Mare Mare

It’s easy to eat in excess here. In Moldova, the hospitable thing to do is continue refilling guests plates until the guest surrenders by leaving some morsel of food behind as an indication they are done eating. I don’t like waste, and I like to eat, so this doesn’t bode well for waist-line. On the plus side, it’s incredibly flattering to my host mother as it’s obvious I enjoy her cooking. She laughs every time I eat and comments with gestures and a word I’m very familiar with now, mare. She demonstrates an expanding stomach between chuckles of “tu fi mare, mare, mare” (you will be big, big, big). “Great and thanks a lot” I think between mouthfuls of fried meat and vegetables. Along with Moldova’s excessive production of wine, they seem to have an endless supply of sunflower oil. However, I still have a hard time fathoming how they can export any of it (and they do) when it appears as they use it all in their own food.

Today, she insisted I try something that looked fried and unappealing next to the grilled and peppered chicken, so I did. In between chewing and swallowing, I asked her what it was and wished I hadn’t. She said eggs then pointed to her head and said pork. “Awesome” I thought as I suppressed a gag, fried pig brain with eggs. When I was later putting the rest of lunch away, I saw a bowl full of uncooked brains chillen in the fridge. “No thanks”, thank goodness, is an accepted term here if I really don’t want to eat something.

In compensation for all the food I consume, I have been somewhat diligent in exercising. I run and have been practicing yoga with another volunteer.  It’s great, but without fail, the only pose my host family ever walks in on us practicing is “corpse pose” as we’re wrapping up our practice. The lights are out, I have incense burning, and we’re laying flat on our backs sprawled out to full comfort. I’ve lost count how many times Ilena (host mom) has come in to check on us, looked in curiously and chuckled in confusion. She asks “exerciț?”, somewhat skeptically and I just think “yea, yea, yea… mare”. But the coincidence always makes us laugh, and now in preparing for final relaxation, we also prepare for the familia gazda.