Home in Jeloboc

On Sunday evening, October 6, Warren met us at the bus station in Orhei.

Zach with Warren at the statue of Vasile Lupu, a 17 century prince

We took the little rutiera from the city of Orhei into Piatra/Jeloboc, where Warren lives. 

Big sign for a very small village!

Right there where the bus stops at the junction between Jeloboc and Piatra is a new sign that Warren inspired the community center to put up.

The family farmhouse is about a three or four block walk from the bus stop, along a rocky dirt road. Out in the distance is a lovely view of the hills on the other side of the river. As we walk along, roosters crow, dogs bark. 

Most of the family compounds are surrounded by rock walls. 

We round a corner and Warren opens a big blue gate. 

There is instant frantic barking of three little guard dogs. They quiet down very quickly, and two approach us with wagging tails.

Warren’s host mother, Iulia, greets us in the courtyard. She is very friendly, scarf around her head, says dinner will be served as soon as Sergiu comes in from milking the cows.

Dinner was terrific. Iulia brought out a heaping platter of homemade cabbage rolls, much smaller than Polish pierogi, and cheese rolls, made with homemade cheese inside a pastry dough. 

Sergiu and his mother, Iulia

Zach looks a bit peaked here; he's got a perforated eardrum and has just been on an 8-hour bumpy bus ride. 

Julia brought out a plastic Pepsi bottle filled with homemade red wine, and kept refilling our glasses. It was just right. Sergiu, Warren’s host brother and also his work partner and boss (about Zach’s age,) brought in a huge mug of something that looked like lemonade. It was new white grape wine, just beginning to ferment! He poured this into our nearly empty red wine glasses, which gave us a beautiful pink delight. It was delicious. And then our glasses were refilled — again and again!

Here's Warren, peering into the barrel of fermenting white grapes.

Inside the barrel you can see the grapes. We drank the liquid beneath this.

Warren’s host father, Ilie, was working the night shift. We didn’t meet him until morning. (He had cabbage rolls for breakfast.) 

Here's Ilie at a wine barrel.

Enjoying the new wine. You can see how tiny the dining room is. Behind Ilie is a bed, and there's another bed behind me as I take the photo. At least three people sleep in this room at night.

Ilie's two grandsons, Marius and Liviu, live very nearby. Their mom and the boys joined us for dinner one night.

On Monday morning, after a breakfast of hot rice cereal, we took the rutiera back into Orhei so that Zach could see the doctor. Iulia came with us to help us find the place, and we were so lucky to have her! She has some connections in town, and Zach got right in to see the doc.

Alas, among many other mysterious things, the prescription included two INJECTIONS a day for 5 days. Ugh. We went to a pharmacy and purchased all the many prescribed meds. Only when we got back home to Warren’s computer could we establish that the injections were for an antibiotic. (Couldn’t they have prescribed an oral antibiotic?) Who would give the injections? Oh, our host mother’s daughter could do that for Zach. Or Zach could learn to give himself injections. But did he NEED antibiotics? Was it really a bacterial infection? Who knew? They didn’t do a culture. Hmph. 

You’ll just have to talk to Zach to get the rest of the story. (Note from his mom in case you're worried — he's lots better now, Wednesday, although not yet 100%.)

More life around the house:

Ducks hovering at the base of the wine barrel.  Note yellow mug used to bring wine into the kitchen for us.

Chickens refuse to stand still and pose. 

View from inside the outhouse. See the horse? Can the horse see me?

The action side of a cow in the barn. The inside barn door opens into the courtyard, but the cows enter through another door in the stone wall. 

At night, some of the chickens sleep in a tree right outside the upstairs room where I sleep. It's not even dark yet, but these chickens have had a long day.

There are lots and lots of chickens.

The family grows its own corn for animal feed. Warren helped with the corn harvest earlier this season, all done by hand.

As the chickens settle down for the night, we go in for our evening meal, complete with homemade wine. There is a closeness in this family, a warmth that goes beyond the tight confines of the dining room. It's good to be here, to be part of this for a few days.