Here are two news articles that chronicle the "Moldovan misery." I inclue these not to solicit sympathy or hero status for those us making this trip, but to help you understand some of the problems our brethren are facing. Read, but don't enjoy!

Filthy and freezing on the Moldovan campaign trail

By Mark Ames, 23/Feb/2007
I'd only been in Moldova for two days and I was already reaching the end of my rope. Getting a visa was a hellish waste of time, and I'd been crudely followed by two feckless cops since landing in the capital, Chisinau. My distinctly Soviet hotel was a circus of phone-in whores, dweebish Peace Corps missionaries and aging American perverts cashing their Social Security checks on desperate Moldovan ladies before Bush kills the program off for good, leaving them stuck forever in the sexual desert of America.
After a bad night's sleep and an early wake-up call, it took us nearly two hours to drive just 40 kilometers from Chisinau to Getlova. The roads were flooded with mud, pocked with holes and designed to take the most roundabout possible route between two points. Geometry apparently is not one of Moldova's strengths. The fog was thick over the hilly countryside, a brown, terminal landscape of lifeless grapevines and mud....The results were predictable: Moldova is now the poorest nation in Europe, its industry totally destroyed, its population in catastrophic decline, its bureaucracy riddled with corruption. Its only function is to make other poor European countries feel good about themselves. Moldovans are at the bottom of the East European heap. Ukrainians laugh at them in order to feel better about their own wretchedness. Even Albanians are grateful that they aren't Moldovans. Moldova is not only the poorest nation in Europe--it is the most miserable place I have ever visited. The country survives on remittance, corruption, and the sale of human flesh. 1 million of Moldova's roughly 4 million citizens live abroad to earn money. Entire villages are emptied of 16-to-35 year-olds. The women are famous for stocking the West's and Russia's brothels and highway tochkas, as well as the striptease bars and "adult entertainment centers" in Turkey and Cyprus. Moldovan men provide cheap manual labor in Portugal, Spain and Italy, competing with Albanians and North Africans.

New book lists Moldova as world's unhappiest country

By Karen Ryan, 07/Jan/2008
CHISINAU (Tiraspol Times) - If you are looking for happiness, don't make a detour to Moldova. The country, which holds the dubious honor of being the poorest in Europe, is now officially also the unhappiest.
A new book by American author and journalist Eric Weiner categorizes Moldova at the least happy place on the face of the planet. The book, The Geography of Bliss, surveys countries around the globe with happy populations. For comparison, it also includes the most miserable country in the world: Moldova.
" - Moldovans are truly miserable," says the book's author, Eric Weiner. "It's a relatively poor country on the edge of a rich neighborhood, and that's Europe. Once they had the pride of being part of the Soviet empire, and now they're not part of anything."
Mark Ames, another American journalist, agrees." - Moldova is not only the poorest nation in Europe - it is also the most miserable place I