Spring Painting and Cleaning

It is finally springtime in Chișinău and people are very happy. We have had a few days of sunshine already and the week looks pretty good. The students at the Academy of Music are having a hard time staying inside the building because it seems to retain the cold and it is so nice outside. The people who care for the building have done extensive work to clean and prepare the flower beds and we are all awaiting the full show of flowers to come.

Springtime means cleaning and painting.

I am attaching some photos from my day. First of all, I took some photos at about 7:45 this morning of the newly painted benches in the park. "Vopsit" means "painted." There is a lot of fresh green paint on these benches. They are going to need the paint in the good weather ahead since already the park is full of people enjoying the sunshine.

As I made my way up Strada Nicolae Iorga toward the Academy of Music I saw these newly painted trees. Groups of volunteers came out last Saturday to clean up the parks and streets and paint the bottom of the trees. I saw the people doing these trees. They had a truck with a big container of white paint and a sprayer. It looks like the paint got away from them on a few trees! I am told that the paint helps protect the trees from bugs and makes them look good.

The volunteers were meticulously raking and picking up scraps of paper and other garbage. People were chatting and laughing together most of the day.

My local "Orange" box (a small square building along the street that sells candy, pop, cigarettes, and cards to recharge your Orange brand mobile phones) is managed by a very cheerful and energetic woman who was out painting her trees and even digging up some spots for a garden. I stopped by at 10 p.m. to buy some minutes for my phone and she was excited to show me the garden out back and to tell me that she will paint the sidewalk borders tomorrow.

Then, as I was walking home tonight, I saw this advertisement for an upcoming concert. It features some wonderful nai players including the great Vasile Iovu and Marin and Alexandru Gheras. Marin is a professional naiist who performs all over the world. He recently gave me two of his wonderful CDs and I play them all the time in my apartment. His son Alexandru is a student at the Academy of Music and is also quite a good player. I hope to attend some of the rehearsals for this concert. Marin and Alexandru will perform duets with the orchestra.

I hope it is getting to springtime wherever you are! Thanks for reading my blog.