6th May 2012.
Dear All,
John Law and I survived another trip to Moldova where the weather was seriously hot and they understand the true meaning of the word drought. The temperature in the shade was mid 30s and when we moved the thermometer to full sun it rose to 52°C. In addition the SW region has not had rain for several months so water is a huge issue.
As ever there were encouraging signs as well as a few set backs. We had been discussing piping one of the springs in the hills to the village for about 6 years and now it is underway. A huge ex winery tank has been towed to the hills to act as a reservoir and we paid for 2 km pipes to connect to the village so hopefully that will be connected within 2 weeks.
Dear All,
John Law and I survived another trip to Moldova where the weather was seriously hot and they understand the true meaning of the word drought. The temperature in the shade was mid 30s and when we moved the thermometer to full sun it rose to 52°C. In addition the SW region has not had rain for several months so water is a huge issue.
As ever there were encouraging signs as well as a few set backs. We had been discussing piping one of the springs in the hills to the village for about 6 years and now it is underway. A huge ex winery tank has been towed to the hills to act as a reservoir and we paid for 2 km pipes to connect to the village so hopefully that will be connected within 2 weeks.
Water tank and pipeline
Our star grower Oleg in whom we invested a 30’ poly tunnels last year has it up and working and produced decent data from last years trials. He is however short of water and we further invested in a 60 m deep well.
Oleg’s tunnel
The local church had arranged for a Romanian acting group to stage a multimedia outreach presentation in the former Communist Cultural Centre and 250 people turned
Out. We managed another growers training day and 38 attended.
We took large quantities of Lego this time mainly for the Street Children’s project and this was a big hit with the old as well as the young.
Lego
As usual we tried to visit all the local growers who have ex NIAB tunnels and managed to distribute over 1500 packets of seed.
Other projects that came up were plans for a small shop in Chisinau to ensure fairer prices for the growers, a 3 ha walnut project and planted trees on the river floodplain to prevent erosion.
As John is planning to lead a photographic trip to Moldova next year we visited a couple of extra potentially photogenic places: Transneistra and their version of the “Grand Canyon”. The Transneistra situation is thawing a bit and certainly not as sinister as when I visited 15 years ago. There are still 3 border check points and a few places where you cannot take photos but far less Russian soldiers and less Kalashnikovs in evidence.
The Grand Canyon is their no.1 tourist attraction, it is a large U shaped limestone valley with a monastery in caves and attractive villages.
Transneistra war memorial
The Grand Canyon
I arrived back Thursday evening to find the bottom of the garden under water and every where decidedly soggy.
Esther, Mary-Ann and Amélie have been up for the weekend to help celebrate Kate’s 65th birthday. Andy is due this afternoon and Ben is in Nicaragua.
love
Mike & Kate
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