The first two weeks we spent in Moldova living with a pastor and his family. Then on April 23rd, we packed up his van, hopped in, and drove to the border. The border of Moldova and Transnistria, ever heard of it? I sure hadn’t. Transnistria is a small, self proclaimed country between Moldova and Ukraine. If you ask Transnistrians, it’s a country, if you ask Moldovans, it’s part of Moldova, if you ask the UN it doesn’t really exist, and if you ask me, it has a border, and a new currency (rubel) and language (Russian) for me to learn, so I claim country. Unfortunately, what I think doesn’t make it recognized by the UN, so the people here are not Transnistrian citizens, but are citizens of Moldova, Russia, or Ukraine.
Most of my team (Austin, Sarah, Alicia, Kristin, Ben, Me) on a tank?
Our time in this fake country is spent mostly at an orphanage and also at a church in Tiraspol (the capitol). Our days are spent painting rooms in the orphanage, painting the playground/fence and doing yard work. Our nights are spent at prayer nights, English club, or other events at the church in Tiraspol. We've been kept pretty busy and it's all been pretty wonderful.
Me, Kristin, and Sarah under our wonderful painting
Being (technically) apart of Moldova I expected things to be very similar to Moldova. I was definitely wrong about that. I’ve never been to Russian, but I’m pretty sure Transnistria is just like it. In Moldova, the people look like they belonged in Oliver Twist. It’s probably different in the city, but where we were people were very conservative and most women wore scarves on their heads. Here, the women wear extremely short skirts and very high heels. Even the female cops. I don’t think they are involved in many foot chases because no one could run in that outfit. I have also never seen such long hair and so many straight across bangs! It’s so crazy to me that Moldova and Transnistria are technically the same country, but everything is so very different.
The play we saw in Russian
We got invited by one of our Transnistrian friends, Julia (the girl farthest to the right on above picture) and we just couldn't pass up the opportunity to go. The first half was a drama with lots of dialogue making it hard to follow. But the second half was a comedy and I'm pretty impressed with how close we came to understanding the plot. We also spend an evening by the river playing volleyball with a few Transnistrians who are learning English and today we got to experience a Russian barbecue! I definitely can't complain!
