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!
