I know it’s been awhile since my last essay. Internet access hasn’t been very reliable lately in Tvarditsa, and I’ve been focusing on responding to emails during the few minutes I have been able to get online. But, I’ll try to get back into the swing of things in the near future, starting with my first post of 2005.
The holidays were nice here. It didn’t really feel like Christmas, I have to say though. Moldovans celebrate New Year’s, a secular holiday, more the way many Americans celebrate Christmas — the family holiday, with a decorated pine tree; Father Frost brings presents; and throw in the familiar “count-down to midnight” fun and you’ve got a pretty darn festive time! Orthodox Christmas is on January 7, so we are now in the week between holidays. Christmas here, as I understand it, is more of a religious holiday, and kids might receive presents but adults exchange gifts only on New Year’s.
My host family, with two grown sons, hasn’t done the traditional New Year’s “thing” for a few years now, but I served as a good excuse to do it up the old-fashioned way. Sasha, their younger son who is in his last year of college in Chisinau, came home on the 28th, and we set up the New Year’s Tree (it’s so hard to not call it the Christmas Tree!) Thursday night. They have a small artificial tree, and as we assembled it, he reminisced about the many years of searching out the perfect live tree to cut and put up at home. As we hung up the decorations and strung the lights, he shared his memories of the different ornaments, the ones his mom brought home one year from the kindergarten where she worked, which the kids had made themselves, the ones that are heavy and go up last to balance the tree and keep it straight! It reminded me of our family’s stories, the ornaments Scott always had to put up himself, the ones I had to put up myself, searching in the box for our favorites, remembering which trip we bought that ornament on, or who gave that one on year or another. It was nice to share some familiar, family-like moments with Sasha at a time when I felt very far away from family and the familiar.
Wednesday night was the “office celebration” at the Primaria. The ladies prepared a feast seemingly for the entire village! We ate, drank, made toasts, played games, and danced for hours and hours. I finally, grudgingly, had to tell Anna that I was going to fall asleep on my feet, and we walked home around 10 pm. It was a lot of fun, and boy can those Bulgarian-Moldovans party!
Friday night was the big celebration on the plaza near the center of the village. A huge tree had been put up, decorated and strung with lots of lights. A DJ played traditional Bulgarian music as well as a wide variety of holiday music. There were games for the little kids, and of course the all got a prize! People danced, lit fireworks and sparklers, and you got a cup of champagne almost everywhere you turned. Ded’ Moroz (Father Frost) and his sidekick Snegurichka (roughly, Snowgirl) made an appearance, which of course was the highlight of the evening.
Interestingly, Tvarditsa gets better television reception from Moscow than from Chisinau, and thus the TV countdown was on Moscow time, which was 11 pm here in Moldova. We had planned to go home for the TV countdown, but in the end stayed on the plaza until 11:30ish, when most folks started to head home to toast the New Year with their families. At approximately midnight, we had a champagne toast, and Sasha set off a fireworks “salute” with a cool firework he’d been saving.
Saturday I sat down with my diary, pen and paper, to reflect on the past year and to set some goals for 2005. I had an incredible year, full of change and excitement. A great vacation to London, France and Luxembourg; a phenomenal and spiritual experience in New Mexico; lots of great times with lots of great friends; quit my job; sold my house — and all that in only the first 8 months! It may be hard to top 2004, but I think Moldova will bring me plenty of interesting adventures to keep me on my toes.
Back to where I started with this post, though — problems with internet access. I’m sad to say, I had my first really bad public moment at the internet cafe. I usually keep my frustrations in until I can vent at home or on the phone with other PCV’s, but I lost my cool on December 24. It was the last day of school before winter break, and the kids must have gotten out early. The cafe opened at 11, and was full of little boys by 11:10 wanting to play their gorey video games. I got a computer, and really wanted to send some Christmas emails, but after 15 minutes the internet connection still wasn’t working well enough to access my email. The guy working there really didn’t know anything about the systems himself, and kept insisting I was doing something wrong or that it would come up in just a minute. Well, I finally decided to call it quits and walked out. The worker was outside smoking a cigarette, but rushed back in when he saw me leaving. Then he rushed out after me and said I had to pay. “For what?” I asked. “For the time on the computer,” he said. “But it didn’t work. You want me to pay for nothing?” He gave me some lame BS about it didn’t matter if it worked or not, I’d taken up time on the computers and had to pay for it; that the owner would know the computers had been used and would want his money, blah blah blah. I asked who was the owner (thinking it was maybe the other guy I’ve seen there more often), and said I’d gladly call him to explain why I wasn’t going to pay. We went back inside, to this room full of pre-pubescent local boys all staring at us. The guy dials the phone, talks to somebody (or at least pretends to talk to somebody) in Bulgarian but I can catch a few words (like “American”), hangs up and says the owner says I have to pay. By this point, I’m so furious — angry that this guy is cheating me, angry that I can’t think and speak fast enough in Russian to argue with him, and angry at myself for making a scene about 5 stupid lei. It felt like a no-win situation, where I am either a sucker “rich” American who can be scammed for money, or I am an ugly cheap American quibbling over 40 cents with a poor Moldovan. I finally threw down the 5 lei, walked out, and heard all the little boys laughing behind me. I sure felt like an ass, knowing that those kids would tell their friends, maybe their parents, that the American made a scene at the internet cafe that day. I know that everything I do, everything I say, is a reflection on America, Americans, and Peace Corps, and not just on myself. So, I spent a good chunk of Friday afternoon beating myself up about it. I later asked Sasha, my host brother, how he would have handled the situation. He said he wouldn’t have paid. So, I’m not sure if the guy did that to me because I’m female, I’m an American, or what, but nonetheless, he suckered me, and I’m paying more than just money for it.
Since I don’t want to end this post on a down-note, I’ll tell you about our tour of the “winery” on Christmas Eve. I’ve jokingly renamed many of the rooms on my host family’s farmstead, and the cellar where they keep their barrels of wine is now called the “winery.” We now call the other cellar the “grocery store” (as they have enough preserved and pickled food to feed a small army for an entire winter), and the summer kitchen which is now the “refrigerator” since it’s basically a walk-in fridge during the wintertime.
Anyway, back to our tour of the winery. Like most Moldovans, my host family grows grapes and makes their own wine. These folks, though, make an extra large supply and are known for having good wine, so selling it in the spring provides a little extra income. They have 8 barrels of wine, ranging in size from 200-some liters to over 600 liters. We sampled a glass from each barrel, and discussed why they are different in color, aroma and taste. The first four barrels are most similar, coming all from the first pressing of the grapes. The next three are a combination of first, second and third pressings, and become increasingly dark and sweet. The most special barrel was saved for last, a very tiny barrel in comparison to the others. The last barrel was hand-made by Georgi’s grandfather, as opposed to the other barrels which were made by a master craftsman. His grandfather carved the wood, forged the iron, everything by hand. Inside the barrel is also a special wine, produced from a strand of grapes that their ancestors brought with them from Bulgaria over 170 years ago. These grapes have been grown by Georgi’s family all these years, kept separate from the other strands, and the wine is made separately. I call it their Heritage Wine, and it gives you a very special feeling to drink it, I think.
Happy 2005!
Anka in Kyiv 