MoldovAnn

I had my first moment this week when the thought of living on my own in Moldova didn’t scare the living daylights out of me. I think I’m starting to get the hang of things! Well, I don’t want to jump the gun, or jinx anything, but let’s just say I am beginning to feel a difference, beginning to have more days that aren’t completely overwhelming and exhausting. Granted, it’s the holiday season and I haven’t been doing a whole heck of a lot; in fact I didn’t even leave the homestead for four days, but nonetheless, I figure just getting the hang of things around home counts for a heck of a lot.

One day last week I decided to face my old adversary, the hand-washing. It wasn’t so bad this time, and I did it again by myself a few days later. It definitely helps to do just a little bit at a time, but whoever invented jeans clearly never tried to wash them by hand. I joked that if it rained on me, I would turn into a giant soap bubble. But, my clothes are more-or-less clean.

I also ventured into the kitchen a couple times, and not only just to be fed but to actually cook something myself. I used to really enjoy cooking, and made a lot of stuff from scratch. I tell ya, I got spoiled fast here; it’s awesome to sit down at the table and food appears in front of you! It seemed like I instantly and completely forgot how to cook a single thing, and can hardly remember recipes I’ve been preparing for years. Well, I dusted off my brain a little bit and made Eggplant Parmesan, Moldvan-style, for New Year’s Eve. I’d actually made it a couple times in Ialoveni, so already had it more or less figured out with the available products, and in general it’s hard to mess up. Fresh vegetables are in short supply now, in the heart of winter, so I used preserved tomatoes to make the sauce, and preserved eggplants. I’d also forgotten that I’d need tvorog, a kind of cheese very close to ricotta, so I made due with grated cheese for all the layers. I thought it turned out pretty good, and everyone else politely ate a little bit. I hope to impress them a little more next summer/fall when I can make it with fresh products. I also made chili this week, which again, tasted great to me but clearly didn’t make the strongest of impressions on everybody else. I put in a lot of cumin, ’cause that’s the way I like my chili, and I think that flavor was a bit too unfamiliar for my host family. Also, they are just real meat-and-potatoes kind of people, so anything vegetarian on the table is primarily for me. Anna told me they wouldn’t have even had anything but meat for the New Year’s Eve meal if it wasn’t for me!

Wednesday I went to Taraclia again, our beloved regional center. This was the first time I’ve returned from there, from any trip outside of the village in fact, when I wasn’t completely exhausted and in a foul mood. It’s hard to get anywhere from Tvarditsa, as our village is relatively remote, not along any particularly important route. We have one bus every day at 6 am to Chisinau (which is incentive enough for me to stay put in Tvarditsa!), and one bus a day at 7:30 am that goes to the nearest town, Ceadr-Lunga (pronounced Cheddar-Lunga), about 15-20 kilometers away (30 minutes). The bus returns from Ceadr-Lunga 5 days a week at noon, and 2 days a week at 2 pm. On those 2 days a week (Wednesdays and Fridays), he goes on from C-L to Taraclia, another 30-40 kilometers (about 1 hour). The catch is that he will only go to Taraclia if there are at least 10 people going, so if you are one of 9 who has business in Taraclia that day, you are out of luck with the bus. However, there haven’t been any days lately with too few people, as everyone has to get a new international passport in order to travel out of Moldova now, so the bus to Taraclia has been bursting at the seams each week as folks need to go there to the passport office. Why doesn’t the bus go more often, you may ask? Ah, you learn quickly not to ask “Why?” about anything here. That’s for another time. If you want to get a seat for the 90 minute bus ride, you’ve got to get there pretty early to fight for one. If you don’t get one, you get to stand on the freezing cold bus, squeezed in like sardines. And if you’ve got 5 minutes of business in Taraclia, you’ve got 4 hours to kill in a town where there ain’t 5 minutes of stuff to do; if you don’t get everything done by the time the bus leaves at 1 pm, you are again out of luck. He’ll leave with or without you, doesn’t matter to him.

Anyway, this week the prospect of the cold, uncomfortable ride didn’t drain all my energy in advance, which was a development in and of itself. The ride was particularly horrible, with at least 70 people, maybe more, crammed into a bus with seats for 40. I was standing (or suspended between people, you might even say) parallel with the first row of seats. How many people do you think could be standing between the first row of seats and the front of the bus? I counted at least 15. Look at that space next time you are on a bus and try to imagine 15 people in it; trust me, it’s not pleasant. I had one of my usual incomprehensible and inexplicable post office experiences in Taraclia, did some other errands, and headed back to the bus at 12:30 to get a seat for the 90 minute ride home. On other trips to Taraclia, when I got home around 3, I’ve collapsed straight to bed, grumpy and completely whipped from the experiences of the day. This week, though, I was pleasantly surprised to notice that I was neither irritable nor tired! I think I’m getting used to some of this stuff!

I knew I’d have culture shock here, but I guess I didn’t realize what form that culture shock would take. I knew it would be hard to function in a second language, to get the hang of business and work here, and stuff like that. I just hadn’t expected the day-to-day living to be so damn different, do damn complicated, and so damn exhausting! I understand more and more why Peace Corps service is at least 2 years, as it really takes a LONG time to become functional in a different culture, much less useful and productive.