A week of holiday

 

This has been one long week of holiday here in Moldova.  The independence day or "Ziua Independentia"  was on Tuesday, August 27th.  That marked the 22nd year of independence for the Republic of Moldova.  Not much was happening publically here in the village, but down in Chisinau there were many ceremonies, parades, and performances to mark the day.  I and two other Peace Corps volunteers marked the day by getting together for pizza in Orhei.  31st of August is another holiday called "Limba Noastra"  or Our Language.  It honors the return to the historic roots of the country to it's Basarabian culture and the Romanian language.  For fifty years this was lost under the Soviet times when Russian was the official language.  Today Moldova remains a very bi-lingual country, but Romanian is the official prime language.  So we gathered today at the Casa Cultura in Orhei to celebrate Our Language.  I myself and Molly and Stephanie...three Peace Corps volunteers joined the group singing the national anthem.  We all had red, yellow, and blue balloons to release when we were done.  That is the tri-color of the Moldovan flag.  The fellow in the white shirt speaking with microphone is the mayor of Orhei.  The program included children and adults reciting poetry,  some dance performers, and a folk ensemble.  At one point, there was even a blues duet done in Limba Noastra.  Sounded very Chicago-like.  I noticed a 3 generation picture out of the corner of my eye and had to grab it.  Mother, grandmother, and child enjoying the program together.  When I returned to my village, I was proud to see a neighbor sporting a Moldovan flag on his house.  It was a good week of holidays.  To all our friends back in the USA, we wish you a very safe and happy Labor Day!

Eco-construction in Straseni

 

Last weekend I had a wonderful time making mud pies.  Doesn't that sound like fun?  It was in the town of Straseni which is just a half hour drive from Chisinau.  There is located in Strasceni a special place to serve older people who are disabled.  And on the grounds of the Neohumanist Center we were creating structures made in an eco-friendly way out of local materials, namely sand, clay, straw.

Liliana Botnaru instructs a group of volunteers, both Peace Corps and local Moldovans into the art of making mud.  Just add water and stomp.  You can see it takes a lot of feet to build a village.  Look at this picture of group feet per second.  After some effort there is a whole wheelbarrow full.  The person you see with the bright red sweatshirt with American flag, is Boris.  He is really a college professor of cybernetics.  But he's up for the adventure as well.  In fact, he explained to me that when he was a boy in Moldova, this type of construction was sometimes used, especially to patch walls.  He thought that it had gone out of style with the floppy disk drive, but no, here it was again starting all over.  After making the mud, you have to apply it to your hay stack walls.  This involves throwing as well as smoothing with the hands.  But you can see we eventually end up with something beautiful such as this structure which will eventually become a shelter from the sun when a thatched roof is added.  Another structure made here was an outdoor oven.  We put that to work right away and our hosts made some terrific pizza.   You can see from the expression on those faces, that it was very, very good.  If you want to know more about eco-construction in Moldova, here is the web site:  www.eco-village.md  .  

August and its Hot

 

Yes, its been a hot August here in Moldova.  They call it the dog days, "canicula", a heat wave of 80 and 90 degree weather.  For those in the Midwest, let me say it's a dry heat.  No rain or humidity in sight.  You can see the ducklings in the yard, as well as our local road runner, and Mieska the dog are all looking for some shade.  Well enough talk about the weather.  Liviu has the right idea, it's watermelon season, "harbuzul"  is the solution to all this heat.   August has also been a month for birthdays around here.  All three family members you see in  next (#5) picture had birthdays in August.  Lilia and Vova are husband and wife and they both have a birthday on August 6th...same year!  And Iulia, my host mom,  has a birthday on August 11th.  We have had some fine Moldovan "masa s" recently with the family to celebrate these special days.  Everyday tasks still need to be done like the making of "brinza" or house cheese which you see Iulia doing in the window there with all the bottles of milk.  Sergiu and I are busy shucking beans from their pods after harvesting and drying the plants from the garden.  August 12th was "Ziua Tineretului" or Youth Day here in Moldova.  We had a special program with the kids at the center about it.  And it included some fun activities with balloons and also a special treat of fresh fruit for refreshments.  Good to the last bite.  Today, August 15th was the Swearing In Ceremony of the new Moldova 28 class of Peace Corps Volunteers.  That's the 28th group in the last 20 years to serve here in Moldova.  This group has 50 volunteers in it and you can see they come from all over the US  and will serve all over Moldova.  I was happy to meet my first Moldova host mom, Galina, at the ceremony.  I was her first PCV guest and this year she hosted Ann whom you also see in the picture.  Let me leave you with a quick video of the new Moldovan PCV's doing a Moldovan dance.  Yes, those are all Americans

dancing.