MoldovAnn

I spoke to Sasha in Chisinau again tonight. Western news has repeatedly reported that internet was cut off in Moldova, but I was skeptical since I’ve personally been emailing with friends and there is plenty of blogging from Moldova. Sasha said that external internet traffic had been shut down (ie Facebook, vKontakte, etc), but internal traffic had been and continues to be “on”, although overloaded by excessive demand. I’ve exchanged emails the last couple of days with friends in Moldova, so apparently not all external traffic was cut off- maybe just access to websites but it doesn’t seem like email was affected.

There has been a “Romanian” flavor to the demonstrations – the protesters took down the Moldovan flag and raised the Romanian flag. But as Sasha put it, only a bit sarcastically, no part of Moldova has been under any particular government for more than 30 years. For sure a big part of Moldova has no interest in “reuniting” with Romania. The not insignificant ethnic Bulgarian population, for instance, still feel intense loyalty to Russia for the refuge the Tsar gave them 180 years ago when they fled Turkish-occupied Bulgaria. The Gagauzians, Ukrainians and Russians living in Moldova are also not at all interested in joining Romania. The minorities may seem small in number, but in a country of 4 million, any population is significant. While I feel little sympathy for Russian-language fanatics in Ukraine (I mean, if I could understand 50% of Ukrainian the first day I set foot here just because I spoke Russian, and now after just 3 1/2 years in Ukraine I can understand 90%, I just don’t buy it that life-long Russian-speaking residents don’t understand Ukrainian), I feel immense sympathy for the Russian-speaking population of Moldova in their alienation from the majority Romanian-speaking population. Different alphabets, different language families – except for a few cross-over words, there’s really nothing in common to help one with the other. The Russian speakers are really isolated and cut-off from the majority’s experience.

I have yet to read any news report that even acknowledges another point of view from the pro-Romanian one. Kudos to The New York Times for getting a reporter on the ground in Chisinau, but the flaw is still as strong as ever in their reduction of regional bureaus and attempt to use Moscow as their hub for Eurasia. How can a reporter even begin to understand the complex nuances of what’s happening in Moldova if they arrived on the spot a day after the shit hit the fan? What local expertise or understanding does a journalist have if they view the world from the lens of Moscow? Russia is at least half of the problem.

There have been reports of the government blocking all but state-run pro-government TV channels from the airwaves. How about the parts of southern Moldova that get their news exclusively from Moscow, and don’t even receive Chisinau channels? How about the 318 fully funded spots Russia gives to Molodovans (RUS) to study in Russia? Of the 2800 fully-funded scholarships for citizens of the former Soviet Republics, the second largest number of scholarships goes to citizens of a a country with the fifth smallest population of the 14 countries where Russia offers these scholarships. Only Georgia, with a slightly larger population, gets more free rides to study in Russia than Moldova. It’s a brilliant and subtle way to exert influence, if you ask me. I know one of the Moldovan kids studying in Russia on one of those scholarships – believe me, he thinks Russia is the best thing to ever happen!

The Communist Party claims victory in Sunday’s Parliamentary elections in Moldova, and yesterday protests broke out in the center of Chisinau. There had been very strong campaigning against the Communists, who have been in power since 2001, but my guess is the opposition was split among so many parties that they defeated themselves.

I talked to two friends in Chisinau yesterday – one in her office right in the center of town, in the heart of the protest area; the other at work on the edge of town. The first told me there were reports of injured protesters being transported away by ambulances. Both said the protesters are overwhelming young people. Traffic was blocked in the center, but a few blocks away was supposedly running normally.

I am having a hard time finding good news sources on-line. The New York Times is reporting from Moscow, which to me means they don’t know squat either, their news is as much hearsay as the anything else. And since they have no facts to report, they published an article about the social networking aspects of the protests. Please. Give me some real news!!!

I’m trying to find blogs, there’s a lot of twittering. Moldovarius has some commentary and photos. Ah, and I see GlobalVoices just posted. OK, I gotta go read all that.

It was a fabulous trip. I enjoyed meeting with my colleagues at the advising center, and it was exciting to see some of the developments in Chisinau and southern Moldova. There is an American Corner in Ceadir-Lunga – holy cow! What a difference that could have made in my life when I was living in nearby Tvarditsa. We stopped at one gas station on the drive south that was down right modern. Igor and I both commented on how impressed we were with the bathroom – not only was it indoors (extremely rare in Moldova), it had running water, toilet paper and was clean. Wow.

After a couple days of business (and no further mishaps with the National Bank), we spent the weekend with my darling host family in Tvarditsa. It was just plain great. We ate until we got sick, drank the best wine in the world, and even got a tour of the wonderful little Tvarditsa museum.

When we got back to Kyiv and Igor showed me his photos, I shouldn’t have been surprised that nearly half of them are of the pigs, in all various stages of life and afterlife. The newborn piglets, the teenagers who were just born during our last visit in August, the enormous adults, the slabs of someone slaughtered in our honor, and the bits of fat frying up in the pan. A Ukrainian’s dream come true. Igor even made googly eyes and kissy face with the pigs.

We left Tvarditsa with a trunk full of “contraband”, as Igor said. Bags of homemade brinza (salty sheep’s cheese), canned veggies, a freshly slaughtered chicken, fresh eggs, some of that fried pig fat, and of course multiple bottles of the best wine on earth. When we stopped to fill up the gas tank, Igor and Sasha checked the stash and got worried that we’d have trouble at the border. Solution? Start eating and drinking now. Igor and I did the drinking, Sasha helped a bit with the eating.

I don’t know if it was the wine or what, but we had no problems crossing any of the borders. The boys cheered when they made it back into Ukraine, and I cheered when we made it to our apartment that evening. Photos are on Flickr.

Igor joined me for my trip to Moldova. We hired a friend to drive us here, since there are no direct flights from Kyiv and the train takes 16+ hours to travel 500 km (~320 miles). Within 5 hours we were on the border, then a good hour and a half spent passing through endless control points. We went through Transdniestra, this crazy little strip of land that thinks it’s an independent country while everyone else in the world thinks it’s a crazy little strip of land that belongs to Moldova. They take their craziness seriously, though, and have even introduced immigration forms at the border (new since we passed through last August).

The Moldovans have also introduced some new scams, namely an “ecology fee” which must be paid in local currency at the border. i could hardly bite my tongue hard enough to stop myself from endless commentary on the utter lack of an ecological conscience in the country.

We finally got to Chisniau about 7:30, checked into the hotel, and headed out for an absolutely fantastic dinner. For some reason, nearly all restaurants in Chisinau are in basements. I commented on this as we descended into the one we picked, and Sasha (friend/driver) said it probably had something to do with a positive association with wine cellars, which are extreme points of pride in Moldova. I think he’s onto something.

After a fabulous dinner, a delicious bottle of wine, an unncessary amount of vodka and a nightcap of a local brew akin to paint thinner, we stumbled on our way. Igor and I walked Sasha to his hotel, only to find it dark and locked up. The three of us took turns banging on the door and trying to explain to the stubborn guard on the other side that he should let in their paying customer. He was really stubborn, though, and probably could hear as little of what we said as we could hear of what he said, which wasn’t pretty much nothing. Finally Igor noticed the intercom.

“What do you want?”, the voice asked.
“To check in, get a room for the night.”
“This is the National Bank of Moldova” said the voice.

Oops. The hotel’s on the next corner. Double oops.

Today we went on a tour of the Cricova winery. Needless to say, none of us took particular advantage of the wine tasting at the end of the tour. We learned about the famous champagne process they use there, which is pretty dang cool, and saw what seemed to me at least a million and a half bottles of wine. Also pretty dang cool. So much wine, so little time….

Chisinau looks really good (and not just because of the wine). The city seems a lot nicer, cleaner, than when I lived in Moldova (gosh, is it really 4 years ago now?).

I’m still exhausted – slept until 11 this morning, and am still in bed at 3:10 pm, lazily reading email, blogs and a bit of news, drinking some of the fabulous Pascalov family wine that they sent back with us yesterday. It doesn’t keep long once it’s out of the barrel, which is the perfect excuse for us to drink up the 4 litres we have as quickly as possible!

I hardly know where to start. Our departure from Kyiv eleven days ago seems like ages ago. All the driving took WAY longer than we’d anticipated. The roads are poor and inadequate, and the traffic was heavy. Much of the nearly 2800 kilometers (1740 miles) was traversed at a speed of no more than 60-80 kph (~ 35-50 mph). It was quite maddening at many times, especially since much of Ukraine looks like Kansas – flat fields with occasional clusters of trees. After the first hour, it’s rather bland and monotonous scenery. The one interesting site on the long drive to Crimea was the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant, which you pass surprisingly close to. If Dad ever posts his photos to Flickr, I’ll link from here. Unfortunately, our camera is useless since we seem to have left the battery charger cord in the US (or lost it somewhere in transit). Thus, no photos from us on this trip.

I had hoped to drive to Mykolaiv Friday night, a little under 400 km from Kyiv. Instead, we made it to Pervomaisk, about 250 kilometers, in about four hours, where we met up with some Korosten friends coming from a trip in western Ukraine. We found a strange little hotel for the night, with big plans to start early Saturday morning on the remaining 500 km. We figured we would have lunch in Bakhchisarai – hah! After a late start (which followed a late evening with the aforementioned Korosten friends, a bottle of vodka and several bottles of beer), coupled with the slow, tedious and HOT drive over bumpy, busy roads, we made it in time for a very late dinner. We were all exhausted and filthy from the dusty drive – did I mention the car doesn’t have air conditioning? Our options were to melt if we closed the windows, or sneeze endlessly from the dust if we left them open.

The first order of business on Sunday was to get to the beach. We spent the entire day at Uglovoye, the beach were Igor and I have vacationed the past couple of years. It was different to be there with a group of people – Dad, Sasha, Lesya and their two kids. Fun, but not quite as relaxing as it is when we vacation alone. We enjoyed the sun, sea and fresh fruit throughout the day, and dragged ourselves back to the hotel in Bakhchisarai for dinner. Everybody was beat.

Monday we went to the mountain lake we had visited in May. This had been the big plan of this trip – to revisit the lake to spend time hiking, swimming and even camping there. Igor, Dad and I got there before Sasha and Co., and we were horribly disappointed. First, the water level had dropped so low the lake was maybe not even half the size it had been in May. But even worse was that the whole area was full of campers, and it was completely filthy. We found a more-or-less unoccupied spot on the far side of the lake and got out of the car only to be overwhelmed by the smell – that must have been the designated toilet area. It was disgusting. We were so disappointed, and disgusted. We left after just a few minutes, met up with Sasha and family and decided to try to find another lake area he’d heard about. After an hour or so of fruitless searching, I’d lost all patience and turned the car around to head back to town. Dad, Igor and I were all irritable (to put it mildly), tired and hungry. We went to the new hotel we’d moved to in the morning, and sat in our corners quietly ignoring each for awhile.

This hotel was actually a private house a few hundred meters from the famous Khan’s Palace. I had first seen it last year, before it had opened for business, when I met up with a Peace Corps volunteer who knew the owners. She had shown me the place, but I didn’t have any contact info to make a reservation. So we stayed the first two nights in the dumpy Soviet hotel, until I finally found the place and lo and behold they had some rooms available! It’s built on the side of a hill (like most of the town of Bakhchisarai), and the first floor is still under construction. We stayed on the second floor, where there are five rooms of varying size, each with own toilet and shower, a small communal kitchen, and a small communal room where we often found the owner and her adorable pug Bur-bon. She was kind enough to let us check email on her laptop, and one evening Igor and I sat on the veranda with her, drinking Crimean balsam, eating fresh-picked grapes, enjoying the cool evening air and beautiful bright night sky, chatting late into the night. They don’t have a website, and so far are operating by word-of-mouth. We liked the place a lot, and it inspired me to start a page of places that are worth knowing about – so here are my travel recommendations. I’ll continue to add to the site, so keep checking back.

Tuesday we wanted to see Marble Cave, a site deceptively close on the map that proved a lot harder to get to than we’d expected. We tried several roads that looked like shortcuts on our map, only to be repeatedly told by locals that it wasn’t possible to get where we were going by the roads we were trying. About 4 hours after starting out for what we thought we would be a one hour drive, max, we finally reached the Marble Cave – to find a mass of people and an hour and a half wait to get in. Tired of the car, we decided to walk over to another cave, supposedly a short 800 meters away. About an hour later, after struggling through forest, down one hillside and up another along a rocky path, we finally found the other freaking cave. It may be 800 meters as the crow flies, but it was definitely longer as the person walks! We were hot, tired, and ready to go home. But after all that effort, how could we leave without seeing a cave? We paid for the short tour, which turned out to go barely beyond the first cavern. The longer tour was over 90 minutes long, though, and we just weren’t up for it. The cool cavern air felt great (a steady +7 Celsius year-round). We hiked back to the car, and started the slow drive back to Bakhchisarai. One more attempt at the supposed short-cut also didn’t pan out, but the drive back was a bit quicker. We later bought a map of just Crimea, with better scale, and realized that indeed none of the roads that appeared to connect the two highways actually did so- the scale was just too poor on our first map.

Dad had decided to head back to Kyiv Tuesday night, so we put him on the train in the evening and went out for a fabulous dinner at a family-owned Tatar restaurant. Igor finally got a dose of shashliki to his liking (he is extremely picking about his shashliki, and although he orders it frequently, he almost never likes they way other people prepare it). We went back to the hotel, and spent the aforementioned night on the veranda with the owner. I managed to catch a cold somewhere along the way, so I went to bed early while Igor and the owner stayed up late (I wish I could remember her name! She was fabulous).

Wednesday we couldn’t decide what to do – beach, touring, start the drive to Moldova, nothing? We let the coin decide in the end, and it chose Moldova. So we packed up the car and started another leg of the trip. You’d think by now we would have figured out that everything took twice as long as we’d expected, but no, we were still young and naive. We left Bakhchisarai about noon, once again managing to miss the better early morning hours for driving across the hot, dusty steppe. It took us almost nine hours to drive nearly 300 kilometers (190 miles), and we finally stopped a bit north of Odesa at the town of Koblevo, famous for its wine. We didn’t expect much, as it’s a small town, but were pleasantly surprised to find a very nice hotel in what looked more or less like a trucker stop. The hotel was overpriced, which may have explained the trucks lining the highway – unlikely they were actually staying at the hotel, but instead sleeping in their cabs. We checked in and set out to find something to eat. Since we were in Koblevo, famous for its wine, we first sought out some of the local specialty – and we weren’t disappointed. One bottle of delicious house white wine under arm, we headed to the market across the street, where we found amazing smoked salmon – absolutely perfect, tender and not too salty. We headed back to the hotel, and savored our little feast.

Thursday was the only day when we actually managed to get an early start – we were on the road by 8:30, not even stopping for my usually caffeine dose! Once again, we had naive expectations for the day’s drive, anticipating we would be on the Moldovan border by lunchtime. We had opted to try crossing at a small border point in southern Moldova, near the town of Besarabca, instead of the usual northern crossing point. We thought we’d save time and mileage, since Besarabca is much closer to Tvarditsa. Well, what we failed to notice at first is that the road we expected to travel actually crosses through Moldova at one point, which would mean two more border crossings and god-knows-how much time getting through them. Fortunately we noticed before we actually got on that road, and we veered south of Odesa, adding about 200 kilometers to the trip to travel around the Dniester Liman. But man, was it worth it!

First, the drive around the Dniester Liman was quite interesting. At one point, you drive along a narrow land bridge – the Black Sea on one side, the Dniester Liman on the other (which is so big it looks like a sea too). I had no idea this was a popular vacation spot, and was really surprised by the mass of vacationers and “House for Rent” signs trying to attract said vacationers. Lots and lots of Russian license plates.

The second and much more awesome site was the fortress in the town of Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi. Ah-maz-ing. I can’t believe we almost didn’t stop. We were hot, tired, dusty (which I realize now was the theme of our entire trip), and when we stopped in town to get gasoline, Igor casually mentioned that there was a fortress there. “Is it worth seeing,” I asked. “Yeah, probably,” he said. He’d been there when he was about 12 or 13 and remember being impressed. So we followed the signs and found the fortress, and were utterly stunned. It was fantastic. In remarkably good condition, although clearly neglected and in need of renovation. Entrance was a mere 5 hrivna. We wandered around for an hour or so, climbed in one of the towers, walked along one of the stone walls. We recalled Fort Niagara and thought how amazing it would be if this fortress had the kind of attention, maintenance and tours that were available at Fort Niagara – also an isolated location but really interesting place. I had wanted to visited the fortress at Kamenets-Podolsky on this trip, seeing as how it’s one of the “Seven Wonders of Ukraine” and all, but now I can’t believe that Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi isn’t on the list. Granted, it’s a pain in the ass to get there, not especially far from Odesa but the roads just plain suck. And the folks around here don’t seem to be much into site seeing when they are on their summer seaside vacations – it’s all about sunning and swimming. But I highly, highly recommend visiting the site. And leave them a nice donation – they need to get the place cleaned up, not to mention the archaeological and historical research that needs to be done! There were a couple of active digs going on, which we were glad to see. One area had been excavated quite well already, revealing the outlines of what was probably the original Greek settlement in the area. At another excavation area a mountain of dirt had been piled up, presumably for the archaeologists to sort through at a later time. Igor scratched around in it for a few minutes, and stood up with a handful of items, which he announced as a couple pieces of ancient pottery (from different periods that he named but I don’t remember), a piece of modern pottery, and a fragment of human clavicle bone. I was impressed. They will join the piece of ancient Greek amphora he picked out of the ground at Khersonesos for me a couple years ago.

That area is also apparently well-known for its wine, and just outside the fortress Igor found a guy selling local wine. He asked me if we had an empty bottle in the car (since the wine was being sold by the glass from small barrels), and I started walking towards the car to bring back an empty water bottle. A minute later I heard Igor calling after me, and I turned to see him drinking out of a Fanta bottle. I was a bit perturbed, thinking he’d bought a bottle of Fanta and was gulping it down to empty it so he could refill it with the wine rather than waiting the 90 seconds for me to come back with the empty water bottle. It was a strange color of Fanta, but there have been some new flavors on the market recently. I took the bottle from him, thinking to help him finish it up so he could refill it with wine, and took a big gulp. “Eechh!”, I chocked it down. “What, you don’t like it?” Igor asked. I looked at the label, wondering what kind of crap someone had thought up this time. “What the hell kind of Fanta is that?” I asked. Igor started laughing – “It’s not Fanta, it’s wine!” Turns out the vendor had an empty bottle, rinsed it out and filled it up with a half-liter of wine to go. For wine, not bad at all, but for Fanta, it was really gross.

We hit the road again, and after Igor downed his “Fanta”, he announced that he realized now what had been missing throughout the trip – not enough wine! He was good and happy for the next couple of hours, until we finally got to the Moldovan border.

The border crossing was indeed small, and although designated for “international” traffic, I highly suspect they’ve never had anyone other than Moldovans and Ukrainians crossing there. It was slow, but we eventually got through with no troubles. We amusingly watched the horses and wagons being allowed to go to the front of the line – I didn’t begrudge them as it was unbearably hot and I felt really sorry the poor animals in that heat. The Ukrainian side of things went very smoothly, the Moldovan side left something to be desired. I chalked it up to two things: (1) it’s almost always easier to leave a country than to get in, and (2) it was Moldova. They still have a long way to go.

Once through, we were left to our devices to figure out how to get to Tvarditsa. Igor was freaking out that we didn’t have a map of Moldova, but I kept telling him a map wouldn’t help since there aren’t any road signs. We traveled the Moldovan way, stopping frequently to ask people if we were going the right way. We had a good laugh when we finally did see a road sign – it said “Drivers! Pay attention to the road signs!” I don’t know if that was someone’s idea of a joke, or if it was a leftover from once upon a time when there actually were signs in Moldova. Either way, it was amusing.

Anya had warned me that the road from Besarabca to Tvarditsa was even worse than it had been when I lived in Moldova, so I opted to take a longer route on better roads. I had told Igor he was unlikely to ever complain about Ukrainian roads again after he saw the roads in Moldova, and by the time we got back to Ukraine a few days later, he fully agreed. I’m sorry to say that most of them fully met up to my low expectations. But aside from the route having slightly better road conditions, I was happy to approach Tvarditsa from Ceadir-Lunga because I love the road lined with fruit-trees, and my favorite “Welcome to Tvarditsa” sign. As we drove along this scenic road, I started to reminisce aloud to Igor – the time Petya and I walked from Ceadir-Lunga to Tvarditsa, the spot where I took the photo that hangs on our fridge of the fruit trees covered in ice,

and other happy memories. As we pulled into the village, I pointed out the Culture Palace, the library, the school, the church, the mayor’s office – with its bright new paint job! As we drove up the street I suddenly worried that I wouldn’t remember which house was Anya and Gresha’s – but that was silly of me to worry. Of course I remembered. We pulled up in front, walked through the gate, and Babushka was there to greet us – big smile on a tiny little lady! Wow, was I glad to see her.

It just felt so wonderful to be there again, to be in that familiar, friendly place in what still seems like the middle of nowhere. I see it a bit differently now, I realize how close it is to Ukraine, the power lines that reach across the invisible border somehow have more meaning to me now that I think of Ukraine as my home. There is another Peace Corps volunteer living there now, in fact she’s almost done with her two years of service. I was excited to meet her, but also secretly happy to hear that although they love her too, Anya and Gresha still think of me as their “favorite daughter”.

It was fun to be there with Igor – I finally brought them a guest who can discuss and debate with Gresha and Sasha easily, who understands their humor and can add new jokes, who can appreciate the cooking and fawn over the wine- man, do they ever have awesome wine! Igor had tried it before when they brought several bottles to our wedding, but after a day of travel, even in winter, it’s just not the same as fresh out of the barrel. After a day, Igor was declining wine that had been in the fridge for a bit, insisting only on freshly-poured wine from the barrel.

It was fun to hear from Igor on the way back to Kyiv about the “other” life in Tvarditsa – the men’s realm. Gresha is a wonderful man, and was always kind and sweet to me, but as a female, I never had complete access to his world. Igor is an observant person by nature (and being a psychologist doesn’t hurt, either), and he picked up on several things that were quite interesting. For one, he recognized the age hierarchy prevalent in this Bulgarian corner of Moldova. Gresha always pores a glass of wine for the oldest man in the group first, followed by the next younger, then the next younger, etc. When it was just the two of them, Gresha would pore for himself first, then Igor. If another man joined them, older than Igor but still younger than Gresha, Igor’s glass was filled third instead of second. Subtle, and really fascinating for Igor. The two of them got along famously – both philosophers in their souls – they spent hours talking about everything.

More to come in the next post. I’ve been working on this off and on all day, and it’s now after 10 pm and I’m getting sleepy.

10 days, 2780 kilometers, 2 countries + 1 break-away “republic”, 3 liters of wine in one day, one not-so-small lamb, uncountable number of insane drivers (so many, in fact, that my father no only stopped asking to drive the car but nearly refused when I was ready to hand over the keys), one sunburned arm and one slightly tanned armed, one fabulous husband, a trunk full of Moldovan contraband – and we’re finally home.

The trip had its ups and downs, times to remember forever and moments I can’t forget fast enough. More details tomorrow, after a good night’s sleep.

We’re in Crimea. It’s hot, but we’re having a good time. Lots of fresh peaches, grapes, watermelon, honeydews – absolutely delicous! We’ll stay here another day or two then head to Moldova to visit my host family in Tvarditsa.

Isn’t it funny how something wonderful comes along right when you need it? Like the great news I got last night after my depressing funk about maniac drivers.

Petya and Marina got married!!!

Dad picked them up on Sunday and brought them back to Columbus, where they will live for the rest of their summer Work and Travel program. He took them to the courthouse Monday morning to find if they could get married in the US, and if so how. Turned out the answer was Yes and they could do it right away! I am so so happy for them.

We will also be sharing in another wonderful happy moment this weekend – Igor’s cousin Andrei is finally marrying his girlfriend of many years, Natasha. Andrei was best man at our wedding. They will have the civil ceremony on Saturday (just them and the witnesses), with the church wedding and small party on Sunday. We are honored to be included among the few people who get to share this important day in their lives with them.

Nothing like a wedding to make you feel positive again.

I can’t believe I forgot to mention the other people I saw while in Moldova! That stressful end really overshadowed much of the rest of the trip.

In Tvarditsa, I had a very nice visit with Natasha and Galya, two girls from my English Club. Both are doing well, growing into lovely young women. Petya, my old walking buddy, is in Russia now, starting University outside of Moscow. His sister Maia is also in Moscow this summer with their mother, who works there. I didn’t manage to see their younger brother Nikolai, but we talked briefly on the phone. The crazy lady who always wanders up and down the street remembered me, much to my surprise. I saw from a distance the weird guy who followed me around the first few months in Tvarditsa, but managed to avoid having to actual talk to him. I saw the librarians, and of course the gang at the Primaria.

Wednesday morning I went to Ialoveni to visit my host family from PST – Tamara Ivanovna and Fyodor Ivanovich (Alyona’s parents). Their granddaughter Ksenia was there as well. She has simply blossomed in the past year! When I left Moldova, she was in that awkward pre-teen stage, all arms and legs and shyness. Now she is a beautiful young woman, clearly becoming comfortable in her body and her person. I had a wonderful visit with Tamara Ivanovna, and really wished I could have stayed longer with her. She complimented my improved Russian, which made me feel great! As a retired Russian teacher, she has high expectations, and I value her opinion very much.

Tamara Ivanovna was always very proud that I had been selected as one of the PCVs to give a speech at our Swearing-In Ceremony. I talked about one of my favorite books, Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz. I recently found it in Russian translation here in Kyiv, and bought about 5 copies right away! I took a copy to Anya in Tvarditsa, and gave one to Tamara Ivanovna, as well. I hope they enjoy it as much as I do.

Books I’ve read this past summer: Wormwood Forest: A Natural History of Chernobyl, Mary Mycio; Voices of Chernobyl, Svetlana Alexievich and Keith Gessen (translator); The Chronicles of Narnia (The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe; Prince Caspian; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Silver Chair; The Horse and His Boy; The Last Battle), C.S. Lewis; Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, Jung Chang; In Her Shoes, Jennifer Weiner; and The Lost Continent: travels in small-town America, Bill Bryson. I’ve also listened to podiobooks Taken Liberty: A Tale from the Arbiter Chronicles, Steven H. Wilson; and Burn, James Patrick Kelly.

I had a really nice trip to Moldova. I had expected hassles and delays at the border, but everything went smoothly. We arrived early, even, in Chisinau! As I walked up the street to the Peace Corps office, I had to have a chuckle when I heard a rooster crowing in somebody’s yard – in the middle of the capital city of a European country. Yes, I’d forgotten some things about Moldova.

I spent Saturday with Joanna, and in the evening we had dinner with Beryl and Krystal, two other PCVs from our group. The M14s were all headed to Chisinau for their Close of Service conference. Yes, it’s been two years and the M14s are winding down their service and trying to figure out what they are going to do next. Some will go to graduate school, some will look for jobs when they get home, some will travel for a few weeks or even months. It was neat to see many of the PCVs from my group again, especially to see how the youngest ones have matured in the last two years. When I think back to our first months in Moldova, how everything was so confusing, so hard, and so damn frustrating, it was really impressive to see how settled and comfortable our group is now. Many things in Moldova are still confusing, hard and frustrating, but after 2 years, most PCVs seem to have figured out a good chunk of it, or are able to “go with the flow” in an almost accepting sort of way. I guess that’s what they call cultural adjustment!

Sunday morning I headed down to Ceadir-Lunga in hopes of catching the noon bus to Tvarditsa. It was a refreshing feeling to know that if I didn’t make it in time, or if I just plain decided I didn’t want to take the bus, I could splurge for the $7 taxi fare to Tvarditsa if I really wanted to. But much to my surprise and delight, my host brother Sasha had arranged with a neighbor who has a car to pick me up at the bus station. And there was Sasha waiting for me when I got off the bus! About 20 minutes later we were pulling up to the familiar gate on Dimitrova street, and there was Anya, Gresha, and their adorable grandson Greshka waiting for me. Babushka was at church, but was home soon after I arrived. We, of course, sat down to a huge and delicious meal. I’m not ashamed to admit that I pigged out on the delicious homemade bread and cheese, and the fabulous salads made from fresh-picked tomatoes and peppers. Yum! That was stuff I’ve been missing.

On Monday, Sasha took me on his motorcycle to a beautiful area near the Ukrainian border. PC does not allow volunteers to ride a motorcycle, even as a passenger, because of safety concerns, and thus this my first time riding with Sasha on his bike. We had always talked about going to this area, but as it is a good distance from home and transportation was always a problem, it just never worked out while I was living there. The family’s sheep spend the summer in the fields near the area we went to, but they were far out at pasture somewhere and we didn’t see them. We walked for a few hours along a series of three small lakes, chatting with local fishermen and inspecting their catches. One guy had a whole array of lines set up along the shore, at least ten, with small bells attached so that if a fish took the bait, he would hear the bell and come reel in his catch. We also saw some really interesting bugs sunbathing and a remnants of a big beetle.

We were literally right on the border of Ukraine, and my Ukrainian mobile phone worked but my Moldovan phone had no service. So I took advantage of the opportunity to make some calls to folks in Ukrainian without the international surcharge!

I had a good visit with my old partner Donna, who recently retired, and my friend Galya, who has taken over the community organization work in the village. Galya’s done great stuff, including officially registering the organization (ECOU XXI) and getting the mayor’s office to give her a small office in the building! She’s set to receive another PCV this fall, which makes me extremely happy. The next volunteer will start with so much more than when I arrived in Tvarditsa two years ago, when there was no registered organization, no office, and Donna was so busy with other things we hardly even saw each other.

Tuesday night we had a board meeting for ECOU XXI, of which I am a long-distance member. Some board members, including Donna, participated in a week-long canoeing/camping trip along the Dnister River this past summer. The trip was organized by an ecological organization in Chisinau (who’s president, it turns out, is the mother of a young woman I know in Kyiv!), with two goals for the participants: culural exchange between ethnic Moldovans, Russians and Bulgarians in Moldova; and learning about the ecological diversity and beauty of Moldova. The Tvarditsa participants showed us pictures, and I was not alone in being surprised by the incredible scenes – the participants said they themselves had had no idea such beautiful places existed in their own country! The group wants to make the trip again next year, and invited me to join. I would love to!

Anya and Gresha had been busy the previous days with several invitations to birthday parties. But Tuesday night, they were finally able to stay home, and Anya and I had one of our “traditional” long and thoroughly enjoyable after-dinner conversations. Just like old times. We all had a great meal together, and afterwards Anya and I cleaned up, then sat down with our cups of tea and talked and talked and talked. That was what I had missed most of all since leaving Tvarditsa, my evening talks with Anya.

Early Wednesday I took my “beloved” 6:00 am bus to Chisinau, and spent the day visiting the PCVs and doing a little gift shopping. It was again nice to have a bit more economic freedom, and I was able to buy some nice cognac in the Cricova store that I had always oogled but never could afford (now, it was hard to believe that $13 for a sampler set of 8 different cognacs was once too much for me to spend on a gift).

The trip ended on a very stressful note. I had stored my bags in the Peace Corps office during the day, and had had to leave my passport at the reception desk. As I was leaving, I stopped to get my passport and was surprised when the guard gave me someone else’s passport. “This isn’t mine,” I said as I handed it back to the guard. He checked it (as if I don’t know my own passport), and said that was only passport he had. “Probably the other guard gave your’s to someone else by mistake,” he calmly said. That’s a bit of a problem, I thought, as I checked my watch and saw I had about 50 minutes until my bus left. The guard, in an oh-so-typically-unhelpful manner, stood and stared at me. Joanna was with me, and we quickly looked throught the guest log and found the name of the man whose passport the guard did have. He had visited one the PC staff, and had left about an hour earlier. Joanna ran up to see what the staff person knew about him, and she kindly offered his email address (another oh-so-unhelpful offer). Joanna explained the urgency of the matter, and a home phone number was finally offered up, but she didn’t have a cell phone number for him. To our luck (and surprise) he was home. Since the PC office is only about 5 minutes from the bus station, I asked him to come to PC so I could try to get to the bus station on time. But he didn’t seem very keen on going out, much less coming to meet me at PC. He seemed utterly unconcerned about the urgency of the matter for me. I finally offered to pay for his taxi if he would come ASAP. I had a maddening 10 minute wait for him outside PC, not entirely sure he was really going to come or not. He did, though, and I quickly exchanged passports with him and jumped in the cab before the guy could even say anything. I made it to the bus station with about 5 minutes to spare, adrenaline raging, and pretty damn disgusted with several people.

The story had a happy ending, though, so I tried to focus on that on the long bus ride back to Kyiv. We made it in at about 7:00 am, and I splurged for a taxi home. Everyone at work raved about the Moldovan candy I brought in, and Igor was truly impressed with the cognac sampler.

I’m finally going back to Moldova to visit this weekend. I have tried several times over the past 10 months to go back, and something has always come up to interfere with my plans. My host mom Anya and host brother Sasha even got so tired of waiting for me, they came to Kyiv themselves in June! And Petya, my good friend and walking buddy, has visited me twice. At long last, the time has come for me to return to Moldova!

Getting my visa reminded me of what I’m in for – amusing hassles, absurd bureaucracy, and a need for endless amounts of patience. I’m looking forward to a few quite days in Tvarditsa, away from the hussle and bussle of Kyiv. Good food, good wine, and great friends.

I’ve forgotten to mention what I’ve been reading lately. In the last month, I’ve read: A Primate’s Memoir, by Robert M. Sapolsky (thank you Bob and Jenny!); Sea Glass, by Anita Shreve; The Translator, by John Crowley; Falling Angels, by Tracy Chevalier (thank you Sophie for all three of those!); The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami (thank you Emily!); and The Dew Breaker, by Edwidge Danticat.

Language is a bit of an issue here in Ukraine, as in Moldova. Ukrainian is the official language of the country since Ukraine became independent in 1991, although there is still a large population of ethnic Russians and even ethnic Ukrainians who speak Russian as their primary language. Russian is much more common in the eastern half of Ukraine, which is geographically and ideologically closer to Russia. Ukrainian is much more predominant in the western half of Ukraine.

The capital, Kyiv (as it is properly translated from Ukrainian, “Kiev” being the translation from Russian) is a mix of both languages. In the shops and markets, on the street, and in restaurants, you are more likely to hear Russian spoken. On a few occasions, though, a vendor has started in Ukrainian with me, but it has been the exception. But all government and official business is conducted in Ukrainian.

Much of the television programming is in Ukrainian, and if it’s an imported show from Russia, Ukrainian subtitles are always added. Signs and advertisements (whether on television, outdoor billboards, or ads in the metro) by law must be in Ukrainian.

As I encountered in Moldova, there is a real mix of languages here in Ukraine. Ukrainian words slip into the Russian, and vice versa. For example, I kept hearing my Ukrainian colleagues at work use a word I didn’t know and I finally asked what it was. It’s a Ukrainian word, they told me, and in English means “community.” Oh, like “so’obschtvo”, I said, giving the Russian word I knew for “community.” No, they told me, the Russian word doesn’t mean “community” the same way that “hromada” does in Ukrainian. OK, I’ll take your word for it!

Ukrainian and Russian are not as drastically different as Russian and Moldovan/Romanian are, since they are both Slavic languages, but nonetheless the two languages have their distinct qualities. Many native Russian speakers can generally understand Ukrainian, even if they never formally studied the language. As a non-native speaker, though, I find the two languages very different and don’t find myself innately understanding Ukrainian. I can usually get the gist of a written document or newspaper article, but not always. Spoken Ukrainian I don’t have a grasp of yet, which I can see will present some struggles in the areas where we work, in the Chornobyl affected region (Chornobyl, by the way, is the translation from Ukrainian for the place most of us English speakers know of as Chernobyl, which is the translation from the Russian). Ukrainian has been the primary language in the villages and towns I’ve visited so far in the Chornobyl affected region, and although most people do speak Russian, their day-to-day life is conducted in Ukrainian.

Well, I learned a bit of Bulgarian during my year in Tvarditsa and was eventually able to follow most conversations, so I hope I’ll reach a similar level here with Ukrainian. At the least, I need to learn a few phrases to show people that I’m trying.

Here’s a link with more about Ukraine, and scroll down for more information about the language issue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiev

The long awaited site assignments were announced this afternoon, and my home for the next two years will be Tvarditsa (pronounced Tvar’-dits-uh). Here’s the limited information I have at this time:

The name of the organization is “Tvarditsa”, located in the town of Tvarditsa, in the raion (region) of Taraclia. The director/coordinators are: Lidia Iazadju and Dominichia Bobikova, and Dominichia Bobikova will be my counterpart. As I understand it, her “regular” job is with the Village Mayoralty, and she is listed as being an expert in children, youth, and sport problems within the Village Mayoralty office.

Here’s what they wrote in their application for a PC Volunteer:

Target Group/Beneficiaries of the activities as:
People living in the village (development of their community activity, protection of their civil, economic, social and cultural rights).

Short description of organization’s goals and activities:
- Establishment of an Information Center with the main goal to receive and spread information among the people in the community
- Create conditions for satisfying professional and personal interests in various fields of knowledge
- Get the people in the community involved in charitable activities
- Contribution to acquisition of materials needed for the pedagogical, cultural, entrepreneur activity

History of organization’s activities (list both finished and current projects):
- Finished project: “National customs, traditions, children, youth, and women of the village”

# of staff/volunteers: 7 people

I will be their first PCV, which is exciting. It is my understanding that this particular area of Moldova has a large ethnic Bulgarian population, and they indicate on their application that their primary operating languages are both Russian and Bulgarian. In particular, they asked for a PCV with experience in establishing NGOs and skills in working with NGOs, grant writing and project implementation. They describe my specific activities rather vaguely (which is quite common, especially for an organization getting their first PCV): work with NGO; establishment of long term NGOs; consulting and collaborative grant writing; and work for project implementation. I will share Dominichia’s office in the village mayoralty.

We are constantly reminded by PC staff and current volunteers that reality often turns out to be quite different from the applications organizations submit, so I am keeping an open mind and expecting just about anything. However, it does sound like my experience in organizational development, staff and volunteer development and management, and project management will be useful.

So, what do we know about Tvardita? Not a whole lot yet. Their application indicates it is a village of about 6400 people, which is pretty large for a village (I think you officially become a “town” when you get to about 10,000 people in Moldova). It is about 120 km south of Chisinau, close to the eastern border and Ukraine. It is part of the raion Taraclia, but that raion is rather odd and has disconnected bits and pieces all along the south-central and eastern Moldova. The closest city is Ceadir-Lunga, to the south west of Tvardita, which is actually in the semi-autonomous region of Gagauz. Taraclia, the capital of the Taraclian raion, is further south west of Ceadir-Lunga. Matt will be working in the Mayoralty in Taraclia, and Emily will be further south still in a small village called Ciumai (Choo’-my), right smack on the Ukrainian border, working with a Parent-Teacher Association in a Russian school.

There are a good number of PCVs heading south this year, with 3 or 4 folks going to Cahul on the western side of the southern part of Moldova. There are 2 PCVs in Ceadir-Lunga from last year’s groups (one TEFL and one EOD), and I think one or two folks in Comrat from last year’s groups, but I will actually be fairly isolated (which isn’t saying much in a country smaller than Maryland) from other PCVs. This is actually good, in my opinion, as I can get to people when I want to, but I won’t be tempted or obliged to spend tons of time with the PCVs since it will take effort to get to them. As I told my host family, I didn’t come to Moldova to spend all my time with Americans! But, it’s nice to know that they are near enough, when I do want and need to talk to a fellow American. Emily and I already started talking about how and where to meet up with each other, and I am glad that we will be within in an hour or so of each other.

The announcement of the sites was a creative and fun event. They’ve kept us on pins and needles for a couple weeks now, and the PC staff made the actual announcement “ceremony” quite a deal. David Reside, Country Director, came and said a few words. Many M12s (last year’s Ag and EOD group) were on hand as well. We all went to the school’s gymnasium, where a very rough outline of Moldova had been drawn on the floor. Chairs with village and town names on them were set around the “country”, more or less based on geography. Names were drawn one at a time, and our project coordinator’s announced our site and NGO, gave us each a large and beautiful map of Moldova, and led us by the hand to our “site.” It was really neat to see at the end how we are spread out all over the country. Current PCVs then spread out amongst us, talking with folks who will be living near to them. We “Russians” knew that we were all going to a new area of the country for PC, but again, it’s a small country and no one is really that far away. My program’s application indicates that Tvardita is about 3.5 hours by bus from Chisinau, or 2 hours by car (strangely enough, it is 7 hours by train!). We will experience this first hand on Sunday when we head out to meet our counterparts, visit with prospective host families, and check out our new homes! It’s very exciting and I’m looking forward to getting to work.

Then get sick while you’re in Peace Corps! I spent most of last week at home in bed with a nasty Moldovan strain of the flu. I can now attest, though, that it absolutely true you get the best health care ever while you are in Peace Corps. Dr. Lika, as she is affectionately known, cares for each and every of the 130+ PCVs in Moldova with a vengence. She came to our apartment Tuesday, doctor’s bag in hand as well as with the most amazing supply of medications. She did the most thorough examination I’ve ever had in my life, spent a good 45 minutes here, talking with me and my host family, then called two or three times each day the rest of the week to check on my status. What doctor in the U.S. would give you this kind of attention? And I know it wasn’t the only PCV ill last week, so I didn’t extra TLC just because she had no other patients at the time. To the contrary, it’s the start of flu season, and there are, of course, the usual cases of diarrhea (the most common PCV illness around the world) and other gastro-intestinal “fun.” By Saturday, I was well enough to venture into Chisinau for a couple hours, and went back on Sunday to visit the PC office building, where I bumped into Dr. Lika – on a Sunday! She insisted on giving me another extremely thorough follow-up exam on the spot, so my quick trip to the city resulted in a 30 minute doctor’s visit. She’s the best!

This weekend was the National Wine Festival, and there was a huge event in Chisinau. The weather was gorgeous on Saturday (you could wear just a t-shirt practically), which made for perfect festival weather. I didn’t feel up to that kind of revelry yet, and I think I was the only PCV not in attendance. I hear it was great; wineries from all over the country had booths, offering free samples of their latest vintages. There was lots of food, music, dancing, the whole she-bang. President Voronin made an appearance, and I heard one of the guys in our group managed to shake his hand even! Pretty cool.

While everyone else was partying, I worked my way to a clothes store, like a factory-outlet, that my host family had shown me last week. Autumn is definitely in the air, and after my bout with the flu, I decided not to delay any longer on getting a winter coat. I found a very nice, simple, black knee-length cashmere coat for 750 lei (about $65). This factory store definitely had cheaper prices than in the department stores, and you know my love for a bargain! This company, Ionel, is a Moldovan clothes manufacturer which makes high quality clothes for men and women. I saw many beautiful coats, but opted for something simple that will be easier to care for in village life. There were also very snazzy men’s suits, and our language instructor told us that Europeans and Americans in Moldova often come that factory store and buy 5 or 6 suits to take home with them. I think I will check it out again in 2 years and maybe bring home an elegant coat with me!

Sunday, another PCV took me to the PC office in Chisinau so I could learn the way to get there. It is a large building, looks like a house on the outside, but inside is a warren of hallways, staircases, and rooms. There is a PCV lounge on the third floor, with a big TV and hundreds of video tapes. Some PCVs were watching The Sopranos. There is also a computer lab with 3-4 computers and a printer. The Resource Room is there, as well, with teaching materials, handbooks, etc for PCVs to peruse or even check out. The best part, in my opinion, is a wonderfully eclectic library, supplied over the past 10 years by PCVs who have left books for the “next guy.” They are loosely organized (fiction, travel, biographies, etc.), and you take what you want, leave what you want, return when you can. A quick scan found a good number of books to keep me busy for a couple years, and I plan to donate most of my books to the library after I’ve read them myself. It’s fun to think about who left the book you are holding – many of them have a name and the PC group number, i.e., Ann Merrill M14 (the 14th group of PCVs in Moldova). I borrowed first The Milagro Beanfield Wars – thank you Mark Sekula M7!

One big disappointment about being sick last week was that I missed the meeting with the Vice Mayor on Wednesday, but Matt and Emily reported that it went well. Viorica, our language teacher, went with them to translate. Our next assignment is to plan and implement a Community Activity. We’ve decided to partner up with one of the current PCVs in Ialoveni, Hye Mi (pronounced like H’Amy), a Korean-American woman. She is coordinating a seminar-type program for 12-18 year-old girls about self-esteem, violence against women, and self-defense. She’s got a lot going on with the event, and we offered to work up something for the self-esteem part. We’re not really sure how we’ll pull this off, but it will be interesting!

In case you are wondering, the title means, roughly, There’s no making sense of Russia. It’s a line from a famous poem, that has now become a regular saying that perfectly sums up what I have thought about Russia, Russian culture, and the Russian language for 15 years. Why I just learned this phrase today, I don’t know, but There’s no making sense of Russia!

On another note, I continue to enjoy this bootcamp that we call Peace Corps Pre-Service Training. Somedays it just hits me like a wave that I’m really here, a Real Life Peace Corps Volunteer, and it’s just amazing. To think about something for so many years, and now to really finally be doing it. I just think to myself, Holy cow, I really did it! Of course, other days, I think to myself, Holy shit, what have I done? Like today, when the water is off again for no apparent reason. But that’s par for the course, I guess.

Things are still busy here. Saturday my host sister Alyona took Emily and me into Chisinau, the capital, for some shopping. I found a couple nice winter coats, and will go back tomorrow to buy one. How about a 3/4 length black cashmere coat for $65?! We had a good time, and I’m really liking Alyona a lot – she is Anya’s mother, Tamara Ivanovna’s 39-year old daughter. She was in London the last 3-4 months, and of course didn’t want to come back to Moldova but couldn’t get her visa extended and didn’t want to stay illegally. She’s an English teacher, but is being very good about speaking Russian with me, although I know she’s dying to work on her and Anya’s English. We mix the languages now, which gives me a break, too, as 24/7 was really wearing me out. I taught her some yoga last night, and we will probably do this together a few times a week now. It will be hard to move in 6 weeks as I’m getting very attached to these folks very quickly! They have all been so kind and gracious to me, and in fact we have all been very fortunate with our host
families.

Tomorrow we have an “independent field trip” to Chisinau scheduled, and we are supposed to get ourselves to a certain meeting place where a current volunteer will meet us and give us a tour of useful and interesting places in the city. Since Emily, Matt and I already had more access to the city than most other volunteers, we talked to our “guide” today and have some fun stuff planned in addition to the requisite informational tour.

Then on Wednesday we have our meeting with the Vice Mayor of Ialoveni. Each village of trainees has a set of community activities to complete as part of our training, and meeting with an important personage in the village/town is one of them. So, we set up the appointment with the Vice Mayor (mayor is travelling out of the country right now), and tomorrow we’ve got to figure out what the hell we’re going to ask him about. Understanding the answers is an entirely different set of problems!

We got our site options last week, which are the places that requested PC Volunteers this year and that were selected to receive a volunteer. There are three Russian sites, all in the southeast of Moldova, in the raion (district) of Taraclia. We’re supposed to be able to give our preferences, and Sylvia, the EOD program manager, will try to take preferences into account and then match volunteers with sites. Well, she made it pretty clear that she’s already decided for the three Russians, so we’ve been trying to guess all weekend who’s going where. All three sites sound like interesting work to me, so I fall back to my secondary criterion, which is indoor plumbing. Keep your fingers crossed for me! We find out our assignments a week from tomorrow, and then the following weekend we are supposed to somehow travel by ourselves to
our sites, meet our counterparts, check out possible host families, and get ourselves back to Chisinau 3 days later. This will be interesting, but the good news is that 2 weeks from today, I will know (a) in what town I will be living, (b) with whom I will working, and (c) with whom I will be living. It’s only taken a year to get that info, so what’s 2 more weeks now, eh?

I went with Alyona the other night to her friend’s house, who has an 8 year old daughter, Lyuba. She is absolutely adorable, chattered away to me for over an hour, showed me her aquarium, photo albums, performed a dance and sang a song from the school show, you name it. She speaks Russian and Romanian, and started learning English in school this year – 8 years old! She showed off her excellent school marks, and read to me from her English textbook. She also loaned me one of her Russian primers, which is actually about the perfect level for me right now. She was delightful. I walked home both happy and melancholy- missing all the wonderful kids back home so much. So, extra big kisses to those cuties at home! Moms and Dads, help them send me some emails, OK?

Hi everybody! It’s been another busy week. I can’t believe how quickly the time is going, almost 1/3 done with pre-service training!

We had a get-together with all our host families on Sunday (we three “Russians,” that is). We learned to cook vareniki, which are boiled dumpling-like things with different fillings (we made them with cheese, cabbage and potatoes). We also learned to a make a very traditional Moldovan dish called platsendi, which remind us a bit of spanokopita, a flaky pastry with delicious fillings (potato and cabbage). The best part, of course, was that we got to eat it all! We had quite a feast. Emily’s host family grows grapes in their small yard (as do most people here); I counted at least 5 different kinds that they picked fresh from the vine for us to try. Most Moldovans make their own wine, and we had some of the family’s white wine – very sweet and delicious!

Our families have truly adopted us, and it was both funny and sweet to listen to them brag about each of us to each other. Matt’s family has a 9-year old daughter, and apparently she woke up crying the other night because she dreamt he had left them (which unfortunately will be true in a couple months!).

The exciting news of the week, though, was that we had an earthquake on Monday! Just a tiny one, most people didn’t even feel it (I think I heard it was 4.0 on the Richter scale). We could feel it in our classroom, but weren’t really sure what it was; only that evening did we find out for sure. Moldova is in an earthquake zone, but they are not known for having big, destructive ones. We all thought it was pretty cool.

The mail is an interesting situation here. One woman in our group received a post card from London that took 17 days to get here! I received a post card yesterday from Las Vegas that took 21 days. We decided it must have taken 2 days to get to the Moldovan border from London, and 15 days by slow goat to get to Ialoveni.

Moldova is most definitely a land of contradictions. I’m sitting at one of three internet cafes in this town of 18,000 people, sending emails in “real time” with folks in the U.S., but the post office is slower than the Pony Express. In the morning, I wake up to the sound of dogs barking and roosters crowing outside my apartment building. On Sunday morning, I watched cars zip down the main street, around horse-drawn carts.

Between 600,000-800,000 Moldovans are living abroad right now, out of a population of 4.4 million. They sent home nearly $500 million in the first six months of 2004 to their family and friends, nearly 20% of the Gross National Product (or something like that, forgive me those of you who understand economics!). Those leaving are typically 24-45, leaving behind children and pensioners. The current Communist government appeals to the pensioners, who are nostalgic for the “good old days” when bread was cheap, everyone had a job, and public services were provided. There is much debate and controversy how (and if) to collect the absentee votes from those living abroad, and right now it’s not particularly in the interest of the national government to do much about it as those folks have already voted – with their feet! I’ve already been asked numerous times why I am here, as it baffles Moldovans why anyone, especially Americans, would leave the land of milk and honey to come here. And when they find out that I get paid in lei (Moldovan currency) and not in US dollars, they look at me like I’m the biggest fool on the planet.

Well, home to do some studying. Send me emails, folks! I know I don’t write back very quickly, but I love hearing about life back home.

Go Bucks!

The internet cafe has been down for a couple of days, but I wanted all you folks at Ohio State to know that I’ve been thinking of you this week as the new school year begins! I know you are all super busy, and I hope the quarter starts (and continues) great!

Did I tell you that the street I live on is lined with Buckeye trees? Every day, I walk under probably over 100 Buckeye trees, and Buckeyes now cover the sidewalks and roads. I’m not sure how they fit into the environment here, as there aren’t any squirrels (and if I remember my Buckeye trivia correctly, only squirrels can eat the poisonous nuts, right?).

Well, I’m thinking of all of you. Go Bucks!

I apologize for not responding to everyone’s emails, and for not answering all your questions when I do write. Today I apologize in advance for not answering any emails, as I can answer most questions with one blog entry today.

My new (temporary) home town is Ialoveni (pronounced Ya’-low-vyen). It is kind of a suburb of Chisinau, the capital city roughly in the middle of Moldova. We are about 10 minutes by bus to the edge of Chisinau, and it takes about another 15-20 minutes to get to the center of Chisinau from the very edge.

Ialovani first appears in historical documents in 1502, thus they celebrated their 500th anniversary 2 years ago. There are about 18,000 residents in the town, but so far our life (us PC trainees, that is) primarily occurs along the main street, called Alexander cel Bun. Ialoveni area is particularly well-known for its wine and cognac, they have some “ancient secret recipes” here, and the winery is on the northern edge of town, on the way to Chisinau. I would guess that I live about 1.5-2 km from the northern edge of town, but nonetheless in one of the first apartment buildings, on the edge of what I would call the central area of town. North of me are many individual homes, and it is considered the rich part of town. Many of the homes are large even by American standards, and there are still lots under construction. It seems as if many people live in Ialoveni and commute by bus to Chisinau every day for work as housing is hard to find in the capital, and extremely expensive when you do find it.

My apartment building is very long and about 5 or 6 stories tall. We live at the southernmost end, in a corner apartment on the second floor facing Alexander cel Bun (the main street). It’s a pretty busy street, and I can hear cars zipping up and down the road all night (but usually I’m so dog tired I think I’d sleep through anything). The apartment belongs to a 40-year old teacher named Elena and her 16-year old daughter Anya. Elena has been in London since July, and thus Anya’s grandmother (Elena’s mother) Tamara has been staying with her. Tamara and her husband Fyodor live basically across the street, though, so there is a lot of back and forth going on between the apartments. Tamara’s other granddaughter, 12-year Ksenia, lives with her during the week and thus has been staying with us too in Elena/Anya’s apartment to be with her grandma. Ksenia’s parents used to live in Chisinau, but their apartment lease was not renewed and they haven’t been able to find other housing yet. Ksenia’s mother lives in a village somewhere, but since they still wanted Ksenia to go to her school in Chisinau, they decided it would be best for her to stay with Grandma and commute to school. She goes to her parents’ on the weekends.

So, there are a lot of women in our small apartment right now! Elena returns from London in a week or so, and Tamara and Ksenia will “move” back to the other apartment, but I suspect there will continue to be a lot of going back and forth. Actually, I hope so as I already love Tamara dearly. She is a retired Russian language teacher, and is now on her second career as a librarian at the local school. She loves to help me with my homework, whether I want it or not! No slacking off in her house. She has accepted me with open arms, and we found a lot in common in the kitchen as she is a wonderful cook and I enjoy helping and learning, both lots of new Russian words and phrases but also delicious dishes.

Our apartment is what they call here a 2-room apartment. That means there are 2 rooms in addition to the kitchen and bathroom. When you enter the apartment, the kitchen is straight ahead down a short hall. It is a small room, but as in most Russian households, the bulk of time, especially social and family time, is spent in there. There is a small gas stove, lit with matches, a sink and a small counter all along the left-hand wall. Cupboards above and below. The small table and stools sit on the right-hand wall. The back wall opens onto a small “veranda” as they call, where the refrigerator and trash can are kept. Outside the veranda window is the clothesline for drying your laundry.

The toilet and bathroom are in two separate rooms in the hallway between the front door and the kitchen, on the left. In this part of the world, it is common to have a tiny room with just the toilet, and then a separate room right next to it with the sink and bathtub. We also have a washing machine, which is a super handy thing but not very common. Most people (women, I should say, as the men don’t do it) wash their clothes by hand.

Inside the front door, to the right is another short hallway. Along there is the coat rack and a wardrobe. The telephone with a long cord is supposed to sit there in the hallway, but with a 16 year old in the house, it is often stretched to places unknown for long conversations.

Anya’s room is first on the left. It is a narrow room, her bed on the right, wardrobe on the left, desk at the far end. It, too, opens up onto a veranda, but this one is not connected to the one from the kitchen. It is a longer one, though, and runs the rest of the length of the apartment, behind my apartment, too. It’s used mostly for storage, and right now is full of walnuts as it is the season and walnut trees are abundant everywhere. Many people have them on their property, or if it’s just along a public street or in a park, anyone can collect the walnuts. There are several outside our building, and there seem to be plenty of walnuts to go around. I must say, if you’ve never had a completely fresh walnut, you have to try it!

My room is at the end of the short hallway, in the outside corner of the apartment. There are 2 chairs with an end table between on the right wall, windows to their left, and then a long case (called a shkaf here), which serves as all-in-one china cabinet, book shelves, and storage space. My wardrobe is at the end. To the left of the wardrobe is the glass door to the veranda, which lets in a nice amount of sunlight. My study table is in the last corner, next to the couch that I pull out at night to make into my bed. It’s a nice size room, really much too much space for just me, but Anya insists she doesn’t want to change rooms.

Back to the town. I live at the top of the hill, and walk about 1/2 mile every day to our Russian language classes. Along the way are some other apartment buildings, small kiosks selling flowers, newspapers, fruits and vegetables, and other various small things. There are also several abandoned and run-down buildings along the way. Next to the post office is a “Memorial to the Soviet Union” as the Moldovans call them- an incomplete building that was begun during the final years of the USSR and which no one has any money or need to finish. The post office is a very large building, of which only a small part seems to be the actual post office. Our language classes are actually held in 2 rooms in the back of the building, and several businesses seem to be run out other rooms along our hallway (one door is labeled Windows & Doors, and once when the door was open, that’s exactly what was inside the small room! Along with one woman sitting at a desk with a phone). On the side of the post office bldg is the internet cafe, which also has several phone booths where you can order long distance phone calls. It’s a fairly busy place, and I’m surprised how many people use the phone booths. We can make direct local, long distance and international calls from our apartment (although it’s expensive), but I suppose not everyone has their own phone.

Further down the road, about another 1/3 mile, is the school where Tamara works and where the Peace Corps “hub” office is located. We meet there twice a week, on the second floor in a couple rooms, for general lectures with the entire trainee group. We all pack lunches on those days, and eat out on the steps by the playground. The kids are so cute. They gather in groups, staring at us and giggling, until one brave soul runs up to someone and says “hi” and then runs away. I think I will take my camera next week to break the ice a bit with them.

About 1-2 blocks further down the hill from the school is a small collection of shops. Bakery, fish, meat, household needs, and a school supply store. There is a very small market behind the buildings, where people pull up with their trucks and sell fresh produce.

I’ve ventured farther south only once so far, when Emily and I walked down one branch of a fork in the road after the shops. We came across an overgrown cemetery and a church. There were also many small homes with fenced in yards, which are cultivated for the family’s garden usually.

All along Alexander cel Bun street there are small dirt alleys branching off. Back in these areas are more small homes and gardens. Emily’s family lives in their own home down one of these streets, right next to the post office.

The street is tree-lined, grassy and I can tell it probably had some nice flowery spots earlier in the summer. The road and sidewalks are more potholes than not, and I have to be careful walking, so I haven’t done much “sightseeing” while walking along. However, I stopped a few times to take in the view, which is especially beautiful at sunrise and sunset. From the top of the hill, by my apartment, I can see out across the countryside to the left and right, to the rolling hills covered with fields. The few apartment buildings at the top of the hill are the only tall buildings in the area, and thus the view is very open.

There are street lamps throughout the town, but only one or two actually have lightbulbs in them. Thus, at night, it’s very dark. The nights have been clear, and I’ve enjoyed stargazing all week. I can even see the Milky Way!

There are many homeless dogs everywhere. I pass 5 or 6 just in the 1/2 mile to classes, and I’m sure there are many more in the abandoned buildings that I don’t even see. There are also farm animals around. For instance, there’s a goat that spends it’s days tied in front of the Memorial building next to the post office. For a few days, there was a cow in front of my apartment building. People keep them to have their own supply of milk. I hear the roosters crowing in the morning, and people keep chickens as well. One day, I saw an old woman shooing her herd of goats across Alexander cel Bun, a little bit up from my building.

Moldova is a very poor country, the poorest in Europe. But the poverty here is different than in Africa, for example. Products are not available, services are not provided (there is trash everywhere, absolutely everywhere), yet people survive by having their own small plot of land to grow their food, their own goat or cow for milk and cheese, their own hens for eggs. An elementary teacher I met earns about 700 lei a month. It is absolutely impossible to live on such an income without the supplement of one’s own garden and animals.

The Moldovan government did a very interesting thing when it split from the Soviet Union in 1991. They divided up all the land and gave each family a small piece. While the PC volunteers debate about the pros and cons of the economics of such an act, nonetheless, it seems to me that that act alone allows people to survive.

What else to tell you about Ialoveni? It’s dusty, I sneeze a lot. There are wells everywhere (but I already wrote about that). People dress fashionably here, and the proximity to the capital puts some added pressure in terms of style. Pointy shoes are definitely the trend right now, and my clunky “functional” shoes are comfortable but not in style! The weather has been hot and clear, and summer clothes are still definitely the way to go. The babushkas, though, have the same uniform the world over, regardless of weather. Just like in Russia, they have on thick stockings, heavy skirts, warm sweaters over long-sleeve shirts, and scarves on their heads. I don’t know how they survive in this heat!

That’s it for today. I hope you have a better idea of what my new hometown is like. We’ll try to get pictures up eventually.

Well, I learned the other night why there always seems to be drops of water on the ground, stairs, and in the hallways. The water was out in our building, in the whole town actually, for about a day and a half. There were workers in front of our building, digging a big hole, which, as I understood it, was somehow related to the missing water, but whether they caused the problem or were fixing it, I wasn’t exactly clear.

I was worrying about how I would clean up that night. It had been a very hot day, and I’d gone for a long walk with Emily, another PC trainee in Ialoveni, and we were to have guest speakers the next day for our PC Hub Site day (when all the trainees come to Ialoveni for group lectures). I wanted and needed to clean up. Not to worry, Anya showed me where the well is behind our building! I’ve seen them throughout the town, and have heard people talk about them (“so and so has their own well”), but slow city-girl that I am, I didn’t really put two and two together. The wells are there for a reason, dummy! So, Anya and I went out with our buckets to get water for the night. It is a deep well, and you unroll the bucket and chain carefully until it hits the water, slowly letting out the rest of the chain so the bucket fills, and then crank it up. Anya did one bucket, and then a young man came by for his own water and helped us with our second bucket. We carried them back to our entrance, about 1/2 block’s distance, and sloshed a little water along the way. Viola! The reason for the wet splashes all over the place. I had thought it strange that someone would be cleaning floors and stairs so often! Well, the floors and stairs are cleaned, but I think most of the damp spots I see are from buckets of well water being carried somewhere.

There are actually only 5 towns in all of Moldova that have reliable water service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Everyone said it was rare that we lost water for so long in Ialoveni, but it seems to me that it must not be so uncommon, or perhaps more people than I realize don’t have running water at all, as there is a well at least every block.

So, I had my first full-fledged “bucket bath” that night. There is a lot that is not instinctual about the procedure, at least not for me. Tuesday at our Hub Site meeting, I overheard a current PC volunteer (PCV) explaining the process to one of our trainees who lives in a nearby village without running water. The PCV mentioned that you always add hot water to the cold bucket, and not vice versa, because you can make the cold water warmer, but to get more hot water means waiting for it to heat on the stove. Smart, eh? Let me tell you, not what I would have thought of at first! I was so dumb at this the first time Saturday night that I put my washcloth into the bucket of hot water. Now how smart is that, to make your only source of hot water all soapy? Not too good for rinsing off with. Well, I’m learning. Wednesday night (the night without water), I had 3 buckets, and at last understood all their purposes. One hot, one cold, and one for mixing. Eureka!

The Peace Corps tells us to be happy with small accomplishments. I am 33 years old, and I am damn pleased that I have figured out how to bathe myself.

Well, I’ve lived 4 1/2 days in Moldova! I am very happy, things are going well. Already there is probably enough for me to fill 50 blog postings, but since I am short on time, I’ll tell you about some first impressions and my new daily routine.

Flying over Moldova, I was reminded of Ohio actually! Farms and farms and farms. It’s a bit hillier than central Ohio, though. Chisinau, the capital, is like many other Eastern European towns/cities I’ve been in. Large cement-block buildings, dusty roads, crazy drivers (anyone who thinks Columbus drivers are crazy ain’t seen nothin’ yet!). Friday and Saturday are a blur already, though.

Saturday night we met our host families, and went home with them to our respective villages. There are 36 trainees in our group (we’ll officially be Peace Corps Volunteers when we are sworn in on November 15, after the completion of our formal language and technical training). 21 trainees (including me) are in Economic & Organizational Development, and 15 are in the Agricultural/Agribusiness program. There are more men than women in our group. 33 trainees are learning Romanian language, and 3 of us are learning Russian. The three of us live in Ialoveni, which is a suburb of Chisinau, with a population of about 18,000. Everyone else is split up amongst surrounding villages, 6-8 trainees per village with different host families. We “Russians” (as we are called as we are the anomalies learning Russian!) did luck out a bit by being placed in Ialovni, although it is so true that you get what you ask for! I was awful busy for months and months praying for indoor plumbing and running water. Well, I got that, but quickly realized the small but important omission in my prayers. Can you guess it? Yep, not just running water, but HOT running water. Lesson #1: you have to really think about what you want. So, my host family lives in an apartment, much like the apartments I am familiar with in Russia. We have running water, but the hot water heater is broken and thus we heat the water on the stove when we want to bathe. I still don’t have all the logistics down yet of how to bathe with bucket and pail, but I’m getting there. I figure it’s good practice, as in 9 weeks I’ll move again, to my volunteer site, and likely will have a change in accommodations.

So far, here is my routine:
7:00ish, wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast
8:15 walk 1/2 mile to the post office building where PC has rented 2 rooms for our language class. We have instruction in one room, and our “lounge” in the next, where we take our breaks for tea, snacks and relaxing.
8:30-1:00 pm – language lessons. Day 1 was easy for me, as the other 2 Russian students have very little to no experience with Russian at all. Today, though, the honeymoon ended. Our teacher, Viorica, put Matt and Emily to work together, and gave me some advanced lessons. Egad! I haven’t had to study cases and declinations for 12 years! It was hard work, but I am excited to improve my Russian language skills, and not just guess at what is right, but maybe actually know how to say something correctly and why.

1:00 pm 1/2 mile walk up the hill for lunch at home

2:30 pm Self-Directed Time – homework, activities, etc. Sometimes assigned by Viorica, sometimes more or less free time, but time to be learning, integrating into the community, etc.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, all the trainees come into Chisinau for PC lectures (health, safety, administration and technical training). Today we all registered with the local authorities, so we are now officially allowed to stay here.

The weather has been lovely – hot, even, and not a cloud in the sky. The people are very friendly and helpful. The food is delicious. We have to be careful with the water because of bacteria, but PC provided us each with some kind of purifier (which they call a distiller). Lesson #2: don’t look inside the purifier after you run the water through it; you don’t want to know what’s in there.

I started keeping a list (ah, my love of lists!) of my impressions, things I notice, etc. I will try to post some of them next time.

Suffice to say, things are very good so far. As they say, you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. Well, I’ve decided that my first encounter with Moldova 10 years ago doesn’t really count, and thus, I have a wonderful first impression of the country and its people.