Craig in Moldova

Yesterday afternoon, my host parents’ friends came over for lunch. They brought wine and sunflower seeds and sat and talked in Gagauzian and translated into Russian for me.  At one point the conversation involved Gagauzian, Turkish, Russian, German, English, Bulgarian, Romanian, and Ukrainian.

My host mom told the story of how she moved to her husband’s village to live with his family after they got married. She grew up speaking Gagauzian, she said, but still couldn’t understand half the things her mother-in-law said to her.

“Craig, I don’t know how you’re doing it. It took me two years to understand someone speaking a language I’d known all my life.”

It was our “city day”, we had a few shots of house wine, it was fun.