In the Village with Bunica Luiba

There is another PCV that gives me a hard time for falling right into Moldovan gender roles...taking my place in the kitchen with a knife, making every kind of juice under the sun, and pitting cherries by the bucketful. But whatever, I embrace it. I love it when five women (and the toddlers on their hips) are gathered in our tiny kitchen to try a new recipe someone found. Even more, I love going out to the village to help Bunica Luiba (left) prep the winter stores of canned fruit and pickled veggies. 

As Maria and I pit the sour cherries, she teases about her mother in a quiet voice. She explains a russian proverb to me in Romanian, "You just can't please the old people." 

Later on I try to tease back, "I can't wait to come back to Moldova when you are the baba! We are to joke about you out of earshot."

 But as always, she wins, "You know, at that time, you will be 44 years-old." I quickly change the subject after declaring that will never happen and my host cousin chokes on his cherry pit, laughing and coughing.

Doamne fereste!