Saturday, July 24, 2010

Staff Retreat

Yesterday the Pelister National Park staff and I went up to Golemo Ezero (Big Lake) and had a quasi staff retreat. Golemo Ezero is the same place that I hiked up to in March and what a difference four months can make. What was covered in snow is now blanketed with wildflowers and the remnants of rocky trenches from World War I are now visible. Battle waged in what is now Pelister National Park between 1916 and 1918, with shelling of Bitola (up to 10,000 shells per day) and many civilian casualties in the villages near the future park, not to mention amongst the soldiers fighting from Germany and Bulgaria (Central Powers) against France, Serbia, Britain, and Greece (Entente Powers). Each side had about 600,000 soldiers along what was known as the Salonika Front.

In the winter, I hiked up to the lake and this time we drove in jeeps. Driving up takes about 2 hours each way but frankly I'd rather add an extra hour and walk rather than drive up the bumpy path, but it was interesting for the sake of comparison. Along the way, we also saw Malo Ezero (Small Lake) and views of Prespa Lake. At the Golemo Ezero mountain hut, we did about an hour of trash pickup and then sat down to lunch. There's still something novel about having rakija with my coworkers, especially before noon, but it was paired as usual with copious amounts of salad, bread, and other traditional foods. Photos of Pelister in summertime and the Pelister staff are up on Picasa, but check out below for a quick summer versus winter comparison.

Before we left the park, we stopped at the visitors center that Pelister has built but not yet opened. The building itself is quite nice and just needs to be furnished. Furnishing the visitors center is part of what we put into our EU grant application which did, to my pleasant surprise, get turned in on Monday. The park director actually wants us to start working out of this new space as early as next week, which is logistically challenging for me because the visitors center is about 10 miles outside of Bitola. Likely I will be carpooling with coworkers but I'll sort that out after I get back from camp. Boys camp, that is, which kicks off tomorrow--90 teenage boys for a week in the woods. I am one of the outdoor instructors and more to come afterwards, of course.



Friday, July 16, 2010

Direct with the Director



The director of Peace Corps, Aaron Williams, is in Macedonia this week because the regional country directors are having their annual conference here and during his visit, he sat down with me and fellow Volunteer Advisory Committee (VAC) members Christine and John for an hour-long chat. Director Williams likes to talk to the VAC in each country he visits to get the volunteers' perspectives and he was very attentive to everything we had to say. We also had the opportunity to ask questions of him and his staff about everything from Peace Corps' 50th anniversary celebrations next year to how Peace Corps' presence in the Balkans is evaluated. The director himself was terrific, quite personable and open. I think you could say that Peace Corps has served him well, considering he met his wife during his service in the Dominican Republic and is the fourth former volunteer to become Peace Corps director. His staff was also full of energy and it is reassuring to know that we have such good people looking out for us in Washington DC.

Monday, July 12, 2010

15 Minutes Away


It's been 10 months now since I left the US of A and I just took my first official "vacation", a week down in Greece. Tantalizingly close, the Greek border turns out to be only 15 minutes from Bitola but I'd never gone because anytime I leave the country (except for my business trips to Albania), I have to use vacation days. Luckily fellow volunteer Ellen decided to come with me and we began our journey by taking a taxi to a place 3 hours from Bitola called Meteora. This first stop was my favorite and I'm surprised it's not better known because it's incredible. Meteora is essentially a collection of monasteries perched on top of tall rock pillars. Ellen and I managed to visit 4 of the 6 monasteries in one afternoon, not bad considering we did it entirely on foot. The pictures on up on Picasa for anybody who needs a new desktop photo.

Afterwards we began the hallmark of our trip, consuming beverages that are difficult to find in Macedonia, no matter the ridiculous Euro price. I do think that Greece is single-handedly trying to revive its economy through astronomical charges for tourist services but at least I gained a new-found appreciation for what a bargain Macedonia is. In fact, it made me wonder if people in Macedonia could truly weather joining the European Union if prices went up similarly here but most Macedonians that I've subsequently asked are still want to see Macedonia join the EU because they anticipate it will reduce corruption and bring more job and educational opportunities.

The proprietress of our Meteora hotel did not speak English but did know German, so I dug deep (DEEP!) into the recesses of my brain for simple German phrases. The language part of my brain is a scrambled mess right now, to the point where when I want to speak German I actually mentally go English to Macedonian and then Macedonian to German. Still, it was nice to know that there's some German left in my head, sort-of. Getting out of Meteora involved an interesting taxi race to the train station by a driver who did his utmost to get us several miles in about 30 seconds. The driver was indicative of most of the people we encountered in Greece, quite nice and helpful. We ultimately missed the train but got on a pleasantly air conditioned bus to Athens.

This was my second time in Athens and it was just as hot as I remembered. The number of tourists at the Acropolis bordered on insanity, so Ellen and I retreated to more beverages, gelato, and Korean food. While in Athens, we met up with a grad school classmate of mine, Kosmas. He's originally from Athens and was nice enough to take us out to a very sleek waterfront bar. I enjoyed getting caught up on what he'd done since I left North Carolina(I'm glad somebody got their PhD!) and hearing a Greek's perspective on the Balkan region.

From Athens, Ellen and I took yet another bus to Pylos, a town on the very southwest part of the mainland. The Katie college reunion tour continued there because we met up with Jen, my college roommate from University of Nebraska. Jen goes to Greece every summer to excavate and she let us join in for a day at her site. Similar to my last excavation experience, there was a lot of hacking at dirt, resulting in sore muscles in my hand. However, it was cool to check out another, older site and see first-hand what Jen has been doing all summer. The following day, we went to the beach with Jen's friends Eric and Julie. Actually, Jen and Julie worked on photographing mud brick houses falling apart (that's actually what they want them to do) and Eric, Ellen, and I chilled under umbrellas on the beach (with copious sunscreen, of course).

Getting back up to Bitola involved a grueling 12 hours of buses, an overnight stop in Thessaloniki for one last Starbuck's iced chai latte, and then a 3 hour train ride back to the border. It felt good to step out of everything for awhile and yet it was also good to be back to the familiar where I know how to say more than hello. And thanks to a shipment from my mom (she's the best!), I'm restocked in chai latte and can pretend that I'm still on vacation.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Habitat for Humanity

My new excavating muscles came in handy the following Saturday at the Habitat for Humanity worksite in Veles, a town near my training community. Peace Corps volunteers and staff, together with the Macedonian crew of Habitat, worked on several homes. My job was helping to glue styrofoam insulation to the walls with fellow volunteers Ashley, Sarah D., and Happie and under the patient guidance of Igor from Habitat. You can see more of our handiwork in the photos on Picasa.







Digging Sveti Nikole


Sandwiched between trips to Albania, I returned to my training community - Sveti Nikole - for a little Indiana Jones action. Well, not the tomb robbing or pit of snakes parts, just some excavating. Except real excavation is not like the movies--in reality it involved mostly pick-axing dirt, shoveling dirt, and wheelbarrowing dirt. I primarily shoveled because I failed at mastering the pick-ax. When I lived in Sveti Nikole, I actually ran by the excavation site all the time but never saw it over the hillside. The place is called Bylazora and the objects found there date between the 6th and 3rd centuries B.C. The site has stone walls and what the experts think might be an acropolis and a temple. The project website has more details for anybody who's into that kind of thing because I'm no history expert. My back and arms were pretty sore afterwards, so I was somewhat relieved when the next day got rained out. Excavation started at 5 AM and there are some nice sunrise photos on Picasa.


While back in Sveti Nikole, I stayed with my host family. I spent one afternoon pitting cherries with my host mom Viki, who seemed amused that I'd never done any pitting before. My technique was a disappointment but she let me keep doing it anyway. Kate, my host sister, was in her final month of pregnancy but in good spirits. I have to share about my post-excavation meal with my host family. Keeping in mind that I'd worked up quite an appetite, I was pretty excited when Viki brought in a casserole dish for lunch. Then she sat it down in front of me--a skull, complete with eye sockets and little teeth, swimming in a bed of rice. Kate told me to have some rice and meat and for a few minutes, I convinced myself that the head was just for flavoring. Then, of course, the head was transferred to a plate and Kate began hacking at it with a knife. I inquired if it was lamb but actually the animal in question was a goat. Kate offered me some tongue or brain but I passed, having explained after the pig livers during training that I'm not a big fan of organs. However, I think maybe goat brain induces labor because 3 days later, Kate gave birth to a healthy baby girl!

Albania Mania

One might think that my dearth of posts over the last month was due to a lack of activity but the truth is quite the opposite. For 16 of the last 30 days, I have been away from home and somehow I never managed any writing in between repacking my bag. The unfortunate result is that I'm going to now write several posts back-to-back and try to remember all the best details from the range of things that kept me from "home." Here we go...

Pelister National Park, what Peace Corps calls my "primary" project, has been a tough place for me to figure out how I can be of assistance. I read somewhere that showing up as a Peace Corps volunteer is like having someone who can't speak your language show up in a bunny suit and say, "I'm here to help," and I don't think that is far off the mark. I say all this because it was with some excitement that my counterpart Sashka and I found a potential partner in Albania to work with in applying for a European Union cross-border grant. We'd spoken several times over Skype with our proposed partner, Zamir, and the time had come for an in-person meeting. For reasons I won't get in to, the meeting was delayed until we were one month out from the application deadline, which sounds like awhile before you see the brutal applications the Europeans have concocted. But finally I thought we were going to Albania's capital, Tirana, to meet with Zamir until...Pelister's director and the president of the Park's management board decided we needed to meet with some other people in Albania instead, people with the forestry department. I was, I'll admit, pretty peeved. All I wanted was for us to finally meet with the contact we'd been cultivating since January, the guy we'd already started drafting a grant proposal with. Yet off to Korca, Albania we went...

Albania is the 34th country I've visited and the first new country on a business trip, so my wander-love meant was in fairly good humor as I set out with Sashka, the director, and the board president. Peace Corps slogan is "the toughest job you'll ever love" and I think this may have been "the toughest business meeting I'll ever love." Our meeting with the Albanian forestry folks lasted all of about 30 minutes and did not really relate at all to our grant application. Afterwards, we all drank coffee together because that's the national pasttime throughout the Balkans. Then things really started getting interesting when the Albanian forestry officials led us to a nearby village, toured us around a monastery, and then fed us lunch. Of course, this was lunch with rakija, wine, and dancing the oro. In hindsight, I think the trip was positive for building bridges and hey, how many times am I going to be on a business trip with a monastery tour and the oro?


Less than a week later, the same group from the Park headed out for Albania again. This time we did go to Tirana and talk to Daniela, an associate of Zamir. On the way, Sashka and I discussed an agenda for the meeting and she agreed that thinking before the meeting about what would be discussed was "useful." For me, that learning moment alone was a huge accomplishment! At the meeting, we went step-by-step through everything that we'd drafted thus far for the grant proposal and I was admittedly amused as Sashka, Daniela, and I ran the show, with the director and president mostly twiddling their thumbs. I also must confess the second highlight was lunch afterwards with a pizza topped with arugula (a rare find in Macedonia) and my first German beer (delicious, so delicious!) in many, many moons.

My impressions of Albania were extremely positive. Everyone we met was very nice and the countryside is lovely (if dotted here and there with concrete bunkers that ex-leader Hoxha insisted on building, 700,000 of them at one point--you can read about them here). There's a picture of a bunker and much more under my Picasa link. Also, I am happy to report that Sashka and I are still plugging away with Daniela and Zamir on a grant application. Will we get everything done in time for the July 19 deadline? That remains to be seen, but the cross-border collaboration alone seems like a good, productive thing.