Every morning when we leave our apartment for work we are confronted with the reality that we’re living in the poorest country in Europe. When you glance out the door from the bottom of our stairwell you can see the bins where people search each day (no exaggeration) for something to live off. Then there are the two shipping containers that people have turned into something they call home, kept level by a few concrete blocks under each corner. These containers get moved with no questions asked if a truck needs to get through for the new apartments being built; there is no sense of an invasion of privacy here. We can see all of this before we even step foot out of our building.

As you make your way up the hill towards the bus, you always pass innumerable stray dogs (probably the ones that keep us awake nearly every night with their barking), and then pass an older lady or two who are slugging along an old dirty bag filled with ‘valuables’ found in the bins. It must pay off to get to the bins in the morning, as the early risers are the ones you see with bags filled of empty alcohol bottles.

The footpaths we walk on are completely uneven and cracked, and you have to make sure you don’t fall down one of the uncovered manholes. Word has it that the iron caps are valuable, so they are often stolen. Either that or they are so poorly made they just break.

And then there are the things we have grown used to now and have to think about before we mention them to people. Like the roads not having lines, bottoms of trees painted white, goats at some street corners, drunk men in the streets, continual presence of the defense force (one year’s service is compulsory for all young men), and young kids making their own way to school without anyone to watch over them.

There are times when we do things here that make us think we could be anywhere in Europe, but then there is the daily morning walk to remind us of the reality.

To say infrastructure development has been limited since the fall of Communism in the early 1990s would be a massive understatement.  Effectively, one government walked in and left a nation to fend for itself, form a new government and take over the running of the country.  A period of transition that is as common as bread and butter in the West, was non-existent in the newly independent Republic of Moldova.  The ramifications of this are huge.

If you were suddenly a political leader in your nation, how would you start?  Where would you place resources?  What would be the effects of focussing on urban development or rural development?  How would you structure a public health care system?  Transport network?  And what would your social policy look like?  Economic policy?  Environment policy?  Immigration policy?  Which aspects would you choose to focus on first or just leave out all together because there are too many other pressing matters to deal with?

And in the mean time, how many elderly have died because of a lack of care?  Children abandoned by their parents because of a lack of employment opportunities?  Teachers walking off the job because they failed to be paid for months on end?  Doctors recycling syringes because supplies are exhausted?

Given the circumstances, perhaps it’s less surprising that the country remains the poorest in Europe.

Yet that’s not to say that the task at hand is any easier.  For me, the impending question is what is the role of a Non-Government Organisation in this?  And how can an NGO work most effectively?

After taking in the luxury of waking at a leisurely time on the first morning in our own apartment (and getting used to the fact that no-one would walk into the room at any minute!), I sat down to a hot coffee and fresh bread for breakfast.  The reality still hadn’t really set in that we were finally in our own place.  After reflecting about how long we’d had to wait to get here and the challenges of living at the OM office for over 4 months, I reminded myself of how much we deserved this place – a good reward for our hard work and sacrifice.

Yet as I walked into our bedroom and looked out the window, I was struck by the sight of a middle-aged woman searching through the garbage bins.  After sipping the dregs in the bottom of a few bottles, she continued searching and was obviously looking for something in particular.  Eventually coming across a small piece of paper, I wondered to myself about the purpose of something so common.  Making her way to the back of the bins and looking to the left and right, before checking a second time, she then lowered her pants and bent down to go to the toilet.  Behind the bins, right outside our apartment.

And suddenly it struck me that I was here, thinking about how hard our last few months had been, and that this woman has probably lived a life of hardship beyond anything I could comprehend.

To be honest, I didn’t know what to do.  Should I go and offer her my breakfast?  Invite her into our new home? Leave a loaf of bread in the bin each week to avoid humiliation? Simply go down and say hello?

And I wondered how many others live exactly like her, from this same bin.  And from other bins all around Chișinău.

While resources are poured into enabling free wireless internet in central park, people all over the city are living from scraps in a bin.

What does it take for someone to treat a jar of peanut butter like a treasured gift? Perhaps it was the first step of opening our hearts and lives up to God to do whatever He wanted us to do. Maybe it was when, unknowingly, we committed ourselves to the biggest challenge we’ve ever taken on in our lives. Could it have been when we had to give up the securities of home and say goodbye to family and friends? Or was it during the past few weeks, when each day has seemed to get that bit harder?

What does it take for someone to treat a jar of peanut butter like a treasured gift? Perhaps it was the first step of opening our hearts and lives up to God to do whatever He wanted us to do. Maybe it was when, unknowingly, we committed ourselves to the biggest challenge we’ve ever taken on in our lives. Could it have been when we had to give up the securities of home and say goodbye to family and friends? Or was it during the past few weeks, when each day has seemed to get that bit harder?

Whatever the cause, a jar of peanut butter as a simple gift from a group of American volunteers brought a boost of encouragement to help us get through the challenges in front of us. Their thoughtfulness of buying it, carrying it with them, and actually bringing enough for most of us on the team to get a jar was truly touching.

Maybe a jar of peanut butter is just one of the simplicities in life that we usually overlook in our busy, stressful lives. When we can buy whatever we want, eat whatever we choose, spend our time doing whatever we fancy, care for people whenever we feel like it, and live wherever we like, why would we appreciate something so small? After all, it’s just a jar of peanut butter.

Or do we need to reach the point where we give up everything that makes us comfortable, so that we can be humbled and actually be joyful in receiving such a simple gift?

As I sit here and write, the birds are chirping, the sun is shining, leaves are blooming and the air is filled with sounds of those living a quiet village life. There is something cosy about being in this place, in the middle of nowhere in rural Moldova.

The drive from Chisinau wound us from bitumen roads in a bustling city, to dirt roads over rolling hills in paddocks showing the first signs of next season’s growth. Agriculture is people’s livelihoods – if you don’t plant you don’t eat.

Yet even in farming there are disparities growing and it makes you wonder how the poorer Moldovans will ever keep us with the Jones’s. A local farmer pointed out the new tractor someone has just got from Italy, and then explained how someone has recently been to Holland twice to bring back amazing machinery for getting the water from the dam to the paddocks (an irrigation system that most farmers in Australia would now take as a given).

Arriving at the house (where we’ll be based for the week), we were greeted by a couple of cows, chickens and turkeys galore, plenty of pigs, old machinery pilled up in the back yard, an outhouse that most of us would usually turn their noses up at, and decomposing compost that hasn’t quite made it to the right place.

However, we were also greeted by an incredibly generous family and two of their five children, who welcomed us into their home and have volunteered to feed eight of us all week and have five of the boys stay each night. We couldn’t have eaten more at lunch if we tried and already know that later today there will be more food, hot drinks and home-made juice on the table ready for us. Here is a family that clearly does not have extra resources to go an buy something to make their lives that little bit easier (like an extra piece of farming machinery that would make such a difference) yet they have opened their home entirely and are displaying generosity and true love that many people never experience.

While we may have to put up with some of the harder aspects of being in rural Moldova this week, it really does feel like an honour to experience such hospitality and be around people who truly know what life’s all about.

We wake up today feeling somewhat tired – almost ready for another night’s sleep really. Woke up several times during the night from the baby crying and our ‘anti-posturpedic’ bed, but despite the tiredness, we’re ready to take on another day full of surprises and new challenges. Last night our dreams were made up of a concoction of Australian and Romanian culture, and we used a hand full of our Romanian vocabulary that had been floating around in our heads from the previous day.

We immediately attend to our morning chores, firstly transforming our bedroom back into the family’s living room, followed by a nice strong black coffee and last night’s leftovers for breaky. It’s a great experience living with a Moldovan family and it provides a real insight into Moldovan life – especially when you have a 1-year-old and 6-year-old roaming around the house. We boil a big pot of water on the stove, and use an old sheep’s cheese container to throw water over our heads to wash ourselves – a process which we undertake 2 times a week..we try and wash ourselves thoroughly!

It’s nice to take the short stroll from our temporary apartment to the bus stop. With the morning’s strong black coffee sinking in and the briskness of the morning air on our faces we are finally completing the process of waking up. Vadul Lui Voda is a lovely little town, but it’s said to be very touristy in the summer – we soak up the peace and quite while we’re here. We’re not really sure how long we’ll have to wait for the bus, so we get there with plenty of time up our sleeve. It’s 7:30 am as we wait for the next Rotiera, which we wave down as it approaches 20 minutes later. It’s one system we’re really learning to appreciate in Moldova – the buses will stop anywhere on the side of the road, as long as we’re on their route. On the down side, it’s not uncommon for these 12 seater mini buses to be filled to the max – sometimes up to 24 people!

After a 30 minute bus ride, taking in the beautiful scenery composed of soft rolling hills stretched out with bare vineyards as far as the eye can see, we jump off the bus and are immediately greeted with the busy and bustling markets in Chisinau. The sky, along with the many buildings, are grey and gloomy at this time of the year, but we soak in the brightness of market stalls which liven the atmosphere. We stop by at our favorite stall where we grab our daily fresh sultana muffin and spurt out the few Romanian words we know. The fresh smell of vegetables, along with a typical market scent which can only be experienced to understand, reminds us that we’re not in our own country. We dodge a few carts and plow our way through the busy and bustling markets to out next stop.

After catching a second bus to the office, our 1 1/2 hour trip to work is nearly complete. Not every morning begins with a team devotion, but it’s nice to begin the working day this way. On completion of the devotion, we wait until our language teacher is ready and get stuck into an intense language lesson, which lasts for 1 1/2 hours each. Vocab, grammar, reading, speaking…you name it, we study the works, and by the end of the lesson we’re exhausted.

As we wander into the office kitchen to prepare lunch, we have a quick chat with a couple of team members and laugh about funny events from the previous day. There is always some new adventure to talk about at the moment so it certainly provides us with topics for conversation.

The afternoon will be filled with Romanian homework, practice and completing odd jobs (such as sorting out visa issues, working out money for our budget, catching up with the personal department etc.) so we grab another coffee for an added afternoon boost.

Before we know it, it’s time to repeat the morning’s travel ritual, which will see us back with our host family by about 6.30pm. After a game of cards with the 6-year-old and the Taboo/Charades equivalent of trying to explain what each of us did during the day, a meal of fish, bread and soup is ready to keep us going until tomorrow.

By 10pm we are well and truly ready to get to bed, so we start transforming the lounge back into our bedroom before getting to bed by about 10.30pm.

Another day has passed …

As part of the application process for a residency visa, we were required to get a health check done in the hospital system here. Now we should make it clear first up that hospitals most definitely do not work the same here as in Australia, and neither does the idea of a queue, the concept of using a computer system, or the simple process of actually checking your real health status. To explain things further, we would like to take you on a tour of our last two days.

Step One: Find the only registered hospital in Chisinau which can conduct the official health check for anyone wanting a residency visa for Moldova, or for any Moldovan wanting to apply for a visa for another country. To give you an idea of what we’re looking for, it’s a big unkept building with no sign out the front, which will give you a stark reminder of photos you have seen in school from any Communist country in the 1950s.

Step Two: Find door #8 and ask “Who is the last in line?”. You can then ‘queue’ behind this person (who may easily be holding a place for 8 other people) in the corridor for about one hour. For the first time in our lives we actually think Preps aren’t so bad at lining up after all – this is no exaggeration.

Step Three: Find door #12 because even though you were told to wait at door #8, it wasn’t really the right place. Repeat Step Two. The nurse will then fill in 3 different pieces of paper, one of which needs 10-12 different doctor’s stamps on it.

Step Four: Make your way around the hospital by following Step Two, avoiding any nurse who may be carrying open vials of blood. After you’ve seen 3-4 doctors who mostly ask “Are you normal?” and getting their stamp, it’s time to visit the Gynecologist (well as least for the females!). To give you the same advice we were, it’s simply a matter of them ‘checking’ to make sure you really are a female. No idea why they don’t do the same to males?! However this may be a much simpler process as it was for Jessie, where the doctor asks, “Do you have any problems?” – it’s not like I was going to say “Yes” was I?

Step Five: Repeat Step Two outside yet another door. Get a HIV blood test and pray like mad your blood type doesn’t change from A+ to HIV+.

Step Six: Visit the Psychologist. This is a really difficult stamp to get as we were again asked “Are you normal?” and then tapped on the knee to check our reflexes. All 3 of us who were there actually faked our knee reaction for fear of what would happen if our leg didn’t move, which seemed to do the trick.

Step Seven: Deliver your stool sample…no, not urine, stool. As we experienced, this sample may be rejected because it’s in the wrong container. You will have to go to the pharmacy, buy the right container and bring it back the next day. This is a very important procedure (we have no idea what they checked, if they checked anything at all)!

Step Eight: Return the next day to collect results (repeat Step Two at each different door) and be complimented by doctors who say just how healthy you are. Get 4-5 more stamps and wait outside the Chief’s office for the final and most important stamp.

Step Nine: Leave the hospital being assured of your clean bill of health, despite the fact that you may have a really bad cold, no doctors will have looked in your mouth, checked your blood pressure, done a urine test, looked in your ears or eyes, checked your heart rate or checked your height and weight.