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.