The following are strictly personal views/observations and in no way reflect the views of the Peace Corp nor the federal government of the United States.

Evidently, to feed a woman is a sexual thrill for Russians.

I was unaware of this fact until recently when I was at the bar with some volunteer friends, also unaware of this feeding fetish, when a gentleman of Russian decent decided to join us at our table. Needless to say, we did not invite him to join us, we simply humored him in an attempt to be open to new cultural experiences.

Between my two friends and myself we were sharing a bag of chips. Then, without invitation the Russian decided to join in the chip consumption after he had introduced himself. We thought nothing of it, since all food in Moldova seems to be shared property.

However, things began to get bizarre when the Russian began attempting to feed me chips. Initally I refused, because his hands were probably dirty and the whole situation was generally outlandish. But, the man became so insistant that against my better judgement, I opened my mouth and let him feed me a chip. Fortunately, it was a large and intact chip so he had not touched it much. Then, he wanted to feed me another and I consented. After he had fed me about three chips I had had enough oddness, and the chips were getting down to crumbs so there was a lot of hand contanct involved.

At this point, the man and I had reached a stalemate. He was trying to feed me the chip crumbs, I was refusing to open my mouth and neither of us would yield. Finally, he began to rub the chip crumbs into my lips and mouth area. The whole time my volunteer friends were laughing and taking pictures, thereby egging him on. After two or three rounds of him rubbing chip crumbs onto my mouth and me squealing, I finished my beer and told my friends we had to leave immediately.

Of course, this Russian man did not want us to leave. He insisted we stay and attempted to keep us there by holding on to my friend’s shirt sleeve. Despite, his objections we managed to escape, and my lips recovered after three days of steady chapstick application.

The following are strictly personal views/observations and in no way reflect the views of the Peace Corp nor the federal government of the United States.

The preferred method of transportation for most people in Moldova is the rutiera.

Rutieras range in style, from the basic old minivan to the glorified panel van with seats.

Technically, the legal capacity for most rutieras is about 15 people, with 13 sitting and 2 standing. However, the average number of rutiera occupants on a rutiera at any given time numbers around 30; needless to say, it’s not the most comfortable form of transportation. Most rutiera outings I have been on involved a plump, middle aged woman, who wore course wool fabric and opted against deodorant, unintentionally mashing her breasts onto face. That is hard to disregard for an extended period of time; not only is it awkward, but, at the end of the ride your cheek is chaffed and in need of lotion.

Usually, in addition to the excessive number of people on the rutiera, it is guaranteed that there will also be some animal life. The animals typical on the rutiera are chickens, pigs, ducks, and rabbits. Although, most of the time it is hard to distinguish what kind of animal is being transported, because animals are usually transported in mass and carried in bags. You can always recognize a bag full of animals because the bag next to you will be writing about and making noise.

People also manage to move all manner and size of objects using the rutieras. The largest object I have seen is transported is a refrigerator, but I have also seen car windshields, tires, astonishing quantities of cheese, couches, etc.

One quality endowed to all rutieras is a stomach turning smell. This smell is similar, and yet distinct varying from rutiera to rutiera. Normally the smell is a mixture of different parts: body odor, chicken and diesel, sometimes with a hint of vomit or paint mixed into the aroma.

The following are strictly personal views/observations and in no way reflect the views of the Peace Corp nor the federal government of the United States.

The difference between housing standards in Moldova and America are staggering. In Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, the majority of the city dwelling population reside in apartment buildings; therefore, there is a tremendous number of apartment buildings in the city.

However, the vast majority of these buildings are in abysmal condition. The façade of an apartment building considered to be good quality by Chisinau standards, appears to be in worse condition than most city projects in America. The average apartment building in Chisinau would make the projects of New York City look like upscale housing.

The inside of the apartments contained in the building are quite lovely and homey. However, to judge the building solely on its exterior, I would surmise that a crack head would probably have reservations about sleeping there.

Most of the apartment buildings are in the vicinity of thirteen stories. The stairwells are totally unlit and smell of cat urine to a degree that it stings the nostrils, and about half the windows in the stairwell areas are broken out. Elevators in these apartments are almost nonexistent and even when they are present they are usually out of order. I do not know for certain, but I think it is a safe assumption that there are no evacuation routes out of the building in case of fire.

The reason for this poor external building upkeep is that people in Moldova do not rent their apartments, they own them. Thus, there is no landlord to manage basic building upkeep and none of the individual apartment owners are charitable enough to handle the general building maintenance. If maintenance or renovations are made by an apartment owner, the work occurs only inside that person’s apartment.

The ownership of apartments dates back to Soviet times. Most of the apartments owned by Moldavians are the apartments they were given as housing during the Soviet period.

The following are strictly personal views/observations and in no way reflect the views of the Peace Corp nor the federal government of the United States.

Random Thoughts from Moldova – Part 3

- In the winter in Moldova the sun rises around 8:00 in the morning, and sets around 4:00 in the afternoon. Even while the sun is up it is never really sunny, it is perpetually overcast. The main problem with these conditions is that it makes drying laundry an incredibly slow and arduous process.

- There are two varieties of car in Moldova. Cars produced before the fall of the Soviet Union, which are typically Ladas; and cars produced in the last five years, which are Mercedes, BMW or Audi. The interesting thing is that there are not really any cars occupying the price range between these two extremes.

- Because everyone in Moldova is constantly burning something, trash, leaves, corn stalks, etc. there is a weather condition that exists here called smoke. It is scientifically recognized and forecast on the weather. I am not entirely sure what casues it, my guess is something about the atmosphere on some days keeps the smoke produced by rampant burning close to the ground and thus more visible. For the uneducated observer, it is difficult to tell the different between smoke and fog, but there is a difference. Although I can proudly say that after 6months in Moldova I am aware of the difference, and now I actually find that the difference is quite distinct.

- It is difficult to find canned tuna fish in Moldova, which doesn’t seem unusual until you consider how many other canned meat products are available here. On the standard store shelf you can find in a can: chicken paste, rabbit paste, pig paste, and pate created from a variety of animals. The standard Moldovan grocery contains such a variety of canned meats that it would put a major American grocer to shame. Thus, I would think that stores would also stock some canned tuna.

- I went to Barcelona, Spain for Christmas and New Years. The only comparison I can make between Spain and Moldova is that the average dress of women ages 15-35 in Moldova is exactly the same as the standard dress of prostitutes in Spain.