How to make Sriracha sauce (more or less)

September 19, 2012 at 7:08 pm (Moldova, Peace Corps, sriracha, travel)

Recipe for home made Sriracha!

(rooster sauce from Thailand)

I am living in a country that considers black pepper very spicy, so finding hot sauces has proven to be difficult. (I always hear how sriracha is available in Chisinau, but I have yet to find it, and I live very far from there anyway.)  My mom sent me two bottles (awesome!) but I am halfway through the first after a few weeks, so I had to explore other options. In the local market I can get pretty decent hot peppers for 25 to 30 lei per kilogram, so I bought 4 kilos. (That’s nearly 9 pounds!)

I start by rinsing them off, cutting off the stems, then dicing them as finely as I can, I have a small kitchen knife, so it is time consuming. And I did not wear gloves, which I am regretting now, my hands, even hours later, are burning.

The first batch of peppers were larger and less hot, I left about half the seeds in. The second peppers were little, and hot as the dickens. I left the seeds of those in. I put the chopped peppers in my biggest pot to simmer with about a half cup of apple cider vinegar, for and hour or so. I also added several large cloves of garlic- they almost look like a small onion, and are very garlik-y. I cooked the peppers in  two (2) kilo batches, if that makes any sense, I couldn’t fit any more in my pot.

I added a half cup of honey to one batch and it is really good, I usually don’t care for sweet/spicy sauces, but the honey here is so good I couldn’t resist.

I wait for the mixture to cool and put it in jars, I have one 3 liter and a couple smaller. I put the plastic lids on the jars which are sold at the market- my 3 liter jar with a lid was 9 lei, so for less than 120 lei I have easily a gallon of spicy goodness. I figure it will be a long winter of monotonous food, so why not stock up now? And even in spring the produce I get will be trucked in from Turkey, nothing will be ready to eat until mid-summer.

As far as the safety goes, I am planning on storing the jars in the cellar, (my host mom said she put her finger in one, and thought it was too hot, so it is safe from her) and counting on the boiling and vinegar to preserve them. I will look up the signs of botulism just to be sure though.

There you have it, super simple and really good. I do miss things like my good chopping knife and a food processer would have made this job simple and painless, but doing it by hand has proven to be much more satisfying.

I don’t know what type of peppers these are, but they look (and act!) like Thai chilis to me.

This is the middle of the procedure.

I have been eating this on everything!

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copperhead road

September 18, 2012 at 7:21 pm (Moldova, Peace Corps, travel)

Do you remember a few posts ago how I said I had a still in my garage? And how I had a duty to integrate fully into my host community, even if it meant great suffering on my part, and possibly learning how to make moonshine? (I didn’t say any of the last stuff.) Well today was a banner day then, I finally found out exactly how that turpentine they call “cognac” gets made. Why it gets made is a lesson for another day, and probably a cold one.

I came home from work today and I could smell it before I stepped in the gate. Mama Gazda (host mom) was into the barrel of twigs and crushed grape skins from wine making a week ago. Yet again I tumble into the fray, (sorry I’ve been watching Game of Thrones) and help in whatever puny way I can. This time, I hold the barrel at an angle so she can reach into it to with a cup more easily to dredge out a small amount of purplish gunk, which she pours through cheese cloth into, I notice with trepidation, the bucket I bathe in. (It is a clean-ish bucket, for the record, and I dip water out of it to dump over myself.) Once the bucket is full it goes into the kitchen into a 30 gallon or so pot on the stove. We repeat this until there is no more purple gunk.

She then takes the still proper, which is a bucket with a coil of brass tubing through it, and fills that with cold water. She then fits a lid, similar to a pressure cooker, on the big pot on the stove. This is the crazy/ingenious part. To get the lid to seal, she presses dough all around it. Then she takes a short length of string and puts it in the tubing where it comes out of the bucket, for the liquor to run down, and into a 3 quart jar. She turns on the heat and away we go. Actually we stayed right here and I unloaded a couple hundred pounds of coal from a horse cart.

This is my other moonshine story;

When I lived in Charlotte, N.C., I worked for Randy Herring at Skin Art in Gastonia. It was a good shop and for the most part a lot of fun. Our UPS guy, like many of the boys in brown, was a real piece of work. My co-worker Chris Stuart always described him as “wide open”, and I guess that’s a pretty apt description.  Among other recollections, he shared how he also delivered to Mr. Junior Johnson, and had received a quart of ‘shine from him. (To those of you who don’t know who Junior Johnson is, and I bet you have never worn a shirt that says “American by birth, Southern by the grace of God” might have heard of a little thing called Nascar. Actually, all caps- NASCAR! This is a southern story.

So Junior used to run moonshine from the cops in regular cars- stock cars they call them now, and pretty much invented the juggernaut that is racing in southern culture. He is a pretty big cheese.) Anyway, getting a quart from Junior,  my UPS guy drinks it while watching wrestling, in a lawn chair, because what else are you gonna do with it. He wakes up with absolutely no recollections of the previous night, his clothes torn, TV smashed, lawn chair broke up, and finds that empty bottle, and it all comes back.

Actually, I have another moonshine story for another time. Back to present day, five hours later, Maria has 4 quarts of poison, which she demonstrates to me and then Jana as drinkable by lighting it on fire. I have also seen rubbing alcohol, gasoline, and Stetson cologne burn (another story), so I’m not 100% convinced. Apparently this fine vintage will be ready to go in just a few short days, so I will be kickin’ it San Quentin style here shortly. And if I wake up in the chicken coop, or worse, the Ukraine, I will have learned my lesson, again.

sorry for quoting David Allen Coe there, but this is pretty country.

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I’ve never picked a grape, but I’ve cut me a bunch.

September 15, 2012 at 11:20 pm (Moldova, Peace Corps, travel, wine)

I really wanted to have a hand in wine making, both because it seems like a good thing to know, and everyone here works like the ants in the parable with that lazy ‘ol grasshopper, and could use an extra hand whenever one is available. Unless I’m getting it mixed up, like if the ants are the lazy ones. Anyway, I offered several farmers my unskilled grape labor, and finally got a chance to show just how much I don’t know.

My host mom has grapes, I didn’t think she had enough to press, or she is busy with other things, like yelling. So I was pleasantly surprised when she might have said something about making wine, or maybe she said something about soup, either one. She borrowed a big oak barrel from our neighbor and handed me a bucket. She has about 30 yards worth of grapevine, stretched end to end, I have been eating one or two since I got here, to see how they were coming, and in the last week, they really got good.

There is not much to it. I would fill a bucket with bunches of grapes, (including the stems but no leaves) dump it into a hopper on top of the barrel. The hopper had a handle that turned two cylinders together like a wringer. Secretly, I rescued several spiders from this terrible fate, terrible for both of us, as I don’t want to drink spider guts, and I doubt they want me to drink them, either. It was a flawed system though, because I only helped those spiders I saw, which leads me to believe there may have been one or two who slipped past my vigilance. But lets not speak of this again. Jana assisted with quality control and keeping an eye peeled for the rooster. He was no help at all.

In an hour or so, we had the barrel about ¾ full, and no more grapes to feed that insatiable hopper. To recap: grapes go in to the pulp-erator. And that’s it. Maria covered the barrel with a piece of oilcloth and I waited eagerly for the fermentation process to start, and like most vigils, I totally missed it.

On day two, the crushed stems were almost to the top, I presume swollen from the juice? Anyway, Maria stirred with a stick, and the juice was definitely foamy. She though it was going to rain that night, and we didn’t have a good lid, so we brought her big aluminum wine cask from her cellar and washed it out well. (and by washed out well, I mean the opposite of that, not washed out well.) Then we put it back in the cellar and started filling it with buckets of juice from the bunghole (that really is the correct term, totally not making that up).

We got 120 liters, give or take 10, out of her yard. I was really surprised, it didn’t look like that many grapes. Also, Maria hadn’t made wine since her husband died ten years ago, so I was happy to help her with it, and she seemed genuinely happy to show me something new, and to use her otherwise bird food grapes. It really is hard to tell if she is happy ever, though. She’s a bit of a sourpuss, but she has had a hard life, and works incredibly hard for survival.

The pulpy residue is used to make raku, that nasty alcohol I keep going on about. I will keep you posted on how it is made, I suspect there is fingernail polish remover involved in the process, somehow, and a human soul. In a month, we will have some delicious spider juice, fingers crossed. A cultural note, I have been around a couple of farmers who drink vodka to sterilize the otherwise dirty food they eat, or maybe they like to drink vodka in the morning and that’s a good excuse. Either way. And technically it was the same farmer, twice.

Whatever also they discuss when sober, is always a second time examined after they have been drinking.
Herodotus (485 – 425 BC)

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Up a creek…

September 13, 2012 at 8:50 pm (Moldova, Peace Corps, travel)

Waaay back in the early 80’s, there was a TV channel called “Music Television” which had the revolutionary notion of playing music videos. (Great idea, I wonder what ever happened with that) At that time, they played an anti-drug psa by a popular musician. (The blond girl from ‘til Tuesday) In it, she said, “When your on drugs, you don’t do things, things happen to you.” I always thought that was incredibly wise, and have really tried to put that notion into practice, to be the captain of my destiny, as it were.

I don’t recall exactly when I set up this blog, in Cheyenne, I’m sure, a year ago or so. I really cant say why I chose the title “Lost Paddle”. I suppose “Dan’s super awesome spy blog” was taken, so I picked the next best thing. I am not a huge believer in predestination, but this title has been oddly prophetic.

I found myself, for the umpteenth time, in a strangers house, in an unknown town, speaking poorly, no idea how I was going to get home. I thought I was going to a business meeting, and thirty-five minutes later, he is handing me some dirty clothes to change into, and started stripping down himself. (I ended up digging up potatoes, so you can all exhale, this is not a cautionary tale about stranger danger, but it kind of is, I suppose, because I thought how different this whole experience would be if I were a female volunteer, for me it’s uncomfortable, not threatening.) -And in the interest of full disclosure, the stranger in this case was Nicolai Mitrofan, who I had spent a day with before.

My point is, I am utterly adrift without a paddle here, and absolutely the do-ee of the action, rather than the do-er. I am not comparing my life to a drug-addicted pop star of the 80’s. But I do understand the sentiment; I am not in charge of my life. I feel like a child again, in all the ways I disliked when I was a child. Stuff happens to me. Every single day is a trial of some sort, food, comfort, communication, you name it, I probably don’t understand it, most of the time.

Where I have found the control, safety and comfort I require for sanity is in the smaller areas. Not drinking that rotgut liquor is the most important thing for me. It is hard to refuse alcohol here, but I’ve found if I say it like I mean it, nothing unequivocal, and often, I am understood and respected. (“Respected” in the sense of my desire to not drink is respected, I don’t know if I am “respected” in the traditional meaning of the word.) That’s important because having a clear head makes every other decision easier. We had endless safety and security meetings during PST, (I am not exaggerating, those meetings are without end) and after 90% of the scenarios began with poor decisions made while drunk, I finally got it.

I also find comfort in books, or long walks, painting, spending time with Jana, (in English,) cooking for myself. Basically all the things I did for fun in the U.S., aside from visiting my family, I can still do. And while those activities also isolate me from the people I am here to integrate with, it is nice knowing I have the option of retreating into my own head.

I also trust the Peace Corps to look out for me in case of civil unrest, amoebic dysentery, living environment, etc. The rules can be stifling, (I’m looking at you, no motorcycle riding!) like how if I ride a bicycle without a helmet I will be kicked out. I can’t eat freshwater fish, (I’m not too sad about that one) and the paperwork I personally filled out raised the CO/2 levels globally. But all in all, it is comforting knowing that other people are in charge, responsible people, who do understand the language, and have an interest in me surviving, despite all my efforts to be contrary.

I apologize for the introspection, going to Nicolai’s house was actually super interesting and informative. (Not to mention the fact that he gave me enough canned and fresh fruits and vegetables to last through the winter.) He is really great, and when I understand him better, I hope to have hours of conversations while playing cards and not drinking moonshine. Oh, and most people would put this in the “red flag”/”terrifying” mental inbox, but I found a human molar in his garden while digging the potatoes, and I couldn’t be happier, since this area has been inhabited for about fifty millennium.

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PEACE CORPS DISCLAMER

September 10, 2012 at 2:54 pm (Uncategorized)

The views expressed in this blog are my opinions only, and do not represent the opinions of the government of the United States of America or The Peace Corps. I hold the people of the Republic of Moldova in the highest regard, and hope this respect is evident in my writing.

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All goats go to heaven.

September 9, 2012 at 9:53 pm (goats, Moldova)

Today has to be one of the crazier days of my life. I killed five goats. There, I said it. Who would believe it, Dan Simonson, former vegan, friend to all the fuzzy woodland animals, would become a goat killer? I was voted least likely to kill five goats both my sophomore and senior year of high school. And I went to a big school, with lots of other people who probably wouldn’t kill goats. I showed them who can kill a dang goat. Or five. Anyway, here is the remarkable (and true!) story of one mans triumph over a bunch of goats.

Today was pretty cool and overcast, so I decided to split some firewood for the winter. I enjoy splitting wood ordinarily and the exercise is good too. Usually this is not a three ax job, but I had to use one ax to fix the other two, (the shims kept flying out) It was a tedious process. In hindsight, maybe complaining about my tools in a developing nation makes me look like a bad person. Eh, probably.

So I’m taking an ax fixing break, and my neighbor Olla walks up, pushing her grandson in a stroller. She has always been super nice to me, and even though she mostly speaks Russian, we have had many delightfully bewildering conversations. Today she asked me to cut a goat. I’m pretty sure that’s what I heard anyway. In PST, Patrick Miller’s host family cut a pig, so I was relatively sure that’s what was going down. (I guess the Moldovans don’t use the word kill in these situations) She said something about a machine and five minutes. So I had plenty of time to figure out how to butcher a goat on the internet, just like my ancestors did.

Which isn’t to say I’m totally unprepared, I helped my stepdad butcher an elk last year, and have dressed many chickens and rabbits, and seen my pops skin dozens of deer and antelope- oh, and I read a lot of books before coming here on the basics of killing sheep and goats (some with illustrations). So I grab a knife a client gave me before I left, a 5.11 lock back with serration, (thanks Don Farmer) and headed out to shake hands with my goat killing destiny.

The machine in question turns out to be a Lada, the ubiquitous Russian car, being driven by Olla’s son in law, and filled with goats. Two in the trunk and three in the back seat, to be precise. I love Ladas, and will write about them many times, I’m sure, but I never thought I would see anything quite so Borat-like associated with a passenger car. But on the other hand, I think this illustrates how important these goats were, cars are rare here, and not normally filled with livestock.

We unload the goats, (two big-uns, and three yearlings) and get to work. The party consists of the son in law, his wife, whos name is also Olla, the couples son, who is about three, and the older Olla. (The younger Olla was the only one to speak Romanian, a language I’m shakey at best in, but that was better than Russian, of which I know nothing.) We got several buckets together, the son in law (I don’t remember his name, something Russian with a “T”) holds the legs, and I try to channel a person who is confident in situations like this.

Now for my various friends who are horrified at this scenario; it’s true I was a vegan for a long time and I do support animal rights. I know many people who have devoted substantial portions of their lives to these causes. The difference is, I grew up hunting and on a farm that produced animals for food, and have seen an alternative to factory farms and animal suffering- one that leads to their being killed with respect and being eaten by people who appreciate the meat on their table. This might be a bitter pill, but I believe it and will gladly discuss either side with anyone.

I understand the premise of cutting a goat’s throat, but in actuality had never done it. Not as easy as it looks in the James Bond films. It is hard to do, I must say. The goat bleats, thrashes, not to mention the blood up to my wrists, every time was tough. But, as I mentioned before, I believe in the necessity of my actions, and once committed, I wanted to do the best job I could, to help my neighbors and be an asset to this community. I felt good about three of the deaths; I got the jugular right away and could see easily when the heart stopped pumping. Twice I may have got the windpipe first, I hope not, but maybe. None of them lived long or suffered much.

I’m honestly not sure if they were being nice and letting me have all the fun of skinning a goat, or if they didn’t know how to do it. I’m leaning toward the latter, because when I made a cut in front of the tendon in the hind legs and put a length of rebar in to hang him with, they seemed pretty impressed, and things like cutting around the anus (oh, yeah, it was very glamorous) seemed new to them. Anyway, between the  three of us, (the old Olla and the toddler didn’t help) we got it done in a pretty orderly fashion, and got more efficient as we went. Although I did cut my own knuckle at one point, which does not make a germa-phobe such as myself too happy. I know folks have been killing goats for a long time, and this can’t be the first time this has come up, so I guess I will be alright.

As we were wrapping up, they said they wanted to pay me, I of course said no, so the younger Olla brought me a bag with a goat shoulder in it. Then I got to try to explain that my wife is a vegetarian and wouldn’t eat it, not an easy concept to convey in another language, especially when you happen to have goat blood splashed on your face.

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living on the edge…

September 6, 2012 at 9:52 pm (Moldova, travel, Uncategorized)

I thought, and still think, that this is a legless lizard, and not really a snake at all, but it sure looks like one snakey bastard.

Ok, mom, cover your eyes. This is a list of the stupid/dangerous stunts I have pulled since moving to Moldova 3 months ago. (in no particular order) Last week I found an unidentified snake in the woods and photographed my finger next to it, you know, for scale. Even though I know there are venomous snakes here, but I was “pretty sure” it was safe. I have spellunked (does that word work in the past tense- one of the crappier side effects of learning a new language is I am forgetting parts of my earlier language, and I now have the grammar tools to ask questions about how much I don’t know about English, so that’s fun.) I was spelunking? in an abandoned rock quarry, maybe a mile or so of unmarked, maze like tunnels, both singly and in a group. That was dumb but super fun, I will do that again, if the humanoid cannibals who live there let me back in. I have eaten products that I was warned not to eat- I will include the rotgut liquor in this list as well, we are definitely told to not drink homemade liquor. But who would pass up a chance like that? There is a still in my garage right now, for crying out loud. I didn’t grow up in the hollers of Kentucky, I should- no, need, to experience this. Even when its pouring a mystery fluid from a jelly jar into homemade wine. It was actually super tasty. Not so with the unpasteurized sheep cheese. I have eaten many bricks of it, and its not good. Or safe, we were warned, but I figure the doctors have to say that, I bet they eat it, too. Also the boiled water. I am counting on having an iron gut, even when the consequences of getting giardia are very real and evident all around me. (mostly in the outhouse, luckily) Lets see, I have explored several abandoned buildings, including a sewer treatment plant in Cricova (that sounds more sad than scary), and the soviet era slaughterhouse in Dondeseni. That gets the blood pumping for sure. Just up the road from there is an abandoned soviet apartment block that I haven’t been in yet. Walter Diller and I went into the slaughterhouse as night fell and found the camp of some dudes illegally salvaging steel. And when I say “camp”, I mean dudes sitting around a campfire. We got the heck out pretty quickly after that. I think that is most of it, until today, when I managed to avoid near certain dismemberment at the hands of a pair of inebriated Russian guys my host mom hired to cut up fire wood. With a chainsaw. I included myself in their reindeer games because thats pretty much what I’m here for, and I cant pass up an opportunity like that ever anyway. So their chainsaw is electric, but it isn’t working properly, so rather than, oh, I don’t know, fix it, they cut off the ends of both the extension cord and the male end of the saw cord, and wrap them together, sparks a’ flyin’. Now I know 110 volts like we have in the states can kill you just as dead, I’ve been shocked dozens of times, but this is 220, people weld with that, as in melting steel. The drunker of the two, who was inexplicably in charge of the whole operation,  was doing the “close one eye to focus” game. I know what that means- he doesn’t have glaucoma- he is wasted. This culminates with him sticking the bare wires directly into the wall outlet- very clever. Oh, and he has stolen my hat at this point, or traded it for his, without my consent, and his hat smells bad. So he gets the saw running and tears into the stack of logs, I’ve been doing this since I was an kid, so I’m holding the wood safely and all that. The problem is, the less drunk one, on the other side of the stick of wood, kept jerking his end toward himself to keep his hands away from the chain- and this of course would pull my hands into it, because they were attached to the same stick of wood, which I was not cool with. The chain kept flying off as well, they didn’t have tools to tighten it, so every so often off she goes. About this point they get into an altercation, it was all in Russian, but I bet it was something like this, “Your drunk.” “No, I am totally in control of this car.” “No,  you are doing it wrong and I will teach you the meaning of respect.” Something along those lines. Then they start fighting, over a chainsaw, while it is in operation. My host mom has some additional cutting to do, I help them with that, more of the same wackiness. I manage to get my hat back without drunk #1 even noticing, and get the wood all stacked. So after all this, three hours or so of dealing with these yard birds, my host mom leans over and theatrically whispers “Pay attention, it is very dangerous because they are drunk.” Thanks for the heads up, Maria.

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Team Cric!

September 5, 2012 at 8:39 pm (Moldova, travel)

In Peace Corps parlance, when a person arrives in a country, fully prepared to live and work there for 27 months, through not feeling very good and in health, that person is, in fact, not a volunteer. We are “trainees” until after an 8 to 10 week “PST”, or pre-service training. This PST is really built up, both in terms of difficulty and the fact that we emerge from the other side of it as full fledged volunteers, earlier we were only partly fledged, no more than a quarter fledged at best. But now we are volunteers on a semi-professional basis, equipped to tackle each and every problem this developing nation sets before us.

That’s the theory anyway. PST was difficult, in a way, but it wasn’t boot camp, or even spring training difficult. I think the language training, generally 4-6 hours a day, 6 days a week, was pretty tough, but that’s because I’m kind of dumb, more than anything else. If anyone has a right to complain, Angela Trubcec, my amazing LTI (language training instructor?) suffered way worse than I did, she had to put up with my terrible pronunciation and dismal lack of progress in some of the more rudimentary areas of the Romanian language. Certain concepts simply elude me. That a door can have a gender literally makes not a bit of sense to me, and then apply that to everything in the world, and then compound my confusion by making certain things neuter, and then the rules get all wacky? I speak English fairly well, but my concept of grammar is gone, apparently. Do 4th graders really know what a subjunctive is? I don’t want to believe society could be so cruel. I really don’t.

Another aspect of PST, which is daunting for some, is the, well, foreignness of it. Everything is different, I lived with people who I thought didn’t like me, and I thought on two separate occasions were kicking me out of their house. The food is weird. My house didn’t have water quite often, so bathing obviously was out even though the temperature was 40 degrees Celsius, which doesn’t sound like much, but let me tell you, it is foarte hot. And I have more tattoos than any ten carnival workers combined, so its long sleeves and pants for me! (That was my decision, and I still don’t regret it, in case you were wondering.) I got stared at, people smelled bad, the vagabond dogs get too close… you get the picture. (That line always reminds me of the song “Leader of the Pack”, which is not very good , but anytime I hear someone say “You get the picture,” mentally I say “Yeah, we see…) So the lack of familiarity is what sends some folks packing, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t consider it.

Then, I think the inevitable health issues arise, I wont say too much about because people understand that if you have dysentery, for example, life is not going to be comfortable in the least, and if, through some easy steps and a plane ride home you can fix those issues, well, I don’t blame anyone for packing it up. Life here is never easy, and I have felt pretty good the whole time, but it would be a whole new level of terrible with any of a multitude of maladies, traumas, or accidents that lurk at each step.

Part of my positive outlook of PST was my classmates. A big part. I really came to rely on them for support and humor and the occasional pep talk. We were kind of like a John Hughes movie from the 80’s, a bunch of misfits who defy the odds and succeed. I like to think of myself in the role of the wise-cracking nerd, Or maybe I played the role of the wise elder to the impetuous temper of Mr. Michael Watts. (Actually, he not impetuous or angry) Laura Demmel would be the one who diffuses the bomb at the end of the movie, saving the bakery with all the orphan kids who worked there, and we would say “How did you know which wire to cut?” and she would say “How did you spend your summer vacations?”, and we would laugh as the credits roll. Patrick Miller is definitely the one who impersonates a Moldovan politician to infiltrate a parade and ride the lead float, and busts out a speech in flawless Romanian on the global economy. Lindsey Repshas would play the role of the coach, just before the big soccer match, and would deliver an inspirational message at just the right time. And the fastest man alive? Mr. Michael Watts- he would play himself, because you cant do better than perfection. Jennifer Iannuzzi, who doesn’t say much but when she does, look out! I figure she should play the brains of the operation, she will plan the big jail break, and will probably smoke a cigar in the film adaptation my summer. And we have David Smith, Matthew Rutter, and Sylvia Swift in cameos, they were in the Russian program and are very much a part of Team Cricova, I just didn’t stare at them as much as the kids in my class. Sorry. I can’t emphasis enough, however, if I needed anything useful, like beer, or hot sauce, because they spoke Russian, and could actually speak, I turned to them again and again for help, and I am indebted.

I think I got super lucky to have such an amazing bunch of people around me. (Who knew that Demmel could diffuse a make believe bomb, for example?) We got together all the time to commiserate and study, and whip Ciorescus assess at various sporting events. (Water polo, anyone?) So for me, PST was kind of fun, I learned a lot and made some great memories. This is the first step people talk about in the journey of a thousand miles. Except now its kilometers, and I’m on more of an emotional journey anyway, so that might be like dog years and multiplied by six or something. Or divided, I’m not sure. And as for the question of whether I am ready to face all the challenges that await, I dunno, I will have to get back to you, but I can say, so far the journey has been great, I wouldn’t change a thing.

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The best day yet…

September 3, 2012 at 7:40 pm (Moldova, travel)

This is a not very brief description of a great day I had on Saturday.

I work in an office, (actually my first office job) helping farmers with loans and information. That is theoretical, actually. I have not helped anyone yet, I mostly try my hardest to follow their conversations and pick out the Romanian I know, but those tricksters are always mixing it up with Russian, or even Ukrainian, I think. They sound similar but I don’t know any words at all. So anyway, I mostly sit and listen. I meet a lot of consultants who act as our liaisons, and they are always nice guys with a lot of gold teeth who shake my hand and stare at me like I might burst into song at any moment, or flame, either one. And they wouldn’t be surprised either way, because who knows what to expect from an American?

On Thursday I was introduced to Domnul Nicolai Mitrofan. (Domnul is the formal form of mister) He wanted me to go with him to attend an art show of his brothers in Briceni. (Pronounced Bri-chen, a village about 30 km away) I was to meet him on Saturday at 8:00 am across from where the Lenin statue stood until recently, when it was torn down by vandals in the night. The Lenin statue without Lenin, they said, and if I hadn’t seen the statue a month ago I would think they were the crazy ones. I still find this amusing. And he would provide a car, which is a pretty big deal in an area where they are definitely a luxury item. Jana wanted to go, and another volunteer, Walter Diller, from Cincinnati, was in town and interested. So I got approval for the extra passengers and we were all set.

Saturday morning Nicolai and his friend (whose name I couldn’t ever quite hear) were waiting with a blue Volvo wagon, the first I had seen in Moldova. The drive took just about an hour, but it was really pretty scenery, rolling hills and forests, verdant green with the occasional small town nestled snug in a valley for contrast.

We went initially to his brother, Teodor Mitrofan’s house, where we were given a tour of his garden, a half hectare of fruit trees and vines, flowers, vegetables laid out perfectly and well maintained, and saplings of various sorts, which he sells when they are big enough to survive being transplanted. He had a pig, a dozen hens or so and all the trappings of a gentleman farmer.

We sat a table under an arbor of almost perfectly ripe grapes as my host and his wife brought an endless array of fruits and potatoes and delicious finger foods. Then came the cognac.  They called it cognac, and I suppose it looked like cognac as well, but I will consider it an assault if I have to drink that paint stripper again. (A brief aside, I don’t drink hard liquor anyway, and I was warned that folks up here make their own booze from corn or sugar beets, and that it tastes like fermented dog hair, but to be polite I drank it. At 9:00 am. –our driver did not drink, nor did Teodor, as he was going to be driving as well.) It was very nice of Teodor to extend such amazing hospitality to a group of people he had never met before. (Note to self; be nicer to everyone you meet.)

Oh, and he showed us his artwork, brilliantly rendered portraits of his family and friends, landscapes which looked surreal and yet photorealistic. I have known many artists in my life, from any school you can think of, from famous to unknown, and I would put Teodor’s work somewhere near the top. Equally as impressive for me was the sheer volume of his paintings, I saw 50 or 60, I would say, of a high standard of quality, which leads me to believe he hates sleep or doesn’t sell his paintings. I consider myself somewhat prolific and have half that number of paintings at any given time, and I truthfully don’t think I would put my work in his league. So I was and still am very impressed.

Next we went to see his art exhibit proper. Teodor drove his Lada wagon and our driver his Volvo. On the way Jana called John and Shelbi Rucker, volunteers from Texas who happen to live in Briceni. They were kind enough to meet us by their Lenin statue, still standing, in the town center. We walked around a bit, Briceni is the same size as Dondeseni, apparently, but it looks much larger, and the Russian influence is more pronounced, being right by the Ukrainian border. We picked up a bottle of Champaign for our hosts and went to the library, where the exhibit is being held. On the way, Shelby says she saw an interview with Teodor on the television, so that’s neat.

The art exhibit was very impressive; I liked a painting of a guy holding up a large fish he had just caught, with a factory belching smoke in the background. I have been planning a painting of a power plant in a pastoral setting for some time myself, so clearly Teodor is a visionary of distinction. I seriously debated buying a painting for my mom of a herd of horses running through a ravine with a sky that you could almost feel, but getting a big painting out of here will be tricky/expensive. (this is really terrible to say, but his paintings were also not very expensive. By America standards anyway, the economy here is not exactly vibrant.) Jana and I pledged to buy a painting of three hikers in front of a beautiful valley with a lake in its center. Teodor said the location is quite close and insisted we go post haste. (I say we pledged to buy a painting because the show is up until October, and so we neither paid for, nor received, a painting. Also, Walter pledged to buy a painting of Orhei, the very scenic and historic town where he lives.)

We load back up into the two cars and drive about ten miles or so on some exceedingly unimproved roads, down some inclines I’m pretty sure a Lada wagon will not be making it back up. We followed cows for a while, asked directions from children, met cars coming the opposite direction on cliffs, all the best things for a leisurely drive in the country.

We drove past the lake, not much to say about it, except an Egyptian crane was standing regally in its water. Just past the lake, we arrived at a valley, between two hills of about one thousand feet, rocky and wooded. We set off “pe jos”, on foot, as they say, and hiked a mile or so though glades and little streams, with wild pears and flowers to distract us. I saw a new frog species I haven’t identified yet and a flower my mom calls paper lanterns, I think. A cave, (the third longest gypsum cave in the world BTW -85km) was about halfway up the hillside, so John, Walter, Teodor, and myself, decide to explore. Nicolai smokes like crazy so he is not eager to tackle the hill. Teodor, all 71 years of him, keeps up a good clip and tells me the cave has been inhabited for 50,000 years on the way up the incline. We go in and it is pretty cool, definitely something I want to return to.

We take a different route home, way easier than the way there, and arrive at Teodor’s house at about the time we were supposed to be heading back to Dondeseni, and we all have some serious foreboding about that damned liquor, because who could forget a mauling like that? (a brief detour- all along the road we had just driven, miles and miles, we saw people harvesting with a machete what looked like small corn, we found out it is in fact used to make brooms. Teodor’s yard was filled with the stuff, stacked three feet high and about fifty feet long I would estimate, and his wife was making these brooms by hand) So we agreed to not drink cognac, under any circumstances, and then of course ended up drinking a shot- Moldovan hospitality is not to be trifled with. More food, a type of salted pork that was amazing, it looked like something a Scotsman wouldn’t eat on a dare- but so good! Even Jana liked it, which is saying something. Then we had some new wine, basically unfermented grape juice, but close, fizzy and quite tasty. I professed my desire to help him make wine in a few months, so hopefully that will happen. Teodor said the only thing he regretted was being so old, which broke my heart, so of course I challenged him to an arm wrestling match, and tied him, so it’s kind of like we both won.

Anyway, we made it home safe and made some new friends, and that’s about the best thing I can ever hope for.

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