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?
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3 comments:
Very funny!
Now, that was down right funny! Thanks for giving me a chuckle this morning.
The brilliance of the conversations we have here makes me wonder why I don't try to learn the nation’s second language. I am sure if I did the stories about food, getting drunk, and falling in the well could only be understood with a greater and deeper meaning.
I always ignore the person at the gate too.
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