As much as my the kids are adjusting to life in Moldova, it was firmly established this morning that they’ll always be truly American when Little Man said:
Cheese is my favorite vegetable!
We’re looking forward to our little trip ‘home’ this August, I’m just hoping I can convince the kids to get on the plane to come back to Moldova afterwards.
A week ago we sent Bean and Little Man to the village again to stay with “Tante Lora,” and 3 cousins. The cousins are all between 18 and 22 years old, so the kids had lots of good attention there.
Here’s Bean holding a baby chick.
And Little Man playing the drums.
The first thing Bean said to me when she got home was “Mama, Tante L0ra thinks I’m going to be a princess when I grow up. But that’s not true. I’m going to be a firefighter!” I’m not sure where that came from, but I do know their Romanian is now almost as good as mine. In one week’s time. In one week they went from simple phrases to complex sentences involving time sequencing and conditionals… Sounds like we’ll be sending them again in a few more weeks – it’s good for them.
As for me, I hung out with Bruiser at home. Did some document editing. And I’m working on teaching Bruiser not to throw things. We’re not making much progress. He really likes to throw things. And he giggles like mad when he gets in trouble – I went so far as to smack his little hand, and he thought it was a game (he likes to pull on electric chords too – that called for a smacked hand, or as Bruiser calls it, a new game). So next I grabbed his hand, gave him a firm no, and held his hand a minute so he couldn’t take it away. He cried until I gave his hand back, but then that was a game too.
It’s been ages since I’ve posted on the blog, and I’m sorry about that. I’ll try to do better. But these days we’re not online very often. In fact, we’ll be online even less, because while the kids were gone a new playground was installed in front of our apartment building. We’ll be there a lot these days. It’s shaded, and there’s no rust. Very very exciting.
… with some kind of homemade pasta mixed with beaten eggs and fried pancake-style . Apparently it’s ‘pretty good.’ I wouldn’t know, but my kids would. They’re in the village for a few days staying with hubbs’ aunt. The whole goat milk thing sent a little shiver down my spine, till I heard about the pasta-egg-pancake thing. But hey, at least someone thinks it’s ‘pretty good.’ Glad I’m not the one who gets to make that observation.
Kids come home tomorrow, and there are rumors that we’ll be getting gas back by the end of the week. Here’s hoping for hot food. Mmm… I bought myself some downright delish eggplant salad yesterday for dinner, and hubbs bought himself a smoked salted fish. (Ewww!) It only took a few hours to get the smell out of the apartment.
Assuming we get gas back, we may escape the water shut-off. The “president” of the building (I guess something like a president of a homeowners association) came by last night. She means business. I was a little frightened. She promised that she’ll take care of things with the gas company right away and the sum owed for gas back-payment is less than 1/2 what it used to be. We’ll see if she can work her magic with the water company before they turn us into a dry building. Here’s hoping.
If not, I may end up this weekend in the village with the kids. Drinking goat milk and eating egg-pasta pancakes. And drawing water from the well. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. My kids are half Moldovan – they can handle it. I’m full-blooded American. I can take a lot of things, but I have to draw the line somewhere, right? Of course here in the city we still share our neighborhood with a herd of goats who like the same lake-shore we do, but that’s a subject for another post.
Remember how we moved to this great new apartment that’s in the perfect location and has a great kitchen and we love it? Well, on Monday our gas was turned off, meaning we can’t cook. We have a gas oven and stove, so we’ve been eating a lot of fresh salads, sandwiches, and canned corn lately. Yum. Well, yum and kind of fun the first day and a half, but now it’s becoming abnoxious.
Today we saw a notice posted on the door. Soon they’ll be turning off our running water. What happens is that when someone doesn’t pay their bill, the utility company can’t turn off utilities to that apartment alone, they have to turn it off to the entire building. So because one or two apartment rack up an unpaid bill, the entire building (about 180 apartments) loses utilities.
We’re handling the gas deal. We needed to replace our oven anyway, so when we do we’ll get one of the newfangled ones with a combination of gas and electric. But when the water goes, I’m done. I started to propose to hubbs that we take a little trek to the village when the water gets shut off, till I remembered – the village has no running water either. I give up.
I’m not sure how accurate my assessment is, but it seems to me that there’s of community here similar to that which exists in the army. You know, if one guy doesn’t shine his shoes they all do push-ups? Here, if one guy doesn’t pay his bill, he and all his neighbors lose service. And yes, the notice about the upcoming imposed water shortage does indeed name which apartment didn’t pay and how much their bill is. I’m hoping peer pressure is as powerful and effective in my apartment block as it was in 9th grade.
… you’re the pastor’s wife and you’ve invited someone from the church over for dinner, and an hour before your guests show you find that you have no gas to cook with?
Hubbs had just come back from the store with chicken, mushrooms, carrots, etc… I had just started chopping the carrots when I tried to turn the stove on and – thwarted! – it didn’t work. I got angry at the stove first, then reason set in. I knocked on the neighbor’s door and found out that – sure enough – gas to the whole block is shut off.
So, company is already on the way, what’s a girl to do? I made a giant bowl of cole slaw, and I had hubbs call our guest and meet him a block down the street at a sidewalk cafe that sells amazing pastries – savory cheese, potato, and cabbage pastries and sweet cherry-pie like pastries. They met there and brought home dinner for us, along with the monstrous bowl o’ slaw I’d whipped up.
I have to say, I felt a little guilty serving a meal that was so unsophisticated, but when it came time for clean-up and we were done in 10 minutes flat, I figured this whole no gas thing isn’t so bad!
We had a little trek today that was oh, so, typically Moldovan. We went to evening church today for an ‘international’ service – basically, church in English with American-style Sunday School. Living on the other side of town, and traveling with 3 small kids, we took a trolleybus – the method of transport for the ‘working class,’ students, the elderly – basically for those whose wallets are challenged.
Now, one of the things about trolleys is that they don’t always come very often and when they do, you better be ready. So hubbs had Bean and Bruiser up the street from me on our way to the trolley bus stop, which was maybe half a kilometer away. As I hung back with Little Man trying to hurry him along, I looked up only to see trolley #23 coming our way. So, with me in my heels and skirt and Little Man doing his best hunched over slow motion run, I knew we weren’t going to make it at that pace. I swept my 36 pound toddler up into my arms and sprinted the whole half kilometer over uneven sidewalk – it might as well have been cobbled – in my 2″ heels. The trolley won, but at least the driver had enough pity to wait 30 seconds on me and my slow sprinting self. Those 30 seconds – wondering if he’d take off without me in spite of my efforts – were torturous. The #23 trolley doesn’t come so often, which is why it’s quite normal to see people in a full on sprint to the bus stop – elderly, people with young children, people hobbling on a walking stick. When the trolley comes, you want to be on it, not waiting for the next one. Moldovans will break out into a full throttle run in their best suit just to make it to the trolley.
Once I was on, (huffing and puffing) I pulled Little Man up into my lap for the long ride to church. A couple stops before ours two little boys got on with their mom – probably 6 and 8 years old. The boys sat next to me and noticed the spiderman toy in Little Man’s hand. The older one started telling me – in an extraordinarily excited voice – about a pet spider his friend had once and the spider bit this other kid and it was a black spider and really furry and on and on, getting louder and more excited as he told me more details… His mom eventually hushed him, at which point he offered us some of his cherries, which we politely declined. (It’s impolite to accept a first offer – you have to wait until the 2nd or 3rd offer to accept.) And soon he was asking us where we were going. “We’re going to church,” I said. The little boy’s face dropped. “That’s awful. What a nightmare!”
Church carries lots of senses for Moldovans – an exercise in futility, something you do to make your grandparents happy, a place to be still and quiet and pinch your nose against the wafting incense, a corrupt institution, a good way to end your career, a place to be beaten over the head with all the things you’ve done wrong… A large, furry biting spider is still more nightmarish in my eyes, but then hey, what do I know?
There are 3 modes of public transport in Chisinau. Trolleybuses are electric-powered buses that run on regular roads with electric lines over them. Bus rides are a little more expensive but much more comfortable than trolleys, but both buses and trolleybuses have few routes. Often the only way to get to where you want to go directly is with a marshrutka – it’s Russian for ‘route’. They’re converted vans that run on numbered routes and that’s how we ususally get where we need to go.
I’ve never had a problem on a marshrutka. You get on, pay 3 lei (about a quarter), and when you get to where you’re going you ask the driver to stop. Easy. In fact the first week I was here the first time I was in Moldova (in 2001) I got lost on one of these. The driver was at the end of his shift and kindly took me all the way home after he’d dropped off his other passengers.
Yesterday’s ride was a different story. I took Bean and Little Man with me to a discipleship group meeting on the other side of town. Kids ride for free up to 7 years old on any public transport. But on my way home the driver – we’ll call him Driver Man Joe – yelled at me for something when I got on. What with his mumbled slang, I didn’t get it. So I asked him to please explain, which started him on another tirade, and then he refused to take my money for the fare. I sat quietly smooshing the kids together on my lap – I’d figured out that he didn’t like me taking up so much space with my 2 well-behaved quiet children.
As we drove on a little boy outside chased his ball across the road, causing the driver to have to slow down ever so slightly. Driver man Joe pulled over, leaned out the window and called the boy (maybe 8 years old) over to the window. Being the obedient child he was, he came, much to his disadvantage. The driver yelled at him for going into the road, then leaned out the window and snatched the boy’s ball out of his hand and quickly drove off. The boy flinched as Joe stole his ball – Joe was pretty darn mean-looking. As we drove off the other passengers asked Joe to give the ball back and then began to berate him for being so mean to children – stealing the boy’s ball, yelling at me about bringing kids on his bus – they defended me, which felt pretty good. In the end he let the passengers give the ball back, but it had to be thrown out a window because he wouldn’t slow down for it.
When we were almost home and the marshrutka was almost empty I apologized for offending and asked him to kindly take my fare for the ride. He started yelling again, and this time, listening more closely – I got it. He was mad that I had 2 free kids with only 1 paying adult. So I offered him a second fare, explaining that I didn’t know… his rule isn’t the standard… if only I’d known… yada yada yada.
He continued yelling, and then as he turned a corner going in a direction I didn’t need to go, I asked him to stop. Driver man Joe was mad that I asked him after he turned instead of before. If I wanted to get off I should have done it before he turned. So he kept driving. Two blocks later he let me and the kids out and we walked the 2 blocks back to the main road, and then the 1/2 mile or so back home.
Let me assure you, if you’re worried – drivers don’t typically do that. In fact, I’ve never met a driver like Driver Man Joe. And just in case, I won’t be taking any white marshrutkas numbered 108 again – just to avoid Driver Man Joe.
There’s a widespread idea among service providers and vendors here that the customer is a nuissance. That very attitude will challenge Moldova’s integration into the European sphere, the global economy, and the tourist industry. People come to visit, spend their money, invest in the local economy, and are treated as an annoyance to the very businesses who should be thankful for their patronage.
It isn’t like that everywhere, but it’s certainy widespread. And until vendors and service providers learn to cherish their customers as the reason they have a business, the country’s small businesses and individual vendors will continue to falter.
When I said that we were moving to some random village in who-knows-where? Where people have few teeth and electricity is a new concept?
Well…
What if I told you were actually moving? Not there exactly, but…
Well…
To a building next to the kids’ school!!! No more taxi rides, no more hour-long commutes on a crowded trolley starting at 7AM. And right across the street is one of the best parks in the city – complete with a lake where we can feed ducks or take paddle boat rides, a giant playground, miniature golf, and even a real golf course.
The rooms and the kitchen in our new place are bigger, and there’s more natural light in the new place. I’ll share pictures when we get there. We’ll be downgrading from 3 balconies to 2, and only one of them is enclosed. We’re also losing our washing machine, so that will be a priority purchase.
The most interesting thing about the apartment is that we’ll be using an elevator to get to it. And this is an elevator with character. Door opens, you step over a giant gaping crack where you can see the inner workings of the thing several floors down, step into a space that snug for just two people, you push a button that’s probably older than I am, and as the doors close the lights turn off. And you’re left. In pitch black. Not sure the kids will like that.
Thankfully we’re only on the 3rd floor, so we can just as easily take the stairs if we don’t have the stroller with us. We’ll be making the move either Saturday (tomorrow?!) afternoon or Monday, so my day today will be filled with laundry and tossing things into boxes.
Have I mentioned that me and the kids are all sick? And we have plans for shashlyk tomorrow morning? It’s a busy time here in Chisinau. And no worries – I’ll tell you about shashlyk and post pictures early next week. We have to get our internet moved to the new place, so I may be offline for a few days. See you soon, from our new digs!
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