daytime

Sunday, 4 May 2014

4^th May 2014.

Dear All,

I have just returned from my 10^th trip to Moldova. John Law my companion this time was on his 14^th visit and claimed it was “the best yet”. I will write a fuller account when I have time but I am sending a few photos now to give you a taste of things. We flew Moldovan Airlines and it was fine. They were more punctual than most I have been on lately but you would not recommend the inhouse refreshment – a cross between a croissant and a bread roll. Unfortunately the 2000 packets of seed that I have lovingly sorted, catalogued and dispatched by courier did not arrive by the time we had left. Arriving late Saturday night was a problem as we were due at a service in Burlacu 3 hours away at 10 am next morning. Our driver opted to deliver us that night rather than early next morning. He got back to Chisinau at 1.30 am. We were not able to change money in Chisinau and when we had the opportunity in Cahul there were 44 ahead of us in the queue and a shortage of large denomination notes.

Several of the polythene tunnels needed recovering and we were able to sort some decent polythene. The Training Day went well and the church at Burlacu are erecting a new building. We were treated very well at Burlacu and had time to walk and explore as well as plant and talk, teach English at school and help with the “Meal Deal”

Leova the town further north is much more of a challenge. The house extension we have been funding is nothing like the plans we agreed and still far from finished. They treated us to goat for breakfast. We arrived at about 4.30 pm and they said “we have a service at 7 pm” fine we thought we do not have a translator until tomorrow so that lets us off. At 6.45pm they announced: “Chris Ducker is coming to translate and you two are speaking”. In the end it went OK and we were invited to Razesi to see the Duckers community project and brand new tunnel. We stayed for lunch and met the family who all seem to be very happy.

Igor drove us back to Chisinau and as it was a (another!) holiday he was relaxed and collected his wife and daughter and took us sight seeing to the “Moldovan Grand Canyon”, their tallest monastry and a winery where we treated them to dinner.

The situation in Ukraine, particularly the deaths in Odessa created a lot of discussion in Chisinau. In Burlacu it seems a long way away as they do not have newspapers or listen to the news.

It is the best way I know of making your life seem longer!

Meanwhile Kate took a flying visit to Derbyshire meeting up with a 102 year old relative who filled her in with some of the dark secrets of family history.