Chapter 1: Holistic Medicine Meets Moldovan Family Traditions with Loridana Foksha

 Welcome to the very first episode of Identity Library! I’m thrilled to kick off this journey with my guest, Loridana Foksha, as we dive into her fascinating experiences with her family's holistic medical practices and the rich family traditions of Moldova. Join us for a lively and heartfelt discussion that sets the stage for what’s to come on this podcast adventure. 

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Creators & Guests

Host

Veronika Becher

What is Identity Library?

Welcome to the Identity Library, a captivating podcast hosted by Veronika Becher, a German student exploring life in the United States. Join me as we unravel the different layers of identity and embark on a quest for authenticity. Each episode delves into how our backgrounds, cultures, and personal journeys sculpt our sense of self.

Every month, we journey into a new cultural landscape with our guests, sharing stories and experiences from the tapestry of life. Whether you're forging a path in a foreign land or simply curious about the forces that define us, The Identity Library invites you to write your own narrative or uncover fresh perspectives.

So, settle in with a cup of tea and immerse yourself in tales from around the globe with some sense of humor. If you don't find your story here, keep exploring—there are countless books with chapters waiting to be discovered. Identity Library is a podcast by WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1/HD-2.

Veronika Becher 0:04
Hey everyone, welcome to my very first episode on identity library. My name is Veronika Becher, and I'm sitting with my best friend Loridana Foksha in the studio.

Loridana Foksha 0:18
So excited.

Veronika Becher 0:20
All right, both are really nervous. Yes,

Loridana is sitting, or Lor sitting right now with a green little frog, squishing it the whole time like an anti stressful better. Oh my gosh, I don't know, whatever. So today we're here to kind of talk about my best friend. And I was thinking, if I'm starting a podcast, then it has to be for before she disappears. Can I say you really manifested this? Because I remember, let's let me, let me tell a little story about the podcast. So I remember when we first met, we the joke about get having a podcast, like became. It happened so quickly, and it just became a running joke the entire time because of, like, how many good conversations we would have. So we were, like, even back then, we were like, trying to figure out a name for our podcast. And I really like identity library. At first, I was like, it sounds like a book, like a very, like a fiction, but it's really good. I really like this, so I'm super excited. I'm very honored to be your first guest. So yay to kind of give a rundown on my podcast. Um, well, all my friends were always talking about, oh, Veronika, you should start a podcast. And just recently, one of my friends said, Well, it sounds like white noise if you're ever in a research lab and you're like, What should I do? Well, you're apparently listening to my podcast. So whatever you're doing right now, grab a hot cup of tea and enjoy it as white noise.

Jokes aside, my favorite phrase, which was actually one of the contenders for her name, I thought it was really good idea. Jokes aside, it's going to be a new podcast in the future. You know, we you'll have so podcasts. I know this is not healthy. I think, yeah,

okay, yeah. But then, well, what happened? Um, everyone's telling me I should just start a podcast. And I was debating to do that because my, like, my favorite podcaster is Marie Novasad. She is actually like a different podcaster, completely Russian heritage, and she moved to Los Angeles, and I was listening to our podcast all the time. It was more like relationship advice, and I liked it a lot. It was something I never saw like on the you know, market yet.

And, well, I was like, I don't know if I'm crazy enough to do that in every single time when I tried to record a podcast episode, it didn't work out, because something would happen. Yeah, first time I almost burned the cookies. Am I? Like, not even kidding. I end up almost burning down a whole building, and the fire alarm went off. Congratulations. On my side. The second time I was like, well, everything is fine, but my phone died, I'm not even kidding. And then the third time, I was like, now's the time. I'm gonna just start one and it's gonna be perfect. Well, I was sitting in my closet and a random spider dropped on me, and this is how everything stopped. She has a very crazy, well, not crazy. It's followed by an entire culture, but there's a superstition that if like, you would encounter a spider, like, something's gonna happen to you. Usually it's something bad, but with Veronika, something big is just gonna happen to you. And every single time it happened, she calls me, she's like,

there's a spider. Something's gonna happen. I think this is what it is. And then she gives me, like, a really big, deep analysis. I'm like, okay, okay, you sound very much like my mother right now, but we'll get into that later. I feel like I have to drop the story with the spider my mom,

Loridana Foksha 3:57
which one?

Veronika Becher 4:00
Well, I moved over the summer to a different apartment, and I'm just sitting there and I'm like, Yeah, well, everything is fine, cool. And I'm having this call, this daily call with my mom in Germany, and I'm like, Well, Mom, you know, the nice thing is, in this new apartment, we don't have cockroaches anymore, but we have spiders. And I'm just sitting there and I'm so happy and so proud about, you know, this new discovery, and then something is crawling up my leg, and legis like a huge, big spider. And I've never seen such a big spider crawling in my apartment on me. And my mom starts laughing. She's like, Oh my gosh, the spider thought you're like a warm tree. And my other friend roone was joking about the same thing, like they said the same thing. And I'm like, I think something's gonna happen, and then, well, I get accepted into a fellowship program and get the podcast. So yeah, whoa. I feel like this summer is a very eventful summer for you. A lot of things have happened, good and bad, yeah, I know, but that's what summers are for, right? Yeah? How to be in YouTube?

Loridana Foksha 5:00
When he's and enjoy your figuring out who you are and who you want to be. I guess, yeah, everything happens and you're when you're in college. I feel like this episode is just about why I started a podcast to begin with, and then we're gonna record a second episode about why here. That's, why am I here? Why are you here? Exactly? Um, well, I don't know, giving a little bit of rundown of should I introduce myself to my people? I get like, okay, yeah, yeah, go off. Go off girl. Okay, cool. Go off. Queen.

Veronika Becher 5:34
Yeah, gosh,

uh, well, my name is Veronika,

and I'm German student in the ibdd program, studying or my senior year, studying international business or business administration, and getting two degrees, one from a German university, one from NC State,

minoring in horticulture science well, and I Have some, like, Russian heritage, so that's like the background, pretty young, pretty old at the same time. Cool. Um, yeah, yeah, all right, yeah. Should I introduce No? Are you gonna No, yeah, introduce yourself. Okay. Um, hello. My name is Lorna volksha. I am an NCC student. Obviously, I'm doing a Business Administration with a concentration of marketing right now. And I'm also in the IBD program, which is not how we met. Actually, we'll get into later, but we need to. But I'm on the other side of the exchange program, so I'm doing my first two years here and my second two years, or my last two years in Spain. Actually, I actually, I fly out

a week from now. I think on the 14th, oh my gosh, don't remind me I was actually when I arrived here. It was the eighth of August. So approach for you, it's like, and I was thinking about that earlier, like it was an, this has been an entire year for you living in the States, and it's almost, it's almost going to be our anniversary of our friendship. So crazy. Yeah, people are married to have relationships. Well, we just celebrate our friendship. Yeah, let's normalize that.

Loridana Foksha 7:19
Anyways, yeah, what day is it today? To give them context, the sixth, yeah, I fly out on the 14th, get there on the 15th, going to stay there for the next two years. Very excited about that.

And guess on my background, because you introduced your background,

my family is for Moldova. So it's a country under Ukraine, next to Romania, very Slavic. Balkan speak Romanian, yeah, and some other random Russian words around there. It's like a dialect, I'd say, like Moldovan was considered, was recognized as a language after the Soviet Union ended, but then it's not anymore. I, me and my family consider it more of a dialect, because it's basically just Romanian. Just Romanian with some like, Russian slaying thrown in there. I remember growing up, and

I had asked my mom, like, Oh, I forgot the word for this. What is it in Romanian? And she gives me the Romanian word. I'm like, that's not it. And she gives me a Russian word. I'm like, that word was in Russian the entire time. I found out very late like that I was speaking a hybrid of two languages, which is crazy. My parents are like hillbillies of Moldova. So I'd say we're like Southern I

should not say that. Well, Southern lore, Southern Moldova, yes,

well, to give all listeners a rundown of what happened every single time when she's in my kitchen, randomly cooking with me and she says something, and I'm like, Oh, I know this word. And she looks at me like, how do you know that? I'm like, this is Russian. This is not Romanian. What wrong language? Wrong language? I'm like, Oh, my goodness, my mother has never told me. But the thing is, it's like, you know, it's the kind of quote, unquote language dialect that I grew up speaking. I remember I had a friend who was from cushel, which is the capital of Moldova, and she spoke very good Romanian versus me, who was of, like a hybrid of multiple languages, or like, not just two, but kind of like a more informal version, and I cannot understand her at some times, and she was speaking too fast and very formal. And I was like, I don't know what you're saying, but Okay, cool. That's okay. That's how I love your mom. By the way. We just have to feature her for a second. I'm gonna talk a lot about my mom. She's great, but it's like the moment I moved here, I was missing like, slavi culture so much that when we met each other, and her mom gave me, like, this jar of like, yeah, pickled. So yeah, I went home and, you know, I told my mom about you, and my mom always loves giving me like, always wants to give me food back. So she gave me homemade sauerkraut that she made, and I brought it over and in.

Veronika Becher 10:00
Was just sitting there, like half crying on her floor, and I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is, like, the best thing ever. I told my mom. I think I brought placini. How do you Well, we say it can be like, blinchy, but it can be also. It's not really

Loridana Foksha 10:14
something. It's not really pancakes, but it's similar. Do you want to describe what it is? Um, so my mom makes this, is it egg or water? The dough, this dough, and then so for two days, she makes the brinza, the cheese herself. And it's this, like crumbly farmer's cheese. And then

we you know, season it a little bit, we put it in some dough, we either fry it up, or we roll it up and put it in the oven. Such a delicacy, like one of my favorite foods, and so I brought that over.

Oh, you can also make it with, like kurik, with cabbage and potatoes and apples, you know, all sorts of fillings. So it's amazing. So good. Yeah, my mom's, my mom makes the best. So there's, like, One fun fact, it's when you have two, like, backgrounds, and it's German and Russian, and then, depending on what family you meet, they kind of pick what they want you to be. So it's like, you're not German, you're Russian. Now, my parents, yeah, I talked to you. Oh, my mom. Like the joke with your name, my mom, I like, talk to you. I'm like, Veronika this. And it's like, Veronika. No, it's Veronika,

Veronika. And I'm like, oh, Veronika. Then,

Veronika Becher 11:38
yeah,

okay. Anyway, when you're too excited to be close to the microphone,

Loridana Foksha 11:49
exactly smart. So okay, kind of going now into why I invited you here. First of all, well, your background is fantastic, and I love how we met each other, and it was such a like a long story. And if you want to get into we can talk about that, how we met each other, and how it became we can do a quick little recap. We met, was it the first day of school? Yes, so I was I go? Do I go to jazz class? Because I signed up for jazz and dance, jazz dance class, and I'm sitting there, and then some girl comes up to me, she starts talking to me, and I'm like, please,

like, this girl so annoying. I'm kidding. I know. I'm like, Oh, someone to talk to. So, like, she's talking everything, and as soon as she speaks and like, recognize that her accent, she's like, Oh, I'm from Germany. I knew from that moment she's an ibdd. And I ask, like, I tell her about but I don't want to ask her up front in case I'm wrong. So I'm like, Oh, I'm in this program, iddd, IBD, IBD. And she's like, Oh, I'm in it too. And I'm like, I know, because I guessed so, yeah. And the best thing ever was I felt like a stalker. I watched all her videos online, on YouTube, fusion, yeah, that was infusion. Why was in Germany, and I didn't even know that she knew who I was. Yes, she knew where I was. She's like, I'm gonna do girls dance because Lord, Donna's there. I don't think you knew it. You didn't know exactly who I was. No joking, yeah, it didn't even make like for me, it was more like, oh, this girl so lonely.

Veronika Becher 13:25
She's so lonely. And I was like, she doesn't talk to anyone, so I'm gonna sit next time. I'm aghast. I cannot believe you just said that. You've never told me. Oh, I feel are you exposing me? I probably would. I probably did look lonely. I was just sitting there. I mean, I just got there. Everyone knew each other, and then it was just a full class of girls dancing in this one guy and and it just was crazy. And there was only one seat left next to her, and I'm like, I'm gonna sit down. She looks actually fun to talk to. So I ended up sitting next to her, and she introduced me to so many great people. And that day, one of our really close friends, like we were right after class, we were in Tally, and I found one of my really close friends, and I introduced him to her and and thought that that were not like a good friend group. So yes, I know she's leaving shame and her

sorry, so kind of like the story. Why again? Going back to actually the topic, why I invited you over? Well, because your background was so specific and so interesting, and I knew you for a whole year, I felt like starting a podcast with you as my first guest would be like the greatest gift ever before she disappears. This is right now the most stressful thing I've ever done, because we had to set up everything in 10 minutes, and I was waiting the entire time. My heart was pitter pattering. I was like, so nervous. I'm still I'm better. Sorry if anyone ever feels nervous, froggy, something, just find a green frog in your room. And such questions. I was looking at that green frog earlier, and I was like, maybe I can tell.

Loridana Foksha 14:59
Like that. If there's nothing I asked for a stressful, Stress Ball. Fall. Stressful. No, what is it? Trust. Fall, okay, yeah.

Veronika Becher 15:10
I want to talk about something that was maybe going into, like traditional medicine. We have this conversation, and I just love to share it with the audience, yeah. And it's just, you know, growing up

Russian, in a way, they called Russian. My grandma in Russia taught me so many things that just no one else would, you know, yeah, even talk about Yeah, to not go to doctor, not go to doctor, but maybe in some circumstances, you know, yeah, maybe you're in a situation.

Loridana Foksha 15:41
So what is something that you remember growing up? Yeah,

to give some backstory, my mom, like she herself, like she knew,

I guess, like medicinal ways to, like, treat people, I guess, and then, you know, like the Slavic way, the the old ish ways, not like modern medicine, but like ways to kind of care for, like, help yourself. And then she also taught herself a lot in America, she would, she has, like journals and journals full of writing, of from

like doctors, she would watch, whether it be American doctors or Slavic doctors. She usually, like, went to American or doctors. Big one was Dr Berg. Dr Berg, um, we made fun of her a lot. She's like, Oh, you're watching your boyfriend. Dr Berg, she's not, but, like, as a joke, um, I'm gonna cut that out.

Veronika Becher 16:39
No, we have to keep that.

Loridana Foksha 16:43
My mom watched a lot of Dr Berg, and like other doctors growing up, when I was growing up and she we weren't, I guess we didn't go to the doctor a lot, because a lot of the time, my mom knew how to treat us and take care of us. So a lot of things were, you know, you we eat a lot of ginger and a lot of onion and a lot of spices. One drink that we would make,

it was just hot water. And my mom had, like, specific spices that you would have to put in it. Me, I don't really remember those spices. I just grabbed every single spice from the spice cabinet and just started throwing them in there. And the cup was hot water. Never go to low down this place and you're sick. I'm gonna give you careful. I'm gonna give you water that tastes like steak, but without the meat. That's literally, that's literally what it reminds me of. That was literally what I was thinking of. She's just gonna put the kid like the meat season,

literally, I would put everything and then sometimes, like, lemon juice and apple cider vinegar would go in that cup and, like, the thing was, like, all these spices whatnot, like, even if one served absolutely no purpose, like, wouldn't hurt to put it in. It's like, as long as you didn't miss, like, a very good, beneficial one. I remember growing up like, my mom would give us borsch, and

she would I got quieter.

My mom would give us borsch, and she put, like, thyme is good for your respiratory system, respiratory system, and I'd put ginger and cayenne pepper and like stuff like that.

So we ate a lot of spices.

Growing up, like in any she'd put it in everything, but a big one was, like hot water, and she'd make tea from like, she'd buy herbs. Or sometimes we'd, like, we had a mint garden, like a small little mint patch in front of our house. And like, every morning, actually, we got so tired from it, like, no wonder we were at school. Falling asleep. Is because, like, we drank mint tea in the morning, and we're like, now we realize when we're older, like, Oh, mom just gave us mint tea all the time. Turn in the volume. Is this better? Okay, yeah.

Anyways, so lots of food, tea, like garlic and ginger, as I said before, turmeric, stuff like that, turmeric, turmeric, I don't know I'm like, trying to remember how my mom says it, because I love the way that she speaks with her accent. This reminds me when you like, one of the reasons why I call you lore and Adana is because she freaks out every single time when it sounds like my mom. And she's because a lot of other people would say Donna, but the way you say is donna, donna. Oh, my God. Like, it sends me back. Like, yeah, that's just a mess with that. But, um, I remember my grandma would do the same thing. She would, like, tease and, like, we would use chamomile tea, yeah, but the water for different, like, even, like for your hair, like, so many different remedies. Yeah, one thing that I remember to this point is, if you ever, like, if you ever have the situation that you're in the woods somewhere in the woods, in the woods somewhere you don't, you never know whatever happens to you.

That's ominous. Exactly.

It.

It's like foreshadowing.

Veronika Becher 20:04
If you're ever in the woods, it's a book, exactly, right, yeah, just, you know,

don't worry. It's not a foreshadowing of you dying. You just brought that's crazy, a warm treat to Spider.

Loridana Foksha 20:17
Basically, basically, if you ever have, like, like, encountered some nettle, yes, yeah, like my mom, yeah, boost your whole, like, foot or leg or whatever it hurts, we would use, and I had to look it up. I'm not even kidding, doesn't? It isn't the one that looked like a weed. Yeah, I have a story about that, but keep

Veronika Becher 20:36
going, apparently. So in Russian, we would called padarovnik, or vegetation German. And now today, in the morning, I'm like, what's the name? And like, if you translate it, it means something that grows along a path, and it means pontego or something in English. What's funny, it's like, in a plantain family, it's like a little banana tree. I didn't know that's not I just knew it was an herb. It usually goes along like a path, and if you, like, rub it on the spot where you got, like, Yeah,

Loridana Foksha 21:14
or like, you have a wound, or some kind of, like, bruise there, yeah, you will heal it in, like, it's much faster than I remember, just as a kid, I would have like, 1000 of these, like leaves just my legs, because we were just stupid, yeah, I, um, when I was younger, my mom, like, whenever we'd have like, wounds or bruises, kind of sores, open sores on our body, um, like anyone in the family, my mom would make my Brother, there was a very specific patch in our neighborhood, right? That my brother and I would have to bike to that had the nettle that you're talking about. So my mom would tell us, go with your bikes. Go outside for a little bit like, you need the brush. You need vitamin D. Anyway, you're sitting inside all day. Go outside and pick some of the nettle for me. But like, I didn't know what the and she didn't say nettle. She was like, go to the place, you know, and grab some of that for me. And I, like, for some reason, my brother and I knew exactly what she was talking about. So we'd like go, we'd bike over there, right? And we'd like, pick out the best looking ones, and we'd go back. My mom would wash it. My mom would use it. And that, like, is a very

fond memory. And it was like that the same place every time, like, it was right next to the street. We, like, have to bike, maybe, like,

like, a three minutes, three minute bike to and like it also, my mom would make us go, because we needed the, you know, little kid, we need to go outside anyways, so, and we come back and my mom would wash it and, like, she'd use it for us. And it was, like, small stuff like that. We had this other patch in our backyard that my mom would use to, I forgot what it was called, but like, sometimes we pick and we'd eat it just like, straight from the ground. My mom would sometimes use it in soups and Bush and,

you know, like, random herbs and stuff like that. Does it look like chives? No. So it's like, it's a thin stem, and then it's like a flat leaf on top, and it's just like a bunch of, like, little of, like, a little patch of those. I have to look it up later, maybe, maybe one of you guys will know what I'm talking about

Loridana Foksha 23:22
best, right? Well, did you ever encounter something like we had to get something fixed up, like not even herbal teas, and like your foot was broken? I remember we talked about that when my foot, when I had a sprain, oh, my god,

Loridana Foksha 23:41
so I was in eighth grade, yeah, eighth grade,

and I'm in the living room and I'm trying to do, what is it called? Elisecons, alicicans, the turns.

Oh, just like, like it's a tan is a dance term, like, it's a specific type of turn right, and I'm a child, and I don't have any professional training, and I just do them randomly on the on a wood floor. I jump, and I turn my leg, and I like, I kind of, quote, unquote, I didn't sprain it. So

what happened was my bones and my foot shifted, and I needed to get put back together. So

sounds like you're like some adult, because that's exactly what happened my mom. Fun fact, as Alyssa, whoa, as Veronika says,

You know what? Okay. Side note, when I was hanging out with Alyssa, I literally kept saying Veronika. I was like, oh, V Veronika. And I had to, like, take a stop. And I had to be like,

Oh, I'm not talking to Veronika. I'm talking to Alyssa. Just to give everyone a rundown, Alyssa, when I was in Charlotte, by the way, before this, I had like, three hour drive. Anyways, back to what we were talking about. Oh my gosh. So

this.

Construction. All my German heritage is right now, just kicking. No, we take a lot of scenic routes whenever we talk. So take it back on routes. It's like, you know, being, you know, once, yeah, let's go back to the path we were on. To, are we talking about? So my mom takes away to, we don't go to the doctor, we don't go to the chiropractor. We don't have the money or the time for that. So my mom in our church, we, I used to, I grew up going to a Russian church. Funny enough, I don't, I can barely speak Russian, but we used to go to Russian church and Russian Orthodox Church. No Baptist. Yeah, it was a Baptist church. Yep. Baptist churches. So still very like, still very Russian,

but in there, there was

this dude. I'm not gonna say his name, but I kind of want to, because it's a fun name to say, and it's so Slavic, it's okay, you can, you can, you can say it Abro. I

don't think anyone will find him honestly. No, I don't think anyone from my Russian church is gonna hear this. Do you? Please? You can't rule your r's. I can't, oh my gosh, don't start this conversation. I like making fun of that for her this called German R's rules.

So it's okay. You can just, like, rewind it. This is why I can't pronounce any other arts. It's okay. Yeah. So pobrov was a certified. Actually found out he was like, he had, um, like, a cert, I guess, a certificate, or, like, he went to school for a chiropractor in the Soviet Union, right? And usually when you go to the US and you have,

like, an actual degree, or, like a certification in something like doesn't apply in the US, so he's not actually

Veronika Becher 26:55
certified in the United States. It's the same with mom. She's a chemistry and biology professor, or, like, teacher. Let's go this way. Um, well, she was also teaching in the university, and she hadn't doing the Soviet Union. You had to take medicine courses. So she took, like, I think, three years of medicine courses, like a normal doctor. She sometimes knows more than a doctor does. And I think your mom acquired the same knowledge throughout the years, and so when she came to Germany, they didn't acknowledge her degree, and they were like, well, you have to teach middle school. And she was like, What do you mean? I was literally professor. So she got a new certification, but couldn't really teach and do research on things she used to do. But she was like, Yeah, it sucks. It like, sucks that some countries don't recognize certifications, or like, degrees and so true, yeah. But yeah. Going back to this, this theory is mad so we in the woods. Just okay, to give you, like, a little like landscape, like, thought, like, close your eyes, please. We're gonna meditate now. So you're running through these woods. You're avoiding all the little spiders that are randomly crawling on you because they think that you're a warm tree. And then you get to the path, you walk, walk, walk, and then you find this random little house somewhere in the woods. It's out of woods, yeah. And you kind of give like a it gets you into like, fairy tales, Russian fairy tales, you know, if you think of,

Veronika Becher 28:29
do you know Baba Yaga? Yaga? We used to play Baba Yaga with the love, yeah. Baba Yaga is basically the witch the house. Isn't she a house? Yeah, she lives in this. She lives in the house spirit. I love her with these

Loridana Foksha 28:45
I want to be, I want to become, I want to be so bedrot. I become my house. It's just crazy. No, she's not the house, but she has a house, like a wooden house that has two legs, and it's like two chicken legs that can run and walk. And this is crazy, whatever Izba na kurih nozhkah, I think that is the name

Loridana Foksha 29:05
girl, but the fact it sides well, a little Babuschka could decide to not be inside the little wood house, and we are seeing the sky is sitting there in healing, yes. So my mom takes me to this guy, the Soviet Union chiropractor. That's not like, that's doing under the table work. So I go there, right? I'm in pain all right? And this is, like, the next day. So I go in there, right? And he's like, sit down. He doesn't speak to me because he doesn't know English. I don't know Russian. My mom is translating. And I'm like, I think he had guests over, no, but like, I'm just like, in the hallway right next to the door, door, right? I'm sitting on the ground, and he just takes my leg, my.

Foot and, like, right now, and I'm in pain, right? I can't even, like, move. I can't touch it. He takes my foot and he stretches it to put my bones back in place, and in that, in the in while doing that, tears my ligament in my foot, right? Little disclaimer, if you can't listen to these things, I'm sorry. It's a little bit late. I'm screaming. I'm screaming, that's crazy.

I'm screaming, I'm crying, right? And it's a whole thing. It lasts for like, five minutes tops. And it was probably one of the most painful things. She's cracking. It was one of the most painful things I've ever experienced my entire life. He's taking my foot and stretching it right, ripping my ligaments right, and afterwards, my arm hands have been 20 bucks a week, and

everything's fine. And then I have to, like, my ligaments heal

Veronika Becher 30:59
in the time zone of, like, two weeks. So what are we learning from this experience? Well, if you ever broke a new student and you find union,

Veronika Becher 31:11
say hi from Veronika in Loredana foxha, because I think we, yeah, he probably knows us in and out, we're probably on the blacklist of mentioning his name. Now, whoop. Well, he gets new customers. I hope he doesn't get found out. This is like marketing. This is marketing, but also he could be found out, because I don't think this is legal.

Veronika Becher 31:36
We never said anything. You should weep out with his name. Well, maybe I don't know. He should ask. Oh, okay, we'll figure it out afterwards. Anyways, it's funny, because buf is actually like an animal. Oh, what, what I this is a flood. This is News. This is, I forgot the name of it. You know, the ones that like live close to the to the water.

Loridana Foksha 31:59
Oh, I

Loridana Foksha 32:06
knew she said the one that lives near the water, babrov beaver. All right, yep, got it. Yes, it means beaver. I did not know that. I feel like I don't know Beaver, her best friend, um, kind of steering the conversation into a different direction. So, long story short, I guess

I didn't go to the doctor.

Do you have any like last advice before close this specific talk? Or, like last about, if you ever, you know, having a cold, what would you do? My mom, she would take two small little balls of cotton, right, douse them in isopropyl alcohol, and then put it in our ears, not all the way, but like, just kind of stuff them in our ears a bit, and then take a scarf, a head scarf, and, like, wrap it around our head, our entire head, so that they'd stay in place, and we go to sleep. And then when it was really bad. She would literally, we'd be on the bed, um, belly side down, back up, and, like, our shirts are off, and she would be running isopropyl rubbing, isopropyl alcohol, all over our bodies. And what this did for our ears, there's like a canal that connects through your throat in some way that, like, makes it warm, and then, I guess it like kills the toxins in there, and then, with the rubbing all over our bodies right afterwards, she clothes us, clothe us with, like, really warm clothing, and make us go to bed and we'd kind of like, sweat it out, like sweat out the cold. And that was I still do the cotton balls to this day, like I'll put it in my ears whenever I'm sick, it works it like so. So just to give a closure here, um, if you're a college student and you have random alcohol in your closet, isopropyl, we don't recommend tequila in your ears,

choose your drink wise. What's the pink one? Pink one? Pink Whitney? Don't put like pink Whitney in your ears. Please. Yes. Choose your drink wisely. But recommend like

Veronika Becher 34:10
some cotton. And if you feel like everyone is loud anyway, because they party next door, you can, you know, have like two in one. Yeah, it's cotton. Cotton in your ears as well as like to not hear your neighbors. And as well get one. They both. They work for both. My mom, when Casey and I would fight, my mom would do that for herself,

Veronika Becher 34:35
like, Y'all are annoying. I'm kidding. This is, this is bad. Uh, Casey's. Casey's my brother. Yes, yes, we can go into my siblings later. Yeah, but I have probably, like, one last topic I want to talk about today, and it's growing up in a family that was not the standard, traditional American family. How was it for you?

Veronika Becher 34:59
Living in the United States and

and then counting all these problems that maybe, yeah, yeah. So, um,

Loridana Foksha 35:11
let's uh, give some context my family. It was my mom and my dad and my three sisters, Moldova. They moved to America. They moved to Massachusetts in 99 2002 they had my brother. 2004 they had me. And then we moved down to South Carolina.

And I remember we also, during that time growing up like we didn't also have a lot,

we didn't have a lot

of things that other people had, you know, because, you know, they were just starting out. They didn't know English very well. They still kind of, my mom knows a lot more English now. My dad doesn't really,

but yeah, growing up, we didn't have a lot of money, and

I think my sisters probably experienced that way more than I did, because they're the youngest. One of the three is 10 years older than me, so there's, like, a very big age gap. But I remember growing up and automatically noticing something different between me and my friends,

by the way, that they all had extracurricular activities that they were able to go to, and like I wasn't, you know, we didn't have the money for that, or

the way that they kind of had a different relationships with their parents than I did.

And

I also noticed the foods that they ate were very different compared to me, and also the kind of beliefs and values that my mom and his implement implemented on all of us growing up, and I'll automatically notice that I was different than other I was different and quirky, no, but I was different than other kids.

I

I felt more American because I rejected being Slavic. I didn't like being Slavic. Growing up like I

I would tell my parents all the time, I wish I was a mayor. I wish we were American. I refused to speak Romanian, even though it was the only language that I would like be able to communicate with my parents.

I kind of rejected a lot of it because I felt more closer to my like, to where I'm growing up versus where my family's from.

I think now I feel a little bit more connected. I'd say it's slightly, I think it's balanced between, like, being American and being Slavic. I feel a lot more connection with my Slavic groups because I was able to be, like to, I guess, have a closer relationship with my mom,

and in turn, get have a closer relationship with, like, my culture. But what's the question?

So, yeah, um, I was, I was talking about how you felt more like, what culture you felt, yeah, closer to, so, yeah, growing up, I felt closer to being an American because I wanted to be an American because I kind of wanted, I guess what the other kids had to be like part of the Yeah, in a sense, because my parents were never we had a very close knit neighborhood, but my parents never reached out to people like Americans. I think the closest American family they were was to my best friend, like Alyssa growing up and like her parents. But even then, I never felt like I was close to any community, because my parents weren't. And like as a child, your parents kind of drag you along to things, but that was never really a case for me, because my parents, they were too busy trying to work for us and trying to get enough money for us to eat and, you know, live and have a roof over our heads, which I'm so grateful for, that they've they've sacrificed a lot for me, and I do respect them a lot for that. But

sometimes growing up, I felt like I was just outside. I was not part of this circle that I really wanted to be in, because it kind of felt like they had such an amazing friendship and like, like, an entirely different family system than I did. Did it change over time? Like, how do you feel now than you used to? So now I feel, first of all, I'm I feel very grateful that my parents instilled, like, continued culture, like our culture, Slavic culture in America. And I feel grateful that,

I guess I can I know we're like, I know conversational Romanian, like I can speak Romanian. Ish, you know,

Veronika Becher 39:59
I understand. You.

Loridana Foksha 39:59
So, like, at so many times, sometimes I'm like, I forget a word, and I'm like, trying to figure it out, and then you just say something in Romanian. I'm like, Oh, I know what that is. That's crazy, because we have random communication style. I'm also happy that, you know, I grew up eating the foods that we ate, even though they were so different.

Veronika Becher 40:21
And what's your favorite dish?

Loridana Foksha 40:24
Um, do you have a favorite dish? As we traditional Romanian, Moldovan, not my favorite. I can, like, I can name some placenthi was we already talked about that, but like, that was one of my top favorite foods, especially frying it you like, dip it on some sour cream, some Russian space Montana.

Veronika Becher 40:49
I like pull off a lot, which is more Uber, yeah, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan. My mom grew up in in Kyrgyzstan, so they had this. It's kind of like a huge Rice, rice bowl with some vegetables, carrots and onions sauteed. Okay, some rice, and then some some, some meat. Meat in it looks a little bit like, because it's nice, like with turmeric, a lot of turmeric. So it's, like, in a yellow,

Loridana Foksha 41:23
yellow color, oh my gosh. I love that. If you ever go to, like, Uzbek, or, like, any, you know, Slavic weddings, and then they have this, like, big bowl, it's so oh my god, my favorite. So good. I love that, too. Oh, sometimes they put sweet, like, like apple in it, apples and like dates or like fakes. Like, really random, yeah, dried fruit. I never grew up, but I the ubetest. And the restaurant we went to, they did that, and I quite enjoyed it, so I'm not mad at it, like peaches, like dried raisins, dried raisins, Craisins, yeah, dried raisins, or just raisins,

Veronika Becher 42:10
exactly. Um, well, anything else like borsch is like

Loridana Foksha 42:17
we I mean, we have to talk about borsch. So borsch is the soup of any Slavic Balkan country. It's usually made with beets. I grew up sometimes any with beets, but like most of the time, if we had to make a quick borsch, it was like with it was just like with potatoes. But I feel like borsch was kind of a gateway into adulthood in my family, because if you knew how to make borsch by yourself, like you can be by yourself, like you can you can support yourself, in some sense, like I remember I was able to make borsch by myself, and I was automatically given more freedom and responsibility

in my household because I knew how to make Bosch. I remember my mom, like a summer, almost every other day she'd wake me up and, like, at seven, she's, like, make a board from like, okay, to me, it was kind of fun. It was, like, it kind of kick started my love for cooking. And, like, I really enjoy cooking now, from my mom, oh my gosh, if anyone meets this girl in front of me and she's in my kitchen with another gentleman called Max. Oh my gosh.

We're crazy. This is crazy. So last we made, yeah, no, I was gonna tell a story in April, Max and I so Veronika's the only person that has an apartment that has a kitchen. So we use that to our advantage. And we said, this is ours now our kitchen,

Loridana Foksha 43:46
oh my gosh, this is where our car, our kitchen, and everything else comes into play. But basically they were calling me up randomly. And if you can't be spontaneous, and Germans usually like to plan, but apparently I'm not anymore German, you don't plan. No more playing. Yes, it's just first call me up, and I'm like, Yeah. So like, Veronika, today, five o'clock, the kitchen belongs to. Sit down. We cook so we cook the So, yeah, we planned the seven course meal for a long time, right? It was stressful thing. It was good, it was it was good. But then can you imagine how Lord just loves my random salad. So we some Veronika was like, I want to play a part. And we're like, this is our thing, but we gave her the chore of doing a salad, which is one of the courses. So you helped, and you also made the bread. The focaccia was really good, but, um, yeah,

Veronika Becher 44:43
it's so there's like, one thing about immigration, or, like, living in different country, and your recipes don't work in a different country. It's such a shame. But sometimes I would bake something, it doesn't work out because your yeast or whatever, even though water Flower Water is so different.

Loridana Foksha 44:59
It makes such a huge difference. Yeah, difference, yes. Sometimes, like, you try to make something, I remember, and you're like, you don't have this ingredient in America,

Veronika Becher 45:10
oh my gosh, milk products in like, everything that is like cottage cheese, we have different with, like frischkes, what is basically kind of like cottage cheese in Germany, but it's not, it's more like a cream and so I couldn't find anything that was close to it from the texture. Specifically, we have technically cream cheese here, but it's not the same as the one that I'm buying in Germany. I'm like sour cream, but I guess not, no. And it's the same with, like, mozzarella and so on. It's like little hairstyle, no, but if you ever at like the cheese section, last time we went with lore, some random French guy approached us and was like, Are you French? And I'm like, I feel like you just meet if you ever want to meet your future husband. And your future husband is international, go to the cheese section. It's such,

Loridana Foksha 46:03
that's the place to be.

Veronika Becher 46:05
Well, well maybe, like last like, what is if you could give an advice to someone who grew up bilingual of two languages, two cultures, whatever.

Loridana Foksha 46:16
What are like the top three advices you would give to the person, and maybe top three advices you give to your future like to your past self that you feel like now looking back, is something you would I think a big one is learn to embrace it. I think a lot of times I rejected it because of, like, the rocky relationship I had with my family, but which is with, I guess, every immigrant, almost every immigrant family, because it's difficult, yes, but

learn to embrace it, because it really it shaped my identity. It really did shape who I was. It shapes the way, I think it's my values, the way that like I think, I hope, I'm more empathetic because of it, and the more I'm more open minded when it comes to other people in other cultures.

I connected to you because of that. I didn't even know I needed a Slavic friend. I always like I went through a similar thing with rejecting, kind of my Slavic roots, because of, I mean, media is also portrayed, yeah, especially nowadays it's light. And so I was also rejecting it. But the moment I knew, you know, so many things that I, like, grew up with, and it was nice to, like, have that friend at state, because something like my first year here, you weren't here, and I was really missing, like, my culture. I was missing my food. I was missing speaking Romanian to someone, even if we don't speak Romanian, like I can speak in Russian, or like I can ask, because Russian also is, like a made, not as a major influence as Romanian, but like the language itself is an influence in my life. So I feel like being your friend is like it. I'm saying it's the same is for me as well. I'm glad that I found a friend who was able to relate to me on certain parts of well, my identity,

Veronika Becher 48:18
your identity, yeah, exactly. Good point the identity library, yes, finding your identity between different cultures. What is your second point?

Loridana Foksha 48:31
Do you have something I'd say,

not only

accepting or something I would have, should have told my younger self, accepting my,

I guess, situation, or the fact that, like, you know, I also had, I guess, a different culture, like, apart from American, and also

knowing that both can live in me at the same time, because I feel like for another part of my life, I wanted to be fully Slavic, and I liked being Slavic, and I don't. I didn't like being American, which was like a completely total flip flop, but

I not only embracing your culture but finding acceptance that both can live in you at the same time, both being growing up and being born and growing up in America versus like the home that I was raised in,

they both exist in me and in my past, in my present and in my Future at the same time, and I don't think I don't want to ever stop wanting to speak Romanian, and I don't want to lose that language, and I don't want to lose

the food, the my culture, my the traditions that we had, the way that we'd celebrated holidays like that's something that I want to continue.

You if I ever have a family, I wanted to pass it down.

Veronika Becher 50:05
If you don't have a third don't even, like, it's fine too. I feel like that's that was a really powerful message of, like, you know, the question of finding your identity between two different cultures and how sometimes you don't really have to

decide on one culture. Sometimes the fact that you lore, you're a combination of both, is what makes you unique in a good way. And I feel like there are so many people out there that will appreciate maybe hearing these words. And I really appreciate hearing it from you,

Loridana Foksha 50:35
too. I would wrap up with these words. I feel like they just should. I want to have this conversation so forever, I was so nervous in the beginning, like mine is going to end, and I'm like, I feel like I want to say so much. I don't know. Yes, maybe, who knows, in a year, Zoom

Veronika Becher 50:54
totally done for zoom level. But yeah, thank you so much for being here on my podcast and kind of opening it up my very first episode on identity library, I hope that someone will find this little chapter of my little big book, big podcast, interesting, and could a little bit connect. And if you ever need bubble off in your life, contact me. I'll get you. Bobrov, 20 bucks. Man, 20 bucks and get your bones placed back together, but you ligaments

Loridana Foksha 51:27
go into the woods. But yeah, thank you so much for having me. I so honored to be here, and thank you for listening. Veronika's amazing. I love you.

You're Beautiful by the way. I love your hair.

Your hair looks so good.

Veronika Becher 51:45
Oh yeah, thank you. Thank you. Have a nice day. Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai