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…