Men Against Violence, Women for Peace

On Friday I went to a day-long round table discussion put on by the OSCE with the above title. There was a session on the role of men in combating violence against women that included an interesting presentation by an American guy who works MenEngage Europe in former Yugoslavia. An anthropologist from Latvia also gave a presentation about redefining gender roles and NGO director talked about rehabilitating perpetrators. Another session focused on the development of legislation to prosecute aggressors and protect victims, and the last session was about gender issues in the Moldovan military and border guard service. There were representatives present from the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Labor, Social Protection and Family, and Ministry of Foreign affairs, as well as lawyers, people from the OSCE, Moldovan NGOs, and foreign experts. I’m glad I got to attend and learn more about the work being done to address the issue of gender-based violence from a variety of different areas.

On Saturday night I went to dinner at a nice restaurant with an Italian lady I had met who works for an NGO that was cooperating with La Strada to conduct research on child trafficking in Moldova because she had wanted to meet again to give me the hard copy of their report. Also at dinner was a Norwegian lady I had met who works for a rule of law project in Chisinau but is leaving soon, and I met a lady who works at the Swedish embassy who was there with her husband. She just finished writing the human rights report for the embassy so she knew a bit about trafficking in Moldova. We ended up talking about gender equality at dinner as well and it was interesting to hear more about gender issues in Scandinavia. The Norwegian lady said it’s something like 40% of executives in Norway are women now and it’s a scandal when a woman decides she wants to stay at home and raise a family. Other topics of conversation included how ridiculous the Finnish language is and how a strangely large proportion of people at the table are twins or are dating someone who is a twin.

In other news, Happy Birthday to my mom and dad whose birthdays were yesterday and today respectively. I’m working on a report for the OSCE now on Winrock’s 16 Days Campaign activities and then I’m off to Timisoara, Romania on Thursday to visit a friend for a few days. Hard to believe that in a week I’ll be in Maine for Christmas!

16 Days Campaign & Town Hall Meeting

The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy because Winrock is participating in the international 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign. Click here for a link to the official campaign. The very basic idea behind the campaign is to raise awareness about violence against women, and Winrock has been participating in the campaign in Moldova for several years now. I went to a Training of Trainers organized by Winrock on domestic violence on Friday that included women from Transnistria and this side of Moldova who were students, volunteers, and employees of NGOs. We also launched a Facebook campaign to advertise events and show a photo exhibition that reflects real-life stories of violence. Click here for the link to the Facebook photo album, but unfortunately the stories underneath the photos are only in Romanian. Yesterday we set up the photo exhibition with large prints of the photos in the Sociology department of Moldova State University and about 50 students came to check out the exhibit and fill out surveys about their knowledge of gender-based violence and impressions of the event. On Saturday we had a "Frisbee Against Violence" event at an indoor gym that promoted the campaign and also promoted Frisbee as a non-violent sport. The official Moldovan frisbee team, the Flying Mamaligas, came and about 7 Peace Corps volunteers/Americans were there as well. Proud to say that the Americans won the Moldova vs. USA game at the end.

On Friday I'm going to the roundtable put on by the OSCE that will include presentations by government officials and employees of international organizations and NGOs that is meant to wrap up the campaign and talk about how to work to include men in the fight against violence so that should be very interesting.

Last night I went to the Ambassador's house for the annual Town Hall Meeting for Americans living in Moldova. The house is gorgeous and the food was incredible. Not surprising. At one point he had everyone go around and introduce themselves which was great because I found out that a bunch of the people there are working with trafficking victims and I made some contacts. They were all from religious organizations. It would be interesting to compare their projects other NGOs and international orgs so I'm going to try to find out more about the work they're doing.

Other Moldova Blogs

I’ve been meaning to put up links to the blogs of the other Fulbrighters in Moldova because I think it would be interesting for people who are reading my blog to check out their entries as well in order to gain different perspectives on the country, learn about what’s going on in other regions of Moldova, and to pick up on things that I haven’t thought to write about. For example, definitely watch Liz’s video about shoes. As Melissa knows, I have recently become very Moldovan in my obsession about keeping my boots clean. It is very common to see people stop to wash their shoes in a puddle if they get the least bit dirty. We all found this very amusing at first but I have to admit that I did that when I was with Melissa on my way to a soccer game. In addition, I know my mom gets confused because I mention people’s names in my blog without any explanation as to who they are so this might help clear that up. So, here are some links:

Liz’s video blog. She is based in Comrat, which is the capital of the autonomous Gagauzian republic in the south of Moldova. http://moldovamoldovamoldova.wordpress.com/

Melissa’s blog. She’s in Orhei, which is just 45 minutes north of Chisinau. http://mmcdonald5188.wordpress.com/

Matt’s blog. He spends half his time in Chisinau and half in/near Transnistria. http://mjrellaford-adventures.blogspot.com/

Rebecca's blog. She's way south, in Cahul. http://musingsfrommoldova.wordpress.com/

Enjoy!

Election Weekend

Today I got to serve as one of the official election monitors in Chisinau. I visited 6 polling stations with a couple of embassy employees and one of the Fulbright scholars. It was a beautiful day and the turnout was surprisingly large. One of the nicest things we saw was when the president of one of the polling stations announced that it was this young man's first time voting and everyone in the room clapped for him. Several of the people we talked to said that they had seen more people come out to vote today than ever before, and we were visiting the stations early in the day; from about 10 to 2. One of the presidents complained that they were so busy in the morning that they didn't even have time for tea. It was a good kind of busy though because the election is super important and we've all be worried that there wouldn't be a good turnout. Most of the Moldovans I had talked to up to this point had said that they didn't know who they would vote for because they can't see any of the 19 parties (yes, that many) on the ballot having any real promise for helping this poor country move forward. It'll be really interesting to see what happens and what kind of coalition is formed, since it is pretty much impossible that any party will win a majority of the vote.

Yesterday was a fun day as well. I got together with some Americans, Moldovans, and one British girl to enjoy an amazing Thanksgiving dinner. One of the Americans made amazing pecan and apple pies, green bean casserole, carrot soufle, biscuits, and some other stuff. We brought over 2 of the biggest turkey legs I have ever seen, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and some desserts. It was pretty incredible. I didn't do anything on the actual Thanksgiving day so it was nice to get together and have the real deal and not just skip an important American tradition.

Backing up even more, Friday was my host sister Mihaela's birthday so my family also made a ton of incredible food for that and just a few minutes ago we finished the delicious cake they bought. A few relatives/family friends came over, and one guy brought a violin so I got to play for everyone. My boss's 3-year-old daughter was there and she had a really good time dancing around while I played. She kept ordering me to play more and explaining what she wanted in Romanian so I did the best I could with what I could comprehend. I understood her a lot better this time than last time though. When she first got here she kept asking me what my name was and where my dad is. I'd answer her, then she would ask the same thing again about 10 minutes later. I guess she really wanted to know.

Bringing a little Wellesley to Chisinau

This week is International Education Week and all the Fulbright scholars were invited to give presentations at the Educational Advising Center where I hold a weekly conversation group. I decided to give a presentation titled “Preparing Women for Global Leadership: The Albright Institute Case” that would focus on the strategies that Wellesley College has used to empower women and would describe the activities and goals of the new Albright Institute. In addition, I hoped to have an engaging discussion about the challenges of being a woman in Moldova and how to support women so that they can improve their lives and also become leaders in society. Seven extremely bright and ambitious young women came to the presentation and they really got the wheels turning in my mind so the afternoon ended up being much more interesting than I expected.

A couple of the women had a pretty heated debate about the benefits and disadvantages of a single-sex education and that started off the discussion. Then they brought up the point that women are in a tough place in Moldova because they are expected to have careers, raise children, cook, clean, and do everything else all at the same time, whereas it is expected for me to just go to work then come home and relax. Of course this is not a problem unique to Moldova, but the women said that it’s difficult to cope with it here because young women and girls do not have any role models to look up to. They feel all this pressure and know that they have to do all these things but have no idea how to accomplish everything and stay sane and healthy because they can’t look to an example of how any other woman has done this. One of the women was very open and shared her story of domestic violence in her family, saying that women need to speak up about this more in order to stop it from happening. On a side note, she actually works for the OSCE and is going to be a great contact for me in the future. She showed a strong interest in volunteering for Winrock as well.

It was really interesting for me to see this group interact and engage with gender issues. It felt very Wellesley to have a small group of women from different backgrounds (who have never met) come together to debate each other with contagious enthusiasm that made them all feel like they wanted to go out and do something to change society. I think it would be amazing to create a network of young women like this who are working or volunteering for NGOs or just have a strong interest in women’s issues to get together once a month or something like that to exchange ideas, participate in debates, and collaborate on new projects or find out about various opportunities to volunteer and make a difference. I wonder if there is anything like that in place in Chisinau. I think I have mentioned before that there are something like 300 NGOs in Moldova that have some sort of focus on gender issues/anti-trafficking efforts and a lot of times their programs overlap and could be more effective if there were more collaboration on projects. Logistically, this just seems very difficult. At my presentation, however, the girl who works for the OSCE was able to invite the others to the play on domestic violence that I went to (there is one more performance) and I was able to interest them in the 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence campaign that Winrock is participating in that most of them had never heard of.

The more people you meet, the more opportunities you find out about and it’s much easier to join an activity or volunteer when you have already know a person who is working for that organization and has personally invited you to participate. In addition, if young women like this continued to meet and expand their networks, I have no doubt that they would inspire each other to do important work in Moldova. As one of the participants today mentioned, there are many brilliant women in Moldova but if they don’t speak up and share their knowledge and experiences you would never know it. There are so many intelligent and talented people in Moldova that it is a real tragedy that there are so few opportunities to make a living in any field here. If these people join forces and try to have a positive outlook rather than a hopeless one, then maybe, someday, something will change and the country will be able to move forward.

Chisinau High

I have been on such a Chisinau high this past week. This is partly due to the fact that it has been sunny and in the mid-60s which seems totally unreal for November. I’ve also been really busy meeting new people, going to some great concerts, and finding out about a bunch of new opportunities for my research project. I’ll write about the research opportunities more as they come into fruition.

So people who have been visiting Chisinau over the past few days include: Liz and her parents who will be in Moldova for a couple of weeks, 2 Fulbright English Teaching Assistants who are based in Georgia, and 1 other Fulbright ETA and his girlfriend who are based in Azerbaijan. I went out to dinner with Liz and her parents on Thursday to a popular restaurant for tourists that has live music and serves traditional Moldovan cuisine and we happened to run into the rest of the group with another Fulbright researcher, Rod, who is studying music in Chisianu. He invited me to come visit the music school where he is studying and said he could definitely hook me up with a violin and probably find people for me to play with if I want.

On Friday night we met up again at Opa, a Greek restaurant, and it was filled with ex-pats. I saw Chi Pham, the director of LED who was at the Winrock Young Entrereneur’s Forum, and some ladies I saw at the OSCE Anti-Trafficking Coordination Meeting on Wednesday as well as some men who were clearly from the UK. We also spotted a couple of Americans across the room who turned out to be Peace Corps volunteers so they joined us to go to Bier Platz for a beer after dinner.

After Bier Platz we tried to go to a club near the National Opera Theater because someone had invited one of the Fulbright ETAs to meet her there. He asked some students on the street how to get there and it turned out they were going to the same place so we befriended them and talked for a while. One of the guys did Work and Travel in Alaska so he was excited to see Americans again. They also were only speaking Russian so that was convenient for us since none of us speak Romanian all that well. We made it to the club, but we couldn’t get in. There was “face control” which is something all of us who have been to Russia are very familiar with. It means that only men who have a lot of money and women who are dressed up like prostitutes can get in. Apparently, however, the issue here was more that you had to reply that you were attending this event on Facebook and then you would be on a list and could get in. Our new Moldovan friends tried to help us out but it was no use. They said they’d actually never seen face control happening anywhere in Chisinau so they were really bummed out and apologetic about it.

On Saturday afternoon I met up with a couple that a Wellesley alumna had suggested I meet for coffee because she said they are amazing people and would be great contacts for me here in Chisinau. She was definitely right about that. We had a really nice conversation and I will be seeing much more of them. We went to a fairly posh café and the Swedish ambassador happened to be there so I met her and another American lady that she was with as well.

After I met up with them, I went to a concert that was happening on the square outside the National Opera Theater. Zdob si Zdub, the most famous Moldovan rock band, was playing and the whole event was a political rally for one of the candidates in the election. They played a cover of a Russian rock song by Kino that I love so that made my night.

However, the night got even better. We went to this underground bar that I’ve been to a couple times to see the band Still Waters play. One of the guys in the band is the Peace Corps security officer or something like that. They played covers of songs like “Last Dance with Mary Jane” “Great Balls of Fire” and lots of blues music. Liz’s dad got to go up onstage for the second set and play the harmonica so that was really exciting too. The band was awesome and they played for 3 hours so it was a great night. It’s a small venue but most people got up and danced and it was really cool. Liz's dad on the harmonica:



Now I am sitting in the park. It is sunny and warm and there is live music. I'm going to see Swan Lake tonight with the people visiting from Azerbaijan and two Fulbright researchers. Pretty nice weekend.

Anti-Trafficking Coordination Meeting

So the executive decision was made for me to not go to Transnistria today. I would have been going with Winrock’s Chief of Party and she was worried about the inevitable showdown we would have with the border guards as a result of a foreigner being in the car and this would cause a great deal of stress and make us late for the round table. Better to go when there isn’t a time constraint. Our driver said that he went with a German guy a little while ago and while there was no problem entering Transnistria, the guards wouldn’t let them cross the border on the way out so they had to hassle with them for a long time and eventually pay a significant bribe. My understanding is basically that you never know what’s going to happen at the border. It could largely depend on which town you are trying to go through or whether or not the guard you have to talk to ran out of cigarettes or had too much vodka the night before and is feeling agitated. That’s how I imagine the situation anyway.

At any rate, I was able to attend the monthly OSCE Anti-Trafficking Coordination Meeting with my boss and I had been looking forward to going to one of these sessions since I got here so I was fine with that. I would say there were about 25 representatives there from various NGOs and government offices, and I also saw a Peace Corps volunteer that I met this weekend and a Political Officer from the US Embassy that I’ve talked to a few times. The meeting was partly in English and mostly in Romanian but everyone got a pretty sweet headset for immediate translation. It wasn’t as cool as the ones we got at the big meetings in Brussels that you can use to listen to speeches in all the different languages of the EU, but it was something.

As for the content of the meeting, my boss gave a presentation on the Transnistrian Women’s Support Project and the rest of the discussion focused more on children’s issues that have recently become the subject of much attention. It seems like a bunch of organizations are going to start doing research on the issue of the exploitation of children through the internet and are creating awareness projects to address this problem through prevention. Many children in Moldova are left without parents because they need to go abroad to make money, and they use the internet to keep in touch. As a result, they have constant access to a computer and the internet and have no one around to advise them about how to use the internet safely. As we all know, the internet can be a pretty scary place. In the same way that some sexual predator/pedophile might try to communicate with a girl in rural Maine through Myspace, you might have a trafficker in Egypt contacting Moldovan youth through Odnaklassniki or Facebook. Just the other day at work my co-worker got a Facebook message from a guy in Egypt she doesn’t know and she said that happens pretty often that men from the Middle East are contacting Moldovan women and trying to meet them and usually it’s a fairly creepy situation. Apparently the same kind of thing is happening with sketchy people offering kids money or presents or even threatening to hurt their parents as a way of trying to manipulate them psychologically through online communication. The director of La Strada, an NGO in Moldova, talked about a new hotline they have opened for children regarding this issue and they can also contact one of La Strada’s consultants through a Skype account.

I found the meeting very useful for my research overall, especially since it is nearly impossible to find information easily online or even in print through brochures or reports published by organizations in Moldova. Much more information is presented at the meetings than can be surmised through the official notes that you can get from the OSCE. I would definitely like to attend every month if I can. It’s a good way to see what various organizations and actors are doing to address the issue and what kind of new projects or problems are popping up.

Casa M

I did go to the play put on by the OSCE and the theater group Art Centre Coliseum on Sunday. It was all in Romanian but the director of the Anti-Trafficking Program at the OSCE spoke at the beginning and end in English. The theater was packed so it was great to see people interested in learning about the problem of domestic violence in Moldova. There were four actresses in the play, and they took turns performing vignettes and reciting poetry. Through these scenes they told real-life stories of Moldovan women who have suffered from psychological, physical, sexual, or economic violence. There was also a real (dead) chicken involved that was worn as a hat at one point and torn up and stuffed in a big jar towards the end. Not really sure what that was about to be honest. At the end of the show there was a discussion about domestic violence and how people can work to address the problem. A large portion of the audience left before the conversation started, but quite a few stayed and participated. The Minister of Labor, Family, and Social Protection spoke as did a lady from the IOM that I recognized from the TV program Destinies and Destinations that Winrock developed with IOM and La Strada.

Tomorrow I will either be going to the monthly OSCE Anti-Trafficking Coordination Meeting in Chisinau or a Regional Roundtable in Transnistria being put on by one of Winrock's Regional Support Centers. Either will be very interesting. Too bad they are being held at the same time.

It's Always Sunny in Chisinau

The weather this week has been absolutely unbelievable. Mid-60s and sunny every day. Perfection. A few weeks ago it was freezing cold and rainy all the time and it seemed like winter was coming early so it's been awesome to have the warmth again to sit in the park and enjoy strolling around the city.

This weekend has been fun so far. On Friday night I met up with Corrin and went to a birthday party of a Bulgarian lady who is married to a guy who works at the embassy and I saw a bunch of people I met at the Labor Day party. Last night I went to see the Marriage of Figaro with my co-worker (Aliona) and some Peace Corps volunteers. The costumes were gorgeous and it was nice to hear music that I recognized since the Tsar's Bride wasn't familiar to me at all. It was also a bit easier to understand because there were subtitles in Romanian. There weren't subtitles at the Tsar's Bride because it was in Russian and everyone speaks Russian. I think it would be difficult to get what was being sung in an opera even if it were in English though. So subtitles were a plus. I expected there to be a lot more people there this time since it's a more well-known opera, but the theater was pretty empty. No wonder Turandot was canceled last week; they probably would have been performing for an audience of 10 people. Oh well.

After the show we went to Riscani, one of the nicer areas of Chisinau. I had never been over there before and I was pretty impressed. It's like another big downtown area. We went to this German restaurant/bar called the Flying Pig that I've been hearing a lot about. We wanted to see this band perform but we could there just when they had finished playing. There were a bunch of other Peace Corps volunteers there too. After a while we went to a Russian karaoke bar down the street, which was quite a different scene. There was a very sullen looking man singing Russian karaoke songs in the corner when we got there. The presence of the Americans livened the place up quite a bit. Only one of them sang karaoke, but she made a good choice with "It's My Life" by Bon Jovi, which I know from past experience Russians/Eastern Europeans really love. The Moldovans were all singing along and got a big kick out of it I would say. She gave a very good performance and has a great voice. Here's an action shot:


And here's a photo of Aliona who was having fun and dancing along:

Tonight I'm going to a play about domestic violence that the OSCE is putting on. I'm pretty sure it's going to be all in Romanian but I know it will be interesting to check out anyway and I'll take some video. Conveniently enough it is happening at this center that is pretty much right next to my house. Other than that I'm just going to be relaxing and enjoying the gorgeous fall weather.

A second-hand sweater for your vote

I had my first two conversation groups over the past couple of days. The first was yesterday at the Educational Advising Center. I'll be hosting a session there every Thursday for an hour in the afternoon, and I really enjoyed the group of people that showed up yesterday. There were 11 total and they were mostly high school and college students but there were also a couple of older men who are in the work force. One is a doctor who happened to just do a study concerning trafficking victims and post traumatic stress disorder. They all speak English very, very well, and they were eager to debate each other about various issues. There wasn't a set topic for discussion so we just started talking and would talk about whatever came up and branched off from different ideas as they arose. For most of the time we talked about migration, the election, and corruption in Moldova. Some things that were mentioned:

-My grandmother is voting for the Communists because a man from the party came by and gave her a blue second-hand sweater.
-I'm sick of hearing about the elections.
-I'm not voting and it's my choice not to vote.
-You're an idiot for not wanting to vote.
-I think I should vote because if I don't someone else will take my ballot and vote for me.
-If Moldovans want to travel abroad, they get Romanian passports so they can travel freely in the EU. Since Moldova used to be part of Romania, it's really easy to get them. If your grandparents were once considered Romanian then it's no problem. Otherwise, you just have to pay some money.
-In America, people get rich and then go into politics. In Moldova, people go into politics to get rich.

I had a lot of fun with the group. They were a lively bunch. Definitely looking forward to seeing them more in the future. Today, I went to another discussion group for an English club at the Pedagogical University in the English Teaching Resource Center. The topic was "Television in Our Lives." I'd say there were about 15 people there, mostly students and a couple of professors. One professor was from Ribnitsa in Transnistria and had brought some of her students because she said they never have the chance to meet native speakers of English. I offered to come visit their university at some point since I want to visit Ribnitsa to see Winrock's resource center there as well. I also got to meet a professor who works in the American Studies department at Moldova State and she asked me to come do a presentation there as well. Looks like I'm going to start getting a bit busier. I really enjoy meeting all these new people though.

Election Madness

It looks like Republican candidate Paul LePage will be Maine's next governor. Too bad. The election is heating up in Moldova now as well. I paid a visit to the director of the Independent Journalism Center this morning and everyone in the office was very busy because they are monitoring election coverage from all the newspapers as well as radio and tv stations in Moldova. If you're interested in the campaign, here's a good article from the EU Observer http://waz.euobserver.com/887/31171. Basically it looks like the ruling coalition has a slim chance at victory and the pro-Moscow communists might come back to power. Here's an interesting paragraph from the article highlighting corruption:

"As the electoral campaign gains momentum, tricks are being played by all sides. Both Mr Voronin's communists and Marian Lupu's Democratic Party have already used fake donors to account for part of the funds used in the campaign. In the last few days, Moldovan papers have been full of stories of simple voters – often poor peasants – who were puzzled to discover that they had been listed as donors of large sums of money to one party or the other."

Jewel in the Palace

This makes two posts in one day but while I'm thinking of it I want to make a note of the show that I watch with my host family just about every night. They've seen each episode several times (and there are many, many episodes) so I would say they are pretty into it. It's a South Korean drama called "Jewel in the Palace" and I kind of love it now too. The main man is a total heartthrob. More so than Dan Balan I have to say. His name is Ji Jin-Hee. Here 's a picture, but you have to see him in action in the show to really get the idea.

If you want to know more about the show you can check it out at this link: http://archiveu.mediacorptv.sg/jewel.htm

Quick synopsis from Wikipedia: Loosely based on the historical figure during the reign if King Jungiong depicted in the Annals of Joseon Dynasty, the show focuses on Jang-geum, the first female royal physician of the Joseon Dynasty of Korea. The main themes are her perseverance and the portrayal of the traditional Koren culture, including Korean royal court cuisine and traditional medicine.

The version we're watching is dubbed in Russian with English subtitles so it's also great language practice for all of us. Good times.

Joc, white chocolate, English conversation groups

I'll start backwards with the last few days. Last night I went to see a performance by "Joc," a famous Moldovan national/folk dance group, with a couple of ladies who work at the US embassy. Since it was the 65th anniversary of the group and they were honoring the director there were speeches in Romanian for about an hour before the performance actually started. It was intense and involved many, many flowers. It was worth sitting through all the repetitive praising of the director though because the show was pretty impressive. I took some short videos that I've been trying to upload without success. The place was completely packed and reporters were interviewing people in the audience during the show so it was kind of a big deal.

A couple days earlier Melissa was visiting because she had to give a presentation on teaching English grammar at the Pedagogical University in Chisinau. There were about 10 English teachers present from different schools and Melissa gave a very good, interactive lecture. I'm glad that I went because I offered to lead English conversation groups for students and the teachers were really excited about that. I've already committed to leading a weekly discussion group at the Educational Advising Center in Chisinau too. I think these groups will be a good opportunity for me to meet new people and give something back to the community as well since students are always more eager to practice their language skills if a native speaker is present. I figure I can also use these sessions as a way to raise awareness about human trafficking and see what the students already know about the issue. We can have one day dedicated to discussing migration/travel and they can talk about whether they have been abroad before, where they would want to go, how they would get information about traveling safely, what stories they have heard from friends and family and so on.

Melissa and I also went out to Grill House after her presentation and had a great dinner. Dessert was probably the highlight. I've been really into pears lately and I saw that they had a dessert of pear in a white chocolate sauce. If you've ever met me you probably know that I've had a slight to moderate white chocolate addiction in the past so you can imagine how excited I was about that. The waiter said it would take 30-40 minutes to prepare but we weren't in a hurry so we waited it out and it was very delicious.

Mireasa Țarului

I went to my first, and definitely not last, opera in Chisinau last night: Mireasa Țarului (The Tsar's Bride) with music by Rimsky-Korsakov. It was very dark and very Russian. The last act was really intense with people being murdered and going insane and all that and overall it was a great show with really cool costumes. My ticket cost about $8, but I actually could have bought a ticket for $5 and sat in the same spot. The cheapest tickets are for the back row of the balcony, but if the theater isn't full you can just go sit wherever you want with those tickets. I might try to do that sometime, but the next shows I'm planning on going to should be really popular (Marriage of Figaro, Madame Butterfly, The Barber of Seville) so it might be more packed. Anyway, I feel incredibly lucky that I live a 5-minute walk from first-rate, crazy inexpensive operas and ballets.

Backtracking a little bit, I went to the opera with a Peace Corps volunteer and a couple of people we met randomly in the botanical gardens earlier in the afternoon. When we were at the entrance, a girl heard us speaking English and asked where we were from. It turned out she's from Edinburgh, Scotland and is currently touring all of Europe doing freelance photography. She has a couple more countries to go before she's been to very country in Europe. Pretty impressive, and she's my age. She was there with a Moldovan girl, Anna, who works in public relations and was serving as her guide in Chisinau. I told Anna about my research and she said I should meet this American guy who works in public relations at the international organization for migration. More contacts! Always a good thing.

It's been a great weekend. The weather is absolutely gorgeous. I'm writing this post now from the park near my house. Free wi-fi. Not bad. Listening to "Despre Tine Cânt" (I Sing About You) by Dan Balan on repeat, thus practicing my Romanian as well. Back to work tomorrow!

Orhei, GTIP meeting, City Day recap

Over the weekend I went to Orhei (a city just a 45-minute drive away from Chisinau to the North) to visit Melissa. We were going to go to a soccer game on Saturday but it was raining and unfortunately the game was canceled. I got to meet her Russian tutor though and she had made some delicious pumpkin bread so we hung out for a bit to chat and then went to Melissa's house where I got to meet her host family a little later on. Her host family is adorable. The dad is short and very jolly and is a handyman. He was building a doghouse when I got there and was helping a neighbor working on a car when I left the next day. He also makes tea out of twigs that tastes surprisingly good. The mom seems like a really sweet person too. She lived with a host once; a gypsy (aka Romani person). She had a long conversation with us about how there aren't that many good people in the world and we need to always treat others like we want to be treated because it all comes around in the end. I had a very similar talk with my host mom in Russia at least 3 times. So she kind of reminded me of her. Especially in the way that she kept insisting for us to eat more and more at every meal. She even got me to eat cake at 11 am. Ok I guess this is just what all Eastern European hosts are like. I had blini and borscht and I was very happy. It was reallly warm in Melissa's room because she has a big wall stove situation in there. Pretty nice for sleeping in the winter I bet.

So I'm back at work today and it has been busy because we had a small forum here about the anti-trafficking program (GTIP) that I'm helping out with. A political officer from the US Embassy came, as well as a couple of ladies who work for the GTIP program in Washington, DC. I wish I could have talked to them but they came late and left early. There were also several Moldovans here from Transnistria who run Winrock's resource centers in that region. They gave presentations on the work they have been doing and that was interesting for me to hear more about. I learned a couple of new things, including that one of the centers has arranged trainings for police offers on trafficking issues and it seemed to go over well. It's hard to organize something like that and gain any interest but it seems like a really good idea if the officers would be receptive at all to the information. It seems unlikely since the Moldovan police are so corrupt, but you have to try to train and educate in order to make a difference. The resource centers are also trying to create a referral system/database in Transnistria so that when people call their helplines they can easily refer them to where they should go to have their specific issues addressed.

Oh and on an even more important note, I forgot to say anything about Chisinau Day. The concert at night was nuts. There had to have been thousands of people on the streets. I went with my host sister and her friend and they sang along to a bunch of the pop songs like the happy teenagers they are. I thought Dan Balan was great. On the big screen I could see the joy in his eyes and how proud he was to be performing in front of the people of his native land who were going crazy for him. I'm sure he doesn't get that much attention in the US. Although he has as many pantsless women on stage with him live as he does in his music videos so he must do pretty well. Anyway, apparently the next day there was a scandal all over the news about him being embarassingly drunk at the performace. I watched a couple of the youtube videos and he did seem pretty out of it but I couldn't tell at the concert at all; sounded great from where I was. Oh Dan Balan. The highlight was probably getting to hear the Numa Numa song live and see all the people dancing and singing along to it and I knew the words too which was not the case for any of the other songs except for "Chica Bomb" in which the words "Chica Bomb" make up 95% of the lyrics and 100% of what DB sings himself. It's nice that he writes his own lyrics (I think) but you can definitely tell because his English songs don't make a whole lot of sense.

Huge boost in quality of life

I am so glad I made the decision to move in with a host family. I'm kind of a loner and could be perfectly content living by myself all year without getting depressed or bored, but I want to get as much out of my time in Moldova as I possibly can and I can already tell that this is the way to do it. It's also nice that their house is just as great as my apartment was and maybe even in a bit of a better location. I'm still in the city center but on the other end of Stefan cel Mare, about a 2 minute walk from the National Opera and all the main government buildings.

I already met Raisa's other daughter, Corina, via Skype and they talk to her just about every night. She's living in Germany and just moved into a new apartment with her boyfriend. Last night Raisa's cousin and her cousin's husband came over for dinner. They're just visiting for a few days and have been living in Italy for 3 years now. They are incredibly nice people. We got to know each other speaking Russian but we also talked about how pretty soon I should start speaking to Raisa only in English and she should speak to me in Romanian so we can both get practice with our new languages. Then around New Year's, we'll have a Skype date with her cousin and Raisa will speak in English and I'll speak in Romanian. We'll see how far we'll actually get with that. Anyway it was a nice visit and Raisa made some delicious chicken as well as placinta which is a Moldovan specialty that's like a pastry or bread baked with cheese (tvorog for those of you know Russian food). It tastes kind of like Georgian khachapuri.

On a different note, I'm not going to work today because it's a holiday; City Day or Den Goroda in Russian. Tonight there's going to be a big concert on the main square, which is very close to our place. I was really excited when I found out that Dan Balan is going to be there. You might know him from the band O-Zone that produced the Numa Numa song, actually called Dragostea din tei which means "love from the linden trees." Dan moved out to California to start a solo career as "Crazy Loop." Check him out. Hottie.

Soccer & Wine

This weekend was pretty eventful. Melissa came to Chisinau on Friday and we got tickets for the big Moldova-Netherlands qualifier match. It ended up being a really good game. Moldova lost 1-0 but they played very well, especially considering the Netherlands is one of the top teams in the league. The stadium was packed and there was a good energy in the crowd. At one point in the game a spectator somehow got out onto the field and kicked a ball into the Dutch team's goal. My friend had sent me a video of that happening at a game in Moscow too, it was pretty funny. Anyway here's a picture of the stadium:


The other two Fulbright girls came to Chisinau on Saturday for the Wine Festival. We had been looking forward to it for a long time but unfortunately the weather was really terrible and everything was outside. It was rainy and cold all day Saturday and Sunday. We did stay for a couple hours though. There were folk dance/music performances all afternoon and a bunch of booths set up for different wine producers. You could sample the wine for free and buy all different kinds either in big plastic bottles or normal ones. Someone told us that the best wine to get at the fest is the stuff that comes right from the barrel.


We walked around for a while then took shelter inside this place that said 1842 or something out front and was set up like a mini feast inside with a guy dressed as the Greek god of wine and some warrior guys with spears and golden abs. We met a couple of Italian guys in there and hung out with them for the rest of the time so that was fun. Here's a picture from inside the place:


It was a fun weekend overall despite the rain. Tonight is my last night in this apartment so I'm packing up now and will move tomorrow night after work.

National Forum for Entrepreneurs

Yesterday was a big day for Winrock. The staff had been working hectically for the past couple of weeks to organize the National Forum for Entrepreneurs that was held at the very posh "Hotel Codru." Apparently the hall in which they held the day-long event is where ministers meet to sign important bilateral agreements and hold other official business. Winrock, along with the Lichtenstein Development Service (LED), has overseen the project titled Moldovan Employment and Entrepreneurship Education and Training Activity (MEEETA) for the past several years. This program has trained thousands of young entrepreneurs across Moldova about how to start their own businesses and has provided funds to more than 150 to help make this possible.

Although there were no speeches on the agenda of this event focusing on human trafficking, economic development is extremely important in preventing this phenomenon. As the forum was coming to a close, one of the young entrepreneurs made a final comment that illustrates this point. Thankfully, she was one of the very few people who said something in Russian so I could actually understand. She presented the director of Winrock with a couple of huge bouquets of balloon flowers and thanked her, through tears, for showing people that they can make a living in Moldova so that they don't have to leave their families and take the risk of going abroad.

There were lots of TV crews at the forum and I found a couple of videos online. The first is in Romanian and you can see my boss, Georgeta, around 1:06 and the director of Winrock, Sofia, directly after her. You can also see Chi Pham, the country director of the Lichtenstein Development Service, who was the only person to present in English. The second is in Russian and if you look carefully you might see me in the background at the registration table where I was trying to help/not be in the way.

http://www.trm.md/index.php?module=stiri_int&news_id=21444
http://ru.publika.md/link_56131.html

Gagauzia, kittens, and nightlife

This weekend I ventured out of Chisinau first time to visit my fellow Fulbrighter, Liz, in the autonomous republic of Gagauzia. Unlike in Chisinau, all of the street signs in Comrat (the capital) are in Russian and you don't really hear Romanian at all on the street. People also speak Gagauzian, which is similar to Turkish.

So the adventure started with the bus ride from Chisinau. I met up with Melissa, another Fulbrighter, and we caught the bus from the south station. We were cutting it a little close time-wise, so when we got on this big bus we had to stand in the aisle. A guy came by and checked everyone's tickets, then a few minutes later the back door of the bus opened up and a bunch of people crowded on. I think this is probably the standard protocol of getting a ride for free. We had to stand for about an hour and a half and then a few people got off at one of the stops and we could sit down for the last half hour or so. The roads weren't really as bad as I expected to it was fine. On the way back though we were able to get a ride with people from Winrock who were in Comrat on Saturday for a conference so it was nice to be in a car and able to see the countryside a lot better; it's very beautiful.

Liz and Rebecca, another Fulbright ETA, met us at the bus stop when we arrived and we went back to Liz's place for dinner. She lives in a really cute house with a host family and everyone seemed very nice so she has a good set-up there. They also have two incredibly adorable kittens that entertained us to no end while we were there. After dinner, we headed to the city center. I felt like kind of a snob from the big city when I asked where the main street was and Liz was like "Oh...yeah this is it." The place isn't quite as hopping as Chisinau at night to say the least. We met up with a few peace corps volunteers and then went to the one night club in Comrat. We got there around 11 and it was pretty empty but it got busier as the night went on and we had a good time. The next day we got up decently early to the sound of roosters crowing and had the whole day to see the city in daylight. After a couple of near-death encounters with cars and seeing some people making wine, Liz showed us the university she teaches at and I was really impressed. It was pretty nice and modern and she took us to a spot in the university where you can get a really pretty view of the city. Later on we went out to a late lunch/dinner and had some really good food. Everything is less expensive outside of Chisinau so we definitely appreciated that.

Melissa and I got back to Chisinau early Saturday evening and had my signature speciality (spaghetti) for dinner. Then we went to a concert at one of the underground bars that Liz and I found out about on the tour we took a couple weekends ago. It's called "neskuchnii dvor," which translated means "fun-filled courtyard" or something like that. Sounds better in Russian. The atmosphere was really great, and they had the perfect amount of people there so it wasn't too crowded. The band played covers of songs that were pretty much all in English; one was "Californication" and there was some jazz too. The singer had a nice voice and it was a good time overall.

After the concert, we decided to check out Bier Platz, this German restaurant that we had been wanting to go to. It was really cute inside. The waiters and waitresses dress up in German costume and there were some guys playing accordian and trombone and stuff. Behind the stage the wall is painted so it looks like they're performing in a German village. They also have a pretty good selection of German beers. Turns out it's a very popular place for tourists and ex-pats. I saw this guy on the other side of the restaurant and could tell right away that he had to be American. I guess because he was wearing a button-down shirt. Not very Moldovan. I mentioned it to Melissa and she couldn't see that guy but she said the one sitting across from him definitely looked American. We ended up talking to them and sure enough they both work at the embassy and said that this is the place to go if you want to run into foreigners.

This upcoming week is definitely going to fly by with work, a soccer game on Friday, and the big wine festival this weekend.

Romanian lessons

Ok, I know I'm crazy for wanting to take Romanian lessons when I can get by with Russian pretty much 100% of the time, I should probably be working to improve my Russian more than anything, and Romanian isn't the most useful language on the face of the planet, but whatever. I'm doing it. The staff meetings at Winrock are in Romanian and the people in the office speak Romanian most of the time so it would be nice to be able to eavesdrop on them and stuff.

So I want to the Casa Limbii Romane, recommended by a previous Fulbrighter, to ask about lessons. I spoke to the director in Russian and he was a bit confused as to why I would want to learn Romanian if I speak Russian and I'm going to be in Moldova for less than a year. I kind of got a feeling of judgment like when my Bulgarian teacher at the embassy last summer basically told me and Hillary that we were crazy for studying Bulgarian because it would completely mess up our Russian. Romanian is a romance language though so there's nothing to worry bout there. Anyway, after our discussion the director invited me to sit in on a class to see how the group lessons are taught. On Monday I went to the evening class and I'm pretty sure the students were all ethnic Russians. Observing the class was like studying two languages at once because it was a mixture of Russian and Romanian the whole time. I actually saw one of the girls from that class sitting outside my apartment building last night, which isn't because I'm pretty sure I happen to be in an area where only Russians live. I haven't heard anyone speaking Romanian around the apartment complex in the month I've been here.

The class seemed like it would be ok, but the director also said that there's the option to take private lessons and I could try an hour for free to see if I would like that better. So that's what I did today. I got to choose the time and the instructor came right to my apartment so that was convenient. I feel like I made a lot of progress in an hour and I really like the teacher. She said it's up to me to decide how often I want to have lessons and for how long, and she also said that once we master the verbs I'll probably have enough to get by. I think at that point I would stop having lessons and just teach myself while getting conversational practice with my host family and people at work.

I'm probably being too defensive about this decision, but there are actually practical reasons for me to study Romanian. I can already understand about 75% of what I read because of the similarities to French and English, so if I learn to read and write the language then I can help out at work with Romanian-English translations instead of just Russian-English. It'll also help with my research because a lot of documents are only in Romanian.

Not to mention, I assume that learning Romanian will significantly increase my chances of finding a Moldovan husband. And we all know that's why I'm really here.

BEST NIGHT

The Ethno Jazz Festival just totally blew my mind. The final act tonight was a Polish group with dual accordions, violin, drums, bass, clarinet and it was UNBELIEVABLE. I wish I could describe how amazing it was. There's nothing like raucous live jazz music that is just oozing with creativity and passion. So glad I went. My heart is breaking a little bit because all I want to do is play my violin and I don't have it. I'm definitely going to get a ticket at least for Sunday night too. The second group was also great because the singer was this awesome woman from Zimbabwe who really drew in the crowd. But really the last group gave one of the best performances I've ever seen.

Before the concert I went to one of the best restaurants in Chisinau, Grill House, with Frank (a Fulbright scholar who is teaching at Moldova State) and the food and atmosphere was very good there too. Not to mention the weather today was gorgeous. I'm really loving this city right now.

Link to the website of the Bester Quartet from Poland: http://www.besterquartet.com/english.php.

Moldovan Identity

Last night I met a couple of ladies who work for the Soros Foundation-Moldova at Pani Pit, which has a really nice atmosphere and plays jazz music. From what I gathered, the Soros office in Chisinau primarily works to promote democratiziation and good governance and in that capacity they do a lot with monitoring and training NGOs. They ladies I met with are also very interested in the work that is being done to empower women in Moldova, which in turn helps decrease the risk of human trafficking and helps in the fight against domestic violence. Women all around Moldova are provided with trainings about how to start their own businesses, mobilize a community to address different issues, and gain self-esteem among many other things. Winrock is just one of many NGOs that give trainings and seminars with those goals.

We had an interesting conversation about Moldova's place stuck between the EU and Russia and how challenging it is to find a real sense of Moldovan identity. We talked about the benefits of Moldova working towards EU membership just in that it provides a stimulus for reform since all countries are expected to reach certain standards in all areas including economics, political stability, human rights, and so on before joining. However, it is also important for Moldova to maintain strong ties to Russia because you can't just forget that it was a part of the Soviet Union not that long ago, and that Russia controls its gas and has strong influence in the breakaway region of Transnistria.

They also enlightened me a little more about Moldovan sensitivity to language issues and ethnic minorities. Apparently although most Moldovans, especially in Chisinau, speak Romanian and Russian fluently, they make a lot of mistakes in both languages. I'm starting to understand a little bit more about how language is studied and used here. My boss at work said that although pretty much everyone speaks both languages now, that might not be the case in 10 years. Most people are educated in Romanian but study Russian as a second language in school, but actually it seems the majority of Moldovans are now studying French and English instead of Russian. In southern cities like Comrat everyone speaks Russian and that will probably be true for many years to come, but in other parts of the country it seems like you're going to start hearing Russian less and less. One of the women I was with said that it doesn't even make sense historically for Moldova to be its own country, and that it would make more sense if it had been absorbed by Romania again after the fall of the Soviet Union. But then there's the issue of Transnistria and all the ethnic minorities in the country. If everyone was suddenly a Romanian but felt no connection to that culture and didn't speak the language, that would be a very uncomfortable spot to be in. Overall, the national, cultural, and linguistic aspects of Moldovan identity create a very complex subject of study and I'm looking forward to exploring that more during my time here.

We also got back to the topic of my research, and both women shared stories with me about women they have met who have been trafficked. These stories and case studies really provide the best view into the issue of human trafficking in Moldova, so I was very interested to hear what they had to say. One of the women lived with a girl when she was at university who ended up being trafficked. She saw her when she came back to Moldova after a couple of years and she had lost tons of weight and clearly had experience trauma and was struggling with psychological issues. She's abroad again now but supposedly in a better situation. I won't get into many details on my blog with case studies I encounter because I feel like it's very sensitive material, but when you see that you have a small degree of separation between yourself and someone who was trafficked the problem seems that much more real. In Moldova, it really seems like it can happen to anyone, and how the whole process unfolds and what happens in the aftermath varies drastically from case to case.

The Winrock Experience

I started my internship at Winrock Moldova last week and I haven't really written anything about the work I'm doing yet so I think it's time for that. Winrock International is an American organization that has offices all over the world. I'm working on GTIP (Transnistrian Women's Support Program), which is funded by the US State Department, and right now I'm also helping out with anything else that comes up in the office. I'll be helping with monitoring the activities that are going on at our two resource centers in Transnistria, which include trainings on trafficking awareness and entreprenurial skills among other things, plus they offer free psychological and legal counseling and a crisis hotline. I'll also be translating some documents from English into Russian and vice versa. I translated some questions to send to the resource centers from English to Russian today and it was pretty difficult actually because of the terminology used, but I think it will get easier if I do it more often. I'm also reviewing the new proposal to extend the project for two more years and was brainstorming some new ways to raise awareness about domestic violence and human trafficking. They aren't making use of social networking sites at all so far and I think that could be a really useful way to attract attention to these issues. I visited one of my co-workers at home and met her teenage daughter who spends all her time on the internet. She has Facebook and also odnaklassnitsa which is a Russian site. I checked kontakte, which is the primary Russian version of Facebook, and there are probably 100,000 young people from Transnistria on that website from the quick calculations I made. I think if Winrock made an official group on each of these sites and invited people to join, then posted the anti-trafficking videos they've made and other information on those pages they would get a lot of views. So I'll probably suggest that and see what my co-workers think.

Like I mentioned above, I got to visit one of my co-workers (Raisa) at home last night. She has invited me to live with her and her daughter to help them learn English, and I think I'm going to take her up on that offer. Georgeta, the leader of the GTIP program, came over as well with her 3 year old daugther and we all had dinner together. I was a bit nervous when she said she was making fish because I usually say I have an allergy to fish to avoid it, but I decided to try it and it was actually really good with all the vegetables to kind of disguise the fishiness. So yeah that was actually the first time in my life that I've eaten fish I believe.

The best part of living with a host would be learning more about Moldovan traditions and getting practice with both Russian and Romanian. At dinner they already filled me in on a few things. For example, if someone spills a drink (especially on holidays), it means your dead relatives want some too. We also had some homemade wine which is very popular here. Another topic of dinner conversation was whether or not I'm trying to find a Moldovan husband. I knew that question was going to come at some point, but I didn't really answer. They asked me what I think of their men and I said that they seem to be good looking and they were like "Yeah...yep they're handsome but that's about it." Daniela, the 3-year-old, was adorable. Raisa told her that she would get a surprise after dinner and it turned out to be gummy bears, which she called "jelly bones." Georgeta thought that was what they were too so they were both laughing and saying "ooo jelly bones, jelly bones" over and over again and it was so cute that I couldn't correct them.

So that's what's been going on with me and the Winrock crew. Tonight I had a really good conversation over dinner with a couple of ladies from the Soros Foundation but I'll save that for tomorrow.

Festivities

So yesterday I was planning on just hanging out at my apartment after Melissa and Liz left but someone from work called and told me that I should go downtown because there was some kind of festival going on that I probably wouldn't get to see again. I'll let this short video I made speak for itself, but I still don't really know what this event was. All I know is that 90% of the people there were on bikes. And there was breakdancing. The quality of the video is better on vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/15136656. Or watch below.




ADDENDUM:

Apparently if I had read the Embassy newsletter a little more carefully I would have caught the paragraph about this event. It was the annual "Vela Hora" bike rally where people do a 20k loop on bikes around the city and the festival in the center of town was affiliated with this.

Weekend with Fulbrighters

Liz and Melissa came to visit me this weekend and it was great to get to know them better. They are both Fulbright ETAs, which means that they are teaching English in cities/towns outside of Chisinau. Liz is at a university in Comrat, which is in the South in Gaugazia where everyone speaks Russian and also Gaugazian which is similar to Turkish. Melissa is closer to Chisinau in Orhei and she's teaching 6th grade.

Liz came and stayed with me Thursday night because she wanted to check out the Flow Festival that was taking place in Chisinau. The website made it seem like this "festival of conversation" was open to the public but in reality the discussion sessions were meant for people who were nominated by their countries to participate in this event. There were 5 or 6 people from each country, including Bosnia, Ukraine, Moldova, Hungary, and some other places. I met up with Liz in the afternoon to see what it was an I was glad I went because it was pretty interesting. Getting there was a bit of a challenge though. On the website it said that it was taking place on this beach, and when we looked up the location on Google maps it looked like it was going to be right next to this big lake. However, this lake has completely dried up so when Liz went in the morning and was asking people for directions they had no idea what she was talking about. She finally found it though and told me how to get there from work so it wasn't a problem.

Anyway, so I got there and people were set up in groups and each group had a different topic to discuss. They let us sit in and listen even though we weren't participants, and everything was in English so that was good. We listened to the group that was discussing identity, and it was really fascinating especially to hear people from the Balkans talk about their life experiences. Most of the people there were professors, and one guy was a Bosnian refugee living in Germany. After the discussion section, the entire group was going on special tours of Chisinau and Liz and I managed to get in on that too. There were three options, and we went on the tour that was about the underground culture of the city. It was kind of sad because the guide would take us to some place and be like oh this used to be an open-air book market where people would come and exchange books and sit at this cafe and talk about interesting stuff etc. and well now it's a parking lot. Oh and here there used to be this amazing theater where artists would come and perform original works but it was shut down and now it's a restaurant. The last stop was at a cafe that's literally underground and still hosts concerts so it's good to know about.

Melissa came into town Friday night, and on Saturday we met up with this guy Isaac who is in the Peace Corps and lives close to her town. We also ran into a couple that I had met at the labor day bbq at the marine house and some people Isaac knows so it was kind of an American overload day. Melissa, Liz and I cooked dinner together at night and looked up some clubs to go to. We really wanted to go to the one that was rated the best in Liz's guide book and online but we found out later in the night that it doesn't exist anymore. Before that disappointment though we went to a place that Melissa had been to before where there's this big bus in the middle of the room and the bartenders serve through the windows of the bus. That was pretty cool. Then we went to the club "Decadance" where there was a laser light show dance party kind of thing that was fun. We got to dance to some euro house music and that's all we really wanted so it was a good night. I'm looking forward to visiting their towns sometime soon because I really want to get outside of Chisinau and see what life is like in other parts of the country. We're all having very different experiences so it's great to be able to get together easily and hear about what's going on with everyone else.

The Central Market and Shopping Underground

Before I address the markets in Chisinau, I want to talk about the underpasses. Crossing the street has probably been the most terrifying part of my experience in Moldova so far. Yesterday when I was walking I started to imagine crossing the street and being run over by a speeding micro bus and having to worry about getting to a hospital and losing my legs and how much more difficult life would be if I didn't have my legs. So, I'm very cautious. I love the underpasses because I can cross the street without fear. In addition, while I make the short journey underground I can get visa pictures taken, buy a cell phone, have a bite to eat in a cafe, buy laundry detergent and a pet bird, get my hair cut, purchase a flat screen TV, and much more. I could probably do 90% of my shopping at this underpass next to my building if I really wanted to.

However, it is also an experience to go to the Central Market. The market is huge, it's only a 10 minute walk from my apartment, and it's open every day except Monday year round. Here, you can also find all the basic necessities of life, but more than anything it is the best place to buy fresh fruits and vegetables. If you read the book "The Geography of Bliss," then you know that although Moldova is the unhappiest place on earth according to some studies, you can find very fresh fruits and vegetables here. Although the Central Market is pretty wonderful, I can't really say I'm a big fan. I don't like the big crowds and being pushed around by babushkas. I think it would definitely be a better experience to go there knowing exactly what you want and where to find it, but right now I just wander around feeling totally overwhelmed. Also, it's a great place to go to buy in bulk, but since I'm the only one consuming this food I can't get too many fruits and vegetables or they will spoil. I saw one couple buy at least 40 bananas at one stand; I imagine that was a really good deal. They were probably going to resell them. Or they just really love bananas.

Well, here are a few pictures from the Piata Centrala. There is also an art market on the main boulevard where you can buy paintings, matroshka dolls, jewelry, and all kinds of things like that.

Working with 3 languages...

Last night I met up with Matt, the volunteer coordinator for Winrock, and some of the Moldovan university students who volunteer for the organization. We went to "Andy's Pizza" which is a Moldovan restaurant chain that looks very, very American. The new menus are all just color pictures with names in English and they look like they could have come out of a Denny's. The food was good, there was a lot of it, and it was inexpensive. There were six or seven of us there in total, and it was really nice to meet some new people. I spoke to the girls near me in Russian, and Matt spoke to the students across and next to him in Romanian. Then we spoke in English too, of course. So language wasn't really a problem at dinner.

After dinner, Yulia invited us to her apartment for a birthday party because her birthday had been the day before. We took taxis there and had some Moldovan salads and different appetizers that she had prepared. She also had some really good tirimasu for dessert. Yulia's older sister was there, and we started to encounter some language difficulties around the table because Matt speaks Romanian but no Russian, I speak Russian but no Romanian, and Yulia's sister doesn't speak any English. We made do talking in different languages and someone would translate once in a while, but that was a situation I hadn't been in before. I guess that's what happens when you have 2 official languages. I enjoyed hearing them talk in Romanian though and I was able to pick up a few phrases.

At any rate, I'm glad that I met some people who work with Winrock. One of the girls, Olga, is a project assistant and will be working right next to me in the office during the afternoons. Matt's last day is this coming Tuesday so I'll be taking his desk. Should work out well!

Ora International & Love and Care for Moldova

Yesterday I went to visit Catalina at her office and she told me all about the work she does for NGOs and charities in Chisinau. She definitely keeps herself extremely busy. She works for Ora International and also for the British charity "Love and Care for Moldova." Here are the links to the two websites.

http://www.love-and-care-for-moldova.co.uk/home/
http://www.ora-international.org/index.php?orga_id=30&setcookie=Go

She showed me a couple of movies they made and it was very eye-opening to see what life is like in the poorest villages in Moldova. She took Christmas gifts to children in one village that you can't access by car; they went by horse and carriage. The children she visited were dirty, had no adult supervision, and had only the clothes on their backs. Some of the young children can't go to school because they have to tend to the animals. It's a pretty dismal picture. She invited me to go along with her on one of her trips and I think I will do that at some point this year.

At her office building they also have a tailor shop where young women from the villages come to learn how to tailor and start their own businesses. They also have access to a psychiatrist and they teach English in the building. They are involved in many other projects, including managing an orphanage and nursing home. Catalina and I talked for a while about the work people are doing at NGOs in Chisinau. In her opinion, there is not enough coordination between organizations. It is difficult to do very much with minimal funding, and there could be a bigger impact if organizations joined forces more often. Instead, there is a feeling of competition that doesn't really benefit anyone. She also said that she's learned that the most beneficial aid she can give is education. A one-time donation of some books, food, or clothing is much appreciated, but won't make much of a difference in the long-term. A lot of the young people she has seen already have rotting teeth just because they haven't learned about personal hygiene.

Catalina is very interested in women's issues and empowering young women to change their lives, which is an important aspect of my research as well. Hopefully we will be able to work together on a project at some point during my time here.

Listening to lectures or giving them?

Well I went to ULIM today to find out more about auditing courses but the lady I talked to on the phone thought that I wanted to find a time to give a lecture to the students and faculty in the International Relations department. So, she wants me to give a lecture sometime next week on any subject related to IR. Another Fulbright Scholar is giving one of these public lectures this Thursday on the US Supreme Court so I'm going to go to that and see what kind of presentation she gives. The people at the Embassy said that we'd be called upon from time to time to do this kind of thing but I wasn't expecting it to come up so soon. Not really a big deal though.

The lady at ULIM did give me the contact information of another professor who teaches courses on the EU and has research interests in EU enlargement so I e-mailed her to see what courses she will be teaching this semester and to see if I can sit in on them. I'm sure something will work out. I'm definitely getting anxious to get some sort of schedule together though and to find out more about what I'll be doing at Winrock.

Catalina just came over to get me to sign my rental agreement for the apartment and she invited me to go visit her at work sometime this week so I might go in on Wednesday. She works at Ora International, which is a British NGO that she said focuses on helping orphans in Moldova, so it should be interesting to go check that out.

Oh on a final note, the referendum failed due to low voter turnout. Catalina was one of the people who was in charge of observing the election to make sure there wasn't fraud or anything like that and she said it was very boring. Looks like Moldova will be without a president for an indefinite period of time.

Constitutional Referendum

Today is an important day for Moldova. Voters are asked to answer the question "Would you agree with the Constitutional amendment, which would allow the election of the President of the Republic of Moldova by the entire population?" If the referendum passes, this will be an important step for the country's aspirations to join the EU in the future.

In other news, the party at the embassy was a lot of fun last night and I met a bunch of new people. Apparently Chisinau is known as a good post for families because it's so safe, so most of the people who were there are married and have kids. I did, however, meet a girl who just joined the Foreign Service in the management cone and I think we'll be good friends. She's interested in going to the operas and ballets so I'll have someone to do that stuff with. I was also able to talk to some people about their jobs and about joining the foreign service so it was great to get more insight about the career. I picked up a sim card on the way over so I was able to exchange contact information with people and I already have new contacts for my project.

Coincidentally, I ran into a couple of American missionaries who are also working on a project related to the issue of human trafficking when I was on my way to the barbecue. When I got off the bus, I wasn't totally sure that I was in the right place and I heard people in front of me speaking English so I asked them if they were going there. That wasn't where they were headed, but they lived close by so they walked me part of the way there and gave me directions. The lady gave me their business card and said that she knows someone who has been working with trafficking victims for the past 5 years and would be a good contact for me.

Finally, I want to note that public transportation is extremely inexpensive. It cost 2 lei for a ticket which is about 15 cents. I thought 10 rubles for a ticket (about 30 cents) in Vladimir was cheap. So it won't be expensive to get around if I use public transportation, but I'm lucky that I live right downtown so I'll probably walk everywhere even in the winter.

Back with the Embassy Crowd

Today I went to the US Embassy to check-in with the Public Affairs Office. I finally got to meet Valerie, Irina, and Valentina in person and they were all very nice and helpful. They told me that different organizations and universities in Chisinau might like me to come in to give presentations in English or lead conversation groups and I would definitely be interested in helping out with that because I will meet a lot of new people. Irina also gave me the contact information of a lady at the International Organization of Migration who said she would help me out with my research in any way possible. The office had been trying to get me an internship there because that was the organization I identified in my proposal, but it wasn't going to be a good time for them to take on the additional responsibility of an intern. This woman should be able to get me into meetings and give me some good information though so I'm looking forward to meeting her.

Anyway, it was fun to be back in a US Embassy. This one couldn't be much different from the embassy in Sofia. In Bulgaria, the embassy was located really far away from anything and the security was way more intense. That embassy was also enormous, and this one is very small but in a much prettier building. Valerie said one reason she chose this post was because she heard the city is very safe, so that was good to hear. She's been here for a year so far.

I didn't meet many other people, but there is going to be a Labor Day Barbecue with live music tomorrow and I was invited to that so I'm definitely going to go. Irina and Valentina aren't going but they said all the Americans will be there. It's at the Marine House, just like all the events were when I was in Bulgaria. The address is farther from the embassy though; in Sofia the building was practically attached to the embassy. They gave me good directions though so I think I'm going to take public transportation for the first time and I'm sure I'll find it ok.

I think next week I will start to arrange meetings and figure out what classes I might be able to take at ULIM. I know this week wouldn't be good for everyone because there were a few holidays and then the semester just started up so it would be really busy at the universities. Next week things should start to come together, and I'm excited to meet more people tomorrow.

No longer afraid of the gas stove

I faced my fear of lighting the gas stove today and made scrambled eggs for breakfast and Russian pelmeni for dinner. The package of frozen pelmeni that I bought cost less than $2 and could easily feed me for a week but I would probably get very sick of them. Its not my favorite food, but its familiarty was comforting. Maybe I should try the package with the penguins on it instead of cows but I didn't know what kind of meat would be in that one. Not that I really know what kind of meat is in the ones I bought either. That's the fun of eating meat-filled things in Russia and Eastern Europe.

In other news, the weather was nice and cool today so I spent a couple of hours exploring the city and figuring out just how close I am to everything. I was pleased to discover that I am in fact very close to everywhere I might need to be because the city isn't really that big. There is also a big shopping center right across the street; I can see it from my window but didn't realize what it was until today. So I bought more food there, and they have tons of stands to buy whatever you need inside. I was just walking around without a map to see what I would run into, and I think I happened across all the universities in the city except the one I might be auditing classes at (ULIM). I'll find that and the U.S. Embassy tomorrow. I did see the Russian Embassy, and it's enormous, which was to be expected.

All of the young people I saw on the streets today were dressed up in suits and ties or dresses, and I immediately knew that this must be the first day of the new school year. My friends in Vladimir had told me they do the same thing in Russia, and everyone starts classes on the first of September. I guess the same is true in Moldova.

Anyway, I went to the main park today that's right on the main boulevard, where I live, and it was really beautiful. Here are some pictures from my wanderings today.