Many hands

Some people have asked me if all the leaf sweepers become snow shovelers when it snows, and I can tell you that they do! Throughout October and November all over Chisinau people came out with brooms, many of them handmade with a bundle of sticks, and swept leaves every day in front of businesses and public buildings and especially in Pushkin Park and around the big statue of Stefan cel Mare. The statue is the main place to meet people in the center of the city. If you want to meet up you can just say, "See you at the statue" and everyone knows what you mean. Today as I passed the statue I saw the leaf sweepers out with snow shovels, many of them handmade from cardboard or pieces of scrap wood, shoveling. They began to make their way up into the park, but then it began to rain - hard! The snow all turned to slush and I hope they were able to go some place warm. I served as an international observer during the national elections last week and saw the same kind of team work among the election workers. I was stationed at a very busy polling place where almost 1800 ballots were cast. I sat with about a dozen observers, most from political parties but about five of us were impartial, and watched as a very efficient team worked to keep things moving for the voters and make sure that the election rules were followed and everyone was able to vote. They were great! I sat for twelve hours with a great team of people dedicated to making democracy work in Moldova. I was quite moved by their dedication and hopes for the country. At exactly 9:00 p.m. the election team went to work to count the votes. They took the two very large boxes of votes and dumped them out on a large table and went to work. The team of about ten took each ballot and straightened it and put it in a pile. Since there were 39 political parties each ballot was about two feet long and had been folded to be able to fit into the boxes which were pretty full by about 2 p.m. Everyone worked carefully and I knew that the team would take all those ballots, straighten them, and count them fairly. Some of the observers from specific parties were pretty pushy, but the election team was very patient with them and went about their work. They finished at about midnight and we all went home. I am so impressed with the way people in Moldova work this way in so many situations. They are careful and respectful of each other and many hands make seemingly enormous jobs possible to finish.