Just a few thoughts-brooms

Brooms.   The universal broom in Moldova is a straw broom.  It’s made fairly similar to straw brooms that we would see in America, but it has no handle.  By this I mean, there is not a wooden pole to grab with one’s hands to sweep.  The straw material for the broom is actually cut in longer strands and the top three feet of the strands are twisted and fastened together as a handle.  This however means that the sweeper must bend over to use the broom. 

This broom is universal.  It’s the broom that people use to sweep the streets ( this is an active employment area), and cleaning people use these in institutions from the parliament to the local school, or the broom you would use at home to sweep the carpets or maybe the back yard.  I can only guess that a long wood handle is not utilized because it’s an extra cost.  But my back aches to think of all the people who clean every day, all day, bent over a straw broom

Just a few thoughts-dogs and doorbells

The guard dog is chained.

Mieshka, the roaming dog

dogs having doggie fun

Pica the dog has moved on

Whitey and Mieshka off for a romp

Dogs and door bells.   Let the animal lover be warned.  This story has details you may find disturbing.  One of the first things I noticed upon living in Moldova is that every house had at least one dog and there was no shortage of dogs on the loose.  The one required dog is both a security system and a door bell.  In the village, every house is actually a compound with a fence and a gate in the front of it.  The standard role of the dog is to be chained close to the gate inside the yard so that it can come close enough to any intruder to scare him away.  This dog is also taught to bark at people who seem to stop at the gate of the house.  This way, the owner knows if someone is intending to come in.  In this way, the dog is like a door bell.  In the village, there are no door bells.

The life of the guard dog can vary from owner to owner.   The dog may or may not have a house to sleep in at night.  The dog is fed scraps from the table, maybe twice a day.  The dog has a bowl for water.   The dog will be chained up for an indeterminate amount of time.  In most cases this is for weeks or months at a time.  For the most part, this dog will not be petted, or washed, or played with, or walked.  If the dog is addressed by its owner, most likely it is to quiet down.

 

Most of the dogs I’ve seen in Moldova are small dogs, very few German shepherds, Golden Retrievers, Labradors.  Many of the dogs remind me of Russell Terriers, or small spaniels or what we always referred to as a mutt.  It is an amazing sight to see a person walking a dog on a leash.  I’ve seen it a half dozen times in two years, mostly in the city.  I’ve see fancy poodles and dachshunds on the leash.  I’m even aware that they have an annual Dog Show of pedigreed dogs in Chisinau. 

If there is another dog besides the guard dog in a family, more than likely it is a dog that has the freedom to roam.  He can come and go from the house and run through the neighborhood having doggie fun.  This no doubt is the source of many extra dogs.  ( Dog bites by homeless dogs are actually a common public health problem.)  He will often accompany his owner into the field during farm work or stay with the animals as they are pasturing. 

Where I lived, we had three dogs and a cat.  We had Whitey, who was the door bell, guard dog.  We had Mieshka, who was the free roamer.  We had a second guard dog chained in the chicken yard.  I’m sorry to say that I never heard a name for him.  But every night about sun down he began is steady ‘hram, hram, hram.’  Our cat was Antoine or Antonio, depending on our linguistic mood.  He was welcome to come and go inside and outside the house.  The dogs were never allowed inside the house.

So that’s the life of a dog in Moldova.  Not a pretty picture to our American eyes.  But it’s the place dogs have in this society.  Inspite of that reality, they are true to their breed and think very highly of us.

Just some thoughts-childcare and work

Follow the bouncing boy

Moms and kids

hold onto that Marius!

Childcare and work.  The social service center where I volunteer has a predominantly female staff.  Several of them are mothers of young children.  It is not unheard of for these moms to bring their toddlers with them to work.  Sometimes these little ones are let loose on their own and can cause all sorts of mischief.  Sometimes they are the focus of the staff’s attention and they become the main activity of the morning.  When the other older children are at the center in the afternoons, the toddlers are folded into group activities.  Usually it works out that the other children act as big brothers and sisters.

Some recent experiences.   Marius, a little 16 month old, loves to get into anything he can.  I call him the “little destroyer”.   He grabbed the banana gram bag from my desk, opened it, and spread all the letters over the floor of the big activity room.  He also likes to do this with the box of lego pieces.  We have seven or eight separate jig saw puzzles.  Each of them has their own box consisting of 30 to 60 pieces.  Marius thought it would be great fun to empty all of these boxes into a big pile.  The pieces looked like confetti flying in the air as he emptied each puzzle.  What puzzles me is that it seems these parents would rather clean up such messes rather than prevent them from happening.  I think they think these high jinx are cute.  

This 16 month old named Marius was acting up and making noise during our weekly staff meeting.  After a little patience with the situation, the director asked the medical assistant (his mom) to take him out of the room.  She effectively was absent for the remainder of the meeting taking care of the little boy.  Was this a problem in terms of work expectations and expected employee behavior?  I don’t think so.  Actually I don’t think she missed much as most of the meeting was sharing observations about negative parent behavior (gossiping?) seen in the village.

Today Marius’s mom had some errand to run which took her away from the office for several hours.  She left him with our staff and said call if you need me.  One of the staff has been trying to entertain him by driving him around the center in an office desk chair with wheels on it.   This same little guy followed me out to the outhouse yesterday.  Inspite of me telling him to go back to the center and stay with his mother, he just followed me all the way outside and down the path.  Of course I was in the middle of a good pee and Marius was holding the outhouse door open watching when his mother came calling after him.  A slightly embarrassing moment for us both. 

Marius often goes down for a nap after lunch.  The room he sleeps in is next to the sport exercise room.  So the sport exercise room is off limits until he wakes from his nap about 3 pm.  I think this little example shows some cultural differences.  As an American, I’m thinking that these personal needs of Marius are really in conflict with the reasons why there is a sports exercise room for the children at the center.  As a Moldovan, I’m thinking that it’s in everyone’s interest that Marius is napping, and we wouldn’t want to create a negative social situation with his mother, one of the staff members.

just some thoughts--chickens

The chicken or the egg ?

a table top incubator with towel wrap

indoor chicken run

chirp, chirp, chirp

future chicken run

Chickens.   My host family raised a lot of chickens.  They may have sold one or two during the year, but most of them were for their own consumption.  In the Spring, in early March, the family has collected about 50 eggs that are showing signs of fertilization (candling).  They set up two table top incubators in the family dining/sleeping room.   Twice a day the eggs must be turned in the incubator so they don’t develop abnormalities.  The temperature has to be maintained at a steady 85 degrees.  Water is added to maintain the humidity and towels are wrapped around the incubators to avoid heat drain.   Three weeks to a month later the first signs of life emerge.  The tiny chirping sound of the first chick caught my ear about April 1^st.  

Stage two of chicken raising also takes place in the all purpose room.  What used to be a sleeping space on a raised part of the soba is now a chicken pen.  An actual fence has been built to keep the chicks in a 5 ft x 15 ft space.   There are about 50 small chickies, all yellow, black, or brown.  They are all chirping, probably saying they are hungry.  We give them dishes of chicken feed to eat twice a day.  These chicks will continue to live and chirp in this space until the threat of cold nights is past.  Maybe until May 1^st ?  Do they ever quiet down inside?  When it gets darker in the room, they chirp even louder.  I guess they’re afraid of the dark.  Is this why we call scared people, “chicken”?  Can you imagine living with the chirp and sleeping with the light on so the chicks are quieter?

When the weather warms up, the chicks will get a pen outside where they can get climatized to the outdoor life.  Of course they don’t like the rain, so you have to provide a way to cover them.  When they are big enough to escape the pen, then they can roam the yard on their own for bugs and other food.  When they are grown, they will be invited one by one to become soup or “zeama”.  

Just some thoughts--blue jeans

This is the map at my office in Piatra.  You can see the red arrows show the distance between Wisconsin and Moldova.  After two years here in Moldova I pause to think of some things that I found amusing and different.  I thought that I should share these thoughts with you.  In the coming month before my return to America, I will post a few of these tiny essays on my blog.

Blue Jeans.   Or as they are called in Moldova  “bluj”.   I think if there is any automatic association between clothes and nationality, it’s blue jeans.  Blue jeans are American.  In my mind, blue jeans are still the clothes you put on when you want to do some serious dirty work, or when you want to say, “hey it’s the weekend and I’m going to be casual”.   We were advised by Peace Corps when preparing to come to Moldova, to pack clothes that were business casual or semi-professional.  In many cases, this advice is appropriate because we are put in office type settings, in mayor’s offices, schools, social centers, organizations.  The dress code there is more formal.  And indeed when Moldovan’s leave the village, they more often than not look nicely dressed. 

So what is amusing to me is that many TV personalities try to incorporate blue jeans into their wardrobe.  Now one would think that being on TV required a more professional dress code, but I believe these personalities are trying to say, “Look at me, I’m modern, or I’m very American”.  Or just cool in other words.  Many men will appear on the talk show in t-shirt and blue jeans.  Or they will have a dress or sport jacket over a t-shirt or casual shirt and have blue jeans on.  This always strikes me as out of place, especially for a host or mc.  I may be revealing my own outdated expectations of dress.  I think the most surprising occasion of blue jean-itis for me was when I saw a man wear blue jeans to church on Sunday.  I still wouldn’t do that even in America.

  

The other thing about blue jeans in Moldova that I find amusing is the particular style of blue jeans.  Almost all the blue jeans I see are the ones that have whitish bleach spots on the thighs, calves, and buttocks.  These white spots are more noticeable of course because the women wear blue jeans as tight as possible on their body.  So this style is so universal I wonder if these blue jeans were made this way because of preference or did the makers of blue jeans succeed in selling their rejects as high style.  Are people wearing these back in the States?  Or did they ten years ago and I didn’t notice?

I have continued to wear the blue jeans I’ve brought from the States according to my own cultural tastes, that is on Saturday when I’m just going to hang around the house all day, or when I’m going to do some “get dirty” work.  And my blue jeans do not have the white wear spots.  And no, I won’t wear my blue jeans to church or on TV.

June is Dairy Month

Orthodox cathedral-Chisinau

Chess for giants

And suddenly, there were cows.

Cows giving you the eye.

Cows with grapes.

The village cow.

The winter cow

European ox - cow

Cow with little girl

Moldovan folk cow

The love cow

Where to, next ?

June is Dairy Month, at least in Wisconsin.  Back in Madison, WI, they have a special week in June when live cows are brought to the square.  It's called 'cows on the concourse'.  I just experienced something like that here in Moldova.  Last weekend I was in Chisinau, the capital.  I always enjoy a stroll through the central park where the Orthodox cathedral is located.  The trees are so tall they give wonderful shade on a hot summer day.  If you want to play chess, there's a giant chess board there.  Of course there are many flower beds and benches to sit a spell.  But suddenly there were cows.  No, not real ones, but painted sculptures of cows.  I've see this idea before.  In fact, back home in Madison, there's one of these cows in the waiting room of my doctor's office.  But here they were wandering around  Chisinau.  They could give you the eye.  Of course their decorations were of local themes.  Cows with grapes,  the village cow, the winter cow, the cow with little girl.  One cow featured typical embroidery patterns found on Moldovan folk costume.  And of course, there was the Love cow.  I'm thinking that one would follow her almost anywhere.