Hahahaha, Nyet

A couple weekends ago we were in Chișinău for some more interviews for our camp counselors. We are tired of paying for hotels ($13 is expensive on a PC budget), so we decided staying at an apartment for free would be better. Turns out one volunteer’s host mom has a sister who is working in Italy and has an empty apartment in the city. So the host mom drew us a detailed map of how to get to the building, as well as how to find the apartment once we’re in the building, and how to turn on the water once we’re in the apartment. So it’s about 11 pm, and we’re dropped off by taxi at building 29, and the driver gives a slight wave and says to look for our building (33 according the map) over there somewhere. Ok. These are huge Soviet apartment blocks, not well marked, and we can’t find 33 anywhere. We happen to catch site of a man coming out of building 31, about to get into his mini-bus. We ask him if he can tell us where building 33 is and give him our map. He’s not exactly friendly, and he tells us 33 doesn’t exist. Super. We’re like, ‘but it has to, it’s on the map!’ He says it’s probably supposed to be 31, and we should call the people we are visiting to come out and get us, but we reply that there is no one there. He turns over the map and looks at the drawing of the apartment within the building. He lets out a Hahuhuhuh, followed by a definitive ‘nyet.’ What is it with me and the nyet’s? We were like, what does that mean? He then asks us if we have keys. Yes. Let me see them, he says. What’s the name of the people you are visiting? We don’t know, it is a relative who went to Italy. He then pulls out his cell phone. We were like, oh geez, is he calling Italy? What did we do? Turns out he was calling the volunteerțs host mom. He asks her if her sister is expecting visitors from the US, and then yells at her for writing 33 on the map instead of 31. Turns out, that out of all the thousands of people living in these huge apartment blocks, we ask assistance of the very man who has been left with the task of looking over this woman’s apartment while she is in Italy. Lucky us! After clearing up the matter with the host mom, he brings us upstairs, unlocks the bazillion locks, turns on the water for us, and shows us around. The joke for the rest of the weekend was, ‘hahahaha, nyet.’

Moldova rocks in the spring. Everything is becoming more beautiful every day, and I’m falling more in love with my village, now that it’s coming alive. The trees are blossoming, the sun comes out, you can see greens and browns and yellows on all the rolling hills. People are out in the fields, kids are out playing in the dirt roads, and goats, chickens, and other animals are roaming about. I’ve never actually seen a baby goat before – they are soooo cute when they jump around! There are random baby chicks wandering around in our garden, and my cat is pregnant. I go on frequent run/walks through the local forests with the kids, and they pick me flowers, and I sneeze a lot. I spent a long afternoon, a rare one by myself, sitting in a orchard down in the valley reading a book, watching the fluffy clouds pass overhead. People are out and about, and any time I walk anywhere in the village, I stop at least two or three times to chat with people about this or that. Last weekend, a fellow volunteer came to visit me in my village, and after persistant requests from four of the village girls, we took a walk to Soroca to go to the ‘candle,’ a big monument that looks like a candle, perched on top of a hill overlooking the river Nistru and to Ukraine beyond. It’s about 2.5 miles to the city, with a short cut down the hill through the woods, and then 500 stairs back up to the candle. It was a very pleasant walk (despite a little headwind and some sprinkles) and after making it up to the candle, we explored in the woods, looking for the cave and spring, which we never actually found. The four girls are great, and I’ve taken quite a liking to two of them, who always come to everything I ever suggest, including English, computer classes, leadership seminars, and running. I love feeling loved.

One of my favorite times in the last month was the evening a spent with a fellow volunteer and her host parents, after doing a seminar in her village. We just sat at the table for a good three hours talking about who knows what and laughing a lot. I’ve gotten to the point where I can converse freely without thinking about language, if there are fewer people and they aren’t all talking quickly and all at once amongst themselves. By the end of the evening, he had pulled out his mini-accordion, and Sam (the other volunteer) had pulled out her ukulele, and we were all singing. Evenings like that are the best.

Work-wise, things are going. I’ve been busy with computer classes for both adults and kids, and collaborating with the kindergarten for a grant. My partners and I have been discussing various project ideas, and of course I’ve been busy with the camp. Also, the volunteer in Soroca and I took a few days and went to all of the banks in the city to investigate different credit options for entrepreneurs. There are 7 different institutions, including one specifically for business loans, and yet none of them really offered anything favorable. There is no investment mentality here – people don’t really understand the concept of investing money now – to build a greenhouse, install irrigation, buy higher quality seeds, etc. – and seeing better results a few years from now. However, with the credit conditions here, I can see why they would be somewhat averse to taking out a credit, regardless of the prospects. The absolute longest term that we found was 7 years, so any real long term investment is out. The average annual interest rate was about 24%, paid monthly, with no grace period. Also, the problem of collateral – some banks required as much as 200%! Most people don’t have anything to offer. I keep reading about various development agencies that have worked with the banks here to provide a system of credit for antrepreneurs, but so far I have not seen that put into practice at all. Makes it hard to convince people of the benefits of investment. So that’s a little frustrating.

At home I’ve finally convinced my family to let me be the designated dish-washer. This came after I helped my mom cut fire wood (yeah, we’re still building fires at night to heat the house), and spent a morning hacking weeds out in their plot of land just outside the village. I’m becoming more Moldovan everyday, and feeling more at home.

This past weekend was the Orthodox Easter. And no offense to my own religion, but it is way cooler than the Catholic Easter. The night before all the young people build fires with tires (yeah, ok, that’s not real good for the environment) and then jump over them, and there is some prediction about your marriage depending on how you jump. Then many people go to Church starting at 11pm and stay until the sun comes up. I didn’t do that, but I did wake up at 3 to go with my host sister and uncle to my grandma’s village and go to Church there. The most important thing is that you take your basket of Easter food (eggs, meat, and especially the ‘pasca’ – special bread, cheese) and get it blessed by the priest before the sun comes up. The ceremony was beautiful. The entire village (or at least someone from each family) was lined up along the walkway leading up to the Church, with their baskets in front of them, holding candles that brightened up the dark morning. Around 4 the priest came out, flanked by a choir of 20 teenage girls, said a prayer, and then walked around and sprayed everyone and their food with water. After this, we dropped off grandma and went home to sleep for a few hours. The rest of the day was of course filled with eating and drinking and family. We started at home at 11 (eating the blessed food first, of course), and two sets of aunts and uncles and cousins came over. After I was so full I couldn’t move anymore, we went back to grandmas for some more food. This grandma rocks. Like all grandmas, she’s always trying to give treats to the kids, and even though she’s old and walks with a cane (i.e., a bent tree branch), she still takes care of chickens, pigs, a dog, a sick husband, two new baby goats, her home and garden, and so much more. She wears the traditional baba head scarf, a thick maroon (with purple and red flowers) bathrobe-like sweater, with a gray fur pad tied around her waist, and thick slipper-like boots on her feet. You just want to hug her. Anyways, after grandma’s house, we went back home and the neighbors came over, including the daughter home from college. We ate again, and later in the evening went to the ‘joc’ or village dance. The had speakers and a keyboard set up in the back of a truck, with big lights illuminating a little clearing in the center of the village. 20-somethings home from college or working abroad reunited, little kids ran around, and the adults chatted and let loose for an evening. There was dancing until the wee hours of the morning. I was immediately sought out by a somewhat inebriated young man home from Moscow. Jeepers, I couldn’t get rid of this guy! I was dancing whether I wanted to or not. At the end of one song, all of the men are supposed to pull out their hankercheif and kneel down on it on one knee and kiss the hand of the woman. However this dude couldn’t find his hankercheif and was wearing white pants, so he kept saying ‘just wait a second, just wait a second!’ as he frantically searched for it. I was like ‘I’m waiting, I’m waiting!’ Everyone in the immediate are was looking and laughing (in a good way). Finally, I took off my black coat and put it down on the ground in front of him, and he knelt down on that. Everyone cracked up. A little while later he proclaimed that ‘his heart beats for me’ and I decided it was time to go. All in all, not a bad Easter. Oh, and for the next 40 days, instead of greeting each other normally, people say ‘Christ is risen,’ which is responded to with ‘He is risen indeed.’ Kind of nice, and interesting, since that would never happen at home.