Moldova adventure is 20 years old

Twenty years.

That’s an anniversary ahead of me in January.

And it’s startling to contemplate.

Because it feels like yesterday.

That’s what happens when you get older. Memory comes together like a concertina squeezed by invisible hands.

Things that happened just last year turn out, upon reflection, to have occurred 10 years ago, or 15, or 20.

How did that happen? How did our lives speed up and our memories contract so much?

I’ll leave that one for you to figure out.

All I know is that 20 years ago this January, my wife, our youngest daughter, and I set off on an incredible adventure.

Twenty years ago — or a few years more to be precise — I was fretting a little bit about the fact that I would soon be 50.

Today, looking back, 50 looks like the first blush of youth. At the time, it seemed like a grim mile marker on the road to oblivion.

What would my life mean at 50? I wondered. Would my life have mattered?

That’s a pretty heavy thought, but looking back it also seems callow. Approaching 50, I was in many ways a kid. At least, that’s the way it looks with 70 on the not-that-distant horizon.

So, faced with the classic mid-life crisis, what did I do? Buy a little red sports car? Get a girlfriend half my age and cheat on my wife? Nope.

I applied for a Fulbright.

In those early, early years before the internet, the process involved things like pencil and paper and phone calls.

Usually, applying for a Fulbright is about a 15- to 18-month experience. My case was different. When I started investigating the possibilities, I found that there was a list of Fulbright spots that had gone unfilled. I saw one that intrigued me and made a phone call. That spot, the woman on the phone said, had been filled.

But, she said, have you ever heard of Moldova?

I had not. Few people have.

Tell me about yourself, she said. I gave her a snapshot in about three sentences: Terminal degree a bachelor’s in English lit, 20-plus years in community journalism and a handful of other facts.

I’ll check with “the post,” our embassy in Moldova, and get back to you.

A few days later, I was putting together a rush-job application for a Fulbright and getting ready to change my life forever.

Our time in Moldova was just short of six months, a semester.

And it got off to a rocky start 20 years ago next January. We flew out of Cincinnati via Delta to Frankfurt, Germany. There we had to claim our luggage — the whole circus train of suitcases to carry us through half a year — change terminals, take a nap, then find the right ticket booth for Air Moldova to take us the last leg of the journey.

We were tired when we reached Germany. By the time we reached Moldova, we were thoroughly exhausted.

And throughout the trip, I was asking myself, “What in the world have I gotten us into?”

Upon landing in Chisinau, Moldova’s capital, we were quickly harassed by customs officials. 

I had been informed that the post-Soviet banking system in 1998 was a mess. Carry cash, lots of it, hide it in the apartment so you can pay bribes if you need to get into a hospital; not exactly reassuring advice under the circumstances.

And at customs, I had foolishly acknowledged how much money I was carrying: $10,000, nearly the entire living stipend from the Fulbright Scholarship.

“Show me,” said a gruff woman in a customs uniform.

I did, knowing immediately that it was crazy to be showing that much cash in such an impoverished country.

But we made it to our apartment safely without incident, thanks to the wonderful staff from the U.S. embassy.

The apartment was being sub-let from a Moldovan family that hoped to use the cash to buy a car. They moved in with family, while we moved into their space.

Was it comfortable? Nope. Sally slept for nearly half a year on a daybed, the mattress of which was primarily old magazines.

But we made it through.

And it seems like only yesterday.

Twenty years ago? That’s impossible.