38. The Best Way to Get to Know Your Community

One Saturday, my mother was working at the church with a funeral, my father was herding sheep. I decided that I should walk around my village. My goal was to walk all the way around the outskirts of my village.

I got about half way towards completing this goal, when a man said hello to me in English. So I stopped and spoke some greetings with him in English and also practiced my Romanian. A woman, around my age, came over and introduced herself and asked if I would like some wine. So, I have always thought that the best way to know my community and the people in it is to always accept invitations unless they look dangerous or I have other plans, and the situation I am describing looked like neither.

So I accepted. I walked into the yard and had a few shots of wine with them. When they drink wine socially, they have a small glass they fill and after the person finishes it, they dump out anything that is left, fill it, and give it to the next person. It is actually a lot of fun, but sometimes difficult to track how many drinks you had had, especially if it is a large group. With a larger group sometimes they will break out a few glasses to go around the circle.

I find out that these people are preparing for a 'Mort Masa', which is a dinner for someone that has died. I believe that the man had died a few months ago, this was a celebration in his honor. The man that died was a Romanian and English teacher in the village and his wife is a retired French teacher. I also found out, that the man who I talked with first is the brother of my host sister's boyfriend. So he told me we were family and I should have another drink. I guess it truly is a small world when you live in a village of 3,000 people.

I got there at 6pm or so and was discussing my life in America and what I enjoyed about Moldova, asking about their family and telling them about my family in the US and what I was doing in Moldova. It was a lot of fun, except I think that everyone was trying to get me to date the 20 year old girl. She was really funny but at times hard to understand because she would switch from Romanian to English in a sentence. It was pretty funny to watch her mother’s face when she said Moldavian women look much better than American women and that I should look for a wife here.

The worst part about this evening, was when her brother in law started giving her a hard time because she had a degree from the university but she was not working nor was she married or has a boyfriend. She was literally crying and every once in a while asking me, “Do you understand?” I felt bad that she was crying, but I could not/did not want to help her for fear that it would be taken the wrong way.

So she and the first man I met went inside due to being upset and/or being intoxicated. I tried to leave, I had been there 2 hours, but the new friends I had made told me to sit down and eat. So I then ate and drank with a bunch of older people in remembrance of a man I never met, plus the people I 'knew' were inside of the house so I had to make friend with the other people at the time. At about 9pm the dinner ended and I was able to leave without disrespecting my hosts.

I have decided that the best times in Moldova are stumbled upon, or when a Moldavian says, "I want to take you to _____" you should take him up on his offer.