Let me tell you about the open market (here they are known as the 'piața'). The piața here in Falesti is where you get ALL your fruits and vegetables, if you don't have a garden. There are no supermarkets, zero. We have many little shops, known as 'magazin's' but they solely carry bread, milk, cheese, beer, chips, chocolate and on occasion ketchup. Therefore, we all must make the trip into the centru (center of town) to cumpăra (buy) our fruits and veggies. I consider myself to be a relatively courageous young woman, but for some reason the piața is a place where my blood pressure spikes and I become uneasy. I don't know where this timidness comes from, I find it mildly ridiculous really. A grown woman getting nervous to go buy some tomatoes from a local farmer. I realize it has a lot to do with my lack of language skills BUT this is something I really shouldn't have any issue with. The piața is an organized chaos of produce, farmers, shoppers, cars, horse-drawn carts...and me. I would love to think of myself as that natural traveler, the person who can easily and happily blend into their newest setting with ease, a chameleon. My odd fear of the piața is one of my more obvious down-falls to reaching my "chameleon status".
So, after avoiding entering the piața up until this point I took a page from my dad's play book and decided my only option was to "buck up". I prepared, I brought my plaid-plastic shopping bag, I had my change purse at the ready, I was going to do this once and for all. I also wore my big sunglasses, the ones that cover nearly half my face. I was under the impression that perhaps by wearing the sunglasses they could act like my invisibility cloak, the childish "I can't see you, you can't see me" game.
I worked up the courage and walked over to a vendor. I asked for three tomatoes. She thought I had requested 3 kilograms, I quickly corrected my language blunder. I was doing good, this wasn't so bad. I was gaining confidence, I could continue ordering, I could totally do this! I ordered a kilogram of bananas. At this point I didn't want to push my luck any further and decided to cash out. The woman asked for 15lei and I clumsily handed her the bills. She then asked for 30lei...what? I looked at her confused and handed her one more lei to see if that appeased her. Than she snarled "treizeci de ban". OH, she wanted thirty cents. I smiled and fumbled with my coin purse looking for 30 cents in change. I was too late, she had found me very annoying and decided she was going to share my story of confusion with all the locals within ear shot. The story was quickly making its way down the row of merchants, while I was standing there, with hot cheeks and an accelerated heart rate, looking for the damn change. I finally found it and tried to hand it to her, she waved me away, I was clearly wasting her precious time. I smiled, slid the coins back into my purse, grabbed my bag, and high tailed it out of there before I could make more of a fool of myself.
My sunglasses failed me. I couldn't have been more visible had I worn a shirt that said "Eu sînt americanca" (I am American). I think my scarlet red cheeks spoke for themselves. As my walk to work came to an end and my cheeks had regained their normal color I thought to myself: Well, I have two years, it had to happen at some point, I will try again next week...and go to a different vendor. Maybe someday I will leave my sunglasses at home. I realize they don't act as a shield and they are actually quite see through, but for now if nothing else they will act as my security blanket, my figurative-invisibility cloak.
~ Happy Shopping
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