I loved Moldova. We were blessed to have our contacts, Andrei and Larisa Luca, who provided everything we needed. Yeah, it was hard to live without running water, read signs and communicate with Russian-speaking people, and illegally squeeze 11 people into a 6-person van. But Moldova was worth it. Here are some of the top 11 moments that have been seared into my memory:
- Food! Going to the fresh food market every day to grab groceries; including the best ripe peaches, tomatoes, and peppers. Ice cream cones in town for under $1 every day for the last two weeks ($1 = 12.43 Moldovan Leu)
- Two words: squatty potty. More poop conversations than you would ever like to have. Ever.
- Creative team time (practically a sacred word in World Race lingo). Three six-second Vine video clips pitted against each other for the coveted prize of a chocolate Lion bar.
- Playing “Eleven” during Kid’s Ministry. Picture this: fifteen kids (ranging from age 7 to 16) standing in a circle with one person holding a volleyball. That volleyball is thrown around the circle at random. The eleventh person to receive the volleyball is required to hit the ball (usually at full force) at the center of the circle. If the eleventh person misses a person sitting in the middle, that eleventh person must join the middle of the circle. If someone in the middle is hit with a volleyball, they’re allowed to rejoin the outer circle. Multiple children were harmed in this process.
- Hearing Aubray sing in church for the first time in more than five years, and being humbled to take part in that experience.
- Marick is Andrei and Larisa’s 2-year-old son who is in the midst of potty training himself. He would regularly run around the house completely naked, peeing wherever he fancied; sometimes, that meant the front door “Welcome” mat or off the balcony onto the sidewalk below or right next to (potentially on top of) our shoes.
- Being fed freshly picked honeycomb by Igor, a large Moldovan man in Speedo-like underwear, while also enjoying tea and cookies outside in the Moldovan countryside.
- Working out every other day with Jeff, Christian, and Ruby with Jeff’s personal resistance bands from home using the bars we helped put up in Andrei and Larisa’s sideyard. Hurt so good.
- Watching Jeff, David, and Ali teach the kids how to throw and hit a baseball (tennis ball) for the first time out of the church yard and into the weeds below the train tracks.
- A seven-hour train ride from Chisinau (Moldova’s capital) to Ocnita (our home for August) in a sleeping compartment with beds too small for Jeff and David and no open window for ventilation.
- Camping in Naslavcea (the northernmost town in Moldova) twice, and eating only hot dogs for lunch and dinner for four days straight.
One of those nights, our whole team hiked nearly straight up a small mountain for an hour with half of us carrying our packs (containing tents, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, etc.). We trailblazed through thorn thickets, bushes, and burrs (Ali counted roughly 2,000 burrs stuck to her pants as three of us sat and picked them off one by one) to set up camp on top of the mountain during a rainstorm at the foot of a cross (which a previous World Race team had planted with Andrei). Epic.
Jumping off a shipwrecked crane sitting at the bottom of a natural spring lake and a slate cliff into said lake, which was only 100 yards from the town dump in Naslavcea. Double epic.
Ruby, Becca, and I trekking uphill through puddle-riddled dirt roads to go duck hunting with Jeff at 6am. He told us to wear all black and bring burned ears of corn along to the lake, at which point, Jeff bent down, scooped up a handful of mud from the ground at his feet, and smeared it on our faces “for camouflage.” We didn’t catch any ducks. Legen…wait-for-it…dary. Legendary.
If you want a better picture of what our month in Moldova looked like, check out this video my teammate Ali Bruce made!
