Moldovan wells – between tradition and wild capitalism

 

 

From ancient times, digging the wells was not an occupation like any other.  A new well is a new source of water and the water is an indispensable condition for the life’s perpetuation. 

 

Today, in the Moldovan villages, the modern life style elements are more and more present, mostly because of the many migrants working in the Western Europe countries. Only in 2008, the remittances from the migrant workers represented the equivalent of the global revenues to the state budget (apr. 300 million Euros).  Thanks to this money – but also because of the life standards that became familiar to the Moldovans working in the so called “civilized world”, new houses, equipped with modern facilities, are built. Since the country side is lacking any water supply system, new and new wells are appearing in the Moldovan villages’ inhabitant. Now, the water is not just the miraculous liquid that made the life possible, but a practical necessity, issued from the requirements imposed by a new vision on hygiene and comfort.

 

The water is also a business for those who can recognize the economical opportunities triggered by the change. In a country where the fair play and the fair business are senseless words, several new companies have appeared, ready to make profits from the money earned in distant foreign countries: whoever wants to get a well has to do is to sign a contract with such a company. Through this contract the company is obliged to dig up to 15 meters in depth against a fix amount of money. If they find water, the beneficiary can consider him a lucky guy; if they don’t, the company takes away its traps and just leaves, without returning any penny from the money that were, of course, paid in advance. The water is a caprice of God and finding it is a matter of luck and other factors escaping to the human control – therefore, nobody can grant for something where the intervention of the divinity is decisive. On this background, where old superstitions are interfering with new mentalities, with occidental money and wild capitalism throbs, digging a weal is an adventure with a highly unpredictable result, whose costs can never be anticipated. The moral consequences of this adventure can put a brutal earmark on someone– those who want to have a well and don’t succeed to find water are liable of hard sins. Otherwise, why should god refuse to them the access to what represent the inner essence of the life?

Of course, the inhabitant of the Moldovan villages need water for having in the evening a warm shower, for installing washing machines and for cleaning the dishes in a sink instead of doing this in a old wash bowl. Everyone knows what the goal of this expensive adventure is, but despite this, a voice from the pasts still makes people think that the digging of a well is a sacred activity. Half a century of communism, teaching them that the religion is the opium of the nations and prohibiting the baptizing of their children could not annihilate this mentality. Pushed by a strange solidarity, all the neighbors put together their efforts to help those who want to make a well. Various gifts are made; someone brings a barrel of cheese and sour cream, another one – a canister of vegetable oil, a third one gives 10 euros. The well diggers have to be fed three times per day and the effort for doing this is and has to be a common one. Just like the life itself.

 

Sometimes this abundance has a strange effect on the well diggers, who seem to forget what their goal is, what they are paid for and who can’t stop from drinking huge quantities of alcohol. Therefore, they finish their working day exactly after three hours of eating and drinking, yes, mostly drinking. The shortening of the program is not too convenient for those who are paying them, but nobody dares to protest, except a young man who has been working in Portugal for years and who knows exactly how a working day looks like.

 

- Please, please don’t say anything. We don’t have to quarrel! the other family members are scolding t and imploring him.

 

When a well is made, one has to avoid any sorrow, to eliminate any negative energy; otherwise you are driving away the waters from the depths and luring the divine fury. The water means life; life means love, compassion and forgiveness.  If you don’t do so, you will not find water, I am told. This is an explanation that is convenient especially to the well diggers, who are big wine lovers and who are prolonging the whole process at least with one week – but there are few peasants in Moldova who have understood that time is money. It seems that, indeed, the eternity was born here, in these lost villages, where the lack of money is unpleasant, but it’s not a reason for anxiety. “We are not poor, we just did not start to work properly”, Vladimir Voronin, the communist president of the country has declared.

 

Even if the people start to work properly, one can not challenge God. The well diggers found a tick stratum of limestone, the dimensions of which can not be evaluated. They are digging for two days in it, but don’t advance too much:  because of the short working program, because of the out-dated technology and because of the God will, of course. Since the working program and the technology are not subject of change, the householder decides to fix the third aspect: she gets up yearly in the morning, and leaves for a monastery that is 50 km far away from her village, ready to engage in a direct negotiation with God. She makes a financial donation to the monastery,  is confessing to the monk her sins, who is blessing her and in the evening she returns at home. The church is the institution with the highest trust of the population in Moldova (77%).

 

One day later, the limestone stratum is over and the well diggers and householders are happy again. I get closer to the deep black whole, trying to evaluate its depth, and then I see their terrified faces, with the eyes wide shut, I can hear their desperate yells and I can see them coming near, like a  tartars horde. All I can distinguish from their yells is a clear No, roared on all possible intonations. I’m explained that the women are not allowed to watch into the well until this well is not sanctified by a priest. I hardly can retain myself from laughing, but I remember that I belong to a damned kind, that some of my predecessors were burn alive some hundred years ago; that we, the women, are bringing the bad luck and in the orthodox churches the women access in the altar is still forbidden. Fifty years of communism and almost 20 years of democracy could not remove the dark impurities from the women’s face…

 

There are prejudices and superstitions that are hardly removable, that are resisting in front of all the regimes and ideologies. Those who are less convenient are disappearing quicker. By example, nobody seems to remember that according to the tradition the well diggers should not receive money for their work. The water comes from god, he did not sell it to us and, consecutively, one can not make a business out of his gifts. All that the Moldavians remember today is that, if God does not want the water to run, you take politely your money and leave, because you can not challenge or contradict the good God! It’s a fair compromise between capitalism and divinity…

 

 

After two days, the water stream is blenching through the sticky argil. Everybody is happy, candles are kindled, big bred  are offered to the workers together with flashy jugs, made in China, and of course, with the last money. The owner of the house is turning around, with the happiness’ tears running on her cheeks, fearing to get closer to the pretext of her sadden joy, because, as I said before, the women are dirty. It looks like everybody has forgotten that all the money, from the first to the last penny, were paid from the remittances sent  back by her  daughter, who is taking care of an old man in Italy. The wicked tongues rumors that she is a prostitute, but who cares– the pennies have no smell.