Road Trippin'

Thus far, I think that I really lucked out with my Moldovan partners. They are awesome and they go a lot of places for work. So while some of my fellow volunteers have been sitting in their offices, I have been on the Road!! Last week we went to Nisporeni and Leova. They are each about an hour away from Hincesti, but in opposite directions. We are working in conjunction with these two Raions as well as a Romanian partner to start a business center of some sort. The details are a bit hazy for me at this point, but I imagine I will be taking multiple future trips to both Nisporeni and Leova. You should be able to find both places on this map:



The trips to Leova and Nisporeni were just mini-trips in comparison to the road trip that I took yesterday to Edinet. The NGO that I work with was assisting with a short seminar on empowering women that was held in the north-west part of Moldova.

It takes about four hours to get from Hincesti to Edinet, so I was up and ready to go by 6:00am, just as I was instructed. Now everyone in Moldova operates on roughly the same schedule as my friend Tam. I have known Tam for 10 years or so and I am pretty sure that she has never managed to be on time to anything during this period(I love you Tam!!!). Still when I am going to meet up with her, I am always on time, just in case it's is the one time she isn't late (You would think that I would learn). So at 6:40, my partners arrive and we are on the road!!!

The driver for the trip was Doamna Ecaterina from Bobieca, a small village in Hincesti. I was given the most honored seat in the vehicle, otherwise know as "shotgun," and my partners, Angela and Valentina, road in the back seat. Luckily it was a cool morning, because Moldovan road trips can get hot. This is mainly due to the fact that Moldovans are against both running the air conditioner and rolling down the windows. From what I understand, they think that both of these practices will make you sick. Every once in a while they roll down the window a tiny bit, but not enough to be at all effective at cooling off the car. They actually roll the window down just enough that it only makes you want to roll the window down more.

We took the Moldovan version of the freeway, which I would describe as a somewhat organized free-for-all. I think there is a speed limit, but the only reason I think this is because we appeared to slow down when we saw a cop. There was a lot of passing of other cars, horses and carts, scooters and at one point we almost hit a cow that was crossing the road. I assume that my partner Angela gets car sick because she threw up twice (once outside the car, once inside the car). In spite of leaving 40 minutes late, we made it to Edinet almost on time.

The seminar seemed to go really well. I tried to pay attention to the first part and I was actually surprised by the amount I could actually understand. We had a lunch break at around 1:00, which included apple placenta (my favorite) and, of course, wine. I spent the second part of the seminar talking with Daniela, a Moldovan woman from the organization "People in Need." People in Need is an organization based in the Czech Republic that provides various grants in 34 developing countries. She spoke beautiful English and we had a lovely conversation about Moldova and her work here.

Turns out my new friend, Daniela, lived near Chisinau, which we were going through on our was back to Hincesti. So, we offered her a ride. In the hope that it would alleviate Angela's car sickness, I opted to ride in the back on the way home and allow Angela to ride in the front. Unfortunately, this meant I had to cram in the back seat with two other people. It was a little hotter on the way home than it was on the way two Edinet and the extra person didn't make it any more pleasant. However, Daniela was full of interesting information that she shared throughout the trip (and even better, she shared it in English!). My favorite tidbit was when she pointed out the statue of Lenin in front of the Raion Council in Edinet, and said the people in the northern part of Moldova were "nostalgic."

On the way home we were pulled over by the police. I am not sure the reason (or if there actually was a legitimate reason). This was actually the second time that I have been in a car that has been stopped by the police. The first time was on our way to Nesporeni (again, I am not sure why). Then we seemed to remedy the situation by calling someone. The police officer then came over and confirmed a phone number and we were on our merry way. However, this police stop did not go quite as smoothly. Doamna Ecaterina was asked to step out of the car on go with the police officer to his vehicle, but she returned about 10 minutes later and we continued on our merry way once again.

After dropping Daniela and Valentina off in Chisinau, we finally made it back to Hincesti. I was exhausted, which is understandable since I saw about 2/3's of the country that day! I hope there are more exciting road trips to come!!