I’ve been thinking about keys a lot the last few days. As in the ones that lock and unlock things.
This past summer, as I prepared for my departure for Moldova, a very tangible manifestation of the end of one phase of my life and the beginning of a new one came in the form of the decreasing number of keys on my key ring. I sold my house, and 2 keys came off the ring. I quit my job, and 3 more keys came off the ring. I sold my car, and another key disappeared. In the end, I left even the keys to my parents’ and my grandma’s houses, getting on a plane without a single key in my possession for probably the first time in my entire adult life. It gave me a strange, unexpected and disconcerting feeling (perhaps a premonition of how I was too feel all the time for the foreseeable future in Moldova!), letting go of these keys that were in a way a statement about my connections to home, work and family. It was also liberating, in a way, to let go of the responsibilities that came with some of those keys — don’t have to worry about raking the leaves or shoveling the snow or fixing the next thing that breaks at my house; don’t have to go to the office anymore and take care of all the problems and issues there; don’t have to drive a car anymore and deal with traffic and worry about gas prices and insurance, etc.
Out of habit, though, I brought a key chain with me to Moldova. I didn’t really think about it, just brought it and I guess assumed I’d eventually have some keys to something: a house or apartment, an office, etc. In Ialoveni, my host family gave me 2 keys for the locks on the front door, and a key to the lock on my room that they were required to install per PC policy. The bedroom key I never used, in fact I almost never closed that door and never felt a need to. The front door keys, I put on my key chain with my emergency whistle and a little flashlight, and kept in my purse. If someone was home, though, the door was usually unlocked and I didn’t need to use the keys often.
Here in Tvarditsa, I don’ need a key at all. There is a “lock” of sorts on the front gate, and the “key”, which is really more of a long metal stick with a little curve at the end, hangs on the inside of the gate at all times. Most days, at least one person is home and thus the gate stays unlocked. If we are all gone, the last person takes the “key”, closes the gate, slides the metal stick into a small hole, snags the bar on the inside of the gate, and slides it closed. Then you reach over the top of the gate and hang the “key” back on the hook so when someone comes home, they can get the “key”, put it in the hole, snag the bar and slide it open. That’s pretty much how it works in villages here in Moldova. If the gate is locked, you know no one is home. If it is unlocked, you open the gate and whistle loudly until someone hears you (which doesn’t always happen as the resident could be out in the “garden” pretty darn far away). As far as I can tell, it doesn’t occur to anyone to open someone else’s “locked” gate, even though all the keys are hanging within arm’s reach.
There are also 2 types of gates on the houses. One is person-sized, and it is the one used regularly. The other one is car- or wagon-sized, and if you don’t have a car or wagon or you don’t have your car or wagon out today, you use the smaller gate. Coming home to a friend’s house the other night, her gate was locked as no one else was home, so she walked over to the larger gate, opened it, walked around to the small gate, and unlocked it from the inside so the rest of us could enter the yard. I seem to be the only one here who finds this kinda silly! But hey, if it works!
Last week, I was in Chisinau for the All Volunteer Conference over Thanksgiving. Saturday was Alyona’s birthday, so I had planned to stay an extra day in Ialoveni to celebrate with her. When I called to confirm the plans, I still wasn’t sure what my schedule would be with the conference, so couldn’t tell her for sure when I would arrive at her place. “You have a key,” she said, “so just let yourself in if we’re not home.”
I have a key to someone’s home in Moldova. I reflect often on this, and I am constantly amazed by how a family opened their home to a total stranger, and welcomed me more kindly and warmly than I could have imagined. “I must have really lucked out in Ialoveni,” I thought to myself. It’s true that not every single PCV had as great an experience as I did with their host families, but I was not alone in making time around the holiday weekend to see my first host family. I also am not alone in finding myself again welcomed into another family and community so kindly and warmly.
During Alyona’s birthday dinner, a friend of her’s called from abroad to wish her a Happy Birthday. The friend asked if she was having a big party, and Alyona said “No, just family tonight.” I wondered to myself who had received the better gift this year. I gave her new chair pads for the kitchen stools and a serrated knife, but she had given me a key to her home.
Anka in Kyiv 