Dick Bus Driver

There is a system in place in the garas for buying tickets.

Sometimes, with some drivers, you are expected to buy your tickets for your seat number at a little window from a doughy woman with thin hair. She is never too glad to see you. While you are buying from her several bus drivers (all men) will push you out of the way. They shove a handful of bible paper forms at this woman through her little little window. She stops her transaction with you and attends. Then the man will leave and she will continue with your request. Maybe you will be interrupted 3 times. These men are favored for two reasons. They are men. They are drivers. Drivers must get away as quickly as possible because they have pulled out of their parking space 5 minutes late trying to hassle people to go to the villages they will pass through, and are parked in the middle of the exit lane from the gara. They stop here because they must go tell the gara (these women being the authorities) how many people are on their bus. At this point the woman will print out all the tickets for the accounted people. Not the ones standing up, only the ones in seats. If you are standing up, you are extra and pure profit for the driver. If you are silly and buy your ticket individually, and give it to the driver instead of paying your money to the driver, the driver will have to write this on one of those bibleish sheets. If you are silly and buy your ticket on your own, you have power over the other passengers. You can kick them out of their seats if you are standing. You are assigned a seat, and if someone is sitting in that seat, you can kick them out. I've never done this, but had it done to me many times.

So, some drivers make all their passengers buy before hand. Some force them never to buy them. My personal favorite driver drives from Balatina to Balti once a day, and returns once a day. He is fat and bald and the most outwardly misogynistic person I've ever met. I take his bus one way or the other once or twice a month. Every time he sees me he glares at me and yells at me to know better Romaninan, and why the fuck don't I speak Russian. Halfway through these diatribes he will turn to one of his friends (all men) and point at me and continue these harangues.

I have interacted with most of his friends individually before, and his son too. His son is lovely, his friends are pretty normal people, all of them are very enthusiastic to talk with me when he's not around.

I asked Renata about him. He hates her too. The dozens of people he waves and/or honks at (his horn plays a pimpin tune akin the the Woody Woodpecker laugh) are all men. He smiles at men, and glares at all women. Even pretty, demure, perfect Moldovankas with brown hair, hooker outfits and down turned eyes. His bus is filled with the following decorations: a string of country flags, two dozen Orthodox icons, 1 gold CD, 3 strings of mardi gras beads, 2 bunches of fake plastic flowers, a slinky dog, 1 Ave Maria towel and 3 prostitute towels. Prostitute towels are beach towels with pictures of prostitutes on them. All blonde. All with red lips. All leaning forward at you with their big pixelated breasts.

At first I thought it was my Americaness. I tried all the first year to win him over. He has an American flag hanging in his windshield, so I thought there must be something I could work with. One night (not just any night. I was carrying a heavy fucking box of books from the states to my school. It was the middle of winter last year, ie dark at 4pm. We arrived in Balatina at 6:30 pm. It was windy and snowing pretty hard. My hood would not stay up it was so windy, and it was cold enough that when the wind made my eyes water the tears froze on my face. Remember, in Moldova there is no need for hyperbole) he dropped me off on the outskirts of town, by the gas station. The gas station is 2 kilometers from my house. I asked politely if he would please drive into town like he normally does, and is supposed to (the Balatina gara is only 250 metres from my house). He said he was going home. At this point, I adopted a Moldovan technique, which is to repeat the request. Response: “I GO HOME! I GO HOME! I GO HOME!” So I walked.

Yesterday's ride home was no different, though it's lighter out now, and the sun is just setting at 6:30pm, and it was snowing, but not windy, and I had a punga full of clothes. Net gain in all ways. Getting on the bus he sneered at me and threatened to drop me off on the outskirt of town again if I had bought my ticket. Ah! There's a REASON for his hatred! I always buy my tickets from the official lady where they are ALWAYS cheaper, and I have the self satisfaction of supporting the infrastructure rather than the scalpers.

I was so surprised at this, he'd never said anything before, that I burst out laughing at him. Got on the bus and read my book feeling pretty good about myself.

Who does this man hate? Why does he hate so vehemently? I've never witnessed this before. I mean, yea, his life sucks because he's a bus driver in Moldova, but, really, relatively, he has a pretty sweet life here. He only drives 4 hours a day, hangs out with his patsans the rest of the time. Bus drivers make more money than teachers. He has a lovely son with manners.

Ideas?

Host Aunts' Travails

Maria is in a funk today. She's been increasingly grumpy lately, and I try to alleviate it, but I'm a little worried. The biggest contributing factor is it being Soviet veterans day:

"It's Soviet Veterans Day" she tells me while mashing potatoes.

"yea?"

"it used to be "men's" day, like we have for women on March 8th, but now it's for the veterans. But only veterans of the Soviet Union"

"I didn't know! cool." I actually say "cool," interjecting it into full Romanian. I just don't like the equivalents. None have the same nuance. But that rant is for another day, also the confusion I have about the Soviet Veterans -- is this a day for veterans of the organization, or for veterans who fought for the organization. I don't ask. "So, what do we do for Soviet Veterans Day? Should I not wash laundry?"

"No! no, no, no. Laurentiu only will be drunk. Everyday he is drunk... but today..."

"Super drunk"

"da" more mashing, "foarte frumos."

So, over the year and a half I've been here, Maria and I have witnessed the severe decline of Laurentiu from upstanding man about town, with big jobs and big incomes to normal patsan, which is to say I can't remember the last time I saw him sober.

The positive of this, though, is that Maria and I talk more... which is to say she goes into Story Mode a lot more.

Today I learned about her sisters' hard lives. It linked like this:

"My sisters My sisters don't have husbands."

"No?"

"No, they died. When my older sister was 32, her husband died. She has two sons. They were 6 and 2. My littler sister lost her husband the next year."

"Wow, that is terrible. Were they accidents? So young!"

"No, it was their liver. The older one, and the younger one. The liver."

So, the older sister moved to Moscow to make her fortune. She started as one of those hunched over women with handfuls of twigs you see in movies, sweeping the streets. This is hard work, always, especially in Moscow. The government refused to pay her (this was 3 or 4 years before the official collapse of the Union) for two months work. She looked elsewhere. Private work. Eventually she got a job cleaning indoors for some business men who lived in the country, but worked in the city and held apartments, but were there rarely. This is very good work. It pays steadily because the men are rich. They can afford to pay, so they do.

The younger worked in a cheese factory. All she did everyday for several years was cut cheese with something like a paper guillotine (Maria is an excellent mime) into the little chunks we buy. With her right arm always and only. Now, 15 years later, she has problems with this arm.

Phew. It's like listening to tenement tales by Stephen Crane.

Nationalism and Tom Waits in February

When I started this gig I thought my novelty as an American would wear off. I don't know why I thought this. It didn't in England or Australia, where we speak the same language and wear basically the same clothes. But seriously 6th grade boys, You see me everyday, must you keep leering?

Which is a large contributing factor to my new-found ok-ness with returning the the states and admitting finally that I am, indeed, an American.

Even two weeks ago I was not wanting to return. Relentless plates of boiled meat and potatoes will make anyone raised on vegetables want to live somewhere a little healthier, but it never made me desire the mother country. Fantasies of Italy, Australia, Belize, Morrocco, Japan buzzed in the little blonde head.

Then the boys, on the radiator, skipping class, ignoring everything I say in order to laugh at me, again, struck me. I do not belong here. I am a foreign object.

You're saying "duh, Erika", but on a fundamentally physical level, I am the gum Moldova swallowed and cannot digest. Their acids just don't do it.

And neither would Australia, or Italy or Japan. I have a place, and like it or not (mostly not) and it's got a president who is reliably elected on a reliable, single date. There are jews there (ie, the holocaust means there's none here), there are burritos there, there is plumbing there, I have family there, and before I get all teary eyed on you there is a damned remarkable sense of Can Do, and Suck It Up there.

For research purposes I just watched 30 videos on YouTube of John F. Kennedy and Sargent Shriver talking about Peace Corps. You have to hand it to them. They were genius politicians. Who the hell else, in what other culture ever could pull off something as improbable as the Peace Corps?

Also, Tom Waits is an American. You know what he sings about? Everything Erika holds dear. Tom Waits and JFK. You can't beat it.

Eggs

The Incredible Edible thing that makes you stop and think "I'm consuming a once living creature" far more than a tasty veal steak.

At least for me, anyway.

Or, the thing you associate with hunts. Hunts for little people. Embryonic animals hunted by embryonic humans. The image is compelling.

Every day on Provincial Cires is an egg hunt. The winners are the family members, and we win the privilege of eating them. For me, it is an especially sweetened victory over the two cocks I hate more than any other creature on the homestead. Take that you crowing bastard. I eat your young.

Maria and I discovered my passion for soft boiled eggs last month, and we've been soft boiling a dozen a week ever since.

We eat them in the most heart-healthy way: covered in salt.

We eat them with spoons. We eat them with our fingers. We peel them clean, or with hunks of white catching on the shell. I have become mildly obsessed with recapturing that one gleaming moment when I peeled off the whole of the white and held the yolk in my palm. The yolk that was entirely liquid and only being held together by a membrane.

Magic.

Laurentiu likes to tell us the best way to eat them is raw. Snap a nail through one side and out the other (air hole for flow) and suck away. I point out that this is how the dog eats eggs (if a chicken happens to plop one out within his reach). Laurentiu says: but he also eats the shell. Maria points out that many people in the village eat the shell. Lots of calcium. Might even gather shells to bake and the roll into a flour and mix it with juice. Very healthy. Good for the blood.

Good for the bones you mean, I say.

No, for the blood.

But -- calcium -- bones...

No, blood.

Ok.

Anyway, you can tell which eggs are going to be the softest boiled because they are darker in color. The darker they are, the thicker the shell. Also, if they don't peel clean it is because they are too fresh. Maria has tried working out a system of taking the eggs from the bottom of our collection bucket, but, it is a bucket, and made of metal, and the layers are pretty thick...

I suggest a shallower, maybe softer container. One of those reed baskets we use in the summer, maybe.

It doesn't matter, Maria says, if they crack I will go find more. The hens always leave more.

Indeed they do. They are everywhere. In wood piles, the bread oven, on the roof of my veceu, in dirt holes everywhere. In the winter though, the popular plopping site is in the cow shed.

Man, they are tasty. I hoard them after dinner so I can take them to school as a snack.

I'm going to have a heart attack at 35.

Wounds

I've now spent half of three weeks away from site. Away from Balatina, away from school, away from Maria, Lulu, Renata and Bianca for 2 separate health issues. I currently have 6 stitches in my back and a computer that refuses to stayed on for more than 20 minutes. It's February, my least favorite month. I have a brown bag of iodine and alcohol swabs, some sterilized tweezers and industrial bandaids to take home with me. I'm not allowed to wear a back pack though, so I'll be hauling clothes etc. in some bunica-approved pungas. I'll be back Sunday night.

Emotions: vague sense of waiting and uselessness. warmth. frustration.

I like being here, staying in this apartment. I make my own food, but still feed the scraps to stray dogs. I can shower, but only my front: stitches and bandaging to remain dry. I don't teach, but have made and laminated so many teaching materials (at six hours a day, 4 days in a row, you imagine how many verbs and fragmented sentences you can pull packing tape over) I feel I may actually be more productive for the "sustainable resources" branch of my job than I ever could be at home. I can even walk to the store that sells printer paper, plastic sheets, ring binders, labels and other such stationary necessities.

In short, I can do my job because I can do my job.

As soon as I get home, this will stop. My computer won't turn on and nothing will be made. But I'll have 2 days packed with Maria, Roma/Grigore, Renata and Natalia. So, that'll be nice.

Stitches out on Tuesday. Must stay Wednesday for observation. My skin is healing well, though, and I am allergic to nothing. If I'd been a Roman, I'd not have died of septosemia. woo! go body! go genes!

Avon

Daily, it's not special for my office to be suddenly filled with yelling flocks of women and children. Between each lesson for ten minutes Renata, Natalia and I hole up there, chatter, drink some coffee, eat a placinta, whatever, and hoards of 6th and 9th grade ne'er-do-wells bang on, throw open, run into (yes, bodily), shout through and eventually enter.

At first it was unsettling, progressing to annoying and infuriating, and now just another dull ache about life.

Polite knocks are boons and shows of civilization rare.

The politest come from Polina, a round-cheeked ethnic Romanian showing all the doe-eyed grace for which women from this part of the world are renowned. Once a week she tips into my white aluminum doorway and asks softly for permission to enter. Of course! I say. She tipples in like a fawn on her three inch kitty heels. She has a new catalogue, or the same one from last week, would we like to look again? Maybe we wish for something more?

Polina follows one of the few business avenues open to young women here. She buys and sells make up and moisturizers, between Avon and the teachers of our schools.

Today was delivery day. My door opened so violently I thought for sure it was one of the shits. Renata, Natalia and Polina burst in with vim rarely exhibited by any of them singly. But together, with the fuel of shiny pearls of deodorant and facial powders puffing out of pale clams, they were down right rowdy! Good gracious!

Polina upturned her bag and out fell caskets from heaven! Navy, violet, periwinkle, cream, sea foam.... all shining with this season's half-matte sheen. The clatter literally made R, N and I suck our breaths in, and not a few little hands fluttered to our perfect O mouths...

Glorious. I buy things from her even though everyone in America knows how I disdain the things. Kiddo's Year of Living Frumosly clips on! I've never owned a pumice stone, or more than one moisturizer, and now I have one and five. Golly. Golly golly.

Paper

Admittedly, I've had a preoccupation with paper my whole life... my grandmother used to buy rolls of cheap paper, 100 metres long for Kelsie and me to unspool across her floor and fill with epic herds of horses on the prairie. My sister Greta, always sticks in a few sheets of huge, patterned, $1-a-pieces into my care packages. These are the same sheets my roomate Bergen and I used to buy by the drove at Target and sit and admire for hours and hang them on our walls, or leave them on our table or floor....

I have boxes of the stuff, sitting around everywhere: begged, coverless magazines from bookstores, clippings of newsprint and said magazines. Little clippings in little boxes, bigger clippings in bigger boxes, a few folders of full leaves.

Currently I have a box in my room full of scrap paper.. Anything that screws up, or becomes obsolete, becomes soba fodder and is stored in this box with corn cobs and a tin mug of lighter fluid.

But my hoarding techniques have little to compare to the flotilla I am currently producing for school.

Having readjusted all my lesson plans to the new ministry's new demands for dictated "competencies" and "sub-competencies" and their corresponding layout, and given each plan a title page proclaiming these and other qualities of the plan... Then sticking all of them in chronological to-be-taught order in a single document (that is one document per grade) ...

I now have 12, complete or half complete, 100 + page documents that need printing and putting into clear plastic sheets, and clamped into two ring binders. One binder per grade. One set of plans per teacher. Three partners, 12 grades. If you do the math, it comes out to so much paper I could set up an installation piece at the Guggenheim.

Not to mention the scraps on which are green markered adjectives with matching pink markered nouns to stick on the board for students to match and make short sentences with, or the pictures of queens around which to brainstorm, or the scrambled sentences, tests, quizzes, grammar exercises, homework schemes, verb charts...

Oh, and those cute girls with their glitter markers... I need to buy them a couple reams too. That is, if the mayor and town council has the power to decide to stop paying my partners salary, they are decidedly not going to fund my extra curricular activities.

Musical Tastes

Survey-by-iPod Results:

Roma and Grigore: The Doors

Adriana: The Ting Tings and Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Elena: She and Him

Vladya: Sparklehorse and The Talking Heads

Tom Waits continues to be abhorred by everyone I know. Except, hooray, for Matt Binding. To whom I am eternally grateful.