MONACO

READ

 

Trying to find a book to read for Monaco was no easy feat. The best that Ann Morgan, who was my inspiration for this blog, was able to come up with was a biography of Princess Grace. So I was thrilled when I found out that an author born in Monaco had written a thriller in English.

My excitement didn’t even last through the first chapter. The Datura Solution, by Patrick Faure, was pretty terrible. The protagonist is a man named Max Foreman, who is part of some sort of black ops mission for the United States, even though he is from Monaco. The first part of the book, which has virtually no connection to the second part of the book, follows his exploits during a mission that goes bad in Algeria, forcing Max to sneak into Morocco and then later flee to Spain. As nearly as I can tell, the only purpose for the first 155 pages is to place Max at the location where he will meet Elena McMillan, the wife of the U.S. Ambassador to Spain.

Elena is a beautiful young Russian woman, a former model, who was previously married to the extremely rich oligarch, Oleksandr Krasnaief. When he dies suddenly, she marries her lover, a U.S. diplomat named George McMillan. McMillan is a thoroughly despicable man, a womanizer whose reason for wanting to marry Elena is to get his hands on the billions of dollars left to her by her late husband. With the help of Elena’s money and connections, he becomes the Ambassador to Spain.

His own loathsomeness and Elena’s growing fondness for Max, who rescues her from a life-threatening situation, help to prevent George from getting his hands on Elena’s fortune. A battle ensues.

This book was riddled with errors – proofing, grammatical, and translation – which made reading it a challenge. Add to that various plot inconsistencies, lurid and disgusting sex and torture scenes, and confusing action sequences and you end up with a book that is not worth the purchase price. I was horrified to see it described online as “Book 1 in the Max Foreman Series,” which means the author is working on a second book.

I learned nothing about Monaco from The Datura Solution, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. For others who are doing a reading-the-world challenge, I hope a better book by a Monégasque author is available by the time you’re ready to read a book from Monaco.

COOK

In searching the Internet for a Monégasque dish to prepare, I discovered a popular street food snack called socca. Made with chickpea flour, socca is a type of savory crepe. The recipe I found on the Global Table Adventure website could not have been any easier. Like the creator of the recipe, I didn’t have any chickpea flour, but I did have garbanzo fava flour. Unfortunately, I wasn’t a fan of the socca. If I found a vendor selling it on the streets of Monte Carlo, I’d definitely buy some, though, if only to find out what it’s really supposed to taste like.

GIVE

My donation to the country of Monaco went to the Institut Océanographique, which seeks to educate people about the importance of the oceans and the need to protect them. It was founded in 1906 by Prince Albert I, and continues to be supported by the current Prince Albert and the government of Monaco. The Institut Océanographique includes a museum with an aquarium and other natural history exhibits. More information about the Institut Océanographique is available at: L'Institut Océanographique de Monaco, Fondation Albert 1er. (oceano.org).

NEXT STOP: MONGOLIA

MOLDOVA

 

READ

The title of the book I chose for Moldova pretty well sums up the theme of the plot: The Good Life Elsewhere, written by Vladimir Lorchenkov and translated by Ross Ufberg. The book is both funny and tragic, peopled with characters who want to live almost anywhere except where they actually reside, the village of Larga in Moldova.

Their ultimate wish is to move to Italy, thanks in large part to a villager named Serafim, who has been reading about Italy and learning Italian for twenty years. The people of Larga believe that a person can earn a thousand euros a month working as a housekeeper, compared to the pittance they’re able to earn in Larga.

In the book’s opening chapter, a few dozen villagers who paid four thousand euros each to human smugglers think that they have finally reached the land of their dreams. “They’d left behind the poverty, the Moldovan devastation, the repellent earth that, no matter which way you worked it, when you planted corn you reaped just the husks.” The villagers’ elation is short-lived, however, when they discover they have not been delivered to Rome as they’d been promised.

The problem is that Italy doesn’t want them. Visa applications from citizens of Moldova are routinely denied by the Italian government. One Italian diplomat tells another as they work their way through a pile of visa applications, “Not a single Moldovan citizen gets a visa these days allowing him to stay in our country, let alone tourist or work visas. Still, we’ve got two hundred thousand Moldovans.” They won’t even grant visas to Moldovan Members of Parliament or the Moldovan President because they’re convinced that, once they get a toe-hold in Italy, they won’t leave.

Regardless of whether they’re wanted in Italy or not, the villagers of Larga continue dreaming up ways to go there, and subsequent plots become increasingly brazen and bizarre. Soon, it’s not only people from Larga but citizens throughout Moldova who are trying to flee their country for the good life in Italy. One man tries to warn people that their vision of Italy is an illusion, and that pining after it is keeping them from improving their lot in Moldova. That speech doesn’t end well for him.

The absurd plots that are hatched by the villagers are what gives the book its humor. A tractor that’s turned into an airplane, then later into a submarine, in order to infiltrate Italy by air or by sea; a crusade by tens of thousands of Moldovans trying to claim Italy for Eastern Orthodox Christians; and the effort by several people to learn the sport of curling so they can travel to Italy for a curling competition are just a few of the plans that are attempted.

After reading The Good Life Elsewhere, I can only hope that real life in Moldova isn’t as abysmal as the life portrayed in the book!

COOK

Food was barely mentioned in The Good Life Elsewhere, so I searched the Internet for a  Moldovan dish. I found a recipe for sarmale, stuffed cabbage rolls, on the Peace Corps website. I substituted ground vegan OmniPork for the ground pork in the recipe, and I used JUST Egg in place of the egg. This recipe was very labor-intensive and took a lot of time to make, so I wish I could say I really liked it. Alas, that would be a lie. You win some, you lose some.

GIVE

GlobalGiving’s website listed a project for Moldova that caught my attention: the construction of an environmental training center in an emerging Eco-village. The project’s description is like a real-life depiction of the problems facing the villagers of Larga in The Good Life Elsewhere.

“Lack of knowledge and industrial agriculture have degraded Moldova’s previously fertile black soils. Inefficiently built houses make it extremely hard for people to pay ever-rising energy bills. Trust and social cohesion in communities is crumpling and youth see no opportunities. This leaves people hopeless and drives migration, especially from rural areas. In 20 years about a quarter of [the] population moved abroad. Very few positive examples of building vibrant resilient communities are visible.”

The environmental training center proposed in this project “will serve as a regional hub for practical education in the fields of organic agriculture, energy efficiency, eco-construction and community development.” It is hoped that the project “will support the local community through job creation and educational opportunities.”

More information about this project is available at: Build an environmental training center in Moldova - GlobalGiving.

NEXT STOP: MONACO