The Parallels of Life

     A friend gave me some really comforting words before I left that stuck out in a different way amongst all the encouragement. She said, “this will be a challenge, but it’s going to become your new norm”. While I would still prefer a toilet inside as opposed to a hole in the ground outside, I’m really enjoying being here and know there is still nothing else I would rather be pursuing. And to be fair, I have a really nice outhouse. The spiders keep the flies under control, and I’m actually quite comfortable with my little eight legged pest controllers now. If you feel the need to clap in congratulations to my overcoming my spider fear, I approve. However, note; one recently got its web caught in my hair on my way out of the outhouse and tried to come with me, and that wasn’t cool. One spider friend at a time, and only if they stay in their corner.

     But enough about spiders, one of the things I wanted to practice in coming to Moldova (the most fertile land in the world I’ve been told since being here) was gardening. I was excited to get involved with daily house chores and work with my host family. I want to and be a part of how they live. However, we are kept busy nine hours a day six days a week in a hell of physical stagnation. Our rears have had to make similar adjustments to our daily seats (made for 8 year olds) as one might have to make to a new leather bicycle seat. I’ve never had my body hurt so much from moving so little. After language and lectures all day, my brain is in the “function without recollection” mode, and my host mom is so happy to just take care of me. She lets me help her put things away or set the table, but she prepares all the food (more of her food and its deliciousness to come later) and feels I deserve just as much wine as she does. She always insists I eat more and rest. I’ve told her I want to learn to cook some of their traditional dishes and to make wine, but wine making will happen in September and she makes all the food while I’m in school. It would appear some weekend visits to my PST (pre-service training) home will be in order.

      Life is a little more old school traditional in Costești, so I’ve had some opportunity to see the lifestyles one might expect to see as a Peace Corps volunteer. My permanent host site has amenities I might expect to find in the states (my fears of freezing in the winter have been calmed as I know my home and my school both have heat and hot water). But in Costești, my family eats what they grow in the many fields they have around the village. I’ve become a glutton for whatever is in season as I know it will soon be unavailable. Watermelon baby? Peaches baby? My stomach has expanded on account of fruit… and I’ll be real, all the new cookies I have been trying… and retrying. My host dad works hard in their family fields every day, and my host mom keeps the house in order, takes care of the grandkids and cooks every meal. One Saturday they took me to see one of their vineyards. Ilena and Mihai have such a happy demeanor in their work and support of one another and their family. It makes me so happy to see! They are always smiling and it is evident that they are very much so still in love. Living with them has been so perfect in my missing my parents. I parallels I’ve noticed in the way they take care of each other, work together, and take pride in their lives and families.

One night, they took Julianna and I out to some of their fields and brought tools to do a little maintenance on the rows. I took the opportunity to help despite their trying to talk me out of it and learned to appreciate their lifestyle that much more. Hello hard labor, thank you educational opportunity. However, I did enjoy the work, but am happy to choose another career. Ilena has since let me help her a little more with cleaning up, but I get the impression she feels it’s her responsibility to take care of everything. It’s comforting to find a similar relentless kindness and compassion that I find in my own mother. I can say the same thing about Mihai and the admiration I have for him and his incessant hard work. He shows such love for his family by the hard work he puts into supporting and caring for them. This was (and still is) always such an evident display of love from my own dad. I am crossing my fingers for the opportunity to introduce my parents to my Costești host parents.