Ziua de Pacii (International Day of Peace)

Shelbi and her partner Natalia (along with the 9th grade) celebrated the 21st of September as International Day of Peace by creating symbols of peace in chalk at our school. Here is what they created.

"Dead People" and A Wedding Morning

     First, I will explain the beginning of this post's title. We went to the village Taban last night with our host family. Rodica's mother lives there and her brothers (one living in Briceni and one in Chişinau) both came for a masă or meal. Before the meal, we all went to the cemetery to see the grave of Rodica's father. His headstone stood nicely next to Rodica's grandparents' headstones. As the family experienced a somber moment, Arcadie (our host dad) decided to practice some of his English. He began saying in English, "Dead people...dead people....cemetery....dead people." Shelbi and I busted up laughing. The family didn't mind. They all laughed, too, even though they didn't understand his English. We later tried to explain the delicate reverence for the dead we try to maintain in America. I don't know if our message was lost on him or not, but we are glad for his efforts with English. He is actually quite good although he only studied a little at university.

     So, the reason Rodica's family was in town was because her youngest brother who lives in Chişinau will participate as naş (a kind of "god-father") in his friend's wedding. The morning after this meal and the cemetery with, yes, "dead people," we came back to the village and got to experience some of the beginnings of a Moldovan wedding. Because the rest of the wedding would be in another city, and we didn't exactly know the bride and groom, Shelbi and I decided to only go to the morning's events. If we had participated in everything, we would be occupied until 4 or 5 a.m. the next morning. So, here are some pictures/videos and explanations to give you an idea of the experience.

The family and friends of the naş and naşa (like god-parents for bride and groom's future children) greet the groom outside the house with a ceremony of music, wine, and other welcoming gestures on the morning of his wedding.

They then proceed into the house and everyone has a masă (or meal) while the band plays. By-the-way, the boy on the right in this picture is one of John's English students and our host family's nephew.

This is the most popular traditional Moldovan dance: the hora.

    The Moldovan custom is to take the groom and travel (walk or otherwise) around "searching" for a/his bride. Sometimes it becomes a joke to take the groom to some baba (old woman) and try to pawn her off as the young bride. Our group walked around the block yelling with high-pitched festive screams and found the bride at her parents' house-no joke. When the groom arrived at the house, however, the siblings of the bride forbade him to enter or see the bride until he had bartered for her. This usually comes to a symbolic amount around $100 U.S. (in Moldovan lei, of course). The parties joke and smile as they barter. Unfortunately, we didn't understand all the hints and subtleties, but the groom was eventually allowed in to see his bride and all the people made rounds to take pictures with the couple. After this, the party swept us outside into a hora circle and John embarrassed himself while Shelbi learned the steps.
Maybe some of this information doesn't represent all Moldovans. That's okay. This is how it was explained to us.

A Few Odds and Ends

 This is a monastery near Briceni. One of John's partners, Irina, and her husband, took us there. It is in the middle of a forest and is a solemn, but peaceful place. During Soviet times it was a children's camp, and there are still buildings, though somewhat unused. The wooden structure on the right is actually a recently-constructed bell-tower.

 Some sights from Chişinau:

John found a bicycle shop with quality products, so we spent some time looking. Later we went to a used bike shop at a Moldovan guy's garage. The store was closed despite posted hours, so John called and arranged a meeting to buy a bike. As we waited for the owner, a fellow traveler wanting a bike stopped by. His name is David and is from the Czech Republic and he knew English! So, we spoke for a while and waited outside the garage/bike shop. The neighbors were super-nice and even brought us sweet coffee and biscuits as our wait waned into the night. Finally, three hours past the agreed-time and after many phone calls from Czechs, Americans, and Moldovans, the owner showed up. He is a very nice guy and helped John get a Fuji XL-sized mountain bike.

Because it was so late, though, all the buses had already left for Briceni. We called around and someone suggested the hostel "behind Mall-dova." Without other clues, we headed "behind Mall-dova" and to our satisfaction quickly found the hostel with a couple beds to share. It was our first time staying in a hostel together. The place even offered discounts to Peace Corps volunteers and a small breakfast in the morning. 

 

This is the sign for a casino in Chişinau. We thought the combination of Las Vegas casino-life, the New York "Broadway" theme, and San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge was interesting, but represented a few United States landmarks well. It was worth a picture anyway.

1st Day of School!

     The whole country of Moldova celebrates the first of September as the first of school. Their school calendar runs from September until May, a very clear calendar. If the first of September falls on a weekend, as it did this year, classes begin on the following Monday.
     The whole school met on Monday, September 3rd outside the buildings for a celebration and traditions. A representative from the Ministry of Education, a Vice-Mayor of Briceni, two orthodox priests, and many parents were there that morning. One striking moment was when four 12th form (or grade) boys took four 1st grade girls parading in front of everyone by holding them on their shoulders. As they paraded, the 1st form students rang the "first bells" to signify the beginning of school. John gave a short introductory speech in Romanian before the students all had a class with their home-room teacher and a couple more classes. Here are some pictures to help you visualize our experience:

School dress code for special occasions is blank and white clothing.

John and one partner, Irina.

These are the 1st graders joining the group. The teacher in the front holds a traditional Moldovan welcome meal of bread and salt.

A priest prayed and blessed the students, teachers, and school year. They blessed with prayers and by sprinkling holy water on everyone.

John's other partner, Tamara. Tamara speaks English very well and has two kids, pictured below. Her husband is also very nice. We look forward to getting to know their family.

Ziua Independencia

These are some of the teachers from our school gathering to celebrate Moldovan Independence Day (August 27th) by laying flowers by a statue bust of Ștefan Cel Mare, a 15th century king, saint, and protector of Moldova.

Shelbi getting her Moldovan on by putting flowers at the bust of Ștefan Cel Mare.

These are videos of the celebration. Many of the students performing go to the school where we teach. The music and dances are traditional Moldovan.

Cooking With Shelbi :)

Since Shelbi loves to cook, I decided to combine pictures and stories of her culinary expeditions into one post, which we'll continue to add to as she continues to cook.

 Okay, so she's not cooking, but this was the (mushroom) hat she was working on. She has since taken it apart and remade it a little differently and smaller. We thought it quite funny.

 Above is shuba, the Russian word for fur-coat. It is made with salted fish at the bottom, potatoes over that, mayonnaise, shredded beats, possibly eggs, possibly onions, and makes a very tasty side!!

 Chowder-Moldovan style! It was pretty good.

 Some awesome "ninja-bread" cookies Jennifer sent us. We really enjoyed making them and giving them away.

 A classic southern meal that we are preparing to make for visitors!

 These jars are all gifts from partners and friends here. On the far right is compot (juice) made from water, raspberries, and sugar. The small one in the middle is pickled tomatoes and cauliflower. Behind that is a big jar of pickled tomatoes, and the last is simply pickled cucumbers...pickles!!

Above is our host dad pretending to eat honey with a "lingura mare" or big spoon. It is a joke in Moldova that if someone is very hungry, they will eat with the big spoon. He did return from his relatives' place with a lot of honey, so Shelbi thought a picture was needed.

 Guess what I'm making...

 The Wallace clan should know clearly by now. And just look at these smiles!

Shelbi is actually mashing corn with the bottom of a bowl. She made her own "creamed" corn for corn casserole. Thanksgiving is on Thursday and we will be going on Saturday to Balti to celebrate with some PCVs before Shelbi goes down to Chisinau for training seminars.

Double-yoke :)

 And these little dearies... we thought they might be chestnuts, so we looked up "chestnuts" online, and, sure enough, we saw pictures of these! Shelbi immediately found a recipe and we collected some. After boiling and roasting them, we cut open our first and got a mouthful of bitterness. Our host mom was very courteous as she tasted one and said it was good. We spit ours out and stopped eating. A couple weeks later when visiting some friends in a village not too far away, we were informed those were "buck-eyes," which were poisonous. Luckily for everyone involved, our host mom is still with us.

 At least the buck-eyes smelled good.

Just a random overflowing bowl of placenta dough our host mom made. We thought it was funny.

Shelbi's no-bake cookies!! MMMMmmmmm...

 Our host mom, Rodica, made these cakes, which were delicious and well-presented. We had to have a picture.

 Cake and placenta:

 A pancake look-a-like called clitita.

 Hmmmm, what went wrong here? We tried to make calzones, but we used too much yeast.

 Before the extra rising:

 Wow, those are huge!!

 They were okay, but yeasty. We decided we needed to try the dough again, so we made pizza the next day. That turned out gustos! (tasty)

 This was John's birthday. Shelbi made fasole (beans) and urez (rice) to go on tortillas (yeah, you know). It was a great Tex-Mex-style meal. Just look at that smile.

 We taught our host family the Taco Bell tilted head syndrome and they understood 45 degrade (degrees).

 Shelbi's cornbread muffins. I guess they were good. I had training in Chisinau when Shelbi made them.

Well, okay, Shelbi didn't exactly cook this. She did find the worm halfway through her peach, though.

The apple pie was terrific!-A real touch of home.

The cookies...better luck next time. I think we tried to substitute too many ingredients. The chocolate parts were good.

Hamburgers were a big deal. We made them for our host family the evening before our host sister went back to university. What I didn't really consider was that they don't really eat dinner. Instead, they eat a large lunch and go light on dinner. I messed that up and scheduled a big meal of hamburgers for the evening, so our host dad didn't really want to eat a hamburger. They were pretty good, even with hard bread :).

Ahhh, banana bread! Really good, and our host mom had a silicone muffin pan/sheet/tray.

PIZZA!!!

"Salam" sliced thinly made pretty delicious pepperonis.

We were excited to find canned pineapple in the local store, so we made a kind of Hawaiian pizza.

Oh, so tasty!! It was really good, and our host mom seemed to enjoy it as well.