Moldova 28 Staging took place in Philadelphia for 51 newbies
about to embark on their 27-month quest to fulfill Peace Corps’ mission of
improving the lives of peoples in other countries. Peace Corps’ orientation is very typical of
most other orientations given by other organizations so I won’t go into the
details. The makeup of the group was
more interesting but also not unexpected – largely populated by young people,
by women, by single people, by white people, edged out by Californians. Still, it was a good assortment of folks all
demonstrating high energy and enthusiasm for the journey to come.
My send-off from SFO with son Nathaniel (and not shown Brenda, Ron, Bob, and Louise - that was a teary scene), and my Philly farewell team (Ron, Mary, Dick and Betty) who with their presence gave me a most precious adieu:
Lack of a good night’s sleep has eluded me but that’s par
for the course when I travel long distances.
I don’t expect to make it up on the other end because we’ll be launching
right into intense training days starting Thursday and through half a day
Saturday. Time to dive into the language
lessons in all seriousness.
We’re awaiting our international flight from JFK to Munich
to Chisinau, which is why I’m drafting this posting. With about 3 hours to kill, I might as well
start to craft some narrative to initiate my blog. Nothing remarkable yet to report because I’m
still experiencing “America”, lapping up those amenities like good coffee (have
to say that I had strong regret that we couldn’t have spent more time in NYC as
our bus wound itself around NJ, into Bronx River Parkway to Whitestone Bridge,
and into Queens, and I got to glimpse familiar sights along the way. I intend to spend a long visit in NY when I
return!). 3
June 2013
Yes, we made it to Moldova! I haven’t written in a while due to sheer lack
of time, not surprisingly given our comprehensive training schedule – language
classes M- Sat mornings, culture/program training M – F afternoons, periodic
presentations on health and safety matters, technical projects, and on, and
on.
Arriving in Chisinau:
The Romanian language has aspects that I follow fairly well
as it has some similarity to Spanish.
Other aspects, however, completely floor me – four ways to say “my”
depending on masculine, feminine, singular, and plural, and sometimes when
addressing formally or informally! What
we learn in class may not resemble much of what we actually hear on the streets
of the villages. The Russian influences
are still evident in every-day expressions and phrases (not that I would
recognize them). My head is full of the
sounds of the diphthongs and other unique Romanian alphabet characters. So far, I’m enjoying it even though I’ve yet
to hold a decent conversation with my host family.
I live with three generations of females in a classic country
farmhouse with lots of land for crops, and they grow it all. We have corn, cabbage, potatoes, pumpkins, cucumbers,
tomatoes, onions, chives, fennel, and other herbs. Among the fruits we have cherries, apples,
apricots, raspberries, grapes, blackberries, and we throw in a walnut tree and
others. They say throw in a seed, and
it’ll grow in Moldova.
Because of
torrential thunder showers of late, insects have been emerging in great
numbers. I helped my host family pick
off lady bugs that were infesting their potato plant leaves. We had a huge jar of them (alas, they had to
be exterminated). Quite the experience!
My first full week here, I got bitten by bugs (didn’t see
them but felt them so I can’t be sure what kind they were). They did however leave their rather large
marks on me. (Many of you know that
mosquitoes love me and I react more severely to them than some do.). One was bad enough to warrant consulting with
the PC medical office. They are
outstanding in their treatment of us. In
our medical kit, we get a smoke alarm, fire extinguisher, and condoms, besides
the usual bandaids and ibuprofen. Now I remember to use insect repellent every
day (and sunscreen). The medical staff
also gave us some other vaccinations.
Luckily I had gotten most of them beforehand, but we all had to have the
series of rabies shots (yes, lots of dogs and other critters out in the
countryside). I’ll be testing out the
dental services firsthand on Monday because I ended up chipping a fragment off
a molar a few days ago. I feel very
assured that Peace Corps will take care of me where my health is concerned.
More about my host family – they’ve occupied the house for
at least 50 years when few other buildings were on the hill. Grandmother Zina is the matriarch, daughter
Elena works as a history teacher, and granddaughter Victoria is going into her
last year of high school. Fortunately
for me, Victoria speaks sufficient English to communicate with me because
neither Elena nor Zina speak any. As I’m
picking up more Romanian words, I try to speak more with the adults and we get
by fine. It being a female household,
there isn’t as much drinking of alcohol as one would normally experience in a
typical Moldovan household. I did drink
some very good local wine that my hostess offered me, and some homemade cherry
compote that was proudly served. The
diet of Moldovans does take getting used to.
Summer brings more variety but it’s still a bit early for some of the
vegetables and fruits. All of us volunteers
trade notes on the meals we get served from our host families – borscht,
chicken noodle soup, sarmale (stuffed grape or cabbage leaves), meatballs, hot
dogs, eggs, potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, cheese, lots and lots and lots of bread. The most prevalent meat is chicken, and often
some type of salame or bologna gets put into our sandwiches. One good thing – I haven’t experienced large
quantities of food like some of the other volunteers. Perhaps that’s the advantage of living with
all women!
Here's my host family's house and my room ---
My impressions of Moldova so far have been quite
positive. I’m eager to see more of
Chisinau and other parts of the country to firm up my opinions. So far, so good though …..
15 June 2013
Language learning has gotten increasingly difficult this
last week. Luckily we’re only
concentrating on present, past and future tenses as those are sufficient to get
us ready to communicate with every-day people here. Some aspects of Romanian are straightforward
(not an abundance of prepositions that are necessary in the phraseology). However, the matching of specific endings for
masculine vs feminine nouns in singular and plural forms when used in the
indefinite and definite forms are driving all of us crazy! Complicating it more is when you throw in the
possessive case for these nouns (four different forms of “my”, for
example). General rules do exist but so many
exceptions emerge and the only solution is to memorize all the conjugations. Our brains are swelling up. We just got introduced to some regular verbs
but will be starting on irregular verbs shortly. I’ve got my set of flashcards and soon my
host family will be seeing them tapes to different parts of my room!
Let me say a bit about the food here in Moldova. Many folks had warned us that we would be fed
a lot and offered quantities of wine/local liquor by our host families. I’ve certainly been given good portions but I
wouldn’t say I’ve had an overabundance of food at my meals. Perhaps that’s because I live with three
women and none of them are eating a great deal either. I believe my host mother Elena is also trying
to diet. They also don’t drink alcohol
with meals routinely which may be unusual for Moldovans. I have tasted their home-made wines and local
wines, and they are very flavorful.
Without a doubt they are very proud of their winemaking abilities.
During our first eight weeks, we’re in school all day and
our host families pack us a lunch. At
first, there would be too much to eat, and quite a bit consisted of starchy
foods. I gradually educated grandmother Zina
that I don’t need that extra slice of bread or that extra hard-boiled egg in my
lunch bag. Dinners tend to be fairly
light, which is great. For breakfast, I
typically am served some porridge usually of the oatmeal kind, but Moldovans
eat all forms of oats cooked into what they call terci. Bread is served at every meal and in between,
and they come in all shapes and sizes.
Sometimes breakfast will include some leftovers from the previous
dinner. So, what’s in that famous lunch
bag? Grandmother Zina will usually
provide me with hotdogs, small cucumbers, tomatoes, cheese, meatballs, usually
made of chicken or pork fried pancakes, dumplings, filled with cabbage or
cheese, bologna, and/or the ubiquitous bread..
Salads are rare although lots of vegetables are growing in the family’s
garden. Much of the crops however are
not yet mature, so I expect we’ll have much more to cook up and serve in the
next few weeks. Cabbage, tomatoes, peas,
string beans, along with the usual cucumbers and potatoes will be
plentiful. The same is true for the
fruits taking shape in the trees.
Cherries are already ripening and we have an abundance,. Moldovans grow both sweet cherries and sour
cherries. We have the latter kind and
although they’re still edible straight off the tree (they have a sweet
tartness), most of these cherries go into making compote and jams that will be
consumed during the long cold winters.
Apricots, apples, and raspberries are coming into ripeness. Variety is not much in store which offsets
the abundance of the native crops. I do
miss my bok choy, foo gwa, and gai lon!!
And YES, there is an outhouse on the property. Just about every house has one even though
some may also have an indoor toilet like my family. Only a couple of the volunteers in my group
do not have outhouses at their families’ sites.
Even with an indoor toilet, the outhouses are in use. Installing an indoor toilet is expensive, and
maintaining it also takes money. The
overall infrastructure for a modern sanitation system would be extremely costly
for this poor country. When people build
their houses (believe me, there is a lot of new housing construction going on
around Chisinau, some very large and expensive houses) but the focus is on the
house design and not the ancillary systems.
Sometimes the indoor toilets don’t work so well – pipes get clogged,
septic tanks need to have contents removed, etc. Like I said, the basic infrastructure is
rudimentary at best. But outhouses work
every time. When it’s not winter, people
use the squat down outhouses to keep from over-using their toilets. Of course, during cold winters no one wants
to bundle up and brave the sub-freezing temperatures to then have to pull down
your pants, squat down wearing a heavy parka, do your business, and wipe
yourself with gloves on! That’s where
indoor toilets come into greater use, if you’re lucky to have one. However, the summer heat makes the outhouses
very stinky even if they’re otherwise relatively clean like my family’s, and
the flies are ever-present. I try to use
bathrooms in the school (still squat-style but clean with flushing water) or at
our local bar hangout (regular flush toilet and clean) before I head back
home.
That's the news so far .... we'll be heading to our permanent sites next week for a short introductory visit. Will have more interesting tidbits to share soon.
Miss you all, and sending my love!
19
June
