Nights in September can be very dark - especially
in villages in the Moldovan countryside. When we
arrived in Sofia, the impression we got was one of
total darkness. The friend who was to meet our bus
appeared from nowhere and directed us to streets
we would never have found ourselves. The candlelit
hospitality and the welcome we received was
incredibly open-hearted. The absence of electricity
from 8 to 10 p.m. every evening and the richness of
the food on the dining-room tables gave that
evening a very special feel. Most entertaining were
the excursions across the vegetable patch to the
toilet. The absence of rain and real cold make this
experience an appreciated memory. Waking up in a
bed of mattresses and covers woken by the sound of
animals was also a real country experience we
sometimes miss.
Travelling to the countryside is so much an
experience of travelling backwards in time. The pace
of life, plus the absence of a sewage system, of
asphalt roads and sometimes of electricity
convinced us that we had reached the real Moldova.
It takes a visit to a village to know a country. It
takes a talk with the village mayor to learn the facts.
After what we heard from the village mayor (who -
surprisingly - was female and chic), the whole
village experience lost its picturesque tenderness.
The 6,800 inhabitants have two main
possibilities to earn their keep: the kolkhoz dairy
and the kolkhoz tobacco factory. The roughly 3,000
women are treated equally with men in their choice
of work; the conditions in the private household will
differ. The villagers pay local taxes to their mayor,
and communal funding supports a small hospital
(built with the help of an American) and the village
school. Both institutions are open to the public and
can be regarded as a good achievement of self-
government, especially considering that both these
buildings are the only ones linked to a sewage
system. The hiring of teachers and doctors is
decided upon by a committee.
One problem is that most of the roughly 1,130
young people in the village prefer to get higher
education, look for a well-paid city job and come
back to their village for the holidays. One reason
may be the fact that a doctor at the clinic earns the
sum of 200 Moldovan lei a month (((How much in
$$$ or DM))) and the teachers earn from 150 to 250
Moldovan lei a month (((How much in $$$ or
DM))) (depending on how new they are on the job).
Sofia, the mayor said, is a dying village, the
population is getting older and older and the future
offers no hope for change. The information we got
did not surprise us; it was more the honesty with
which the mayor spoke of the unlucky future of a
once-prosperous village.
Honesty and friendliness seem to be the
prevailing emotions villagers exhibited. It made the
walk around the kolkhoz factory and the dairy most
entertaining, including fresh melon and smokes. It
made us appreciate the real beauty of the
surroundings. The houses are the houses of proud
people; their assets are well-kept and gladly
displayed. Slow but gradual development is visible
and poverty less well-hidden than in the capital. The
village is a more tangible way of getting to know
Moldovans.
