Nice Try Madrid

Spain tried really hard to push me over to Team Western Europe, but no dice. Although Madrid really blew me away and I enjoyed every minute of my 3 day vacation, I felt myself missing the craziness of Eastern Europe. I felt some serious culture shock when I arrived at the airport in Madrid. I haven't traveled to too many places where I was totally clueless about the native language. The 1 semester of Spanish I took in middle school wasn't cutting it and whenever someone would ask me a question I would respond "Da...oui...si" and look like an idiot. This was a little better than when I first got to Germany and would respond "Da" since in German that means "over there" and saying this made me look very confused.

At any rate, the real culture shock came from how spotless everything was and how much everything made sense. I first noticed this with the metro system. Cultural differences that were harder to get used to included the fact that people eat dinner around 10 or 10:30 in Spain and when you're at a tapas bar or something and you're done with your trash you throw it on the floor. Another difference is that you can't smoke inside anywhere in Spain anymore. They don't even have any of those little smoking rooms in the airport like they do in most places. This means when you go out to a bar or club you don't reek of smoke for days after like you do in Moldova. Kind of nice actually.

The hostel I stayed in was glorious and my trip was worth it just for the nice shower. My American compatriots in Moldova know what I'm talking about. The place was also in a great location so I could walk to all the main sights. I met up with my friend Chloe on Friday night, who is finishing up her master's degree and is spending the year in Spain (her program is based in Brussels). We went out to dinner at 9:30 and I got there a little early despite getting lost in the rain so I sat for a few minutes by myself and observed the rambunctious group of American study abroad students sitting in the corner. Then Chloe arrived with a friend who used to work for her dad (who I know from my internship at the embassy in Bulgaria) who is joining the Peace Corps in Africa someplace soon and is taking a long vacation in Spain because her boyfriend is Spanish and lives close to Madrid. We had a really interesting conversation about the work we have all done for various NGOs and international organizations and both of their parents have worked in Eastern Europe so we had a lot to talk about. After dinner, we went back to Chloe's apartment and met all her roommates. It was like a scene out of "L'Auberge Espagnole" (The Spanish Apartment) if anyone has seen that. She lives with a Mexican guy, a German girl, an American guy, a Spanish girl, and a French girl. We sat around for a while talking and I didn't get back to my hostel until around 6 am.

The next day I got up and walked around sightseeing until I made it to the Prado, which is one of the most famous museums in the world. It was very impressive. The Rubens paintings were my favorites. Just tons and tons of masterpieces. After that, I did some more exploring and then met up with the other Moldova Fulbrighters Melissa and Rebecca at Kate's place. Kate is a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Madrid who went to college with Liz, another Fulbright ETA who was busy visiting Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan so she couldn't join us. Kate's apartment was similar to Chloe's and consisted of an equally international group. We went over to an apartment where some other Fulbrighters are living and met a ton of new people. One of them, Sammy, went to Bates so Lisa if you're reading this I believe you know her. She played field hockey with Heidi. Small world. Another guy there went to Amherst so we know a lot of the same people too.

After that we met up with one of Kate's Spanish roommates and his friends and went to a club. The music there was pretty interesting. At one point they were playing songs from Grease. We got pretty excited about this for some reason. The Spanish people did a really intense coordinated dance to one of the Spanish songs that reminded us of Moldovans getting up in a bar or club to do the hora. We didn't join in on that. Again, I got to sleep around 7 am.

I just have too much to write about so I'm going to skip to the best day, which was Monday. The sun was out, it was 60 degrees, and we had a super precious afternoon in Retiro Park and out on the pond in a rowboat. We packed a picnic of bread and cheese and strawberries and laid around for a while then decided to take a boat out on the pond nearby because it looked like too much fun to pass up. Luckily Melissa is an athlete so Rebecca and I didn't have to do any of the work. After that, we went to the museum the Reine Sofia that has a ton of Picasso and Dali paintings. Loved it.

All in all, the trip was fantastic. I definitely want to go back to Spain someday. For now though I'm happy to be back in Moldova. Joe Biden is visiting tomorrow which is a really huge deal. He's speaking on the square of the Opera which is right by my house so I'm lucky I won't have to deal with the traffic. There are already enormous American and Moldovan flags covering the facade. The next post will most likely be about his speech. We'll see how it goes and what the reaction is from the press and everything. He was meeting with Medvedev yesterday I believe and discussing the Transnistria issue. Maybe there will be increased efforts to resolve this problem.

International Relations Course and Russian Ambassador at IRIM

Yesterday I attended my first class as a student at the Institute of International Relations of Moldova (IRIM) where I’m teaching the negotiations course. The professor that asked me and Chris to teach that course gave me information about courses related to my interests that are taught in Russian. The office assistant gave me one piece of paper that had the professor’s name but no hint of the course subject and listed the times the course meets but not the room number. The other piece of paper was for another professor’s courses and listed what I think are the titles of specific lectures and the times and dates when those lectures will be held. The dates and the corresponding days of the week listed, however, do not match up so I think I have to do some more investigating before I can check those out.

At any rate, the course I went to yesterday was “The History of International Relations.” From the information I received, this course was meant to be held from 5:10-6:30 on Mondays and Wednesdays. In reality, however, the lecture lasted until 8:00. There were only 5 of us in the class so it felt very seminar-like except for that there wasn’t any discussion. Part of this might have been because the professor was trying to catch me up on the material that they had already covered. It’s possible that this bored the other students. The guy next to me was blatantly texting the entire time. Not even under the table. Anyway, the professor talked, without notes, for the entire time. The lecture focused on the end of WWI and the Genoa Conference of 1922 but the professor went off on several tangents as well. It was a bit difficult for me to understand everything he was saying but I tried especially hard to take it all in when he was talking about the United States just in case he might ask my opinion on something or give me a reason to feel like I needed to defend my country. He was very positive about the US, however, so that wasn’t a problem.

I think the most interesting topic that came up was the fact that so many Germans went to work in factories in the Soviet Union after WWI. The Germans weren’t allowed to build tanks or do any kind of war-related work in their country and were under strict monitoring from the French. The Soviet Union needed help with its goal of rapid industrialization. So, the two countries helped each other out. Skills that were important for war preparation did not atrophy during this time among the Germans who helped the Soviets by working alongside them. There were a lot of Americans working in the factories as well because of the Great Depression. I remember reading a really interesting book written by a US citizen who worked in one of those factories but can’t think of the name of it now.

I really liked the professor of this course and he is clearly a fountain of knowledge. He was an engaging speaker as well. He told me that the Russian ambassador to Moldova would be speaking at the school the next day and that I could attend the lecture. I thought that sounded like a cool opportunity, so I went. I sat in the back which was unfortunate because there was a lot of noise outside the door and it was hard to hear at times, but I could get the gist of what he was talking about most of the time. Most of the topics you would expect to come up, including the Russia-US missile defense system clash, the situation in Transnistria, the price of gas, the European integration of Moldova, and the political instability in Moldova that is annoying the Russian government as much as everyone else. I saw some students from my negotiations course at the lecture so I’ll ask them what they thought was most interesting tomorrow.

Martisor: The End of Winter? Questionable.

Tomorrow, March 1^st, marks a holiday in Moldova and Romania known as “Martisor.” The idea is to celebrate spring and the rebirth of life after a hard winter but it’s still looking like winter out there right now. It felt more like spring a few weeks ago. At any rate, vendors have been selling Martisor pins on the street for a while now. They come in lots of different shapes and sizes but always have the colors red and white. My Romanian teacher explained to me one of the legends of Martisor which is, in short, that the evil winter witch puts up a fight with the beautiful lady Spring because he always wants to stick around longer. The winter guy cuts Spring and her warm red blood falls on the fresh white snow. The snow starts to melt from this drop of blood and soon Spring has taken over. That’s the gist of it. This website has more info.

http://www.marisha.net/martisor.htm

In other news, the weekend was once again very eventful and I’ll give a couple highlights. On Friday night I went to a concert at a very beautiful theater in the center of Chisinau. The Moldovan folklore orchestra was accompanying contest entrants who were singing Romances in Romanian. The music was pretty good, but the outfits the women were wearing were just out of this world. Any description I give can’t really do them justice, but I’ll say at least that one lady who was probably in her 50s was wearing a floor-length red dress that was all sequins and sparkle. Almost blindingly bright. Another dress looked like something that would cover an Easter basket. I think that’s how Melissa described it. It was pale yellow and just kind of full and fluffy and sheer looking. There were some pastel flowers up top if I remember correctly too. I wish I’d had my camera.

I also went to the Malina Cocktail House a couple of times this weekend. It’s my new favorite place in Chisinau. It’s pretty small and set inside this bridge that’s connected to one of the shopping centers so you look out over the street. It’s nice and warm inside with pink lighting and raspberries everywhere (because of the name) and there’s a faint scent of hookah. Very relaxing atmosphere, except of course there is house/electronic music pumping constantly because, hey, we're in Eastern Europe after all. I like it though.

Moldovan sex-trafficker arrested in Florida

I noticed a headline in the Komsomolskaya Pravda this morning (a Moldovan Russian language newspaper) about a Moldovan citizen being arrested for implication in a sex-trafficking ring in the United States. Here’s an article about the arrest from an Orlando paper. I find it really interesting that she’s now seeking political asylum in the US. I’m going to see if I can find out on what grounds she’s applying. Apparently the traffickers recruited non-US citizens through a website to come to the America to work in the sex trade and found clients through Craigslist and Backpage.

OrlandoSentinel.com

Russian sex-ring suspects appear in federal court

By Amy Pavuk, Orlando Sentinel

4:03 PM EST, February 18, 2011

Several people suspected of working in a Russian sex trafficking ring in Central Florida appeared in Orlando federal court Friday.

The first of those to appear was 25-year-old Tatiana Belinschi, who was recently indicted and arrested on charges ranging from racketeering to conspiracy to defraud the United States.

The 27-count indictment, unsealed this week, accuses Belinschi's ex-husband, Roman Caraiman, and Alexandr Postica of recruiting women to work as sex workers at massage parlors around the United States.

Federal authorities said Caraiman imported people from Russia and sought to bring women from other countries to the United States, all to work in the sex trade.

None of those indicted by the grand jury are U.S. citizens. Belinschi is from the Republic of Moldova and told the court today she is seeking political asylum.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Bishop Ravenel told the court the evidence in the case is strong. The investigation involved undercover calls, wiretaps and surveillance.

The group's suspected criminal activities occurred in Orlando, Tampa, Atlanta, Boston, Detroit and Miami, he said.

Several of the suspects were arrested outside Florida, including Postica and co-defendants Saida Babaeva, 28, and Alina Priadko, 24.

Ravenel said in court authorities believe Caraiman fled to Europe.

Four others named in the indictment made court appearances Friday: Kateryna Krykovlyuk, Elena Shashurova, Vlada Blisciuc and Irina Luchina. They each face one count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S.

Also indicted are: Elena Abushinova, Aleksandra Liubina and Natalia Fedorova.

The indictment alleges that the 12 worked together in a commercial sex business in Orange, Osceola and Hillsborough counties since at least July 2009. Their activities continued through this month, the charges state.

Caraiman, Belinschi and Postica are accused of using at least one website to recruit non-U.S. citizens to work in the sex industry in America.

Authorities said Caraiman and Belinschi placed ads for massage services on the classifieds websites craigslist and backpage, so they could solicit customers.

Nine of the suspects paid a portion of their proceeds to Caraiman, who then shared his money with Belinschi and Postica, the charges state.

Ravenel said after Belinschi was arrested, she confessed to the crimes.

The prosecutor told the judge Belinschi is too great a flight risk, and noted that she fled from a criminal case in another state.

Ravenel said Belinschi is unemployed, unauthorized to work, and the enterprise was significantly dismantled.

But public defender James Smith argued conditions could be set, such as electronic monitoring, that would guarantee Belinschi appears for future court dates.

He noted that she has a daughter, who is now in state custody.

But U.S. Magistrate Judge Donald Dietrich ruled in favor of the government's request to keep Belinschi at the Orange County Jail.

"I find serious risk of flight," he said.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-russian-sex-court-20110218,0,202513,print.story

Family Time

The past week consisted of a lot of quality time with my surrogate families here in Moldova. On Wednesday, my host mom became a grandma. Corina, who lives in Germany, gave birth to Darius in Frankfurt and he was automatically given German, Moldovan, and Romanian citizenship. Pretty good deal little guy. I got to see him live via Skype and they also showed us his birth announcement in the German newspaper that had a nice picture of the mother and son.

The next day was my host mom’s birthday but we didn’t do any celebrating until Friday. On Friday she brought in a bunch of food and an extremely delicious cake to the office and we celebrated there. In the evening, she had a friend over and we all sat around and drank wine. There was a nice moment when the guy asked what I am to them, like what they would call me (a tenant or renter or something like that) and my host mom said that I’m her third daughter and they consider me part of the family and went on and on about how much she loves me. She was a little tipsy. Then he asked Mihaela what she would call me and she said “I’d call her my sister.” Aw.

On Saturday night we had the real deal birthday party at home. Ten or so people came over (including Melissa) and we had tons of food and cognac and wine on the table. I got to give a toast to my host mom in Romanian and she was very pleased with that. She also made me get out my violin and play for everyone. The four-year-old that was there danced and when I played the one Moldovan melody I’ve memorized one of the men there sang along so that was cool. When the party was winding down and the guests were a little bit loosened up the little girl demanded that we put on music and dance. She partnered me up with the one man there that was pretty drunk who at one point picked up a knife from the table and held it in his teeth like it were a rose or whatever so we thought things were escalating a little too much and shut down the dance party.

After that Melissa and I decided to try our luck getting into this club that’s pretty close to my house. Last time we went the bouncer said that there wasn’t room for us and when we asked if we could wait for a little bit then go in when people came out he said “yeah you can get in tomorrow.” We left. This time we had no problem getting in. This could either be due to the fact that we looked amazing or that there were a grand total of about 5 people in the club when we got there. At any rate more people came after midnight and we had a good time. It was a lot different to go out just the two of us than with a bunch of Americans because we blended in much easier and talked to lots of Moldovans.

On Sunday we spent time with our Fulbright surrogate family. We went over to Bob and Beth’s for an amazing dinner of Paella, a Spanish dish. Rod and I also brought our instruments and practiced some Moldovan tunes for an hour or so before dinner. Their apartment is really nice and was super warm and cozy so it was a very nice evening.

In other news, I’m going to Madrid with Melissa and Rebecca at the end of next week and soon after that Joe Biden is coming to Moldova.

Always listen to the babushki

The weather was absolutely beautiful on Tuesday. Sunny and approaching 50 degrees. I was too hot with my winter jacket so I took it off and walked a couple of minutes before a babushka walking towards me on the street stopped to say "Put your jacket on! Put your jacket on!" to which I replied, "I'm hot" and she said "Yes you think it's hot now but the weather is changing and the flu is coming. You'll get sick. Put your jacket on." I said "ok, thanks" and sweat in my jacket all the way home.

The next day I came down with the flu.

Luckily I have my host family to take care of me. They made me tea and brought it to me in bed and I stayed under the covers all day. My host sister had me take my temperature when she got home from school and it was approaching 40 degrees celsius (104 F) so she called her mom and they decided I had to go to the doctor. The doctor's office was less than a 5 minute walk from our house which was great. My host sister went in with me and told the nurse and doctor what was going on with me in Romanian. Naturally, one of them made a snide comment about me not speaking Romanian, which I did understand. I feel like this shouldn't come up as an issue when you're dealing with someone's health. I talked to a Norwegian couple whose young daughter got really sick and they had to go to Hungary to have her treated because the doctor refused to speak to their nanny in Russian and they didn't speak any Romanian or Russian.

Anyway, I think they warmed up to me a little bit when they saw how freaked out I was when they told me they were going to give me a shot on the butt to bring down my fever. I feel like this isn't something we do in the US. The standard thing to do here though. The doctor gave me some flu medicine for free and I didn't have to pay anything for the visit. I also got some other medicine including these chewable vitamins that taste like seaweed. Yes I know what seaweed tastes like because this has become a common staple of food at our house and in the office lately.

Today I'm feeling a lot better and should be recovered fully soon. It sounds like a lot of other people are coming down with the same thing. Hopefully my host family will stay healthy.

The Adventure for a Violin

A great deal has happened in the last week but I’m going to focus this post on the conclusion of my quest to find a violin, a saga which began in October when I mentioned to Rod (the Fulbright music professor/student) that I wanted to play and learn some Moldovan folk music. He found out that one of his teachers, Diana, had a violin at her house that her husband didn’t really need. His name is Marin and he’s a fantastic professional musician. When I was home for break I opened up the book “Playing Moldovans at Tennis” by the British comedian Tony Hawk and saw Marin’s picture in there. He has traveled around the United States, Canada, and Europe playing with various groups and he performs at the popular restaurant for tourists “La Taifas” in Chisinau every evening. I’ve seen him play there a couple of times.

So anyway, Diana and Marin told Rod they would be willing to let me rent the violin during my stay here but they didn’t have a case for it. Not wanting to pay $70-$80 for a new case which seemed to be the going price in Chisinau, we put off getting the violin for months. Last week a student at the music school tipped Rod off to the costume shop in another building of the arts school that might have an old empty case I could buy. We went to this building which would be absolutely beautiful if it weren’t so run down. Rod helped write a grant proposal to the US Embassy to provide funds for its renovation so hopefully that will pan out. We ventured inside and after walking around for a bit we found the costumeria. In my best Romanian I told the lady that I wanted to buy a used violin case and asked if they had any around. She was very nice to us and closed down the shop to lead us up the rickety staircase to another room upstairs in which we found a variety of dusty old cases. After some discussion, she agreed to let Rod sign out the case since he is a student at the music school so he left his information and I was able to take a case home for free. Good deal.

The next step was to go to Marin and Diana’s house to pick up the violin, and we did this yesterday. Marin met us on the street and took us to his home which is very nice and located about a 10 minute walk from where I lived when I first got to Chisinau. When we arrived we were greeted by Diana and their two daughters who are 4 and 18. Marin pointed out to me that my case is actually for a viola. Whoops. They gave me a towel to wrap the violin in and that worked but I’m going to buy a nice, legitimate violin case for it to give it back to them in when I return the instrument in June. We both played the violin and it sounded great so I was very happy. After that Diana served us lunch of zama (a traditional Moldovan soup) and mamaliga with baked apples for dessert and, of course, lots of homemade wine. We’re in Moldova after all, she said. During the course of lunch their son came home and I realized that I had met him before at the ultimate Frisbee event put on by Winrock. Chisinau has been feeling like a very small world lately. Immediately following lunch and tea we sat down and watched a video of Marin playing at this big Jewish festival in Krakow. It was really incredible. There were musicians from Moldova, Germany, Poland, the US, and some other countries I believe playing all kinds of instruments and doing improvisations. I’m trying to find the video right now to post but am not having any luck. At any rate, it was very impressive.

Rod asked Marin about buying a book of Moldovan folk music he had been wanting to pick up, so Marin immediately called the guy who compiled this book of 1000+ melodies and said we could go to his house right away to buy the books directly from him. We walked to his apartment which turned out to be in the same complex that I had lived in. A bit of a surprise. Turns out this guy is a pretty famous musician/conductor but is quite old now, not in very good health, and is a bit of a pessimist as Marin mentioned. He brought out the books for us and gave us a couple of cds of his music as souvenirs. After Marin told him that I play violin, he took out an old violin for me to play and then he played himself. For some reason listening to him play made me emotional and I felt like I might cry, then I noticed when he put the violin down there was a single tear rolling town his cheek. It was a pretty touching moment. He autographed our books and then we left. Quite a day.

Another interesting note is that when I had my Romanian lesson I told my tutor about the guy and she said that he used to be the director of the Moldovan folk orchestra that her father is the director of now so they know each other well. Seriously a small world.