100th Post!

Work work work today. First of all, woke up to amazing weather. Really sunny in my bedroom when I opened my eyes after dreaming about Paris Hilton befriending my sister, while Nikki Hilton showed me her art, which was mostly clay figurines of caterpillars and wall art of dripping green and purple paint. I got up about an hour after opening my eyes, BECAUSE I CAN, and went to Tamara's for Romanian. We gossiped a little, okay a lot, mostly about marriage; who was, and wasn't, falling for the trick. I then went to meet with my counterpart about Women's Week 2008, which is last-minutely being planned, as to be expected out here, but being planned nonetheless. We reviewed what was done so far and then I went to confirm times with a couple of women who were involved with the week. First, the Librarian, and then, the Director of Culture.

The latter and I have a bit of a history; last year, the Director of Culture and I had an interesting introduction. I had started planning Women's Week with my counterparts, the women's rights NGO who invited me to town, and everything seemed to go as planned, until the Director of Culture flipped that no one had asked her about Women's Week, and how could we plan something without her involvement!? Additionally, she went on to say, how can there be a foreigner (yours truly) planning something without HER approval, and who did this foreigner think she was!? When I heard about this I did what anyone would do; I went to go formally meet her, on her birthday, with presents. The day I came, she wasn't in, but I left the gifts anyways. Later that week, at a Women's Week event, we finally met; she hugged and kissed me and was oh so happy to finally have met me.

This year, today, I went to her office for time confirmations, and today was, coincidentally, her birthday. After discussing times with her, I was invited for coffee. I obliged and was lead into a room. There was a large table covered with food, booze, and around it sat all the men who work in the local government, save for the president himself. They were all celebrating her birthday. She sat me at the table telling the men she found another woman to decorate her birthday with. Upon seeing me, the men became extremely uncomfortable, with a couple of them barely looking me in the eyes. Ashamed they were caught drinking on a Monday afternoon by the wholesome American volunteer, the room grew silent. The Vice-President, looking down at his plate, ash from his cigarette dropping, asked how I was doing. Lightheartedly I replied, great, y'know, working working. He then excused himself explaining he had a lot of work to get done today, and left, while the other men shifted in their seats between speaking Moldovan, and Russian for me (though they all know I understand Moldovan.) Finally, the birthday girl, the director, ordered for one of the men to poor me cognac, wine, vodka... "Amy, what would you like?" Knowing I should say "just juice" because I have aerobics today, I said vodka, if only to lighten the tension in the room. Immediately the men relaxed, relieved that even the Americanca understood unwinding mid-day on a Monday.

I stuck around for about an hour, getting tipsy with the Director and the men. The conversations were actually pretty nice; because all of the men knew me, I didn't need to answer questions proving myself. Mostly, we just talked about the differences of our countries, the elections, and their country's history- the usual table conversations when I'm around. When I excused myself, the Director thanked me for coming, saying "it's not a birthday until an American is at your table." To work off my buzz, I went walking through town in the nice weather I woke up to, gabbing with Misha on my cellphone about all the gossip I had for the day, and then went home to write all about it in my blog.