POTD 42: Wineries

A trip to Moldova wouldn’t be complete without a visit to a winery, and this is a picture from my second Moldovan winery. Moldovans are very proud of their wine. Sometimes I feel like my assignment to Moldova was wasted on me since I’m not a big wine drinker. Nevertheless, I’ve enjoyed seeing the numerous vineyards along side the roads and visiting wineries. 

Beware of the Kitchen

Well, the snow has returned and with a vengeance. It was snowing quite hard on my walk to school; my face was stinging as the snow was blasting into my face. My whole walk to school, the snow was blowing into me. Good news is that my walk home was much more pleasant since the snow was hitting my back.

After I got home from school and warmed up a bit by the heater, I head downstairs to prepare some lunch. And Roman was in the kitchen, drinking glasses of wine to stay warm. Of course, he insists I join him. If Roman is in the kitchen (or comes to the kitchen when I’m there), he wants to drink. There’s no legit excuse for me to not drink. Once I’m home, he thinks I’m done with the day. Therefore, getting drunk at 2 o’clock is perfectly acceptable. This used to bother me a lot, but I’ve accepted that this is life here.

Today’s conversation was fun. He kept telling me my boobs are a nice size. FYI, you do not need to be able to translate Russian to understand when someone is talking about your boobs. He told me that small boobs weren’t good, and big boobs were good.

I don’t know which is worse: that he finds his behavior appropriate or that it doesn’t bother me any more. I’m going to need some serious help with integration when I return to America.

The Odd Couple

Whenever my host dad is in the mood for social drinking, he asks me to join me. So while drink Cognac together, we try to converse with each other. And as we are talking, we struggle with understanding each other seeing as he only speaks Russian (and very little Romanian) and I only speak English (and a little more Romanian than he can speak). So I’ve always thought that if you can understand Romanian, Russian, and English, you would find our conversation most ridiculous.

Tonight, as we were enjoying a bottle of Congac from our neighbor, Roman and I were arguing about Obama (who Roman thinks is low in evolution since he is black), pets (which I think are companions and he thinks are laborers), and American history (he thought he knew more since he was older and I though I knew more since I grew up in America).

During one of our arguments, my host mom walked in on us. As I suspected, we are hilarious to listen to. Since she understands Romanian and Russian, she understood most of our conversation; she was laughing so hard at us that she couldn't breathe.

Whenever we’re talking, I think I understand what is going, but who knows what is actually being said…except my host mom, who thinks it’s hilarious.

Old New Year

I didn’t miss it!! I was able to celebrate with my host family. Parascovia made a huge masă, and Roman barbequed some sausages. They invited several friends over to celebrate. As the guests arrived, they threw coins and rice on the floor as a symbol of good luck and lots of money in the coming year. Basically, we ate and we ate and we ate. I would eat and be full, and Parascovia would bring more food. I would eat again and be stuffed, and Parascovia would bring more food. So basically, there was a lot of food.

I talked with the guests as best I could, and they asked me about America. By the end of the masă, everyone had determined that I needed to find a Moldovan man to marry and remain in Moldova to continue working. I’m pretty sure this was meant as a compliment.

After the meal, Parascovia gave each guest a colac with a lit candle along with a handmade napkin and wished the person a happy and wonderful year. Colac is a braided-bread in the shape of a circle. It symbolizes “hospitality” and it’s used in a lot celebrations.

After this holiday season and several family celebrations, I think I can sum up most holidays and celebrations as everyone eating until they burst.

The Family Clown

I think my host father thinks I’m some kind of clown. He is always laughing at me, and I can’t figure out why. I’m used to being laughed at in America, but I always know why; I said something without thinking or was clumsy or something like that. But I never really know with my host father. Last night, we were drinking together and he would point to my sweatshirt and laugh. And then today, when I was leaving to go for a walk, he saw me all bundled up to go outside and laughed again. Sometimes, just randomly, he will look at me and laugh. My only response is usually just shrugging my shoulders. Oh well, I guess I’m just meant to be someone who people from all cultures laugh at.


And I was looking through some of pictures from last night and found a group of pictures of Roman and me talking together. These pretty much describe our conversations perfectly.

Spoonfuls Of Pepper Jelly

Roman had a friend over for dinner tonight…which means a lot of drinking. How I sat and talked with 2 Russian speakers for 3 hours I’ll never know, but somehow I did. I am always surprised by how little you need to know of a language and still understand each other.

Tonight’s drink of choice: wine. I mistakenly thought that I would be done drinking with them when I finished my dinner. But no. Roman insisted that I keep drinking because the wine is natural. And of course, we had to be quiet because we didn’t want Parascovia to catch us. As the night went on (and Roman continued to drink), Roman wouldn’t let me put my glass on the table because it would make a sound.

For some time, Roman kept wanting to toast to California. I don’t know why, but eventually I reminded him that I’m from Virginia, not California. Then he became excited because he knew that Virginia makes cigarettes. I told him how Virginia is also known for growing peanuts, but he didn't care too much. He told me that he likes walnuts because Moldova grows walnuts, at which point he went into the cellar and grabbed a handful of walnuts for us to eat.

Soon, Roman wanted coffee. He asked me if I wanted coffee, and I told him that I don’t like coffee. But he still seemed to think I wanted coffee. Finally, he understood I didn’t want any. He told me that he wanted coffee so I needed to make some, to which I answered, “If you want coffee, you make it.” I don’t think he was expecting the Romanian-challenged American to give that answer, but he seemed to like it because I got a lot of handshakes for that comment.

Later in the night, I got the hiccups. This did not mean that I got to leave. Instead, Roman made me eat spoonfuls of pepper jelly to stop the hiccups. Not exactly the most appetizing thing, but it worked.

I really need to learn Russian to talk with Roman. Good thing Roman offered to teach me Russian. But somehow I get the feeling that my lessons will revolve around an alcoholic beverage.

Familia Mea Gazdă

I love my host family. We seem to have a good balance with each other. Despite my poor Romanian, I think we communicate well with each other and we are a good fit together. I started to realize this recently. They were in America visiting their son (who married a Peace Corps volunteer, for those who don’t remember). They were there from October 11-30. And then I had training with Peace Corps in Chișinău from October 30 – November 5. So I really haven’t seen them for 4 weeks. It was a long 4 weeks.

I really care for them, and I enjoy living with them. So, I want to tell you a little about them, and I think today sums Parascovia and Roman up pretty well. Be ready…this is a long entry.

I’m getting over a cold right now. It’s nothing serious, just annoying. But I have a little cough. Anyways, this afternoon, I was coughing some, and Parascovia came up to check on me. She was saying how she heard me coughing and she was worried. And later, when I was going out to the bank (side note: I was typing this after I had been drinking with Roman, and I typed the Romanian translation for “bank” instead of the word “bank”. Maybe I’m not as bad at Romanian as I think I am) and Parascovia didn't think I had a big enough coat. So she gave me one of hers. She’s very motherly, and it’s kind of nice.

Then later tonight, I was eating with my family. Well, not really “eating with my family”, but rather eating “with my family”. Basically, they were in the kitchen while I was eating. First it was just Parascovia and I. She was preparing for tomorrow’s dinner, and she kept talking about her trip to America. I didn’t understand everything, but I was listening attentively and trying to understand all I could. I tried to contribute to the conversation as best I could, but I really didn’t say more than 2 or 3 sentences total. I love that she just kept talking to me.

Roman just makes me laugh. Right as I finished my dinner, he sat down with me and poured me a glass of wine (a real glass of wine, not a shot like usual). He insisted that I eat something while we drink (very Moldovan). So he kept handing me food while he was refilling my glass continuously.

At one point, I went to put food away in the fridge and Parascovia walked out of the room. So Roman took this as a chance to refill my glass before Parascovia or I noticed (I had already had 2 glasses with him at this point). Sneaky man.

Our Ukrainian and American “conversation”, which may seem a bit ADD…because it kind of is: Roman likes to smell dried fish (I don’t understand this yet; hopefully I’ll have an explanation soon). But he quickly understood my distain for it made evident by my face when he pulled out his dried fish to smell. After he got his euphoria from smelling the fish, he took the giant bowl of basil that Parascovia was preparing for dinner tomorrow night and smelled it as well. He continued to pick up the bowl of basil every 5 minutes throughout the rest of dinner, occasionally insisting that I smell it too.

Roman taught me the word ‘bug’ in Russian, which I promptly forgot as soon as he shook my hand and told me I was weak. He then noticed Parascovia cutting up carrots, which she had been doing the whole 20 minutes we had been sitting there. He pulled out a giant shank for her to use. She rolled her eyes at him and kept using her knife (Roman didn’t notice).

Next, Roman offered me tea or coffee. I told him tea, and he told me to make him some too. I couldn’t help but laugh. In Moldova, you can’t drink tea without eating something. So he told me to cut myself a piece of cake. I made my tea (and his) and cut my piece of cake. He was sweetening his tea and offered me the sugar. I declined, so he decided that I could use sugar on my cake instead. He took a spoonful of sugar and spread it on my cake. I reacted, and he quickly pointed to Parascovia and made a shhing face, implying that she must not know about this.

I find it quite humorous how he “sneaks” behind Parascovia’s back. Usually, it’s with the alcoholic beverages. And tonight, it was with the sugar on the cake as well. But I have a feeling that Parascovia knows exactly what is going on, and I think she finds his “sneakiness” just as humorous as I do.

I swear, you could make a sitcom out of our interactions. I don’t think I can do justice to the hilarity of our interactions with my writing. But honestly, after hanging out with my family, my abs hurt from laughing so much at our interactions.

Cognac Makes All Right

Well, I’m sick for the first time. Noting serious, just a head cold, but it’s quite annoying. Parascovia noticed Friday night I had a sniffly nose. But it wasn’t until yesterday morning that she became quite motherly. She made me drink tea, which I wanted already, before she pulled out all the contents from the refrigerator for me to eat. It took some time to explain that all I wanted was bread. And then during lunch today, she once again wanted me to eat my weight in food.

While I was finishing washing my dishes, she noticed that I was wearing socks instead of slippers. So she went to get her pile of slippers for me right away. And this morning she fussed at me because I wasn’t wearing them.

The best part was when Parascovia insisted that I take a shot of cognac yesterday morning. I told her I didn’t want it (it was 8:00 in morning, after all), but she was insistent, saying that it will clear my head. Then Roman joined in insisting, so I caved. And she offered cognac once more at lunch yesterday. She didn’t seem to understand that I simply didn’t want any. She just assumed that I had taken medicine, so I couldn’t have any. Anyways, I think I’ll be healthy enough to go to school tomorrow, so maybe the cognac did work.

Criuleni Miscellaneous

Some much was going on this weekend, it was hard for me to fit in all into the last 2 blogs. So here are some other miscellaneous things that happen this weekend that I forgot to mention in the last posts.

My partner teachers mentioned yesterday that I look Moldovan. It was nice to hear since I am trying to integrate. Apparently when Svetlana was meeting Veronica and me, she didn’t think I was the American at first. It’s nice to know that until I open my mouth and butcher the Moldovan language, I blend in.

Although, I don’t know how well I will be able to dress Moldovan. Women here wear heels almost everywhere, despite the fact they need to walk up and down hills and on rocky roads. Since we were supposed to dress professionally this weekend, I wore my heels. My leg muscles were burning from walking so much, and my shoes rubbed blisters on my feet. Not cool.

I was also able to talk to my host family’s son, Feodor, and Sarah on Skype. Sarah assured me that my host family is a nice family to live with. And Feodor told me to watch out for his father. Apparently, Ramon likes to play jokes. I should also stay strong when I don’t want any more wine. Feodor said not to listen to Ramon when says things like “I don’t respect him” when I refuse a drink. It’s good to know because I’m not sure how well I will read his sense of humor in Russian.

Yesterday morning at breakfast, my host mom mentioned that there have been 3 PCV who married someone from Criuleni: Sarah (their daughter-in-law), David (the one Svetlana mentioned Saturday), and Lawson. Sarah and David had worked at the school and Lawson had worked in a bank. I don’t know the details because this explanation was given to me in Romanian, but she made it very clear that 3 PCV had married a Moldovan.

Add to to-do list: learn as many Romanian words as possible related around the topic of marriage to better approach this conversation in the future.

Okay, Maybe I’m A Little Slow, But…

Okay, maybe I’m a little slow but I’m finally starting to understand things here. For the past 3 weeks (yes, I have been in Moldova for 3 whole weeks!), so much information has been thrown at me and I’m busy trying to figure things out. But I think things are really starting to stick. Let me explain some of the successes I have had over the past week.

Success 1: I successfully told my host family the other day that I was going to my friend’s home for dinner that night at 4:00…in Romanian! I’m sure I just completely butchered the language, but they understood the overall message. Language, by far, is not my strong suit, so this was a giant step for me.

Success 2: We did a peer-teaching lesson this week. Basically, each of us in the EE program planned a 45-minute lesson for a particular grade. Then we taught the lesson to a small group of our peers in 20 minutes. Not only was my lesson well received, but today the EE leaders used my lesson (along with another guy’s) as an example lesson for the rest of the class. Mind you, he and I are the only ones with past teaching experience, so it’s not completely fair to compare our lessons with those who have never written a lesson plan before. But I hadn’t taught English language before, so it was still nice to hear I had a good lesson. But don’t worry; I won’t get too cocky about this. I came home to an email from my dad correcting my grammar in my blog. I can take comfort in the fact that I know I have parents that won’t let me get a big head.

Success 3: I was able to drink Italian vodka and not pass out. If you don’t remember from me saying this before, Moldovans drink wine like shots. So I can have several “glasses” of wine and be fine. Consequently, I think my host father has gotten used to me accepting my wine glass being refilled. So he automatically poured me a shot of Italian vodka the other night. I had my one shot, and I learned that “vodka” in Moldovan means a slightly sweet-tasting paint-thinner. By the time I got to my room and sat down at my computer, the words were spinning on the screen. It was a good thing I had finished my homework.

Things to come: Fourth of July celebrations Moldovan style (I’m going to two celebrations this weekend), my permanent site placement (I find out Tuesday), and food in Moldova (I’m putting together a list of common foods eaten here).