A few weeks ago I traveled down to the capital early Saturday morning because a group of volunteers and I were visiting an orphanage about 45 minutes away. My original plan for that Saturday was to takethe last bus back to my site at 6 PM, and then on Sunday head further north to a potato festival. I changed my mind last minute when I saw how many of my fellow volunteers were in town, and ended up helping test a simulation game for Moldovan youth about the frozen conflict with Transnistria. The next morning, Sunday, my plan was to go to a Potato Festival in a village outside of the town Briceni. Briceni is about 4 hours away from the capital so I set my alarm for 5:30 AM so I could be at the bus station around 6. I pushed snooze several times, got a little lost when I went outside due to the thick fog and ended up making it to the station around 7 AM.
Once at the station, two different drivers thought I should go in their rutiera. I ended up taking my seat in one, gave the driver my money then was told I should go get in the other one. Unlike the first one, this rutiera was empty, and as we were pulling out to leave another passenger joined me. I took a nice nap, and then after stopping to pick up two more passenger my driver pulled off the road to what looked like someones house to get the rutiera fixed. The driver gave us no explanation, and for the next 90 minutes we sat there in the cold van. (Rutiera’s aren’t usually heated in the winter.) We then continued on our way and finally I made it to my first destination, Briceni, a little after noon. I got on another bus and went out to the festival to meet my friends.
The whole time I was sitting on the cold rutiera I was getting angry and frustrated because the driver never told us why he was stopping or how long he would be stopped for. Then I remembered that somethings are out of my control and I really should just sit back and relax. So remember, don’t be in too much of a hurry, sometimes life has other plans for you.
This was my view for the 90 minutes I was waiting in the rutiera
O zi buna!
