Ode to the cheese lady

I said farewell to my coworkers at Transparency today. I felt a little sad and walked across the city - still pretty warm, although cloudy. I started thinking about all of the people that played a role in my life the past 15 months. One in particular sprung to mind, and I may not see her again - the cheese lady at Nomber 1.

The stores here (especially the smaller "magazines") are all staffed by extremely friendly shopkeepers and everything is behind the counter - so you have to make requests for anything you want to buy from cheese to gum to beer. At Nomber 1, the store contains several different staffed sections. Last spring I started getting cheese for lunch (yes, very exciting diet). Once a week I would go to the counter (often waiting and sucking it in as impatient customers tried to navigate the narrow aisle clogged with cheap coffee mug trinket displays) say "Hi! How are you?" to which the cheese lady would say - shocked - "ok," "I'm listening," or "how much do you want" half of the time (which was better than the other half whe she pretended like she didn't understand me). I'd just usuall reply with a hearty "Give me 300 grams of gouda, please!" I reached a turning point this summer after about 6 months of this exchange on a fairly regular basis. One day, she actually said that work was long that day and she was looking forward to going home. Over the next few months, she would ask what I was doing in Moldova, where I was from, and how I was (in between "would you like your cheese cut?"). It came to a point where she would actually smile when she saw me coming up to the counter.

I don't know if she got reassigned or found a new job or what, but I haven't seen her for several weeks. Where ever you are cheese lady, good luck and thanks for the customer service.

For those of you wondering about sapogi

A paper about sapogi in Moldova here.

я тебя люблю, москва* (in light of the "Golden" Arches big mac index)

This summer, while traveling, my dad was especially fascinated by the price of Big Mac's in different cities in Europe (thankfully, we never ate at a McDonald's). Our sample consisted of:

Rome: 8 Euros ($12ish at the time)
Paris: 7 Euros ($10ish)
Bern: 18 SF (about 15 bucks)

I can now proudly add Moscow and St. Petersburg (same price). The cities may seem less expensive now as a result of the stronger dollar...but it's not that much more.

In fact, if you eat at McDonald's, it's comparable to a mid sized city in the US and quite a bit cheaper than the rest of Europe!

Moscow: 61 Rubles ($2.20!!!!)

*the lyrics from a strange song that you can hear on the radio, in the gym, at a club, or booming from a lada (note that I don't necessarily condone skimpy maid outfits, soldiers at discos, or scary mascot like cats playing the piano)

The costs of answering your phone in Moldova (Nights and Weekends FREE)

I just got back from Russia. In a theater in Moscow, Serj and I were enjoying a comedy of errors show when the person's phone in front of me rang (a bizarre Star Wars laser sound with a high pitched voice in english saying "answer your phone! answer your phone!"). Obediently listening to her phone's counsel, she bent over and covered her mouth and quite noticeably began talking nonchalantly to her friend - weather, a boy, a bar, a party on friday. After about a minute, she said she's in the theater and should probably go.

I felt my eyes were lasers in the back of her head the whole time (plus trying to follow her Russian was entertaining), but quickly realized I was the only one that seemed annoyed. Upon further reflection, I've realized this phenomenon is a regional occurrence. In Moldova - at the Opera, students in my class, baba's at the theater, my Russian teacher, people during interviews, dates, participants in academic conferences place a very high value on incoming calls. What are the costs (and opportunity costs) and benefits to answering your cell phone here (especially considering caller id and voicemail make the costs of calling back fairly low)?

Costs of answering:

• Interrupting and taking attention away from the show or person you're talking to/teaching/dining with/kissing
• The weight of the social opprobrium for interrupting (seemingly relatively low)
• Losing your focus
• Showing the person you're with that you value their time less than the person's on the phone

Benefits of answering:

• Showing the person calling that you value them
• Getting information very quickly
• taking care of business now instead of later
• Avoiding the opportunity cost of not answering. OR the cost of not answering the first time is very high - either very disrespectful or very costly (in cultural terms, time, or money) to call back
• When they call you, they pay but if you call back you have to pay
  

Miscellanea that I'm not sure where to place:

• Perhaps callers are very close acquaintances (life long friendship, etc.)
  
• Since the person calling doesn't know you're social context, you should be understanding
• acknowledging the cost that the person is taking by calling you (receiving calls are free here)
  

It seems to me that the opportunity cost of not answering is very high - potentially for respect and status reasons, but also as a result of the cost structure of calls. Furthermore, perhaps interruptions are more tolerable, especially when everyone shares your values on the importance of answering incoming calls. What do you think? Any Moldovans care to comment?

In the movie or opera, the added disultility of your 15 second hunched over conversation multiplied by the 100 people that hear you (1500 seconds of disutility) prolly outweighs your gain (and the 10 cents or so to call them back) of telling your friend, that no, you cannot go to Star Trek right now or that, yes mom, I am full of placinte and I have my wool socks on and no it's not snowing in the theater.

Хappy Xэллоуин

ROFL

The golden leaves continue to grace everything with a shiny crispness - at least until the determined and efficient babushkas with their little wick brooms get to them. Also, all of the happy youngins (seriously, in developing countries the age of marriage is on average about 5 -6 years younger then in developed countries) are feverishly marrying and keeping us awake with the honking of the wedding parties - before it gets too cold for such celebrations. The number of limousines here continues to dumbfound me, especially in light of the per capita GDP for Moldova. From the weekend (notice the backup of limos at the central cathedral):


After my class on Wednesday, I was approached by three students from last semester. They did not pass. After a little arm wrestling with the dean (I emphatically stated that I would love for them to take the class again to work on their english), I relented and told her I would give them the final again (if you recall, it wasn't real difficult). After more or less giving them the answers after about an hour of awkward socractic questioning and group work, they passed the test (after all, I'm not here to ruin kids' academic careers...although I may have been doing the other students a disfavor). However, none of these darlings managed to do the final project (1/3 of their grade) and as a result were still failing (odd, considering none of them came to a single class). I told them to meet me in two days at THE monument and they would have two minutes to present a paper they wrote about a problem in Moldova and their solution using basic economic principles.

The best place in town for a final presentation...

One young lady was reading a chapter from an english book about corruption and she read me the definitions of several terms including tips, bribes, and perks. She informed me that if her hair stylist gave her a good cut she would give her a perk in return (surprisingly, I kept my mouth shut about massage parlors, happy endings, and other perks ). I asked her if I should give my hair stylist a perk/tip. She said no. How saddening. What's wrong with this?

I'm thankful she put me into a playful mood. The last student announced that her topic was bribes, government, and asymmetric information. I said "Excellent! That's my milieu" she nervously smiled and continued. I thought that sounded like an awfully familiar title. I took a glance at her paper - a huge feya smile spread across my face. I thought I should let her keep going, it was nice hearing someone else read your writing! At the end I asked if she wrote it. She said yes. I said are you sure. She said yes. Lost in translation?

• Waking up early after retro night at Club Studio: Mildly annoying
• Skipping breakfast because you want to be on time: Mild hunger rumbles
• Taking a shortcut through a bus stop on your bike and realizing Moldovans don't really care if you're on a bike or not: eye opening
• Listening to a student unapologetically plagiarizing you as her teacher: Priceless.

Property rights in Nomber 1?

Recently, I've began to try and do my grocery shopping on Saturday to free up more time during the week for... important things like teaching and working. Today, I happily strolled across the two parks on the way to Sun City - singing La Lune de Paris and skipping like Gavroche through Parisian streets. The weather compelled me to enjoy the crispness of the the fall air and the trickle of leaves (unfortunately, when I got home I realized my maw for hair snatched some out of the air and decoratively half concealed half displayed the gold and red leaves). Having flipped through my worn cooking for dummies book (replete with shriveled pages from spilled cocoa powder butter mixes, bechamel sauces, and the sweat and love and tears - mostly - of not knowing what you're doing) and compiled my shopping list on a flash card (strange how I'm not using these to study russian) for stir fry and ribs and other random pantry items.

Navigating the little mini cart (they strike me because all four wheels spin unlike in the States where only the front ones do) through the overly narrow aisle, my first stop was the oil aisle. Wedged between the bakery outpost and the perpetually popular prepared foods deli section, I snatched up some sunflower oil and headed towards the produce. Here, even my child sized cart couldn't navigate the half filled crates, determined babushkas, and lady who was 40ish and definitely shouldn't have been wearing that much makeup or that short of a skirt. After I carefully chose some not squishy mini cucumbers (Moldovans for some reason are scared of gargantuan American GMO cucumbers), I was waiting in line for the cheerful clerk to weigh my cucs and stick the bar code on the cutely wrapped bundle. Glancing towards the asian foods, I noticed a guy peering intently in my cart. To my great surprise, he bent over and took the bottle of oil out of my cart and walked off!!!! I mean, I don't think that was a theft, since I really didn't own it, BUT I made the effort to navigate the bristling line radiating from the deli and pick up the cheapest bottle (by 25 bani). I hadn't bought it yet, but I had invested time and effort and a potentially ruptured lumbar bending to the lowest shelf to retrieve it. I started wondering - where do property rights start and where do they end? Maybe it's more of a social convention, but I assumed that if it's in the cart, it's yours.