Last days in Peresecina

Ultimea Zilelor in Peresecina

Is it annoying that I write double, with both Romanian and English? I hope so. ;)

It's just, whenever I first think in Romanian, I figure I should encourage that oddity as much as possible.

I wanted to talk just really briefly about my last days in Peresecina, mostly to post some pictures, but also to talk about Moldova in general.

Mostly to talk about Moldova's soil.

It's AMAZING.

The last day that I was in Peresecina, Eden and Sarah and I decided to take one final walk around the town, and to try and venture up the hill. We've been talking about going up these hills since we've been here, but we've been, I don't know, lazy, and/or scared.

See, there are many many many dogs in Moldova. Wild Dogs.

One of the first days that we were here, Eden, brave, tiny Eden, decided that she was going to take a walk up the hills to take a look at our fair village.

Peresecina, you see, is most definitely in a valley.



On the way up a path, Eden met up with a family who asked where she was going.... when she said that she was going to go "in deal," or up the hill, the family said, oh no, she couldn't go up the hill, she was too small. Which of course, being the brave Eden, she immediately took umbrage to, and said well, small or no, I'm going up the hill.

And thus she went, up and up, until about halfway she heard a sound. The sound of barking. The sound of three very large dogs coming at her very quickly, and obviously not very happy that someone was invading their territory. Eden was, indeed, too small to be going up the hill.

Poor Eden, she had to run full out back down the hill, as quickly as she could. It was a very dangerous situation.

After her report, there was much mutual discussion about what we could do to get up that hill - bring sausages perhaps? Maybe if we went in a big enough group, the dogs would be afraid of us??

We talked a lot, but did little. Then one day, I found a hill and ventured up it with my little sister. We got about half way, noticed no wild beasts other than the odd cow, horse and goat, and I saw other people, so I suggested that we try that on our last day.

And go we did. The cow was there. The horse was there. The goat was there. And an old woman was there, sitting, watching the town, obviously having been in the cups at least a few times during the day already. She stopped us for a chat. And a chat. And a chat. Tried to get us to come home with her. Got upset when we said we couldn't. She offered wine. She offered food. She offered her grandson. She was quite upset when we explained we couldn't - we were on a hike because we wanted to take pictures of the village.



She thought that was brilliant! And she wanted to see the pictures. And demanded that we come to her house and show them all to her. We tried to explain that we couldn't, that we had dinner's to go back home to as soon as we were done... No Problem! She said... come back tomorrow morning. When we explained to her that this was our very last day in Peresecina, there was more confusion, she was more upset, and kept us there for another, oh, 10 minutes trying to figure out a way to get us to her house. I felt really bad, I must admit, and by the 7th minute was ready to go to her house already.

But we didn't, and went on our hike, and it was pretty cool. We stumbled across what looked to be the ghost of a grape vineyard that was still growing, but obviously uncared for. We came upon wild mint, and a teeming hill of ants that freaked me out. We saw quite a few lizards that started to freak me out because really, where there are lizards, aren't there snakes, too?

We got really amazing pictures of the town, most of which I don't have, but I'll post some. But the truly remarkable thing was the soil... it was like the entire world was covered in topsoil. Everywhere we stepped we sank down half a foot.

I read somewhere that 81% of Moldova is covered in black soil, the largest percentage of anywhere in the world. If that's the case, then it's truly a remarkable resource, and I hope that they're really trying to push sustainable farming methods. It would be a shame to lose something so amazing.

Later I will post the good pictures that Eden took, but right now I'll post some that I took from Easter.

< --------- This picture is of my house!! The green house behind the large building (a kindgergarden), that's where I lived!