2006.08.05: August 5, 2006: Headlines: COS - Moldova: Marshfield News Herald: Liz Welter writes: Most of the villagers of Bahrinesti in Moldova had never met an American until our daughter, Katie Welter, moved in to live with the Dobos family as a Peace Corps volunteer
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2006.08.05: August 5, 2006: Headlines: COS - Moldova: Marshfield News Herald: Liz Welter writes: Most of the villagers of Bahrinesti in Moldova had never met an American until our daughter, Katie Welter, moved in to live with the Dobos family as a Peace Corps volunteer
Liz Welter writes: Most of the villagers of Bahrinesti in Moldova had never met an American until our daughter, Katie Welter, moved in to live with the Dobos family as a Peace Corps volunteer
With a climate, terrain and population similar in size to cities like Spencer, Stratford and Auburndale, a village in southeastern Europe evokes images of life in Wisconsin 100 years ago. Most villagers in Bahrinesti, Moldova, have gardens, poultry and a Holstein cow to provide their food. After the early morning milking and feeding, chickens, geese and ducks stream out of small coops and the family cow plods down the street to join the village herd making its way to a recently harvested wheat field. The families take turns with the daily herding duties so that the cows don't end up munching their way through a precious sunflower crop which will provide oil for the winter.
Liz Welter writes: Most of the villagers of Bahrinesti in Moldova had never met an American until our daughter, Katie Welter, moved in to live with the Dobos family as a Peace Corps volunteer
Moldova hearkens back to our region's rural past
By Liz Welter
Marshfield News-Herald
EDITOR'S NOTE: Reporter Liz Welter returned this week from visiting her daughter, Katie, in Moldova. She shares her impressions in this column.
BAHRINESTI, Moldova -- With a climate, terrain and population similar in size to cities like Spencer, Stratford and Auburndale, a village in southeastern Europe evokes images of life in Wisconsin 100 years ago.
Most villagers in Bahrinesti, Moldova, have gardens, poultry and a Holstein cow to provide their food.
After the early morning milking and feeding, chickens, geese and ducks stream out of small coops and the family cow plods down the street to join the village herd making its way to a recently harvested wheat field. The families take turns with the daily herding duties so that the cows don't end up munching their way through a precious sunflower crop which will provide oil for the winter.
As the sun beats down, kids toss nets into the river to catch fish, or splash about the water to cool off.
Carts pulled by sturdy small horses laden with people or produce trundle down rutted, packed, dirt roads.
This is the idyllic quaint country life depicted in movies, books and paintings.
But living that life demonstrates the relentless, achingly hard lives our ancestors endured in the early 1900s. Toothpaste, running water, toilets, electricty, cars, central heating and air conditioning, microwaves and computers are now integral to most of our lives.
In Moldova, a small former Soviet republic squashed between Romania and Ukraine, daily life is hard work for the majority of the population. The monetary gap between the wealthy and the rest of the people is staggering.
Speaking animatedly in Romanian, the native language, friends had gathered at one of the Bahrinesti homes for a late supper of a pasta dish similar to Italian tortellini noodles and the house wines.
The evening's hostess, grandmotherly Marsha, whose last name literally became lost in translation, said, "If the Americans had occupied Moldova instead of the Russians, we wouldn't be 100 years behind," our translator told us. "We work a lot, we eat a lot, we drink a lot. We need the opportunities, like you have in America."
Marsha raises her glass of rich red wine to her American guests with the traditional toast of "To your health, may you live long and prosperously."
Most of the villagers of Bahrinesti had never met an American until our daughter, Katie Welter, moved in to live with the Dobos family as a Peace Corps volunteer to teach health education at the local school to kids from 10 to 16 years old.
In July, as we visited Katie in Moldova, she translated so that we could converse with the villagers, who were eager to know our impressions of their country and to understand more about the United States.
"We learned as children that Americans have no soul," said Marsha through Katie. Then Katie laughed and grinned as she told us that Marsha added, "We are happy that Katie is not that way, and that you are good people too."
Historically, Moldova was known as Moldavia, a region considered part of Romania based on its people, language and culture. Over centuries, it has been under the control of various countries and people, including the Romans, Ottoman Turks and Russians.
During World War II, when under German control, thousands of Moldovan Jews and Gypsies died in Nazi concentration camps. Near the end of the war, Russian troops defeated the Germans and occupied the country, making it part of the vast Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
All attempts at democracy were squelched as a USSR-backed government nationalized everything. USSR administrators and managers dictated the status of farming and business. Thousands of Moldovans were exiled to Siberia as Russian citizens were brought in to take their places in homes, schools, and work places.
Historically a small farming village, all land in Bahrinesti became collectivized so there were Soviet managers dictating the policies and management of its farms and its people.
As the USSR crumbled in 1990, Americans cheered as the media relayed information about the end of the Cold War.
Standing in the middle of Soviet era farming compound, we watch a rusted piece of equipment mechanically separate the wheat from the chaff of the recently harvested crop.
Villagers fill 50-pound feed bags full of wheat and pile them onto carts. The horses patiently wait, noses to the ground, their lips delicately picking out the morsels of wheat for a snack.
"When the communists left, this became ours," said George Pinzaru as he gestures toward all the buildings and the aged farming equipment. "But we didn't know what to do. We know how to farm, but no one understood about this business or this machinery."
Very darkly tanned, with cragged lines running through his face, Pinzaru is anxious to know that we understand the difficulty people in villages like his have transitioning from 40 years of dictatorship and communism to a republic styled as a democracy.
"After communism, the land was partitioned between all the families that worked the land," said Pinzaru, who is in his mid-50s. "Everyone was given a 'cota.' "
Katie explained that a cota equaled about 4 acres and Pinzaru is the manager of the business that will harvest the land for the villagers. The villagers receive a share of the harvest based on the productivity while the rest is sold for commercial use.
"This is good, but not enough," explained a Moldovan politican, Victor Gunzan, whom we met during our two-hour wait to cross the border into Romania.
Gunzan had listened and watched us play "20 questions" and intermittently take another look at our watches. We, my husband, Joe and our daughter, Bridget, stood alongside the Peugot minivan driven by a patient Moldovan who spoke no English. Having said our good-byes to Katie, we were due to leave from the Bucherest airport in seven hours.
"This is not a good time to cross the border. It is the shift change," Gunzan said in English, as he introduced himself to us.
Explaining that American tourists are a rarity in Moldova, he was eager to hear our impressions of the country. We were eager to be able to understand a Moldovan without needing a translator.
"No one can make money with a cota. That system does not work. We will not be able to end corruption until everyone is able to have a job where they make a sustainable wage," said Gunzan. "Our population is 4,300,000. One million people of that are laborers in other countries. Most are illegal. That is 30 percent of Moldova's productive workers. If people can, they leave and they do not come back."
"But our country is small, we should be able to fix these problems," he said. When he asked us what we thought, Joe and I both looked at one another.
"Yes, this country is small and it is poor, but the people have richness of spirit, dignity and pride. The people we have met have a true desire to change things," said Joe.
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Story Source: Marshfield News Herald
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