Miss Moldova 2005

Hi, this is Ashley. I'm posting under Emily b/c I don't yet have a subscription to this blog stuff. So, this has been a really great week so far. Our team is kicking some construction booty. I know today we completed around 120 beds, which is well over half of our goal. We've been sealing the wood piece by piece: headboards, footboards, sideboards, etc... and we've discovered that red seal is not the way to go when trying to cover 200 beds in 5 days. It takes way too long and its not the easiest to work with. Our final paint was nice, very natural looking, just what you'd want a wooden bed to look like.
Some of the older boys from the camp have been helping us, which is a great treat. To watch them try to learn something new, to see them respond to constructive criticism, and to watch them smile when they finally get the "good job" from Bill or Tom or Tripp. It's really cool to watch.
Yesterday we had an ant line all the way from our workshop area down to the far dormitory where we started putting the beds together. So, after moving hundreds of pieces of wood from one place up to the third floor of another, we are all tired and beat and ready to sleep sweetly! I'm sure we are growing in ways we don't yet realize, and I see the truth of this coming out all around me. It's exciting to be a part of a team. For me, it's been a while since I really had that kind of experience. I'm so thankful for the opportunity to work alongside such fun, amusing, honest people! you know who you are :)

So tonight, Jennifer Phillips and I were invited to the Miss Moldova 2005 pageant by one of the orphans who has left the school b/c she is 19. After a hard days work, we went out of friendship rather than interest, although we did realize we were in for a treat! After being in this country for any length of time, you know that their definitions of style and fashion and even talent are, well, different from our own. Bless their hearts, I just never know if what they are trying to wear as an outfit is a joke or a genuine attempt at looking cool. Forgive me for being superficial, b/c i'm definately not one to talk about outfits matching or being "in", but I do think I have an eye for outdated or neverdated wardrobes.
We found our seats and began enjoying the loud music, flashing lights, and smoke billowing out of the sides of the stage as 21 women dressed in what looked like space outfits came prancing across the stage. For the next 2.5 hours, there was utter chaos before our eyes. The contestants would recite poetry with little success, sing Moldovan songs off key, and show their skills in other mysterious ways...all the more mysterious b/c it was in Romanian! But the best parts were the in-between skits (good things always happen in the in-between parts of life, by the way). There was this Bon Jovi meets Mickey Mouse Club group that did this totally cracked out dance where they threw their fellow dancers around like potatoes. Poor girl, she didn't see the floor coming until her friends didn't catch her and she landed rear end first on the hard stage. Wow, it was Hi-larious!
Then there was the dancing martian man. He was mixing around on stage with the contestants who were dressed in way too few pieces of clothing, shimmying around without synchronization. They were accompanied by these totally dressed-in-black, biker dudes, riding around in circles ON MOTORCYCLES on the stage. People, it was so wrong and obscene and yet so funny b/c of it's randomness (and the randomness of me being there to see it all unfold).

Thus, the sun sets on another day in sunny Moldova. Don't you wish you were here? We'd love to have you!

Ashley Lovell