the first days of the preparations for the festival were great. nice hot sunny weather, trips to the river during the hottest parts of the day to swim and muck about. sasha, busy as ever with his two mobile phones, organising everything. we found some trees for the tee-pee poles, and got the tripod up. and then the rest of the poles up and secured. leusha and denis were responsible for constructing the main music stage, a much more elaborate design using sawn logs and pallets transported from chisinau. last year we just had a piece of orange canvas! the tee-pee canvas went up with the last pole and nick being the tallest guy there slotted in the pegs above the door. with serioja, we tensioned the canvas with stones, rope, and stakes. two long poles improvised with short poles roped together were used for the smoke flaps, and tee-pee finished. i was happy when this was done. the spring was fixed so that a trickle became a steady flow... 15 seconds to fill a 5 litre bottle. lots of improvised music sessions... double-bass, guitar, drums. setting up the other stages; meeting friends and people who had come to last year's festival, inna and leusha, marina, other leusha, olga, ania..... also, daniel had arrived hitching from brasov; and making new friends too.
before i knew it, it was friday and the start of the festival proper. an invasion of people and tents starting popping up like mushrooms on the camping terrace. we had a pow-wow, a communal food circle, in the afternoon. and ann and max had also arrived from romania.
the weather changed: the rain threatened to ruin the show, but fortunately it stayed away and the music could start. i remember huckleberry finn were a popular band, there was a lot of dancing for them. then came satori, and misha called me to the stage to join sasha and him with drumming, and 'che' sasha with the jew's harp.
saturday, lots of drumming again and meeting people. i came down with a cold and the neck still hadn't healed.. every morning i was waking up with a stiff neck, and so i wasn't feeling a hundred percent. in the evening, the rain came which put a damper on the music performances on the main stage. two bands i remember, oel and ogam. the crowd were keen to sit and watch the show and didn't take too kindly to the dancing minority blocking their view of the performers. and so the dancing minority relented and sat too to 'watch' the music! strange atmosphere. and later, (when everyone was standing or dancing), some drunken guys 'dancing' and trying to get close to the performers, and i could see poor sasha and leusha and the others trying to control them so that they were not too disruptive. the stage was even roped off! definitely not the same ambience as last year. serioja found me watching the band playing the irish songs in the drizzle from the side of the stage; i was pretty sick and he said i should just go to bed. good advice.
sunday, serghei came with a cup of hot tea for the invalid. i joined him and his girlfriend anne at their neighbouring tent, and spent a nice morning drinking lots of hot tea and lemon and talking with them. later i joined the drum session in the tee-pee but i was happy when nazar came and said they were going to see the krishnas and did i want to come. i went with them to hear the traditional hare krishna bhajan and mantra being sung, and joined in with my drum. and then the 'prasad' after, simple fried vegetables served on a vine leaf. by now, most people were leaving or had left, and my neighbours too (but not before leaving some tea and lemon, and potatoes by my tent).
arsenio got his hair dreaded by anne and ulli, a young local lad got caught stealing rucksacks, everyone was tired and probably happy that the festival was over. monday and clean up and take everything down. some people were thinking of going to tsipova, a place with waterfalls about 40 kms away by the nistru too. sasha, serioja and vova with a few others were planning on building a pontoon-raft from the pallets and water bottles and floating down the nistra to tsipova.
anne and max were going to drive down with the van and i joined them and 7 others! we got lost and lost time, i took over navigation and got us back to solinesti and on the right way, finally in tsipova we got lost again, finally we got to where we had to go and met up with a big group of other festival goers. i went down into the valley with them, anne and dan weren't feeling too good and stayed up with the van. first person i met was kaja, who took me on a tour of the place as far as the river and her friends camped there. a beautiful full moon was rising. she grabbed her stuff and we went back to the well-spring. goldie took over to lead me to the first waterfall in the dark, where on the way we met 'che' sasha and margo, who joined us later at the falls. there a big group of russian tourists around a fire, singing, and i took a shower at the falls. a bit scary in the dark. later, the tourists left us the fire and sasha told of the legend of orpheus and his nymph, and the how this waterfall was the gate to the underworld.
he asked me if i could hear the lady of the waterfall singing. i could just hear the sound of the water falling on the rocks below. "can you hear her?", i asked margo. "of course". "and you goldie?". "yes". that night, i slept very well next to the fire, and dreamt of a woman singing and rainbows...
another shower in the morning in the falls and then back to the spring to meet with the festival goers and get shown their camp. the rain came the whole of that day, i went up to see the german crew in the van. arsenio was there too, and trying to fix the broken gear-stick enough to get the van to a place where it could really get fixed. they were driving to the petrol station on the main road and that was the last i saw of them. in the evening came ira and nazar and misha, and i set up my tent near theirs. they put on a fire-show again, there was supposed to be the ritual this night of cleaning the spirit by dousing in water and jumping through fire. no such luck.
early next morning, sveta wakes me and together with another sasha, we walk slowly back to the village and main road and with two lifts, we hitch back to chisinau. a few kms to walk before the first marshutka takes sveta and me to the centre. a meal at the yellow place and a few phone calls and i get back to ira and nazar's place, where they are already waiting.
[photo credits: ophelia and anna]
some links for more photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28670721@N08/
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