 18 months so I wanted to see what she thought about our raoin. The next thing I know I’m sitting at an internet café with the PCV and two Moldovans helping to plan a leadership conference for high schoolers this up coming Saturday. I’m not opposed to helping out because I really want to, I’m just afraid that me leading one of the groups will take away from the kids’ experience because I don’t feel fully capable with the language yet. We’ll see how it goes….
After that I made it home, and again wasn’t informed that we were having guests, and that we would be making a party in my room. I don't really mind that we have it thre, and it makes sense because I have by far the biggest room in the apartment. I just wish I had some kind of warning for these events. All in all it was a lot of fun, and it was kept really informal. One of the lady consultants that I work with at ACSA came over with her 20-year-old daughter, and we ate, drank, and talked for a good couple of hours. The lady I work with and my h. mom got pretty giggly by the end, and some of the stuff they were saying was cracking me up (If anyone wants to marry at 55 year old Moldovan woman, who has the heart of gold, and the teeth to match it, let me know). It was also nice to get to interact with a Moldovan around my age, and even though she was making fun of me most of the time about, well, everything, it was still nice to get to hang out.
September is almost upon us, and today is the first day I sought out a pair of sweatpants to wear around the crib. Its nicely chilly at night and in the morning, but I know that with this weather also comes rain. I’ve been dreading the winter, but I’ve always liked fall in the past so we’ll see what’s it’s like here. I’ll leave you all with a quote that I like about this time of the year, and it does a nice job describing my village.
“The foliage has been losing its freshness through the month of August, and here and there a yellow leaf shows itself like the first gray hair amidst the locks of a beauty who has seen one season too many.”
-Oliver Wendell Holmes
I used to have a reoccurring dream that I was a Siamese twin. I don't think it would be that bad...
***********************************************************************************Happy holidays to everyone reading this, be it a Kyrgyzstani celebrating your Independence Day from the USSR, a Malaysian celebrating Merdeka Day, or a Moldovan celebrating National Language Day. August 31 here is the national holiday when Moldova switched over from the Cyrillic alphabet to the Latin alphabet. Besides an all day concert going down in Chisinau, I’m not sure what the Moldovans are doing to celebrate. I spent the day recuperating from the four previous days of feasting, celebrating, and being gluttonous. I’ll go over some highlights mai tirzui, or “more later” for you Romanian challenged folks. I first want to start of this blog wishing students everywhere good luck with your semesters. It feels really strange for me not to be gearing up for classes, doing last minute scheduling changes, and getting psyched for football season.
Life here is going, for the most part, well. I have settled in nicely with my new host family. I thought it was going to be a difficult adjustment going from my PST host family with lots of kids around, to it simply being my new host mom and sister in Telenesti, but there is always extended family coming over and lots of surprise, at least for me, parties that my h. mom throws. The food here is pretty good, nothing fancy, lots of salami, potatoes, soup, bread, cheese, and cabbage, but I’m not hard to please and I’m sticking to my guns that I’ll try anything once (The PC medical office would probably cringe to hear me say that, sorry Illiana). Work has been a tad stagnant lately, and since my partner is having back problems I have been opening and closing the office. Remember the guy that came in a week or two ago that wanted to immigrate to Canada? Well he’s back, except this time he doesn’t have any forms for me to fill out. He is about 65 years old, skinny as a rail, and has a big, dark mustache, and the most important detail as of lately, shirtless. This dude is priceless. He comes barging up into my office wearing the biggest grin on his face and trousers up to his belly button, and shakes my hand. Before I could even ask why he wasn't wearing a shirt, he goes off into this whole spiel about how the floor that our offices are located on is a furnace in the summer, and a refrigerator in the winter. I’ve gotten used to his lack of attire now seeing that he has done this three or four times, and am becoming immune to the fact that I have a shirtless old man chilling in the chair pulled up to my desk either talking to me, or if I’m busy, reading a pamphlet about agriculture or economic development. Truth be told, I’m a little jealous, because it can get a little hot up there. Soon enough though I’ll be freezing my you-know-whats off dreaming of the warm, sunny days of August.
Tomorrow I go back to work, but like I said I have had the previous four days off, as well as today, so a nice five day stretch without seeing my scrawny-shirtless friend at the office (Picture the naked guy in the movie Waking Ned Divine, now put a black mustache on him, BINGO), anyways I’ll move off him and recount my holidays. Thursday was Moldova’s Independence Day. I knew that they gained their independence from the USSR in 1991, but whenever you have a limited vocabulary in a foreign language you take what you can get, so I asked multiple people about the holiday. I was pretty shocked that some gave me the wrong years- 1990, 1992, and one guy even told me they were celebrating their independence from Germany in 1945. Riiiggghhhtttt. There wasn’t much going on that day in the village, my host mother told me that there was a celebration in the center at 10am, and I made it down there for 10:20, which should have been either right on time here, or still early. Either the celebration never happened, or by an act of God it had occurred on time because I didn’t see any celebration, but I’m putting my money on the former because 20 minutes seems like a really short time to celebrate Independence Day.
Friday was, from what I gather, the closest thing to the birthday of the village. I knew we were going to be going down to the center for a concert that started at 9pm (in reality it was kicked off at 10:30). I was trying to get a nap in so I would be well rested for the festivities when my host mom knocked on my bedroom door around 2:30 and asked if she could put a table in my room. I thought she was just rearranging, nothing new because she has been cleaning and rearranging like a madwoman for days now (In retrospect I should have picked up on this foreshadowing because what does it mean when people get their houses clean as whistle?…Company). No sooner than she had deposited a table in my bedroom, I was seated at it with 15 guests staring at me probably wondering why I looked like I had just rolled out of bed. You know how your brain doesn’t function immediately after a nice slumber? I was doing my best at small talk, but the words just weren’t coming to me. It was a pretty awkward situation. But after seven and a half hours of eating and drinking, I was back to fine form. Actually we all were, you should have seen us all trying to make our way down to the center for the concert, it was a train wreck. The concert was held in front of my office building, and before the show got kicked off we went inside because my h. mom had to use the internet. The next thing I know, eight girls ranging in ages from 16 to 25 came barging in the office and start changing clothes. It was like Christmas came early, but before I could appreciate my surroundings, two guys came in and started talking to me about the girls and how they were the bands that were performing tonight. My American status definitely scored some celebrity points, and I was able to take in a lot of the concert backstage with the performers, mayor, and other VIPs-yeah, that’s how I roll. After the concert ended somewhere between 12 and 1, the girls wanted to know what I thought, if they would do well in America, if I wanted to go out and celebrate with them, etc. The 16 year olds, god this sounds awful, were really hott, but it weirded me out that their entire concert was a striptease and I’m sure many guys that night went to sleep with really impure, improper, and illegal thoughts conjured up from the temptresses tweens. I’m not sure mainstream America is quite ready for them. Give it two years and they’ll be breaking the hearts of every pimple-faced American boy.
This is a disclaimer for my mother. I know you internalize my struggles here, and I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your willingness to hear out my problems, and try to be there for me. However, I know that you can get worked up over some of the events and emotions going on with me right now, so you can either skip to the paragraph below this one, or you can read on, just understand that I’m having the time of my life right now, no matter all the ups and downs that come along with it. With that being said, I took a day trip to visit friends in the 2nd largest city in Moldova, Balti. I somehow managed to make it out of bed for 7 the morning after the concert and on a bus 30 minutes later for the hour ride north. It was really nice getting to see friends and we ran into several other PCVs. Balti is a really nice city, except they only speak Russian there so it was fun making my friend Dave order for me at restaurants (although slightly emasculating, but I was really impressed with his Russian skills). I ended up taking an “illegal” bus back at the end of the day. These are the vans that are parked kind of close to the bus station that are direct routes straight to Chisinau, and are considered illegal because they aren’t state owned and don’t pay the $5 entrance fee to get into the bus station. I’m pretty sure the mafia has this market cornered. I asked the driver how much it was to go only half the distance to Chisinau, dropping me off on the side of the highway in a village about ten miles from mine, since my village isn’t on the route. I could have sworn he said 15 lei, and considering that it cost me 20 lei to go from my village to Balti, I thought that was fair. Half way into the trip, one of the mafia minions started collecting the money, and that’s when I started running into problems. Instead of it being 15 lei, it was really 50 lei, and of course, I only had 30 some odd lei on me. Man! I hate getting yelled at in Russian and was pretty sure they were going to kick me out of the van right then and there in the middle of nowhere. But for some reason, the gods smiled down upon me and they didn’t kick me out, I was just yelled at in a strange language and given dirty looks for the rest of the trip. Once we got to the village I needed to get dropped off at, the crony collecting the money let me out, gave me some lovely parting obscenities detailing how I need to go back to America, and planted a fist firmly in my stomach. It’s a strange feeling to be doubled over trying to catch your breath on the side of a highway, in the pitch dark, nowhere close to your own village, with no money, in a foreign country. I had the choice of either walking back and arriving home around 5am, or try hitching it back with no money. The way it works here is that you give the same amount of money to the driver willing to pick you up, as you would have spent for a bus or rutiera. So to keep a short story short, I found a ride after only thirty minutes of waiting, and luckily the guys were very hospitable and said they wouldn’t have accepted money even if I had any.
Yesterday I thought I would be lounging and was really appreciating the fact that I was in bed at 10:30 in the morning drinking a cup of coffee and reading a book. That didn’t last long though and after an hour or so my phone started ringing and I was off to meet up with another PCV that lives in a village not too far from mine who was in my village for the day. I had never met her and she has been here for 18 months so I wanted to see what she thought about our raoin. The next thing I know I’m sitting at an internet café with the PCV and two Moldovans helping to plan a leadership conference for high schoolers this up coming Saturday. I’m not opposed to helping out because I really want to, I’m just afraid that me leading one of the groups will take away from the kids’ experience because I don’t feel fully capable with the language yet. We’ll see how it goes….
After that I made it home, and again wasn’t informed that we were having guests, and that we would be making a party in my room. I don't really mind that we have it thre, and it makes sense because I have by far the biggest room in the apartment. I just wish I had some kind of warning for these events. All in all it was a lot of fun, and it was kept really informal. One of the lady consultants that I work with at ACSA came over with her 20-year-old daughter, and we ate, drank, and talked for a good couple of hours. The lady I work with and my h. mom got pretty giggly by the end, and some of the stuff they were saying was cracking me up (If anyone wants to marry at 55 year old Moldovan woman, who has the heart of gold, and the teeth to match it, let me know). It was also nice to get to interact with a Moldovan around my age, and even though she was making fun of me most of the time about, well, everything, it was still nice to get to hang out.
September is almost upon us, and today is the first day I sought out a pair of sweatpants to wear around the crib. Its nicely chilly at night and in the morning, but I know that with this weather also comes rain. I’ve been dreading the winter, but I’ve always liked fall in the past so we’ll see what’s it’s like here. I’ll leave you all with a quote that I like about this time of the year, and it does a nice job describing my village.
“The foliage has been losing its freshness through the month of August, and here and there a yellow leaf shows itself like the first gray hair amidst the locks of a beauty who has seen one season too many.”
-Oliver Wendell Holmes
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Layed up in bed with my first Moldovan cold
Yours truly infront of the Catholic church in Orhei.
We had to walk around the church a couple times listening the priests say prayers.
Leading the group.
This chair signified something important in a museum, I just don't remember what, sorry.
My kitchen.
Main road in Ialoveni.
Wine factory in Ialoveni. You could fill up a one liter bottle full of wine for a dollar.
My view from my window. I live in a building that looks exactly the same.
Salut. I'm starting this blog off at the office this morning. Yes, I know I should be working and not surfing the web, but if you consider what I actually do here on a daily basis, this is being productive. This is only due to the fact that I am still very new to my community, and I still haven't gotten the language under my belt. My first week of work I only had to go into the office for three days. The first day I sat at my desk, studied limba romana, and read a book. The next day my ag extension office put on a seminar for apiculture. It was a great seminar, set in amongst apple trees and boxes of bees. We had a feast for lunch, and took the afternoon off. The next two days my partner went to Chisinau so I bummed around my village, studied, and read. Then Friday comes, I'm at work for 30 minutes and my partner tells me he has to go to the hospital and I need to lock up at 5. To tell you the truth, I was fine flying solo, except when the phone would ring. I don't think I got one message right. My partner should have known that was inevitable. That was also the day I ran an immigration office for Quebec. I might have mentioned that in my earlier blog post.
This week has shown a little more promise. Monday we were running spreadsheets in Excel and I was told to brace myself, that it was going to be a long couple of days. I finished them all in four hours. My partner was so stunned that he gave me the biggest gold-toothed smile and a bear hug. After that we celebrated over a beer at lunch, and I was then informed that since all the work was complete I didn't have to go to work the next day. Usually this would be music to my ears, but if you would understand the boredom that off days bring, you would want to be at work yourself.
This sounds all gravy in black and white. But really, since moving into my new site, my head has been all out of sorts. It is slowly getting better though. I attribute this to the fact that I only understand about 10% of, well, everything. It is a very humbling experience, and it leaves no room for ego. So now I'm back to peaks and valleys. I've extended my running a considerable amount, and am now hitting the trails for about an hour and a half every other day. These are the days I look forward to the most. The runs help me put things into perspective; two years has the perception of a long time, but one step at a time, one day at a time, perseverance is inevitable.
These runs also help me sleep at night, because man, do I have a dog problem. Sorry Mom and Dad, but I'm going to have to call you out on this one. You think you have a problem getting a goodnights rest when your neighbor's dog likes to bark all night? Multiply that noise by 50 more dogs, barking, howling, snarling, and fighting, all night, every night. Stray dogs are everywhere here. A friend of mine and I were going to take pictures of them and start a fauxblog called "Adopt a Dog". However, I can't bring myself to do this anymore, because I can't stand the sight of dogs. They really need to implement an extermination program here. I'm sure PETA is ready to crucify me for that comment, and in anticipation of that I say "F---You. Come spend one night here and you will empathize with me." I'm all about saving the whales and believe in animal rights, but when I can't walk down the street without at least one dog sizing me up and trying to bite me, that's when I say there is a problem. It's odd, though, that the most vicious of them all are the little dogs (I've always been a fan of big dogs, having owned several of them, I know they're rowdy and energetic, but what's the point of a little one? Just get a cat, much quieter). I've got a feeling that one of these little yippers will be getting a booting if they don't watch out.
Saturday I went with journalist friend to a town an hour away for the one year birthday of a Catholic church. It was a beautiful service that lasted for two hours and was given in Romanian, Russian, and Italian. I was forced into communion, my first time for a Catholic mass. A) I'm not Catholic and B) I'm not even baptized. I don't have a disposition with the fact that I let a spongy, tasteless wafer dissolve on my tongue, because in my eyes it was just another experience, but I realize that this is probably taboo for Catholics; Get over it, I feel that dedicating two years of my life towards volunteering and helping others off-sets the opinion that I'm going to hell.
After the service we had a feast next door, and I had to privilege of dinning with the holy men- the head of the Moldovan Catholic Church, two priests from Italy, an Orthodox priest, and two Moldovan priests. Let me just say, these guys know how to drink. After four courses of food, many shots of wine, whiskey, and cognac, I was feeling good (I abstained from a good amount of the debauchery rounds too), and ready for a nap. In true Moldovan fashion, I dug deep, tapped into energy reserves, and hitchhiked home.
******
Further evidence that I am no longer in America:
1) Today I woke up with a sore throat. It happens right? Well my host mother is a social worker/nurse, and her medical opinion is that I'm sick because I drink cold water. I told her I didn't think that was the reason, because I've been drinking cold water my entire life, most of the time with ice. She responded "I don't drink cold water and I don't have a sore throat." Statements like that remind me of the LSAT....
2) At restaurants and in every ones houses there is a bowl of salt, no salt shaker. When you want salt, you lick your fork, dip it in the bowl, and then eat your food. I don't eat salt here. Also, at restaurants there is usually a half eaten hot pepper in the bowl of salt. If you want to soak it in your soup, by all means, go ahead. If you want to take a bite out of it, that works as well, they simply put it back in the bowl of salt, leaving it for the next customers. I don't eat the peppers here either.
3) I told my partner I need a tutor, he told me I need a woman. After lunch he paraded me around town trying to find me one. I told my host mother about this, and she replied that he is crazy and I shouldn't listen to his nonsense, but I do need to start thinking about marriage, to either a Moldovan or American. Do you see what kind of pressure I'm under?
********
As I've mentioned, I run a good bit here. I don't know what I'm going to do during the winter since there will be several feet of snow and mud on the ground. But for now I am the village idiot, and get the Moldovan stink eye every time I pass someone running. My host mother finally asked me why I waste my time running. Knowing how much the Moldovans appreciate competition, I told her I am training for a race, and that seemed to satisfy her. So with that I committed myself to running the Athens Classic Marathon in Greece next November. If any of you want to join in on the fun by running or simply being there for moral support that would be fantastic.
I see hurricanes are starting to brew in the Caribbean. My door is open to any evacuees, I assure you I can show you a good time here. La revedere!
We had to walk around the church a couple times listening the priests say prayers.
Leading the group.
This chair signified something important in a museum, I just don't remember what, sorry.
My kitchen.
Main road in Ialoveni.
Wine factory in Ialoveni. You could fill up a one liter bottle full of wine for a dollar.
My view from my window. I live in a building that looks exactly the same.
Salut. I'm starting this blog off at the office this morning. Yes, I know I should be working and not surfing the web, but if you consider what I actually do here on a daily basis, this is being productive. This is only due to the fact that I am still very new to my community, and I still haven't gotten the language under my belt. My first week of work I only had to go into the office for three days. The first day I sat at my desk, studied limba romana, and read a book. The next day my ag extension office put on a seminar for apiculture. It was a great seminar, set in amongst apple trees and boxes of bees. We had a feast for lunch, and took the afternoon off. The next two days my partner went to Chisinau so I bummed around my village, studied, and read. Then Friday comes, I'm at work for 30 minutes and my partner tells me he has to go to the hospital and I need to lock up at 5. To tell you the truth, I was fine flying solo, except when the phone would ring. I don't think I got one message right. My partner should have known that was inevitable. That was also the day I ran an immigration office for Quebec. I might have mentioned that in my earlier blog post.
This week has shown a little more promise. Monday we were running spreadsheets in Excel and I was told to brace myself, that it was going to be a long couple of days. I finished them all in four hours. My partner was so stunned that he gave me the biggest gold-toothed smile and a bear hug. After that we celebrated over a beer at lunch, and I was then informed that since all the work was complete I didn't have to go to work the next day. Usually this would be music to my ears, but if you would understand the boredom that off days bring, you would want to be at work yourself.
This sounds all gravy in black and white. But really, since moving into my new site, my head has been all out of sorts. It is slowly getting better though. I attribute this to the fact that I only understand about 10% of, well, everything. It is a very humbling experience, and it leaves no room for ego. So now I'm back to peaks and valleys. I've extended my running a considerable amount, and am now hitting the trails for about an hour and a half every other day. These are the days I look forward to the most. The runs help me put things into perspective; two years has the perception of a long time, but one step at a time, one day at a time, perseverance is inevitable.
These runs also help me sleep at night, because man, do I have a dog problem. Sorry Mom and Dad, but I'm going to have to call you out on this one. You think you have a problem getting a goodnights rest when your neighbor's dog likes to bark all night? Multiply that noise by 50 more dogs, barking, howling, snarling, and fighting, all night, every night. Stray dogs are everywhere here. A friend of mine and I were going to take pictures of them and start a fauxblog called "Adopt a Dog". However, I can't bring myself to do this anymore, because I can't stand the sight of dogs. They really need to implement an extermination program here. I'm sure PETA is ready to crucify me for that comment, and in anticipation of that I say "F---You. Come spend one night here and you will empathize with me." I'm all about saving the whales and believe in animal rights, but when I can't walk down the street without at least one dog sizing me up and trying to bite me, that's when I say there is a problem. It's odd, though, that the most vicious of them all are the little dogs (I've always been a fan of big dogs, having owned several of them, I know they're rowdy and energetic, but what's the point of a little one? Just get a cat, much quieter). I've got a feeling that one of these little yippers will be getting a booting if they don't watch out.
Saturday I went with journalist friend to a town an hour away for the one year birthday of a Catholic church. It was a beautiful service that lasted for two hours and was given in Romanian, Russian, and Italian. I was forced into communion, my first time for a Catholic mass. A) I'm not Catholic and B) I'm not even baptized. I don't have a disposition with the fact that I let a spongy, tasteless wafer dissolve on my tongue, because in my eyes it was just another experience, but I realize that this is probably taboo for Catholics; Get over it, I feel that dedicating two years of my life towards volunteering and helping others off-sets the opinion that I'm going to hell.
After the service we had a feast next door, and I had to privilege of dinning with the holy men- the head of the Moldovan Catholic Church, two priests from Italy, an Orthodox priest, and two Moldovan priests. Let me just say, these guys know how to drink. After four courses of food, many shots of wine, whiskey, and cognac, I was feeling good (I abstained from a good amount of the debauchery rounds too), and ready for a nap. In true Moldovan fashion, I dug deep, tapped into energy reserves, and hitchhiked home.
******
Further evidence that I am no longer in America:
1) Today I woke up with a sore throat. It happens right? Well my host mother is a social worker/nurse, and her medical opinion is that I'm sick because I drink cold water. I told her I didn't think that was the reason, because I've been drinking cold water my entire life, most of the time with ice. She responded "I don't drink cold water and I don't have a sore throat." Statements like that remind me of the LSAT....
2) At restaurants and in every ones houses there is a bowl of salt, no salt shaker. When you want salt, you lick your fork, dip it in the bowl, and then eat your food. I don't eat salt here. Also, at restaurants there is usually a half eaten hot pepper in the bowl of salt. If you want to soak it in your soup, by all means, go ahead. If you want to take a bite out of it, that works as well, they simply put it back in the bowl of salt, leaving it for the next customers. I don't eat the peppers here either.
3) I told my partner I need a tutor, he told me I need a woman. After lunch he paraded me around town trying to find me one. I told my host mother about this, and she replied that he is crazy and I shouldn't listen to his nonsense, but I do need to start thinking about marriage, to either a Moldovan or American. Do you see what kind of pressure I'm under?
********
As I've mentioned, I run a good bit here. I don't know what I'm going to do during the winter since there will be several feet of snow and mud on the ground. But for now I am the village idiot, and get the Moldovan stink eye every time I pass someone running. My host mother finally asked me why I waste my time running. Knowing how much the Moldovans appreciate competition, I told her I am training for a race, and that seemed to satisfy her. So with that I committed myself to running the Athens Classic Marathon in Greece next November. If any of you want to join in on the fun by running or simply being there for moral support that would be fantastic.
I see hurricanes are starting to brew in the Caribbean. My door is open to any evacuees, I assure you I can show you a good time here. La revedere!
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Hot dogs and congealed chicken feet
There is construction on the other room in my apartment, so this is what I moved into. 
Getting ready to dance.
My former host sister.
The building I now work at.
Random path I decided to start my hike on yesterday.
August 9, 2009
What do you get when you add eight weeks of stress, awkwardness, wine, sweat, sour cream, Romanian, and lots of fruit together?....A Peace Corps Volunteer. Yes, that’s right, no longer am I mere trainee. At 10:30 this morning, I took the official United States governmental oath to defend my country against all foreign and domestic threats and promised to uphold the Constitution to the best of my abilities, or something along those lines. If only I had a metal coat hanger, I would discombobulate it into a PC logo, and brand it on my right butt check. Just kidding, the medical officer here would freak out if she found out, so no worries.
This past week has been an absolute whirlwind. It seemed like the last week in classes I actually digressed in my language abilities, which sad to say, doesn’t call for one happy camper when you have to sit through hours of lecture everyday. At least I wasn’t in the sinking ship alone. A lot of my other comrades felt like they were in the same situation. But, it’s all over now and I can say that I am stronger because of it.
I’ll miss PST, well no, scratch that I’m lying; I’ll miss parts of PST. I’ll miss getting to see friends everyday, the beautiful village of Milestii Mici, the proximity to the capital, my host family and neighbors, and my professors. I’ll especially miss the random health advisories about the dangers of drinking water from one of my teachers. Anytime I would pour a glass of water this lady would tell me to wait a little bit, that I shouldn’t drink water now, it’s not good for my health. Albeit, “It’s to early in the morning”, “It’s too hot outside, you don’t want to sweat too much”, “You just ate cucumbers, wait a little while to drink water”, “My son plays outside in the sun, and if he drinks water when he comes inside he gets a headache”, and many, many more. I think Moldovans are just adverse to drinking water in general. For some reason I would even take heat from my host mother about this as well. “Neal, we’re about to drink champagne, its not good to drink water”, “Why do you want to drink water right now? It’s not good to drink water before bed” even though my five year old host sister sat there and drained, I kid you not, 3/4th of a quart of chefir- it’s similar to buttermilk, but chunky and they put salt in it, at 11 o’clock at night. I’m pretty sure this is a commonality in Moldova about water, because my new host mother even thinks I’m crazy for wanting to put water in the refrigerator, “You want cold water? Why? It will only make you sick”. Although it’s completely normal to try to get their American to drink wine at 7:45 in the morning before they move out. Nu e nimic, tot e bine, nu asa?
When I went on a site visit to my permanent site visit a month ago my host partner was out of town. Hmm, let me rewind a bit to explain what a host partner is first. Peace Corps wants all our projects here to be sustainable, because, our goal is to help develop human capital. To do this, we all (Health, English, ARBD, and COD) get host partners that are host country nations that work side by side with us in our respective NGO’s, schools, offices, etc. I think a lot a people have a misconception about developing countries…I am not here to come in a point out all the problems I see with their village and/or country, that would never be sustainable. My job is to work with my host partner, first and foremost learn from him/her and then we go about collaborating with the community about what their needs and wants are.
Getting back on track, I met my partner, and man is he a cool guy, very friendly and warm. He seems like a real shaker and a mover, because we got to discussing the projects he has underway, what they’ve done in the past, and why he requested to have a volunteer. From the sound of it, we have the potential to do great things in the way of agriculture projects and economic development.
The pictures I am posting are from our last day in our village. The ARBDs and the CODs get sworn in two weeks early and we had to put together presentations, learn songs and dances, and one person from each group had to give a goodbye/thank you speech to our host families. I worked on a presentation with my friend Vince about the problems Milestii Mici has with foxes. Many a night, my host family would chase a rogue fox, trying to steal one of our ducks, chickens, or rabbits, out of our yard. We actually put together a really nice presentation on all the different prevention methods that people use around the world, but somehow in the delivery of the speech we screwed it up and all the Moldovans thought we were talking about how the poor foxes are being discriminated. I was the one from ARBD to give the speech in Romanian thanking the host families for their hospitality and generosity. I volunteered for the position, because for some reason I love the thrill and nervousness I get when public speaking. I understand why it’s a fear for people to get in-front of a crowd and deliver a speech, but I’ve found that if you embrace that fear, it can be quite a rush. I know, I’m weird, but the challenge of preparing and presenting a speech in a foreign language was too much to pass up.
August 13, 2009
I could have sworn I posted the earlier entry until I got an email today saying that I haven’t updated my blog in awhile. My bad. I don’t want to say I’ve been too busy to post, because that would be a lie. I’ve just not gotten around to it lately is more of an acceptable excuse. I attribute this to the fact that the initial culture shock is wearing off, good sign. However I do have some good updates of what has been going on.
I’ve been at my new site now for a good part of a week, and I’ve only gone to work for a day and a half. Monday was the first day at the office. Most of the day I spent reading a book and working on Romanian, and throughout the day people would wander in, talk with my host partner, and then ask me if I knew the volunteer that was here last year, named Danny or Donny, which they pronounce Joy, don’t ask. That was news to me, I had been told the last volunteer at my site had been an English teacher back in the ‘90s. Now, if my Romanian servers correct, this cat Donny couldn’t handle the Moldovan nectar and would apparently start sippin’ grandpa’s cough syrup before he even made it to lunch, and was kicked out of the PC. What blows my mind is that you have got to be hitting the bottle pretty f-ing hard if Moldovans start thinking you have a drinking problem. Because while I was getting told this story, and warned not to drink very much, my host partner was serving us beer, at work, at 11:30 in the morning. Not only that, but the next day my firm conducted a seminar about apiculture. After the seminar ended, me and six Moldovan farmers went to one of their houses and proceeded to eat probably five chickens, three loafs of bread, a school of fish, half a cow, two watermelons, and drained it all down with about 5 bottles of wine. Needless to say, everyone took the afternoon off. I took a nice four-hour power nap and still had to go to bed at 10 that night.
For the past two days my host partner has been in Chisinau and I haven’t had to work. Yesterday I read a book and a half, watched a movie, took a three-hour walk through the town and surrounding areas, caught a nap, knocked out some studying, and then had dinner. After dinner my host mother showed me food in the fridge, told me it was my breakfast, and told me to lock the door behind her. Okkkaayy, goodnight? I was just about to settle into my book around 10pm when I get a call on my cell phone from my host mother. “Nehlo, vini aklfaklfaskfjdsakafkjasbfasf”, I didn’t understand one word she said. “Bine, la revedere!”- Ok, goodbye! was my response. Thinking that did the trick, I was disrupted 15 minutes later by the doorbell ringing. I threw on some workout shorts and a shirt, and was greeted by the fattest, sweatiest man (shirtless, wearing tiny shorts that disappeared under his bulging stomach) I think I’ve ever encountered in my life. He said something about my host mom, said that his car was downstairs, so I figured what the hell, let’s see where this goes.
Thirty minutes later, after driving through the dark, past any sign of civilization, we pulled off the road to a lone house and was greeted by strangers I’ve never met before. Thoroughly confused, I introduced myself, came inside, and was relieved to see my host mother and sister at the table. It was a terribly strange evening, the father of the family left when I got there and was headed to Moscow, and for the rest of the night the family and I kicked it in one of the bedrooms eating fruit and listening to Moldovan pop music. Around 11:30 they asked if I was tired and then showed me a bed. All right, the night was already weird enough, but since I didn’t have a choice, or the vocabulary, I went along with it. I got up at 7 knowing that my host mom had to be at work by 8, but was sent back to bed. So I got up again at 9:30, ate a breakfast of bread, hot dogs, and congealed chicken feet, and was told that my host mom and sister left an hour before. Not knowing what they had in store for me, I was doing a fine job at asking a bunch of worthless questions and doing my best to understand what they were telling me. This story is really starting to ramble, and the stool I’m sitting on sucks, so I’m going to skip ahead a couple hours. I was asked to look over a loan application, I told them I couldn’t read it, and once I was deemed useless the older brother and myself set off back to my town.
There isn’t a bus that far out, so we had to hitchhike. An old man, with a young woman and her two kids picked us up after ten minutes on the side of the road. Did that old man know how to feed some speed to his ride. At one point, we were doing 70 mph down a dirt road, and doing a great job scaring the shit out of the American in the car. We started swerving all over the road, and then came to a fairly abrupt halt, great, flat tire in the middle of nowhere. We get out to see what happened, and I made it out of the car just in time to see one of the back tires rolling down the hill. It was quite a sight to see this old man sprinting down a hill, leaving his, I presume, daughter and grandkids in his beat up Russian clunker of a car, with three wheels. The guy I was with simply turned, and said “Ha diem” Let’s go.
Getting ready to dance.
My former host sister.
The building I now work at.
Random path I decided to start my hike on yesterday.
August 9, 2009
What do you get when you add eight weeks of stress, awkwardness, wine, sweat, sour cream, Romanian, and lots of fruit together?....A Peace Corps Volunteer. Yes, that’s right, no longer am I mere trainee. At 10:30 this morning, I took the official United States governmental oath to defend my country against all foreign and domestic threats and promised to uphold the Constitution to the best of my abilities, or something along those lines. If only I had a metal coat hanger, I would discombobulate it into a PC logo, and brand it on my right butt check. Just kidding, the medical officer here would freak out if she found out, so no worries.
This past week has been an absolute whirlwind. It seemed like the last week in classes I actually digressed in my language abilities, which sad to say, doesn’t call for one happy camper when you have to sit through hours of lecture everyday. At least I wasn’t in the sinking ship alone. A lot of my other comrades felt like they were in the same situation. But, it’s all over now and I can say that I am stronger because of it.
I’ll miss PST, well no, scratch that I’m lying; I’ll miss parts of PST. I’ll miss getting to see friends everyday, the beautiful village of Milestii Mici, the proximity to the capital, my host family and neighbors, and my professors. I’ll especially miss the random health advisories about the dangers of drinking water from one of my teachers. Anytime I would pour a glass of water this lady would tell me to wait a little bit, that I shouldn’t drink water now, it’s not good for my health. Albeit, “It’s to early in the morning”, “It’s too hot outside, you don’t want to sweat too much”, “You just ate cucumbers, wait a little while to drink water”, “My son plays outside in the sun, and if he drinks water when he comes inside he gets a headache”, and many, many more. I think Moldovans are just adverse to drinking water in general. For some reason I would even take heat from my host mother about this as well. “Neal, we’re about to drink champagne, its not good to drink water”, “Why do you want to drink water right now? It’s not good to drink water before bed” even though my five year old host sister sat there and drained, I kid you not, 3/4th of a quart of chefir- it’s similar to buttermilk, but chunky and they put salt in it, at 11 o’clock at night. I’m pretty sure this is a commonality in Moldova about water, because my new host mother even thinks I’m crazy for wanting to put water in the refrigerator, “You want cold water? Why? It will only make you sick”. Although it’s completely normal to try to get their American to drink wine at 7:45 in the morning before they move out. Nu e nimic, tot e bine, nu asa?
When I went on a site visit to my permanent site visit a month ago my host partner was out of town. Hmm, let me rewind a bit to explain what a host partner is first. Peace Corps wants all our projects here to be sustainable, because, our goal is to help develop human capital. To do this, we all (Health, English, ARBD, and COD) get host partners that are host country nations that work side by side with us in our respective NGO’s, schools, offices, etc. I think a lot a people have a misconception about developing countries…I am not here to come in a point out all the problems I see with their village and/or country, that would never be sustainable. My job is to work with my host partner, first and foremost learn from him/her and then we go about collaborating with the community about what their needs and wants are.
Getting back on track, I met my partner, and man is he a cool guy, very friendly and warm. He seems like a real shaker and a mover, because we got to discussing the projects he has underway, what they’ve done in the past, and why he requested to have a volunteer. From the sound of it, we have the potential to do great things in the way of agriculture projects and economic development.
The pictures I am posting are from our last day in our village. The ARBDs and the CODs get sworn in two weeks early and we had to put together presentations, learn songs and dances, and one person from each group had to give a goodbye/thank you speech to our host families. I worked on a presentation with my friend Vince about the problems Milestii Mici has with foxes. Many a night, my host family would chase a rogue fox, trying to steal one of our ducks, chickens, or rabbits, out of our yard. We actually put together a really nice presentation on all the different prevention methods that people use around the world, but somehow in the delivery of the speech we screwed it up and all the Moldovans thought we were talking about how the poor foxes are being discriminated. I was the one from ARBD to give the speech in Romanian thanking the host families for their hospitality and generosity. I volunteered for the position, because for some reason I love the thrill and nervousness I get when public speaking. I understand why it’s a fear for people to get in-front of a crowd and deliver a speech, but I’ve found that if you embrace that fear, it can be quite a rush. I know, I’m weird, but the challenge of preparing and presenting a speech in a foreign language was too much to pass up.
August 13, 2009
I could have sworn I posted the earlier entry until I got an email today saying that I haven’t updated my blog in awhile. My bad. I don’t want to say I’ve been too busy to post, because that would be a lie. I’ve just not gotten around to it lately is more of an acceptable excuse. I attribute this to the fact that the initial culture shock is wearing off, good sign. However I do have some good updates of what has been going on.
I’ve been at my new site now for a good part of a week, and I’ve only gone to work for a day and a half. Monday was the first day at the office. Most of the day I spent reading a book and working on Romanian, and throughout the day people would wander in, talk with my host partner, and then ask me if I knew the volunteer that was here last year, named Danny or Donny, which they pronounce Joy, don’t ask. That was news to me, I had been told the last volunteer at my site had been an English teacher back in the ‘90s. Now, if my Romanian servers correct, this cat Donny couldn’t handle the Moldovan nectar and would apparently start sippin’ grandpa’s cough syrup before he even made it to lunch, and was kicked out of the PC. What blows my mind is that you have got to be hitting the bottle pretty f-ing hard if Moldovans start thinking you have a drinking problem. Because while I was getting told this story, and warned not to drink very much, my host partner was serving us beer, at work, at 11:30 in the morning. Not only that, but the next day my firm conducted a seminar about apiculture. After the seminar ended, me and six Moldovan farmers went to one of their houses and proceeded to eat probably five chickens, three loafs of bread, a school of fish, half a cow, two watermelons, and drained it all down with about 5 bottles of wine. Needless to say, everyone took the afternoon off. I took a nice four-hour power nap and still had to go to bed at 10 that night.
For the past two days my host partner has been in Chisinau and I haven’t had to work. Yesterday I read a book and a half, watched a movie, took a three-hour walk through the town and surrounding areas, caught a nap, knocked out some studying, and then had dinner. After dinner my host mother showed me food in the fridge, told me it was my breakfast, and told me to lock the door behind her. Okkkaayy, goodnight? I was just about to settle into my book around 10pm when I get a call on my cell phone from my host mother. “Nehlo, vini aklfaklfaskfjdsakafkjasbfasf”, I didn’t understand one word she said. “Bine, la revedere!”- Ok, goodbye! was my response. Thinking that did the trick, I was disrupted 15 minutes later by the doorbell ringing. I threw on some workout shorts and a shirt, and was greeted by the fattest, sweatiest man (shirtless, wearing tiny shorts that disappeared under his bulging stomach) I think I’ve ever encountered in my life. He said something about my host mom, said that his car was downstairs, so I figured what the hell, let’s see where this goes.
Thirty minutes later, after driving through the dark, past any sign of civilization, we pulled off the road to a lone house and was greeted by strangers I’ve never met before. Thoroughly confused, I introduced myself, came inside, and was relieved to see my host mother and sister at the table. It was a terribly strange evening, the father of the family left when I got there and was headed to Moscow, and for the rest of the night the family and I kicked it in one of the bedrooms eating fruit and listening to Moldovan pop music. Around 11:30 they asked if I was tired and then showed me a bed. All right, the night was already weird enough, but since I didn’t have a choice, or the vocabulary, I went along with it. I got up at 7 knowing that my host mom had to be at work by 8, but was sent back to bed. So I got up again at 9:30, ate a breakfast of bread, hot dogs, and congealed chicken feet, and was told that my host mom and sister left an hour before. Not knowing what they had in store for me, I was doing a fine job at asking a bunch of worthless questions and doing my best to understand what they were telling me. This story is really starting to ramble, and the stool I’m sitting on sucks, so I’m going to skip ahead a couple hours. I was asked to look over a loan application, I told them I couldn’t read it, and once I was deemed useless the older brother and myself set off back to my town.
There isn’t a bus that far out, so we had to hitchhike. An old man, with a young woman and her two kids picked us up after ten minutes on the side of the road. Did that old man know how to feed some speed to his ride. At one point, we were doing 70 mph down a dirt road, and doing a great job scaring the shit out of the American in the car. We started swerving all over the road, and then came to a fairly abrupt halt, great, flat tire in the middle of nowhere. We get out to see what happened, and I made it out of the car just in time to see one of the back tires rolling down the hill. It was quite a sight to see this old man sprinting down a hill, leaving his, I presume, daughter and grandkids in his beat up Russian clunker of a car, with three wheels. The guy I was with simply turned, and said “Ha diem” Let’s go.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Dusk
The cool night air bellows through the lace curtains in my room. It’s a whisper in my ear, taunting me to put down my books and come outside. I put on my brown, J Crew flip-flops that now show signs of the summer rainstorms that can creep up without warning here. With a low, scraping bang, I close the green metal gate with faint white flowers painted on the front, rusted from several years gone unnoticed by a paintbrush The crushed limestone path forks, leaving me with the decision to turn towards the main road leading towards the village on my right, or into the pinkish-purple glow of the sunset over the vineyards, orchards, and fields to my left. It’s an easy decision to make, and soon I find myself walking past the last few houses on the periphery of the neighborhood. These are the gray, towering giants that sit in limbo, half-finished, waiting for their owners to return from abroad with money for materials to commence their constructions. At first glance they look like an elephant graveyard, ruins from more a prosperous time; some show the signs of many harsh winters- unoccupied, and unkempt. Past the last of the houses, the road turns into a dirt path that is well worn from the famers on their tractors that tend to this land. After a twenty-minute walk, savoring the last bit of soft, hazy sunlight, I find a small dirt mound that overlooks the valley. This is the perfect spot to sit, reflect upon my inner most thoughts, and listen to the roar of the country-side silence; dogs are barking, an occasional truck rattles down the road, wind rustles through the grape vines and corn husks. I can’t help but feel like I was intentionally put here, at this exact moment, for a reason that I am yet to discover. Out in the fields, life makes sense; I am able to recharge my batteries, preparing myself for tomorrow’s battles, while releasing the stress inflicted from today’s blows. By the time the sun has set, clouds have rolled in and my skin gets damp from the evening dew. I feel like I am one step closer to piecing together the puzzle of my time here. This, I am sure, will be a puzzle that will take many years to figure out, but I am ready for the challenge, and feel as though there is no mountain too large to move.
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