Hometown Wine Festival

We arrived back home from PST on a Saturday night, a little disappointed that we had chosen to miss the wine festival in Chișinău.  The festival is a pretty big party in the city but we felt the need to get back to our town.  Walking home from the bus station, we noticed some tents or booths being erected in the central plaza.  A stage had also been built and it appeared that there was going to be a festival of some kind.

The next morning, Sunday,  we strolled over and found hundreds of people wandering through the plaze which was lined on all four sides with booths each of which had a name of a village on it. 

There was a large sign behind the stage that said Toamna de Aur or Golden Autumn.

The musicians were warming up and it wasn’t long before dance groups were performing in the plaza.  There were speeches of course by all of the local authorities.

We wandered around and were chased off from a booth from the local winery after being told they were waiting for the “VIPs” to come first.  Thinking nothing of it we moved to another booth where we ran into Andrei and Lilia. 

We all downed a large shot of samagon and tasted some of the produce from the village whose booth it was.  Doamna Vera from the Raion Council informed us we were invited to lunch at a local restaurant later in the day so we decided to go home and exchange jeans for some more appropriate event wear (slacks and a blazer for me, skirt and jacket for Marilyn).

Returning to the plaza, the president of our raion immediately took charge of us saying “come with me”.  For the next two hours we worked our way from one booth to another, escorted by the raion president and his entourage (6 to 8 men all wearing black).  In fact, we visited every single booth (more than 30).

At each booth we were all poured a cup of wine or cognac or samagon and encouraged to eat something. 

Presentations and toasts ensued, followed by, in most cases, dancing a little jig (the hora which I cannot seem to master). 

As we left the president was presented with a gift of bread (colac) and fruits or vegetables which he immediately handed to us.

  By the time we had visited five or six booths the members of the entourage were acquiring shopping bags and helping us carry all of the food.

As you can imagine, 30 booths means 30 drinks (an probably 60 kilos of food items to carry).  By the time we were halfway through we knew we had to start leaving half full glasses of wine behind and to stay away from any further cognac or samagon. 

After all, we had a formal luncheon to attend.  We weren’t sure we would make it through although we and the entourage were having a great time laughing as the president tried to saw the ear off a cooked pig with a dull knife and dancing with the village representatives.

Everybody was interested in meeting the Americans.

The last booth we visited was the local winery’s booth.  When they saw us with the president and his entourage they were shocked and immediately began apologizing.  We told them not to worry we understood and once the president had the situation explained to him everybody relaxed.

We staggered home under the weight of all the food we’d been given, dropped it off and turned around to go to the restaurant. 

At the restaurant we found perhaps a hundred people, the mayors of the villages and local authorities.  We were seated next to the chief of police and had an enjoyable chat with him and our other tablemates during the luncheon and the speeches of course.  By six p.m. the luncheon was breaking up and we were exhausted.  The festival had been beautiful and we made some new friends while having a wonderful time.

What a way to experience the agricultural riches of our new home and get to know more of her generous,  interesting and enjoyable people.

Life is all about those pesky interruptions.....

Just when we were getting the hang of things in our town, starting to meet people we can communicate with and finding a few things to start working on, way too soon we have to pack up, cancel everything for two weeks and return to our training village for two more weeks of training. 

On the plus side we will get to see everybody that we initially trained with and hear about their experiences and new homes.  We will also get some additional language training, and some more Peace Corps administrative and technical training.

On the down side, we had found a wonderful private tutor who is working with us specifically on the language we need and we will be missing several sessions with her.  We have to stop all work and every discussion about projects and explain that we have to pick it up again in two weeks.  Worse, we have to pack for two weeks right at the time of year when it could be 80 one day and 45 the next so packing is crazy.  Finally, we have to face two more weeks of endless training sessions, some valuable - some, not so much.

Sound like we’re not enjoying training?  Guess you could say that, in our minds, the down side is winning this battle.  But, off we go, on our two hour rutiera ride to Chisinau then a quick change to the local bus and 20 minutes later we are back in our training village.  Arriving at the house was very much like going “home” since it was our first home here in Moldova and we lived in it longer than we have been at our new site. 

Seeing Iulia was great but there was definitely an air of melancholy about her, she commented that things were very difficult without Sasha.  The next day Iulia tried to talk to us a bit as she left for work and told us that there was someone sleeping in the house – we did not quite understand everything she said but since our area was accessed from a separate outside door we did not think it would be a problem if someone was staying with her so we just settled in, went about our business and thought no more of it.

As it turns out the man sleeping in the house was her son, Vitaly who lives in Russia, he had come back to Moldova to visit his mother and to handle some legal paperwork.   He is the spitting image of his father Sasha; we were absolutely amazed when we saw him!  He speaks almost no Romanian and we have no Russian but he makes a valiant effort and we do our best with charades and whatever else we can do to communicate. 

When we were here in June and July the house was very quiet, we were able to study and we saw quite a bit of Lilia and her children.  This time, Sasha is catching up with all the friends he has not seen for many years, there are people we don’t know over at the house all the time, particularly when Iulia is at work.  Thankfully with the door shut we can block most of the noise, but the trick is, getting in and through the garden into the house before anyone sees us, if we get seen it means stopping to try to chat and of course to have a few drinks.  Studying goes right out the window if you start drinking with Moldovans right after class.

We did have the pleasure of seeing Lilia, Daniela, Iuliana and Bogdan again and spent a couple of delightful evenings visiting with Iulia and the family.  Our language was definitely better, but we still struggled mightily.  Daniela still had to do quite a bit of translating.

The language lessons were challenging in ways we had not anticipated.  Since we were working with a tutor, we were in a completely different place in our learning than the classes were geared for.  Mike and I were in different classes and the content was not consistent between the classes.  It was not that we were ahead or behind, we were just studying different things.  All in all, Mike felt that his language lessons were not very valuable where I felt that I did get value from mine.

Most of the other “training sessions” were handled by volunteers who came to Moldova a year before we did and had some experiences to share.  While some of it was interesting we found that some of the younger volunteers who spoke to us appeared to be less involved in their own communities than we were already in ours.  They spoke of the difficulty in gaining the respect of their Moldovan counterparts and about many of the challenges they faced.

In these sessions we were struck by the realization that we were having a very different experience for one very simple reason.  Age, we are older than the average volunteer.  The culture in Moldova ascribes a certain amount of respect to people simply on the basis that you have lived life for a while.  It is interesting to note that in Moldova “youth” programs are open to anyone age 18-29 and many are open for people up to age 35.  The age grid in Moldova goes something like this:

Under 19 – child

20 to 30-35 – youth

35 to 50 – adult

50 to 65 – experienced, respected older person

65 and on up – very respected elder (as in, why aren’t you dead yet?)

You do not get brownie points in Moldova for getting through the University early and working on things that no one else around you will ever understand because you are a physics savant; to an adult Moldovan, until you are 35, you are just a kid, not matter how smart or accomplished you are.  We have met extremely bright, accomplished, young Americans serving here and discovered that quite a few have very real difficulty in getting traction with their Moldovan counterparts, unless the counterparts are of a similar age.  

In the time we were in our training village the weather went from late summer to decidedly fall.  There is no heat in the room we were in (the camera mare) so we found that we were heading for bed early whenever possible just to stay warm.  The outhouse is a long ways away when it is 5C outside!  We poured buckets of water heated on the stove into the barrel atop the summer shower every other day or so.  Multiple layers of clothes, sweaters and jackets were piled on as October began and training wound up. 

Many of the volunteers planned to spend the weekend after training in Chisinau as the first weekend in October is the National Wine Festival.  While we love wine and were very interested in the Festival, we found ourselves really wanting to be back at our site.  We figured that the festival would happen again next year so there would be another chance to attend.

Reversing our trip we found ourselves back home and as we walked from the bus station to our home we found a whole lot of activity in our main square and surprise, surprise, we have our own wine festival brewing up for Sunday!  We were so glad we did not stay in Chisinau. 

Back at the house we found Andrei preparing the first soba of the year to warm one of our rooms.  A soba, for those of you who don’t know, is a special fireplace designed to heat a wall of a room.  I don’t think it was an hour before our Peace Corps carbon monoxide monitor was shrieking.  Andrei came running up the stairs wanting to know what all the commotion was about.  We aired out the room and reset the monitor and it didn’t go off again that night.  We simply assumed that the chimneys needed to air themselves out a little.

We turned our attention to unpacking the rest of our luggage to get to the coats and boots that had not been out of the bags since our arrival.  Looking forward to the festival we also found ourselves anxious to get to work, with no more interruptions in sight, and even more anxious about the onset of winter, we have not experienced a real winter since moving to California in 1988. 

And the real work begins...

September rolled around and it already felt like fall.  Daily high temperatures rarely exceed the low sixties and overnight lows were dropping into the forties.  School started and while we did not attend any, all of the schools in our town put on elaborate opening festivities.  After living in the southern U.S. for so many years and after a year of chasing the sun, we were not looking forward to our first winter in a long time.

Both of us were settling into a routine.  Being us, we saw no reason to sit around in our offices when there was nothing to do.  Better to explore our town, try to use our language and talk about existing and potential projects.  So, after a couple of hours of face time in the office we usually met for lunch and went out and about.

There was plenty to do at the incubator, in our opinion, but we soon were faced with the realities of Moldova.  Shoddy work (for example, construction work) is shrugged at and paid for anyway.  Inventory management is science fiction.  For that matter, it does no good to make plans here because assuredly, at the last minute, something more important will come up.  Business and politics are not separate things here either…..but that’s all I’m going to say about it.

My partner, probably in frustration, introduced me to his 26 year old son Ivan.  Ivan had worked a few years in American and spoke an intermediate level of English.  The three of us spoke about several project ideas and we settled on three to proceed with.  In my opinion, two of these projects were great ideas.

First off, we focused on the rest and relaxation park.  Being relatively new to my site and Moldova I had yet to realize that this is one of the basic ideas that every Moldovan confronted with the freedom to imagine a business will envision.  Animal farms, spas, children’s playgrounds, hair salons, bars or small stores follow close behind.  (Wow, that’s almost a complete list).  Ivan and I planned to visit a few existing parks over the next month or so.

Next up, a plastic recycling project that we all agreed was a good idea.  We designed the project and started doing research.  It looked like all the pieces were in place for a great project.  Ivan and I both liked the project because not only would it address a community need, if it worked it would provide much needed clothing to rural children living in poverty.

Finally, we focused on our large, ambitious project.  Forgive me if I am a little vague here but my partners have asked that I don’t speak with anyone about this particular idea.  Not that it’s extremely original.  It’s nothing like that; it’s more like once somebody has an idea in Moldova, and it looks like it might work, several other people will decide to do the same thing.

Anyway, once again our research was providing positive results.  We attended an agricultural trade show (yes my partner is the local director of the national agricultural extension program known as ACSA) and located several firms that provided just what we needed.  We spoke to potential customers and also a few potential beneficiaries (this was also a complicated project) and obtained some high quality, positive information.  Next on the list was to send out a Request for Proposal.

Silly me; this is apparently a process that is unknown in Moldova, probably in Eastern Europe and possibly in Eurasia as a whole.  In order to move the project along swiftly, I wrote the RFP but since I could only handle the English speaking firms, and there were no Romanian speaking firms, I needed my partners to translate it into Russian for there were several Russian firms that only spoke that language.  Not one American firm was willing to consider a project as small as ours.

Did I mention that I spent most of the month learning about a whole new industry?  I had to do this in spite of Ivan having worked in this industry, in the U.S. for several months.  We even had a volunteer from AIDC/VOCA email us several times although he treated us like bumpkins.  I guess we are bumpkins come to think of it.  The project was moving forward quickly.

That’s enough about work.  Lilia returned from her seminar in Ukraine after the first week of the month and a few days later our host family had yet another barbeque.  Charcoal briquettes are not generally used in our town; maybe not in Moldova.  Wood, of any kind, is burned until there are sufficient embers to cook meat (in Uruguay they call this a parilla). 

I digress.  At this particular barbeque we were introduced to an interesting combination; raw onion and aged sheep cheese followed by a bite of bread and a quaff of red vin de casa (homemade wine).  Mmmm Mmmm Good!

On a Sunday in the middle of the month we went to the bus station to catch the autobus to Balți for our language tutoring session.  The bus was full and the driver wouldn’t let us on and we walked away to look for a rutiera.  Five minutes later, he stopped at the corner we were at and started letting people on.  My God I have never seen such a thing.

This is a small, 20 passenger bus and there must have been 50 people on it, most of them in some weird yoga position in order to accommodate the other passengers.  I couldn’t stand erect because of an overhead handrail, someone’s butt was pressed firmly into my stomach and I had a man’s arm in my face while his wife’s head was in my armpit.  I was worried about Marilyn who had somehow been pressed, back first, against the large windshield and prayed that we wouldn’t get into a collision.  There has got to be a better way!

Forty-five interminable minutes and 25 kilometers later we staggered off the bus, stiff and sore but glad the trip was over.  “Never again” we vowed.

Another Peace Corps Volunteer, our friend Arun, came to visit our town for a day.  He was able to catch a bus directly to the center of our town and we had a nice time showing him around and telling each other about our experiences over lunch. 

At the end of the day Arun had to travel back to his town, about 30 kilometers away.  The logistics for this were incredible.  First, he had to catch a taxi or a bus or in this case, a ride from my partner, to the national highway.  Then he had to flag down a passing rutiera for the 15 kilometer trip to the road to his town.  Finally, he had to hitchhike the final 8 kilometers into his town.  Hitchhiking is not generally free in Moldova, unless you know the driver.  People pick you up and expect money for gas.  That seems fair.

Sound like we were all a little confused?  Correct.  Part of being a new Peace Corps Volunteer is to figure it out.  We were just getting started in our service but we felt like we’d made a good start and were excited about our work, our town, our language tutors and the people we’d met.  We thought we were doing a good job integrating into our community and were getting some traction on our projects.  Did I mention that it was getting colder?

Suddenly, it all came to an end.  Drop everything and return to Ciorescu for another two weeks of training.  Whoopee!  

Integration into a new community and a new life.

August 9^th - Less than two weeks on site and we have to return to Chișinău to complete our residency paperwork at the immigration office.  The 2 hour trip means that we will lose an entire day, frustrating because we are scheduled to return to Chișinău on the 15th for the Peace Corps Moldova 20 year celebration and volunteer swearing-in ceremony.  We discovered that if we miss the 2 o’clock bus to our town from Chișinău we are in for a 40 minute walk into our town from where other rutieras drop us off.

August 11^th – Our host family took us to the city (population approximately 140,000) of Balți on Sunday afternoon where we wandered around the large open air market area eventually stopping for a refreshing beverage.  On the way home Lilia pointed out a street corner where there were 30 or 40 people gathered and told us that it was where we could catch a maxi-taxi back to our town.  We wondered why anyone would choose to ride with 7 or 8 people crammed into a taxi.  Boy was our education just beginning!

August 12th & 13th – Frustrating couple of days at the office for both of us.  Although my partner had driven us out to a farm and an orchard and introduced us to the farmers, we could barely understand what they were saying we were becoming rather bored at our respective offices.

August 14th & 15th – Traveled by rutiera to Ciorescu to see our host mother from PST (training) before the ceremony on the following day.  We brought a chicken as a gift for here but when we arrived she was asleep so we sat outside chatting for awhile.  Iulia woke later and immediately prepared a lunch of battered and fried fish and salad made fresh from the garden.  Later that evening the entire family came over and we found that Iulia had cooked the damned chicken for our dinner!

The next day we took a combination of autobus, trolleybus and rutiera to the ceremony and back to the bus station or autogara.  We were so proud of ourselves that we had navigated the confusing Chișinău public transportation system successfully for the first time. 

Back in our town we found that our partners hadn’t missed us and there was very little for us to do except to wander about and explore the place where we would be living for two years.  We were excited for the weekend because on Sunday we would travel on our own to Balți for a session with our new and highly recommended Romanian grammar tutor.  We were also informed that for the next two weeks Lilia (and I’m not sure but maybe Andrei) would be observing “post” for the next two weeks.  We were not looking forward to the vegan diet this would mean for us.

We were lucky on Sunday to catch a passing rutiera going to Balți.  Later we learned that it is uncommon for rutieras to pass through our town, especially on Sunday morning.  On the trip home however, we couldn’t find an autobus scheduled to leave for our town in less than 3 hours so we wandered over to the street corner that Lilia had pointed out to us the previous week and amazingly enough there were a couple of maxi-taxis waiting for a few more passengers before leaving for our town.  The trip was quick and cheap.  What a convenient alternative!  We were starting to believe we were figuring things out.

The rest of the month passed with increasing frustrations in the office for both of us.  We both hated that our lack of language skills kept us from communicating with our partners and that there was very little for us to do except study the language.  We did get to know our town a little better and had found where the 4 small cafes were located along with the important small shops where we could purchase what we needed.  We felt fortunate that we could find most of what we needed in our town.

In Moldova, August 27 is Independence Day and the 31^st is “Language Day”.  This year there would be a four day weekend starting on the 24^th and Saturday was spent cleaning the house.  It is only August but we could feel fall coming.  On Sunday we traveled to Orhei Vechi to see the second day of the “Gustar” music festival (think Country Thunder on a small scale).

On Monday the 27^th, a holiday, it was pouring rain as we caught an autobus to Balți to see our tutor Nadejda.  We discovered that the autobus was very crowded, took 20 minutes longer to make the trip because it seemed to stop every few hundred yards and cost more that the rutieras charge.  It was determined that from now on we would catch rutieras.  It turns out that wasn’t exactly a good plan.

Independence Day began with the dedication of a new monument commemorating those who died at Chernobyl, in the war with Transnistra, and in Afghanistan from our town and we attended the two hour ceremony with Andrei and Lilia. 

We spend the rest of the day enjoying the nice but rapidly cooling weather.  Lilia left in the evening to attend a seminar in Ukraine for a week and Andrei was only going to be home sporadically while she was gone so we had some extended time to ourselves for the first time since we had arrived in Moldova. 

The rest of the month was spent trying to communicate with our partners and harder still, to get something, anything, accomplished.  The final day of the month was another typical Moldovan holiday with bands playing and many speeches.  Later, after helping Andrei clean the house a little we went to one of the local cafes to sit outside and enjoy the nice weather.

We had been at our site for one month.  We had explored out town.  We had been introduced to several people including the raion council president and vice presidents and the mayor.  We had discovered a few things about the public transportation system, been frustrated with the inability to communicate or accomplish anything but we felt that we were slowly integrating into our small community.  Although we were being patient we found ourselves wondering about the usefulness of our lives as volunteers in our community.

Our first week in our new home town...new people...new jobs....new experiences.

After dropping by my office on Tuesday morning to ensure that my partner had indeed agreed to “loan me out” for a few days and to introduce him to Marilyn we walked over to the incubator ready to work.  Oh boy, were we in for a surprise!  Many, many things needed to be done but there was no dirt, no plan for the required landscaping, no electricity, no water anywhere but on the third floor, no tenants ready to move in, no ladders to reach the high, filthy windows; not even a mop.  Another whole day of frustration towards the end of which we were informed that the incubator had to be ready to open on Thursday because the prime minister of Moldova, the European Union representative, the Raion Council President and many of the mayors of the surrounding area would be arriving at noon in order to perform a ribbon cutting ceremony and make a few speeches.

We were then informed that the courtyard in the rear would need to be completely finished.  About one third of this derelict building had been nicely refurbished in order to house the incubator and I cannot adequately describe the condition of this rear courtyard without using the term “urban vacant lot”. 

This was approximately a half acre area covered with weeds, some waist high and filled with garbage, rocks, broken roof tiles, broken bottles, plumbing fixtures, syringes, you name it.  We left for the day assuming that first thing in the morning there would be weed-eaters working, enough dirt to cover the area closest to the building and plenty of manpower.

That evening our host family took us to a private session/concert performed by a band from Chișinău.  Apparently this doesn’t occur too often in our small town and the evening was surprisingly fun although we were out a little later than us old folks are used to.  We shared a wonderful bottle of wine with our hosts and posed for pictures enjoying a few shots of vodka chased by orange slices with our newfound friends.  Yes, I realized I was drinking vodka with men who speak Russian and I was careful not to overdo it, and Marilyn skiped the vodka altogether.

Wednesday we arrived to find some dirt, two men, one wheelbarrow, one shovel and one hoe and one rake.  We were informed that the entire courtyard would need to be cut down and covered with a layer of topsoil that day.  I grabbed a hoe, Marilyn grabbed a rake and we started clearing the area.  Have you ever cleared waist high, established weeds and grasses growing from hard, dry ground that has roof tile and broken pieces of concrete and glass embedded in the soil with a hoe?  I hope to never repeat the experience.

After about two hours, Victor brought us some gloves which we pulled on thankfully.  By noon, tired, sweaty, dirty and dehydrated we decided to break for lunch.  We had cleared about a sixth of the area and only because we had the assistance of Victor and another man who cleared some of the major garbage by hand or in some cases with an axe.  Before we left we were assured that a couple of men and a couple of hoes would arrive in the afternoon to help.

Back from a quick lunch of sarmale and french fries (and a liter of juice and a liter of water) we noticed a couple of new men with hoes and a shovel.  By four o’clock we had finished clearing the area and hauling the waste to the street and exhaustedly we returned to Marilyn’s office thinking our day was finished, the only thing left was to spread the new topsoil.  A half hour later I waved at the men who were moving the topsoil as they said good-bye and went to see the finished courtyard amazed that they were already done.

The courtyard was not finished and there were only two men working, one in his dress slacks, collared shirt and polished loafers.  I grabbed my gloves and returned to work outside while Marilyn started tackling windows inside.  This was hard to do since we both had already formed and shredded a couple of blisters on our hands.  Two and a half hard hours later we were nearly finished and one of the vice presidents of the Raion Council who had been working with us brought us placinta and beer.  The rest we were told would have to wait until morning.

We were so exhausted we could barely walk home, take a shower, eat a little soup and fall into bed.  The next morning came quickly as we stiffly dressed and headed to our offices.  My partner was surprised to see me and sent me back to the incubator to assist with the opening. 

After a bit of moving furniture and other last minute preparations, the prime minister and the EU ambassador arrived and the ceremonies commenced, to an audience of about 120 people. 

After the speeches the Prime Minister had an open session with the mayors and other important folks from the raion in the conference room, while the EU representative visited each of the businesses in the incubator.  Each business had a small glass of wine and something for him to taste…..are you getting the idea that food and wine are an important element of any celebration in Moldova?

Everything appeared to go well.  Marilyn and I met several important members of the community both local and national.  The lunch buffet was incredible and we headed home tired and happy.  That evening, as we were strolling down the main street of our little town the raion council president called to us from across the street.  He had a friend and consultant from Romania with him who spoke English and was able to translate and facilitate our conversation in which he expressed his goals for the raion, the projects he had planned and his hopes that we would be able to help him achieve them while thanking us for coming.  All in all, a very interesting first week in our new home.

After training for 8 weeks and swearing in....then what?

Our time in our training village flew by and we are down to the last few Romanian lessons and the last few tips and suggestions for making our service successful.  Everything gets packed back up (even more stuff than we came with) we all dress up in our Sunday best and are loaded up in minibuses to head to Chisinau for our “swearing in” ceremony so that our service can officially start.  Of the 51 of us who got on the plane in New York, 50 of us are still here and are as prepared as we are going to be to start this new adventure.

Bidding a fond farewell to Iulia was difficult, we would miss her and her family for more reasons than we could find words for. 

Her fabulous cooking, and the marvelous garden fresh vegetables with flavor like nothing you have ever tasted, and the wonderful homemade wine were just the tip of the iceberg.

But finally, we and all of our baggage were picked up and loaded onto a private rutierra with 5 other volunteers and taken to the hub site in Chisinau where we unloaded all of our baggage and put it into a small coat room (which overflowed all the way out into the lobby) along with that of 21 others.  Then we were off to the swearing in ceremony with Country Director Janet Utrecht.

The new host families were then supposed to attend a host family conference, first with the Peace Corps Staff and then a later session with us volunteers.  This was to establish the host agreement regarding the cost of meals, use of washing machine, who cleans the rooms, etc.  Then our partners were scheduled to arrive in the early afternoon to transport us and all of our baggage (quite a lot since the Peace Corps has provided us with fire extinguishers, large language dictionaries, procedure manuals, technical manuals, smoke alarms, pitchers with filters and on, and on, ..) to our new locations where we would settle in for our two years of service.

True to form, my partner did not come and Marilyn technically did not yet have a partner.  Our host family had agreed to come to the host family conference and provide our transportation.  After the ceremony we had an hour and a half to grab a cup of coffee and basically relax while the staff explained the contract to the host family representatives.  The idea was for the host family to obtain an understanding of the contract and then negotiate and settle on an arrangement with the volunteers while the Peace Corps staff was available to facilitate any language barriers.   We were expecting Andrei to arrive by himself.

By 11:30 we were asked to keep an eye out for our family whose arrival was imminent.  So we kept watch in the plaza while all the other volunteers scattered to enjoy the city of Chisinau.  By one o’clock, all volunteers had returned and the conference began.  Our family had still not arrived so we sat in the room and waited while a majority of the other volunteers worked out the details of their contracts. 

This process was completed quickly and the volunteers began to load their baggage and leave.  In the spirit of the Peace Corps, the remaining volunteers lent a hand.  More and more volunteers left and we were still waiting for our family.  Finally, there were only us and one other volunteer and we were exhausted from helping with all the other baggage.  Our host family arrived at around 3:30 and Lilia had decided to come to and they had given Lilia’s oldest son, Ion, a ride to Chisinau.

Cramming all our stuff their small SUV, we climbed in the back seat, with a large bag standing on end between us, and the journey to our permanent site began.  Two hours later, after stopping for watermelon, tomatoes and peppers and a roadside stand, we arrived at our new home only to learn that our rooms would not be available because a family of friends were also staying there through the weekend.  It was Thursday.

Stacking our bags in the hallway underneath a table and taking the bare minimum to the only available room on the third floor (toothbrush, change of underwear, shorts and a t-shirt) we changed and joined the group outside where Andrei was busily preparing a barbeque.

The food and company was wonderful with English, Romanian, Russian and German being spoken around the table.

  Some of us even had a little Spanish and French and overall it was a very enjoyable European evening. 

We were told that our partners weren’t expecting us in the office on this first Friday in our new location and that was a good thing because we couldn’t get near the shower or the bathroom until nearly 10 a.m. because of all the people in the house.  Later on that morning we cleaned up, dressed casually and went out into the beautiful summer day to explore our new small town.  Saturday was more of the same, with a big dinner together in the evening again with more food and wine than we could all comsume.

Sunday we spent moving our baggage and unpacking.  We desperately needed to do a load of laundry but were informed that it was a day of rest and there should be no work done on this day.  Welcome to community integration.  It turned out to be a nice, lazy, restful day. 

The one thing we did accomplish on Sunday was we worked out the details of the contract with Andrei and Lilia, I think.  They were as uncomfortable as we were discussing and we didn’t have any readily available assistance.  We really wished they had attended the host family conference because they really didn’t know what to expect.  We executed all of the copies of the contract and Marilyn and I thankfully handed over a majority of the cash we had been carrying around and we were done.

I showed up at my partner’s office bright and early Monday morning and found it locked.  When my partner did arrive we shook hands and I was able to use my slightly improved Romanian to exchange pleasantries and speak a little about the day’s agenda.  It appeared that he really did not have any particular agenda to execute with me and introduced me to a local farmer that he was apparently working with that day.  It was good to listen to the language being spoken but I found I could only follow about a third of what was being said and very quickly became unable to answer the questions they rapidly fired my way from time to time.

A watermelon was sliced up and there was quite a bit of fun conversation (most of which I missed) and later, amid what may have been some frustration, my partner left after indicating I should stay in the office.  I spent a couple of hours communicating with the secretary through Google Translate (not very accurate) and she provided me with some information about their company which I read and then, with nothing better to do, I opened my language notes and started working on the language.

Later, in answer to my questions my partner indicated that his ideas for working with a volunteer were limited to my visiting the surrounding 30 or 40 small villages in our raion (county) and looking for community projects to perform.  I would then bring those projects to him, in proposal form.  Wow!  I had been told that he had worked with a volunteer before but this is absolutely NOT how this is supposed to work.  Since I am not an agricultural expert (like the last volunteer 5 years ago) and his business does not really need any assistance, it seemed we were at a standstill as to how we might work together. 

I thought to myself that it might have been effective if my partner had attended the partner conference with me the previous month in order to work on exactly these types of issues rather than sending an employee that did not know why she was there or what she was supposed to do.  Well, flexibility and resiliency.  I figured we’d find a way to work together.

Meanwhile, the business incubator Marilyn is working with had identified a potential partner for her (the soon to be confirmed manager of the incubator) and it appeared that against all outside expectations, that the incubator was going to be opened the following Thursday.  There was quite a bit to do first however.  A large amount of landscaping needed to be done, all three floors of the building needed to be cleaned and most of the initial 14 tenants still needed to be moved in.  Did I mention that the electricity and water needed to be turned on?

At one o’clock my partner told me to take an hour and a half for lunch and that he would take me around the raion and introduce me to various community members later that afternoon.  I returned from lunch and continued to work on my language notebook but by four I realized he was not going to return so after saying goodbye to the secretary I packed up and left the office for the day.

Victor from the raion was at the incubator with Marilyn and he contacted me and requested my assistance for a few days in order to help get the incubator open.  I told him that he would need to ask my partner and later I was informed that he readily agreed to this.  Yea!  I have something to do tomorrow and the next day!

New experiences, with both the best of life and the most tragic times.

In mid-July we came home from our afternoon training session to discover that it was Sasha’s 73^rd birthday.  Iulia’s youngest sister Nadia and her husband Sergei were there along with Lilia’s whole family.  Iulia had again made way more food than could possibly be eaten, and they served their own wine and samagon and Valeri brought a bottle of champagne as well.  We have learned that being invited to a birthday masa is lovely but you have to approach the food knowing that it is a marathon, not a sprint. 

We all sit around the table eating, drinking and chatting for hours.  The food never stops coming, the family will eat left overs for the next three days at least!  This is the Moldovan version of hospitality, and it is very important to them.  One Moldovan tradition is that they must make you say “no” at least three times in order to be properly hospitable and they take it seriously which most Americans have trouble dealing with.

A few days later I developed a nasty bug that had me in bed for a day.  In the early afternoon I was awakened by Iulia shouting my name.  Coming to my senses slowly I looked outside and saw the wind blowing and clouds developing and I thought Iulia was telling me to get our laundry off the line and inside before the storm approached.  Later I found that I couldn’t have been more wrong.

It turns out that Sasha had collapsed while working in the garden and Iulia, by herself, had picked him up and carried him to the house and called the ambulance.  I can’t tell you how badly I felt about my inability to understand what Iulia had been saying during the emergency.  Sasha was taken by ambulance to the hospital where to our shock, he died the next day.

We informed our LTI’s and they put us in contact with the medical office.  All of the Moldovan staff, LTI’s and doctors felt that we should spend a few days in the medical facility in Chișinău in order to avoid the Moldovan funeral traditions which they told us would be difficult for us.  Through Danni, our family interpreter we told Iulia that we could spend a few days away or were willing to stay and support her, whichever was more comfortable for her.  She told us to stay, of course although in hindsight we wonder if this was part of the “say no three times” tradition.  Against the better judgment of our LTI’s and the medical team we were going to participate in the family’s Moldovan funeral rites for our friend Sasha.

Although we had only been with Sasha and Iulia for a few weeks we had been together every day and they had truly made us feel like family and our hearts were heavy with grief.  Valeri and Sergei went to the hospital on Saturday morning to pick up Sasha.  Iulia and her sister Nadia went to Chisinau to shop for all the things they needed for the funeral.  While we are sure family traditions vary, we understand that what we were about to experience is very typical of an Orthodox funeral in a Moldovan village.

The room we were staying in was the largest room in the house, the summer room, known as the “camera mare”.  At Iulia’s request we packed everything up and moved into a room in the main house so that our room could be used for the viewing.  Iulia’s sisters arrived and the house had to be cleaned from top to bottom before the casket arrived.  Inside and out the house and garden were cleaned polished and swept.   Iulia’s oldest sister was in charge of the kitchen and food was prepared so that if anyone needed to eat it was available. 

Big boxes filled with the wreath shaped loaves of specialty bread called “colac” were brought in along with boxes of candy and cookies.  Iulia and Nadia returned with huge bags of all kinds of gift items as though they had to provide Christmas for the whole village….little did we know.  Weddings and funerals are the most expensive events in the life of Moldovans families; in this case, we found, it is traditional for the spouse of the deceased to give a gift, of relative importance to everyone in the village that was part of their lives, in remembrance. 

The gifts were amazing, an entire dining service, table (must be from the grandparent’s house) and chairs with cloths, dishes, flatware and glassware to match are traditionally given to the oldest grandchild.  With this gift comes the obligation to help care for the remaining grandparent.  The younger grandchildren received a complete set of bedding, sheets, pillows, and blanket.  The pall bearers each received beautiful blankets for their homes and a brand new bucket half filled with wine or samagon that Sasha had made.  Later, after the casket was placed in the cemetery these men carried the buckets around with a cup and gave everyone a drink in memory of Sasha.  The priest was handed cash and a live chicken, close family and friends received all manner of household items, even people from the village who were not particularly close to the family all received a cup filled with cookies and candy or a tea towel with candy tied in the ends. 

When Valeri arrived home with Sasha’s body the sisters washed and dressed him in his best suit and then he was laid in the casket on the floor in the camera mare with a table that had flowers, an empty bowl for people to leave money in, wine with glasses, candy and a bowl of flour with a whole pile of unlit candles next to it and a few lit candles standing up in the flour.  As people came to visit and pay their respects they would light a candle, sip some wine or eat a candy and visit with Iulia and Lilia for a few minutes.

Everyone who stopped by seemed to bring an armful of flowers which were put in big buckets by the door so they could make the trip to the cemetery the next day.  It is traditional in Moldova to give flowers for many occasions, for birthdays and celebrations you always give an odd number of flowers, for a funeral it is always an even number.

After Valeri had brought Sasha home and had run the errands necessary for the funeral, he had the very difficult task of driving out to the summer camp where 11 year old Iuliana was to be for two weeks, to break the news and bring her home for the funeral.  Lilia and Daniela had been helping with all the arrangements and when Valeri arrived back with Iuliana it was a very emotional time for the whole family.  These beautiful children loved their grandfather very much and it was heartbreaking to see them grieving.

The family stays up all night before the funeral and they do not bathe, shave or change clothes from the time of the death until three days after the funeral.  On the day of the funeral people do not great each other nor do they introduce people to each other by name or shake hands.  Fortunately one of Iulia’s sisters used charades and a friend with a few words of English to help us understand that there was a reason why all these people were not introducing themselves, and that we should not introduce ourselves either.

The morning of the funeral the casket (the casket lid is a separate piece and the casket is left open until just before it is interred) was brought outside so that Iulia could give her gifts to everyone.  Iulia stood on one side of the casket and called out people’s names and they came forward to say a final good-bye to Sasha and to receive their gift over the body in remembrance of Sasha.  After all the gifts are given (in this case it was easily 40-50 people) the priest begins the blessings over the body and soon we are all in a procession walking to the church.

In Moldova the Orthodox services are all sung, the priests are very talented and it was moving, even though we understood only a few words.  Everyone stood in the church (there are no benches or chairs in this church) during the service, the women all had their heads covered with a scarf and everyone, including us, were holding burning candles during the service.

When we left the church the casket with all the flowers was loaded onto the back of a flatbed truck that had been completely covered in carpets and Iulia and a few other family members climbed up to ride with Sasha to the cemetery.  The cemetery is in the next village so all the mourners got on a bus and into minibuses (hired for the day) and were driven over for the rest of the service.  The priests lead the way and they carried incense and sang blessings all the way to the grave site. 

The pall bearers brought the casket from the truck to the site, set it on the mound of soil next to the grave, and began serving the wine from their buckets.  The priests gave a final blessing, and sprinkled wine over the body after which the lid was brought up and nailed in place.  The casket was lowered and everyone walked past and threw a handful of soil into the grave and said their final good-byes.  The grave was then filled immediately by men from the village (possibly some family members), using shovels.

At this point everyone returned to the buses and were taken back to the village where a large restaurant had been set up for a memorial masa (which the family is paying for) for about 100 people.  Outside there were a couple of friends with buckets of clean water and towels so that everyone could wash their hands after handling the soil at the cemetery.  We all took our seats and after a brief prayer the food was served and the wine began to flow and with them people told stories and spoke of their memories about Sasha.  When the masa ended everyone went home and the family was left alone for the first time in days. 

We had contacted James, a volunteer that had stayed with Sasha and Iulia during PST the previous year, about the funeral and he managed to arrive in the village during the masa.  Iulia was very happy to see him again during this difficult time and we were glad that he was able come to the village and help support the family during this very sad and difficult time.

We wish that our language had been good enough to completely understand the rituals and traditions; unfortunately we probably missed a lot and assuredly there were things we did not understand, but what we do understand is that losing a loved one causes the same pain, everywhere in the world, regardless of the traditions that surround the event.

Summer in Moldova, an entirely new experience.

It is summer in Moldova and we were freed up to leave our village during our free time which many of the younger volunteers took advantage of to travel to Chișinău.  We were happy to spend the afternoons doing language homework, reading or trying to talk with Iulia and Sasha.  We were finding that we were understanding a bit more of the language and were feeling pretty good about this part of our training.

Culturally we are “integrating”, we are accomplished “bucket bathers” but will use the summer shower any chance we get.  The summer shower is a lovely contraption that consists of a shower stall in the garden with a big plastic 100 litre barrel on top.  A tube runs from a hole in the bottom of the barrel straight through a hole in the roof, there is usually a valve attached just inside the ceiling with a shower head just beneath.  You reach up and turn the valve on and have a great gravity shower.  The water is filled from the well in the morning so that it sits in the sun all day, if the weather turns cold or you have a few days of rain with no sun you just go heat a bucket of water on the stove and add it to the barrel (by climbing the ladder in the chicken coop to reach the roof of the shower) so you can have a warm shower.  It is heaven compared to a bucket bath!

We have dinner at home every night and depending on Iulia’s work schedule, we have Sasha or one of the grand-daughters for company, or we have Iulia and Sasha.  We love the homemade wine and enjoy the food that Iulia prepares for us.  We had our first experience with “racitura” and like many other volunteers found it very difficult to eat, it is a jellied meat dish (usually pork or chicken) that takes a lot of time and effort to prepare, it is a specialty here and they make it for special occasions. I am afraid we may never acquire a taste for it.

We had the opportunity to attend a birthday “masa” for Lilia, Sasha and Iulia’s daughter.  She is the mother of Daniela, the 17 year old English speaker, Iuliana, age 11 and a new baby boy named Bodgan who was just 8 months old (at the time of this writing in summer 2013).  Lilia and her husband Valeri have a new home on the other side of the village.  It is more modern and has an indoor bathroom with an actual hot water heater and working shower.  Valeri works in the Cricova winery not far from Ciorescu and his job, we think, has something to do with the manufacturing of their Champagne.  The birthday dinner (or masa) was, as usual, way more food than any of us could eat.  We all gathered around a big table with family and friends talking a million miles a minute, in Russian or the local dialect known as Moldovanesti. 

Dani made a point to try to talk with us a bit and translate a little, then she went off to tend the baby and we found that these lovely folks would switch to Romanian to try to talk to us.  We know it had to sound like baby talk to them and we are sure that we are very difficult for them to understand but they asked us simple questions about the U.S. and in particular about our family, things we could answer, somewhat anyway.   The choice of beverages was cognac or champagne….for several hours……good thing everybody was walking home!

Late June through early July is cherry season in Moldova.  There are loaded trees everywhere you go, two varieties are very common and everyone seems to have access to both, a sour cherry similar to a bing, and a dark sweet cherry that you could easily eat enough of to make yourself sick if you are not careful.  Lilia with Daniela and Iuliana came over one evening to pick cherries for bottling.

  We all picked until we couldn’t get to any more cherries and then Iulia made some compote, the Moldovan version of juice made by cooking the fruit in water for about half an hour and then letting it cool overnight before bottling.  She also made preserves from some of the cherries and we had them on crepes for breakfast, the cherries in Moldova are absolutely wonderful.

The huge garden behind the house is producing onions, garlic, cucumbers, potatoes, beans and herbs of all kinds.  The grapes on the vines are beginning to ripen and the carrots, cabbage, beets, corn and tomatoes are just coming on.  We have never lived anywhere else that you could literally walk out and pick your dinner.  The chickens provide fresh eggs and occasionally meat for the table.  Rabbits are in hutches at the bottom of the garden and provide the staple meat for the house, and every year Sasha and Valeri buy a pig and have it slaughtered and each family takes half of the meat to freeze and use throughout the year.  The food is simple, fresh and nutritious during the summer.

We are starting to better understand when and who to greet and interact with.  This is particularly difficult for me as a woman because my normal behavior is to greet and talk to everyone.  In Moldova, it is very common for men to greet each other and shake hands but they do not normally greet women unless they know them very well and they very rarely shake hands with a woman.  In more formal situations when we are introduced to men, I generally find that the men kiss my hand if I extend it rather than shaking it. 

We can competently order beer or wine at the local bar (of course) and get a bag of chips if we want it.  We are slowly making friends with the bartender; she now smiles at us, (our first few times in the bar she was definitely scowling).  The local drunk has joined us once, uninvited of course, and he spoke to us in uninterrupted Russian for about 10 minutes.

Our language instructors have changed up the classes and we now have different teachers.  It is probably a good thing to have put us in separate classes; I guess they got tired of asking us what we did the day before and getting the same story twice using only the “we” personal pronoun.  All three classes are studying the same material but each teacher has a slightly different style.  We are really enjoying the language learning even if it is incredibly difficult.   For our technical training they have had some of the volunteers who have been here for a while come in and talk with us about the projects they have going and the experiences they have had.  If there is one thing that has become abundantly clear already it is that the “Peace Corps” experience is unique to each volunteer.

Peace Corps training, the first glimpse of our new "site".

Our new home would be in a Raion center (like a county seat) and like many raion in Moldova, it is an almost exclusively agricultural area with very little else in the way of business.  Mike’s primary partner, Costa (short for Constantine) was the head of a government extension program for farmers called ACSA, his application for a Peace Corps Volunteer stated that he wanted help with the business side of things and was well connected with the farmers in the region so there was the hope that some new business opportunities could be created. 

My primary partner had not been confirmed by the Raion council when we first arrived but a wonderful woman, Tamara, stepped in as a volunteer to show me around and try to talk with me about my future assignment.  I had been assigned to the brand new Incubator de Afaceri  (business incubator) that was just being finished and was scheduled to open in August.  The Raion council had requested the volunteer but my primary partner would be whoever they chose to manage the incubator.

After a 45 minute bus ride into Chisinau, a 15 minute walk to “Gara de Nord” the bus station for travel to the north,  a 45 minute wait for the right bus, and a 2 hour rutiera (mini bus) ride we arrived at the bus station a bit tired but mostly just nervous!  I guess we were easily identifiable because Costa came up to us immediately and motioned for us to get in his car, Mike rode up front with him and I rode in the back with Tamara.

They took us on a ride to see the town, it is quite spread out and covers a lot of ground for only having about 17,000 people (with almost a third living and working abroad that means only about 12,000 really live there at any one time).  Since we were not able to understand much of what was said to us they mostly pointed to things and gave us one or two word descriptions in the hope we could pick up some of it.  We learned some new vocabulary, and came to understand that the town was long and narrow roughly following and old river bed along the bottom of a small valley with the town growing up the hill from the river bottom to the north.   “Centru” the center of town has the Raion Council building (think county government) the Primaria (think city government) and the “Casa de Cultura” (think Soviet style theatre/auditorium) a huge park, two monuments and a couple of high schools.  A small assortment of shops and two or three restaurants/bars kind rounded out what we could see.

One of the things that really struck us both immediately was the huge number of trees, gardens and open green space.  It turned out that our new host family lived on the edge of a beautiful wooded area, the long drive was lined with big old chestnut, walnut and pine trees.  We were met by Lilia, our new “host mother” who quickly became “host sister” as she was many years younger than us.  She set up a table in the garden and brought food and drinks outside so we could enjoy the beautiful summer day.  Costa headed out and Tamara, who was friends with Lilia stayed to visit (think lots of charades and looks of confusion with bits and pieces of information getting through).   Lilia’s husband Andrei arrived soon after and brought beautiful, huge sunflowers to each of the ladies and a bottle of vodka to share.

Andrei spoke a few words of high school English, but he had his laptop handy and fired up google translate so we could manage to actually exchange some information.  We had our laptops but did not have internet access so it had been beyond us to this point.  Tamara suggested that we should all have a barbeque, we were not quite sure what this entailed in Moldova but we were game if they were. We thought we understood that she would go home and get her husband and be back in a little while and we would barbeque then.  Tamara returned a half hour or so later and we all piled into a big van and headed out to what turned out to be a very small village, where Tamara and Petru have the old family house, no running water, an outhouse at the far end of the garden, no electricity or gas.  They had all brought food and drink, and shortly after we arrived had a roaring fire.  There are no charcoal briquettes here, just build a bonfire and the coals will make themselves.  They walked us around the large garden filled with grape vines, cherry, apricot, apple and pear trees, vegetables of all kinds and a large raspberry patch.  Up near the outhouse across the back end of the property were hives of happy bees producing fabulous honey.

Another couple joined us, Igor and Ala, no one spoke any English (and very little Romanian as we were to find later) and there was no WiFi so we played a lot of charades, and laughed a lot as we all tried to understand one another. We had enough spoken language to tell them about our family and a little about our background (our language instructors had made us practice these things before we left) but understanding what they were saying to us was quite another matter.  They quickly started talking very fast among themselves in Russian or Ukrainian (their native languages) and then one of them would try very slowly in Romanian to explain something or ask us a question.  Believe it or not, we actually found that we did learn a bit about each of them and we had a marvelous time.   Many hours and much food and homemade wine later, it was beginning to feel like we might really learn to like our new “site”.

The following morning Costa picked Mike up to take him off to see some of the farms and meet some farmers in the area.  Lilia and Tamara had conspired to have me meet them at the Raion Council building later in the morning to meet some people and then to get a tour of the incubator.  I was introduced to the Raion Council President and several other important people, needless to say, I could not even understand most of the names and remembering them was out of the question, but it was a lovely gesture on their part to try to make me feel welcome.

A young man in the Economic development section of the Raion, Victor was detailed take me to the Incubator because he spoke a little English.  Wow, first chance I had to actually ask a bunch of questions in my own language, he tried valiantly to understand and answer my questions but needless to say it was a challenge all the way around.  The building was not completed and was a major construction zone when I saw it; I was very surprised that they were all convinced it would open on time in just 5 weeks.  I was destined to learn more about this cultural trait over time.

Costa brought Mike back to “centru” and we met up at the house to find that we had been invited to dinner at Andrei’s parent’s home.  Igor and Ala supplied their 14 year old daughter, Dacia as a translator for us; she was by far the best English speaker we had met in town and was a very impressive young woman.

Dinner was lovely, we ate out in the garden and with Dacia’s help were able to communicate with the family and enjoyed ourselves immensely.  

The following morning we headed out for a two day “partner conference” in Chisinau, kind of a misnomer for us, Costa was unable to go so he sent a consultant from his organization with Mike, and since I did not have a partner yet the Raion council made Victor go with me.  It was supposed to be a planning and prioritizing time for partners to set initial expectations with volunteers.  We went through the motions knowing that our actual partners would have to do this with us after we arrived at site in August... or not.