3rd May 2010

3rd May 2010.

Dear All,

We have just completed another successful trip to Moldova. The preparation was a bit fraught with the volcano ash threatening the flight so we were not sure how psyched up to be until we were actually airborne. This time there were three of us: John Law, Chris Chanter from Southampton and myself and for the first time we flew direct to Chisnau via Bucharest instead of travelling overland from Romania. The other two had trouble in the transit customs in Bucharest and for a time I thought I might be in Moldova on my own!



Chisnau flats

In Chisnau we stayed with a new family who were friends of our translator Igor. On Saturday we shopped for seed and travelled to Leover where CEEM supports 2 pastors. Leover used to have 90,000 inhabitants in communist times this has shrunk to 15,000 with emigration and resembles a ghost town. We then finally arrived at Burlacu where we have the agricultural project and were due to stay the week. All three were housed in one small room which was cosy! But as usual the welcome was warm and fantastic. We took the service Sunday am and there was a 40th birthday picnic in the hills in the pm.
On Monday we measured up the field they had hired for experiments and we had to apply fertilizer to a hectare by hand. This was cultivated in by a contractor and then we drilled 4 maize varieties on 75% of the field, and hand broadcast large plots of Lucerne and red clover. Next day we filled in the rest of the field with 48 different grass and clover plots so we had a flying start and finished the field work by Tuesday lunchtime. A family from St Neots, who had raised money for Moldova arrived en route for Australia overland with a Land Rover, caravan and 2 small children. They




Picnic

were able to see how the money was being spent at the school and the children joined in classes for the day. The locals made them very welcome and fed them for the rest of the week.
On Wednesday we sowed vegetable seeds and visited some of the growers who had received tunnels and they all seemed to be using them very constructively.
Our highlight was a training seminar for the local growers on Wednesday afternoon. We were helped by a Moldovan grower and Christian called Daniel Apostu who gave two excellent talks on “Using your tunnels” and “Using your garden for profit”. In between I gave a talk about “UK Vegetable growing and seed production”. We were due to start at 4.00 pm when about 7 people were present, we eventually started at 4.45 pm when 38 were present.



Burlacu mechanisation

Thursday we went to Cahul to visit the vegetable market while John visited the local Baptist supervisor. After we travelled to Hiratop to see the 4th pastor Oleg who is by far the best grower, he had tomatoes almost ready and does a great job employing local lads without jobs.



Oleg

We travelled back to Chisnau on Thursday evening and rose at 3 am to travel back, I was just in time to help prepare the wicket for the first match of the season.
After it has been a birthday series Donna’s 40th Saturday, Bob’s 60th Sunday and today we have been to Hutton to celebrates Kate’s birthday with Esther, Mary-Ann and Ben including a good walk in the “Swan and Cygnet Wood” at Stock.

Love

Mike & Kate