It was a fabulous trip. I enjoyed meeting with my colleagues at the advising center, and it was exciting to see some of the developments in Chisinau and southern Moldova. There is an American Corner in Ceadir-Lunga – holy cow! What a difference that could have made in my life when I was living in nearby Tvarditsa. We stopped at one gas station on the drive south that was down right modern. Igor and I both commented on how impressed we were with the bathroom – not only was it indoors (extremely rare in Moldova), it had running water, toilet paper and was clean. Wow.
After a couple days of business (and no further mishaps with the National Bank), we spent the weekend with my darling host family in Tvarditsa. It was just plain great. We ate until we got sick, drank the best wine in the world, and even got a tour of the wonderful little Tvarditsa museum.
When we got back to Kyiv and Igor showed me his photos, I shouldn’t have been surprised that nearly half of them are of the pigs, in all various stages of life and afterlife. The newborn piglets, the teenagers who were just born during our last visit in August, the enormous adults, the slabs of someone slaughtered in our honor, and the bits of fat frying up in the pan. A Ukrainian’s dream come true. Igor even made googly eyes and kissy face with the pigs.
We left Tvarditsa with a trunk full of “contraband”, as Igor said. Bags of homemade brinza (salty sheep’s cheese), canned veggies, a freshly slaughtered chicken, fresh eggs, some of that fried pig fat, and of course multiple bottles of the best wine on earth. When we stopped to fill up the gas tank, Igor and Sasha checked the stash and got worried that we’d have trouble at the border. Solution? Start eating and drinking now. Igor and I did the drinking, Sasha helped a bit with the eating.
I don’t know if it was the wine or what, but we had no problems crossing any of the borders. The boys cheered when they made it back into Ukraine, and I cheered when we made it to our apartment that evening. Photos are on Flickr.
Anka in Kyiv 