RONAN KEATING WAS RIGHT

Life Is A Rollercoaster

It’s been a while since I posted a blog entry as life has been pretty hectic here in Moldova. Work has been busy over the last few weeks with organising our first Hospice Angelus Pool Tournament and a visit from 1986 European Champions Steaua Bucuresti along with local team FC Dacia Chisinau to the children of our Hospice staff which you can read about here. We also have our biggest fundraising event of the year which is the Hospice Angelus Charity Ball coming up on 6 May. These activities have taken up most of our time in the office and the support of the local community has been awe-inspiring.

On top of that, I have committed myself to running the Bucharest Half Marathon in October for the Hospice. As most of you know, exercise and I have never been bosom buddies so I thought that when I said I would do it I would have time to pull out. Not so. It’s just under six months away so I’ve started my training program and I’ve really surprised myself about how much I can do with just willpower. It was suggested that I do a podcast running program called the Couch to 5k which strengthens you up to run 5k within 12 weeks however a couple of weeks ago I managed to run my first 5k in 41 minutes. The Peace Corps volunteers here organised a fun run and it was a beautiful sunny day here in Chisinau so I went along. Halfway through the course I was lapped by the frontrunner which discouraged me somewhat, however I soldiered on and despite coming last, I managed the whole course. I’ve also found a couple of runners similar to my own pace to practise with and also a gorgeous private park to run around. Chisinau is one of the greenest towns in Europe and has a plethora of parks however they are full of litter and not very bonny. But the Dendrarium Park is private (10p to get in) and reminds me a bit of Central Park as it feels like you are in the middle of the countryside whilst being in the city. I’ll be posting a sponsor page in the summer so I’ll post information about it in the summer. Dig deep please!!!

Life in Chisinau is never dull. I’ve met a great amount of people since I returned in January, both expats and locals. There’s always something on at the weekend and for the last two weekends we’ve been trying to play a bit of golf, but the frustrating April showers have ensured that we’ve not been able to. Golf here is a fairly new activity and I’m keen to pick up a club again at the local course. The season opened a couple of weeks ago but I’ve not managed but I won some lessons at Christmas so I’m keen to go. Here’s the thing, there are only 3 holes at the course and apparently there is no real fairway, just rough. But I can’t wait to give it a shot. You can see a bit more about golf in Moldova here:

As I say, the weather has been pretty hideous over the last couple of weeks and Moldovans are pretty miffed that spring has not yet arrived. I can’t wait for summer. Sun, heat, green all around the city and sitting outside sipping a chilled beer are the main aspects of summer here and we are all longing for those days. So if you fancy a trip over here over the next few months, let me know. I had my first visitor earlier this month in the form of Tess from Denmark and we had a blast. I got my first chance to visit one of the many wineries here when she was here with some friends. Chateau Vartely is one of the closest wineries to the city and we all crammed on a minibus to get there. Amazing surroundings, fantastic company and a brilliant selection of wine and food. Sadly I lost my camera that day so all my photos of the day are gone but I’ll try and post some from another source.

Finally, I’ve been thinking a lot of home lately and it’s definitely healthy for me to keep my finger on the pulse as to what’s going on at home. Facebook helps with this but I’ve also been downloading a lot from the Desert Island Discs archive from BBC Radio 4. I listen to them in the flat, on the bus to work and when I’m running and it’s very therapeutic and specific things that remind me of home raise a smirk. David Tennant talking about going out in Glasgow, Alex Salmond choosing Caledonia as one of his discs and Emma Thompson talking about life in the Highlands helps keep me grounded and reminds me of what I’ve left behind. Have a look at the website and download a few. You won’t regret it.

Rambling over. Have a great weekend!

ST PADDY'S

Here's To St Patrick

Last Thursday, St Patrick's Day was celebrated in Moldova and they really did it in style. We went to Albion Club, one of the best haunts in the city and were treated to a great evening of live music, green beer and leprachauns. See the footage here

Round about 4:20 you'll see yet another of my TV appearances. I think my interview is much more interesting and sober than the rest of the expats. Just saying...

HOSPICE ANGELUS CHARITY BALL 2011

Dance The Night Away

Please see the attached flier for the Hospice Angelus Charity Ball 2011, THE Chisinau social event of the year. Please contact me for further information and feel free to pass on to anyone you feel may be interested.

AND RIGHT HERE IS WHERE YOU START PAYING...IN SWEAT

Fame

As things are hotting up in Moldova (not just the weather, but the work of the Hospice), I wanted to post some links to a recent TV appearance I made on the local Moldovan TV channel, Sare si Piper (Salt and Pepper). Our hospice co-ordinator, Denis, is the official photographer on the show, which airs Monday - Thursday from 1815 to 1945 on Jurnal TV, and he asked me to go on and cook some Scottish food in my kilt (see the start of the stovies getting made here) and teach the hosts to do some traditional Scottish dancing.

Some of my colleagues and friends came along to watch the show being filmed (much appreciated support) and it was a great laugh. The show lasted 90 minutes and I was on for much of the time. The hosts, Andrei Bolocan and Nata Albot, were really welcoming and made me feel at ease. Andrei even went as far as to wear a makeshift kilt (but I obviously had better legs) and correct Nata when she got my name wrong. You can watch this and enjoy Mr Bolocan's fantastic Scottish accent here, along with Nata's obvious infatuation with Ewan McGregor and the evident comparisons between Moldova and Scotland on their video clip.

The show is kind of a cross between This Morning, The One Show and Saturday Kitchen and they really went to town in showing traditional Scottish items and some funny videos from YouTube. It was nice to hear the Weegie accents and to see some of the homeland. I was really impressed about what they knew about Scotland including how many islands there are, that Scotland only gets 4 hours of daylight per day (!) and that the national animal is the unicorn......again, not sure but they seemed convinced.

And then the piece de resistance, the Irish ceilidh band they had on to do a Scottish Reel. It was brilliant and set us up nicely for doing the Gay Gordons which you can see below (note, that we didn't get a chance to practise this first and was her first attempt).

The show ended with the stovies looking a bit like vomit and a little bit of slagging as it was just mashed potatoes and meat and this is available all over Moldova. But the cranachan went down extremely well. It was a brilliant night and even made the Scottish press. My journo pal, Jane Bradley, wrote this article in the following day's Scotsman:

and so thrilled were the show to hear about their new found fame, they featured Jane's article on the next night's show. You'll notice in the clip that Andrei mentions something about the dessert from Perth. The story was that they asked me to bring along a bottle of whisky for the cranachan so I thought I should bring a bottle of Perth's finest (depending who you ask), Dewars. They only used 6 tablespoons for the dessert so there was a lot left. Once the show ended, I went to collect my bags from the dressing room downstairs and when I came back I asked for the bottle. Apparently, this negated the shock horror I portrayed earlier in the show when asked if the reputation us Scots have as stingey is true. Either way, the crew and audience had pretty much tanked the entire bottle in 5 minutes so I didn't get to take any home. I feel that this story also backs up the recent articles published by the World Health Organisation about Moldovans and their attitude to drink which you can read about here. Take that, Bolocan!

Take a look at some of the stills from the show here:

Andrei and his make-shift kilt

Irina, Cristina and Victoria from the Hospice were in the audience to have a laugh

Denis, our volunteer co-ordinator at the Hospice, who was responsible for my appearance

This was the moment I realised that I'd probably cocked up the recipe

The ceilidh band who played on the show

Co-hosts Nata Albot and Andrei Bolocan. Pleased to be with such a celebrity.

HOSPICE ANGELUS POOL TOURNAMENT 2011

Games

We are delighted to announce the first Hospice Angelus Pool Tournament which will take place at the Megapolis Mall in Chisinau on Saturday 26 March 2011 from 10am.
Details can be found here:

For further information you can contact me on 0601 44007 or using john@hospiceangelus.md

There will be 32 teams of three battling it out for the honour of being the winners of the first ever Hospice Angelus Pool Cup. Why not have your company, organisation or embassy enter a team or bunch together with a group of friends to enter a team.

We feel forward to seeing you there for a day of fun....and surprises

I AM THE PASSENGER

The Passenger

I'm starting to really warm to Moldova. The people, the culture, the city, even the weather. However, there is one thing that I'm not sure I will ever get used to - the public transport.

There are several ways to travel around the city. The cheapest (and my most preferred method) is by trolleybus. A single trip on the trolley costs 2 Moldovan Lei (about 10p) and in my opinion, it's the comfiest way of getting around. They're pretty shabby and can be freezing at this time of the year because it would appear that the seals on the windows and doors haven't been replaced since the fall of the USSR, but all in all they're good value for money, especially if there's a heated debate onboard. Unlike buses in the UK, you don't get on and pay the driver, rather a kind of conductor comes along and takes your 2 lei and gives you a wee ticket. However, there are still people who believe that they shouldn't have to pay and it's not uncommon to see a full-scale battle on the bus. This has happened to me only once.....

A trolleybus on the street where our office is

It used to be that the number 3 trolleybus (the one I get to and from work), decided that to pay a conductor was a waste of money as the route is quiet. So instead, you had to buy your ticket from the bus driver when you got on and then go and punch it in a slot to validate it. However, Chisinau Public Transport do not quite yet have the same safety standards as good old Scottish & Southern Energy, thus you would hand the driver your 2 lei once he had already set off at breakneck speed and he would attempt to rip a ticket from the ticket book while the steering wheel lurched off to the left or right. To save time (especially in the evening when the bus was packed), I would buy 10 tickets so that I could just get on and punch my ticket and be done with it. Smart thinking? No. This is Moldova, after all.

The last time I did this was a couple of weeks ago at the end of the working week. When it came around to Monday morning again, I followed my usual routine of getting on, punching my ticket and then floating off to another world of humour with the Radio 4 News Quiz on my iPod (a must for all comedy fans by the way - get the podcast weekly here). But what's this? A conductor on the number 3? Yep, they'd decided to do away with the previously life-threatening manner of distributing tickets (had Ian Marchant been in touch?) and reverted back to the normal way. I showed the conductress that I'd stamped my ticket and she nodded and was on her way. It wasn't until the next night on my way home that I had gone through the same motions and when the conductor came to collect my cash, I showed him my ticket. He said that this method had stopped the previous week and that I would have to give him another 2 lei to buy a proper ticket. Not wishing to do any such thing, I refused and explained that I had paid for these tickets previously and would he kindly be on his way. He didn't budge. Ears were pricking up and I was starting to receive interested glances (more than usual which is another thing you get used to as a foreigner in Moldova) from my fellow passengers and so I came to realise that I couldn't back down. I continued to debate with the conductor that I had paid 2 lei last week for this ticket to the same transport authority and would not be paying the fare again. This went on for a couple of minutes before he (thankfully) realised he was fighting a losing battle and could not physically remove me from the bus (he was a wee lad and even if he wanted to, he'd have to push me through a packed crowd who by this time were well and truly on my side judging by the positive nods, grunts and occasional cheers). Victory was mine and justice had been served. It was a real moment of triumph. Then, in typical Moldovan trolleybus style, the rods on top of the bus slipped from the electrical cables, leaving us in cold, dark and stillness so we had to get off the bus and wait for the next one and.....of course, pay another 2 lei to travel on it.

On a chilly and busy Chisinau trolley bus

The most popular way of travelling around the city (and most convenient as there are more routes) is by mini-bus (marshrutka in Russian - it's a much better word than the Romanian translation which is rutiera). There are hundreds of these fleeing around the city ranging from new Mercedes to ancient Fords but to me, they are all death traps. They are more frequent than the trolleybus and cost only 1 lei more (taking the grand total of a journey to 15p), however to me, you take your life into your own hands when you board.

If you've read Tony Hawk's book Playing The Moldovans At Tennis, you might remember him talking about his first experience on a marshrutka. He talks about getting on, handing over his fare to the driver as he takes off at breakneck speed (see the aforementioned number 3 trolleybus driver) and then slowly getting pushed to the back of the vehicle. On stagecoach buses in the UK, drivers (usually) strictly adhere to the guidelines of sitting and standing passengers. The marshrutka buses are all privately owned and as a result, there are no such guidelines. In fact, they will cram as many people as possible onto these buses. I have seen marshrutkas whizzing by with arms out of windows, faces pushed up to the glass and even a line of backsides lined up along the front windscreen. People push, shove, grumble, groan, grope, grab, complain, lean, need help with hygiene and personal boundary issues and generally are miserable on marshrutkas.

A line of marshrutkas in Chisinau

There are also proper buses which are less frequent and more expensive than the trolleybus. It costs 3 lei to get on these and if one comes along going in the right direction, I'll get on it. They're fairly quiet, comfortable and new. The instructions on how to disembark are only in English so I'm not sure how the Russian babaooshkas (old women) manage to figure out how to get off but somehow they manage. They're smart cookies, you see.

So hopefully this gives you an idea of how best to get around in Chisinau. Trams are a thing of the past (hear that, Edinburgh City Council??) and gondola cable cars have been banished with the Soviet era (although the stations and cable towers can still be seen rotting in the city parks) so we're stuck with the above-mentioned methods, and I for one am happy with them. Well, the trolleybus anyway.

THANK YOU

Cheers

I've been back in Chisinau almost a week now and it's been a week of ups and downs already. I really was apprehensive about coming back after a brilliant two weeks (minus 2 days because of fog at the beginning of the holiday keeping me at Chisinau airport) seeing family and friends. One Peace Corps volunteer told me that the feeling of dread and despair you get when you begin the descent into the Chisinau is a pretty dismal experience and when I saw that the fog was still lingering around the airport, I was filled with doom and gloom before I even got off the plane. But I shouldn't have been as there has been a lot of positive news this week for the Hospice.

We have had some great news from some prospective supporters. Prior to Christmas, I had written a grant proposal to The Souter Charitable Trust, an organisation based in my home town of Perth, who give generously to charities which aim to relieve human suffering. Yesterday, I received an email from them stating that they were delighted to award us with a very grateful donation which will go a very long way towards ensuring the Hospice will run well into the second quarter of 2011. A big thank you to them for their generosity!

It costs around £75,000 per year to run the Hospice and the foundation's donation has helped us get off to a great start in 2011. There are many ways in which you can also help raise money for Hospice Angelus. Many of my friends and family have already committed to running the Edinburgh Marathon, Half Marathon or 10k at the end of May.

If you would like to run for the Hospice you can find more information about the marathon here. Please let me know if you would like to run and I'll get some information to you. Additionally, if you live elsewhere and would like to run a marathon, host an event or would like some ideas about how to do so, give me a shout and I'll gladly assist. Furthermore, if you fancy going somewhere a bit more exotic for a run, I've also managed to cajole some friends into running the Bucharest City Marathon in October. It's a great opportunity to see Romania and to help a great cause. Again, if you're interested, please let me know and I can send you some information. And yes, I will be taking part in this also - not the full thing (I'm no daft), but the half. Or the 10k. Depends on the training schedule.

More good news came today when we had the regional head of a very big and well-known accountancy firm who not only offered to give us IT equipment, a team of volunteers for event organisation and pro-bono account auditing, but also a substantial donation towards the running of the Hospice. I really have been bowled over this week by the generosity of some people and this is not limited to just in-country.

A friend of mine who works for the Scotsman in Edinburgh recently published this article and the response has been amazing. On the back of Jane's article, we have received emails from around the world, including Canada, where an organisation has already shipped us much-needed stoma bags and the necessary adhesives. Additionally, on the back of an email I sent out to my contacts before Christmas, while I was home I received 5 boxes of medical supplies from Perth Royal Infirmary and a promise to help in the future. This kind of help is crucial and so gratefully received.

Finally, I had word from my mum yesterday that Auchterarder Golf Club (click here for how to book a round at this incredible Perthshire course) have decided to make Hospice Angelus Moldova their charity of choice this year to support.

Would your organisation want to do this too? If so, get in touch and I'll be happy to help. Thanks to all at the golf club for your support.

So this post is just to say a massive CHEERS, THANKS, MULTUMESC AND MERCI to all of you who have supported the Hospice in 2010 and to those who plan to help us in 2011. Your efforts and donations do make an incredible difference and I'd like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for getting involved.