Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Christmas: Round 1

They say Christmas only comes once a year but really, why limit yourself to just one? This holiday season I am celebrating two rounds of Christmas--American in December and Macedonian in January. On Christmas eve, ten of us gathered at fellow volunteer Ashley's house in a village near my site. Seeing many people for the first time since we went to our permanent sites, I enjoyed catching up with them over copious cookies and much frivolity ensued as a gathering of that many 20-somethings is apt to generate.

Christmas Day I hosted at my apartment, with the guest list ballooning to 15! First we took turns using my computer to Skype home to our families. Because we were talking on the computer, we could hear each others' conversations and we got a big kick out hearing so many accents from all over the U.S. As for Christmas dinner, luckily I got out of cooking the main dish because one of my guests, Natty, home-made spaghetti and meatballs. The pasta prep work was done in my apartment, with my laundry rack put to work as a spaghetti drying rack. You can see it in the background of some of the photos I posted under the Picasa albums. Unfortunately I didn't have enough seats for everyone but Christmas dinner is no less delicious eaten on the couch, a stool, standing up, or sitting on the floor.

Having so many friends travel to my town to celebrate Christmas was a wonderful present and there have been other holiday treats too. On Tuesday, I sang carols in the streets with my upstairs neighbor Heather and her guests from Australia. Wednesday, Bitola had a German Christmas festival and I snarfed down a bratwurst and German pretzel while listening to Macedonian Christmas carols for the first time. On Saturday, a few of my visitors and I ate at the Chinese restaurant in Bitola. Chinese is a rare find in Macedonia, so this was my first Asian food in four months and I'm eager to indulge again. And continuing the wonderful food, Heather and her friends made tacos on Monday. I've been in Mexican food withdrawal and I really savored another food first since my arrival in Macedonia. I'm planning to train for the Skopje marathon and my training can't start soon enough with all the delicious food I've been consuming...and I've still got two more weeks of Christmas season to get through!

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

I'll Take You There

I admit that there are times in America when I go into a store looking for something and can't find it, but there's a certain logic to most things that you learn over time. Peanut butter and jelly tend to be near the bread, coconut milk is in the Asian foods section, and tomato sauce is next to the pasta. These patterns do not hold in Macedonia--peanut butter (yes, we have it here in a jar with a picture of the Statue of Liberty on it) is in the refrigerator case next to the butter butter, coconut milk is in the liquor section next to the Malibu rum, and tomato sauce is with the ketchup in a whole other aisle from the pasta. And if there's something I can't find in an American store, it's no problem to ask a salesperson. Here, I may not know the Macedonian word for what I want and even if I do, they might not understand my pronunciation. A request this week for nutmeg--muskat, according to my Peace Corps-issued cooking-in-Macedonia cookbook entitled, "Eat, Eat!"--had the saleswoman directing me to muesli, seasoned salt, and cinnamon before I gave up on finding nutmeg.

What I really want to talk about though is how Macedonians are great about going out of their way to help the wayward American when they can. Monday illustrated this in spades. My go-to place for questions is the American Corner, a resource center for Macedonians about American schools, culture, and the English language. Now, I'll be the first to admit that my query on Monday shows that Macedonia is not the type of country the name Peace Corps conjures up--I wanted to find a place to get my eyebrows done. Maybe I should let my brows go native for two years but hey, I'm in a country where I can get them done so I am. The gal working at the corner, Tasha, didn't know where I could go but her friend who'd stopped in to say hi offered to take me. Not only did she go out of her way to take me to the salon, she told the woman there what I wanted and made sure I was set before she left. Afterwards, I went looking for a longer modem cable so I can sit more than 2 feet from my modem (I know, another less-than-Peace-Corps-esque image but it can't be helped--this is Macedonia). First I went into a hardware store and they didn't have the cable, but a customer heard my request and said he'd show me to an electronics store that carries cables. Sure enough, he walked me about 3 blocks to a place that had just what I needed. I've certainly had people in the states give me directions, but I can't remember anyone physically taking me somewhere, let alone two in one day. I'm pretty lucky to be assigned to a country where people are so willing to help a stranger in a strange land.

I'd chalk my experience up to Christmas spirit, but Christmas in Macedonia isn't until January 7th. This is the first time I've been somewhere where December 25th isn't Christmas and truthfully it feels strange. On the plus side, a goodly-sized contingent of my fellow American volunteers are coming down my way to celebrate American Christmas and I'm looking forward to sharing the holiday with them. I don't know if you can quite consider this blog a Christmas letter, but it's the closest that I'm bound to get around to so Merry Christmas! I hope the spirit of helpfulness reaches your side of the globe too.

P.S. A few folks have asked for my snail mail address--if you want it, send me an email and I'm happy to pass it along.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Bitola: The Opening Scenes

Last week was my first as a capital-V Peace Corps Volunteer after moving to my permanent site, Bitola. The swearing-in ceremony on Thanksgiving was a nice affair. The American ambassador to Macedonia performed the swearing-in (they really do have us say a pledge) and there was a moving speech in Macedonian and Albanian delivered by two of the volunteers from my group. As you can imagine, it's not easy to deliver a speech in a language you have been speaking for 3 months in front of almost 200 people! As good as it felt to finally be a volunteer, the highlight was the Thanksgiving feast. There was a plethora of American and Macedonian dishes, including turkeys flown in from America. For some reason, turkey isn't really eaten here so it was the annual opportunity for turkey. Peace Corps intended the turkeys on the buffet table to be decorative with plates of carved meat brought out later but instead at our buffet table, one host dad helped all of us clamoring for turkey by essentially tearing it apart with his bare hands and serving it to people. My biggest score was some apple pie but unfortunately there was no green bean casserole--I'll see if I can't doctor some up for next year. If you go to the Picasa web albums on the right side of my blog, there's a new album with photos from swearing-in and Bitola.

The day after swearing-in, I hauled my 3 ginormous bags to Bitola by bus. Thankfully I had help getting to and from the bus station but it's a relief not to have to pack my life into 3 bags again for about two years. After I arrived my landlady, Lubica, showed me around the bazaar and called the internet installers for me. The bazaar is an outdoor affair open during daylight hours and is for all intents the only place in town for fruits and vegetables. On the plus side, most things at the bazaar are really affordable and fresh. As for the internet installation, the installers were supposed to come on Sunday. In reality this meant the following the following Saturday, 6 days later. And I thought American installation windows were long! Not only do I have internet now, I also have cable TV. I suspect Peace Corps volunteers in other countries would look at me in distain (and possibly envy) for these luxuries, but this is where the program sent me so I might as well have internet and TV if Macedonians do.

Setting up shop in my new apartment is an ongoing affair. I'm making almost daily trips to buy food as well as odds and ends like a laundry drying rack, hangers, etc. My splurge item was a scale so I can keep track of losing the 5 pounds I gained during training. I also have my eye on getting a mixer and blender so I don't have to do things like make hummus with a potato masher like I did last night. The hummus really was a project--cooking from scratch is basically the only option here. That means to make hummus I bought dried garbanzo beans, soaked them overnight, cooked them for two hours, peeled them, and them used them in my recipes. I will never take canned garbanzo beans for granted again.

And lest I forget, I did start work. My "primary site" (in Peace Corps lingo) is Pelister National Park. The office is just off the main pedestrian mall only about 10 minutes from my apartment. My counterpart, Aleksandra (Sashka), is the main person that I will work with at the park. She and the director have been very good about giving me time to get settled. I think our first project together will be to apply for European Union (EU) funds available to countries like Macedonia that want to join the EU; the funds would go towards initiatives outlined in the Park's management plan. When I'm not at work, I'm taking Macedonian lessons from my new tutor, Biljana, meeting people in my new hometown, and checking things out on runs. Nothing is happening at a breakneck pace but my days are pretty full, so I expect the next 103 weeks will go by before I know it.