A Flood, A Years Worth of Tragedy...but help will arrive.

Last year Moldova experienced a terrible flood that washed away two villages, destroyed countless crops and made hundreds of Moldovans homeless.

Our amazing missionary friends Sister Toni and Elder Tom asked to visit the most devastated villages, which were coincidentally in my raion (town), to see if they could help in any way.

There we saw the full destruction of the flood, a whole years worth! The buildings were crumbling, there were dead trees everywhere some houses were still surrounded by water! This was an awful sight.

We visited the newly constructed houses that were built for the flood victims. But even after a year all the houses were still not built and many lacked many necessary resources like running water!

This community has only ONE well in its vicinity and the water is not drinkable. Most of the time the residence must walk down the hills and carry water back and forth to their houses.

Afterwards we went to see the victims that were still being housed in my town's university dormitories. There we found people who were struggling to find food and were overwhelmed by emotions when they talked about their lost lives. All they said they wanted was food.

Though Sister Toni and Tom do not regularly provide food aid as assistance they knew they couldn't walk away from these people in need. Hence Katie McNabb and I organized our very first food drop in our town! The 30 families in the dorms received potatoes, cucumbers, onions, oranges, and even frozen chickens! The VanWormers have decided that they wish to provide regular food supplies to our victims until they move into their new houses later in the year!

As for the residents at the new communities the VanWormers have also committed to providing the town with any necessary furniture and supplies they may need! They have also discussed a future water project with the town! These guys are amazing! Heres their blog link if you want to check out all the amazing things they are doing here in Moldova.

http://tomandtonivanwormer.blogspot.com/

On a personal note:

I have always grown up with a deep sense of skepticism towards religious organizations providing humanitarian aid to people, I always thought, "Ok now what do you want?". I'd like to say now after living abroad and really working side by side with good religious people that truly just want nothing more than to help has completely rocked my world!

They have helped me become a more open-minded individual, this experience is changing everything! My faith in humanity is only growing, something I will always thank the Van Wormers for.

A walk home

whats up with my hair?

Finally back to my old routine go to work, play with kids, do some drawing lessons, work on Peace Corps stuff on my computer, eat lunch, work on Brindusa stuff on computer, walk home with Samantha while listening to my MP3 player, embarrass Samantha all the way home by dancing on the street (this of course being my favorite part!).

You've seen her before but here she is again the amazing 14 year old Samantha! A beneficiary of the Brindusa Center for at risk children.

Today my day was filled with a lot of work and success but dancing all the way home while Samantha laughs at me is always a treat and is special to both of us. Just how special it was I hadn't realized till today!

Samantha and I walked our usual route singing dancing, we passed the library, the primaria, the cultural center, the WW2 monument, all 8 long blocks home (shes my neighbor a 20 maybe 30 minute walk home) as we listened to the classics "Family Affair" Mary J. Blige, "Meet me Half way" Black eyes peas etc...

When we got to my apt she said "ok Im going back to the library." (the library is 30 minutes back from where were) I was shocked and said "WHAT WHY? You just walked all the way home??" To which she said "I know, but thats OK, walking with you was more important."

Samantha, she will be what I remember when I go back home...

The Privilege of Forgetting

Its no secret to those who know and love me that I can be a very forgetful person. One of my favorite quotes about this comes from Marion Adams "If your friends with Marlene, than you must have a piece of her clothing in your house." LOL

Marion Adams

Ok so I admit that when am excited, when I'm in a rush, or when I'm just plain tired I tend to forget things, leave things at bus stops, walk away without getting my bank card from the ATM machine, leave my bag open on a bus and get jacked for all I'm worth etc...

I dont know why this is... I can point the finger at genetics, my mom can look for her keys for 40 minutes until she realizes they were in her pocket the whole time :p

my mom wearing a basket on her head :D

BUT also, I think it may have something to do with the fact that I never needed to take this issue too seriously in America. I know! I know not every American is like this, but with my personality and other factors in my life, it just so happened that when I lost something, somehow things always worked out in the end. As a result when I would lose something I just stopped worrying about it and just dealt with it, thinking "Ok so who do I need to call to fix this". I'm not trying to say its not inconvenient because IT WAS and STILL IS and don't prefer this route...but is it life or death....no....freak out worthy? Definitely not....could this have facilitated my personality defect?? Maybe.

What made me reflect about this was a memory my host mom shared with me over a glass (or two) of gin de casa (wine) about her upbringing during the Soviet Union era here in Moldova.

Quick history about Moldova: In 1946, as a result of a severe drought and excessive delivery quota obligations and requisitions imposed by the Soviet government, the southwestern part of the USSR suffered from a major famine resulting in 216,000 deaths and about 350,000 cases of dystrophy in the Moldavian SSR alone.

She told me that in order to survive the communist death grip on food her father would hide food in their "wine barrels" she claims that if he had not done this, they surely would have died of starvation like many of their neighbors did.

"In those days you could walk up and down the streets and see bodies piled up on top of each other just laying on the sides of the street" she said with glazed eyes, she continued " just to get a piece of bread you needed to show your documents and bring your food record with you to be controlled and stamped. If you lost that small book you starved..."

This sparked my own memories of my occasional frustration over dealing with Moldovan paperwork, why did everything have to be stamped and checked over and over! Why couldn't I just get money from the bank without my debit card if I had a passport!

The legacy of the Soviet Union will be one that will take years to forget, just recently I came to peace with that, BUT it is happening!

Yet, more than anything it made me think about my forgetfulness, and how privileged I am to be able to forget. I had never thought of this flaw as a privilege, but the fact that I can rest assure that no matter what happens to my stuff or documents my basic needs will always be taken care of by someone somewhere is a privilege. There will be a system, an infrastructure of people and institutions in place that will take care of me if something should happen, hence I don't worry so much, thats not historically normal.

I am grateful that no matter what I have been through I never had to face war, dictatorships, or seeing someone die from starvation because they lost their small record book.

Thank you Moldova for yet again humbling me, your history has helped me see my own life more clearly.