Old mother
N 46°18'06.2'' E 028°39'14.2''From our accommodation, I make my way to an Internet café. I was already amazed during my visit yesterday. Good computers, clean seats and air conditioning. …I already had my experiences in Romania, such as the fact that there were no more letters on the keyboard. Completely blurred screens are also common. The most unpleasant thing is when children play war. It’s hard to imagine that the little ones know how to use a computer, let alone master these horrible games. Until now, I only knew them by reputation. They say they are supposedly not that bad. They teach me to fear. More than some other things. But this is only in passing. I wish I could change something here and around the world.
…So I’m on my way through the city of Comrat. Everything is dead because of the enormous heat. An old mother comes running out of her yard into the street, she spies me immediately and takes possession of me, speaking Russian. I’m just about to reply that I haven’t understood anything when I realize what she wants from me. She holds a needle in one hand and a thread in the other. That doesn’t need many words. She wants me to help her with the threading. “Sure, I’ll do it for you,” I tell her. Now she realizes that something is wrong with me. “My husband and I cycled from Germany via… to Moldova. Now we are cycling on via… to China.” In the meantime, she pushed me under a tree in the shade and I threaded her thread. She looks at me and tells me to give her two lei for bread. I pause for a moment, thinking of the slice of melon I have just given our disgruntled landlady. That’s right, a piece of the melon we got from the soldier. I look at her and think out loud. “What can I give you now?” She looks at me again and says: “You understand Russian, don’t you? Two lei for chleb. (Two lei? That’s a clear statement.” I give her the two lei. The little mother takes the money in one hand and the needle with the threaded thread in the other and wobbles back to her dwelling. I look after her, knowing that the old woman won’t set up a stall here to wait for tourists outside her door. There are far too few here for that. We haven’t met anyone yet. Now I too am wobbling on my way in the heat. Later I find out how much a loaf of bread costs. A little more than two lei (0.32 euros) is the answer I get.
