6. I miss this.

One of the great joys of living in Moldova is fresh fruit and vegetables. A tomato here makes what we have at home unworthy of the name. Our tomatoes at home are giant, water-filled, and tasteless balloons by comparison. Now, before I go on, I am not trying to advocate any all organic diet, or go on some diatribe about how “processed” everything we eat is. I frankly am not that bothered by it, and as friends and family can probably attest, if it’s edible, I will eat it. I fully understand the reasons in terms of price, convenience, transport, etc that goes into American fruits and vegetables. No, I simple want to say how delicious fresh fruits and veggies are. What a simple pleasure a fresh peach or tomato can be. I will truly miss this about Moldova, as I feel most volunteers will. Buying 2.2 lb (1kg) of peaches for under a dollar is a habit that will be hard to give up back in the states. However, the other side of the coin is that seasons can be fleeting. Sometimes mere weeks is all you get of one type of fruit or vegetable. Then, you wait again until next year, or hope some import from Greece or Turkey shows up in the capital. This post is just a simple lament. Winter has come and with it a steady diet of potatoes, pasta, meat, more potatoes, pickled veggies which just taste uniformly like vinegar (even the pickled watermelon), more potatoes, maybe some fried eggs, and finally potatoes.

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