I've got friends...

in low places, as Garth Brooks says, or at least a lot of places. Fortunately I have gotten to visit several of them this month because, as the Beatles put it, I get by with a little help from my friends. They help me have fun and distract me from the fact that the national park doesn't want to give me any work until we move our office into the new info center (which was supposed to happen about 6 weeks ago).

I spent a day with volunteer Sarah F. hiking to a monastery near her town, Demir Hisar, about 30 minutes from Bitola. The sweetest, tiniest old lady works there and we found out that her kids live very close to me in Bitola. Meeting her was worth battling the little gnats that hounded us on the walk up. That day I also learned what tobacco looks like and, for all its evilness, it's actually a very beautiful plant. Tobacco is a popular crop in this region and now is when it is being harvested. It is sewn onto a string and then hung to dry. You can see some photos up on Picasa.

Then I made two trips to Ohrid, hosted by volunteers Adam and Karen. I went swimming with volunteers Kerry and Candy and I must say, it was much more enjoyable than when I went in January. Also, Candy's counterpart helped organize a wine and cheese festival and naturally we had to check it out. Admittedly a cheese fest is less exciting in a country that essentially has only 2 kinds of cheese but the quality was excellent.

Then I saw my college roommate Jen again for a day wandering Ohrid with her Albanian and American colleagues from her excavation in Albania. Jen is the first friend or family member of mine that has made it to Macedonia, so she gets extra points for that. Nobody has made it to Bitola yet though and I must say, you don't know what you are missing out on.

My second visit to Ohrid was for the Хорски (amusingly pronounced "whore-ski") фестивал, i.e. choir festival. On the opening night, choirs from around the world stand in different parts of the city and sing. We got to hear over 10 groups perform and when you end the night with gelato, what can be better?

Finally, I went to the city of Prilep for a hiking excursion organized by one of the boys from camp, Rubin. We were a small group (just me, volunteers John and Kaylee, Rubin, and Rubin's cousin Goran) but Rubin was a great guide and the weather has cooled off, so it was a really pleasant time.

Back-to-back posts on friendship--jeesh, what's up with that? I've gone soft, apparently. But friends, beware: I may be showing up on your doorstep next.

The Facebook Volunteer

The last year (well, it will be a year in 16 days!) has certainly had its share of the unexpected but one of the biggest surprises has been how Facebook has factored into my volunteer service. I reluctantly joined Facebook about 2 years ago in order to be able to trade photos with people that I met traveling. Then I followed the natural progression of finding (or being found) by people from all over space and time. Still, I was not exactly updating my status every hour.

It all started innocently enough--there was a Facebook page set up for my group departing to Macedonia where we could get advice from volunteers in-country and I would check it frequently. Then, once I arrived here, I found out that Facebook was a great way to keep track of what my friends stateside were up to, not to mention keep up on U.S. events through their links to the "newsworthy," be it earthquakes in Maryland or the Huskers joining the Big 10. Plus suddenly I had about 70 new volunteer friends too, and I could keep tabs on all their 8 hour neighbor visits and bus journey woes.

At this point, I'm not sure I could even be an effective volunteer without Facebook. Almost all the locals that I interact with on a regular basis are now one of my "friends." Exchanging Facebook posts is one of the best ways to reach my teen boys--no surprise there, I guess. Is YMCA meeting tonight? I better check on Facebook and oh look, there is a hike this weekend posted by the Pelister Hiking Club. Peace Corps staff likes to ask me how I'm doing at making local friends and while I feel like I have more acquaintances than friends so far, the 254 friends on my profile page suggests I have done a bang-up job.

Christening Kijara

A week ago, I returned to my training town of Sveti Nikole for the baptism of my new host-niece, Kijara. Familiar only with Catholic baptism traditions, it was interesting to me that in a Macedonian Orthodox church they baptised 3 babies (all girls) simultaneously. The ceremony took place in a room on the church grounds but outside the church itself. Only one godparent takes part in the ceremony itself, first holding the baby and lit candles. The day of the baptism was, as can be expected in early August, toasty and baby Kijara did not appreciate the lit candles so near her person. Her godmother kept blowing on her to try to keep her cool and Kijara's mom, my host sister Kate, blotted the godmother with tissues to keep her sweat at bay.

Next the babies were carried over to changing tables that line the wall and they were undressed. One by one, the priest anoints them with oil and then carries them for a dunking in the baptismal font. Then, the babies are dressed in new, straight-out-of-the-box outfits and the godparents carry them in a circle around the baptismal font, bowing to the four corners. One of the last components of the ceremony involves the priest cutting a lock of hair from each baby's head, which you can see from the photos on Picasa got a rise out of Kijara despite her respectable head of hair. After the ceremony, we took more pictures and the baby was carried into the church by the priest, followed by lighting some candles.

Everything complete at the church, we went to Kate and Pance's house for lunch. As is traditional here, they live with his parents. My host nephew, 4 year old Mario, amused himself with the toy car that my parents sent from America and the rest of us ate and ate and ate. Of course they gave me a piece from all 3 types of cake (and I wonder why I can't get back to my pre-Macedonia weight). One other new tradition to me was that before the main meal, the godfather gave a small bit of each dish to Kijara which is meant to symbolize that she will always have enough to eat. Okay, it was more like he ate and she maybe licked mayo off his finger but it is a nice sentiment.

I enjoyed meeting more of Pance's side of the family and my host mother said my Macedonian is getting better which is a nice to hear. Considering it was only family and close friends at the ceremony, I was glad that Kate invited me to take part and in return I am happy, as requested, to give her the recipe for the cookies I brought--after converting everything into metric measures and Macedonian, that is.

Celebrating Ilinden

The day after I returned from boys camp, I got to celebrate my first Ilinden holiday. August 2nd is the day in 1903 that Macedonia staged an uprising against the Ottoman Empire and although the independence from the Turks was shortlived, the day is celebrated as the country's first statehood in modern times (thanks Wikipedia). St. Ilija's day in the Orthodox calendar is August 2nd, which is how the holiday derived its name (den means "day"). My landlords, Dushko and Ljuba, invited me to join them for their traditional celebration of Ilinden. We left Bitola early and drove to the village of Dragosh, 17 kilometers (10 miles) from Bitola and near the Greek border. How near? Well, the church we went to, dedicated to St. Ilija, is about 50 feet from a crumbling stone wall that marks the border.

This occasion marked only my second time at an Orthodox service (the other was Christmas) and it was interesting to witness the traditions. The families all bring decorative breads that they stick a lit candle in and put on a table with wine vinegar, money, and a list of people that they want to pray for. There's another dish too that is made of grains (I think) that we took a bite of after church, along with the blessed bread. Everyone stands for the whole service which lasted about 75 minutes. I was greatly amused by one little girl who made several attempts to blow out the candles and several people were video taping the service, so nobody seemed to mind my picture taking. You can check the results out on Picasa.

After church, I ran into one of the little girls that comes to the American Corner, Ivana, and spent a long time talking to her and her parents. Then Ljuba and Dushko's son, Ratko, and his wife Bile arrived to take me and a few others to the village for lunch. Ratko and Bile worked in Canada for several years and brought back a Hummer H3 that they use for kite surfing. So yeah, I rode in a Hummer for the first time and it seemed quite out of place at that very moment.

At Ljuba and Dushko's village house, I pitched in to help peel peppers for lunch and this greatly amused the other guests. Altogether there were over 30 people there in the garden for lunch and I'm continuously amazed at how easy Macedonians make such large meals look and that they have enough real plates and glassware for that many people. I had not spent much time before talking with Ratko, Bile, and their son or Dushko and Ljuba's daughter, so it was nice to get to know the rest of the family. After lunch I also spent some time wandering in the family's grape vines and checking out the village, which is mostly comprised of crumbling buildings. From start to finish I was gone about 12 hours, which seemed like a lot coming on the tail of boys camp, but it was so nice to be included in a closeknit gathering of family and friends. I feel very fortunate that I have landlords who want to ensure that I have a good experience in Macedonia and call me "their girl."

Boy oh boys

Spending last week in the woods with 86 teenage boys from cities and villages throughout Macedonia at boys camp (aka the Young Men's Leadership Project) turned out to be one of my favorite experiences here thus far. The boys represented the various ethnic groups from Macedonia but their shared enthusiasm, intelligence, and spirit united them into successful teams. Every day the boys had lessons on leadership, civil society, personal development, health, teamwork, and my class--outdoors. After class there were 4 hours of electives ranging from ultimate Frisbee to mosaics to hip hop. Anyone with any energy left after those 10 hours was free to play ping pong, watch a movie, or do origami.

Each team also got to spend a night camping outside with the West Kent YMCA from England that drove all the way to Macedonia just to help with camp. They brought archery equipment and the Americans taught everyone to make s'mores, which are apparently unique to the USA because nobody else had ever heard of them. The camp was truly an international collaboration with the Red Cross of Macedonia doing a workshop on how the boys could plan community volunteer projects, as well as teaching first aid and CPR.

I was an Outdoors instructor with fellow Peace Corps volunteers Jim and Natty. Jim spent his whole career in the military and taught outdoor survival there, so he was perfectly suited for our subject matter and Natty is from the wilds of Massachusetts and also well versed in outdoor survival. They developed lessons on fire-building and knot tying, map and compass reading, and edible plants and animals, while I wrote lessons on decomposition (using timelines to guess how long different items take to disintegrate) and the 3 R's (reducing, reusing, recycling) and plant and animal identification (plus a web of life exercise). I think the boys surprised themselves with how many ways they came up with to reuse a plastic bottle and there was more interest in the plant and animal scavenger hunt than I expected. The weather was less than ideal the first few days, i.e. pea soup fog and intermittent rain, but the boys hung in quite well and I felt like they really enjoyed our class. Pictures from camp are up on Picasa.

Camp closed with a mini Olympics and team skits, including a scathing yet hilarious parody of camp staff. I shared the sentiment of most of the boys that I didn't want camp to end--I was having too much fun playing forest battles (aka capture the flag in the woods), catching up with the other volunteers, and playing more games of Scattergories than I can count, not to mention being free of email and the internet for a week. Alas, it was destined to end but the group of boys from Bitola that Ashley and I have been mentoring seemed to take all the lessons to heart. They want to do a project in Bitola and start an American Sports Club for American football, baseball (the camp's home run derby champ is from Bitola!), etc. We are having a meeting this Friday so they can strategize.

Already the guys are asking me if I will extend my volunteer service and it is wonderful to have them saying that they don't want me to go. I am looking forward to helping them launch the sports club but truthfully I think that through the combination of what they learned at camp and their innate greatness, they could do it all by themselves.