I Came to the Woods to Live Deliberately
And if you think of Moldova as a forest, then I’m living like Thoreau…..kind of.
A bit of explanation. I had to move out of my last house—making this the fourth time I’ve moved in this country. Did my host mother decide to move to Italy to be with her husband, you ask? Would seem probable. But no, she has made a recent and highly rash decision to go to Kiev, Ukraine, to work there. The decision has come out of her newfound desire to spite her husband, who isn’t receiving money from his boss in Italy. “If I want to buy lipstick, I should be able to buy lipstick,” she told me, in the midst of her decision making process. “I shouldn’t have to wait for him to send money home to buy lipstick,” she continued to reason. So I guess she’ll leave her two growing children to work in Kiev…to buy lipstick? I really shouldn’t be judging her, seeing as people everywhere make debatably bad decisions that are driven by material desires, especially from my very own and famous native country.
But anyway, I had to move out, and I looked specifically for a house to myself, where I can make my own food and not have 8 year olds stealing my things. I think I’ve explained that in Moldova it’s common for a family to have two houses, the big house and the little house, casa mare and casa mica, respectively. Thus I found a ‘baba’ (and old woman who ties a kerchief around her head) who has a free casa mica, where I just moved. As I was looking around the village for a new host family, needless to say, everyone was talking. Doamna Agripina, my new baba gazda, told me her neighbors said for sure I wouldn’t move into her house since there are no ‘conditions.’ What do Moldovans mean when they say this here word, ‘conditions,’ you might be wondering. For example, in my old house there was running water. There was also a toilet. But because of poor plumbing and upkeep, the toilet was just as gross as my new outhouse, which, I might add, is probably the worst in all of the country. (She didn’t even dig a hole in the ground, it just piles up ON TOP of the grass—I’ll stop there) And the running water was expensive, so my host mom often found herself, and forcing me, to use well water anyway. Thus I now live without a toilet or running water, and don’t notice much of a difference. Expect, of course, that now, I’m living deliberately.
On my first night, after getting water from the well and heating it on my fire, I took a bucket bath. That’s when I felt my first major connection with Mr. Thoreau. And then Peace Corps paid to put a phone into my house so they could keep track of me, and with that, came internet. When the man came to install the internet, he told me DSL is probably on its way to my village. So basically, I lived deliberately for a week. Now I’m still moderately deliberate, but with Internet access.
Moving onto stories. Scott’s host mom thought she found a lump in her breast. Upon this discovery, she brought me into her kitchen, where she proceeded to remove her shirt and bra in one filled swoop. There she stood, two naked breasts staring me down, requesting that I feel them. Both of them, to look for difference. Now there are two points to be noted here. Of course, once again, that there is no word in Romanian for privacy, thus Moldovans have grown up without the slightest inkling of its manifestations. But of course the situation also points to the fact that because we are health teachers here, ALL Moldovans think we are doctors, no matter how many times we tell them that we aren’t. During a town meeting in Scott’s village, in which the villagers were giving the mayor reasons they needed running water, Scott’s host father raised his hand. “We need running water because we have an American living with us. And he’s a doctor, and he says there can be Tuberculosis in the well water.” Scott then had to explain, in front of his host father with whom he’s lived for a year and a half, that he is not, indeed, a doctor.
A month or so later, Larissa, Scott’s host mom, and I were preparing a small party at their school for Scott’s birthday. The clock told us it was time for everyone to arrive in the teacher’s lounge, where we were. But the temporal proximity of the arrival of 30 of her colleagues didn’t count for anything when I asked her about the lump, if it’s changed. Without a tinge of rose on either cheek, once again, she put her naked breasts inches from my timid self, and asked me to grab them.
And how scary is this: After she went to the gynecologist to get it checked, she was given St. John’s wart and Valerian root, for her lump. They said they didn’t know if it’s cancer.
More about medicine here. I sprained my ankle right after our holiday break. Larissa called her doctor friend after she saw I was icing it. She didn’t think that was the right approach. And her doctor friend agreed. The advice I was given: Don’t ice it. Instead, put onions and vodka on the surface and let it sit for an hour.
I then went home, where my host mom had her own suggestions. I was to go to her doctor friend, who massages sprains out of ankles. When I explained it’s not broken, it just ligaments and tendons, which to me, states clearly why one wouldn’t want it massaged, she told me this woman is known all over for this kind of massage work. “A half hour of massage and it will be perfect tomorrow.”
The next day at school I was scolded for coming in with a sprained ankle. My partner teacher instructed me to go right to her doctor friend, apparently the same as my host mom’s, who would massage the sprain out. Three weeks later it’s finally healing and I’m actually wondering if the vodka would have accelerated the process.
I have a basketball team here now. Of course I have to use that term lightly as well, since what this means is I coach a bunch of Moldovans who can barely play yet refuse to do drills and only want to play games. I give you all this information for the sake of an image. Try to imagine me, in front of fifteen 11th grade boys, wearing ten layers of clothing yet still freezing (by the time bball practice starts the fires [our heating system] in the school are out for the day) yelling in Romanian to “get in Roma’s face when he has the ball.” It’s a riot. They think I’m amazing at basketball—that’s how bad they are.
And to end here, since this is getting long, a final story. On the plane ride home from Paris to Romania, we sat next to a Romanian. He was visibly disheveled when, knowing I was American, he tested me—asked me a question in Romanian and got an answer back in his language. We got into conversation, and I found out he had taken the first plane out of Bucharest to Paris after the New Year. As of January 1st Romania became part of the European Union, which meant he was able to go look at European Universities, where he can now study, and can enter other countries without an impossible-to-acquire visa. He took the very first plane, without even a backpack. He just got on a plane to enjoy his new freedom. It was pretty incredible, and it was nice talking to someone who has a much brighter future for himself than in the year 2006.
When we told him we work in Moldova, he went on and on about how Moldovans and Romanians have the same blood, are the same people. So once again this brings me the same place I was in when I was packing to leave. How utterly unfair it is that the country you were born in will decide the rest of your life. So I entered Moldova, and met with all my favorite Moldovans, and could only think about how stuck they are. I sure hope it’s a momentary low for them, but honestly, who knows.
A bit of explanation. I had to move out of my last house—making this the fourth time I’ve moved in this country. Did my host mother decide to move to Italy to be with her husband, you ask? Would seem probable. But no, she has made a recent and highly rash decision to go to Kiev, Ukraine, to work there. The decision has come out of her newfound desire to spite her husband, who isn’t receiving money from his boss in Italy. “If I want to buy lipstick, I should be able to buy lipstick,” she told me, in the midst of her decision making process. “I shouldn’t have to wait for him to send money home to buy lipstick,” she continued to reason. So I guess she’ll leave her two growing children to work in Kiev…to buy lipstick? I really shouldn’t be judging her, seeing as people everywhere make debatably bad decisions that are driven by material desires, especially from my very own and famous native country.
But anyway, I had to move out, and I looked specifically for a house to myself, where I can make my own food and not have 8 year olds stealing my things. I think I’ve explained that in Moldova it’s common for a family to have two houses, the big house and the little house, casa mare and casa mica, respectively. Thus I found a ‘baba’ (and old woman who ties a kerchief around her head) who has a free casa mica, where I just moved. As I was looking around the village for a new host family, needless to say, everyone was talking. Doamna Agripina, my new baba gazda, told me her neighbors said for sure I wouldn’t move into her house since there are no ‘conditions.’ What do Moldovans mean when they say this here word, ‘conditions,’ you might be wondering. For example, in my old house there was running water. There was also a toilet. But because of poor plumbing and upkeep, the toilet was just as gross as my new outhouse, which, I might add, is probably the worst in all of the country. (She didn’t even dig a hole in the ground, it just piles up ON TOP of the grass—I’ll stop there) And the running water was expensive, so my host mom often found herself, and forcing me, to use well water anyway. Thus I now live without a toilet or running water, and don’t notice much of a difference. Expect, of course, that now, I’m living deliberately.
On my first night, after getting water from the well and heating it on my fire, I took a bucket bath. That’s when I felt my first major connection with Mr. Thoreau. And then Peace Corps paid to put a phone into my house so they could keep track of me, and with that, came internet. When the man came to install the internet, he told me DSL is probably on its way to my village. So basically, I lived deliberately for a week. Now I’m still moderately deliberate, but with Internet access.
Moving onto stories. Scott’s host mom thought she found a lump in her breast. Upon this discovery, she brought me into her kitchen, where she proceeded to remove her shirt and bra in one filled swoop. There she stood, two naked breasts staring me down, requesting that I feel them. Both of them, to look for difference. Now there are two points to be noted here. Of course, once again, that there is no word in Romanian for privacy, thus Moldovans have grown up without the slightest inkling of its manifestations. But of course the situation also points to the fact that because we are health teachers here, ALL Moldovans think we are doctors, no matter how many times we tell them that we aren’t. During a town meeting in Scott’s village, in which the villagers were giving the mayor reasons they needed running water, Scott’s host father raised his hand. “We need running water because we have an American living with us. And he’s a doctor, and he says there can be Tuberculosis in the well water.” Scott then had to explain, in front of his host father with whom he’s lived for a year and a half, that he is not, indeed, a doctor.
A month or so later, Larissa, Scott’s host mom, and I were preparing a small party at their school for Scott’s birthday. The clock told us it was time for everyone to arrive in the teacher’s lounge, where we were. But the temporal proximity of the arrival of 30 of her colleagues didn’t count for anything when I asked her about the lump, if it’s changed. Without a tinge of rose on either cheek, once again, she put her naked breasts inches from my timid self, and asked me to grab them.
And how scary is this: After she went to the gynecologist to get it checked, she was given St. John’s wart and Valerian root, for her lump. They said they didn’t know if it’s cancer.
More about medicine here. I sprained my ankle right after our holiday break. Larissa called her doctor friend after she saw I was icing it. She didn’t think that was the right approach. And her doctor friend agreed. The advice I was given: Don’t ice it. Instead, put onions and vodka on the surface and let it sit for an hour.
I then went home, where my host mom had her own suggestions. I was to go to her doctor friend, who massages sprains out of ankles. When I explained it’s not broken, it just ligaments and tendons, which to me, states clearly why one wouldn’t want it massaged, she told me this woman is known all over for this kind of massage work. “A half hour of massage and it will be perfect tomorrow.”
The next day at school I was scolded for coming in with a sprained ankle. My partner teacher instructed me to go right to her doctor friend, apparently the same as my host mom’s, who would massage the sprain out. Three weeks later it’s finally healing and I’m actually wondering if the vodka would have accelerated the process.
I have a basketball team here now. Of course I have to use that term lightly as well, since what this means is I coach a bunch of Moldovans who can barely play yet refuse to do drills and only want to play games. I give you all this information for the sake of an image. Try to imagine me, in front of fifteen 11th grade boys, wearing ten layers of clothing yet still freezing (by the time bball practice starts the fires [our heating system] in the school are out for the day) yelling in Romanian to “get in Roma’s face when he has the ball.” It’s a riot. They think I’m amazing at basketball—that’s how bad they are.
And to end here, since this is getting long, a final story. On the plane ride home from Paris to Romania, we sat next to a Romanian. He was visibly disheveled when, knowing I was American, he tested me—asked me a question in Romanian and got an answer back in his language. We got into conversation, and I found out he had taken the first plane out of Bucharest to Paris after the New Year. As of January 1st Romania became part of the European Union, which meant he was able to go look at European Universities, where he can now study, and can enter other countries without an impossible-to-acquire visa. He took the very first plane, without even a backpack. He just got on a plane to enjoy his new freedom. It was pretty incredible, and it was nice talking to someone who has a much brighter future for himself than in the year 2006.
When we told him we work in Moldova, he went on and on about how Moldovans and Romanians have the same blood, are the same people. So once again this brings me the same place I was in when I was packing to leave. How utterly unfair it is that the country you were born in will decide the rest of your life. So I entered Moldova, and met with all my favorite Moldovans, and could only think about how stuck they are. I sure hope it’s a momentary low for them, but honestly, who knows.
posted by NikkiD | 12:04 PM
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