Disconnected

My cell phone was stolen today.  I was waiting in the center of the village for a bus to arrive so I could send a package on it the following day.  When the bus arrived, I left my bag and cell phone where I had been sitting, walked about 20 meters to speak with the driver, and returned a minute later.  The phone was gone.

I don't think what happened today is any more or less likely to occur in America.  Mobile phones valuable and easily concealed and are stolen all the time.  Nonetheless, it never feels great to be the victim of a crime.  And I was doing so well on budgeting my Peace Corps allowance this month, too.

I do take some solace in the fact that it could have been much worse - my phone was purchased used and is the cheapest model one can have in Moldova.  I'll post again when I get a new phone in few days.  In the mean time, feel free to call my old number - posted to the right - at all hours of the day and night.  Just because the thief has my phone doesn't mean he gets to enjoy it.

Lost in Translation

Another PCV recently posted a string of funny conversations he had at site.  I thought it was a good idea, so here's one of my own...

First a little background: In Moldova, when someone comes to your house, they wait outside the gate and yell your name.  Because you might be deep in the backyard garden, watching the TV extremely loudly, working in another part of the house, or just plain hard of hearing, the "caller" usually stays at the gate for several minutes, yelling the "callee's" name and making high-pitched whistling.  [It really makes me think that a doorbell or some sort of "I'm home / I'm not home" sign business would do very well in Moldova.  I've now actually made such a sign for my brother.]

At my house, people are usually looking for my host-bother, and even when they're looking for me they sometimes call out his name.  If I'm home alone and someone comes a calling, I usually don't answer because I don't want to interrupt what I'm doing to have conversations like the one I had today.  But sometimes the screaming and whistling at the gate demands attention:

Caller: Vitalik!
Caller: [20 seconds later] VITALIK! followed by high-pitched whistling.  [repeat every 20 seconds for next 5 minutes]
Me: [deciding to stop the insanity, leave my room and yell back from the house door] Vitalik's not here.
Caller: Vitalik?
Me: No, Vitalik's not here.
Caller: Come here.
Me: But Vitalik's not here.
Caller: Come here, I have a question.
Me: [walk to the gate] Vitalik's not here, it's only me.
Caller: Where's Vitalik?
Me: I don't know.
Caller: Is he here?

It Never Rains, but it Pourshttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

The wine season is upon us.  Moldovans are picking their grapes and turning them into home wine.  In the fields of the kalhouz, school children from the 8th grade and up get out of school for two weeks to go pick grapes.  The kids have mixed feelings about this: on the one hand they get out of school and earn about 50 lei ($5) a day, which is usually handed over to the family's budget; on the other hand these are longer, more physical days than they have in class.

I'm pretty certain that this is required work.  If you're not going to participate, you must have a doctor's note to say you're sick. I know several people who have scheduled doctor's visits or operations during this time. Perhaps a coincidence, perhaps not.

I'm reminded of the cotton production of Uzbekistan, which "required" school children to help harvest the nation's cash crop.  Unfortunately, I wasn't there during the fall and late summer to be able to fully understand the process.

To better appreciate the process in Moldova, I decided to work a day in the fields.  The kids meet at 8am at school.  Everyone brings a bucket, clippers, and lunch.  A bus takes different classes to different fields.  In pairs, students walk down the rows of grapes filling their buckets.  When done, they dump the grapes into a large trailer at the end of the rows.  Their homeroom teacher stands by the trailer and records how many buckets each student picked.

I had only been there for a little while - enough to pick 2 buckets - when the skies opened up and the rain came down.  At first we worked through it, but when it didn't stop we decided to call it a day.

About that time, Oleg called and said he needed my help for a road project some villagers wanted to submit to IREX.  I got a ride home, quickly changed out of my soaking clothes, and headed into the office.

While helping with the grant application, two people from LGRP showed up to install 1C (link in Russian or English), an all-encompassing municipal accounting program, on our computers.  So I began helping with that too.

All in all, a good productive day that definitely didn't follow the plan.

Tractors

After dinner tonight, my host-brother asked if I'd help him outside for a moment. Always up for an adventure. He needed me to help him get a large tractor rolling so he could jump in and start it. Because it rained here today, the dirt street was pretty muddy, and we were quickly covered in it. So he gets it started and says, "Brad, ever been in a tractor before? Want a ride?"

I jumped in and we're off, bouncing down the street with our headlights the only illumination. "Where are we going?" I yelled over the engine. "To buy bread." Oh. Glad I'm dirty for a reason. But, we got to the store in no time - well, we got to the store faster than if we had walked. Going over potholed roads in a tractor isn't exactly a speedy operation.

Vitalik buys the bread, and then hops back in the tractor, which has now refused to start. I'm again out back, pushing this tractor a good 100 yards while Vitalik repeatedly tries to start her. Eventually, we ran out of room to push - good thing because my heart was running out of beats per minute. On my cell, Vitalik calls the owner of the tractor, who goes to our house to get my bike so he can ride to us more quickly. He starts the tractor and we head home. Mission accomplished - one loaf of bread heavier.

B-School

Tis the season of graduate school applications, and many a PCV are consumed by the process. It's really pretty fortunate that we happen to live in a country with fair Internet access, or filling in these puppies would be a beast. Even with the added benefit of instantaneous submission that never gets lost in overseas mail, the process is difficult enough. [To any admissions officer who might be reading this: Did I say difficult? What I meant to say was, "I love your application!" The way you write those questions, the ease of use of your website, and... did I mention how much I like your tie? Really, it's very becoming.]

Special thanks to essay readers and letter of recommendation writers. More on this in a couple months when the acceptance letters start rolling in...

Nuts

I came home today to the sound of grinding. Piles of walnuts, still in their fruity, green outer shell were being fed into a machine (actually a revamped washing machine) that scraped this layer off, leaving the hard, brown shell that most of us see and struggle to crack to reach the nut inside. My 27-year old host-brother is starting a business, and I’d say he’s off to a fantastic start.

He owns about 10 hectares of walnut trees. Normally he can sell these green walnuts for just under 1 lei (7 cents) per kilo. After peeling off this layer they sell for anywhere from 5 to 13 times that much. So, he and some friend took apart an old washing machine, put a kind of rotating blade on the bottom, and voila – about 1000 kilos of peeled walnuts in a day. The work on the machine cost him about $150, and he’s hoping to save enough to buy a $2500 machine (which I helped him find on the Internet, thank you very much) that actually breaks the inner and harder brown shell and removes the nut, which he can sell for about 60 lei per kilo.

It was so refreshing to see a totally new business in the village – not just another general store. I really think he’s going to be successful.

Going to the Chapel

Yesterday, I was “hired” by one of the teachers to photograph her daughter’s wedding, probably more on account of owning a digital camera than any actual skill with it. Despite her wanting to pay me something, I refused (as PCVs are not allowed to have any income during our service – I hope my Country Director is reading!), and chose to use the day as an opportunity to experience part of the culture that I had heretofore not seen. [Yes, I just used, “heretofore.”]

I arrived at her house around 2:30 to capture some of the last minute preparations that were going on with all the girls getting dressed for the occasion – seems some things are the same all over the world… Then the groom arrived with another couple, typically a slightly older married pair who act like god-parents for the newly-weds. There’s a lot of music and dancing basically from this point until the wedding ends in the wee hours of the morning. The groom greets the bride, and they try to step on each other’s foot to see who will have the upper hand in the wedding – the groom got lucky, so I guess it’s nothing but barefoot and pregnant for the wifey. There’s lots of greeting of family and some gifts of money.

Then it’s into cars, honking all the way, to drive to the village’s House of Culture, where there’s a civil ceremony and the bride, groom, and “god-parents” sign the wedding certificate. They exchange rings, kiss, drink some champagne, and of course dance some more. Highlight for me was the ceremony’s background music, an instrumental version of George Michael’s “Careless Whisper.”

Then it’s more dancing and honking through the streets, followed by pictures in front of the WWII monument. Moldovans love to take wedding pictures in front of statues. There’s one of Stefan cel Mare, sort of the George Washington of Moldova, in Chisinau, and it’s basically impossible to walk past it on the weekend without seeing several wedding parties lined up to take their photos there. After the monument, we walked quite a distance to Copceac’s last well. Apparently this is a tradition that is only sometimes still honored because it really is quite a distance to walk. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a tradition I’d be willing to let die.

From the well, we hop back in the cars for a quick drive to the restaurant in the next town over. Before entering the hall, the wedding party eats some honey to ensure a sweet life together. There’s a huge line to get in while everyone greets the bride and groom and gives their gifts, usually more money. Then we eat, play some funny games, listen to a few speeches (including one by yours truly), and dance, dance, dance. In case you’re not really getting it thus far, Moldovans LOVE to dance, particularly this circular hora-like dance that just goes around and around forever.

Overall, a pretty great day.

Leaving on a Jet Plane (or more likely a bus)

The newest accountant, and as far as I’m concerned the best one, told me today that he’s leaving next week to go work abroad in Turkey. I hate that. He’s got a new baby daughter and feels, probably rightly, that he cannot earn enough money in Moldova to support her and his young wife. I’m losing a good friend and co-worker, the office is losing a productive and intelligent accountant, and a family loses its father and husband – not to mention that Moldova loses part of its tax base.

9/11

Being outside of America and without access to the major media networks, I suppose it’s easy for a PCVs to forget the anniversary of 9/11. Though it hasn’t really been on my mind, I looked at my watch today and saw the date and it triggered this memory from 5 years ago…

I was in Boston, and was supposed to go to the State House that day for a lobbying visit – my first. I was pretty excited about it, and actually walked there, only to be turned away by the guards, who told me the building was closed and everyone had to leave on account of some emergency. When I got back to the office, I heard that a plane had flown into the WTC. “What an idiot,” I thought of the pilot of some imagined prop-plane that had accidentally flown into a tall building. In the ensuing moments I learned what actually happened – it was no prop-plane and it didn’t seem to be an accident.

The Internet news sites, their servers swamped, were about as useful as smoke signals to the blind. Most cell phone lines were busy. I tried to get in touch with a college friend whose apartment next to the WTC I had actually stayed in one winter break. He was unreachable. All work stopped as people sat around radios and TVs. Even though I was nowhere near the site of the attacks, nor were any of my loved ones, we called each other anyway, just to say we were safe.

We were sent home early from work. The Boston T was giving free rides to people, but before I got on I had to just sit in the Commons for a while and cry.

I can’t remember why my apartment didn’t have a TV at the time, but we didn’t. So I spent the rest of the day glued to the fuzzy reception of the TV in the apartment below mine. We didn’t really learn anything that day from the anchors, but we couldn’t stop watching the repetition of the planes hitting the building. It was like watching those old films of JFK getting shot.

At some point I remembered that a few months before I was in NYC with two friends and we bought tickets to go to the top of the WTC. $11, way over-priced I thought. As we rounded the corner from the ticket desk to get to the elevators, we saw a sign that read “At least a 45 minute wait from here to the elevators.” The line was at “here.” Screw this, we thought. We’ve got more important things to do on our day in the City. Besides, the ticket was good for one year. I still have the ticket.

Say what you will about the underlying causes of September 11th regarding American foreign policy; or the way its aftermath was handled by the administration, country singers, and the American public (ala Freedom Fries); or the way it continues to be a rallying cry for nearly everything under the sun – but that day was a world-shaker for me.

I’m not going to inflate the importance of my work here, but I really believe that PC as a whole is making strides toward its ultimate goal of world peace and friendship, and preventing more 9/11s in all countries against all peoples. Let’s remember that while living abroad, PCVs are supposed to be showing host-country nationals that we’re really not all bad – AND, when we go home we become our host-countries’ emissaries, showing Americans that everyone else is really a lot like us.

There and Back Again

[Pictured to the right is Kiev's Independence Square, site of many protests during Ukraine's Orange Revolution.]

Bryan and I thought we were so clever. We paid half the price for our return tickets as we did for the tickets to Kiev. Clearly, we were owed this after being unable to purchase said return tickets in Chisinau, ariving in Kiev 6 hours late, and standing in the wrong ticket line - the one for same-day ticket purchases - for a good 30 minutes before the woman behind the glass told us we needed to wait in a nearby and even longer line if we wanted to depart two days hence. So we figured we were owed this unexpected windfall, and reasoned it must be cheaper because we were leaving from a bigger city, Kiev.

"What's prodelnista?" Bryan asks as we wait for our train home. "I think it's the 3rd class kind of ticket. Why?" "Because it's printed here on our tickets." Turns out the tickets were cheaper because we were going home in the general class car - not in a 4-person kupee. It's comfortable enough, but there are four loudly debating Russians at my 2 o'clock. I'm hoping the copious amounts of vodka imbibed an hour ago will soon lead them to a deep drunken sleep.

There's also the guys immediately next to me, who are nice enough. We do the typical things - I show my passpot, explain the PC and my role in Moldova, and demonstrate the multiple uses of my Leatherman, attached at my belt. They throw me a curve ball when I'm criticized for not knowing the name of the firm handling the reconstruction at the World Trade Center site.

I'm glad I never used up my rubles from my trip through Russia. They seem to be the prefered currency among the food sellers at the stations along the way, even though we never actually enter Russian territory. I buy baked potatoes, buns, pancakes, and deserts for Bryan and myself. The rubles also pays for our sheets and pillow cases.

I should talk about Kiev. Bryan and I are there for business, not pleasure. We're taking the GMATs in Ukraine because they're not offered in Moldova. During a PCV's two year period of service, each Volunteer is allowed up to 3 days administrative leave, similar to vacation days, for things like job interviews or grad school exams. We leave Sunday night, arrive Monday, take the test Tuesday, depart Wednesday.

Things go according to plan, minus the 6-hour lateness of our train's arrival. Fortunately, we still pull into town early enough for a quick dinner - at TGIFriday's!!! - and a good night's sleep in our surprisingly spacious room at the St. Petersburg Hotel.

My exam is at 9:30, and we didn't have time the night before to explore and find the exact location of the testing center. We try to do so in the morning, but get separated on the metro. As the doors close with Bryan on the crowded train and me on the equally crowded platform, I tell him to go 4 stops ahead and then wait for me. I follow in the next train 30 seconds later, but find no Bryan when I exit the train. Perhaps he thought I meant to go 4 stops and get off at the 5th? I go one more stop and again no Bryan. At this point, I decide that we'll have to find the testing center separately, as the time of my exam is approaching and his isn't until 1:30.

So I eventually find the place - Tech-Expert it's called - despite there being no sign on the building outside or inside. A burly guard's answer to my question, "Is Tech-Expert here?" is the only way I learn I'm in the right place. I worry that Bryan will have a more difficult time finding this place than I, so I leave a note for him with the guard.

The exam itself is going well. Occassionally I get what seems to be an easy math question, which worries me because the exam changes itself based on my previous answer. If I got it right, the next problem is harder; if I got it wrong the next one is easier. So getting lots of easy problems probably means lots of mistakes.

I'm also making great time, and that never happened on any of the practice exams. I'm always right against the time limit, but find myself with 7 minutes at the end of both the math and verbal sections.

Then the score. The waiting. The wondering. Did I just blow a chunk of change and 4 days on this exam, not to mention untold hours spent studying and planning this trip? Are dreams of business school - ok, I don't actually have dreams about graduate programs, it's just for effect - dashed forever? In a word: no. The score pops up on my computer screen and I'm elated.

Bryan is waiting outside. I'm glad he got my note and found the place, and it seems neither of us is angry at the other for this morning's SNAFU. [Later he would tell me that he was worried because he thought I had tears in my eyes. If I did, it was only because I really had to pee. I also learned then that he had gone only 4 stops, but then waited at the top of the escalators instead of at the bottom. Who does that?!]


Now time to experience Kiev. I meet Tanya, the neice of my tutor, and go to a WWII museum and some catacombs. The museum is closed by the time we get there, but there are lots old Soviet tanks and planes outside. The statue of the woman here is known as the "Mother of the Hero." She stands over a square with 13 large blocks, each a symbol for the 13 cities of the Soviet Union that were attacked by the Germans during WWII. The catacombs are almost closed, but we manage to get in and walk around. Old dead monks in clear glass coffins. Not all that interesting for me, but there were plenty of locals praying over/to the departed. Oddly, all the monks burried down below were really, really short.

That night Bryan and I celebrate with sushi and then at a rock/jazz club, Art 44. The club is a hit, especially the second band that performs. Bryan and I feel a special connection with them because the name of their group is Pusk, the same name as our business semina. I doubt, however, that theirs is an acronym for Entrepreneurialistic Learning of Strategy and Commerce.

Special thanks to Taya and Bona, two PCVs with whom I served in Uzbekistan now serving in Ukraine, for their excellent recommendations of things to do in Kiev. Also thanks to Tanya for showing me around her city. And thanks to Bryan for