This was perhaps our favorite day in Moldova. We woke up and made a beeline for the ethnographic museum. Beautifully composed, with a wide variety of exhibits, it was definitely a museum we are glad we visited. The only English speaking docent was an elderly woman with snow white hair who was quite excited to practice her English with us. A few minutes into our conversation, she looked at us sideways, and said:
Docent: "I am Ju-dee."
Katie: "I'm Katie, nice to meet you!"
Docent: "No, no, no. YE-HU-DI?"
Katie: "Yehudi? Gam anachnu?" ("Jew? Us too!")
Bella, AKA Ju-dee, started laughing so hard she was crying. We proceeded to utilize our hard earned Hebrew in the middle of the exhibit about extinct Moldovan birds, in the middle of the FSU, with a museum docent old enough to be our grandmother.
We spent the rest of the day catching up on our blog, making plans for our grand exit of Moldova, and helping set up for Shabbat dinner. This involved fifteen people crammed around a table for six, with enough food for eight. Somehow, it worked. I was reminded of the chair cramming, portion-cutting Shabbat dinners of our undergrad days.
To our surprise, an American studying Yiddish history and ethnography was at the table. Sebastian was a straight up font of knowledge about the FSU, something that we are both embarrassingly ignorant about. We picked his brain about Chisinau, Moldova, the FSU, the state of Yiddish in global Jewish culture, and what can be done to revive Jewish communities in the States. Once more, we stayed up far too late, but it was entirely worth it. Thankfully, Sebastian is going to be finishing up his PhD coursework in Bloomington, so we should be seeing more of him shortly.
Looking good :-)
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