Masine de Ocasie

After missing the 5:15 p.m. bus that passes through my village and not wanting to wait until 6:45 for the next one, I decided to hitchhike from the bus station. It's easy to get a ride from a random passing car; about every 10th car leaving Chisinau and driving by the station stops and checks if anyone is going their way. When I hitchhike, I can usually find a ride in my direction within 20 minutes.

So I walked down to the road and joined the dozen Moldovans occupying two entire lanes of the three heading out of the city. This human barricade, the common logic dictated, would help us get a ride much faster than if we stood only one lane out.

After 10 minutes, a car pulled up. Usually, everyone standing huddles around the passenger window to ask where the driver is going; if the window is up, someone will open the passenger door and ask. For some reason, I was the only person who walked up to this car. It was dark-colored car and less than five years old. The driver was a thin man in his early 30s with dark skin and dark hair. He wore a long-sleeved dark shirt, and a gaudy bracelet showed against his right wrist as he held the gear shift. In the passenger seat was a man with similar skin, hair and age, but a wider build.

"Are you going to Mereseni?" I asked in Romanian.

"Where?" the driver replied.

"Mereseni. It's on the way to Leova."

"What nationality are you?"

I hate it when people recognize my accent as foreign so quickly, and I especially hate being asked my nationality. As you can see in my previous entry, being an American can be a problem when I meet the wrong people.

"I'm American. What does it matter?"

"And you speak Moldovan?"

"Yeah. Can I get a ride?"

"How much will you give me?"

"Thirteen lei," I said, quoting the normal rutiera price.

"Thirteen euros," he pitched, upping the price by 1400 percent.

"I've been living here for a year. Do you think I'm stupid?"

"Thirteen euros."

"You want euros? Okay. I'll give you one euro." This would be about 15 lei. Why was he asking for euros from an American, anyway? Wouldn't I have been carrying dollars if I had been carrying any foreign currency?

"Thirteen euros." The man was clearly an idiot with no bargaining skills. If someone who speaks the language fluently is asking for a ride to a village of 2,500 people, the person probably knows how much it costs.

After realizing I wasn't going to agree to his proposed 15-to-1 price boost, he drove off. Ten minutes later, I got a ride with a man in a five-year-old Mercedes. He drove at speeds up to 120 km/hr on Moldovan roads, and would sometimes drive on the shoulder, pitched 25 degrees downward, to pass. My seat-belt didn't work, so I feared for my life at times. It was a much better ride than I would have gotten with 13 Euros Man.