Greetings from Moldova,
I hope this email finds you well and that you are enjoying your holidays. Sorry that it’s been so long since I’ve written more than two words about life here; I meant to write this weeks ago during my last vacation, but I had no time. So this email goes from Halloween through Dec. 26, and important points in between (my friend Tina’s visit, Thanksgiving, the International Women’s Club, fun times with Sandu, and Hannukah and Christmas). I also have a few pictures on my Web site: http://photos.yahoo.com/reisefrau in the “Chisinau 2003” folder.
I should start by saying why my emails are called “MoldMails”. In Moldova as in Ukraine, names of national businesses often started with an abbreviated version of the country’s name. So in Ukraine the telephone company was “Ukrtelecom”, but here in Moldova it’s “Moldtelecom.” If you think that sounds bad, one of the two mobile phone companies is “Moldcell”. Maybe that’s why my Moldcell phone stopped working after a month—there was mold in the cell. ;)
But I digress.
HALLOWEEN:
*The party*
I was invited to a Halloween party at a local lyceum, a kind of high school. The students dressed in their own creative ways for this day. I have a picture of a group of students on my Yahoo photos page, as words do not do it justice. I will say that the tall guy standing next to me played Little Red Riding Hood in a skit in which he met the Terminator. Another person wearing a black hooded robe and a white mask danced through most of the singing and dancing performances. In the pictures you’ll see lots of jack-o-lanterns (a nice touch) and lit open candles on a wooden stage. Fire regulations do not exist in Moldova as they do in America.
After the party, I went upstairs to the teacher’s room for a “masa” (luncheon) with the teachers, the rector (principal), and a woman from the Ministry of Education. A picture of that is on my Yahoo photos page as well. It was a fancy spread and a nice visit, but I had to leave before tea and cake in order to get back across town to the English Teaching Resource Center (ETRC) for a seminar with university teachers.
*The big chill*
The down side of the Halloween party was this: it was so balmy outside I decided to leave my lined raincoat at the ETRC and just wear a short-sleeved turtleneck and a blazer. When I arrived at the lyceum, though, I could actually see my breath inside the building. That’s how I caught my second cold of the season.
Similar problems with a lack of heating persisted at the ETRC in October and November. We begged the Embassy for space heaters while we were waiting for the heaters (called air conditioners here) that had been ordered at the end of September. The space heaters came quickly, but even those weren’t enough to keep two whole classrooms worth of space adequately heated. The second week of November I was wearing gloves and a coat inside the center at all times. Thankfully, the heat at the university was finally turned on November 12 and has worked pretty well ever since. But we are still waiting for the private heaters that were ordered, and I fear that if they never arrive the problem will repeat itself when the university turns the heat off in the spring.
ADVENTURES IN VISITING: TINA AND VICTOR COME TO MOLDOVA
As part of my “in-country program activities”, I invited my friend Tina (a brilliant American art educator living in Khmelnytsky and one of my best friends on the planet) and her translator Victor (like American Express, she wouldn’t leave home without him) to come down to Moldova and stay with me from November 17-26. Tina gave three seminars: two seminars on art and education in two different cities, and a seminar at the ETRC on Pidgin English, a special dialect of native Hawaiians. We also visited a group of students at a school, saw “Carmen” at the opera house, and had several delicious dinners with several rounds of cognac.
*Registering an American in Moldova*
It was through Tina I found out the hard way what it takes to get an American registered in this country. On Tina’s third night in the country, she remembered that she had to go to the authorities here and be registered. I called my U.S. Embassy contact the next morning. He informed me that the landlord and landlady had to go with Tina to register her. I went next door and asked Mariana, the babysitter/housecleaner, for Dina’s (the landlady’s) phone number. I called her and told her we needed to get Tina registered that day; it was the 4th day of her stay and it was a Friday. Dina said she’d call her son and try to get him to come home to take Tina to be registered.
In the afternoon before my seminar, I talked to Dina’s son Adrian and he said he was trying to get a car to come home and pick up Tina and Victor and take them to the agency. When I got home at 5:30, Tina and Victor were still at home waiting. But they said that Grigory, the landlord, had called and was on his way. Grigory showed up with his car and we all got in (Grigory, Dina, Tina, Victor, and me) and drove for one minute. We had waited all that time for a car to go walking distance, and what’s worse, Tina noticed alcohol on Grigory’s breath. But we got Tina registered with no problem, despite the fact that she had the wrong kind of visa and the train conductor did not stamp her visa when she crossed the border. Apparently it helped that Grigory knew one of the men who worked at the office; Grigory had treated the man’s daughter who had died of cancer.
It was pure serendipity that we got Tina properly registered on Friday, as we got stopped by the police for a document check Monday evening. [Police in Moldova, as in Ukraine, have a right to stop people on the street to ask to see their documents without any special reason.] We had been at a seminar all day Monday, and then had gone to a restaurant near the train station for dinner. We were on our way to the train station to get Tina and Victor’s tickets back to Ukraine. We were talking loudly in English and walking in a dark place; naturally we were suspicious. The cops looked at our passports and were very nice about the whole thing. They didn’t even ask for a bribe.
It was pure Tina to say, “oh! this is so exciting! Can I have my picture taken with them?” So there are two pics: one of Tina and the cops, and one of me, Tina, and the cops. The second one is on the Yahoo photos page. It was pure comedy that Victor lagged behind talking to the cops. One of them said his wife was an English teacher, and asked if Tina or I could help him and his wife get to America. Victor said no, but said we work at the ETRC and gave the cop a brochure he had in his pocket. So getting stopped on the street by cops had become an advertising opportunity for the ETRC. Fortunately, the public affairs officer at the Embassy laughed when she heard this story.
*Party of Five*
I invited Dina and Grigory to dinner Sunday evening while Tina and Victor were in town. In what I’m learning is typical Moldovan style, they arrived twenty minutes EARLY. Fortunately, I was one step ahead for a change and had everything cut up. I was just starting to cook. Dina decided to hover over the stove with me and watch me cook the fajitas, rice, and beans. She said she had never seen anyone sauté garlic before. (I made sure when I came back from the States to bring her a care package of ingredients so she could make the same meal herself).
*Paging Dr. Livingston, I presume?*
While Tina was visiting, Lena (the 16-year old) stopped by to ask for help with her homework. She had to read this text in her 10th grade English as a Foreign Language book that was a story about a hospital, a doctor, and an operation. It had the most obscure words I’ve ever seen, like “stone-flagged walls”, “elephantitis” (a condition where one’s legs swell up to the size of an elephant’s), and a “popliteal aneurism” (I had to talk to Brett, a physical therapy student in California, to find out it’s a blood clot behind the leg). Meanwhile, no one in this country knows the difference between “meet” and “see” and “borrow” and “lend”. I wrote a proposal to bring a specialist in curriculum development from the States to Moldova in February or March to talk with people at the Ministry of Education about how to write a curriculum and a textbook. Hopefully that will alleviate the problem.
THANKSGIVING:
*Russian Utility Roulette*
If I ever write the book about life here that my mother and others say I should write, I will have to include a chapter called “Russian Utility Roulette.” It seems to me in Moldova as in Ukraine you are bound to lose one of the major utilities—phone, electricity, or water—for some small period of time or perhaps on a regular basis for a while. It’s just a question of which utility, and when. For Thanksgiving, the wheel came up “water”. I had no water from 8-11 a.m. the day before Thanksgiving, and as I had a 9:30 seminar that day and other work to do in the afternoon I didn’t get a chance to take a shower. Thanksgiving morning there was again no water. I hoped it would come on again at 11:00, but no luck. 11:30, still no luck. At 11:45 I realized I had to start boiling water if I was going to get a decent “bucket bath” and get ready; I had to be at the U.S. Ambassador’s house for dinner at 1:00. That night I still had no water, and had to use the last of my bottled drinking water to get the dishes clean and water the plants. Grigory called to say he’d be leaving a bucket of water on my doorstep to use to flush the toilet. When I opened the door and saw it, I hoped the water had been dredged from a muddy ditch and not somewhere worse.
I tried not to be irritated at having no water on my favorite American holiday, but it was a cognitive stretch. I told myself that I could be thankful that I had just enough reserve water (bottled after the last time I had no water) to get myself clean. Also, if asked at dinner, I could tell people I was thankful I had the opportunity to say things like, “I’m thankful that I had just enough reserve water to get myself clean today”. In the process one learns to appreciate what one has.
*What really matters*
Truthfully, though, there were many things to be thankful for. A few teachers with whom I had my last seminar before Thanksgiving told me how thankful they were to have me doing seminars for them. One said she was thankful her trip to Russia coincided with the two weeks I wouldn’t be giving seminars. One teacher, Galina, even hugged me and kissed me on the cheek. Two other teachers said when I go home I should tell my mother what a wonderful daughter she has, and that they thank her for letting me come to Moldova and do what I do. I thought that was sweet.
*The dinner itself*
Thanksgiving dinner was lovely. The Ambassador, as you can imagine, has a nice, large, mansion-like place. There were only 12 of us at the table—the Ambassador, myself, the four Fulbright Scholars, a few Embassy workers, and former Fulbrighters or Foreign Service workers living in Chisinau. I have a picture up on my Yahoo photos page of all of us gathered around the turkey.
The food was wonderful. The Ambassador’s previous post was Spain, so she brought Spanish specialties such as peanuts and olives stuffed with anchovies. All the traditional main course foods were present except yams (replaced by a mashed walnut dish which I think was even better). The Moldovan who usually brings each dish to each person to serve had to be instructed by the ambassador to step back and let us pass the food around the table, family style. Besides the turkey, the best part of the meal was the Ocean Spray cranberry sauce which the Ambassador had picked up at the commissary in Madrid.
The Ambassador’s post before Spain was Peru, where she picked up her Yorkshire terrier, Rocky. Cute little thing. And while we were warned by the Ambassador that Rocky can be overly affectionate with some of his rag doll chew toys (Marie Monkey in particular), I’m fortunate I didn’t witness this. The only incident I had with Rocky is that at one point he started begging at the dinner table, whining and putting his tiny paws up as high as they could reach—the seat of my chair. Even if I’d had a copy of the State Department protocol book, I can’t imagine that anywhere in there is a chapter on “what to do if the Ambassador’s pet requests food from the table”. I decided to play it safe and not feed him.
Dessert was also excellent. The ambassador asked the cook to make three pies—pumpkin pie, lemon meringue, and apple. The Ambassador described her efforts to explain to the cook which ingredients she needed for each pie, and where she fell short for each pie. The biggest problems were centered around getting the right kind of milk or cream for the pumpkin and apple pies. Despite the substitutions in ingredients, I thought all three pies were perfect and told the Ambassador not to change a thing.
We didn’t have the traditional discussion of “what are you thankful for?” Instead we had a “worst turkey story” contest. The winner was the retired Foreign Service couple whose children came to Ethiopia with a turkey for Thanksgiving. They dropped the turkey when they got off the plane and went running down the tarmac chasing the rolling turkey, while men in military uniforms with guns chased after them. The children swore they’d never celebrate Thanksgiving with their parents again.
*One more reason to give thanks*
After dessert we retired to the living room for aperitifs (a choice of Spanish anise or cognac) by the fire and tried not to let the overeating and tryptophan (a sleep-inducing drug that occurs naturally in turkey) put us to sleep. We left around 4:30 in the afternoon. Some of the Fulbrighters planned to go to the Peace Corps dinner and talent show that evening, and were wondering how they were going to eat yet another dinner.
I, however, declined the invitation to the Peace Corps event because I had to get home and pack. The Moldovan system last-minute planning had finally worked to my advantage. Back in October I’d scheduled seminars for teachers from Ion Creanga University for the 2nd and 9th of December. I had to be in California for a bat mitzvah (a Jewish religious coming-of-age ceremony for a 13-year old girl, second in importance only to her wedding) on Dec. 6. I had no seminars on the 3rd and I’d already made plans to take the 4th and 5th off to go home as well as the 27th and 28th for Thanksgiving. While I was trying to figure out how to see everyone and get everything done in L.A. in 2 days, Svetlana (the ETRC director) called me the Sunday before Thanksgiving to say that a notice had just gone up: there would be a general meeting on the 2nd of December for all university teachers at 2:00 p.m., the time of my seminar. No one would come to my seminar, she said. “Cancel my seminar on the 2nd!” I shouted. Suddenly I had nothing scheduled from the 27th of November to the 9th of December. Since it’s standard practice here not to buy a plane ticket until a week before the flight, I called the travel agency and asked them to change my reservation to the Friday after Thanksgiving. I couldn’t leave before Tina and I couldn’t get a flight on Thanksgiving Day, but I made it home for leftovers. (Those of you in CA: I’m sorry if I didn’t get a chance to see you. Even with the extra time, there wasn’t enough time for everyone. Those of you on the East Coast: my flights went through Atlanta and Cincinnati so there was no chance to stopover. I hope to see all of you in summer.)
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S CLUB
Last year’s ELF forwarded an email to me about a meeting of the International Women’s Club in November. I had time to go, but was concerned that it would be a group of old embassy wives. Meeting the membership coordinator at a “town hall meeting” in October didn’t shake that stereotype.
At the first meeting, though, I realized that in addition to older embassy wives, the IWC is a combination of older Peace Corps volunteers, young Embassy wives, missionaries, and more. The main reason I go to IWC events, though, is that for me it’s a language buffet. At the first meeting in November, I spent most of the time talking in German with a woman whose daughter works for the German Embassy in Moldova. She compared life in Moldova with her daughter’s previous posts in Tokyo and Naples. At the second event, a lunch at a Chinese restaurant, I sat in between a Swiss woman (who spoke German, English, and Russian) and the wives of the Bulgarian and Ukrainian ambassadors (Russian speaking). Across the table was the Polish wife of an American Embassy worker (English, Russian speaking) and the Venezuelan wife of an American Embassy worker (English, Spanish speaking). My English, Russian, and German came out pretty well, but I have to admit my Spanish has fallen so far out of use it took me five minutes to remember the Spanish word for “work”. I guess I have to start listening more to telenovelas.
TUESDAYS WITH SANDU
It’s been hard lately to find time in the afternoon to be home for Mariana to clean while Lena babysits him. So I’ve started asking Mariana to come in the mornings and to bring Sandu with him for a kind of playdate. He doesn’t speak Russian, so I have to use the Romanian I know. On his first visit we watched cartoons in English (I get Cartoon Network here) and he asked “Ce Spun?” (What are they saying?). I had no response. Then he heard someone on TV say in English, “stupid dog” and he started repeating it back in perfect English. Oy. Lena told me later that he’s just at that age where he repeats things but doesn’t know what he’s saying.
On his second visit, I put on “A Very Muppet Christmas” (thank you Dawn for making that holiday tape for me). He asked me in Romanian about one of the characters, “who is it?” And I said, “Miss Piggy”. I then proudly translated it into Romanian: “Doamna Porc.” He thought that was funny. He started repeating it. Then he started pointing at me and saying, “Doamna Porc.” I didn’t think that was funny. (I found out later from a Peace Corps volunteer who speaks Romanian that “Doamna” is Mrs. so I should have said “Doamnasoara” for Miss.)
Anyway, some things don’t need language, like playing hide and seek in the house when he gets tired of watching TV, or kicking snow at each other (dear Sandu hasn’t figured out yet how to make snowballs, but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time).
HANNUKAH/CHRISTMAS
Although there is a synagogue in Chisinau and probably an active Jewish community to go with it, my Hannukah celebration was more or less been a personal event of candlelighting and eating See’s gold chocolate coins. The exception is the conversation club I went to Dec. 20 organized by two Peace Corps volunteers, Patrick and Rosie, who asked me to say a few words about what Hannukah is. It turned into a 10-minute lecture about the history of the holiday, what the menorah is (Moldovans like to call it a candelabra, I like to correct them), and the current traditions of lighting candles and eating fried foods. I didn’t get around to making latkes (potato pancakes); I have all the ingredients but have been too busy.
*Party of Fate*
The same day as the conversation club (and after yet another seminar with a Lisa, an English Language Assistant from Britain, on differences between British and American English), I went to a Christmas party organized by Nicole, another Peace Corps volunteer. She did a really cool game that she learned from two students at her conversation club. Nicole put items in a box and drew them out at random. Another person who had her eyes covered said who the item should go to (or to whom the item should go for you pedantic grammarians). Nicole gave the gift to the person named and interpreted the meaning of the gift. My gift was a bouncing ball that looked like an Impressionist globe. Nicole said that the ball is a sign that I will continue to bounce around from place to place. I can’t argue with that.
*Out of the Ordinary*
Americans at both parties oohed and aahed when I presented bags of miniature Reese’s peanut butter cups, as peanut butter is not a common item in Moldova.
*Sunday dinner*
The next day I was invited to the home of Galina, one of the university teachers who comes to my Friday seminars. I was there along with Svetlana, two other university teachers, and two Peace Corps volunteers. It was a lovely spread. I especially loved the salmon roe, herring, salad of redleaf lettuce with blue cheese (salads with lettuce are a rarity in Moldova), and bacon wrapped around prunes. She made what would have been a standard dish of fried chicken breasts special with actual herbs, and the creamy onion and mushroom side was good too. Everyone was impressed with the cheese and fruit tray for dessert, inspired by a trip last year to Paris. The accompanying cakes and chocolates were good too. Galina’s husband was also pleasant. He was a physicist, spoke a little English, and insisted that we try every alcoholic beverage he had—Moldovan vodka (smooth as silk), champagne, cognac, and both white and red wine that had been bottled in the mid-1980s. Good, good stuff. Most importantly, it was a relaxing meal in a lovely home. It is my great regret that I did not take pictures.
*White Christmas*
I’m sure you never thought you’d hear a California girl say this (especially after the long winter I suffered through last year), but it was getting close to Christmas and we hadn’t had any measurable snow yet. It hadn’t even gone below freezing. Finally on Tuesday the snow started coming down and Tuesday night it started sticking. Again, I’m getting lazy with the camera. I didn’t take pictures of the fir trees that look like they belong on a gingerbread house—the clumps of snow on them look sugary sweet. It’s so gorgeous. Yes, it’s slippery and treacherous and slows things down, but that’s the point—we should slow down a little bit this time of year.
*Christmas Day Festivities*
Someone asked me what Christmas is like in Moldova. It’s a surreal mix of holiday festivities and normalcy because Romanians celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25, but Russians don’t celebrate until New Year’s. So some things were closed (like the ETRC and my favorite car service) and there were lots of lights and music downtown, but the neighbor across the street continued to do repair work on his house that involved some kind of power saw. So much for “Silent Night”.
I found out from the Embassy’s community newsletter that on Dec. 25 there would be a performance of “Spargatorul de Nuci”—the Romanian word for the “Nutcracker”—at the opera house. (In Russian, it’s “Shelconchik”.) I went with Svetlana, Nicole, and two of Nicole’s friends. I’m sorry I didn’t get a picture of Nicole wearing her Santa-like hat with the white braids coming down. “Sneegurichka” (Snow Maiden) she called herself.
I was shocked to walk inside the opera house and find a mini bazaar set up inside, with kiosks selling everything from sausage and fish to fur coats (actual clothing, not the dish called “shuba”). I was shocked again when we walked into the theater a few minutes late and were told to find any open seat. It was a really good performance (certainly for the price, 15 lei for 1st balcony seating, about $1.20). But it was very crowded and there were a lot of young people in the audience who didn’t know when not to clap. It was cute at first, then irritating.
After the performance, the Peace Corps volunteers in town wanted to go to their favorite bar for a Christmas brewski (American slang word for beer). When we walked out of the opera house we noticed a big concert in the main square down the street, for Christmas. But we kept on walking to the bar. That’s Christmas, Peace Corps style.
*The Day After Christmas*
For some people in some parts of the world, Dec. 26 is still Christmas. Not here; it’s business as usual. Svetlana called me at 9:00 a.m. with work questions; I asked her to let me call her back once I was out of bed.
That afternoon I went to Slavonic University at the invitation of Jana, one of the teachers who comes to my Friday seminars and one of the teachers at Galina’s for Sunday dinner. Jana’s first year students gave a performance in English—a combination of singing (Jingle Bells, “Happy New Year” by Abba), a reading of the psychology of the twelve signs of the Chinese Zodiac, and a skit about a pretty but stupid woman made from snow and cured by Santa Claus. A picture of the finale with sparklers is up on my Yahoo pictures page.
After the performance, I sat with some of the students who asked me some very intelligent questions about my political leanings and about life in Moldova and America. Then we took a tour of the university, including an extended tour of the library where the librarian compared me to Mother Teresa. I said I’m not that good and Moldova’s not that poor. Then we went upstairs and met the rector (president/chancellor), who when I said the word “Kharkov” (the city where I first worked in Ukraine) gave a brief lecture on the valuable contributions to psychology which came from people in Kharkov, then switched to a discussion of American movies and comparisons of the revered actress Meryl Streep with a Russian actress. It was much more interesting than it sounds. Perhaps the most important comment he made was that whether you live in Moldova or America, you are concerned with three basic things: life, love, and death. I asked to have my picture taken with him so that I wouldn’t forget this lesson.
LA REVEDERE
That’s all the news from here so I’m saying “goodbye” in Romanian. Sounds a lot like “Arrivederci” for you Italian speakers.
The next MoldMail will cover my New Year’s trip to Baku, Azerbaijan and other things I have only yet to imagine.
Take care and have a Happy New Year.
Bridget