|
|
(Page 2/4) The vodka had affected mum and she delighted in smacking around my sister, of which we took photos. Back to Chisinau, and it was agreed to go to dinner with Dorina's friend who had driven us, his name being Anatol.
On the way back, we did see something quite funny. We saw a family of three pushing their broken down car up a hill. We felt sorry for them, and almost thought to stop and help them. Just then, another car pulled up, and we thought ‘Great! These people will help them! But no, they got out and took a photo of these poor people! Very funny. And no, we didn't go back and help them. We had a few hours rest in mum's apartment, and then off to dinner. Dinner was quite far away, and of course this involved another bouncy ride for about an hour. Kenny was getting a bit upset about these roads by now, and although I'd never really thought about complaining about them before (I just hold on and it pretend it's a rollercoaster ride), I could understand his point. Still, what could we do? Still, like most things in Moldova , the eventual goal is made so much more sweeter by the problems you encounter in reaching them. The restaurant was a ‘Moldovan' one, apparently, and was seemingly in the middle of no-where, in what I can only describe as ‘about an hour west of Chisinau'. It consisted of outside tables, covered with canopies made of straw. Very cool. There was a small ‘zoo' area with assorted animals that apparently you could choose and they would be killed and cooked for you. While eating animals is a rather normal state of affair for humans, I really prefer not to be made aware that animals are actually killed and turned into meals, but those of us closer their biological roots would be rather more comfortable. It serves the animals right for being so tasty in the first place, really.
So, we had a nice meal, and some nice Moldovan beer which is really very good, and then it was off home. What we did on Sunday was not so clear, but in the evening we arranged to visit Nikoli and his family, the landlord who owned the small apartment in which Dorina lived for a year, and which I visited several times. When they first heard of our coming to Moldova , they offered to let us stay with them, which was very nice and I would have preferred this over any other option. But since there were so many of us, this could not be possible. Nikoli has only a one bedroom house anyway, although there are the two separate apartments he has built attached. Him and his family really are very wonderful. John and Natasha came with us too. When we got there, we made introductions and took photos, and went in to eat. I was able to explain in dodgy Russian to Kolya and Luba about the beer which I had made mum bring from Australia , carry all around the US in her hand luggage (so it didn't get damaged) and then finally to Moldova which I was giving them. I'm not sure they understood me, but they nodded in a friendly fashion. Was my Russian really so bad? Yes. As it turns out, the only people who can understand me are people who also speak English and can translate the mutant form of Russian I speak into actual Russian.
The weather was still very hot, but we had a very nice time. Nikoli has his own wine cellar, and indulged us with a plentiful supply. He boasts about his wine, and so far everything he's ever said about it is completely true. It is very pure, it doesn't seem to give any hangovers at all, and I believe him about the health benefits too. Apparently home-made wine is of course made without the usual preservatives and such added. The preservatives really do mess up wine that badly – though of course make it last longer. Imagine how much more expensive wine would be without them. Fresher it would be, yes, but probably not affordable. This makes home-made wine like Nikoli's all the more special.
When we were all a bit drunk, Nikoli was telling war stories to John, who was greatly impressed. Soviet war stories explained to Americans – great fun for both. Australians and New Zealanders as a rule don't care much about wars. We've never started any ourselves, and are so far away from other countries no one can be bothered to start one with us. Nikoli's daughter and rich husband came to visit for a short while, and told us about their holiday adventures in Turkey . Turkey is one of the few foreign countries that some of the more well-off Moldovans can actually afford to visit, so it's prestigious to go on such a trip. I got the impression that they were very proud of having gone there, so it must have been quite depressing for them to be in a room of foreigners who had traveled from as far away as New Zealand to come to Moldova . I don't know if this is accurate or true or not, but they didn't stay long, and I would have certainly felt a bit bummed out in their place.
It just helps to show the gap between the richest countries and the poorest. And I felt quite bad, like I was intruding, even. Before, I had lived cheaply and saved well to afford to visit Dorina in Moldova four times – and now, I had dragged my entire family AND a couple of friends along as well just for a vacation! In the mind of a Moldovan, how we can afford such a trip is not imaginable. Even more unimaginable is trying to explain how we did afford it to them – mum refinanced the house, whereas we and John turned to the credit cards. Balance everything out, and the Moldovans in the room with us had more money than we did! But the situation with mortgages and credit card debt is barely imaginable to Moldovans – and rightly so. Mortgages are crazy – I mean we spend half of our half paying for our houses, with more than half of that money going directly to the bank in the form of profit. And then we have to pay taxes on our houses to be able to live in them! I felt even somewhat worse when Luba told us that she now has a job with an American company (Nike, perhaps?) and is paid $100 a month. Yes, Moldova is a sweat-shop. She said the working conditions are not bad at all, but just the pay is so low. And really, she is being taken advantage of. Surely Nike can afford to pay a decent salary - $200 a month. It's not like Nike's prices are so low that they're absolutely drowning in competition. It's just sickening. So what? Nike can move to some other country and Luba would have no job. Ok, fair enough. But slapping humans in the face like this is unacceptable. $200 a month Nike – you can frakking afford it, you greedy pricks. I'd personally like to slap each and every one of Nike's shareholders around the head. Or perhaps make them stay in a Moldovan village for a night. Who knows, they might even enjoy it so much that they'll forget that they absolutely have to own the most newest and biggest SUV in their neighborhoods. There is nothing wrong with making profit – but trolling for the absolute lowest wage that a human is willing to accept for some job is not good business – its cruelty. The board of directors hearing the great reports about the latest research showing the lowest wage which these sub-humans are willing to work for and nodding happily as they're rubbing their hands together – it's wrong. Make a profit – but don't be cruel about it.
What would happen if Luba became rich and powerful one day? She might well decide to strike down Nike and erase it from the face of the earth (all legally, of course). A situation which wouldn't have happened if she'd only been paid fairly. Or what if she became an ambassador of some sort? She wouldn't think so favorably of Americans anymore, would she? And rightly so. Treat people fairly – that's all we ask. I can't imagine that it's such a huge and gigantic effort that it will put so many companies out of business to offer little more money to its hard working employees. Coming back to the apartment of Valentine's parents, I had a drunken conversation with his mum in Russian. It was my first such real conversation, and I didn't know many words, but surprisingly she seemed to understand me well enough. The next day was Monday, and Dorina and I had decided to find an apartment closer to town, because although we liked Valentine's parents place very much, it was just too far away. My family, who spoke only English, were in the middle of a foreign city, and we'd all traveled too far and spent too much money on plane tickets to spend our vacation so far apart. Anatol found us an apartment fairly quickly, and cheaply. $25 a night was the rate, and it was right downtown too, a mere four or five blocks from mum's apartment. He had apparently offered to find us an apartment before we came to Moldova , which was also what I was hoping at least one of Dorina's friends was willing to do. But, messages were crossed, Moldovans were trying to be polite, and it did not happen. Grrrrrr. But oh well. So we moved into this apartment, a bit to the dismay of Valentine's mum. Dorina wasn't even going to tell her that we were leaving, so afraid was she that Valentine's mum would be upset and offended. Bloody hell. How does anything get done in Moldova ? So yet another $250 was spent, which I really would have preferred giving to some needy Moldova that we knew, but since the plans were as confused as they were, the $250 went to some needy Moldovans that we didn't know. My driver's license was given the land-lady of the apartment we had rented. She had wanted a Moldovan identification card from one of us, but that wasn't to be me. Dorina had applied to renew hers, so she didn't have one, and although Anatol had been talked into giving up his, this was not a very good situation for him or us, so in the end, my driver's license it was. This suited me fine, because we had moved back in April and I still hadn't updated my address and had to get a new one anyway! The apartment was very nice inside, nicer than mum's one, but quite noisy as it was right next to the busy main road. But, that's OK. That night we went back to Valentine's mum's place – it was her birthday! We had a very good Moldovan meal, in what had only the day before been our bedroom. Valentine's wife was there, along with her mother, who is some religious lady who covers her head with some cloth. She looked very disapprovingly at us as we had fun and drank alcohol. I guess she is one of the new protestant-type of Christians in Moldova, converted thanks to the ongoing brave efforts of those fraking American missionaries who have nothing else to do with their time that go around the world making sure everyone else things exactly the same as they do. So thanks very much assholes – you're turning ordinary Moldovans into people who can't stand to watch others have fun, let alone have fun themselves.
Also she insisted that the fan be turned off. It was still at least 35 Celsius you see – and the fan our only source of heat-relief. But in Moldova , any type of breeze will immediately give you a life-threatening sickness and make you fall on the ground dead within minutes, and so must be avoided. Heat stroke, however, is perfectly OK. Half way through the night it rained. Oh, the relief! It dropped from 35 to about 20 Celsius in a matter of minutes. The meal was very nice, and we ate so much I almost exploded. On Tuesday, the next day, we pissed about a bit. We went to the markets, and in the afternoon ending up going to a carpet store, where mum brought some authentic Moldovan carpets, and my sister and I brought carpet slippers – made of carpet! Very cool. In the evening, we had to meet the God parents – more about them later – and went to a restaurant not too far from the center. We got off the trolley bus, and Kenny let some Moldovans get on, and as a result, the doors closed and off he went up the road in a Moldovan trolley bus. It was quite funny.
The next day was Wednesday, and we spent it sight seeing, going to museums, restaurants, and such. It turns out that mum and Donna really liked museums, so once they discovered some they had Dorina show them all the rest of the main ones. I had never been to a Moldovan museum, so it was interesting to see inside. They are OK. Very museum-ish. All museums look the same after a while really, don't they? Lots of old stuff. One was particularly interesting though, because in the basement was bare rock, and part of the rock had been cut and revealed sea shells embedded in it. Millions of years ago (or 6,000 if you're a creationist nut-job) Moldova used to be underwater, you see. Very interesting. During one of these museum visits we ran into an Australian couple. Australians seemed to have dispersed themselves evenly throughout the entire world, and you're bound to meet one or two wherever you go. This is because Australia is so far away from the rest of the world, so they like to go overseas for a very long time, travel around as much as possible, before returning to Australia and starting families and engaging in the process of giving the bank half of their money for most of the rest of their lives in return for a wooden structure and some grass. (Page 2/4) |
Home/Дом | Trips! | Links | Moldova & Bananas | Relationships | Contact