Peace Corps Journal - Seanne Hanke - June 2004
On to July
JOURNAL ENTRY 25 - June 16, 2004 - AIR CONDITIONING WOULD BE NICE
Oy - its hot.  I know its only June but I'm constantly 'moist'.  As is everyone else.  The difference is I wear deoderant.  Oooh its funky.  I seriously need to introduce Febreeze to this country.  And dry cleaning.  And shaving your armpits.  And your hairy legs (babas, you know who you are).  And the concept that sheer blouses, tight skirts, and stilettos are inappropriate.  I gotta dream.
Been busy.  But happy.  After a minor crisis last month, I consulted w/my personal board of directors (also known as 'the girls') and happily resumed my life.  Updates:  MOLD HEALTH EXPO - so fabulous I nearly cried.  Full of people and organizations, seminars running smoothly, people getting their blood pressure and BMI checked.  A dream.  Of course there were issues but overall a SCREAMING success.  Over 40 NGOs showed up to represent themselves and put on 15 hours worth of seminars.  Peace Corps volunteers and Moldovan university students handled all the running/attendance keeping/announcements.  One of the highlights was the popularity of 'the smoking area' at a health exposition.  Most popular table: the vegetarians.  A completely novel idea for Moldova (I titled their workshop: 'Life without Meat' and still people were confused). WORK SITUATION - I'm shuttling between jobs all the time.  Mondays and Tuesdays - being the data hampster for the milk coop.  Not kidding, did 16 hours of data entry last week.  Then a PNL statment.  I expected to get a phone call from Shared Services at any moment.   Thursdays and Fridays are similar - but I sit in the town hall building as a business consultant.  Mostly reading the 101 business ideas in Romanian and translating some of the funky verbs.  I'm super popular and people always want to talk to the American.  
On the complete other hand, I work in Topal (bitty, POOR village) every Wednesday.  I take the bus from my town, 15 minutes down the road, to another dirt stop (Cicur).  There, I attempt to hitchhike the 7km to Topal.  Sometimes it works (like today where I had a ride after 5 minutes) and sometimes it doesn't (like last week where I walked all 7km and got my boob honked by an overly amorous shepherd).  Current projects there: writing a grant to get running water in the village, working with the milk coop, ad hoc agro advising (ha!) and trying to get their church finished (its been 40 years).  Seriously, I love my time in Topal.  It almost feels like the support I had at Spirit of Hope (my church in Minneapolis).    Every Wednesday I come home with food.  One week it was a chicken (mentioned in a previous entry - it was still warm).  Two weeks ago it was 2kg of goat cheese (FREAKING EXCEPTIONAL!!!) and last week was 2 loaves of fresh (still warm, like the chicken) bread.  Today I got more bread and I visited a man who I helped open a bar (and had a beer at 10am - I tried to protest but it was either a beer or 50g of crappy vodka).  Then met with a lady who is in charge of collecting milk for the cooperative.  After that, was attacked (it is an attack if there's blood - and there was in my hair.  I assume it was mine.) by a mama chicken who I really ticked off when I tried to pick up one of her chicks.  Continuing in my agri-vein I talked to some pigs in a field who obviously thought I had food and were a littly snotty when all I did was pet them.  And then the piece de resistance: I watched a goat get skinned.  It had already been slaughtered before I arrived - as evidenced by the blood on the grass by my feet - but then I watched a man turn the goat, literally, inside out.  And then a dog ate the head and skin.  I tried (and was almost sucessful) not to puke.  (Please note - this little foray into nature was with 2 farmers who were showing me stuff and discussing forming an agricultural coop.  So I was working while siteseeing.  And then made myself look fairly wussy by puking.)  ANIMALS AT HOME on a less disgusting note - our house is now a zoo.  We have two kittens - Dima and Mel (as in Gibson - Virginia picked the name.  I think she's been reading too many 'People' magazines); a rat named Doris (Virginia skinned an inch of the tail leaving only blood and bone which is now black.  Additional note: Virginia thinks Doris is a mouse - I think Doris is going to be able to fight off NYC sewer rats in a few months.); my rabbit April (who had bunny pink eye which was treated by the vet with a shot for only 5 lei - i.e. $.50) and as of last night, a Corgie (dog) named Jessie (who was locked in the outdoor shower last night with a pair of my sweatpants because we didn't have any dog supplies.  Jessie is wearing a Hartz flea collar (thanks Jen) and hopefully, when I get home tonight, Virginia will have done something to make Jessie more comfortable.  The flea collar is purple and its possible that Virginia will be wearing it when I get home.  Jessie, the cats, and the rat all eat people food.  And the bunny enjoys home-baked bread.  Very different than in the states.  Did I mention that I didn't have enough time to take the bunny home after the vet appointment so she came to work with me?  She has a collar and leash, so when I needed 'a breath of fresh air', I took her outside for a little excersise and grass snack.  I think all of Cimislia saw me and stopped to gawk.  In America a rabbit on a leash would be wierd, but to Moldovans, it was as if I had put a steak on a leash or something.  Everyone had suggestions for what food product April would be best at.  The winner was a stew.  I tried to cover her ears, but she looked peevish after these comment.  Additional note - I now only eat animals with less than 4 legs.  Its not vegetarian, really, but its simpler than saying I don't eat cow, pig, rabbit, or goat.  My host grandma thinks I've lost my mind.  And she's taken to lying.  Saying things like, 'this pork patty was only made with the BACK half of the pig and therefore only 2 legs'.    B&B CIMISLIA - Natasha (host mom) did it.  She opened her bed and breakfast and we had our first guests in May with Jerry's family.  We all visited the big orthodox church in town then went to the little historical museum where Virginia was forced to model traditional costumes (ha!).  After that, we had this huge Moldovan feast and played hearts.  The next guests will be PC volunteer Stacey Beauchamp's family.  We're going to do a big Moldovan BBQ in the forest.  I'm lobbying to have some chicken added to the traditional pork.  But luckily, out family pig (who I've declined to name after the first incident of pork-u-cide at our house) is too little to kill so he won't be on the menu.  TRUST CAMP - Jerry & Aaron are helming six 3-day business camps all over Moldova.  I'm teaching accounting.  (All UW alumni please stop laughing now).  The camps are for kids ages 14-18 and go from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon (with kids sleeping at home).  We're covering accounting, international econ, basic business concepts, marketing, ethics and basic econ.  Games.  Prizes.  And a bbq Moldovan style.  First one is this weekend - and I'm a little nervous.
In summary - I'm way busy, generally happy, wearing a reasonable pants size, and am really looking forward to seeing Jen in August.
More later,
S
JOURNAL ENTRY 26 - June 21, 2004 - AND WHO THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE???
Business camp went great!  Channeling my I-can-make-Jesus-interesting skills from teaching confirmation, accounting just CAME ALIVE for the kids in Anenii-Noi this past weekend.  Well, they didn't fall asleep drooling - that was my goal.  But in an extroardinary plot twist, Thursday night, when there were 6 Americans in addition to Jerry in Jerry's new place - a Russian lady bursts through the door and starts turning off lights.  And yelling in Russian.  It turns out that she' the owner of the house, came home unexpectedly and wasn't all up to speed that Jerry was going to rent her house.  After much interpretation using local Moldovans, it was decided she was going to stay the weekend but in another bedroom - which left a lot of Americans sleeping on the floor. She also became a dinner guest (great! we all thought) We came to realize she is a little 'different' in that she likes to kick back with the vodka and offer people her cats.  And she really, really, took to Aaron and John.  But Jerry now has a dog named Larry (or "too-zick" in Russian) and a cat named Terry.  Both came with the house.  Its Moldova, you're more likely to get animals with the house than an indoor toilet.  FYI - Jerry's outhouse is both slanted backwards and full.  Picture that adventure at 3am. 
Much love.  S
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