Bine Ati Venit in Moldova

This entry is a guest entry, written by my family members who visited me from May 12-19:

Moldova Visited
By Agnes, John J., and John F. Biese
(comments by me)

Mixed emotions was the perfect term for the rampage of feelings we experienced during the six week period from the time we decided to visit Katie until May 1st, the day we departed.

Anxiety had to be the leading emotion as we worried about the complex travel arrangements Expedia prepared for us – four different flights each way also, three different airlines each way. That, combined with the media reporting all the problems our airline companies were having, especially Delta, our major transport across the big pond, definitely made anxiety the king of emotions. Added to that was the task of finding accommodations in Vienna that weren’t astronomically expensive. (We can lecture on that topic for hours.)

Anticipation was next on the list as our 19 day trip would include visiting Vienna, Prague, Salzburg and Berchtesgaden before spending a week in Moldova.

And finally, excitement for seeing Katie for the first time since she left on September 9th 2007. During that time she had experienced so much that we wondered if it had changed her noticeably. (If we forget to mention it later, it did not. She’s the same old loveable Kate.)(Yes I am!)

The trip to Vienna where Katie was going to meet us was a looonnng one. It was caused by a canceled and a replacement flight that left us with a nine hour layover in Atlanta. We were supposed to leave Appleton around 11:00 AM and instead, left at 6:00. After our 10 day stay in Vienna we were on our way to Moldova. Katie left Vienna two days before we did to attend a weekend conference and would be waiting for us at the airport in Chisinau, the capitol city.

Arriving in Chisinau one and a half hours late, we slowly processed through customs and - the lost baggage department – Agnes’ bag never made it from Vienna. Fortunately she had judiciously packed her backpack-carryon for just such an occurrence as she would not retrieve her suitcase for five more days. (I was very impressed by the way my mother handled this situation – she wore the same clothes 3 days in a row and didn’t complain once!)

John F’s first memorable moment of Moldova was going out of the air terminal and seeing Katie in the face of three, male, taxi drivers, attempting to haggle them down on the price of a ride into town. She lost – they all stuck together and we were stuck with a high tab. (I beg to differ – I put up a dang good fight, and got them down from 200 lei to 150!)

We stayed that night at a hotel the Peace Corps uses for its meetings. The first thing Katie did after we arrived at the hotel was give us some do’s and don’ts for life in Moldova. First, do not flush the toilet paper. Roll it up and place it in the basket/bucket next to the commode. Next, always have a leu (10 cents) or two handy in case you needed to use a public toilet. Most countries in Europe charge to use public WCs – Water Closets. (In Vienna we needed a half Euro [75 cents]). Also, if we wanted a hot shower we had to take it betwixt 8 and 10 in the morning since that was the only time hot water was available.

The next morning we took our bags to Peace Corps HQ for storage while we trekked to Katie’s village for three days, carrying just enough clothing and supplies for that time period in our backpacks.

In Moldova there are three methods of transportation: Rutieras, taxis, and private autos. Rutieras are minivans you can stand up in and have seating for nine to twenty or so passengers. The joke among the PC people is: How many people can you get into a Rutiera? The answer: “Always one more.” There were 39 people at one time on the 22 seater we took to Volovita. (The worst part is that even though it’s suffocating in there, Moldovans refuse to open the window for fear of the dreaded current.) Another PC “game” we learned about is to trying to see how long you can stand up in a Rutiera without holding on to a part of the vehicle.

Katie’s village is a small community of about 1000 people located on a hill in northern Moldova. It has two blocks of paved streets, the rest composed of dirt and whatever the weather makes them. The only businesses I saw were a gas station and small café. (For the record, there are 3 tiny convenience stores.)

Shortly after arriving in the village we met her Moldovan partners Svetlana and Angela. It didn’t take long to realize why Katie liked working in Moldova. These ladies were wonderful and you could tell by the way they talked how much affection they had for Katie. Later that day we met Katie’s host sister Natasha. She is just a year older than Kate and is a really good friend. She has a degree in International Relations, can’t get a job or a visa to leave the country to get one, so she studied cosmetology hoping for success in that arena. While we were there, Natasha was replacing her mom where she worked – her sister and husband’s business – while she was visiting her husband in Prague where he was working. (Since we returned from our trip we learned that Natasha’s mom also got a job in the Prague area and we assume Natasha will continue to work for her.) Natasha did take her cosmetology exam using Katie as her model. How did she do? (Very well, considering she had the ‘ugliest client and most difficult task of making her look beautiful’ – yes, I endured 3 hours of women calling me hideous and advising Natasha on how to hide all of my 'imperfections'.)

We enjoyed the hospitality of several families, much to the chagrin of our waistlines. We tried every type of food we were served: roasted rabbit with wine, mamaliga (a type of corn bread) with wine, pork with wine, chicken with wine, sheep cheese with wine, – and many more dishes I cannot remember. We do think that they kept it pretty conventional for us – no head cheese, filet of tongue, meat jello etc. (The meat jello is actually quite tasty.)

Almost every family has a large garden and a menagerie of small animals – rabbits, chickens, and geese to sustain themselves. A few have cows and pigs. One we visited had bees and milking sheep – the latter obtained with Katie’s help.

Did I mention that wine is the number one agriculture product of Moldova? Everyone we ate with demonstrated that fact again, and again, and again. BURP! Her host sister even had the “nerve” to bring out the (home-made) vodka after a scrumptious meal she and her cousin prepared for us.

It would take another page or two to talk about the countryside – beautiful land to support agriculture; nearby town of Soroca (about 5 km) which has adequate stores, a fortress built in 1494 and a lot of gypsies; and Chisinau, the capitol city. But space is limited. Oh, what the heck:
The most crowded, cleanest restaurant in Chisinau with neat, uniformed workers – Mc Donald’s. Prices were as high as in the US – which was not the case in other restaurants where the prices were much lower.

The smallest businesses in Chisinau - old ladies sitting on a stool on the sidewalks next to a bathroom scale. Weigh yourself for a leu (pronounced “l-yo”). I weighed 85 kilograms on one.
The largest wine “cellar” in the world – just outside Chisinau – 650,000,000 liters of wine contained in 1,300 barrels (big ones about 8’ in diameter, 2,200 vats, and 2 million bottles. This is stored along 55 km. of underground streets that you travel on with autos. They make wine only when the grapes are good – they were in 2007, but not in several previous years. We bought a .7 liter bottle for $2.55. A nearby display case had .7 liter bottles for prices ranging from $1,237.50 to $2,475.00.

During our short stay we met several people and families Katie either lived or worked with and we realized that big hearted, friendly, and giving people surrounded Katie. These warm experiences of Katie’s village went a long way towards allaying this mother’s worries about her daughter in a far away land.

Our six day visit to Moldova was rewarding and reassuring and also gave us a greater understanding of Katie’s blogs – in summary, a tremendous trip. We still miss Katie however (I miss you too), but we worry much less.

Visit again next year????? Possibly (They’ll be back)