"Among the changing months, May stands confest The sweetest and in fairest colors dressed." James Thomson, the poet, said it right. May was a beautiful month in Moldova. Cool mornings, sunny days, warm afternoons. Vitamin D in its natural form has once again been captured by "bronze-makers" like me that like to bask in the sun.
At the beginning of
May, my computer decided to crash on me.
I had forgotten how directly related my work is to a computer. Communication, documents, internet research,
more online communication, blog entries for the few loyal readers I have… all these tasks require a functioning
laptop/internet. I lucked out, as our IT
specialist helped recover files on my broken hard drive and replace it with a
new drive. I hope it doesn't happen
again!
The month of May
included Easter celebrations, project work, and a lot of traveling. I tried to document well the cultural aspects to share with you, so I'm going to post a few different entries.
Easter
Easter in Moldova is
one of the country's most celebrated holidays.
People wake up on Sunday morning hours before dawn, go to the Orthodox
church, stand outside of it for an hour or so, and wait until the priest comes
to bless their basket of Easter goods.
Lindsey and I participated as well.
Afterwards, people go back to their families and have a small masa (eat
and drink!) before going back to bed for a few hours. Sunday Easter is supposed to be the ultimate
day of rest, but the Monday following is a big celebration. (Ours was a little bit reversed.)
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| Preparing our basket at 2:30 in the morning. |
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| Baskets outside the church at 3:30 am. |
We celebrated with my host family after a few hours of sleeping. (My host mom said to come tomorrow, and I thought she met after a good night's (or morning's) rest. We came a day early, but of course we were still welcomed with open arms and more food than we could have ever wanted. It's so refreshing to be able to be outside again for masas!
Memorial Easter
The weekend after
Easter in Moldova is Memorial Easter, where people honor their deceased loved
ones. They go to the cemetery and make a
masa at the gravesite of their loved ones.
Many people dress up for this, and many family members away from their
hometown come home for this event. I
went to the north of Moldova with my old
host family from last summer. I always
enjoy spending time with them, and it's even better now when I can understand (almost) all they are saying. In the village, we
arrived on a Sunday morning and prepared food all day. Monday morning, we took all of our
celebratory foods and gifts (for the deceased and those attending) to the
cemetery. Here, we met all the aunts and uncles
and family members. We waited for
an hour until the priest came by and showered the site and people with holy
water. Then we could eat to our heart's
contentment the blessed food that we had prepared the day before.
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| Preparing food to take to the cemetery (sarmale- well-seasoned rice (sometimes with meat) wrapped up in grape leaves or lettuce leaves and cooked) |
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| Monday morning, Memorial Easter in the cemetery. |
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| Gifts, food, wine, and flowers cover the gravesites. It's also a time when people can see long-time acquaintances who no longer live in the village. |
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| Stefan was thirsty. It was hot. |
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| Carolina, Stefan, and Stela. Family, even here, is irreplaceable. |
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| The goofball uncles and the boys. |
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| Fun uncle. |
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| Barbecue after a few hours in the cemetery |
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| The village house, where my host mom and her 4 siblings were raised. Masa outdoors! |
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