Orhei Vecche

Before it is too late to actually talk about it, I want to report back on the trip that me and the rest of the former trainees took to a place called Orheiul Vecche.

Orhei Vecche is one of the most important archieological sites, if not *the* most important site, in Moldova. It is a strange place that lies in the midst of a strange geological formation.... a place that allows you to walk in the ruins of a Golden Horde bathhouse, crawl in the caves of Pre-Middle Ages Christian monks, and walk among the same cliffs that early man walked amongst - early man, as in *really* early man, the Neo-something or other, the cousins of the folks who were, at the same time, drawing those horses in France some 40,000 years ago.

Today Orheiul Vecche is a large site that lies between two super small villages. There is a large ridge that wraps around, and in the valley a "river" (more like a hyper creek) that wraps around a jut of land that must have formed a zillion years ago. In the ridge are many many many caves, carved out by previously mentioned early man and previously mentioned early Christians. We were told that the monks came to these caves to hide out when Chrstians were being persecuted for... something. Honestly, I'm not too sure of when and what they are referencing. The history of Moldova is varied and slightly confusing. This country is a hinge, a crossroads, and thus changed hands about a billion times.

Which is where the Golden Horde comes in. Apparently, at one point in time the area was controlled by Ghengis Khan, and he had some folks settle there, and they put in a bathhouse, a bathhouse that was, by all accounts and archieological evidence, an equal opportunity bathhouse.

Those Khan's were good for something.

Today, there is a large church that stands on the just of land, and there is still a monk/are still monks who live in the caves. We visited one, where I bought two icons and lit three candles, one for each of my grandmothers.

What I found to be most interesting was that, in the cave walls, people stick their coins - it's the Moldovan version of throwing pennies in a well or a fountain, I suppose.

I hope the pictures can do this place some justice. It was a very beautiful place, and very rich with history. There is something kind of thrilling about being there - I feel all Valley of the Horses and whatnot.








The cross above overlooks the valley... if you place your hand in the middle and make a wish, it's supposed to come true. Thus far, mine hasn't. The icon on the right is fairly typical of the icons seen *all over* the country.




Above are the caves that the monks lived in. The far right is the entrance to the cave that is still in operation... notice the ladder. (There is another entrance)



This is the ruins of the Golden Horde bathhouse.



The pennies and coins stuffed into the rocks of the caverns.

primul zile in chişinău

Yesterday was my first day at my new site, and the day I got sworn in. The day before all of us arrived in the city, got in our hotel rooms and immediately set out to do some of the things we had not been able to do in a long while.

Play on the internet.

Sleep.

Go to a restaurant.

Drink.

Without giving too much away, I'll admit that the last part caused a little bit of trouble. As I think I've mentioned, I was living at the Hub Site village, which meant that me and the rest of my five site mates were kind of segregated from the rest of our group. As such, I'm not quite as sure that we (well definitely not me) developed this intense bond with my fellow M22'ers that we've kept hearing about. I've developed this with a few of my site mates, but not so much with the rest of the folk - not that I don't really like everyone (because I so do). But half of them are in a different program (Agriculture and Business Development) and so not only have I not hung out with them, I haven't been learning with them, and the other half of my program are neighbors with everybody else, meaning that they all party with each other all the time.

What does this mean?

Well to emphasize, they have been partying this whole time. Me, not so much. So getting to Chişinău, meeting up with everybody and, what's becoming really important to me, some of the M18's, 19's, and 21's, I got a little excitable.

But I get ahead of myself.

I spent three hours at the Peace Corps offices on the internet, and do you know it took me over an hour to even remember to check the news? And then when I tried to write emails, I couldn't really do it? I have also, I'm ashamed to say, severally neglected this blog, something that I'm keenly aware of. But I honestly think that Moldova has broken me of my computer habit. Or, let me rephrase - broken me of my communication habit, because I still watch tv and/or listen to a shocking amount of things on my good notebook. Literally, I just kind of stared at the screen for quite a while - it was a little scary.

I have many people to write back, and, if I truly think about it, many things to write about. The birth and death of my family's baby turkeys. The Easter of the Dead, conveniently placed this year on Cinco de Mayo. There's the tradition of spitting on pretty things so that they don't get jinxed by admiration. There's the flinging of basil in the face, and the shock on people's faces when I say I want to use basil in food.

Later. Back to primul zile in Chişinău.

I roomed with Sarah and Eden, two girls who I've become pretty close to. That night, we went to this place called Robin's Pub which, incidentally, was the same place we went to take our language professors out to lunch as a thank you. The extravagences began there. A bottle of wine between two people. A glass or two after that when the bottle was done.

I was really excited because my mentor, Becca was there, and I've become very close to her. When she leaves in November I will become very upset. She was able to introduce me to a bunch of Moldovans living in Chişinău that were very nice, and seemed genuinally happy to have another PCV living in the city. I have exchanged numbers.

I had made plans ages ago to celebrate swearing in with some whiskey with some folk, which I did, and enjoyed. Then I went to another bar with some folks and drank a very tall glass of beer and argued with someone about three way interesections in Chicago. A fost no frumous. (it was not pretty).

I've spent the past two months having practically nothing to drink - ever. Maybe a glass of wine on holidays (and by glass, I mean shot glass). Sometimes, we would do a few rounds of wine shots. Aşa, this night, coupled with the fact that I smoked cigarettes for the first time in like, two months, was a pretty big night for me.

Sadly, going home at 12:30am did not alleviate the hangover the next day. I will not go into details, and I wasn't a bad as some, but yes, I was hung over at the Ambassador of America's house, where the Speaker of Parliament, President of Gaugauzia, two members of Parliament and multiple members of the Foreign service were in attendance.

At least I looked pretty. My host uncle from Peresecina was there and he said I was fuarte frumouasa - very beautiful. I will take him at his word.

I have brought shame on my house. Luckily, I think it was an unobservable hangover, and without naming accomplices or implicating others, I will again state that I was in no way the worst for wear.

Still, this incident did remind me of the dangers of living in a city such as this. my dance card will be full, so to speak, and the chances for me to get myself in dangerous situations will be abundant.

As per say, in the three weeks when the next group of volunteers come: TEFL and Health volunteers. The last new bunch for over a year. Le Sigh.

Updates (from sometime in April)

Tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow.

Actually, one week from today, not tomorrow, but I'm about ready for it to be tomorrow.

I'm talking, of course, about placement. Chişinău. This blog is fixing to change.

It's ironic, of course, that as I finally get access... real access... to the internet and thus, the ability to post on this blog...

(I am, assuming, of course, that I actually do understand the definition of ironic).

I feel like I'm going to have to severely curtail what I say.

Or go deep undercover. Strip this blog of any indication of my identity or hints as to where I might be working or live.

I think this might have had to have happened no matter where I would have gone, but the need to do so is greatly amplified in the capitol where everyone has access to the internet.

I kind of like this whole idea of going undercover. Maybe I could come up with some code name for myself.




In other news. Language development? Meet mighty brick wall. Things are coming out of my mouth, and I don't know what I'm saying. I don't know whether that's good or bad, and I'm very unsure as to what's right or wrong anymore. Everything is becoming this mumble and and jumble of things, and I don't even know if I'm talking in the past, present or future, and they keep throwing new possibility of tenses at us. There's 8 possibility of conjugations for the present tense, not including the many, many, many irregular verbs, and just when I think that I've gotten the future tense down, they up and tell me that there's a more, more commonly used form that we haven't learned yet. and maybe one more form on past tense, and oh yay, don't forget the tense that seems especially to be used in children's stories. There's a reason I haven't been able to read my Hans Christian Anderson Fairy Tales in Romanian. Thumbelina, by the way, is called Digitela.

I recognize that English isn't all shiitake mushrooms and giggles. After all, I just wrote a sentence that consisted of "I think this might have had to have happened no matter where I would have gone." I mean christ, how many tenses in that? That's one highly complex sentence, neh? I have no idea where I would even BEGIN that sentence in Romanian.

My "mai mare probleme" or "very big problem" is that I think in pretty complex sentences. I'm a shades of grey thinker, ya feel me? And thus far, all I can speak is the most simple of sentences, the blackest of black and the whitest of white.

Agreements, conjunctive cases, subjunctive cases... not only do I hate them, I don't understand what they mean.

The way we're tested on our language development is we're sat in a room with someone and we have to have a conversation - about of families, friends, free time, work, past, present and future... we're asked questions, have to ask questions....

sounds simple enough, right?

Unless, like me, you kind of flip out at the insincerity of the situation, get all nervous, misunderstand half of the questions and start mixing tenses.

I never did well with this type of tests. I need to be able to write things out beforehand, memorize a speech, etc., etc., etc.....

Practice, after all, makes perfect in test situations. Or in front of people giving you grades. Unless you're not allowed to do either.

Good thing I've decided that I don't care how the test goes.




In other news one of the staff people here told us a story of her involvement in the creation of modern day Moldova, and I have to say that it was pretty thrilling to me.

Moldova is an interesting country in many many ways... trod upon by far too many people, most recently, obviously, by the USSR, who forced the Moldovans to change their language in such a bizarre way - they allowed them to keep speaking romanian, but they forced them to change from the latin to the Cyrillic alphabet, and the schools began to teach Russian. Then, in 1989, that year of change that even I remember, the rumblings of change reached into the hearts and minds of the people here and they decided to regain a bit of their souls and organized around around a single purpose....

to get their language back. Women and men from all over the country formed a movement, an illegal movement that cost people their jobs, their homes... and in some cases their lives. The Peace Corps staff person that spoke to our class was at University when she helped organize the movement, and she lost her position at her school when they discovered her involvement.

The movement called for the reinstitution of the romanian language in the schools, and the switch back to the latin alphabet from the Cyrillic. After months of actions across the country, on August 31st people from all across the country gathered in Chişinău, across from Parliament, and protested until the legislators had no other choice but to enact the called for legislation.

Cool huh? I so am in love with history and social movements.

Photographs of Sorocca (as promised)

The above is the landscape of Sorocca. The beautiful Pru River, looking across the Ukraine....



This is a monument, new, called the "Candle." It stands on a hill overlooking Sorocca, and is where I took the pictures overlooking the river.



These are the many, many, many steps leading up to the Candle.







We visited a very old and ancient synagogue on Purim....





The above are houses of the Gypsies, all of them live on the gypsy hill. In the second row, on the far right, is the House of the Gypsy King. Super Cool, eh?

As previously mentioned, it is a competition amongst them to see who can build the most impressive houses. I, for some reason, am most impressed with the wrought iron, but was delighted to see the oriol window....




And the above are icons froma chapel in Sorocca.


Gata. (That means done).

Signs

The actual, current, for real time

So I'm sitting here, in the Peace Corps office, actually ON THE INTERNET. It's a fantastic feeling.

It's been over three weeks since I've read my emails. You may understand my pain, you may comprehend what I'm going through, but do you Recognize?

I'm supposed to be figuring out who I'm supposed to be living with, but I'm fairly sure I've done that already. I've seen the signs, and it's opened up my mind.

Usually, I don't believe in signs. But this is too good to be true.

I'm taking to the first family to meet them, and guess what trolleybus they live off of? The 22. That's right folks, the 22, the same number of bus that I have lived off of for, oh, seven years in my beloved Chicago? Hell, all I did was move up and down Clark Street. The family has had 4 volunteers before - it's a grandma, a mom and a 10 year old daughter who has had a volunteer in her house for pretty much her entire life. And, get this my friends, she's a Disney Princess girl. The second Sign. Because my sister's entire family is obsessed with Disney in the biggest of ways. He favorite princess is Jasmine, by the way.

They speak slowly, because they know I'm learning, they will let me use the internet, have visitors, and they're about five minutes from my work and ten minutes from everything else. Le Sigh. Right next to a 24 hour store, a Greek restaurant, a pizza bar. I'm in heaven. Delighted.

Even if it does look, oh so very slightly, like Cabrini.

Looks can be very deceiving here, oh yes they can. Everything is safe as can be, Peace Corps certified. But buildings are never what they seem on the outside.

Oh, guess what? I live right by this AMAZING outdoor botanical garden.

Can you tell I'm excited? Donna, the little girl, is the head of her class. And she likes the Wayan Brothers. We will get along just fine.

One thing: trolleybuses cost .10 cents per ride, and good god can they get crowded. I mean like, rush hour crowded all the time.

PT is really good where I live too, runs really late. And cabs are prolific - I can get anywhere in the city for a few dollars.

Love it.

I'm pretty happy to be a first city kind of girl. I think things are going to work out just fine.

A First City Second City Type of Girl

April 8th.

Remember back in the day when I said I was so a second city kind of girl?
Turns out I was so wrong.
I'm such a first city kind of girl.
Or at least Peace Corps thinks so.
Chişanău, the capital city, is where I'll be living for the next two years.

This is kind of a big deal. And it comes with a lot of responsibility. If I'm reading my Romanian correctly, I'm going to be working for an umbrella organization that introduces best practice methods and does trainings all around Moldova. Thus, I will see all of Moldova despite being in the capital.

Delightful.

Typing in Romanian

I know nothing about what is happening in the world. Nothing. And that, somewhat, drives me crazy.

You know, if google would just expand already, I could just text them for the news but no, Moldova isn't covered under their net.

Neither is, you know, Alaska, so I guess I shouldn't bitch.

Every once in awhile I'll see flashes from my Russian news of things from America - was that a tornado in Atlanta? A cyclone in Oregon?? A crystal meth fire in Pennsylvania? What the frack?

And yet I have no way of finding out these details because I am completely cut off from the world. Completely. I haven't been on the internet in almost three weeks. People who know me will recognize how drastic a seperation this is. I have anxiety.

I have, however, discovered how to change my computer to think it's a romanian computer, and thus, have romanian characters. Like Ó and ăand the all important ț

This, my friends, is a breakthrough. For serial. Particularly as I have to do things like, oh I don't know, translate my resume into romanian.

Fuarte dificil. Very difficult. For reals. I have actually stopped the process, as I have decided it makes no sense until I find out where I'm placed. Which is tomorrow, by the way. Which makes no difference to you because, hey, you won't read this until way after that fact. But whatevs. I am preparing myself for the worse. Because it happens.

Notas pe Zuia de Nastere (Notes on a Birthday)

2 April 2008 - 5 April 2008
Notes on a Birthday
(notas pe ziua de nastere)

I've been sick for the past, oh, seven days really?
It was a slow burn.

I'm sure walking home, in the rain (a 40 minute walk) when the temp had dropped a good 20 degrees didn't help me get over anything.

I really need to buy an umbrella. And perhaps reconcile myself to wearing a heavy coat thru the month of april.... just in case.

Crappy way to spend your birthday, sleeping in bed with the flu.

Although, I did get to watch half a season of House, the movie Pride and Prejudice and the BBC version of P&P (fast-forwarded to the good parts, obviously), so maybe all in all, it wasn't all that bad. I got to skip school. And contemplate a Jane Austen drinking game.

Plus, my host family bought me a lovely towel and lancome perfume. Perfume is what you get girls for their birthday, so it's appropriate.

I've been thinking about language lately; the funny aspects of it, how i'm pretty good at writing it, but can't understand a damn thing when people talk to me.

I've always had trouble hearing, so maybe this shouldn't be a surprise, but it's still pretty sucky.
But language can be pretty funny. I've already detailed the whole "crap" thing. But there's some other funny similarities in sounds that the audience at home might find amusing. De Example:

Eu Fac
pronounced "yo f*ck"
it actually means "I do" or "I make"

Super giggle worthy. And then there's:
betch
pronounced, obviously, "b*tch"

it means cellar. not so exciting there.

I think I've mentioned
hynie
it means clothes

and there is an
aşpronounced ass, but it comes with dori.

which means I wish.

And thus ends the similarities that I have found, thus far. Except it doesn't, it's just all the one's I can remember at the moment.

On my birthday I received about a million and a half text messages from those of you who took advantage of orange.md, and I just want to thank you. It made my sad day a whole lot better, and I so didn't mind getting woke up every few minutes for a new one. It made me miss all of you so much. I LOVE getting those messages, and it's totally free for me to get them so please, feel free to send me any old thing.

(As, per instance, wth happened in Pennsylvania and Oregon? Both places were on the news here, but I couldn't understand what was being said, but it looked pretty bad. Kind of like when Atlanta had a freaking tornado in the middle of the city, and it took me a week to find out.)

In about four weeks, I'm going to be shipped off to my actual site (announcement date: 8 April 2008) and if anybody is interested i'm seriously lacking in books and/or burned movies/tv shows. I have now read all the books I've brought with me (some twice - yes, I suck) and watched the Firefly series 2 times (hey, that's only 28 episodes, total, ok, because the show was cancelled after 14 episodes?).


Address on the side of the blog ------------------------>


I'll read whatever you send me. Christ, I'm seriously considering War and Peace because I heard it mentions Chisanau. And I'd probably tear through it in like, a minute and a half.
Today is the last day of that three day stretch, and at the moment, I'm looking at the final hour of the 5th. Happy Birthday Maggie.

Today was one of those good days. My fellow P-town folk took me out to dinner. To go to dinner, we had to hike to the restaurant outside of town. Which was, like, seriously out of town. About a kilometer out of town and thus, about a kilometer and a half away from my house (so about a mile maybe?). This was a "tres expensive" restaurant by Moldovan terms. Four bottles of wine and couple courses later, we all ended up pinching in about $25. Or, you know, I would have pitched in, had they let me. They were very adament about not letting me pay because it was my birthday. Four days ago. It was so sweet.

Curt ending here.

Yay Boys!

31 March 2008

The masculine plural form in Romanian is "ei" pronounced "yay." I had a hell of a time remembering how to pronounce this, before I finally made the connection:
Yay, Boys!

The girl form, in case you're curious, is ele, pronounced "yelley" which, for some reason, I remember because of Melleficent from Sleeping beauty. Don't ask.

My comments about our being told not to talk to "ei", to the boys, has provoked some interesting responses. The most common among them being:
are you living in a Muslim country?

The answer to that is decidedly no, and is a response I find pretty amusing. I live in an Eastern Orthodox country. The pregnant pauses I get from that, or the "so?" that I've gotten from that, are also pretty amusing. Maybe a little scary.

People who are of the Eastern Orthodox religion are christian. They encompass the greeks, russians, christians living in turkey...

The Great Schism (one of) occurred in the 11th Century, during the 4th Great Crusade (one in which the Western Christians kind of sacked their Eastern Christian Counterparts in the name of God - needless to say, relations suffered). Please understand that this is a *vast* understatement of the actuality.

Now, as to the looking at men question...

the way I look at it, looking at men in Moldova is a lot like eating the fish in Moldova. Or like eating Tuna in the states. You never know what you're going to get.

You could be ordering a nice piece of Carp, or Crap, as it is called here. Or you could be ordering a fine fillet of mercury-filled poisonous Crap. Who is to know?

With the men here, if you smile at them, look them in the eye, perhaps they could just smile back, say hi. Or perhaps, they could take the smile as an invitation and start to follow you, bug you, grab you, or just generally give you crap. There's always the slight possibility it could become more dangerous than that.

The thing of it, folks, this is a fairly generic thing, and it's certainly not a Moldovan thing. We in America are fairly unusual in that we're all smiley and look people in the eye and whatnot.

This is something that I have personally experienced in Mexico, Peru, France, Italy, Spain... a few times in England and if I'm honest, more than a few times in the States. Machismo is machismo everywhere, and I've made no secret of my ever-present intimidation of men in packs.

The fact that American girls, by virtue of our exported Britney Spears culture, are seen as easy (and I do mean easy) targets, doesn't help.

For those of you who haven't seen it, google "american girl in Italy." There's a photograph (hanging up in Calo's restaurant) that most of you will have seen before, but that I think might help give a visual example of what's going on.

Sorocca

Friday, 28 March 2008

I have a lot to write about.

Yes yes, I recognize that fact.

Gypsy Kings, Purim celebrations at 600 year old synagogues, etc.

I'm not going to lie to you folks, keeping up writing - this blog, emails, letters - is pretty hard. I think "oh, i so have to write about this" while things are happening, and then when I get home I fall asleep.

Last night I fell asleep at 8pm.

Granted, I did have a very big day today.

Today I had class a half hour early so that we could practice extra for our very first language assessment, and then promptly went to a meeting with the Mayor of Peresecina, then promptly went to a meeting with the PTA of the local kindergarten which, apparently, had been held the day before. They had moved the date without telling us.

Alas.

Ozi lung. That means long day.

Tomorrow, we have class bright and early, followed by a cross-cultural session. Then, I was hoping to have a little cross cultural session of my own - I wanted to go into Magdestesti and have a little karaoke bar time with my fellow PSTers. This would require, however, a probable stay over at a friend's house, something which I have just found out is forbidden, apparently, despite the fact that Magdestesti is less than 10 minutes away and I turn 28 years old in, oh, 5 days.

Grrr.

So, I guess that means the chances of me going out tomorrow night are slim, unless I break the rules, which admittedly I'm tempted to do, but which I probably won't do because, you know, there's a time and place for everything, and two weeks before placement is not the time to illustrate rebellious behavior.

Like I'd be rebellious.

The test went okay, in case anyone was wondering. I have issues with feminine/masculine agreements, which should shock no one, but my vocal rocks. I am a flashcard queen.

English, in many ways, rulez! The lack of assigned gender pronouns make it, in my really unimportant opinion, a superior language.

Some philosophical linguists think that it's best that english is becoming the dominant language on the planet because it lacks these gender assignments - that having masculine/feminine pronouns encourages a male dominant society.

As Kurt Vonnegut would say, "And so it goes."

Speaking of authors, I heard Arthur C Clark died... or rather, I've gathered that because I saw his name with a (date - 2008) underneath it. Tres sad. Or in Romaneste, Este triste.

Okay, so Soroca, last weekend....

As I mentioned, there's a citadel, very old. See pictures. Peter the Great visited quite a few times. The citadel lies on the banks of the Pruit river, across from Ukraine.

Moldova is alternately called a fault line, or a hinge, of Europe and Asia, and this was a truism back 1000 years ago as well, even in the days of Christopher Columbus who, in his quest for money to seek the Indies, asked the famed Moldovan King Stefan Cel Mare for funding. Stefan turned him down, no doubt for various and sundry reasons but also because he was busy defending his territory from the devils across the Pruit river.

The (current) Citadel of Soroca was built by Stefan's dad, and apparently was haute de riguer for fortifications at the time.

Also in Soroca? A river walk and a floating bridge that serves as customs between Moldova and Ukraine. And, in Soroca? The "Gypsy Hill."

The gypsies in Soroca are unique in Moldova in that the gypsies have settled down. And how.
They've taken over this hill, and it's become a competition amongst them to see who can build the biggest, coolest, most unique houses. Don't you worry, I will post pictures.

I have seen the palace of the Gypsy King, and danced with the Gypsy Prince.

And if I had more energy, perhaps I'd attempt to continue with the lyricism of the above statement. Alas.

In Soroca, two gypsy families made a decision that staying in one place rather than roaming was a better way to live. Other families followed, and now they have are a determined presence.
How unusual this is, I'm not really sure, but it seems to be highly unusual for Moldova.

Apparently Gypsies are highly undercounted in all EU countries (of which Moldova is not one) because places like Romania and Bulgaria didn't want to highlight their "problem" populations. Also, you know, hard to count people that roam as a lifestyle.

Soroca is very diverse - Ukrainians, Russians, Jews, Gypsies and Moldovans, as well as some others. We also got to see an extremely old synagogue, and learn something of the Jewish story in Moldova, which is, quite frankly, tragic.

I almost felt bad that, on Purim, a day of celebration, this community had to detail the horrors that their ancestors had suffered.

I say ancestors, but really, for some it was their grandparents, or parents.

And I say community, but there's only 50 native-born Jews in Soroca at this time, down from a community of tens of thousands.

Moldova had an extremely large community of Jews in general... but then the Russians came and took over in the early 20th century and pogroms became more and more common.

During WWII, Moldova was a battleground. Russia was driven out by the Romanian army, who was allied with Germany. The Moldavans welcomed the Romanians, because for decades Romania and Moldova were one nation. Alas, for the Jews, the coming of the Romanian army was for many a death sentence. They were marched across the country with no fixed destination because the death camps had yet to be built, and made to dig ditches that were to be the graves of anyone who fell as they went along.

When the Soviets swept back in and drove the Romanians out, the focus on Jews (and gypies, no doubt) was alleviated, but Stalin deported a mass of people from Moldova, anyone who a) had money b) had land c) or who might be a political problem.

Many people, including Jews, fell into this category.

The story of these deportations are pretty crazy, and I know they happened all over the USSR. I guess, on a cursory level I heard and read about them, but the stories are almost as bad or just as bad as many of the holocaust stories that you hear, but nowhere near as publicized.

So. Soroca. City of Sisters. Or maybe of the Sun. Nobody really knows, but I'm a big fan of this little city of 30,000 (20,000 more likely, when taking into consideration the extreme labor drain that Moldova experiences).

Eventually, eventually, I will post pictures. Including those of the gypsy hill, which were just freaking awesome.