Where is Moldova, anyway?

There's a lot of talk these days about Kosovo's Independence having an effect on Moldova's own breakaway state, Transdniestria. Talk is talk. Talk is cheap. Talk is everywhere. Who knows what will come of it, but apparently the talk is being taken seriously by those outside of Moldova as well...

http://www.reuters.com/article/europeCrisis/idUSL17729550

I'm trying something new. Now, in order to leave a comment on my blog, you have to log in-- in some way, shape or form (I think Blogger.come takes care of that, or gmail). I hope it won't be too much of a pain, I am just trying to discourage spam and random people posting anonymously ...

I do, however, encourage you (and anyone!) to leave comments, concerns, questions etc. Just do it when you are logged in, so that I can address your comments and we can actually dialog...

Through this blog, I try to share with you some of my favorite tidbits from Moldova. The following, is my host mother's favorite story about my time here. She tells it all the time. I figured I should at least share it with you.

The setup: So, our village, as I've mentioned before, is really, really long! To get to the piata, our central marketplace, it's a good 30 minute walk. So, my host mom and I will always coordinate to see who will be "in the center" to buy things that we need. 30 minutes sounds like a pleasant walk, but it's not something you want to do when it's cold, it's wet, it's dark, or you are halfway through making something and you realize you have no milk.

The story: One day this winter, my host mom called me on my cell phone while I was at my Romanian lessons (My tutor lives on the other side of the town, so she knew I would have to walk back through the piata to get home). She asks me to buy some sour creme, or "Smintina" from the piata on my way back.

The dairy and meat section of our market is separate from the fruit/veggie part, which I normally frequent. I go up to the counter at one of the stands in the dairy section and ask the lady how much smintina is. 20 lei, she says. Okay, I say.

Then she just looks at me. I look at her. Thinking maybe she needs some collateral, I give her 20 lei. She still stands there looking at me... Finially, Where's your jar?, she asks me. Oh, I said, I don't have one. She looks at me very strangely. Okay, it's 30 lei with a jar. Fine, say and I hesitantly give her 10 more lei, not knowing if she is ripping me off or not -- who charges for the container/packaging? -- and wait while she gets me a jar full of smintina...

Handing me the jar, she continues to look at me strangely and asks me if I am Romanian. No, I reply... and leave it at that. Looking at me even stranger she asks if I am Ukranian. No, I reply, not really clearing up the mystery (she knows I'm not Russian because earlier in the conversation I asked her to speak in Romanian, instead of Russian).

She just looks at me, dumbfounded and says -- well if you're Moldovan, why didn't come with your own jar?

One of my friends once commented that I do "such a good job" of keeping my posts on-topic, specific to one subject or event. This is not one of those posts. :)

Random Musings of February

• It's February! This month will mark our 16th month in Moldova. 9 more until we will be stateside again. While 9 months may seem long to a normal person (read: one that has not volunteered to pick up his or her life and move abroad for 27 months), for a Peace Corps volunteer this is a short amount of time. Been spending time thinking about how I will get everything done before I leave (projected COS date - mid November 2008)... which is a new feeling, a very new feeling.
  

• It's basketball season again. The first practice of this year, I did better than I did all of last year. Not only could I say things such as "full court press" and "move the ball better!" ... but I lasted a full 20 minutes before I let the practice turn into open gym. This is an improvement. One girl even asked me to show her again how to shoot foul shots. Progress, people. Although their Moldovan "coach" -- really the boy's basketball coach in disguise -- told me I was wasting my time with them becuase they weren't "good." Maybe I'm too influenced by River Vale Rec, but I think everyone should have a chance to play... The coach also asked me, sarcastically, if I "gathered up all the disobedient kids in the town and asked them to be a basketball team" -- I laughed at this, until at our scrimmage yesterday against another village one of my girls threw a basketball in the face of a player from the other team because the girl had inadvertently broken one of her nails...
  

• It's staying light out later now. Which means one thing -- spring is coming!!! (I realize it still has a way to come). Right now we are stuck in the GRAY. Moldova weather right now is so gray, so muddy and so yuck. Kind of like upstate NY. Waiting for spring...
  

• In the past month, I have experienced two "firsts." 1) First Russian/Eastern European Sauna Experience. 2) First sip of coffee tasted, ever. The Sauna thing was inevitable, just part of the culture here -- for relaxation, socialization and health. While enjoyable, I avoided the freezing cold dip in water after exiting and the beating with the wet branches (supposed to feel like a massage). Maybe next time. As for the coffee... BLECK. Never again. The only reason I had to drink it was that this guy, who was giving me a ride to the nearest city, ourchased it for me at a roadside gas station. It was freezing outside. And he was waiting for me to drink it before we started back on the road, becuase the roads are so bad you can't really drink while the car is moving -- too bumpy.
  

• January 21st, 2008 -- Monday. My host mom doesn't have work because it is a vacation day. I look at my USA made calender -- oh MLK day, I think, naively. Nope, I asked her, she had in remembrance of the day that Lenin died.
  

• Being sick in the Peace Corps is a hard job. First -- you need to fend off the "home made remedies" that host families want to heal you with. Wine soaked potatoes and garlic around the neck being the most popular one to deal with colds. Secondly, you have to decide if you are sick enough to warrant going to see the Peace Corps doctors... if so, you need to decide if you are well enough to travel to the capital to see a doctor. The road can be rough. Most of the time, it seems, volunteers end up waiting until they feel a little better than making the trip -- and explaining the symptoms in the past tense.
  

• When I'm about fed up with Moldova, my village, and the Peace Corps -- something good usually happens, or more specifically, a Moldovan usually does something really nice for me, at just the right time, to get me back on the happy bandwagon. This time, it was my bus driver, out of no where, who gave me some USSR rubles as "souvenirs". This gift, of course, was accompanied by a story about how much bread said rubles could purchase back in the day...
  

• I made my own birthday cake last week. It was yummy and chocolate AND I made it from scratch. Something I wouldn't try to do at home. The only problem was it tasted alarmingly like sunflower oil... it's a very specific taste.
  

• My host mother and I have been having the same argument back and forth for the past month. It's about fruit. It's halfway through the winter and I'm sick of cabbage, carrots, dill preserved apples, and potatoes (I don't even consider potatoes a veggie). So what do I do? I spend all my "extra" money on fruit. We get some good imports now and then -- clementines and pomegranates from Turkey, for example. Veggies -- forget it. It's cabbage or nothing. Fruits are very expensive. Okay, not very expensive. But expensive enough. I spend around 30 lei a week on fruit. This is, around 3 dollars. My host mom thinks its "too much to spend on fruit." My host brother, by comparison, will drink 4 or 5 beers a week. At 7 lei a beer that's 28 to 35 lei a week. Just the same as the amount I am paying for fruit. She says it's okay for him to spend that money becuase that is "what beer costs," whereas "fruit shouldn't cost that much... "