Hram--A day of city celebration

Hram (a celebration every Moldovan loclity has depending on it's patron saint, our Hram is on Saint George Day) is no different than other Moldovan holidays in that food preparation starts days beforehand, "ne pregatim pentru oaspteti!" It just so happened that our preparations for this day coincided with a visit from my host Mom's best friend. She is a Georgian woman that used to live in my town, but now works in Moscow. To tell you just how much fun this night was, I have to describe the converation method. I would pose a question or comment in Romanian, Maria's friend would respond in Russian, and then Maria would translate for me in Romanian if she ever stopped laughing long enough.

My hram was quite eventful, topped off by the fact that I needed to pack for the vacation I'm leaving for in 6 hours. At visit to a neighbor's house to borrow something turned into a two hour stay, eating apples and homemade rasins from the cellar, learning how sheep wool is hand processed for weaving carpets, and looking at old photo albumns. Moldovan (pre-digital) photography looks so much older than it is. For instance, Leonid, my neighbor, served his Soveit military service in Germany in 1982. All his photos are black and white, very rustic in appearance. Eugenia and Leonid were married eleven months after my parents, and every photo is black and white (to be fair, there are also several photos of them in front of a Lenin statue that used to stand in my town). That curtain truly was made of iron, it can't be said enough.

Eugenia and Leonid know that I'm headed out on vacation and sent a special message with me for my parents--who I will see next week--so maybe I'll fill in that story after I fill them in.

Having stayed far longer than I planned with them, I then raced home to change my clothes and go to a masa (meal/party) at another neighbor's house. But wouldn't you know it, my host aunt made me eat before I went!

This family has two hilarious daughters (the younger of which giggles even more than me) and their father, Aurel, is one of the best Moldovan men I know. This is a picture of him after he managed to steal the acordian back from his younger daughter. We had the party in his drinking room, it's all decked out in pho-vineyard cave or something. Even the door behind him is really just a fancied up cement creation. He gets a lot of laughs telling people to head down to the cellar.

After a few glasses of wine and sour cherry crepes, we girls got out the eye-shadow case of the century and got the girls all ready to go to the city center for the real party.

After dark, it was only music and hora dancing for this PCV. I'm pretty sure that's why I'm here actually, to dance it out every chance I get!