The Last Trip

I'll start this entry about my nine days of vacation with my favorite story from times spent in and around Moldova with friends.

Two Fridays ago we went up to a town located forty-five minutes north of Chisinau called Orhei for the going-away party of a girl in my group who, sadly, will be leaving us early. We all, five of us in total, took a mini-bus to the town after putting our sleeping bags in the back before leaving the bus-station in the capital. So we got out in Orhei, made our way the fifteen minutes to the house, and twenty seconds after walking in a guy with us got a panicked look in his face and remarked how he had forgotten his sleeping bag on the mini-bus. It took me a quarter-second to realize that I also was responsible for one and had forgotten it as well.

So we took off to the bus-station and spoke to a girl there who told us that the mini-bus we came in on had gone to the final parking lot for the night and gave us directions there. We went to one lot – not the right one – and from there got directions for the final one. We walked up to the people working there, explained them our situation, and they allowed us to walk around to find our ride and which we discovered within seconds. The men working there were not really sure what to do but were very helpful, making calls and eventually telling us that either the driver would come with the key or we would have to wait until 10:00 the next morning. A few minutes later they gave us the good news, that we would have to wait only ten minutes to get our things.

To thank the driver for coming back to help us my friend and I went to the store and bought a bottle of beer and when the driver (an elderly, shorter guy) opened the door and let us take the bags I gave him the bottle and said, “For your help.” He got a little smirk on his face, brightened up a bit, and made this sound that Moldovans do which is like a long, drawn out “hey” but without the “h”. I responded by shrugging my shoulders with a bigger smile and saying a slightly higher-pitched version of the “hey”. It was classic.

Notes (rather than a blow-by-blow of the whole vacation, I'll list off the highlights):
- As written about in my last entry, on April 27th we celebrated Orthodox Easter here in Moldova. I went with a friend of mine to visit a girl in the south of Moldova. We arrived on Saturday and went to the church to join the people in the village at the church at 3:00 in the morning, having gone to sleep at 10:30 the night before. We were there for an hour and a half, watching the cross being carried around the church with the 400 or so people also gathered there while the priest also sprayed down everything and everyone with holy water. After that we returned to the house we were staying at for a little meal and two shots of vodka (at 5:15 in the morning). We returned to sleep and rested all day before having the big meal at 4:00 in the afternoon, four of us Americans sitting around talking with each-other and with the parents of a buddy of mine who called while we were there.

- We spent two nights, three days in the town of Vadul lui Voda, which I previously described as the Breezy Point of Moldova. It was a plan dependent on the weather: good weather would be a great time, bad weather would put a serious damper on the occasion. Well, it rained non-stop for two days, leaving us with nothing to do but sit around all day, go on walks when the weather cleared for a while, and sat in the sauna for two hours a night. Of the three, I'll let you guess what was the most enjoyable.

- Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of the week marked four of the best evenings I've had in my three years. On Thursday night a group of fifteen of us went to a disco in Chisinau where they had salsa dancing, a great time. I had no idea how to do it upon walking in the door but a good friend of mine here is a girlfriend from San Diego who turned out to be a proficient teacher. On Friday it was that aforementioned party at the house where I was 100% in my element, walking around with a drink in one hand while talking to the fifty or so other volunteers who I knew there. It was great to just go from room to room in this huge house, chatting up groups of people. On Saturday night (after a three hour nap in the afternoon) we went to a bar where we heard an amazing Doors cover band. And on Sunday we went 120 miles to the north of Moldova to a town called Glodeni for a Cinco de Mayo celebration with another twenty volunteers.

- On my way home from Chisinau on Monday I saw a sight I never expected to see in my village. We were on the road in on a mini-bus when, on the side of the road, I saw three people, clearly tourists and all holding stuffed frame-packs with lost looks on their faces. As we drove by they started to point the other way and I saw them mouth in English, “Are you going there?” I didn't do anything and just continued to sit for the final few minutes to my house. I have – and will never have – any idea what they were doing in Hirjauca.

- I've written before about how in the last month or so I've started running, mainly as an effective means of passing the time but also to get some exercise. My stamina is getting pretty good – I'm up to fifty minutes, three times a week, while adding five minutes per week until I hit an hour. Naturally, this much time spent on the road leads to some interesting reactions

The most basic reaction, especially from the elderly crowd, is disbelief; most people have no idea why any person would want to waste their time by running (although basically, they can't comprehend it because no one around here really has time to run as there is just too much work). There can also be some mis-comprehension, as people will stop me on their horse-drawn carts or cars offer to stop and pick me up, thinking I'm running to/from something. And for my kids . . . it's usually a combination of shock and awe. And just yesterday a drunk guy – from the front seat of the van he was driving – yelled at me that 'vodka is the other way.'

- There's two articles that we've been shown that I'll pass along links to: the first one is general just about the Peace Corps. I actually agree with eighty percent of what he says. The second one applies directly to Moldova and is really interesting while being very sad at the same time.

- My host-brothers wedding in next Saturday and I'm as excited about it as I've been about anything in a long time.

- My favorite part of vacation was written about at the start of this entry but my favorite part of my time spent in my village happened on my visit to Grandpa on Wednesday afternoon. I think that my favorite moments with him are when I say something that makes him really, really laugh, when he leans back a little with his mouth open – those times are great for me.

I was lucky this week because I had two such moments. First, when talking about my host-brothers wedding next Saturday, I asked him if we would be there and he responded that he didn't know about the transport there and back. I told him that if no one came for him I would bring him and he answered that he can't because of his knees – I told him that I'll carry him on my back for the two miles of no one comes, which elicited the first laughter from him. Then I told him that at the wedding there will be a lot of girls and maybe we, me and eighty-one year old grandpa, can find girls there.

He laughed so hard it was likely the best part of his week. It certainly was the best part of mine.