Familia mea gazdă by John

My host family:

This is my host mom, Eleanora. Her husband works in the Canary Islands. She gets to visit him during the winter when she is happy to escape the Moldovan cold. They have three amazing kids all about the ages of Jaime, John, and James Rucker. Stella is the oldest (not pictured), Sorin is the middle at 24 years old, and Catalin is the youngest at 22 years old. The older two are married.

This is Catalin. He is currently working in New York. He speaks English very well and has an astounding sense of humor. He was a great help to me my first week but now is working abroad.

This is Cesar, and he is the son of Stella and Marcel (not pictured). He is just about to turn four and has a great personality. He is really fun to be around and enjoys anything to do with cars (mașina).

  

   Here are some shots of the home where I stay. Most are self-explanatory, but a few I felt needed explanations.

This is the only median or divided road in my village. It even has a walking path in the middle. This is rare, but very nice.

A view of the village from my 2nd floor window

 

The masonry work in Moldova is astounding! From walls to pavers to stucco on houses, it is clearly an artist's job.

 

 

Luckily I haven't spent an unnatural amount of time with this commodity. Statistically, I will.

 

 

It is very nice in the villages to have indoor plumbing. This bathroom is beautiful with excellent tile-work, a sink, shower tub, and toilet. Sometimes, though, we have lost water pressure.

My host mother thought I was crazy for taking a picture of their heating system. It is actually extremely nice for Moldovan homes. Growing up in the south, I was unfamiliar with this style of heating. Hot water is pumped throughout the whole house via the pipes you see and the heat radiators do just that. In addition, my family has an in-wall fire-burning heater. They burn fuel in a downstairs stove and the heat and smoke drift upward to heat a brick wall shared by two rooms. In the midst of mid-90 degree heat, all this effort seems superfluous, but I saw the winter lows last year.





 

These are pictures of my family's cellar (or "bec" pronounced "betch"). Under the house most families store preservatives (called "conserves" here), wine, and other commodities. It is by far the coolest place around on a hot day, but nobody stays down here.