I never could have predicted when I was a boy that I would end up celebrating my 65th birthday in a country called Moldova with my wife from Nepal making a celebratory dinner of foods from our home state of North Carolina.
I’d never heard of Moldova. I’d never heard of Nepal. Even North Carolina seemed exotic to a boy growing up on Long Island in the 1950s and 1960s. For me, a big trip then was to New York City. There were no ATM machines, Internet or smart phones, much less QR codes to hop on a jet plane and fly halfway around the world.
Now I find myself in the former Soviet Union, nearing the end of my Peace Corps service alongside a woman from the Himalayas who became my beloved wife, giving me more happiness in my life than I’ve ever deserved. Even after nearly two years together in Moldova, I still sometimes shake my head in wonder: How did I get here? How did a boy from Freeport come to celebrate a special birthday in Eastern Europe, receiving congratulatory Facebook messages in English, Romanian and Nepali from family and friends stretching from Singapore to Seattle?
My life has gone in such unexpected directions. I have been so lucky — and I haven’t even mentioned my greatest blessing of all, our family back home.
Here in Moldova, people celebrating a birthday are expected to arrange and pay for the party. So on Tuesday, one day before my birth date, I organized an American-style pizza-and-cake lunch for my colleagues at the library. They surprised me with several wonderful gifts and sang “Mulți Ani Trăiască!” in my honor.
The next evening, our host family joined us for a traditional North Carolina barbecue dinner, which Champa spent several days preparing. As you can see in the video clip, they sang both “Happy Birthday to You” and “Mulți Ani Trăiască!” when they brought out a cake and candles. I received more wonderful gifts.
Thank you to everyone who helped me mark this special occasion, either here, by phone or online. If I’ve learned nothing else over the past 65 years, it is that all of us around the world have so much more in common than the differences that separate us or make us fear one another. We can all touch each other’s lives. We can touch each other’s hearts. We can become friends, even families, together.
In one of my very first posts on this blog, I wrote: “When people asked me over the past several months why I would walk away from a job and colleagues I love to travel around the United States and Nepal, I spoke often of how Champa and I love to travel — which we do — and of our desire to take a break from the conventional routine. But it was more than that. After being tied to calendars and project schedules for so many years, I wanted to embrace the unknown.” In a later post I added: “One of my goals in being ‘not exacty retired’ is to recognize the richness of life’s surprises and make the most of them.”
I am so thankful Champa and I decided three years ago to pursue this dream, to veer off the usual path and open our lives to new experiences and ways of serving others. We’ve had good luck, to be sure. Things could have gone badly. But we’ve ended up discovering a new country and new friends while learning new things about ourselves.
Now we are looking forward to reuniting with our family and friends back home. I expect to remain “not exactly retired” after 65 but don’t really know what will happen next. I am eager to be surprised anew. Celebrating this birthday has reminded me how rich your life can become when you let it take you places you never predicted.
“No, you actually have to get on a plane,” replied Kennedy. “That’s the ‘volunteer’ part.”
Fair enough. If I were Jimmy Kimmel, I wouldn’t walk away from a network talk show and millions of dollars, especially with a young family. More to the point, if the thought of leaving America for two years to serve in a distant community sounds unappealing, then it’s not a good fit for Jimmy Kimmel or anyone else. Especially during the past year, he has emerged as an important voice on health care, immigration and other issues. He and others can pursue meaningful lives in so many ways.
When I tell them we’ve come to love Moldova and will miss it when we return home, they are often surprised.
Inevitably, they respond with “but what about”: But what about the bad roads? What about the overcrowded buses? What about the low salaries? What about so many people leaving the country to work elsewere? What about the corruption?
I love the grandmothers talking in the market, the mothers carrying babies, the dads holding their children’s hands. I love everyone’s hospitality and generosity.
Certificates and diplomas are a big deal here in Moldova. They are awarded at sporting competitions, school ceremonies and other events. A certificate typically includes the official stamp of the organization and may be laminated.
In other words, as the walls of many American doctors’ offices make clear, our traditions are similar in many ways. Here in Moldova, though, certificates are way more popular, not to mention cheaper, than sports trophies. Kids here sometimes also receive medals, like the boys on our robotics team shown below.
Certificate ceremonies in Moldova are usually filled with pride and appreciation. The speeches are heartfelt, the smiles are genuine and the certificates themselves are lovely. The moment is always captured with a poza — a pose for the camera.
The new site features the library’s many new services, such as its clubs for robotics and film animation, and its “Bebeteca” room for kids and families. It highlights a library blog that previously existed on a separate site and was often overlooked. There’s an automated calendar that lists upcoming events. 
A map provides directions. An online exhibit offers a video, photo exhibits and historical information about the library’s namesake, folklorist Petre Ștefănucă. A multimedia section shows YouTube videos about the library. Another section provides the annual work plans for the main library and its two branches.
My head spins sometimes when I try to remember the best way to call someone while I’m serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Eastern Europe. My older son back home uses Skype. His wife and my older sister prefer Facebook Messenger. My other son and his wife use FaceTime, as does my younger sister. Our nieces in England like Viber. We also speak with our nephew who recently finished his medical studies in China, where he used WeChat.
Here in Moldova, I can call a friend’s number with my cell phone but they may respond faster to a text, unless of course they prefer to receive a message via Facebook or WhatsApp.
PCVs who didn’t bring a phone received one from Peace Corps, together with a SIM card. When I travel outside Moldova, I add extra money to my phone account and activate its international roaming feature, for prices far below what companies charge back home.
It’s great to have all of these communications options, particularly since so many of them are free or cheap, but remembering everyone’s preferences reminds me of planning a dinner party where one guest is a vegetarian, another is lactose intolerant and another doesn’t eat gluten. Who can keep track of it all?
I never bothered with it. Neither did most of my PCV friends. We mailed letters instead.
"Not Exactly Retired" 