Prayer of the Wampum

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

So I moved again.

I know, I know, who moves four times in 6 months. If you want an even odder question, who moves IN MOLDOVA four times in 6 months. I’m an anomaly.

The security director at peace corps came and did a site visit. He absolutely freaked out when he saw my house—everything was wrong with it. “What, you don’t like that I’m living deliberately,” I asked him sternly. Even worse, his main problem with the house: it won’t withstand an earthquake. WHOSE HOUSE IN MOLDOVA WILL WITHSTAND AN EARTHQUAKE??? Houses are made of clay! When I told Scott that Peace Corps was making me move, he adeptly noted, "Nikki, your house is like camping, inside."

Anyway, I was a good volunteer and I did what I was told. The house I’m living in now is a bit nicer, higher ceilings, and ya know, a cooking space. A week before I left Agripina, she had a big masa (dinner party) for the soul of her dead husband. They do this here—eat and drink for the soul of people. Especially now that it’s Easter time, there’s a lot of eating and drinking, and a lot of satiated souls up there. I sat at the masa for a half hour before I had to go to basketball practice. Everytime I was handed a shot of vodka, Agripinia would look at me with the saddest yet fiercest of eyes, and tell me, “you have to to, it’s for my dead husband.” I tired everything. I’m skinny [which usually works], there are rules about how much we can drink in peace corps, I’m taking medication that doesn’t mix with vodka, they will fire me at school if I show up drunk to practice, I’ll fall asleep this instant if I drink that, I’ll vomit this instant if I drink that.

The outcome?

I just don’t think you can say no to a shot when you’re drinking for someone’s dead soul. I think I’m going to have a masa for my mom in may, to which I plan on inviting Agripinia, and getting her back for this. Does this mean her dead husband, who was run over by a horse 8 years ago, will be drunk up there with my mom? I think that’s what they believe.

Below you'll find more pictures, some from the last night of living deliberately, and when we took Scott’s host family out to a crazy fancy restaurant in Chisinau. In fact it’s the only fancy restaurant in Chisinau. They’re villagers, who have been to a restaurant once before in their lives, so for obvious reasons, this was a big deal for them. Here are some pictures of both nights, two highlights of my time here so far.

View: Moldova

Scott's family at a fancy-pants restaurant in Chisinau.
Scott and I cooked garlic bread in the oven of my soba (fire) on my last night. More below.
We opened up our last bottle of wine from our vacation, a first cru wine from Beaune, France. We prepared a pretty damn good meal for what we were working with, but still couldn't help but laugh often at the fact that we're drinking such a serious bottle of wine in a house that is made of clay. (Note: I urged Scott to move the Kraft parmesian cheese off the table for the picture. I was feeling domestic, proud that we'd cooked all of this with the conditions we were working with. I didn't want to remember that we topped off our Moldovan-lifestyle meal with an American store bought product. But, alas, I've been revealed. You can see it there, right next to Scott on the bed.[Scott, what were you thinking??])
Is there not something hysterical about a baba talking on a radio phone?
This is how I moved my wood to my new house. Those boys are two of my basketball kids, and my new baba, Nina, is there in between them. Riding in that with my wood and coal, through the village, was full of laughs. From the boys, Sergui and Pavel, who couldn't get over how exciting it was for me. From all the neighbors, who had no idea why there was a foreign girl sitting on wood on their street, and more importantly, from the teachers at school who were outside when we passed by. I think the fact that the American was riding in this horse and 'carriage' was something they'll never get over. They felt accomplished, and so did I.

Saturday, February 10, 2007


More pictures of Larissa in her cellar. This is one of the two large barrels of wine, over 800 liters, produced by Larissa and her husband Gheorge, this summer.
Scott's host grandfather toasting to him on his birthday. He's a character--he served in WWII in the Soviet army. "I met an American before you and Scott, it was 1945 in Berlin. He had white teeth and clean fingernails." He also plays the harmonica.
This is the castle in Soroca, the city next to my village. It's older than our country. In fact, it's twice as old. Built to protect against the Turks, people were beheaded right outside, on the banks of the Nistru river, where you can see the Ukraine right across the way. Come visit!

Told ya I'd get better with this.

My new house! And I have it all to myself...Next door there is a house that looks exactly the same, where my new gazda lives. [see below]
And that's my new Baba. Doamna Agripina. I made her smile, Moldovans don't usually do that sort of thing in pictures. The bread and sweets she's sitting next to will be taken to the church today, for a day of mourning of the death of loved ones. They bring food and have a big masa [dinner party], and they believe they have to eat to fuel the soul of the dead person they are honoring.
This is Larissa again, can't ya tell I have a thing for her? She's the sweetest. She's in her cellar, surrounded by all the bottles of food they make for the winter. Moldovans spend their whole summers preparing these bottles since they don't have access to vegetables in winter. Larissa is very proud of her cellar, she invites anyone who comes over to see it.

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

More pictures!

Scott's host mom, Larissa. I've seen her breasts, have you?

My first host dad, Anatoli Ioncu. The second in the series: Moldovans at work. The reason you should come to Moldova in June...
Scott doing Tae Kwon Doe with my 9th graders.

Playing dress up. (It gets boring sometimes, ok?)

Finally!

The party that greeted me upon my arrival to Rublenita, where I live now
This is my first host family in Mitoc, where I stayed during training
Sheep...as promised
One of the still existing statues of Lenin in the south of Moldova

My first Moldovan neighbor, and the beginning of my series: Moldovans at work

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.