Languages, letters, and a brief historical timeline

The point of this blog is to help me (and hopefully you!) learn about Moldova. And I have learned that there are more languages spoken in Moldova than I mentioned in my previous post. Romanian and Russian are the most common, but there are also quite a few people who speak Ukrainian and Gagauz. To be honest, I hadn't heard of Gagauz before. You learn something new every day! 

Languages follow culture, and that is often based on a region's history. I didn't have a lot of time (so little free time right now!) to do comparative research or fact-check, so that will have to be for another day, but here is what I learned from http://www.factsking.com/countries/moldova/:

The region that is now Moldova has historically been inhabited by a largely Romanian speaking population. Before the Second World War, most of Moldova was connected to Romania, and about two-thirds of the population speaks fluent Romanian.

The second official language is Gagauz, which comes from Gagauzia, an area in southern Moldova. There are only around 200,000 Gagauz speakers. Look for more about Gagauzia in another post. I'm curious to learn more about it. 

Most of what is now Moldova was the independent principality of Moldavia in the 14th century. In the 16th century, it came under Ottoman Turkish rule. The region was part of the larger Romanian principality of Moldova in the 18th century. Moldova became part of the Russian Empire, under the name Bessarabia, in the year 1812. Bessarabia joined Romania in 1917-1918, after the Russian Empire was dissolved. In 1940, the Soviet Union occupied Bessarabia. Later, it was split between the Ukranian SSR and the newly-created Moldavian SSR. Moldova was occupied by Romania and Germany from 1941-1944. Part of Romania during the interwar period, Moldova was incorporated into the Soviet Union at the close of World War II. Moldova gained independence from the USSR on 27th August 1991. 

Technically, the official language of Moldova is Moldovan. But Moldovan is essentially Romanian. Although, not exactly... In 1939 the Moldovan alphabet was converted to Cyrillic by the Soviets, in order to distinguish (and divide) the Moldovan ethnic group from Romanians. Shortly after Communism fell in 1989, the Moldovan government passed a law switching the alphabet back to Latin script. Moldovans are still roughly split regarding whether they speak “Moldovan” or Romanian. 

Terrible beasts??

This week's interesting fact:

The biggest animal that ever lived in the area that is modern-day Moldova was called a Deinotherium. Pretty cool! 

The name is derived from Greek; Deinotherium giganteum means 'terrible beast.' I guess I wouldn't want to meet one face to face, but in pictures they look kinda cute. :) 

Deinotherium looked like an elephant or mastodon, but with a shorter trunk. And the tusks were attached to the lower jaw and curved downward. They were about 15 feet tall and 15-20 feet long. 

Deinotherium existed from the Middle Miocene era until the early Pleistocene era (I read that that was around 7 million years ago!). They lived in Asia, Africa, and Europe; really got around. In Moldova, they lived in the plateau, which spreads through northeastern Romania, most of Moldova, and part of Ukraine. The largest Deinotherium skeleton ever found was discovered in Moldova! Now it's in the ethnographic museum there.

Citations: 
http://www.factsking.com/countries/moldova/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinotherium
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3142189/7-million-year-old-fossil-elephant-ancestor-east-Romanian-village.html
https://theokeden.com/tag/moldovan-culture/

Photos:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinotherium#/media/File:Dinotherium.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinotherium#/media/File:Deinotherium_bozasi_JG.png

Recovering perfectionist

It's March. Which means that, theoretically, I am leaving for Moldova in 3 months. I'm still waiting for it to be official before I tell the world, but given the duration of the time I will be away, I've had to start making arrangements and that means that some people around me have been finding out about my upcoming move. A pastor at my church found out the other day, and I was surprised how enthusiastic he was. He said he doesn't know much about Moldova, and tasked me with this assignment: tell him an interesting "fact of the week" about Moldova each week until I leave. A fantastic idea! And a brilliant series for blog posts. I am a recovering perfectionist, and aspiring writer. Not a great combo. This blog is my attempt to overcome the writer's block I have suffered from most of my life by embracing the imperfect and just writing. Posting a "fact of the week" will not only help me learn and share about Moldova, but will give me a way to be consistent about writing.

So this week's fact: Both Romanian and Russian Languages are spoken in Moldova

The first thing I learned about Moldova, other than its location, is the fact that Moldovan people speak both Russian and Romanian. I mentioned before that I have been to Romania and Ukraine, so I knew a little bit about Moldova. I knew that Romanian is spoken in Moldova, and that there is a separatist region (Transnistria). I knew that Moldova had been part of the USSR, and knew of some coworkers at a past job who were from Moldova and had Russian-sounding names. That was basically the extent of my knowledge of Moldova before I found out I would be going there.

As I have been preparing, I have learned that it is most likely that I - and most of my training class - will learn Romanian in our language classes. But it's possible that a few people will learn Russian, too, depending on where they will be posted. Initially, I had requested to go to Eastern Europe so I could continue to learn a Slavic language. I wasn't actually expecting to go to Moldova. Part of me hopes I will get to learn Russian. But the more rational part of me knows that I'd probably have a better time learning Romanian, given my past experience studying French and Spanish (and even a bit of Italian, if we're counting the words I know from music classes!). Russian is not an easy language to learn, but I'm enticed by the challenge and the prospect of gaining access to people, literature, and cultural understanding that have been out of reach to me without ability to speak or read Russian language. In any case, one of my primary goals of moving to Europe is to learn a language other than English well enough to be able to communicate. Whichever language I learn, I will be glad to be able to talk to people and understand people in a language other than my native English.

For further reading about the languages spoken in Moldova, I found this post (and comments) on the blog Chisinau, seriously? very interesting:

What language do they speak in Moldova?

Letting go

How do you intentionally cut ties with your life and relocate? How do you let go of deeply entrenched roots?

For the first time in my life, I will be leaving the Seattle area with no specific plans to return. It's bittersweet. I feel like I'm finally making the decision I've probably needed to make for awhile to pursue my career, but a big reason why I haven't made this decision before is because I know what I will be leaving behind.

I don't actually know if or when I will return to Seattle. This will be the longest I have been away, and will be the first time I have chosen to leave with no concrete plans to return and no place to return to. I guess many people have this experience much earlier in life, picking everything up and moving to a new place, but for me it's new. True, when I am out of the country my "permanent" address will be a Washington address, but it will not be mine. It will not be a place I have ever lived. And yes, I will still own possessions that will remain in Washington. But for the first time in my life, I will not actually be a resident of Washington State.

I have lived at several addresses in the greater Seattle area, and even lived overseas temporarily (only for a few months at a time). But my permanent home has always been in the Seattle area. Even while I have been away for months at a time, family in Washington has been responsible for my belongings, I've always had a valid Washington State driver's license, and I always knew this was home and I had my own bed that I could to return to at any time.

It's hard to articulate how I feel about not having a home in Seattle anymore. On one hand, I feel confident that I am making the right decision personally and professionally. But on the other hand, I have been extremely fortunate to come from a great place and have wonderful friends here in Seattle. I will miss them fiercely. I hope I will be back someday, and I hope they will stick with me despite distance. But I know that nothing stays the same, and I know there are no guarantees.

One thing that makes this move monumental for me is the amount of time I have spent intentionally getting rid of belongings so I won't have to store them when I move. Since my mom died in 2006, I have been sorting through boxes (of her things, my own, my grandparents'...) and deciding what to keep and what to get rid of. At 23, with 3 huge storage units, it was overwhelming. It has felt like a project that will never end. But 11 years down the road, and with a rapidly approaching deadline, I am starting to feel like I'm getting there. At almost 34, I feel better able to determine what items I will want to have in my life moving forward, and more confident that I will not have any regret about the things I have gotten rid of. It's a nice feeling that despite a lot of unknowns in my future, this is a concrete way that I can progress toward where I want to be.

My favorite band, Switchfoot, wrote a song on their recent album that is about being evacuated from fires in Southern California, and there are a couple of lyrics from that song really capture my current thinking: 

Left it all behind us
What we need will find us

There's a fire coming that we all go through
You possess your possessions or they possess you

I got everything I need, yeah

My grandparents all lived through the Great Depression, and my parents believed in being frugal and not getting rid of things that could come in handy someday. I've had to learn that it is ok to get rid of things. Although I can't imagine the luxury of being able to get rid of anything that "doesn't bring you joy" (KonMari method), I have learned from friends and my past travels that I really don't need too much stuff to live happily. I have learned that I can live just fine without many things, and if I really do need something I can usually find/afford it. I don't want to be possessed by possessions. I want to trust that I what I need will find me.

Letting go of "stuff" is a tangible representation of the letting go I have been doing of my city, my home, my community, the familiar. I suppose it's good, actually, to have a visible, touchable way to acknowledge the huge change I am making. If I didn't have this process of decision-making and giving away belongings, maybe it would be harder to comprehend such a big life change.

Oh, cool! ... Where is that?

"Oh, cool! ... Where is that?"

That's probably the most common response I have gotten when people find out I am going to Moldova. To be fair, there's not a lot of reason the people around me should have heard of Moldova. When I was in school learning geography, Moldova was still part of the USSR and we didn't necessarily learn about the individual Soviet republics. And most of us didn't study the geography of the breakup of the USSR. And also, Eastern Europe is really really far away from Seattle, and frankly doesn't really impact our daily lives here. Before learning that I would be going to Moldova, I only knew of it because I have previously visited Romania and Ukraine (so I had been warned about the breakaway region of Transnistria), and because there were two brothers from Moldova who worked for my previous employer. So I knew the location, and I knew that people in Moldova speak both Russian and Romanian. But other than that...

So, where is Moldova? It's a small country surrounded by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. It's landlocked (what is this coastal girl going to do?!), but has rivers and not-too-difficult access (I think!) to the Black Sea. (I hope to have a chance to find out!)

What I have learned about Moldova so far is that it has beautiful natural scenery, Soviet architecture, good food (I discovered my love of mămăligă when I visited Romania a decade ago), an appreciation of ballet and badminton (my faves!). I'm looking forward to learning a lot more about Moldova in the coming months.

The second most common response I have heard from friends who find out I am going to Moldova is, "I'm going to come visit you!" Please do! I would love to be able to share my experience with you there in person, as well as via this blog.

Photos found via Google search