August 2011
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THE ECONOMIST: YOUR (ROMANIAN) PASSPORT →
From the Economist’s Eastern Approaches blog:
HISTORY means that many European countries ihave kinsfolk either outside their borders: Estonians and Latvians in the slivers of territory they lost to Russia during Soviet rule, Lithuanians in Poland and Belarus, Poles in Lithuania and Belarus, Ukrainians in Russia and vice versa, Hungarians in the Trianon territories…the list goes on and...
July 2011
2 posts
Casey is a Real Man, and Real Men don't buy girls →
I’m 99.9% sure I just witnessed the purchase of a mail order Moldovan bride by a middle-aged American at my upscale hotel in Chisinau in broad daylight.
During my two weeks at the LeoGrand Hotel I’ve also seen Germans, Russians, and one extremely bombastic Brit (how pretentious this asshole was while doing something so inhuman is impossible to understate) leave the hotel bar with...
“Ladies and gentleman, the problem has been found, we are shooting the trouble,...”
– The pilot of my Austrian Air flight, which had to taxi back to the terminal because of a smoking oven in the kitchen. I should also add that Austrian Air stewardesses are dressed like villains from the Wizard of Oz; that the interior of the plane is decorated like a laser tag arcade; and that the...
June 2011
2 posts
Never in my life have I seen such a neatly-packaged karmic episode as what I witnessed just now on my flight to Baltimore, when I suffered through listening to a well-dressed, gorgeous, twentysomething girl of vaguely south Asian descent shriek into her bedazzled iPhone for 45 minutes about the high quality of the diamond engagement ring she had just received from her unnamed, featureless,...
May 2011
5 posts
25 abandoned Yugoslav monuments that look like... →
Where does USAID's money go? →
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LOOKING BACK
I was organizing my computer files the other day when I came across the site history report that I had to prepare before leaving Moldova. Basically, these site history reports are used by Peace Corps staff in deciding whether to continue placing volunteers in a given community and with a given partner or host family.
Clearly, a site history report will reflect the opinions of whomever wrote it,...
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A WORD ON THE CELEBRATIONS →
From The Economist’s Democracy in America blog:
“I DO not currently have a television in my apartment, which is located about ten blocks north of the White House. So one of the ways I learned of Osama bin Laden’s death on Sunday night was from the hooping and hollering outside my window, as revelers made their way down to Lafayette Square. One of the nice things about living in...
April 2011
3 posts
A BORING TRAIN JOURNEY THAT TELLS A FASCINATING... →
From The Economist’s Eastern Approaches blog:
“I HAD sentimentally imagined that the Belgrade-Sarajevo train would prove a rich source of colour and interviews. No such luck. The journey turned out to be long and boring. But that is the thing about journalism. The only way to find out if your expectations are right is to get out there and check for yourself. In this case mine were...
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A BRIEF INTERVIEW WITH MOLDOVANS, SKYPE EDITION
Moldovan: And how is your health?
American: Good, and yours?
M: I'm great, but your [host] brother here has been bothered by his back lately.
A: How did he hurt his back, carrying a girl?
M: Ha! More likely he hurt it lifting a glass of wine.
March 2011
2 posts
5 tags
Chernobyl, My Primeval, Teeming, Irradiated Eden →
In light of what’s going on in Japan this weekend, this already captivating essay makes for an even more interesting read. An excerpt:
IT WAS SOON AFTER 1 A.M. on the night of April 26, 1986, that one of the world’s nightmare scenarios unfolded. Reactor 4 in the huge Chernobyl power station blew up. The causes are still the subject of debate, but it was some combination of a...
Gubbi of Arabia: Things I Learned in the Desert:... →
I don’t often do this reblogging thing, but this is too wonderful to pass up:
gubbiofarabia:
In honor of the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day today, I thought I’d share some observations from my experience as a woman in the Middle East. This is certainly a part of the world where the role of women is a growing flashpoint - both within local societies and for...
February 2011
5 posts
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VP BIDEN HEADED TO MOLDOVA TO COOL HIS HEELS FOR A... →
As part of a trip to Finland and Russia, Vice President Joe Biden will be stopping in Chisinau on March 11th. He’ll be relaying America’s support for ongoing democratic and economic reforms and for Moldova’s aspirations for European integration.
I suspect he will use the trip to take advantage of the spring weather in Moldova as well as to let the heat die down a little back...
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DE LA ÎNCEPUT
My friend Alistair over at They Do Things Differently There had a good idea yesterday (or tomorrow? the international date line confuses me), and posted a link to the beginning of his account of his year traveling through Europe that he recently returned from. If you haven’t checked him out, or his ladyfriend and traveling companion Tess, or their photoblog, I suggest you do it.
I’d...
January 2011
12 posts
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theydothingsdifferentlythere asked: So I've always been a fan of the Romanian/French absurdist playwright Eugene Ionesco. The thing is, I've never known how to pronounce his last name. I know Romania can also be Rumania, but that doesn't cause any hassles in pronounciation because the sounds are the same. When the letter is at the end of a word is different.
So how do I say the name of my favourite...
So how do I say the name of my favourite...
NYT: RUSSIAN PRIEST CHIDES SKIMPINESS →
A top official for the Russian Orthodox Church on Tuesday proposed creating an “all-Russian dress code,” lashing out at women who leave the house “painted like a clown” and “confuse the street with striptease.”
This priest says a lot of things that are just plain wrong, but ‘painted like a clown’ is an accurate description for most of the girls at my Moldovan high school last...
A JOKE
A Russian, a Ukrainian and a Belarussian all sit on a chair with a nail pointed up. The Russian yells, then picks up the nail and tosses it away. The Ukrainian says “ah a nail!” and puts it into is pocket because it might be useful later. The Belarussian just sits down right on top of it and stays there because he thinks that is the way the things are supposed to be.
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BOOK REVIEW: WORLD AFFAIRS JOURNAL →
Since the end of the Cold War, an enormous amount of hitherto inaccessible source material (but by no means all of it) has come to light, mainly from Soviet archives, and has been carefully studied. As a result, some of the more extreme Communist theories have been dispelled—for instance, the idea that Washington provoked the outbreak of the Korean War. But there remains a wide discrepancy of...
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SPACE ALIENS
Walking from my house down the hill and into my village in Moldova, I would frequently pass a baba or two on the street. Some babas would be hunched over their handleless brooms or scolding a filthy child. Others would be coming back from Chisinau, lugging along the typical baba accessory: boxy, blue-and-red plaid, plastic bags filled with eggs or cheese or milk. I always smiled and said good...
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WHY WESTERN AUTHORS ARE IN LOVE WITH MOTHER RUSSIA →
“The country’s appeal to Olga Grushin, Gary Shteyngart and David Bezmozgis is easy to understand. They were all born in the Soviet Union, emigrating to North America as children. They inherited a folk memory of suffering, plus the minutely descriptive Russian language. The dying Soviet Union, in which shortages could sometimes be overcome by ruses and yarns, was a natural breeding...
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EUROPEAN VOICE: PRO-EU PARTIES FORM MOLDOVA... →
The Economist’s EU-specialty paper is a little slow on the scoop.
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THE WAIT IS OVER, FOR REAL THIS TIME →
As it turns out, the reports of a the Communists and the PDM forming a government early in December were overstated, and the opposition parties — the PDM, PL, and PLDM — have made an alliance.
I know a lot of young Moldovans who are relieved that the Communists won’t be calling the shots this year, but I think everyone can be thankful that the process was peaceful, unlike some...
December 2010
9 posts
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“This life is a hospital in which each sick man is possessed by a desire to...”
– Baudelaire, in ‘Any Where Out of this World,’ as quoted by Bruce Chatwin in The Songlines.
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THE ECONOMIST: DROP IN FOR A BITE WITH VLAD TEPES →
From the Eastern Approaches blog over at The Economist:
NOT one person in a million outside Romania will have heard of Vlad Ţepes (pronounced Tsepes). They may have heard vaguely of him under the name of “Vlad the impaler” but are most likely to confuse that real-life figure, a scourge of the Turks in 15th-century Romania, with the entirely fictional Dracula created in Bram...
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FROM THE ECONOMIST: AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM,... →
I, for one, am tired of hearing about Assange and WikiLeaks, and I get the sense that followers of blogs listed in the travel section don’t want to hear any more about it either. But this is something that no one else seems to be talking about:
… The content of the cables, some commentators say, has hurt the American government’s reputation less than has its bumbling, alarmed...
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PERHAPS I SPOKE TOO SOON
Despite what I reported before, nothing has been finalized yet between the PDM and the Communists, though some seem certain that those two parties will come together to form a government. Complicating matters is the issue of a WikiLeaks cable, which alleges that Vladimir Voronin (the head of the Communists and the former president) offered Marian Lupu (the leader of the PDM) a $10 million bribe...
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THE MOLDOVAN POLITICAL STALEMATE FINALLY ENDS →
It appears as if the Communists — who failed to win a majority of seats in the Parliamentary election last Sunday — will form a coalition government with the center-left PDM (Democratic Party of Moldova).
This is a major shift; since the April 2009 elections (in which the Communists won, sparking a riot in Chisinau), the PDM had been allied with all the other opposition parties, most...
November 2010
5 posts
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IF WWI WERE A BAR FIGHT
From the Economist’s Eastern Approaches blog:
Germany, Austria and Italy are standing together in the middle of a pub when Serbia bumps into Austria and spills Austria’s pint. Austria demands Serbia buy it a complete new suit because there are splashes on its trouser leg. Germany expresses its support for Austria’s point of view. Britain recommends that everyone calm down a...
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WatchMy friends are awesome. This is a local news report about my friend Bailey and the brewery she’s opening in Nashville. Watch the video, then go follow the Jackalope Brewing Company tumblr, Blogalope.
I can say that I was there when Bailey started learning to brew. Our first beer was pretty simple — I forget what it was — but we almost accidentally used tap water instead of...
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Anonymous asked: Erika's Dad. Great blog, I like your recent observations about D.C. and hipsterism. I often feel like I'm in a zombie movie when I go to downtown D.C. on a weekday...hipsters staggering around, thinking that eating human flesh is cool, and no enlightened self interest at all--that they'll admit to, at least.
So, the Ask: how do I comment on your blog?
So, the Ask: how do I comment on your blog?
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IN WHICH I DISCOVER THE WRONG KIND OF ATTENTION...
If I never came out and said it, it should have been obvious from my Brief Interviews with Moldovans series of posts that I got a lot of attention from Moldovan girls during my sixteen months there. (Moldoveanca means ‘female Moldovan,’ if that wasn’t already clear from the content of the dialogues.) It started on the first day of school last year, after I gave a short speech in...
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WatchI was browsing through a few Moldovan news sites when I came across this story from this summer about the Bâc, the river that runs through my old village.
Basically, the first two ladies are saying that for 4 or 5 years now, they haven’t been able to leave their windows open during the summer even though it’s hot during the day [no one has A/C in the villages]. At night they’d...
October 2010
2 posts
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REVERSE CULTURE SHOCK REARS ITS HIPSTER HEAD
Recently, I wrote that in my experience so far, Peace Corps’ warnings about ‘reverse culture shock’ have been overstated. I still think that’s true, but wanted to relate the following:
It comes as no surprise that, as an unemployed former Peace Corps volunteer who, after five weeks, is still sleeping on his friend’s sectional, I am one of the most poorly dressed...
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HOMECOMING
It’s now been about two and a half weeks since I returned to the States. Peace Corps, from the beginning, makes a big show of warning returning volunteers about the dangers of ‘reverse culture shock,’ but I’m not really surprised to find that those warnings seemed overblown. Either reverse culture shock has passed me by, or I’m in for a delayed freak-out in the coming...
September 2010
7 posts
ALL GOOD THINGS . . .
So I apologize that I’ve been MIA for the last two weeks, but for reasons I won’t explain here, I’ve had to end my Peace Corps service early and move to Washington, DC. I left on Wednesday, and it was really hard to leave all the Moldovans I care so much about; though I am confident that I’ve done what will be best for me and the people I care about in the end.
I will...
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A BRIEF INTERVIEW WITH MOLDOVANS
Moldoveanca: Are you married? Do you have children?
American: No wife, no kids.
M: Why aren't you married?
A: I haven't found a girl I like enough yet.
M: After a year in Moldova you couldn't find a girl?
A: Well...no. I guess not.
M: All the foreigners who come to my village always leave with a Moldoveanca because we are beautiful and we have good hearts. If you haven't found one, you haven't been trying.