Market Madness

  Monday Donna and I took off to shop for groceries.  Shopping for groceries in Moldova is no small feat and is really quite enjoyable.  One of my favorite places to go is the Central Market or any market.  Central Market is located in downtown Chisinau and is filled with different vendors. The market is huge, outdoors, and has multiple sections with different specialties (i.e. vegetables, clothes, bread, dairy etc...)  When we arrived at the market, we got lost in the exciting atmosphere.  People were everywhere, the sellers were calling out from their stands, the pace was fast, and multiple languages were being spoken.  We met several lovely people. Elena, the kiwi lady, and the man selling the lemons were just a few.  What I love is that at all of these stands we got into wonderful conversations with them about family, friends, and where everyone is from.  Elena was a woman selling farm cheese.   Some of her family lives in the States, and she finds it very challenging and expensive to live in Chisinau,  By the end of our conversation with her, we were encouraging her in the Lord and we hope to visit her again soon.  She was so grateful we stopped to talk to her.  I was so grateful she gave us her time and was willing to open up to us.     

      One of the most comical aspects of our conversations and shopping is that we were all speaking different languages.  Donna is learning Romanian.  I am learning Russian, and all conversations tended to include a little bit of English.  It is comical because our language is progressing, but we are no where near where native speakers are. So each person we met had to have quite a bit of patience with us, and thankfully they did.  We laughed a lot because of the language challenge, and we got to know some pretty kind people.  We ended up spending a little over an hour in the market and successfully purchased all our fruits and vegetables.