Where is Moldova, anyway?

In most of Moldova, the concept of a supermarket doesn't exit - the exceptions being Chisinau, the main city, and a few other smaller cities through the country. Instead, Moldovans purchase their produce, meats, and other commodities in a variety of ways - from the piata (market), from neighbors (for example, we trade eggs to our neighbors for milk and brinza, a type of cheese), and from small stores called, in Romanian, "magazines."

These stores are typically pretty small, and although there might be many of them throughout a town or village, they usually have very similar products - but are not always reliable in what they stock. This week - tons of yogurt! Next week - there is none. You have to be careful when shopping there too - you might get excited at the site of a snickers, but who knows when it expired... and so on and so forth. You also don't serve yourself in these stores. You walk in, and are standing in usually a fourth of the store, the other 3/4ths is behind an reverse L shaped counter - where one or two women (yes, always women) will get you what you want off the shelf. This is not conducive to quick shopping. Especially if you like to read product information, like I do. Even more so if you can't read Russian, as I can't. :) Also, while waiting on line you need to battle for your spot with the local men, who have come there to buy cheap drink-at-the-counter shots of vodka. It's fun times.

They can be confusing as well. For example, do you know how to look at an abacus and tell how much you owe? I don't. And I have lived here a year and half already. They add up your purchases on the abacus as they go, grabbing something here and something there. Then they wait for you to pay them. "How much?" I ask, and they gesture to the abacus RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY FACE. "how do you not understand that?" Bah!!!

Another magazin-specific experience is receiving things other than money for change. Sometimes the stores just don't have change. So they will hand you a box of matches, a few pieces of candy, a stick of gum, and once - some unmarked vitamins. Thank you very much, but I'd rather have my money. And they don't see this as a problem -- and they won't let you refuse to take the candy/gum/crazymeds because it is yours - they owe it to you. But If I wanted a candy I would have bought one, I insist. Take it, they say. So I do. In April, after receiving a piece of gum as change, I returned to one of the stores, realizing I had forgotten to buy soap. I bought it, and handed over the stick of gum as part of my payment. The lady just looked at me. "This is gum," she says, "and you didn't give me enough money." I just smiled at her and said "if this counts as money when you give it to me, it counts as money when I give it to you." Crazy Americans.

Recently, a magazin opened up around the corner from us. This is good news, because before, the closest one was 15 minute walk. Not very conducive to winter time chocolate cravings. Or surprise birthdays. Today was my host cousin's birthday. Maybe I knew it at one time, but I definitely didn't know it when I saw him this afternoon. So I ran to this new magazin and bought a box of chocolates - thinking what 10 year old doesn't love chocolates. He loved the gift, and ripped open the box, only to find a box of smashed up and gone-bad chocolates. How sad.

So I took the box and went back to the shop. I told her what had happened - about them being bad, and showed them to her - the box was minus one candy becuase my host cousin, being brave - decided maybe they were just smushed and still TASTED delicious -- they didn't, he discovered, spitting the piece he had in his mouth to the ground. She just looked at me and said "Well how was I supposed to know they were bad without opening them?" and I said, "How am I supposed to give this as a present to someone," "Well I can't take it back there is one missing." "I will go get it from the garbage if you want," I replied. She looked at the box and showed me that the chocolates were not yet past the expiration date. "Yes, I saw that," I replied, "but I can clearly see that they are expired." "Well, I can't take them back." "Okay, well I don't want them - this is not something I would want to give as a gift. If you don't support your product, I am not going to shop here anymore" - and I started to walk out. She stopped me, "let me call my boss," she says.

So she calls the man that owns the magazin - a neighbor of mine, but not one that I own well. By this time there is a crowd of people in the store to see what is going on, and also, waiting to buy stuff - becuase there is only one person working and she is dealing with me. While the lady working in the store explains to the boss about the chocolates, the people in the background are encouraging her to tell him WHO is trying to return chocolates... "Tell him it's the American girl" one shouts, the other says "make sure he knows it's the peace corps girl." "Shh" I yell at them, "it doesn't matter WHO is returning a product, it matters that the product has to be good." Finally the saleslady resigns, and tells the boss that the American is upset because the chocolate is bad. She gets off the phone a second later, apologizes, and hands me back my money. What a ruckus. I thanked her, even though she was rude to me in the beginning - she was apologetic in the end. I don't think they are used to people demanding to have their money back if a product isn't good. That type of customer satisfaction is a western idea.

So I left the store, and realized, I had no new gift for my host cousin. I didn't want to go back into the store, because I had made a big deal about not knowing if I could trust their products - which I still don't. So, being lazy and not wanting to walk 30 minutes to the other store and back, I returned home, and gave him the money for the chocolates -- and told him to buy them for himself later. He seemed satisfied - to some strange people, money is just as good as choclate - and so did I.

I don't know why I got so mad though - it's not like it was the first time I purchased something that was spoiled or stale or gone bad in Moldova, nor will it likely be the last. Maybe it was becuase the chocolates were a gift. Or maybe I have just worn out my patience for a few of the little issues that I confront everyday, and have confronted for the last year and a half. Watch out world, line cutters are next!!!!

... much more precious than "baby's first christmas" - in my humble opinion. After 5 or 6 minutes of explanation and demonstration - "you melt the marshmallows, not fry them!" - and 2 minutes to convince them to eat off sticks - the s'mores were gone in a flash!

This wonderful cross-cultural moment was brought to you by Diana Mastrocola, in cooperation with Barak Obama, and unfortunately, the Bo-Sox. And to her, I am eternally grateful.

I'm not sure how it works in other Peace Corps countries, but with the program in Moldova, volunteers arrive 2 times a year. One group in the summer of around 40, and one in the fall of around 40. It's set up so at any moment there should be 4 separate groups of volunteers in Moldova, groups in the meaning that it identifies when the volunteer came to Moldova. This July, the group before our group (we came in September, they came in June) will be leaving Moldova. For us, this is a strange event- as these volunteers have always been here with us, sharing the experience, and trading stories.

Last weekend we gathered (about a third of the Peace Corps community) to give them a send-off, to play some frisbee, and to bbq. We met up in a small city, and had a beautiful weather for the first half. I had been debating whether or not to go - it was a long way to travel to just have to turn around and come back the same day, and I don't normally love large group functions - but I ended up going. I'm glad I did. While I see a few Peace Corps Volunteers who don't live far away on a monthly basis, and others I see in passing when we are in the Peace Corps headquarters, but I kind of forgot what it was like to be in a group of Americans - I hadn't been with that large of a group of us since we gathered at Thanksgiving. There is energy in our group. Reinvigorating energy. It's a great resource to have.

A girl in my group had brown sugar and baked us wonderful cookies. And I went paddle boating on a lake (first time in a paddle boat, I have to admit, and I liked it). We had just finished the frisbee and started in on the bbq-ing when we were hit by a torrential downpour (Not an exageration). We grabbed our bags and waited for it to pass. It didn't. Mind you, earlier in the day the temperature had been 85 degrees, and now, it was hailing. Of course, ruining our hamburgers. : (

Anyway, it was a fun day - I got to see many of the volunteers - with whom I have lived not so far from in Moldova for the last time before they left, had some good food, some fun, and a story to tell as well. I wish I had pictures, (or pictures of the Moldovans laughing at the mud covered, soaked Americans walking down the street -- it must be weird for them, in this small city, to have such an influx of foreigners all of a sudden), but my camera was too busy being wrapped in plastic bags and tucked under my shirt, trying to hide from the rain.

Surprisingly enough, on my way home - soaked and dirty - a bus stopped for me right away. I guess the driver had pity on me. And I readily accepted it.

Right now, across Moldova, 12th graders are facing a test more excruciating, more painful, and more important than the SATs could ever be. This torture form is better known as the "baccalaureate exam," or simply, the "bac." It is a national exam, and obligatory if a Moldovan student wants to enter college.

Students endure lengthy and in-depth exams in all of the subjects they studied in high school, based on everything they learned in 4 years of high school. Not only that, but the test MEANS more than the SATs. In some cases it is the ONLY merit by which admittance to colleges is based on. Adding to the pressure, it is only being administered right now, in the summer after the students completed 12th grade -- they don't know yet where they will be come September, what they will study, or even if they will be admitted into University. Talk about a pressure cooker.

The thing is, everyone* cheats on these exams. It is almost expected. Now, I'm not a teacher - I don't see these tests administered, nor am I a professional survey taker - but out of my town's 12th grade class, I'd say I know 75 percent of them. All of whom, are cheating on these tests. (this isn't hearsay either - this isn't my kids using the excuse that "everyone does it" - this is them, readily admitting to me, and to each other, how they "survived.") They are going to the bathroom, and asking their professors (who wait in the hallways) for answers -- professors look good when kids score well. Or they are talking on a cell phone, or texting on a cell phone back and forth to an 11th grade student sitting in his or her home with a text book. And SOMEHOW, the teacher administering the test doesn't catch them doing this.

And they all admit it. All of them. My 11th graders joke that they "already took the bac once," referring to the help they gave the 12th graders. This one girl I work a lot with, a 12th grader, and really one of the brightest kids I know - someone whom I trust more than I trust the mayor of our town, someone who I look to when I doubt Moldova's positive future - is cheating. She is a smart girl, and could probably pass it on her own -- she is always in the top of her class. But, she says, if she doesn't cheat on the exam, and everyone else does, how will her scores compare to the rest? And how does it help her, she further argues, to be honest, and to not be admitted into a university -- why did she work so hard in high school for nothing?

Again, I'm looking at this from way outside the system, not only did I not learn in this environment as a student, I also don't work in this environment (not a teacher). I grew up in the world of honor codes, and had 3 SAT II test scores automatically canceled on me when the proctor found a Spanish Verbs cheat sheet on the floor of our classroom -- and no one admitted to owning it. (I wasn't even taking the SPANISH SAT II, but try telling that to ETS). Yes, students cheat in America. But, in my opinion, it is not as systematic as it is here.

And it is systematic here. It starts in high school, and goes on in college and in university. There are rumors all the time about students "paying" for grades instead of taking exams -- they justify it by saying that they can't pay for an "A", they only pay for "C's". Do they learn less or more? I'm not sure. I'm also not sure what I would do as a student in an educational system that has standardized cheating. I do know, for example, that many Moldovans don't like the idea of going to Moldovan doctors when they are sick. Why? Because they doubt their expertise... How am I to know what percentage of that MD you earned, and what percentage you paid for? Which is too bad, because it brings down the credibility of those who honestly graduate and complete their studies - when the system is corruptible, everything gets blurry.

*Everyone = everyone I know. Clearly I have no way of knowing if EVERYONE is cheating. But I wouldn't bet against it.