Today’s Adventure: I Have Become A Gospodina

Another First Bell ceremony has come and gone. I was prepared for this one, having lived through it last year. I also understood all the discussions leading up to it, all that was said during the small ceremony before classes started, and all that was said at the masa afterwards, which is a vast improvement over not understanding anything at all last year.

I decided that since I’m old hat at this now, I should contribute to the food at the masa. But since I really don’t make masa dishes (and it would inevitably be slightly different than the Moldovans make it and it would weird them out), I decided to bring banana bread. I jazzed it up with some chocolate pieces as well, hoping it would go over well.

We were sitting at the masa after the last class was out and all the kids had gone home, getting drunk and eating mayonnaise-based salads, when my partner sliced up my banana bread and went around offering it to people. I didn’t want to look expectantly at everyone for their reaction so I focused on talking to the person sitting next to me about nothing. As I was trying to focus on what she was saying, I hear from one end of the table, “Lindsay made this!” “LINDSAY? By herself?” “Yes! She made it all by herself!” “WOW! She’s such a gospodina!”

Gospodina means kind of a “Martha Stuart.” If you’re a gospodina it means that you make great food, you throw great parties, you keep a clean house, and you’re always welcoming to people with food and drink. It’s the epitome of a compliment for women in Moldova. And whenever any women does anything well that is in their job description as women in Moldova, all the other women point and call them a gospodina.

After that, on the other side of the table I noticed that someone had taken a huge handful of the bread slices and had run down to where the mayor was sitting (he always comes to the first day of school) and yelled, “Mr. Mayor! Lindsay has made this bread! Eat it! Eat it!” Then the mayor yelled, “This is delicious! She MADE this? Where is she?”

And then both sides of the table started screaming, “LINDSAY! LINDSAY!” until I looked up at them as if I had no idea what they were talking about. Then the room was filled with the din of everyone telling me how they felt about the bread all at once, which was generally positive and always overly enthusiastic. 

Generally this whole thing is a symptom of the fact that because I am unmarried and not a mother yet, Moldovans assume that I cannot take care of myself. In a given household there is always an alpha female, if you will, who heads up all the meal preparation, cleaning, planning of parties, and what have you. And young people live with their families usually until they get married, so if you are not married it would insinuate that you have never really cooked for yourself or taken care of yourself. This is coupled with the fact that when I showed up in my village last year speaking like a 5 year old with mental problems and lived with a family that did everything for me. It’s been a long road to that banana bread.

Noapte buna!