Signs of the Season

As mentioned in my last post, with Macedonia celebrating Christmas in January it hasn't seemed so Christmasy. But that's not to say that there aren't signs of the season...

Dashing Through The Snow
The weekend before last, fellow volunteer Candy and I were in Skopje for a meeting and then traveling on to help conduct a spelling bee where volunteers Ellen and Mere live. Thinking 30 minutes would be plenty of time to get ourselves to the bus station, we sadly discovered that snow + rush hour = no taxis. The time was ticking down towards 5:00 PM and the last van to our destination, Debar. At 4:50, Candy found a taxi, we jump in, and implore him to get us to the station. En route, we are calling Mere and asking her to call the bus company to hold the van. 200 yards from the station and stopped at a light, I jump out of the taxi and sprint as best one can on snowy sidewalks into the bus station. My phone starts to ring and it's the van driver, but he can't understand me and I can't understand him. I ask at the ticket window if I can still get tickets to Debar--no, and the driver has hung up on me. Candy comes in and I call the driver again. We start walking towards the area the buses drive out of and a van whips out. I hustle up the street to see if it's our van and as it stops at the light, I can see it is. Now I'm gesticulating at the driver, pointing at myself, my cell phone, and the van. He opens the door and I yell, "CANDY! CANDY!" down the street. Candy scurries up, we hop in, and we are on our way. The journey was made that much more interesting when, as discussing the merits of different breads, the guy next to us says, "I love Irish Soda Bread." As it turns out, he's born and bred in Brooklyn to Albanian parents and on his way to visit relatives in Debar. It's not everyday that I get to hear someone saying things like "youse guys."

The Grinch
Ellen and Mere did an excellent job of planning their regional spelling bee (pics of this and more on Picasa), which featured the champs from the bees they held in the local schools. Also, the kids were amazing spellers, to the point that the third graders exhausted the entire list made for the competition. At that point, the judges (as in the posted rules) tried to switch to words the students had in class but hadn't been on the bee prep list. This led to outcries from the audience and to make a long story short, the next boy eliminated finished in 4th place and his father decided to interrupt the whole bee in protest. We managed to continue but he carried on with his complaints afterwards, which raised my ire and elicited some snarky replies like, "I'll remember that next time I'm volunteering on a Saturday." This man could not be convinced by our platitudes about how well his son did and how proud he should be of his 4th place finish and that's why he's the Grinch who stole the spelling bee.

Christmas Letters
I got a Christmas letter of sorts from my counterpart at the park, the one who I'd been trying to track down for two weeks. According to her email, she will be in Australia until February. Well then...

Red and Green
Curry, that is. I went to the city of Prilep for Christmas, where I got my fix of curry and pad thai. We had a fun party on Christmas eve, including a 50 denari ($1) gift exchange and playing Uno until the wee hours. The plethora of cookies also helped it seem more like Christmas. I spent all last week making 4 types of cookies so I could pass them out to local friends in Bitola and I guess it was worth the effort, they got rave reviews.

Fala lala la
One of the first words we learn in Macedonian is thanks or fala, referencing the song "Deck the Halls." Fala for your interest in my blog and everyone who has offered words of encouragement. Happy New Year / Среќна нова година!