Six Months Already? Looking Back To Move Forward

          It's been six months since I joined the Peace Corps and the time has both flown by and crawled on.  Here are some internal and external observations I've made and things that I miss.

        First and foremost, I was prepared to start my Peace Corps journey I just didn't expect it to happen here in Macedonia.  I'm not the only person that was planning on serving in another country only to be reassigned.  Several of us were moved from Azerbaijan, the Ukraine and Sierra Leone. We each were a bit restless, excited and relieved to start Peace Corps Macedonia. I know that it took me all of PST to settle in but it wasn't until I moved to my site that I began to relax.  Within the past couple of months I've truly started to feel at home.

          Next, I was prepared to live and teach abroad again but I was unprepared for the Peace Corps.  Strange as that sounds but I never thought about the training classes, the intensive language classes and the wildly different types of people I'd encounter.  For some reason I just assumed it'd be similar to Korea.  I'd show up, train a little, start working and learn the language at my pace.  That was my mistake because I assumed my current experience would be the same as a previous one. 

          Third, Macedonia is a fascinating place to be.  The language is challenging to speak but easier to read. There's thousands upon thousands of years of history but the current culture and ruralness of Macedonia is very similar to Appalachia. Personally, I love that I can live and work in my village but am still able to get the city life in Ohrid. I've met some great people here in Ohrid and that's really helped me settle in.  I'm also starting to gel with my coworkers and that has helped as well.  However, I do go to Skopje when I desperately need to feel the pulse and vitality of a big city.  Lastly, I can't wait until this summer to travel around the Balkans, Greece and beyond. 

        One big way that my life has changed is that my entire schedule revolves around a semi-consistent bus schedule.  It's at times incredibly frustrating but it's also cheap.  Fortunately, thanks to my counterpart, she's let me borrow an old bike that I use to commute to work or Ohrid, which is fantastic to have, but if it rains I'm back on the bus.  

          Finally, my host family and counterpart are phenomenal. Full Stop.

          Now for the things that I miss:  

Family

Dryers

Bourbon

Driving

Mexican Food

The Kangaroos
Whiteboards

Peanut Butter M & M's. 

         Here are some things that I don't miss:

I don't miss walking into a bar, restaurant or coffee shop and seeing a TV in each corner and over the bar. If there is a TV then it's either on a sports game or just playing music. There's no "Sportscenter" here and its refreshing to consistently watch a real game instead of seeing bobbleheaded pundits 24/7.  

I don't miss wifi being in every single store in the country.  We PCV's don't have a nationwide data plan so when we hang out together we actually talk to one another instead of competing for their attention from a phone like you might back home. (Doesn't mean a proper pub, or house, won't have wifi, they do, but not all of them).

I don't miss people complaining nonstop about their meal. If you don't like what you ordered here we eat it anyways, it's part of the cultural experience. 

          Now, check out all the pictures from the past couple months: 

This is Ohrid without tourists during a cold sunset.

A fellow PCV, Sarah, and I were taken to this hidden "hollar", or Logan in Scottish, behind her village by her tutor Marina.  Marina is also an archaeologist who has helped excavate most of the churches and sites around Ohrid.

Here the little ones are ordering in a "restaurant".

They also made their own menus.

A couple of weeks ago a window was busted out by one of the kids. No one knows who and nothing can be done since we don't have cameras at either school I work at. 

About once a month or so there's a big play or reading for the kids to show off.

This is at the Macedonian culture and history museum in Bitola. The curator gave us a private tour since he knows another volunteer. 

Some very cool figurines.

Check out these Bronze Age swords and knives.

Yup, evidently back in the day Lions lived in the Balkans. 

Ana, Helen and I are doing our best Macedonia poses since we were sitting in original 19th Century furniture.

Some original instruments. 

Afterwards, we attended the host family recruitment session to share our experiences with Macedonian families for Macedonians that were interested in hosting future PCV's. 

Again, more school plays.

We got together for a Prilep TMNT Pizza party.

Why mow your lawn when the village sheep can do it for you.

New look for Spring.

No dryer, no problem. 

Sunday morning breakfast.

I'll be doing this during the Summer.

Mmmmm fried food.

One of the parents brought his welding helmet so the kids could look at the partial eclipse from last Friday.

Another teacher and I painted the doors for Spring.

Over the weekend I biked to a gem outside of Ohrid, Sv. Stefan. It's a 9th Century Church that's actually in a cave. Here's the view from the bell tower outside the cave that's overlooking the lake. Part of the shoreline you're seeing is in Albania.

The original frescos. 

A true skylight window.

A classic Cutlass. Graham what's the model here?

          There are a lot of things happening in the next couple of months including a school community soccer tournament, Spring and Summer festivals, more biking, hiking and playing basketball/soccer, our In-Service Training week and warmer weather.  I'll be telling you about it but for now enjoy the weekend! Cao. 

How A Pig Feeds A Village

          One of the best things about living with a host family is experiencing all of their customs and rhythms of life.  One of the things they proudly do is raise their own livestock. Now, if you have an objection to raising and eating animals, humanely, then respect that this is for survival not profit. Furthermore, if you do not enjoy the sight of blood then don't continue reading. 

         Moving on, the relationship of growing food, raising livestock for your dinner table is direct here. In addition to the pigs and rabbits my family raises, they also have a three to four acre garden filled with peppers, corn, beans, potatoes, some apple trees and a vineyard.  They're not unusual as nearly all Macedonian's have a garden of some kind in their yard.  It's as quintessential to their life as a well manicured lawn is to ours. 

          When I first saw the pigs and rabbits I immediately noticed the size of them.  Both pigs easily weighed 200lbs, 100 kilos, and the rabbits are gigantic.  However, they've never been pumped full of hormones or steroids unlike our packaged beef, but not pork, back home. They've just been well cared for and live in warm, clean stalls. 

          The Sunday prior to Valentine's Day was the day to butcher the pig. I made sure to watch Goce kill the pig and see if it was humane. I also decided that if I was to eat it at the dinner table with them then I was going to see the entire process. Now, it wasn't a long process but I didn't help cut the meat. Not because I didn't want to but it was too important to let me cut and possibly damage the meat.  So I asked questions and moved things around when needed. 

Petar loves trucks and tractors.

This is the "air pistol" Goce made specifically for the animals. It's only effective within 4in. 

The pig was alive only 10 seconds prior to this. After Goce shot it, Daniella's dad, slit it's throat to bleed it out.  It was efficient and humane. It's something I won't forget either.

Taking it to the house.

Here, they're cutting the skin off.

This was the first time Lisa had seen this too.

Goce got the fire red hot so we could use the coals for bbq. 

As you can see nothing was wasted.

This isn't even half of what was put in the freezer.

You can't make a Macedonian smile for a camera but trust me they were happy.

Alright, alright, alright I got a smile!

          Several times, Goce and Daniella told me separately how they only used the best feed for the pigs, that they raised them properly and that the animals were completely natural.  You could feel their pride at knowing the quality of the meat and that it would help keep them, and me, alive for the next year. I could truly taste why they were so proud of it. 

          The following weekend we went to the large Valentines Day/St. Trifun's Day celebration.  I later found out that the slava was actually hosted by Goce and Daniella since St. Trifun's Day is their nameday.  So the pig they raised wasn't just for the family it was for 300 other people too.  That's how important one animal is to my family and the village. 

Valentines Day Dance Party

          With the past weekend being St. Valentine's Day I was pleasantly surprised to find that it's a day not for over-commercialized love but for family.  Within the Christian and Orthodox Churches another saint is celebrated on February 14th and that's St. Trifun.  He's the guardian, or patron, of wine, wine-makers and vineyards.   I know that on St. Trifun's Day elsewhere in Macedonia and throughout the Balkans people go to the vineyards to trim the vines while the priests bless them.  My family has a vineyard but that's not what we did.  

          Instead, we hung out at the house and prepared to leave for a large dinner.  I watched some rugby Six Nations, well done England, and taught Goce the rules of the game.  This being Macedonia we didn't get ready and head out the door until 8:30.  We drove out of town to a large hotel where the dinner was being held.  I knew that it'd be a late night but I wasn't expecting 300 people to be there.  Now, most of them were not from my village so I didn't know who they were.  They, however, knew exactly who I was.  Walking in behind Goce and Daniella I felt every eyeball on me.  

            Once we were at our table I felt much more comfortable chatting with the extended family.  We joked around a bit, enjoyed our starters and then the music started.  Now, I'm not talking about "Shout" or "Uptown Funk" but the traditional music that makes every Macedonian get their groove on and dance the horo, or oro.  I waited a couple minutes and then decided to take the bull by the horns and dance with the group instead of sitting on the sidelines.  I ended up dancing for hours.  It was a lot of fun and you can watch it here.  

Age is no excuse so everyone joined in.

The dance floor was quickly filled.

          After dancing everyone settled back down and enjoyed the main course.  It turned out that the pig we killed the previous week was used as the main meal for this dinner.  Yup, so that animal isn't just feeding my family and I for a year it also fed 300 people for a night.  I was very impressed by Goce and Daniella since neither of them mentioned that they would be giving the meat away.  Next, was a fun raffle that had Petar winning a set of binoculars!  (They're really quality set too).  I missed winning $20 by one number. 

           Afterwards, a belly dancer came out and entertained everyone, aka the men, for a bit.  I was pretty amused by how all the women just ignored her.  Of course I got a picture. 

She was covered up but the ladies weren't impressed. Goce laughed when she appeared and then hung out with his buddies on the other side of the room. 

This is a small boar that was killed on the last official hunting weekend.  It was brought in to celebrate the end of hunting season and to bring luck for the next one.  The cycles of agriculture and hunting are threaded together here and greatly respected.

The last dance was started by the men and I jumped in after this picture.  At first they were surprised but got over their surprise once I showed I knew the rhythm and steps. 

A polaroid was taken when we walked in.

          All in all, it was a great night.  Because of all the slava's, parties and dinners I went to over the holiday's I wasn't overwhelmed by the dinner.  It was a fun, late, night but it was worth it since I danced for most of it.  

School Life: One Of The Reasons Why I'm Here.

Alright I've finally got a night to sit down and write another post. Things are pretty busy here which is a good thing. I was going to write about my experience helping the family prep the pig for the BBQ but my phone isn't charging so my pictures aren't available. As soon as I get my phone fixed I'll write a post about that experience.  So let's go into the threads that make up my teaching tapestry.  

          My days at school are a bit different from what than they were in the States or Korea. For starters, they're organized into "shifts" of a morning and afternoon shift.  I still haven't figured out the cultural reason but I suspect it's due to the Ministry's of Education policy.  (Probably a remnant of the system under Yugoslavian rule).  The first shift starts at 7:40am and the second 12:30pm.  I also teach at two different school locations and classes are never longer than 40 minutes.  I don't know what you took growing up but my primary school classes were 50 minutes long and I had about eight different classes.  It's different the world over but I always had school from 8:25-3:30 in Tennessee.  

Petar, my host brother, and I on our walk to school. 

I mix up vocabulary lessons by having them do crossword puzzles.

One of the most lively students, Alexandra.

          Fortunately, Macedonian doesn't have that problem but they do have the problem of apathy.  Because the school "shifts" change there's an inconsistency of students knowing that their schedule is permanent.  To them this makes sense because it's always been that way.  A schedule change, the power going out, the bus being late, or not even showing up, is a fact of life.  It's a bit frustrating to figure out and deal with.    

  Another thread is the people I work with. My coteachers are good people who work very hard and aren't paid near enough for it.  They do their best but because of the Ministry of Education's extremely rigid demands on lesson planning they spend their time writing in a big "Red Book".  When a MoE inspector, there are many and few have any teaching experience they're just political appointees, will check the book and not the teaching style or student's abilities.  

          However, they do know how to make in-service fun!  Clearly, I enjoy spending time with my coworkers, they truly care about the kids but they're frustrated they have to follow too many rules instead of creating inspiring lessons for their kids.  They do the best with what they have, even if it isn't a lot, and I respect them for that.  For example, for the past four or five weeks some of the teachers around the country have been on strike because they weren't getting paid on time.  The teachers at my school had a long and heated debate on what they should do but they decided to not strike.   I learned today that after intense negotiations, the Ministry of Education and the Union of Education, Science and Culture workers (SONK) reached a mutually agreeable solution.  SONK has rescinded the strike and teachers are back in the classroom.  I really felt for the other TEFL volunteers who weren't working this past month.

Believe it or not in-service can be fun.

          Before I finished my winter break I made a point to come back to school and quietly instill my expectations to the students and my coworkers.   Because of that my counterpart and I are working well together since we're applying the expectations as a unit and it's already paying off.  For example, if the students don't do their homework they have to stand at their desk for two minutes.  Why is that a big deal? Well, detention, demerits or other consequences are nonexistent if they don't do their homework.  (This worked to great effect in Korea and is proving effective here as well.  Today, we had an entire class of 20 seventh graders complete their homework)! I'm also having them organize their notes by writing the day's date on the wall at the start of class.  It's the simple things that add up. 

Ana Maria wasn't pleased I took this.

Julia's translating and going through the grammar.

Theodore and Victor. 

This is our ninth grade class in Dolno Lakocerej which only has six students.

          Another thread of work is my secondary project. (As a PCV you have must have a secondary project in addition to your main work).  So last week I started my secondary project of tutoring the teachers.  I have two different levels of English classes that makes four classes total, M-R, with about 15-20 teachers participating.  I feel lucky to have so many energetic students and I really focus on making the classes practical, relaxed and fun.

I had the teacher's take an assessment test so I could figure out the classes.  I really enjoy teaching them.

          Clearly, all this activity has put a damper on my writing but I'll get back on that too.  Hopefully, you have a better idea of what my work life is like.  I'll add more to the tapestry as I make or discover new threads.  Chow!

Macedonian Christmas

          After having our Peace Corps Christmas, we celebrated NYE and next was Macedonian Christmas.  Here the religious calendar is based on Eastern Orthodoxy and that's why Christmas is celebrated on January 7th not December 25th.  Also, Santa Claus is considered a weird thing and most of my students don't really care about him.  There also wasn't a lot of Christmas build up like there is back home.  For example, Christmas music starts in mid-November at some places, much to my annoyance. Here that didn't happen until about two weeks before January 7th. I think that's because there are so many cultural gatherings that people are together for weeks before Christmas, so it doesn't have the same feeling it does to us. 

          The day of, we got up and went to church.  In my village, the church is central and isn't just a place of worship but is also a social gathering.  Now you might be thinking that the service would be a traditional hour long service that was highly ritualized.  You're right on the latter but not on the former.  Check it out for yourself.

Heading in with half the village already there.

Everyone gets a candle and lights one while saying a small prayer. 

You go into the church where the woman stand on the left and the men on the right.

          We stayed there for a good 20 minutes then we went outside to greet other people coming in to the church.  Some guys were handing out топло ракиа, hot rakia, since it was about 15degrees.

See the pot of rakia?

          Here's a funny tidbit half the village knew who I was but for people just meeting me they thought I was Daniella's brother visiting from Australia.  How else could they explain my strange accent and limited Macedonian?

          Later that day, around 9pm, we went to a friends nameday celebration.  A nameday celebration is when a person's name is the same as the Saint in the calendar.  So if your name is Christian then you have a nameday in honor of Christ. Same goes for Petar, Peter, Michael, Mikael etc.  Now when we went to the nameday I actually recognized everyone there.  The past month I'd been going to every slava, nameday and na gosti with my family so I was able to put names to faces.  I said hello, small talked for a minute then went to chat with the host's son, Christian, since he knows English. 

          We talked and then some more people came in, including Daniella's mother and father.  I know them both and they're great people.  They sat down with Christian and I on the couches we said hello and then Daniella's mom turned to me and yelled right into my ear, "KAKO CE, DOBRO?" Translated, "How are you, good?" Everyone just stared but I managed to not laugh and responded, "Dobro baba jac razbiram ti."  "Good, I understand you." I then added in English "I'm not deaf." while pointing to my ear.  Everyone laughed, she laughed I gave her a hug and now she teaches me a little about her cooking for a bit every time I see her.

          A couple of minutes after that we headed to another nameday but this was unlike any I'd been to yet.  Everyone there was in their mid 40's and under, there was a lot of modern Macedonian music and decorations.  It was more of what I would consider to be a Christmas party than a nameday.  I loved it. 

Every host always has a full spread.

Turned out the host was one of Goce's best friends from school. So things loosened up pretty quickly.

Especially after a little vino.

          Later on, I told the hosts, their grandmother and Goce and Daniella about what had happened at the previous nameday.  By the end of the story everyone was crying from laughing so hard.  It was a great feeling just being able to share an experience in Macedonian with everyone, even for a moment. 

Winter, Without Power & NYE

          Well the holiday season has come and gone for everyone and mine is just getting started.  I did have a nice Christmas hanging out with my fellow Ohrid PCV's.  For most of last week I was without power because of a snowstorm that turned into an ice storm.  I finally got power on NYE, which was a good thing because no one wants to dance with a smelly man. 

          First, take a look at the snowstorm, it's beauty and what I did without power.  Honestly, it was really refreshing to not have power, a connection to the internet and TV.  I read several books, played dominoes, cards and chess with my family and cooked on a wood fire stove.  Almost all of my family back in TN has a fireplace or wood fire stove so I was quite comfortable working with one.

This was the Christmas Eve sunset.

The snow started Sunday afternoon and didn't quit until Monday.  It's quite rare for Ohrid to get snow so this was a surprise for the whole town.

Shoveling the driveway before the temperature dropped to -10 C, 14 F, was a great idea. It didn't get above freezing until a week later. 

"Оган" or fire.

It was clear, gorgeous and cold.

This picture was taken just before the snowstorm started since we'd had a little bit of snow Saturday night. The castle in the background is Samuil's Castle that overlooks Ohrid.

My host father and I threw down on some chess. 

Since it was -18 to -20 degrees C, or 0 degree F, the crowds were a bit smaller for NYE in Ohrid than normal.  Also, the roads here were shut down for most of the week so traveling was difficult. 

Still there were plenty of people out and about.

Victoria, Alex and I 

No that's not a ponytail that's a foot long rat tail behind Alex.

Yeah they're dancing on the tables. I dug it.

          

I made some friends. 

We took full advantage of my returned electricity, made guac, nachos and watched college football. It was a great feeling seeing UT whoop up on Iowa.  Butch knows how to take great talent and make them work to be better.

          Now NYE was a lot of fun but I did feel two things.  First, I finally had culture shock.  I haven't really felt it yet because everything looks, feels and smells so similar to home.  It was when I was out talking to Serbians, Bulgarians, Croatians and the locals that I realized how culturally different we are from one another.  I would speak in Macedonian for a few sentences and everyone would answer in English because they knew I was foreign and probably American.  Second, I've got to find a soccer club or some sort of athletic club to meet some local people.  After not playing anything for months I'm ready to get on a field again and make some friends that way.

 Today is Macedonian's Christmas Eve.  I really don't know what to expect but I know that there's going to be a large dinner here.  

Срекна Нова Година (Happy New Years)