Gypsies in Soroca

Yesterday most of my group took a trip to the northern city of Soroca, directly across the Nistru River from Ukraine. There's an ancient castle there, through which we were able to roam. Afterwards we had lunch and listened to a panel discussion led by the Gypsy Baron (see the outrageous beard).

Here in Moldova - and probably throughout the world - Gypsies (or Roma in Romanian) are frequently discriminated against and stereotyped as a wild, theiving, dirty lot. We really didn't have much time to really get to know those Gypsies we did meet, but I found them to be very friendly, though torn between their traditions and changing to adapt to the modern world.

PS - Note the sign we saw in the castle - no smoking, no bathroom, and no sunflower seeds. Only in Moldova...

One friend of mine will be working with an Gypsy organization that seeks to improve the condition of this ethnicity and I look forward to hearing how his work goes.

I Had a Dream...

…in Russian. I suppose this first dream in a Russian is a good sign that the language is sinking into my subconscious and that fluency is just around the corner, though the jury is still out on whether it is just the first signal of an impending mental breakdown (just a joke, Mom – I’m fine). Regardless, I can’t for the life of me figure out what the dream’s plot means. Feel free to make comments here about your interpretation – best suggestion will get a prize (honestly!)

In my dream, I’m driving a car somewhere when it breaks down. I pull over to the side of the road. Two men appear and I explain the situation to them (in Russian) and they offer to take a look at my engine to see if they can fix it, which they soon realize they cannot do.

Then I see a watch in the back seat of my car and I think, “Maybe this watch belongs to one of the dudes who just tried to help me.” Being the fine gentleman that I am and not wishing to deprive anyone of their property, I ask if it belongs to them. Though I don’t really get an answer, one of them takes it.

Next I think, “Maybe it doesn’t really belong to one of them, but they just want a free watch.” So I say, “Hey, if that watch isn’t yours you should give it back. It might belong to one of my friends.” Again, they don’t give it back or say anything, but it becomes increasingly clear that the watch does not, in fact, belong to them.

Suddenly, I’m talking to some woman about the watch because apparently her daughter now has it. I tell her the watch must belong to one of my friends, to which she replies that perhaps the watch belongs to her daughter and it fell off in my car, to which I reply that I’ve never even seen her daughter before. At this point she relents, calls her daughter over, and returns the watch.

Then I woke up. A lei for your thoughts? [A lei (pronounced “lay”) is the Moldovan currency and is equivalent to about 8 cents. So, you’re actually getting a good deal – 8 pennies instead of the usual going rate of 1 – and the additional pleasure of being part of a joke with sexual innuendo because I’m offering to give you a “lay.” Isn’t explained humor funny?]

Home Cooking

Not that the food here has been terrible, but there’s no substitute for the quality or variety of home – especially when my family does the cooking. Knowing that the best way to the heart is through the stomach, I decided to give a dinner party for my host family and 12 other PCVs. The main course was home-made-from-scratch tomato sauce and pasta, with approximately 9 liters of month-old Moldovan wine. Special thanks to all who helped make the evening a success through financial contributions, culinary expertise, or musical talent for the post-dinner sing-a-long.

Here’s the recipe if those back in the States tire of Ragu or if those abroad want an excellent meal. I’m going to write what you need to feed 16 people with the metric system. You figure out the conversions.

Ingredients:
4 kilos of tomatoes
1 kilo onions1 kilo green peppers1 kilo chopped meat (beef) – this might be hard to come by outside the capital, but you might be able to substitute lamb or pork or make it vegetarian
red wine
olive oil – or cheaper oil is OK if it’s too pricey for you here in Moldova
garlic
oregano
bay leaves
salt
pepper
sugar
pasta

Directions:
I suppose it goes without saying, clean all the veges.
Cut a small “X” in the bottom of all the tomatoes and drop them into a pot of almost-boiling water for a few minutes. The skin will start to come off. Remove the tomatoes and peel the skin off and de-stem them.
Place these skinned tomatoes in a bowl and mash them with your hands.
Sautee the onions and green peppers and crushed garlic – about 4-5 cloves.
Brown the meat and pour off the excess fat.
Combine the meat, sautéed vegetables, and tomatoes in a big pot.
Cook for a few hours until it thickens to your liking. Add salt, pepper, oregano, bay leaves, sugar, and red wine to taste.
Make the pasta and eat!
Oh yeah – garlic bread goes well with this – just sautee up some additional crushed garlic and spread it on sliced bread with olive oil and bake for 5-10 minutes.

Connected

I got a cell phone today - thanks to departing PCVs who sold (or gave away) all their stuff at rock bottom prices. Won't post the number here, so write me if you want it. I can receive calls from the States on it and it won't use up any of my minutes. Of course, there's still the land-line option at my host family's house - number posted to the left - which will be good until I move to my permanent site in mid-November.

Cold

The weather has changed, and it keeps on changing which is really wreaking havoc on my fashion sense… In the morning when I leave for the day it’s pretty chilly and most buildings are not much warmer than the outside. But by the middle of the day it can be downright warm, and if you’re going to be on any kind of (crowded) public transportation for any period of time longer than 10 minutes, you better strip down before getting on – God knows there won’t be room to do so once the door closes. Layering is key…

Heat comes in two forms – gas or soba. Gas, I’m sure, most of you are familiar with. It’s used to heat water which warms radiators throughout the house which in terms warms the air. Gas is centrally controlled, meaning the government picks a certain day on which it is turned on – usually sometime in mid-November – and after that people can be somewhat warm, though most buildings never really get toasty. Sobas are sort of like think chimneys usually in the center of the house that radiate heat. One side of the chimney makes up part of a wall to a few rooms. Just about anything can be burned in these sobas – usually coal, wood, de-kerneled corn husks, dried corn stalks, or some mixture thereof.

At night, my room and much of the house I’m guessing hits somewhere in the low-50s. I’ve taken to using my wonderful longjohns and sleeping bag to stay warm. Fortunately, Peace Corps issued us portable electric radiators and will reimburse us for the added electricity they consume. Thus far, I’ve been very pleased with the operation of my unit, though I have no idea how I’m going to move this heavy beast to my site when training is over.

And of course, today I'm wearing a t-shirt because it's so damn hot.

My Site Visit

I'm back. My 3-day visit to my future work site is over, as is the 2-day conference that followed with all PCVs and their Moldovan counterparts. Here's the story…

I left my house around 2pm on Saturday to get to Chisinau's southern bus, Gard de Sud. I had already purchased my ticket that morning and felt pretty certain I knew where the bus would be. I was correct, and after a brief discussion with the "ticket-taker" at the door to the bus, I was settled. [I've since learned that this discussion was his complaint that I had already purchased my ticket from the counter inside the bus station. Apparently, sometimes you purchase the ticket directly from the bus driver – which is technically illegal and earns the driver a little extra cash – and sometimes you purchase the ticket at the ticket window. Your guess is as good as mine as to which one is proper and when.]

To say the bus is crowded would be like saying there are a few stars in the sky. The aisles are filled with extra plastic stools so more people can be squeezed on. There is no AC, only small air vents on the roof of the bus. These vents actually worked quite well until they were all shut by the locals once the bus got underway to ward off the deadly "current" (wind). Fortunately, I was prepared with several layers and so I stripped down as I tried to understand the onboard Russian-dubbed movie, Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

Along the way the country side flew by repetitively. Moldova is a land of farms, and most of the roads I was on passed black fields of rich soil. Tiring of reading and straining to understand Brad Pitt's Russian voiceover, I struck up a conversation with my neighbors, thereby announcing that I was, in fact, an American – as if my beard, longer hair, backpack, and clothes didn't already scream "I'm not from here!" This decision of mine (to converse with my neighbors) would come to play an important role when I disembarked in Copceac (pronounced Kop-chack) 3 hours later.

As we pulled into town, my southbound bus was flanked on the right by a beautiful setting sun and on the left by a rising full moon. All seemed right to me. I thought, "This is where I'm supposed to be."

And then I got off the bus and found no one to meet me.

Fortunately, one of my new bus friends, Valeri, was neighbor to the mayor, my counterpart, and walked me to his house, where no one was to be found. So, we went to Valeri's house where I met his wife and daughter, who went next door to get a phonebook so we could call the mayor's house to see if anyone was inside. We called and confirmed no one was there. So then I think I should go back to the bus station – which is really just where the bus dropped me off, not really a station at all. We do and again, no one is there. I thought I'd use the phone nearby in the main store to call Peace Corps, but that phone like the one at Valeri's house can only call within the village. So then I start calling the phone numbers I have for the families I'm supposed to meet on this trip to pick one with whom to live. Fortunately, one was home and came to pick me up at the store. From their house, I could call PC, who then called my counterpart on his cell, who then called me at the house to apologize. Apparently, he had asked someone to meet me because he had to shuck corn on his mother's farm and my bus had come in early, so that's why no one was there. Anyway, no harm done and it made for an adventure.

I've decided to live in an apartment with a single 50ish-year old teacher. Though the smallest of all the places and the only apartment I saw, it was clean and the woman, Valentina, seemed very interested in learning about America and was open to a new culture and sharing her own. She has two older sons who don't live there but occasionally visit. I met one and he seems very nice.

Sunday I spent with my counterpart, Oleg, and his friends visiting different families and watching several football (soccer) matches in a pretty great 2-year old stadium in the village, and drinking plenty of vodka. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Gagauzia is a semi-autonomous region of Moldova. The first language in my village is Gagauz, a Turkish dialect, followed by Russian. Very few speak Romanian, the official language of Moldova. Maybe after a year of Russian I'll start working on Gagauz…

Monday I met everyone in the office, cleaned my desk, and read a lot of my Russian dictionary and "Atlas Shrugged" while doing very little at my desk, which is in a separate room from everyone and everything else. Boring quickly of that, I went into Oleg's office where it seems he sees people all day long who come to him with their problems and he makes some phone calls to fix them. I also hung out with the 5 accountants who use huge pieces of paper, calculators, and white-out to keep track of the village's finances. I see an MSExcel training in their future…

All in all, it was a good trip. I like my counterpart a lot – he's smart, funny, and seems genuinely willing to work with me. I think I'll have a lot of freedom to do what I want – sort of a big fish in a small pond – and after a few months at site improves my language and I figure out what are the needs of the village and my office, I look forward to starting my work in earnest. For now, one more month of training…

Handicrafts

After learning our sites, we took off for a tour of local tradespersons’ homes and workshops. First stop, the spryest 83-year old man I have ever and probably will ever meet. He fought for two years in WWII and then spent 6 years after the war in a Russian POW camp. Now he has four children, the last of whom he fathered when he was 51 years old. He’s a blacksmith and an engineer and showed us all these formerly hand-powered machines that he rigged for electric power. One de-kernels cornhusks and another grinds the kernels into flower. He also pounds away on an anvil over hot coals making all manner of things.

Next stop was a local artist’s home. I think at the end of my 2 years I’ll go back and buy one of his paintings. He was very good and has a style similar to that of my own Mother (see the links to the right for her website).

Next was a local honey producer where I happily tried out his various honeys before purchasing a kilo for about $3. So good in my daily tea…

Last stop I didn’t really understand, but I think it was a family known for their needlework. After touring their home they treated us to Moldovan songs and dance, and to return the favor we sang “When the Saints Go Marching In” and did the Hokey Pokey. I think we got the better end of the bargain.

My Site

Well, it’s official – at the end of training I’ll be working in a mayor’s office in a village of about 10,000 people at the southern tip of Moldova. I found out on Wednesday and on Saturday I’ll be headed there alone for 3 days to meet my counterpart (the mayor) and my new host family. I’m really looking forward to it and will let you all know how the trip turned out towards the end of next week.

Our placement ceremony was uniquely presented. A large map of the country was drawn on the floor of a gymnasium and chairs were placed at each site throughout the country with the names of cities, towns, or villages on them. As PCVs’ names were pulled out of a hat, their sites were announced and each of us went to sit in our chair. By the end of the ceremony, you could look around and see who was near and who was far away – though in such a small country no one is really that far away.

The process by which PCVs’ sites are determined is different than it was in Uzbekistan. There, PCVs had several interviews with staff members in which they answered questions about their preferences – rural vs. urban, east vs. west, proximity to other PCVs, desire to work on a particular issue, etc. Then, toward the end of training each PCV was handed a manila envelope and on the count of 3 we all tore open our packages and found where we were headed for 2 years.

Not so in Moldova. Here, we are given the applications that organizations filled out to get a PCV and have about a week to review them. [Of course, we’re only given the applications that Peace Corps approved. I don’t know how many organizations apply for a Volunteer or how many are approved or rejected, but there must be some that get turned down. Or at least I hope there are.] Then we rank our top-3 and turn in our choices. PC staff tries to accommodate our preferences, but ultimately the decision rests with them.

'Tis the Season

The season for making wine, that is… Though Moldova occupies 0.2% of the former Soviet Union’s land area, at one point it produced 13% of the USSR’s wine. To say Moldovan’s love their wine would be a gross understatement. Virtually every house here has a sizable garden and most of those include grapevines. Last week seemed to be the harvest time when the grapes were picked and crushed to being making the vino. Sadly, I was busy on the weekend and couldn’t help out (but there’s always next year… and the year after that!) I did, however, get some pictures and thought you might be interested in how wine is made the old fashioned way.

First you pick the grapes and drop them in a big bowl (pictured below). Then you squash the grapes and basically let it sit for a few days. Apparently the skin of the grape is what gives the wine its flavor, so you want the juice to marinate in the skins for a little while. Then you transfer the wine to a large holding tank that most families seem to have in their basements where you add sugar to taste. Then let it sit, or bottle it in old plastic bottles and drink over the rest of the year. Pretty simple, really.

To celebrate the occasion, there were festivals everywhere. I went into the capital city, Chisinau on Saturday to soak in the occasion. On Sunday my hometown, Ialoveni, had its own festival at which I was asked to perform what has become my pay-dirt song, “Hotel California,” and then play some blues with my harmonica-playing fellow PCV, Adam. As you can see we both got flowers, which (I’m pretty sure) means they liked our music.

A Capital Trip

October 05
Last Saturday we were turned loose in the capital, Chisinau (pronounced Key-shin-now in Romanian or Key-shin-nyov in Russian). It's an interesting place. In general, it's wealthier than Uzbekistan, but still has a wide range between the poor or middle class who shop in the open-air markets and bazaars and the rich who eat at McDonald's (there are 3 of them in the capital and it's actually a sign of high status to be able to eat at one) or shop in the rich stores - I poked my head into a Hugo Boss and Puma store where a pair of sneakers cost the equivalent of $100 - the same amount my host father makes in a month.

After picking up some hangers, oranges, and a beard-trimmer to replace the one I brought from America and somehow fried on the voltage over here, we visited the PC Office and then hit a Middle-Eastern restaurant named, "Class" for a fantastic lunch. I have hummos, tabouli, and shish taouk and can't wait to go back there! Just like being at King of Shish Kebab back in Jersey...

We also saw the US Embassy, which I cannot go into despite my American citizenship, unless I have an appointment or its an emergency; one movie theater that shows films in Russian and another that shows them in English; a place that can develop digital photos; and in general figured out the layout of the city.

Necks

My host mother makes a decent chicken soup, and there are these U-shaped pieces of meat that are very boney. Turns out they're chicken necks. The meat is good, but you really have to pick it off with your fingers - it's a little gross to try to chew it off because all these little vertebrae keep getting in the way of my teeth.