First Impressions

Moldova is pretty sweet. The land is beautiful, with many rolling farms. I’ve spent a lot of time starting out of the window while traveling, as well as running around exploring with a few fellow trainees. I always want to see what’s over the next hill! The people here are curious and generous, and my host family is wonderful. The villages may have one or two paved roads, and the rest are dirt (or mud, currently). Some homes have running water, others draw from wells. Animals of all sorts roam the streets. It’s still a bit odd to walk out the front door and see a cow tied to the fence down the street. And cow crossings sometime stop traffic on the main highway running out of Chisinau (the capital). The rutieras, a popular method of transportation, are good for an adventure every time. They are mini-buses/large vans that pick-up and drop-off pretty much anywhere you want along a set route. In the beginning, if we managed to get one to stop, it was just as tricky to make it stop. We all would just sort of start yelling ‘aici’ (here!) when we were close to where we thought we were going. Three of us actually got a round of applause once for successfully exiting a rutiera.

I’m currently in the midst of pre-service training, a 10-week period of intensive language, technical, and safety training. There are 38 of us total, and I am with 9 others in a small village for language classes. My small group is composed of some truly great people. We giggle all the time and belly-laugh a lot. Language classes are about 4 hours each day, and the afternoons are cultural or community integration activities. We also travel to another village to come together as a large group for administrative sessions, and we’ve had a few interesting field trips. The language is coming along pretty well, and I like it a lot. I had my first test a couple of weeks ago when we all had to go visit our future work sites and meet our partners.

After just four weeks of language classes and getting used to how things work in Moldova, we were given a set of directions and a name and phone number and were expected to show up to meet this person and spend the next three days with them. No prob. With a bit of difficulty at the bus station in Chisinau, I got on the right bus toward my future home. I even managed to get off at the right place, and make my way into the town hall to find the right person. There were four women crammed into a little office half the size of my bedroom back home. And they all began speaking very quickly, in Romanian. But with some discussion, blank looks on my part, and gesturing, we were able to communicate. The organization, comprised of three of the ladies, one computer, some books, and a fax machine, is operating with the goal of developing the local economy through helping small businesses. I spent the three days eating a lot, meeting lots of people, and getting to know my new host family. (I had the choice of three families, each of whom I met for about 5 minutes, so really, it was eeny-meany-miney-moe). My host mom is an accountant and very chatty. Her husband is currently working in Czech Republic, and her daughter, who is my age, will be leaving soon to work in Turkey. I spend the entire weekend conversing, and I never spoke in English! I was pretty proud of myself, but at the end, I was exhausted. I’m not ready for that full-time yet, and I was glad to come back to my little bastion of PST and here stories from all of the other trainees.

My host mom is a fabulous cook, and she’s showed me how to make a few of the traditional moldovan dishes, like ‘placinta,’ which are pastries (more like pasties, actually) filled with potatoes, or meat, or cheese, or when I’m lucky, pumpkin. My mom also bakes bread on Saturdays, using a fire-oven. The yard is full of veggies and fruits of all kinds – broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, peppers, tomatoes, apples, raspberries, grapes, quince, and so much more. There are two dogs, lots of chickens and ducks, and there was a rabbit, but we ate it a couple weeks ago. I think there might be more around somewhere. There is a big cellar with two large barrels of wine a dozens of jars of pickled veggies for winter.

Last Friday I went to the sauna with my host ma and some of the ladies from the village. I got into a rather long and heated conversation (in Romanian) with two of the ladies about why I would want to come to Moldova. Based on my six weeks here, the aspect about Moldova that makes me sad is that 25 % of the population lives abroad. People don’t want to live here because it is so difficult to find good jobs. Even people with a medical degree may be better off going to do housework in Italy. Many children grow up without one or both parents because they are working abroad trying to support the family. So these women couldn’t understand why I would leave a place where I have everything to come here. And if there are one million people living abroad, what can I possibly do to make them want to come back? Of course I’m not here to solve all the problems of the whole country, and even now my job description is a little fuzzy. But for now I loving the cultural exchange.

I’ve had the great fortune of being able to attend both a cunonie, the church part of a wedding, and a nunta, the reception part, which are typically held on separate days. The orthodox ceremony is very ritualistic, involving crowns, candles, a picture of Jesus, and lots of chanting. Instead of the maid of honor there is a sponsor couple, who advises them before and during the marriage and act as godparents for the children. The nunta is much like our receptions, except a bit more lively perhaps. There is lots of yelling, lots of drinking, and tons of homemade deliciousness. I’ve also had the fortune of attending two hrams. Hram is sort of the birthday of the village, and every year the people celebrate by cooking elaborate spreads of food (we’re talking stacks of dishes on the table) and people from all over come to visit throughout the day and eat and talk. In the evening is the joc, or dance with a live band and traditional music and dancing. The main dance is the hora, in which people hold hands in circles and do different steps while moving to the right. It’s pretty easy and pretty fun, but if the circle is too small you can get dizzy quickly. Other great things about Moldova: I love the how some parts of the ‘highway’ have only three lanes total, and the middle lane goes both ways. I love how the dogs walk about the villages like they have important destinations. I love how we all wear slippers in the house all the time. I love the traditional music and dancing. I love sarmale (cabbage stuffed with a rice/meat/veggie mixture). I love how I’m used to doing my business in a hole in the ground. And I think there are many more things I will come to love over the next two years.