Unity In A Place Of Discord!

My time in Moldova was extremely enlightening. Moldova is a complex mix of cultures, people, and politics, struggling for their own identity. Before World War Two, this region was called, “Romania”… or at least, the Moldavian province of Romania. But then the Soviets moved in and claimed it as their own. The Moldavian province of Romania became a ‘proud’ part of the Soviet Union! At least until communism proved itself by falling apart. In 1989 Moldova became its own independent state and denied Romania’s offer to return to its territory.

Since then, Moldova has been dealing with some kind of identity issue. A quick example of this is the language: Russian or Romanian? Most people speak both. But depending on who you talk to, and their background, social class, city, family name, etc, it may be inappropriate to speak one or the other. Romanian is the official language of Moldova, but it’s called Moldovan. It’s as much Romanian in Moldova as it is English in Louisiana. I’m not picking on Louisiana – I’m simply saying that because of an accent, and an identity issue, it’s called Moldovan.

An interesting identity phenomenon in Moldova is a small piece of land called Transnistria. Transnistria is an ‘independent’ country between Moldova and Ukraine. It has its own police, military, currency, and politicians. The only thing it doesn’t have is respect! Transnistria isn’t recognized as a country by any other nation on the planet. It’s officially part of Moldova, but the people there claim that they’re part of the USSR. Not positive, but I assume they have modern things such as newspapers to inform them that the USSR doesn’t exist anymore. But I’ve been wrong before.

In Belti, Moldova, the non-Soviet part of the former Soviet state, I carried on the Supercross08 flame like a communist stamping documents and denying requests!

I managed to find one Jennifer Nelson, a current Peace Corps Volunteer, who ironically, is from Vancouver, WA! Through her, I met up with a youth group called Council for Unity. It’s a mixture of high school kids, nearly 60 strong. Though, on the particular day of my visit, only a handful showed up. A handful of enthused and smiling students were plenty for a nice discussion!

The Council for Unity is a few years old and works on many different projects within the community. Its members are all volunteers who donate their time to participate in several project areas: mass media, sport, and culture. Under these three departments have come many successful projects, including: a big brother/big sister program with the local orphanage, summer sports camps, running a school newspaper, debate competitions between students and teachers, community cleanups, as well as anti-smoking and HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns! We had a chat about being a volunteer in the community and what motivated them to become active.It reminded me of the meeting Tim and I had in Cairo with Resala when we talked about Islam with a bunch of community volunteers at an orphanage. But unlike that meeting, none of these kids cited religion as being a factor for motivating them to be active.

My first question was simple: Why did you decide to join the Council for Unity? The first gal I asked, said that she joined the council for social reasons. She explained that she has lots of fun volunteering and gets an opportunity to meet new friends who share a similar interest. It’s a refreshing perspective on youth entertainment and very far from the norm of video games and time spent in front of the TV. The second guy in the circle we sat in said that he joined the council because he wanted to be a part of the change happening in his community. Or more specifically, he wanted to help influence that change. I love being active and I love it even more when I meet people who share the same passion for being active in their community! The rest of the responses were more or less the same as these two, or slight variations of them. We then focused on the specifics of the change they wanted in society.

Like other countries in this region, Moldova has its share of corruption and mafia. This corruption/development-anchor exists at many levels here. Even for high school students. Paying for grades, as they told me, is a common practice among their peers. It’s something students do to be able to compete for a place in a university. Their grades are on a 1 to 10 scale, and they said that if you’re good in history and get a 10, but bad in chemistry and get a 7, then you can’t get into college to study history. So a simple solution is to pay the teacher to give you a better grade in chemistry. After all, when is a historian likely to use chemistry? An interesting argument, I mused, realizing that I said the same thing when I was in high school, only I reversed the chemistry and history in my perspective. I explained to them that in hindsight, it wasn’t history that the history teachers were trying to teach me. They were trying to teach me how to learn so that when I finally made it to a university or life, I’d be ready to study and learn whatever came my way.

We talked about ways to have a positive affect on this particular aspect of corruption and discussed the possibility of the Council for Unity uniting students to boycott this ‘paying for grades’ practice. They key, they decided, was to get people to be responsible, to take responsibility for their actions. And the best way to do that was to increase participation in the community.

If you sit on the sidelines or manipulate the system for your advantage, you don’t have a personal connection with the way things happen in your community. But if you’re active in your community and participate in local events and clubs, then your connection to how society functions is increased and responsibility seems to fall into place as an obligatory part of the equation.The Council for Unity was created by youth leaders and is maintained by them as well. They’re fulfilling their duty with impressive efficiency, as their community participants are ever increasing and the change in their community becomes more evident with each project they complete. They’re responsible for the future of the community, and it’s a responsibility that they’ve proven they can handle.

Back in the USSR!

After four hours of fun train ride, I ended up at the wrong station in a town called Iasi (pronounced: yash). I had to walk to the next one and when I found it, it was also the wrong one. I got yelled at for walking over a red carpet in the station that had been rolled out, but apparently not for me. After giving my best lost-looks, I finally found where I needed to be to cross the border into Moldova.

I flirted my way through the Romanian customs line and got onto a small slow train that shuttles people across the border. On the train, there were a bunch of old babas smuggling not cigarettes, but colorful bathroom towels and baby toys into Moldova. I found it very funny, and later saw a large collection of these towels for sale at a local market. The Moldova border guard didn't know what to do with my passport. She kept holding it up to the light to see if it was real. She finally let me through, but customs didn't know what to do with me either. The guy sat me down and had me fill out some documents and told me to list all the currency and financial assets I had. I listed some Euro that I now keep as backup. He looked at the form, looked at me, and said, "Present".

I'm terrified of being asked for bribes, and my normal paranoia about spending money influenced me to hear, "Present?" I was slightly panicked, as there was no one else around, and if some customs guard wanted to take advantage of me, what rights did I have?

I looked at him like, 'Are you kidding me?' and waited for his response. It happened as "Present!" with the stress on the first syllable, as in 'show me'! haha!

It was raining and I was in a tiny, tiny border town, but I managed to find an ATM for some local currency. I conquered the bus system (stood around till someone offered to help me) and then took a bus to Balti. At the final stop the bus driver turned to me and said the name of the town. I got off and got my stuff out of the back, proud that I had finally made it here! I looked up at the driver who looked at me as if to say - 'Now what are you gonna do, kid?' so I smiled and showed him the address of my next host.

There were some university students standing near and offered to help with their English skills. I told them where I wanted to go and the driver motioned for me to get back in his little mini-bus. The two students came along and translated a conversation. The driver was hugely excited to be driving around an American! I don't think he'd ever met one before. He said something and I asked for a translation. The university student said, "He wants to know if you have any chewing gum." I felt like I was back in WW2 or something! It was hilarious!Welcome to Moldova!

On the Road Again!

Leaving Bulgaria was a hard thing for me to do. I've become quite attached to the lifestyle and of course, to the people with whom I've bonded. Reflecting on my departure I found a feeling almost identical to the one I have when I leave the states. I'm leaving my comfort zone. No longer secure. No longer absolutely safe. No longer in the company of my wonderful friends. Good news is, in most cases, friends are easy to come by when you're on the road!

I arrived in Bucharest, Romania to a rainy Monday morning. It was cold, I was hungry, I was tired, and my bank card wouldn't work in any of the four ATMs I tried. It's not the best combination of circumstances to be in. I went into a bank thinking that perhaps they could find a solution for me, being that banking is their business and all. "Nothing's wrong with our machine! Go try another ATM!", was the defensive response I got to my plea for help. "Gee wiz! Another ATM? Why, I've only thought of that four times already. Thanks for the advice, Mr. Banker! I'll be on my way now!" On my way to find someone else, that is!

I found a police officer that spoke great English and I asked him for some help. I decided that getting to my host was the best option. From there I could email my bank and complain properly. But I had to get there, and I had no money. I showed the cop the address I had to get to and asked if it was walkable.
"Oh no!", he said, "You'll need to take the subway or a bus."
"But I don't have any money." I explained.
"Well, you'll have to pay for the subway. But... You don't always have to pay for the bus." I laughed cause I knew where this was going. He continued, "You only need a ticket if the ticket control people come by and check to see if you have a ticket."
"What if they 'catch me' with out a ticket?", I inquired. He shrugged as if to say that I was on my own at that point. Great.

Basically, the lessons of the morning were: banks never make mistakes, except when they do, and although police men are employed to enforce the law, they don't always know it.

Luckily, I'm more prepared than a boyscout. I had some Euro on me, and used it to buy some local currency. Enough to get me some food and a bus ticket!

I wandered the city for several hours trying to figure out the buses, the street signs, and how to avoid the damned stray dogs that kept trying to bite me. After some rough sketches, an equation or two, and some great mime, I was able to conquer the bus system. I couldn't find the street sign I needed to save my life. Finally, about the 40th person I asked was nice old man who told me, "It's over there." Things were coming together, however, I still could not pass a stray dog that wouldn't bark at me, though there were a few that didn't try to bite me!

It's a good thing to travel. Your eyes are opened to so many wondrous places, people, cultures, and landscapes! Not only do you get constant adventure and excitement, but you really get a sense of deep appreciation for the comforts of life back home. Try to learn that in your fancy pants colleges!

I found myself in Focsani (pronounced: fok-shan), Romania (pronounced: romania) staying at the home of a couple Peace Corps Volunteers. They were good guys and I enjoyed hearing their PC experiences. They let me tag along to the birthday partry of one of their students. She was turning 19, so we bought her an appropriate gift: two bottles of wine and some Simpsons candy.

I kind of expected the night to go over like a typical Bulgarian party - or similarly anyway, being that they're neighbors and all. But just like the languages, the parties are completely different! Oana's mom cooked up a huge feed for all to enjoy. There were all kinds of foods that I've never tried before. Ok, so I've had eggplant before, but eggplant here is translated to 'blue tomato' and I've never had it in the form that I had it here! Mmmm! =) We ate and drank as the night progressed and then the music began!

We all headed outside to where they were barbequing up some chicken and sausages. Next to the cement barbeque was a picnic table filled with musical friends. They played guitars, bongos, a harmonica, moracas, and one of those tiny simble-shaker deals! The one guy sang all night long - different traditional folk songs, while everyone danced and laughed! It was a rockin' good time!After Oana blew out her birthday candles, her boyfriend grabbed her with the help of 3 other big guys. They proceeded to toss her into the air, 19 times, while everyone else cheered! Haha! She was a bit shaken up, but this is tradition, dammit!

I spent most of the night talking with her classmates/friends who were content to ask me all kinds of questions regarding the differences between Romania, Bulgaria, and the U.S. It was a similar conversation to ones I'd had in Bulgaria, but these kids seemed to have more optimism and faith in their country to develop properly. Granted, they'd be the first to admit there's corruption and other problems, but I was impressed that they were able to overlook those hurdles and expect more from their country!It was a far better time than I had expected to have in Romania as I'm traveling much too quickly to really see anything at the moment. The party lasted till morning and I finally got to bed at 4 AM. Just in time to wake up at 7:30 AM in order to catch my 8:30 train to Moldova!