Last week I took a adventure down to southern Moldova to visit a few volunteer friends.
The first stop was in the village of Taraclia where my friend Kerry lives. Kerry lives with a host grandma also known as a 'baba'. Baba was a character, she is 78 years old but looks and acts about 102. She is a little old lady who walks arched back with a cane. She spends her days puttering around the yard and garden watching over her chick-lings and looking after her great grand children. She is a true Moldovan character. I have been lucky to live with a host mom who speaks very clean Romanian with me, she rarely uses Russian words when we talk. Kerry's Baba was not at all like this. She spoke the epitome of Moldovaneste. I think one of her favorite activites while I was there was making circles around the front yard speaking and the third person saying: 'Oh Baba, my legs hurt. Oh, I want to die. Oh, why haven't I died?' ...She was a funny little character.
The first evening I was there Kerry had a jewelry club meeting. A group of elementary school girls came over to her house and we spent the evening making bracelets and earrings and talking about their summer plans. We prepared white chocolate covered popcorn for the girls, that was a huge hit!
Later that day we went for long walks around the village exploring wheat fields and seeing the outskirts of the village. The following day we even went on a long walk to find a pond, but the adventure ended in us giving up and settling for a shaded spot in the woods to lay our picnic.
The highlight of the visit was when one of Kerry's neighbor came over to her house for a visit and invited us to go over to his house to see his new piglets. I was a little wary given the man had clearly had served himself a few glasses of house wine, but Kerry assured us that he was friendly and didn't mean anything by his appearance. So, all three of us girls headed over to his house after dinner to look at his pigs. He was such a funny man. He chased after the piglets until he finally caught one for us to hold. He cared a lot about his animals and he refereed to them as his 'dears' and his 'loves'. After we were satisfied with the amount of piggy lovin' he showed us into his home where we were drank some of his house wine and spoke with him about life in Moldova.He was sad to see us go, but after awhile we decided that we had shared enough house wine and it was time to head home.
The second portion of my visit to the south involved a long five hour routiera (mini-bus) ride down to the biggest city in the south, Cahul. Though the bus ride was long it gave me a chance to see the landscape in the south. I found it to be generally flatter with larger expanses of farming land between villages.
Cahul is a pretty little city. While there we went on a tour of the local bread and beer factory. It was interesting to see the process and we were lucky enough to get to try all the products being produced. The rest of the time we spent enjoying each others company, walking through the city, and taking cover from the rain showers that came pouring down.
In all it was a great and culturally infused trip. We saw the stark contrast between very rural village Moldova and relatively urban Moldova. It was great to get a chance to see these parts of Moldova, I haven't seen yet, before it is time to leave.
All for now, peace.
The first stop was in the village of Taraclia where my friend Kerry lives. Kerry lives with a host grandma also known as a 'baba'. Baba was a character, she is 78 years old but looks and acts about 102. She is a little old lady who walks arched back with a cane. She spends her days puttering around the yard and garden watching over her chick-lings and looking after her great grand children. She is a true Moldovan character. I have been lucky to live with a host mom who speaks very clean Romanian with me, she rarely uses Russian words when we talk. Kerry's Baba was not at all like this. She spoke the epitome of Moldovaneste. I think one of her favorite activites while I was there was making circles around the front yard speaking and the third person saying: 'Oh Baba, my legs hurt. Oh, I want to die. Oh, why haven't I died?' ...She was a funny little character.
The first evening I was there Kerry had a jewelry club meeting. A group of elementary school girls came over to her house and we spent the evening making bracelets and earrings and talking about their summer plans. We prepared white chocolate covered popcorn for the girls, that was a huge hit!
Later that day we went for long walks around the village exploring wheat fields and seeing the outskirts of the village. The following day we even went on a long walk to find a pond, but the adventure ended in us giving up and settling for a shaded spot in the woods to lay our picnic.
The highlight of the visit was when one of Kerry's neighbor came over to her house for a visit and invited us to go over to his house to see his new piglets. I was a little wary given the man had clearly had served himself a few glasses of house wine, but Kerry assured us that he was friendly and didn't mean anything by his appearance. So, all three of us girls headed over to his house after dinner to look at his pigs. He was such a funny man. He chased after the piglets until he finally caught one for us to hold. He cared a lot about his animals and he refereed to them as his 'dears' and his 'loves'. After we were satisfied with the amount of piggy lovin' he showed us into his home where we were drank some of his house wine and spoke with him about life in Moldova.He was sad to see us go, but after awhile we decided that we had shared enough house wine and it was time to head home.
The second portion of my visit to the south involved a long five hour routiera (mini-bus) ride down to the biggest city in the south, Cahul. Though the bus ride was long it gave me a chance to see the landscape in the south. I found it to be generally flatter with larger expanses of farming land between villages.
Cahul is a pretty little city. While there we went on a tour of the local bread and beer factory. It was interesting to see the process and we were lucky enough to get to try all the products being produced. The rest of the time we spent enjoying each others company, walking through the city, and taking cover from the rain showers that came pouring down.
In all it was a great and culturally infused trip. We saw the stark contrast between very rural village Moldova and relatively urban Moldova. It was great to get a chance to see these parts of Moldova, I haven't seen yet, before it is time to leave.
All for now, peace.
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