The word at the table
James Clark Conner
Drexel University
I was sitting in a touristy restaurant outside of the Moldovan capital, Chisinau. Across from me sat the father of a family that was friendly with that of my host’s. He smoked proficiently, like most people there, but spoke English, so I tolerated him.
He told me of his travels and experiences, perhaps as a qualifier for what he would talk about next: the problems with my country. At first I was interested, I wanted to know what the outside thought. But interest became confusion and confusion became disgust. Perhaps if we were seated in Pennsylvania his hypocrisy and foolishness would be left unexposed, but we were in Moldova, I could see the problems glaring at me.
I left the table with little hope for a country I had been in for less than a week.
Less than a week later I found myself at another table. This time it was located in a little kitchen attached to several other rooms that make up the offices of CLIPA, a non-profit organization based in Chisinau. Across from me sat a young woman who was instrumental in the organization’s operation. She too had traveled, perhaps not as extensively as my former confabulator, but it seemed like more. The difference was perception.
She saw the problems people faced, and yet she still saw the promise of something better. She said, “I have no personal life.” She eats, sleeps, and works for nothing more than that promise, and I deeply admire that.
I look back at this in the heat of the election season in my own country, and in these two conversations, these two people from a country smaller, and perhaps less influential, than the state in which I live, I see our Country, I see our candidates, and I see our world.