A trip to Turkey and winter in Moldova (Part 2)

End of Turkey, return to Moldova, Moldovan Christmas, New Years, Present day…

Okay, in my last post I ended by describing this crazy sense of nirvana I found after being brutally massaged at a Turkish bathhouse. I should, at this point, remind you to take my romanticization of all of this with a grain or two of coarse rock-salt. I mean, honestly, some strange person was paid handsomely to elbow, drop kick, and monkey punch my vertebrae for an hour. So, we should remember never (or, almost never) to allow my personal wonderment, amazement, or thirst for something transcendental to fool us all into taking me too seriously. In fact, let's keep in mind - this is a blog entry. I'm no new-age philosopher. I'm just a regular guy in Moldova. This next anecdote, I hope, will bring us back down to earth…

Before we left Turkey, Chris and I bought some souvenirs and gifts for ourselves and our Moldovan host families. Chris decided he wanted a bottle of alcohol called Raki (pronounced Rukka). Raki is an aniseed flavored-spirit that happens to be, as wikipedia says, Turkey's "official national drink." It is a clear liquid served alongside water and ice. When mixing this spirit with water, the color changes to a milky-white. Anyway, in our effort to board the plane back to Romania, the Turkish (but, English-speaking) airport guards informed Chris that he was not permitted to take his Raki in his carry-on luggage. These Turkish guards, obviously understanding the quality of this beverage, dutifully, but unenthusiastically, gave us the bad news. At that moment, Chris and I were inside the Tarom Airlines gate in front of a room filled mostly with Romanians on their way home to Bucharest. Meanwhile, standing next to the X-ray scanner at the entrance, the guard gave clear instructions to Chris: "You must dispose of that before you board the plane." Let me reiterate, the room where this was happening was the gate. It was surrounded with glass walls, looking out at the runway where our plane was taxiing toward us. There were about forty passengers waiting, seated in rows of chairs perpendicular to the outside windows.

Now, upon hearing the guard's heavy words, Chris looked down at the ground dejectedly. A second later though, a thought ran through both of our minds. We exchanged wry glances and immediately understood our next play. Then, Chris turned to the nearest security guard and said in his patented, stutteringly blunt style, "Well, can I dispose of it right here…I mean right now… I mean: can I drink it?" The two guards - one standing to our right, the other at the computer monitor of the X-ray machine - looked at each other. Maybe it was their Turkish pride in that fine beverage, maybe it was our innocent-looking, freshly-exfoliated skin….but for whatever reason, those guards looked back at Chris and just said, in a quick, high pitched, matter-of-fact way: "Okay." So, in front of the gate, and all of the Romanians at the airport, Chris and I passed a bottle of Turkish Raki back and forth a few times - all the while, exchanging "Norocs" and other Romanian language toasts. After some merriment, I must admit however, that I allowed my discomfort get the better of me. I observed a few of the other security personnel beginning to appear nervous about our curious display. Chris, maybe because he did not want to part with his Raki, or maybe because he is a little gutsier than I, may have continued had I not suggested we stop. We threw the unfinished bottle in a nearby receptacle and took a seat. We did not imbibe much more than the equivalent of one or two mixed drinks. Nevertheless, we proved our point - that much, at least, was clear by the smiles and delighted laughter of the nearby Romanians. So, we were headed back to our Peace Corps Assignments after a beautiful cultural exchange - two Americans, drinking a Turkish beverage in Istanbul, traveling to Moldova, bestowing words of good luck, health, wealth, and friendship to a room of Romanians.

What happened next? We went back to Moldova. A few other things might have occurred - I can't really remember. But...now, let us skip to Christmas.

On December 25th I celebrated Christmas in the capitol city, Chisinau. Most Moldovans do not celebrate Christmas on the 25th, but on the 7th of January - Orthodox Christmas. Though not all, most Orthodox Christian Religions celebrate Christmas on January 7th. So, given the fact that my holiday schedule is different from my host family's, I decided to spend that time with other Peace Corps friends.

New Year's and Orthodox Christmas, however, I spent with my host family - both because I wanted to get a sense of the way they celebrate, and because they are pretty cool people. The way Moldovans celebrate Christmas and New Year's is relatively similar to Americans. It is normal (if slightly less common) for people here to decorate with lights and erect Christmas trees with ornaments. The capitol city was decorated beautifully, though regrettably, I have no photos of this. For both holidays in Moldova it is normal to have family and friends for dinner, drinks, holiday music, and general festive joy. I am not sure if I am required to say much more here in my role as some sort of cultural ambassador…except maybe I can add that the holidays here are a bit less commercial. And so, despite the fact that I enjoy celebrating the winter holidays in America more than in Moldova, in an ideal world we Americans would be able to celebrate with a little less emphasis on the shopping and gifts, and a little more on the family and friends.

I just said that I enjoy celebrating winter holidays in America more than in Moldova….but that is with one exception. Moldovans also celebrate on another day after Orthodox Christmas. They call it "Old New Years." It is actually the holiday that wraps up the season. Old New Year's is the Religious feast of Saint Vascily, on January 14th. The most interesting part of this day, in my opinion, is the way it is similar to our Halloween. Essentially, children walk to their neighbors' houses in order to either sing a song or recite a poem. The lyrics offered are a sort of blessing for the new year. While performing their blessing, the children throw handfuls of grain at their audiences. This year an eight year-old girl hit me in the eye with a piece of brown long-grain rice. It wasn't comfortable. But the tradition is quite endearing. After the children finish giving their best performances, adults give them candy, money, and/or - for lack of better words - other things. My host mother, for example, gave a boy who came to our door one of those 'other things.' She used the opportunity to advise (i.e. berate and threaten) him to stop smoking cigarettes. So, not only did this little hellion leave our house with a few chocolates and some cash, he also got health lesson courtesy of Doamna Tatiana.

That, finally, should bring you up to speed with what is going on now. But, there is one more thing I can add to sum up these entries: My travels, both in Moldova and Turkey over the past few months, have really driven home a lesson, that previously, I was not sure how to verbalize. Essentially, it is this: One of traveling's greatest values is allowing us to see and experience new things and to question those which we had before taken for granted. We are, right now, the living product of generations of socialization, generations of choices, generations of pursuing one path over another. We live with a sort of blind faith in those who came before us. We presume, sometimes subconsciously, that our predecessors always made the right choices. In my case, and the case of my fellow Americans, our ascendants decided to construct society in the way they saw best. I do not know how they defined this, but I am sure they believed they were trying to move toward the "best." All that leads to the real question: Is the society they decided to create the best for me? For you? For anyone? The answer, I believe, is: maybe…and maybe not. I think a great way to even come close to understanding what type of society might be best for each of us is by exploring other societies. Other groups built their nations and cultures based on a different set of choices. Maybe at some point long, long ago our forefathers and someone else's forefathers disagreed on something. Maybe it was bathhouses, maybe it celebrating Christmas on January 7th. Whatever it was, our societies diverged. The more opportunities we have to explore other groups and other cultures allow us to reflect critically on ourselves and our beliefs. By the time I finish my Peace Corps service and finally find my way back to America, I don't know whether or not I will have actually dramatically changed how I live. But, I do know that I will have an enhanced ability to decide for myself. This notion is thrilling. And, even if I don't change, I will at the very least, know the feeling of these other societies - oh, and also, the feeling of drinking Raki out of the bottle at a Turkish airport gate.