Where is Moldova, anyway?

You’d think I’d be entitled to one here. But stupid global warming (clearly not as responsible for yearly fluxuations in weather patterns as I’m making it out to be)—the only time we had snow here so far has been in October. I’m holding out though. What good is cold without snow, and I need some of the white stuff so it feeeeels like Christmas. Two days—it could happen!

People in Moldova celebrate Christmas, most of the population is Orthodox, but they are aligned with the old calendar—and don’t celebrate Christmas until January 7^th. So tomorrow for Christmas eve I am going to head into one of the cities here and attempt to find a Catholic or Baptist church somewhere that I can go to Christmas eve mass at. I’m not going to hold my breath, but that would just make the holiday great for me I think. Other than that, we may try to bake some Christmas cookies—but we will see. I’ve been on the lookout for candycanes, but apparently they are not in season over here.

A brief look at the past week or so. It’s been good, and busy. I’ve been spending a lot of time making Christmas cards with kids, and playing with balloons. I hope I never forget how much fun one balloon can be. The language is getting better though daily communication, but after long discussions my head hurts from all the thinking in another language. I still need an English break, or discussions involving 3-4 people, not one on one.

Everyone here is scrambling to get things done for two reason. One, they have large breaks for the holidays coming up—Anul Nou is a huge one too. And secondly, the financial year ends when the year ends. So there is a lot of business to attend to. I’ve been keeping myself busy attending Christmas celebrations (and the feast of St. Nicholai- Dec 19th) at offices, and going to schools to see their Christmas concerts. Some things are strangely familiar, but in werid ways. Mike (the other volunteer who is in my village) and I were treated to a fabulous lip-synching version of Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas,” which was essentially for our enjoyment because the large majority, if not all, of the audience couldn’t speak English, or understand the song. The three kids even dressed up like Santa. It was cute. Santa here makes lots of appearances, and always has a cane and limps—because he is really really old, doh. But the cane is sparkly, so it’s okay. Also, for my center’s Christmas show I played “Oh Christmas Tree” on the piano, well a borrowed piano for the show. Because apparently that is one Christmas song that translates into many languages, good ole German songs, the words here are “oh brad frumos, oh brad frumos”… good thing I memorized it it in 4rd grade (thanks Tatie, and “We Sing for Christmas”!)

Other than that things are going well. I bought myself a Christmas present. An aloe plant. I was pretty proud of myself to successfully find it and buy it – it’s not at a store, just at a random person’s house. And it’s pretty big, so it was funny walking down the street with it and having people stare at the weird American, who now they mostly kinda of know or recognize. So Dad, I’m gonna have to get some tips on how to take care of it, giving there is very little sun here now.

I hope everyone is having or will have a great holiday season in New Jersey, on the hill, in Boston, in Texas, in the city, upstate, undisclosed parts of latin America, Great Britain, China, California, and so on and so forth. This is the first Christmas I haven’t been in River Vale for in my entire life. Weird. We will see how it goes. (Boys, don’t forget to hang my stocking… and you better make sure it goes in the right place… not the stupid back corner of the fireplace!)

Everyone, I miss you—Have yourselves a merry little Christmas! Home is on my mind…

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 23, 2006 at 12:24 PM.