What Do You Mean, "Different"?
When asked what the differences between life in American and life in Moldova, one thing I always need to be conscious of is the fact that in America I live in a city of 2.5 million - here the amount of people who live in the twenty-five square mile around my house is maybe - maybe - two thousand people. So a lot of the differences I see are not necessarily "America and Moldova" differences than they are "Big Town and Small Town" differences.
For example, last Wednesday several students from my school came over and helped my host mom and brother with grapes, picking and loading them (more in this at two locations farther down). Because the father in my family tragically died in July, the students are more than willing to go out of their way to help with work that would have otherwise been done by the husband. Although I can’t say for certain, it seems like the type of thing that would take place in rural-America if a family there was in a similar situation.
Also, people always ask me how we work in America, if we work in America like we work in the village. When I say ‘no’ people usually are surprised a little, but then I remind them that people who live in Chisinau (capital of Moldova) don’t work like we work in the village and that people in what amounts to rural America definitely, without a doubt, work as hard as people in the village here.
Notes:
- Last Friday evening was one of the best and worse few hours that I’ve had, and it was the same event. First my host family - four people total - worked for five hours in the field picking and stacking 750 pounds of grapes to sell to a company that, once a year, comes to the village to buy extra grapes. I then helped only for an hour in the evening, carrying crates of grapes back and forth. That wasn’t too bad.
Then, about 9:00 at night after I had returned home and was sitting with my host sister-in-law my host brother came in and asked me if I wanted to do something with grapes - he was a little light on the details. All he told me was to bring a jacket because it was going to be cold - I of course ignored him, not knowing just what I was getting into but figuring that it would not be too bad and that a t-shirt would suffice. I thought that if I worked, I wouldn’t be cold (the temperature was hovering around 35 degrees).
Well, we went to an intersection in the village where there a huge refrigerated truck run by the aforementioned company ready to buy our grapes. First, after waiting there for 45 or so minutes (outside, in the aforementioned temperature), some guy in a huge truck drove my host brother and I to our grapes where my host mom was waiting - there we spent a half-hour loading the grapes onto the truck, only to return to the intersection and wait for them to load our grapes. It was a painfully slow process to endure, as we were third in line and had to wait two hours - first people had to load grapes onto a scale, then wait while they were weighed, then move the grapes from the scale to the truck, then onto the scale again. As a result, my family (the last of the evening to load their grapes) didn’t go home until 1:00 in the morning. The company paid only eleven cents per pound for the grapes, almost criminally low considering the amount of work that is required to harvest the grapes - my family was paid 300 dollars for 2800 pounds of grapes.
I spent the evening standing in the cold wearing just a t-shirt, cold but not too terribly uncomfortable. Of course, everyone thought I was totally insane, including my host mom who was convinced that I will die. Of course, I’m alive and well.
- On Saturday in the village next to mine was the храм, the day of the village (I say the village next to mine but I have no idea where one village ends and the other begins - nonetheless, people are very specific about the difference).
I was lucky enough to spent the days with two girls who I teach, one in tenth grade and the other in eleventh. On Friday after school we were working a little together and they invited me to come with them the following day to their homes to eat and just hang-out after our lesson (we work together on Saturday at school). It was a great day - we met at school at 12:30 for the lesson, went to the first girl’s home at 4:00, ate and drank and talked until 7:00, then went to the home of the other girl until 10:00, where we ate and drank more. The amount of food that is prepared for events such as this has to be seen to be believed - it is totally amazing. There were only three of us eating at both houses, just me and the girls (for some reason the parents didn’t join us), but there was enough food to comfortably feed six of seven people. It was insane to think about the amount of preparation that goes into such an event.
Then in the evening I went with the two girls to the largest central location in the village - the aforementioned intersection - where there was a large crowd of people gathered to celebrate the day. A lot of my students were there, and I spent the time just chatting and hanging out until 2:00 AM, one girls father finally gave me a ride home. It was the second day in a row that I was stuck in the center of the other village until the early parts of the morning - thankfully, the circumstances behind the second day were for more pleasant than the first. When I go to Chisinau next and have faster internet, I’ll post pictures of me and the two girls with whom I spent the day.
- My host mom - and people in general - think I’m totally crazy for the way in which I dress in the cold weather. What they don’t realize is that I’ve seen colder weather than any of them have other seen, that when I was young and school was cancelled from the cold my brothers and I would go play outside in temperatures approaching 40 degrees negative.
- I’ll end by saying that, much like I’m sure it is in the Midwest, it’s officially gotten cold here in the village. I’ve already written about the cold night I spent stuck in a t-shirt, but more than that, the temperature dips down to about 32 degrees every day. This week we’ve finally ‘turned on’ our heat. Our heating source for the house consists of a large (eight feet by six feet) brick oven in which we burn wood. It’s tough to describe exactly (much like many things here, it simply needs to be seen to believe), but pipes leave emit from the oven through every room in the house, actually keeping things warm. The temperature gets to about 60 degrees in the house, much warmer than the temperature at which I kept my house in college.
For example, last Wednesday several students from my school came over and helped my host mom and brother with grapes, picking and loading them (more in this at two locations farther down). Because the father in my family tragically died in July, the students are more than willing to go out of their way to help with work that would have otherwise been done by the husband. Although I can’t say for certain, it seems like the type of thing that would take place in rural-America if a family there was in a similar situation.
Also, people always ask me how we work in America, if we work in America like we work in the village. When I say ‘no’ people usually are surprised a little, but then I remind them that people who live in Chisinau (capital of Moldova) don’t work like we work in the village and that people in what amounts to rural America definitely, without a doubt, work as hard as people in the village here.
Notes:
- Last Friday evening was one of the best and worse few hours that I’ve had, and it was the same event. First my host family - four people total - worked for five hours in the field picking and stacking 750 pounds of grapes to sell to a company that, once a year, comes to the village to buy extra grapes. I then helped only for an hour in the evening, carrying crates of grapes back and forth. That wasn’t too bad.
Then, about 9:00 at night after I had returned home and was sitting with my host sister-in-law my host brother came in and asked me if I wanted to do something with grapes - he was a little light on the details. All he told me was to bring a jacket because it was going to be cold - I of course ignored him, not knowing just what I was getting into but figuring that it would not be too bad and that a t-shirt would suffice. I thought that if I worked, I wouldn’t be cold (the temperature was hovering around 35 degrees).
Well, we went to an intersection in the village where there a huge refrigerated truck run by the aforementioned company ready to buy our grapes. First, after waiting there for 45 or so minutes (outside, in the aforementioned temperature), some guy in a huge truck drove my host brother and I to our grapes where my host mom was waiting - there we spent a half-hour loading the grapes onto the truck, only to return to the intersection and wait for them to load our grapes. It was a painfully slow process to endure, as we were third in line and had to wait two hours - first people had to load grapes onto a scale, then wait while they were weighed, then move the grapes from the scale to the truck, then onto the scale again. As a result, my family (the last of the evening to load their grapes) didn’t go home until 1:00 in the morning. The company paid only eleven cents per pound for the grapes, almost criminally low considering the amount of work that is required to harvest the grapes - my family was paid 300 dollars for 2800 pounds of grapes.
I spent the evening standing in the cold wearing just a t-shirt, cold but not too terribly uncomfortable. Of course, everyone thought I was totally insane, including my host mom who was convinced that I will die. Of course, I’m alive and well.
- On Saturday in the village next to mine was the храм, the day of the village (I say the village next to mine but I have no idea where one village ends and the other begins - nonetheless, people are very specific about the difference).
I was lucky enough to spent the days with two girls who I teach, one in tenth grade and the other in eleventh. On Friday after school we were working a little together and they invited me to come with them the following day to their homes to eat and just hang-out after our lesson (we work together on Saturday at school). It was a great day - we met at school at 12:30 for the lesson, went to the first girl’s home at 4:00, ate and drank and talked until 7:00, then went to the home of the other girl until 10:00, where we ate and drank more. The amount of food that is prepared for events such as this has to be seen to be believed - it is totally amazing. There were only three of us eating at both houses, just me and the girls (for some reason the parents didn’t join us), but there was enough food to comfortably feed six of seven people. It was insane to think about the amount of preparation that goes into such an event.
Then in the evening I went with the two girls to the largest central location in the village - the aforementioned intersection - where there was a large crowd of people gathered to celebrate the day. A lot of my students were there, and I spent the time just chatting and hanging out until 2:00 AM, one girls father finally gave me a ride home. It was the second day in a row that I was stuck in the center of the other village until the early parts of the morning - thankfully, the circumstances behind the second day were for more pleasant than the first. When I go to Chisinau next and have faster internet, I’ll post pictures of me and the two girls with whom I spent the day.
- My host mom - and people in general - think I’m totally crazy for the way in which I dress in the cold weather. What they don’t realize is that I’ve seen colder weather than any of them have other seen, that when I was young and school was cancelled from the cold my brothers and I would go play outside in temperatures approaching 40 degrees negative.
- I’ll end by saying that, much like I’m sure it is in the Midwest, it’s officially gotten cold here in the village. I’ve already written about the cold night I spent stuck in a t-shirt, but more than that, the temperature dips down to about 32 degrees every day. This week we’ve finally ‘turned on’ our heat. Our heating source for the house consists of a large (eight feet by six feet) brick oven in which we burn wood. It’s tough to describe exactly (much like many things here, it simply needs to be seen to believe), but pipes leave emit from the oven through every room in the house, actually keeping things warm. The temperature gets to about 60 degrees in the house, much warmer than the temperature at which I kept my house in college.
posted by Andy Buchanan at 6:20 AM
3 Comments:
Amazing blog!
I admire people like you, giving up all the comfort in the US and going overseas to help others.
Keep writing about experiences in Moldova. I'll be one of your permanent readers.
All the best in my country Moldova!
Andy,
Your grape loading experience reminds me of when I worked in the produce warehouse. It was always cool where we sorted the produce to remove the over-ripe stuff but it just a little above freezing in the coolers and they always had the refrigerator fans going. But I got used to it and usually just wore a T-shirt like you did, after a little scampering around and climbing up the racks I felt "Comfortable", just like a cucmber !
Love,
Dad
Soon it will be -40 I will send pictures that you can show your host family. Ho long till you get to drinl the grapes in the form of wine?
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