was 16 years old when I first visited the United States as an exchange student. I had never been to another country. I was born and lived all my life up to that point in Moldova – a small country in Eastern Europe once part of the Soviet Union. It was the year 1999, just 8 years after Moldova became independent. At that time, Moldova was facing a severe economic crisis, inflation, and unemployment – in short, not a good sight at all. I had never visited a developed nation and never seen any other economic system except for the old communist one on top of which the new politicians tried unsuccessfully to build a democracy.My first encounter with the new country in which I was to spend a year of my life, was the airport restroom. They were so clean, free toilet paper, towels, and soap…when I wanted to wash my hands I was faced with a problem – there was no way, from what I could see, to turn on the water. After looking at the sink for a while, the water started to flow automatically based on photo sensors… I was stunned. At that moment I remembered a Moldovan saying, “one can tell if a homeowner is a good homemaker or not by looking at his bathrooms”. I understood that America, unlike Moldova, was a very rich state where people lived happily.My experience in the US only got better from there. I lived with a nice family with 3 children, the mother was a housewife and only the father worked. This surprised me because back at home everybody was trying to get as many jobs as possible and still couldn’t make ends meet. My father is a professor of engineering and my mother is a doctor and our family income is only about $200 per month.I enjoyed the broad and well-maintained highways, the nice cars, and the comfort of the buildings. All of my American friends in school were driving, while in Moldova none of my friends owned a car. Everything is much easier once you have your own car. A lot of my American friends also had jobs, which was unbelievable to me. In my native country, young people can’t find employment even after graduating from college with several majors, but here all you need to have is a desire to work.Young families in America have the opportunity to get a loan for their house or new cars, which is not yet possible for Moldovans, we have to pay for everything upfront or we can only get a 3 year loan, which makes homeownership or new cars very difficult. The economy as well as the political system is not stable or secure, so banks won’t risk making long-term loans.The nice stores I saw amazed me; where one could find anything you could ever want and that people could afford to shop in them. Under the communist regime, I remember the empty shops and huge queues to get food. For example, we were allowed to buy just one loaf of bread per person per visit to the store, so if we were expecting guests, we had to stand in line, the whole family together to get more bread.My mother spent hours and hours in the kitchen cooking three meals a day for my family. In the US, the same meal can be cooked in 30 minutes and if we feel like it, we can go out to eat – which I never used to do in Moldova. All the modern devices in the house, like washing machines, dryers, microwave ovens and vacuums now allow for the housework to take a lot less time than it used to take during the days of communism. Even today less than half of the population in my native country can afford such equipment, while in USA it is common for every household to own these items.I once heard a story about an old man from East Germany that went to visit his daughter in West Germany after much bureaucratic red tape. While in West Germany, his daughter took him to a supermarket; he started crying when he saw the abundance of food and variety of clothing available. Something similar happened to me, but I was too young and joyful to cry. I loved Wal-Mart and spent a lot of time in there. During my childhood in Moldova we couldn’t buy oranges or bananas anywhere. We didn’t produce these fruits in the Soviet Union due to the cold climate and there was no trade with foreign countries to import them. I remember my father having to take a trip to Moscow before New Year’s and buying some of these exotic fruits on the black market. It was a great holiday when we could have a banana and I consider myself lucky because other children grew up not knowing what a banana was.America is the land of opportunities that is why immigrants will do anything to come to this country; they appreciate the things that are here compared to what is available in their homelands. If I were an American, I would be grateful for what a great nation it is and appreciate how lucky people are to live in such a wonderful and free country.
Ana will be a senior at the Academy of Economics Studies of Moldova this fall and is currently traveling in the United States. You can contact Ana by e-mail at AnaPorumbrica@yahoo.com. |
