Have Sunscreen, Will Travel

Thailand--the end of an adventure (or a beginning?)

2012-01-07T03:08:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling pretty groovy at the moment, with a tummy full of the deliciousness that I made in my Thai cooking class this morning and relaxed muscles from my one hour Thai massage that cost me a whopping $7. Tomorrow morning I start the 18 hour journey back to Colorado and admittedly after 2 months on the road, I am looking forward to:
1. No more squat toilets, pay toilets, or hunting down toilet paper
2. Not wearing a money belt everywhere that gives me the ever-so-attractive stomach pooch
3. Sleeping more than 1-2 nights in one location and on mattresses that aren't just slightly softer than the floor
4. Wondering whether the food I just ate is going to play tricks with my stomach
5. Thinking so hard about whether I have enough clean clothes to make it to my next laundry opportunity and finding new ways to cram more into my backpack.

Me and Tamar cooking up some green curry

My Tom Kha Gai soup and best green curry ever

That all said, this trip is 3 times longer than any other I have taken and I feel so fortunate that I could take this journey, it was incredible. I spent most of this week in northern Thailand, the highlight of which was trekking into the hills to stay overnight in a village and then travel back partially by elephant and bamboo raft. First we visited some tribal villages, including a Karen tribe where the married women wear colored clothes and the single women wear white. Most of the villagers were cutting bamboo to be woven into baskets for sticky rice and such. Then the hike to the village was about two hours but with some steep bits, so luckily our host crafted some hiking poles out of bamboo. Afterwards, my travel buddy Pru and I used them for some battles ala Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Everyone in my group stayed together in an elevated hut, sleeping on mattresses with mosquito nets. With a very modest fee of $1/person, we were entertained around our campfire with a traditional performance from some local girls. We also led them through the hokey pokey but I guess it's a smaller world than you think because they seemed to know it already.

Married Karen woman in traditional clothes

Darling village girl not the least bit shy about checking out the foreigners

Villagers at home cutting bamboo for baskets

Pru and I battle it out

My group checks out the homestay--we slept in the hut pictured

Dance performance by the village girls. The traditional costume includes metal bands worn around the waist.

Incredibly our elephants each held 3 people plus the mahout (guide) and my mahout actually balanced right on the elephant's head. My fellow riders Pat, Vicky, and I were slightly disconcerted to learn that our elephant was 45 years old and elephant life expectancy is only 40, but we came through unscathed and watched amazed when he chomped down a whole tree as a mid-ride snack. Next we rode bamboo rafts and I mean literally bamboo poles held together with cut strips of tires. Each of us took a turn as a raft gondolier but whatever my next career may be, it's surely not as a raft captain.

Pat, Vicky, and me (plus our mahout) on our old elephant

Boarding the bamboo rafts

One other noteworthy stop was the White Temple near Chang Mai, one man's vision strange yet sometimes beautiful creation. Inside the temple, some of the motifs include the burning twin towers, Neo from The Matrix, and Michael Jackson. Oh, and did I mention the golden bathroom?

At the White Temple

Fanciest bathroom building I've ever seen

And with that, 849 days and 20 countries later, I am returning to my homeland. I plan to keep this blog going just a bit longer, so expect to hear soon about my readjustment to life in the USA. The adventures may just be getting started...

Lovely Laos

2012-01-02T06:47:00.000-08:00

Sabaidee (hello)! Forthe last week, I’ve been traveling through what I believe is my 48^thcountry, Laos(the “s” is silent). This is almost asleepy place, with a slow pace of life and quiet, polite people. It took me awhile to warm up to Laos--it was such a departure from the intensityof India--butnow I find it really quite lovely.

I’m traveling now with a group of 13 people ranging from 24to 73 years old, hailing from Australia,Britain, Canada, and the U.S. In Laos,we started in the small capital city of Vientianewhich did not have any very remarkable sites but it was fun to explore oneman’s self-made collection of Buddha statutes.

At the Buddha Park near Vientiane

Vang Vieng was our next stop and the town itself is anunattractive string of shops catering to tourists who want to tube on the riverand drink alcohol served literally in small plastic buckets. However, the environs have lovely greenhillsides that we got to see on an extremely bumpy dirt road bike ride. It can only be deemed miraculous that I didthis 8 mile roundtrip ride on a fixed gear road bike. The next day, I went ahead and tried barhopping by inner tube on the river, where there are guys at each bar who throwropes and pull each floating customer in to shore. It’s not the classiest pastime but it was afun afternoon.

Me and my fixie

Local kids check out the weird foreigners

Next, after 5 hours on one of the windiest roads I’ve everbeen on, we arrived in Luang Prabang. The city is dotted with many beautiful temples or wats, including the Buddhist monks in orange robes who provide thewats’ upkeep. On New Years Eve, I got upat 5 AM to see the monks gather offerings of rice, fruit, etc from people wholine the street sitting on bamboo mats, collecting them in a lunch pail ofsorts. I was surprised that some of themonks were very young, perhaps only 10 years old. Then we stopped at a pretty nature area,Kungsi Waterfalls. After visiting a fewwats, my final mission was to finish my Christmas shopping at the Night Market (myfamily is celebrating Christmas on January 16^th after I get home). The currency here is 8,000 Kip to $1, so ittook awhile to get used to so many zeros in my wallet but my multiples of 8 arenow fresh in my mind. Then finally Istayed up until midnight (just barely) to ring in 2012 with my group. People all over the city set off huge paperlanterns that go up like hot air balloons, dotting the whole sky with orangespecks—it was a serene but special start to the new year.

Monks collecting morning offerings in Luang Prabang

Pat channels his inner Tarzan at Kungsi Waterfalls

At Wat Xieng Thong

Buddha statues with tile mosaics behind at Wat Xieng Thong

Night Market in Luang Prabang

2012 is off to a calm start as we’ve spent the last two dayson a boat going up the Mekong River. We’ve had some of the best food on the tripduring this time, dishes like green papaya salad and larp, a ground meat/hotpepper salad. The boat ride hasfortunately left me with time to write up this blog on the boat but no wifi, sothe uploading will happen later. I havea few more days in northern Thailand, then it is home sweet home which gives mea bit more excitement and angst each day--excitement for food, family, andfriends; angst for job hunting, reverse culture shock, and weighing in after manymonths of travel cuisine. I just keepreminding myself, what will be will be and besides, that’s all still a week anda country away. Next up, Thailand.

Our boat on the Mekong River

Locals busy along the Mekong

Boy eating sugar cane in a village along the Mekong River

Southern Hospitality

2011-12-27T04:03:00.000-08:00

I’ll be honest—when I left northern India, I was wondering if I had made a mistakebooking a full month in India. Could I handle another month of honkinghorns, touts following me around with postcard books, and questionably safefood? Luckily, southern India proved delightful, the Floridato the north’s New York. In the south, people were more relaxed and inturn, I was more relaxed. The air wasfresher and we spent a lot of time outdoors, from the beaches to the hilltops. Many dishes used fresh ingredients likecoconut, sometimes instead of a plate we had a banana leaf, and I didn’t getsick at all (other than a head cold). Now,I was still seeing a gazillion temples (all of which require shoe removal—I’venever gone barefoot so much in my life) and if I never see another grain ofrice it will be too soon, but I’m certainly glad that southern India proved to be a whole othercreature from the north.

Veg Thali served on a banana leaf, including a big heaping pile of rice

The southern tour began in Kochi, a city where the fishermen still useenormous fishing nets attached to an elaborate lever, introduced by the Chinesehundreds of years ago. In this region,gestures are important and one we had to learn quickly was the head bobble(picture a bobble-head doll) that is the equivalent of nodding “yes.” Moving south meant hotter temperatures, so itwas a relief when we moved on to the Hill country. As an avid tea drinker, I was fascinated tosee start-to-finish how tea is grown and processed. Then we visited Mudumalai Nature Reserve,where we watched elephants being bathed and fed by their handlers. Most of the trained elephants end up attemples—I got blessed by one in Pondicherry. Each person holds out money, the elephantgrabs it with her trunk, and then she bonks you on the head—err, blessesyou—and this blessing is supposed to bring me prosperity. A good job offer soon perhaps?

Chinese fishing nets in Kochi at sunset

Me as a tea plantation worker

Always wash behind your ears

Getting "blessed"

One of my favorite southern stops was Mamallapuram, a smalltown on the Bay of Bengal (east coast) where we rode bicycles between thesights which included a Shore Temple, Five Rathas, Krishna’sButterball, and a huge bas relief called Arjuna’s Penance. Unexpectedly I also got a chance to swim inthe Indian Ocean at a place calledVarkala. This wasn’t on my originalitinerary but rather was added due to our need to avoid protests about proposeddam reconstruction at our previously planned destination, Periyar. Unfortunately the protests also caused roadclosures between 6 AM and 6 PM, so to reach Varkala we actually had to driveall night in our tiny van. Varkala isone of the nicer beaches I’ve been to though, good sand and right below a cliffthat keeps all the shops and restaurants at a respectable distance. Without going into all the details, theitinerary changes led to some struggle with the tour company to get substituteactivities but in the end we had a nice long boat ride added through abeautiful region called the Kerala backwaters. There we stayed 2 nights in guesthouses on an island within thebackwaters, a restful way to de-stress and end my stay in India.

5 Rathas (Carriages) in Mamallapuram

Me in front of Arjuna's Penance

Krishna's butter ball

Laundry in the Kerala Backwaters

Getting around the Kerala Backwaters

Once again it was sad to say goodbye to the friends I madeon the tour, particularly Wendy and Dennis who did the whole month withme. Spending so much time together andin such a chaotic environment has a way of bringing people together quickly—andyou can’t get much closer than trying to shove numerous Westerners intorickshaws built for tiny Indian behinds. Now that I am in Laosand have some distance from India,I can better appreciate that the intensity of India is part of its magic. In the end, I am very glad that I devoted amonth to exploring Indiaand I’m missing the smiles and hellos of the Indian people already. I’m in Laosfor a few more days, then one week in Thailand, and then, unbelievably,home! More on southeast Asia in a futureinstallment, of course.

Indi...ah!

2011-12-08T22:12:00.001-08:00

This blog title was on the side of my tour bus and therehave indeed been many ah-worthy sights during my first 10 days in India. I’ve seen an almost overwhelming amount offorts, temples, and palaces carved from sandstone. The number of people everywhere is astoundingand they are constantly moving--carrying water or packages on their heads,weaving in and out of traffic on bicycle and auto rickshaws, buying and sellingwares, and much more. To facilitate allthat movement, there is a LOT of honkinghorns, so much so that I think the beeping will echo in my head for weeks afterI leave here. To quote my roommate Malaika, "I didn't know what the definition of noisy was until now." So, there is a great dealto take in but I am enjoying all of the unique places and delicious foods. Or I was until about 2 days ago, when something I ate led me to projectile vomit in front of my entire tour group. When feeling up to Indian fare, my new favorite dish is called vegetablethali which is a plate with 3-5 small samples of vegetable dishes along with bread andrice, which is delicious with a yogurt lassi drink.

Street scene in Agra; note monkey on the wire above

Enjoying a thali in Orchha with a palace in the background

Women collecting water in Alipura

I’m now on a group tour with 14 other people from around theworld—Canada, UK, New Zealand,Norway, Germany, Puerto Rico, Australia,and 4 other Americans—plus our Indian guide Bhupendra or as he lets us callhim, Boo. The ease of group travel issomething I’m appreciating, even though that does mean sometimes we spendlonger somewhere than I would if I were traveling solo. Also it’s nice to have other people toexplore with because out on the street, people are usually trying to sell ussomething or asking for money. Or in thevillages, the kids want pens or chocolates because that’s what many touristsgive them. I didn’t realize what anattraction we ourselves would be as white foreigners—the kids love to shake ourhands and while we are taking photos of them, they are taking cell phone picsof us. It’s practically like being acelebrity and almost everywhere, people follow us and stare at us. For me, it’s a bit too much attention but Ifigure the trading of photos is fair since we are equally fascinated bythem. The colors people wear here areincredible which makes taking good photos almost effortless.

Attracting attention in the village of Bhadarej

Villagers in Bhadarej

Me and the village kids in Alipura

Mother holding baby in Abhaneri

Collecting well water in Alipura

Our itinerary has included many classic stops like Delhi, Jaipur (known for its Red Fort), Agra (location of the TajMahal), and Varanasi (on the renowned Ganges river), but for me it’s other smaller destinations more off the beaten paththat have been more enjoyable. One of myfavorites is a village called Orchha which, given the scale of India, has6,000 residents even in a village. Orchha has striking palaces and monuments scattered throughout the town,including one that Malaika and I explored all by ourselves. A local woman gave us a cooking class for 9Indian specialties including masala chai and an amazing eggplant curry, and Ihave all the recipes to add to my cooking repertoire. Malaika and I also befriended a local shopowner who said I’d have good karma for not bargaining too hard on the metal artpieces that I bought from him.

At a temple in Orchha

Me and Joany helping with cooking class, instructor in the center

At another palace in Orchha

Sunset in Orchha

Another unique sight is in the town of Khajuraho, a 1,000 year old Hindu temple witherotic imagery, i.e. just about every sensual act you can imagine. In this way, and with how many other templesincorporate Hindu, Muslim, and Christian imagery together, I have come toappreciate how Indiais accepting of many approaches in life. My group did not actually stay in Khajuraho but a smaller village calledAlipura about 3 hours away. Both hereand in another village, we are actually staying in former royal residencesturned into hotels. Outside the hotelthe first night a Muslim celebration was taking place with included drummingfrom about 9 pm to midnight and again starting at 5 am. Suffice to say, nobody slept all thatwell.

Another noteworthy experience was seeing a Bollywood moviein Jaipur called Desi Boyz (City Boys). I’d never watched a full Bollywood film anddespite being 90% in Hindi, the story was easy to follow. It was about 2 guys who lost their jobs and,desperate for work, became dancers for bachelorette parties. They tried to hide these new jobs from theirfamily which, of course, didn’t last long but in the end, everyone was happy. About every 20 minutes, there would be amusical number and the whole film lasted about 3 hours. There were many ways that the film includednear kisses but no actual kissing, which was amusing to see compared with a Hollywood movie.

Another super stop was visiting a village school where thekids sang to us. All the students weresitting on the floor and it astounded me that they still use slatetablets. With the smallest kids, therewere at least 40 students in the class and sunlight lit the classroom. The older grades had maybe half as manystudents. It’s so easy to forget howfortunate we are in the U.S. to have schools with computers and gyms and desksfor everyone.

Village class in Abhaneri

The kids singing to us

It has been surprising for me here that many people,particularly in the villages, do not speak English. Somehow I thought that as a former Britishcolony and because so much media is in English that almost everyone would bebilingual, but that does not seem to be the case at all. It’s not difficult to find someone that knowsEnglish in the cities but it can take some asking around. That has been the biggest surprise for mehere. And not necessarily surprising butsad nevertheless is the amount of garbage strewn everywhere. Although the trash is sometimes swept intopiles and burned, there is still a great deal of rubbish most everywhere youlook and it really detracts from what is otherwise nice countryside.

Piles of trash in Delhi

Our internet access has been pretty sporadic and when we dohave access, all 15 of us are trying to use it, so I can’t put up much in theway of photos now but I’ll try to post a few to give a small sense of the colorand chaos of India. I am in India untilChristmas so more news on this country to come. Not that it seems like Christmastime now that I’m running around everyday in sandals and T-shirts but truly, it’s fine by me!

The Only Tourist in Romania

2011-11-25T08:32:00.001-08:00

For the crowd-adverse, now is the time to visit Romania. In the capital city of Bucharest I had some company and in Transylvania but then, wow, it was like I had the whole country to myself. My week in Romania started in Bucharest where I was fortunate to be hosted by Erin, a RPCV from Macedonia who now works for Peace Corps in Romania. While Erin was at work, I visited an outdoor museum of buildings from all over Romania showing the many styles of construction. Then I toured the Palace of Parliament, built by the Communist ruler Nicolae Ceausescu during his 20+ year reign. The building is second only in size to the Pentagon and seemingly every inch is covered with marble and gold-embroidered curtains. As a friend of mine who grew up there said, it's astounding that Ceausesau could spend so much on a building when his people were standing in bread lines. Actually, he was executed before the building's completion and now it is used, as the name implies, for the government and other offices, conferences, etc. I rounded out the day by wandering the historic quarter, which shows the great architecture that used to cover more of the city before Ceausescu had his way with the usual socialist concretification, and enjoyed a Lebanese meal with Erin.

Palace of Parliament

Lebanese with Erin

Next I traveled by train into Transylvania, specifically to the city of Brasov. One advantage of traveling solo is that if I decide to drop my bags at the hostel, inhale an apple, and then run out to catch the next bus then nobody is perturbed by it. In this case, I rushed off to the town of Bran to see "Dracula's Castle." Though the historical inspiration for the Dracula character, Vlad the Impaler, hailed from this region, there's pretty much no tie to Bran Castle per se other than some great marketing. Still, I enjoyed reading the history of the last royal family who used the castle until their ouster after WWII. Brasov was also fun because there were other people staying at the hostel and we went to an Irish Pub to listen to a big band perform.

Spooky - Bran "Dracula" Castle

From inside Bran Castle

Note funny Hollywood-style Brasov sign on the hillside

Brasov at sunset

After Brasov, I took a 2.5 hour train to the town of Sighisoara, which has cute walled city that I walked around. The childhood home of Vlad the Impaler is also here. Then I continued perfecting my killing-time-having-coffee-and-using-internet until I took off for a 2 hour train to Cluj Napoca, then yet another 1 AM train for 6 hours to Gura Humorului. I had the pleasure of being woken at 2:30 AM by the conductor who said nothing I understood except "problem" and then having to move to another train car. At least the second train car seemed heated which might have been the problem.

Sighisoara

Dracula!

Arriving in quaint Gura Humorului on a Sunday morning, I needed to take a taxi out to the guesthouse I reserved online. I rang the bell of the guesthouse and nothing. I knocked. I rang more, pounded on the door. What was I going to do 3 miles from town with all my stuff on a cold morning? After a few more minutes, I finally roused the owner of the guesthouse. Pleasantly I was upgraded to a room with it's own bathroom but I guess that made sense since I was the only guest. I chose this location because a friend stayed there last March and their website said they worked with a Peace Corps volunteer before. And ultimately it worked as a decent base for seeing two monasteries, Humor and Voronet, that is by walking about 10 miles roundtrip. Eh, I figured I needed the exercise after all that train/cafe sitting. Voronet was the truly impressive monastery, the complete exterior covered in small, detailed paintings. Here's practically the only picture of me in Romania because I rarely had someone around to take one. Actually, I had two people take photos but both were about like this, which is to say that someone should teach photography in Romania.

Me at Voronet Monastery

Voronet exterior

Voronet details

Humor Monastery

Inside Humor during Sunday services

In the countryside on my walk

Water well, still in use

Genius--to go pretzels, tied with twine

I begged my way onto an officially "full" mini-bus, the only one I knew of that day, to my final stop in Romania, Sighetu Marmatiei (also known as Sighet). Basically I went all the way from the northeast corner to the northwest so I could see a place called the Merry Cemetery in a nearby village, Sapanta. Actually, the signs in Sapanta call it the Cheerful Cemetery and I'm glad that I made the effort because it's like nothing else I've ever seen. Dating back to 1935, each plot has a cross where the front (and sometimes the backside too) have an image from the deceased's life. Usually it had something to do with the person's vocation or life like weaving, farming, fixing cars, etc. There were some crazier pictures too though like someone being beheaded and another person hit by a car. The whole cemetery is so colorful with the dominant blue color and then all the different images are so colorful, so I got completely photo-happy and you can see the results here.

Merry Cemetery

Romanian food--stuffed cabbage rolls (sarma) and polenta with cheese

Typical winter street scene in Sighet

During my time in Sighet, I was blessed with incredibly good travel karma. First, I figured out from the signs at my hostel (again I was the only guest and the owner left a baba who only spoke Romanian in charge, so thank goodness for the detailed signs) that there was a van directly from Sighet to Budapest so no more night trains! Second, I easily caught a ride from Sapanta back to Sighet, following the custom of paying the driver the same as the bus fare. Then, on the ride to Budapest, a nice lady who spoke English took me under her wing and made sure I didn't get forgotten anywhere along the way, getting out of the van just before my stop. I thought we were arriving in Budapest at 4:30 AM, just when the subway was opening but, doh, I didn't realize we were changing time zones. When I pulled on the locked doors of the train station where I was dropped and saw 3:30, my stomach dropped and my mind started racing--it's cold, if I take a taxi I'll get ripped off, can I even find a taxi, do I wait out here for an hour...when another gal from my van came up and said, "I don't speak good English but my brother can give you a ride if you want." Oh, praise be! So I got dropped just a few minutes from my hostel and for free. The whole week the people in Romania were so good about trying to understand me and helping when they could--I have great impressions of the people there.

I wish I had something exciting to report about Budapest, Hungary but here's how it is: this is my third time here and being the thorough person that I am, I pretty much saw everything the first time through. Plus, traveling two weeks alone is exhausting. I was in charge of all logistics, watching belongings, making decisions, etc so here, I'm resting. Mostly I've been shopping, restocking for my next destination--India! I had to replace my broken purse, buy a plug adapter, watch the new Twilight movie (okay, strictly speaking that wasn't a must), etc. Today I sent my winter coat and a few other things home to lighten my load (and it also greatly lightened my wallet, eek). I'm feeling fairly ready though having learned, among other things, that instead of 30-degree Fahrenheit temps like here, India is having highs in the 80s, lows in the 50s and that time in India is a half hour off the rest of the world, i.e. 00:30 to everyone else's 00:00. I spent the entirety of the last year in and around Eastern Europe, so I'm excited to be heading to a new region, especially when it's a place that is completely off the rest of the world time-wise. By Sunday, I'll be in Delhi!

Bulgaria, Or How I Almost Got Arrested

2011-11-24T12:59:00.001-08:00

Arriving in Sofia, Bulgaria's capital, I saw this and was like hmmm, did I teleport to Denver International Airport?

DIA?

My afternoon began happily enough, sitting watching this scene while I ate the cheese sandwiches that Linda made me,

and going into this church and wondering how the massive dome has barely any supports.

Aleksandar Nevski Church

Sigh, but then because my cell phone wasn't working and I needed to reach Galina, my couch surfing host, I bought a new card for my phone. In theory, this card should have made my phone work but it didn't. In the store I'm speaking Macedonian, begging for my money back and they are refusing in Bulgarian that I do but don't understand. There is some controversy about whether Macedonian and Bulgarian are two different languages or dialects of the same language and I will not weigh in. Suffice to say, they knew what I wanted but since the chip worked in their phones they weren't budging. This is when, I'm sad to say, I threw the card on the ground and started kicking at the packaging. The store owner I was talking to disappeared and it occurred to me that I might be arrested. So, I picked up my kicked-around card and hightailed it. This is pretty uncharacteristic behavior for me but I think I regrouped well. I found another phone store that loaned me a phone and I used my card to call Galina. We agreed on a meeting time and place and then I ate 2 doughnuts at Dunkins because that makes everything better.

Tom Jones says it's not unusual to use doughnut therapy

Staying with Galina was by far the best part of my time in Bulgaria. We are the same age and have a lot in common, so I enjoyed chatting with her over the breakfast she gave me and when we went to dinner my second night there. She and I shared her room in her apartment, which is an incredibly nice thing for anyone to do, and I found her couch quite comfy. Plus, she helped me figure out all the logistics of buses and things to get where I wanted to go, I really couldn't have asked for more.

Galina at dinner

Sadly my second day in Sofia started with yet another financial blow. I needed to exchange money and the banks weren't open yet, so I went to a currency exchange that flipped the numbers, so essentially I was charged $15 to change $75--yeah, ouch. I have heard from many other friends about this type of problem, taxi cons, etc, so Sofia doesn't have a good reputation for travelers. Fortunately the rest of the day was lovely as I took a bus about 3 hours to a place called Rila Monastery. The monastery has a striking paint job on the exterior and I got a good look at it during the 2 hours I had there until the bus went back to Sofia.

Rila Monastery

Close-up from Rila Monastery

After my two days in Sofia, I took a bus about 3 hours to a town called Veliko Tarnovo. I'd chosen that destination based on the recommendation of others and so as to see somewhere in Bulgaria outside the capital. Unfortunately for me, the office that used to sell international train tickets in Veliko Tarnovo no longer did, leaving me with a dilemma: I'd just arrived in town, but I needed to go to another town 20 minutes away by train to buy a ticket, which wouldn't be so bad except the trains only run once an hour. Ah yes, and I have to buy a ticket before the office closes at 5 (or maybe 6) PM. So, stressed, I quickly visited two churches and then carried on to the town selling international tickets. That gave me 8 hours until my 1 AM train to contemplate the coolness of the interior of the Tsarevets Fortress church with it's modern take on Orthodox art and to rejoice that a town without a working restaurant had free wifi in its train station. Then by 7 AM, I was in Bucharest, Romania.

Tsarevets Fortress in Veliko Tarnovo

Interior of the fortress church

KP sounds good to me

2011-11-22T05:43:00.001-08:00

After my overnight in Kosovo, I dropped back down to Macedonia for a two night stay in the northeastern city of Kriva Palanka (KP). I was met by Linda, my Peace Corps volunteer friend living there, who did not bat an eye when I immediately asked to wash my sleeping bag which had unfortunately absorbed some of the oil leaking in the trunk of the van that delivered me to KP. Besides doing my laundry, Linda also fed me and gave me the last 40 MKD ($1) that I needed for bus fare, so she really did step in as my mom for the weekend.

Linda and I took a great hike up to the nearby monastery, Sv. Joakim Osogovski. It's the only monastery that I've been to that had a marker from the Turks protecting it from harm because one of the Ottoman leaders was nursed back to health there. Linda carried up some food for the monastery cats that she's befriended, almost the extended family of her own friendly cats, Vesna and Vince. On the way down, a local lady who found out I hailed from Bitola sang Bitola, moj roden kraj with me, one of those moments that are an irreplaceable part of living in Macedonia.

Sv. Joakim Osogovski Monastery in the background

Column in the foreground is the marker from the Turks

Linda feeding her buddies

Linda and me at the monastery

Playing Quidditch--no seriously, people in Macedonia still use this type of broom

We also visited the firehouse that was renovated due to Linda's work with the community. She applied for a grant to do the work and I assisted her with shaping the grant application for the Peace Corps committee that approves the grants. This is the only grant project I helped with where I got to see the results first-hand and I must say, I was really impressed! The firemen did the labor, even building cabinets, and it looks fantastic. They seem pleased with their new digs and there is also meeting space now for local groups. And rock star that she is, Linda is contemplating another project to help other organizations find adequate buildings for their work.

Community room before renovations--photo courtesy of Linda

Community room after renovations--photo courtesy of Linda

Brand new kitchen, built from scratch--photo courtesy of Linda

And then I was off on my own, or so I thought. Actually, I was pleasantly surprised to find Sarah D., another recent RPCV, on my van to Sofia, Bulgaria. We chatted the whole way until she headed to the airport and I ventured into the city. Oh, what a venture. More on that in the next installment, Bulgaria.

Finally, the Doughnut Hole!

2011-11-21T10:56:00.001-08:00

This summer I toured through the Balkans around Kosovo, affectionately dubbed the Doughnut tour. Well, I'm happy to report that I finally got to that elusive Munchkin itself. Kosovo was my first stop on my two month trip celebrating my completion of Peace Corps. I am now officially an RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer), though truthfully I still feel like I'll be going back to Bitola any day now. Finishing Peace Corps, like any government-related task, involves heaps of paperwork and then boom, I'm free! No more reporting my whereabouts, although perhaps I got too accustomed to this since I seem to be doing so voluntarily on Facebook anyway. So, back to Kosovo.

Wonderfully I was able to begin my travels with another newbie RPCV, Mere. We took the bus to Pristina, Kosovo's capital, only about 3 hours from Skopje. The city had a vibe quite similar to Albanian-dominated cities in Macedonia so it didn't strike me as particularly exotic but I was glad to go there and complete my education on the former Yugoslavia. Good Americans that we are, Mere and I asked around until we found the golden idol, i.e. Bill Clinton statue. Eleven feet tall and up on a pedestal, Clinton is recognized for his help in separating Kosovo from Serbia through NATO air strikes. Having a statue of such a recent president is a bit much for me to take in but it was a fun stop nevertheless.

Giving Bill a thumbs up

Mere & me in front of the Newborn sign landmark

While Mere continued on Sarajevo, I spent the night couch surfing with an American named Ben who is teaching at an American school. I had a fun time hanging out with him and his teacher friends, comparing their classroom stories to ones from my teacher pals in Macedonia. Other than a small snafu with the key when Mere and I arrived, I had a great first couch surfing experience that carried over into my next surfing stop, Sofia--more on that in my Bulgaria installment. Up next though, my last weekend in Macedonia.

The Last

2011-11-07T09:47:00.000-08:00

Today is my last day in Bitola, which I cannot believe no matter how empty my apartment gets as I give away anything that will not fit in my travel backpack which, believe me, does not hold nearly enough. Really this is just one of many "last's" this month, such as my last...

Visit to Gostivar / Running Race in Macedonia
At the Harvest Festival 5K run planned initiated by Peace Corps Volunteer Candy and her counterpart Luli, I defended my title as the fastest lady over 20 years old--wahoo!

Peace Corps Runners, courtesy of Phil Lampron

Clean sweep by the Americans--me, Kerry, & Joany, courtesy of Phil Lampron

Also I drank my last one of these drinks, salep.

It's a hot drink from Turkey made from orchid root and I hope someday it finds its way to an American coffee chain near me--we non-coffee drinkers should have some options too.

"Na Gosti (Visit)" With My Host Family
I made one final visit to Sveti Nikole and bid farewell to my awesome host family. Now at the end of my service, I can really appreciate how fortunate I was to have them take me in. They helped me get a solid base in the language and they always welcomed me back with open arms. My baba (grandma) knit me a pair of slippers practically overnight, worried as she was that I didn't have adequate footwear for the winter. Finally, now that he's 5 years old, I can talk with my host nephew and we understand each other and his little sis is more darling all the time. My host dad called the other night just to check in, which seems like no better sign that we're really family.

Baba Genka working on my slippers

My "niece" Kijara wearing my running medal and her big bro, Mario

American Corner Events
It's sad knowing that soon things like playing kickball, overseeing pin-the-wart-on-the-witch, and teaching line dancing can no longer be considered "work." Then again, I'm still job hunting, so maybe...

Kickball in the city park

With the boys, awesome fall colors in the backdrop

Pin the Wart on the Witch

The Four Seasons--Michelle, Lauren, Helene, and me

Awesome costumes of kids from my sports club

Lauren teaching the moves, courtesy of American Corner Bitola

Cotton eye joe-ing, courtesy of American Corner Bitola

Ana from the American Corner and me with the poster everybody signed for me

Time Mopping My Bathroom
A common quirk here, my entire bathroom floods after every shower. I will not miss mopping it up every morning.

Appearance on Live Macedonian Television / YMCA Training
My counterpart at YMCA, Viktor, and I were invited to be an hour-long, live TV program to discuss a training we put together on my favorite subject, projects. Only unlike last time, on this program I had to speak in Macedonian. People here are pretty straightforward and the consensus from friends who watched the program is yeah, my Macedonian is still rough but it's understandable. Even better though was that 28 people came to our training, literally filling every seat available. Happily YMCA is getting new Peace Corps volunteer from the new group, Karli, and her visit coincided with all this excitement. During my last weekly YMCA meeting, I brought American treats and the tortilla pinwheels were a surprise hit--my job is clearly done.

In the TV studio which was freezing!

Viktor & me at the training, courtesy of Karli Reyes

Listening closely at the training, courtesy of Karli Reyes

Coffees
"Having a coffee" is what it's all about here and in this aspect, to use Peace Corps parlance, I've "fully integrated." Luckily the weather here has been mostly sunny, allowing me to do most of my coffee dates sitting out on the Shirok Sokak pedestrian street, staring at the passersby just like a real Bitolchaka.

Introducing Karli to drinking coffee on the Shirok Sokak with Viktor

Strolling the Shirok Sokak with my friend Ivona and her daughter

In addition to the goodbyes with my local friends, I also have bid adieu (or here, ajde ciao) to my volunteer buddies. They are, I must say, crazy like me--they will sacrifice two years of income for something they believe in, will crash on the floor just to visit a new place, and laugh when others might cry--and it is hard to have them dispersing near and far. I know I'll see some folks back in America which will surely be fun but different without Macedonia as our backdrop.

Macedonian Meals
The Macedonians, they know their roasted peppers and grilled meats, among other deliciousness. Pretty soon my hamburgers won't look like this, with the fries right on the burger (then again, my burger will also probably be 100% beef and that is something to look forward to).

Yum Yum

Days as a Celebrity
Bitola is not a huge place and when I'm out, especially on my runs, I see people I know who wave, stop to talk, give me a high-five, etc. One of the YMCA members attended our training not in small part because she loves my accent, which I told her will definitely be under-appreciated back home. Soon I will not be "the American," just "an American."

A few more last's are yet to come, including my last visit to Skopje, last language exam, and last Macedonian pizza with the side of ketchup topping. After that, I'm off to Kosovo, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, India, Thailand (flooding permitting), and Laos! My sunscreen is indeed packed, so dispatches on these adventures coming soon.

Wrap-up & Enjoy

2011-09-30T12:04:00.000-07:00

Me as the Apple Fest Princess--Read On...

Things are slooowinnng doowwnnnnnnnn. The hard and fast reality is that I only have 5 more weeks left in my service, so the name of the game is "wrap-up and enjoy." In the wrap-up column, I handed off leadership of my baby, the Environmental Committee that I helped establish, and attended my last Volunteer Advisory Committee meeting. With great relief after straining my brain to estimate how many people I have worked with over my service, I turned in my last activities report to Peace Corps. And the American Corner asked me to present about my college experience, which was a fun trip down memory lane and I think there are some potential Huskers here.

As for enjoyment, I took a wonderful hike led by the intrepid Robert, another volunteer living in the southeastern corner of the country who patiently endured all our dental care questions (he's a dentist) on the 9 hour trek. Check us all out in more of those famous "glamour shots."

Robert, Kerry, me, and Jane at the summit

You don't want to know how I got up there

Pensive pose between Bulgaria and Macedonia (with Greece behind me)

Then I traveled to nearby Resen for its apple festival, which had the cutest kids selling delicious baked goods and lots of musical performances. And, of course, there were apples--apples to eat, apples on costumes, apple growing awards, all that good stuff.

How can you resist their charm (and the quarter/cookie price)?

Hane (Helene's son visiting from America), Helene, and Michelle (volunteer in Resen)

Trying the goods

Singing group in traditional costumes

Though sadly and strangely, there is no Macedonian version of apple cider. I think I'll drink a gallon of it next fall, to make up for missing out on that deliciousness for the last couple years. Increasingly my mind is creeping towards the realization that all my food and drink cravings may soon be satisfied and in anticipation of that, I've started counting calories (awesome online program for this--Lose It) to try and return to my pre-Macedonia weight. And how soon will I be home? In 100 days!

Making It To Krushevo

2011-09-21T08:44:00.000-07:00

Jane and Ellen strike a pose in Krushevo

In Macedonia, the journey tends to be half the adventure. For instance, take last Friday when Ellen, Jane, and I decided it was about time we visited the town of Krushevo. I called the bus station the day before to confirm the time but when we showed up then, it turns out the van really leaves an hour later. Oh well, it gave us time to grab tost, the Macedonian version of a panini. Once on our way, our van gets flagged by the police, forcing everyone to get out for about 5 minutes and then get back in to continue on. Why did we get stopped? Who knows. Then, 15 minutes later, our van broke down. Luckily this happened on the edge of a town, so when I driver wandered away and didn't return for awhile, we started walking around town asking about taxis. The third person we asked called a taxi for us and once again, we were on our way and arrived at our final destination.

Our first stop was a museum devoted to Tose Proeski, a Macedonian singer who died in 2007 at age 26 in a car crash. Tose's following was huge, something I might liken to Elvis except in addition to his music he was also known for his humanitarian work. As an outsider, I cannot truly appreciate how beloved Tose was but I have seen people brought to tears by the memory of him. For a clip of him performing a traditional folk song, click here. At the museum they have many artifacts from his life, from costumes and musical instruments to the more unusual like his dental floss, nunchucks, and murse (that's man-purse for the uninitiated, something that is totally acceptable here but still makes me shudder to see men carrying). At any rate, it was fascinating to see how tribute was paid to this recent icon who is remembered practically as a saint.

Next came some of what we call "glamour shots" (fun photos) in front of a memorial to the Illinden Uprising of 1903, a short-lived independence from the Ottoman Empire. The memorial's strange and large visage brought to mind the Death Star to us and Ellen impressed us with her ability to hum the Star Wars music.

Jumping for joy at having finally made it to Krushevo

Afterwards, we killed time before our next van ride by drinking coffee and watching the Macedonians cheer on their national basketball team. The national team signed on a player from New Orleans, Bo McCalebb, giving him Macedonian citizenship although I read that he really only knows some cuss words in Macedonian--not that I'm saying that's a bad place to start in terms of learning the language. McCalebb has received much of the credit for the team's great performance in the European Championships and the team got a heroes welcome when the returned to Skopje on Monday.

Townspeople watching the Macedonia basketball game against Spain

Lest this post go on and on, I can say the rest of the day went smoothly and was capped off a stop at the country's one and only Thai restaurant. I am hoping that the next time I eat Thai food will be in Thailand on my trip home but I haven't booked anything there--yet.

100 Episodes!

2011-09-12T06:50:00.000-07:00

This is my 100th blog entry, which if I were a television sitcom I'm pretty sure would involve a giant sheet cake and possibly a special live episode but since this is just a blog there's much less fanfare. Nevertheless, I'm proud that I've reached the triple digits and have essentially averaged about a post per week since I started this blog. My life is not that exciting so that I managed to put something together that often is quite a feat. And although I sometimes feel like only my parents read this, I've actually had over 5,000 page views, including from places like Russia and Latvia, so there must be a few other folks out there curious about the life of this Peace Corps gal in Macedonia.

Yesterday, 9/11, was obviously a solemn anniversary for Americans but for me it also marked two years time since I started the Peace Corps. Truthfully it pleases me that I have a good memory to associate with a day that conjures many sad remembrances, that the tragedy of that day did not stop me and many other Americans from trying to make friends with people from foreign lands.

In the aggregate, these two years have gone very quickly. There were days themselves that seemed never-ending, but I have had an enjoyable and memorable time that makes me sometimes feel reluctant to move on to my next sitcom, which will probably be some strange combination of West Wing, Sex in the City, and Saturday Night Live. Although it eases my apprehension about what may come next to think that it could possibly be that dramatic and entertaining!

Nothing Better than Pleasant Surprises

2011-09-05T06:49:00.000-07:00

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"--in thinking of how to summarize my day yesterday, this line from A Tale of Two Cities immediately came to mind. The "best" part was that I was doing one of my favorite activities, hiking. I climbed a mountain peak with the great hiking club Pelister, whose members are always patient with my language skills and careful not to leave me behind (which is good because seriously, I think two people from our bus got left behind). Since I had done this hike last year, I was not expecting it to be all that different but there were some pleasant surprises like...


Being one of the first Pelister members at the top and not the last

Seeing these people who carried their baby 4 hours up to a mountain peak

And stranger yet, seeing this house cat carried up the mountain (held by my Pelister buddy, Stevo)

Kerry and I proving there's nothing more American than making trail mix

As for the worst of times, that was the bus ride home where instead of singing pleasant folk songs like last year, people decided to scream them instead. Seriously, two hours of yelling inside a bus. I try to respect cultural differences but this was literally painful, inducing a big headache. I told my seatmate that the ride home was my worst experience in Macedonia and he chalked it up to Americans being cold and not embracing the Mediterranean celebration mentality. Perhaps, but I think I wasn't the only person on the bus not enjoying the "entertainment." Thankfully it was a day where the best outweighed the worst and that's about all a person can ask for, no matter where she is.

"Business" Trip to Nymfaio, Greece

2011-08-30T09:10:00.000-07:00

Facebook, through some magical time warp sidebar, reminded me that 2 years ago today I was fending off raccoons on a beach in Costa Rica, two weeks before my departure to Macedonia. Flash forward to this afternoon, with me sewing up yet another tear in my pants, trying to get them to last a few more months until I'm finished in Macedonia. I can't believe this journey has come and practically gone already. Still, I'm trying to wring the most out of these final moments, which this weekend included some "official business leave" in Greece.

How sad it will be when I can't consider going to a summer camp in Greece "work." I traveled with 10 Macedonians to a YMCA camp held near a village called Nymfaio in northern Greece. Relations between Macedonia and Greece are strained, illustrated by the fact that Greece actually refuses to stamp a passport that says "Macedonia" and instead stamps a separate document with a country name more to their liking, but the camp for many years has brought the two nations together as friends. One of the highlights was the campers making games and putting on a carnival for the village kids.

Village kids fishing for candy

Playing Twister in the center of Nymfaio

Also, there was a 5K race where I placed first for the women, third overall. Below is a photo of me with a valedictory laurel wreath and cat face paint, something surely never to be replicated.

Me and the other top women, all from Bulgaria

I also learned this weekend that the saying, "It's just like riding a bike," does indeed hold true--you can not ride a bike for two years and pick it right back up. I am cautiously optimistic that other skills which have not been a part of my life during Peace Corps, e.g. wearing business attire, driving, showing up places on time, grocery store self check-out, using a microwave, etc, will come back just as easily.

Macedonians & me (2nd from left), ready to roll (photo taken by Maja, YMCA Bitola member)

Using the Old to Make the New Happy!

2011-08-24T07:23:00.000-07:00

This post is about something fantastic that I had very little to do with but I think everybody should know about. The real stars of this story are my lovely sitemates Ashley, Lauren, and Helene who at a dinner party I hosted (see, I did something!) came up with this idea: making mobiles for the cribs at the orphanage. Helene and Lauren volunteer at the orphanage and described how the babies can have very little stimulation, especially when they are lying in their cribs. We talked about how to do something low cost and tossed around the idea of using recycled goods like plastic bottles and bags (naturally I was all about that, tree hugger that I am). Then we decided to pitch the idea to Club GLOW, a local leadership group that Ashley and Lauren oversee.

The GLOW leaders quickly took to the idea and incorporated it into one of their goals, writing a grant proposal. I played a bit part here too, giving a mini-tutorial on grant writing and the leaders put in a proposal for $30 to buy fishing wire, beads, and other materials needed to fully execute the mobiles. The grant was awarded and the girls bought/collected everything they needed and they scheduled 3 sessions for the club members to gather and make mobiles.

Hats off to Helene for her artistic talent, figuring out how to iron together plastic bags and then cut them into fun designs. The teens from GLOW did an amazing job of creating unique, eye-catching designs and we all had fun unleashing our creativity.

The mobiles were delivered to the orphanage this month and as you can see, they make a big difference and the babies seem to be gaga for them (bad pun, I know). Credit to Ashley for all the photos here and this blog title. I think this project was the perfect way to celebrate Kennedy's founding of Peace Corps, perfectly embodying the "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country" ethos. Thanks to my sitemates and GLOW for being such an inspiration!

Hanging the mobiles

Babies wondering what the heck is going on

Whoa, what is that?

This craziness is making my hair stand on end

I think I can get it...

Goodness, what is that?!

Helene and friend

Ashley with her hands full

GLOW member Tea finds a buddy

To COS and Beyond

2011-08-23T06:22:00.000-07:00

On paper, 27 months in the Peace Corps sounded like a long time--longer than grad school, longer than I lived in Portland and Germany combined, longer than any relationship that I've ever been in, just long. Not necessarily long in a bad way, just a big commitment of time. And now, that time has practically come and gone. Last week was my COS conference, which in Peace Corps parlance stands for "Close of Service." In other words, I'm almost done so I can move on to ??????

A lot (too much) of the COS conference was devoted to explaining the mountain of paperwork that we must complete to even leave Macedonia and because it would be challenging to process all of us at the same time, they stagger our departure dates which brings up one of the most anticipated parts of COS conference--the infamous LOTTERY. The lottery is essentially this: all the possible departure dates are put up on posters and then our names were drawn one-by-one to sign up for a date. The anxiety was palpable for the people with plans that hinged on leaving by a certain day. We aren't a cutthroat group but had it been an out-and-out race to the board, I think some elbows would have been thrown. As it is, people actually did what they could to help everyone get a timely COS date and we began our individual countdowns: 79 days until my date, November 10th.

I don't actually plan to be home in November though; instead I will be on what has now been dubbed my "honeymoon." No, I didn't meet a guy but why let that stop me from taking a great trip? I'm still formulating my plans, but Kosovo, Bulgaria, Romania, India, Thailand, and Laos are the places that I'm hoping to visit and then wind up back stateside in early January.

A certain amount of nostalgia and freak-out is washing over me now that I have a COS date. Nostalgia for the many things that I will miss about Macedonia, including but not limited to: my teens, the farmers market, the mountains, my flexible schedule, being "the American," and my Peace Corps family. Freak-out about soon going from a small income to no income and needing to find a job (preferably one I'm excited about doing and that pays well) in what I hear is still a tough market. I'm thinking that I'll return to Washington DC, so if anyone knows of any positions that would be right up my alley then I'd love to hear from you!

In the meantime, I will be updating my resume, eating all the ajvar I can reasonably consume without making myself sick, and figuring out how to close out my projects and say my goodbyes. So much to do, so little time...

YMCA Program Fair in Ukraine

2011-08-14T10:30:00.000-07:00

Every other year, YMCAs from throughout the Balkans (reminder: I work with YMCA Bitola) gather together for what they call a program fair to share ideas, learn about the many cultures represented, and have fun. Ukraine hosted for the first time this go around, in a nice wooded facility on the outskirts of Kiev. For me, one of the most memorable parts will be the bus trip to and from Kiev, which lasted nearly 48 hours each way (less for me on the way out because I got picked up in Serbia from my vacation). We'd all been expecting a long trip but more in the neighborhood of 24 hours. As it turns out, Ukraine is a really big place and also, never try to transport a rock band's equipment across international borders.

Getting to socialize with the YMCA Bitola members outside our weekly meetings was a terrific benefit of the fair for me; I feel like I know them much better now and vice versa. Meeting folks from other countries and learning about how their YMCAs work was another positive aspect. I also appreciated the effort the Ukrainians expended to share their traditional culture with us, everything from singing to food to art. For instance, I took a class on making the beautiful decorated eggs that regions in and around Ukraine are known for. You can see the process and my egg here, as well as other photos from the week. When I wasn't taking art classes, I helped my Bitola Y produce a daily news bulletin about all the fair happenings. I must admit that the fair was at times frustrating--seemingly nothing started on time, the schedule had quite a bit of repetition and downtime, and so on--but for a first time effort I think it went reasonably well.

On Saturday, we got to go into Kiev itself and I liked it a great deal. The city is aesthetically pleasing, especially the colorful churches and many green parks. In the parks, I must have seen over 20 bridal couples taking wedding photos, it was fantastic. I also visited a fascinating place called Pechersk Lavra or Monastery of the Caves, where mummified saints and monks are wrapped in tapestries and kept in glass coffins in the caves located under the monastery. It was surreal to wander around the dimly lit corridors and watch people praying over the bodies and even kissing the coffins. On a much lighter note, I must add that I appreciated Kiev's abundance of sushi restaurants which provided me with my first avocado roll since Slovenia in May.

The bus ride home was longer but better because 1) we knew what we were getting ourselves into and 2) we took a 4 hour break in Budapest, Hungary. My last visit to Budapest was just over 10 years ago and it was interesting to see how it has evolved. Sad to say perhaps but one highlight was discovering Cherry Coke and ginger ale and buying some to enjoy at my leisure.

With some relief I say that I'm back "home" in Macedonia, rejoicing in having my own bed and bathroom again and digging on all the delicious peaches and watermelon at the market. Also, I believe I've purged my wallet of the 7 currencies that I used during my recent travels. Happily my country count is now up to 42 which begs the question--can I make it to 50 countries before I return stateside?

Ameri-Serbia: Doughnut Tour, Pt. 3

2011-08-13T06:39:00.000-07:00

Technically the next stop on the Doughnut tour was Serbia but for me, it was a little corner of America. Exhibit A: bagels, literally across the street from our hostel. How could we resist, especially after 2 bagel-free years? Delicious. Maybe the tour should be renamed the "Kosovo Bagel." Exhibit B: seeing the final Harry Potter film (and ultimately 5 movies in 4 days). Exhibit C: eating at KFC, which alas does not include biscuits on its international menu. Ahem, right, back to Serbia.

In Belgrade, the first day we wandered around the city and visited the museum devoted to inventor Nikola Tesla. Tesla invented the radio and electric generators, among other things, and I really enjoyed the demonstrations of his inventions. I do, however, blame the crazy wireless electrical currents for making my watch lose about 30 minutes. On day 2, Kerry and I took a free walking tour led by a young gal from Kosovo who has been a refugee in Serbia for 12 years. She provided a great mix of historical info and local lore, including describing to us a regional dish that we ate for dinner nicknamed “girl’s dream,” which is an, ah, cylindrical shaped meat stuffed with cheese. If you need a visual, check out the Doughnut Pt. 3 photos here. Finally, I visited the mausoleum of Tito, the former leader of Yugoslavia, which included an interesting exhibit of relay batons. The batons were given to him as a symbol of his continuous leadership and support from the nation’s youth. I’d never heard of anything similar, so it was quite the unique collection.

From Belgrade, I continued on solo to the city of Novi Sad. There’s not much to do in Novi Sad but it was where my work site, YMCA Bitola, agreed that they could pick me up on our way to a regional festival in Ukraine. So, I used the time to recharge my batteries, mostly at the cineplex. The YMCA bus did indeed come for me though little did I know that our destination was 38 hours away—more on that next time.

This concludes my narration of the Kosovo Doughnut tour but let me just end by saying how fortunate I was to have two super travel companions who put up with my fast walking, popping out of bed in the morning, and searches for “snacks” (which incidentally became my trip nickname as the names Katie, Kerry, and Kaylee together are a mouthful)—thanks ladies for the great adventure!

Doughnut Tour, Part 2: Bosnia and Herzegovina and Dubrovnik (oh my!)

2011-08-12T09:08:00.000-07:00

Mint chocolate chip gelato—that’s how you start a city off right, as we did with Dubrovnik, Croatia. Perhaps attributable to being exposed to new and different cuisines, my travel companions and I spent an unhealthy amount of time talking about food and drink during our travels. Absence makes the heart grow fonder? Well, mint chocolate gelato (~$2) definitely hit the spot and counted as “lunch” before wandering around Dubrovnik.

Reaching Dubrovnik from Kotor involved a 4 hour bus journey, followed by a toasty wait to shove our way onto a local bus and a perplexing but ultimately successful bus ride to our guesthouse, perched on the hillside overlooking the city and the sea—not bad for 16 Euros (~$24) per person/night. Down, left, down, right, down, down, down we walked until we ended up at the old city. Kaylee, seasoned traveler that she is, had already toured the city so Kerry and I wandered alone on the city walls and Kerry climbed every tower you could because that is the kind of person she is, which I love her for even when I’d rather be sitting at a cafe drinking a cold Coca Cola. As friends and travelers will, we struggled to agree on a restaurant for dinner that met our price requirements (about as cheap as feasible) and tastes. Losing the deciding match of rock-paper-scissors, Kerry’s seafood restaurant it was and I had a passable veggie risotto. The highlight of the day though followed when we bought wine (including accidentally, but shockingly good, a Macedonian wine never before seen by us in the homeland) and we drank it watching the sunset from guesthouse balcony.

Another new day, another new country, another new currency—from Dubrovnik, we carried on into Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), our fourth country and fourth currency (the Konvertible Mark—KM). When Bosnia is mentioned, I think shelling and conflict is what first comes to many people’s minds but the legacy of that time, seeing how the country did and is recovering, was part of what made it so fascinating.

Our first stop was Mostar, a city about 3.5 hours by bus from Dubrovnik, where we stayed at one of the best hostels I’ve ever been to because it’s like a home—you take your shoes off at the door, they welcome you with a slice of cake, and they serve a hot breakfast in the morning. Mostar is small and thus made for wandering. We checked out its famed bridge from many angles but sadly missed the one brave soul that day that plunged from the bridge into the river below. The bridge was shot into pieces and destroyed during the war but rebuilt using stone from the same quarry as the original. On our hostel’s recommendation, we also wandered around a bank that snipers used where there are bullet shells on the floor and documents still strewn around. Enterprisingly enough, in the tourist shops you can buy pens made from shell casings.

Mostar marked the start of THE RAIN, a storm that doggedly tracked us for the remainder of our trip (note the dark clouds in many of the photos here). Really, I’ve never had such a rainy period which, during some storms, reminded me of my visit to Vietnam in the wet season, it was like that. We had a bit of good fortune the next day that it was only cool but not raining for our visit to the Kravice Waterfalls and a village called Pocitelj. These sites were part of a tour offered by the brother of our hostel owner, a tour that came well recommended and should because of the guide’s insane energy. He enthusiastically showed us how because in the BalKANS you CAN, he outfitted the back of his van with a variety of stools to carry more passengers. For me, sadly, the tour did not live up to the hype because we spent 5 hours climbing around waterfalls (and in my opinion a person can swim in many places) and did not go to Medugorje, a site that I’d been hearing about from my Catholic relatives for years where the Virgin Mary supposedly appeared. Sorry family, close but no cigar. As referred to in my last entry, this was a need-more-rakija situation for me where it would have been better to have no expectations of the tour at all and thereby not be disappointed when it followed our guide’s whim to spend the day swimming. The village stop in Pocitelj was better, where we played name-that-flavor trying various nectar concoctions made by a villager and sampled in her home. One was like a virgin mojito, it was fantastic. Haha, I can’t believe I used the word “virgin” twice in this paragraph and in two completely different contexts.

Sadly we missed our second breakfast at the hostel to make the most of our overnight stay in Sarajevo. The whole day it rained, but I guess that set the mood for seeing some of the war sites, like a tunnel people dug to get food and other supplies without being subject to sniper fire and divots in the sidewalks from shells that are filled in red and called “Sarajevo roses.” Rainy weather was also a fine excuse for us to spend time at the Sarajevo Brewery drinking rare (at least in Macedonia) dark beer.

Unfortunately Sarajevo marks the point where Kerry came down with some kind of stomach bug, making her relatively miserable for the next few days. She’s a trooper though and we carried on to our next stop in northern BiH, Jajce. The town of Jajce is picturesquely perched over some waterfalls (though admittedly there was some kind of construction marring part of the view during our visit) and it was nice to visit a town that is still being discovered for its tourist potential. Our hostel owners were awesome about letting Kerry rest in our room, even after we’d checked out and they cleaned it, so we left BiH with a good impression about the local people. This nation seemed happy to share its story and show off its resiliency and I’ll admit, BiH won me over as new fan.

Doughnut Tour, Part 1: Albania & Montenegro

2011-08-11T06:59:00.000-07:00

As mentioned previously, I recently completed a two week tour around the Balkans with my friends and fellow Peace Corps volunteers Kaylee and Kerry for what was affectionately dubbed the “Kosovo Doughnut.” Prohibited by our Peace Corps safety policies from entering Kosovo, we decided to tour around it including Albania, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia. Using time-honored backpacker staples—hostels, grocery / ice cream lunches, and commandeering restaurant napkins to use as toilet paper—I did the whole vacation for $800. Yeah, I actually kept track of what I spent, that’s how I roll. Apparently other Americans missed the memo about how affordable the Balkans can be though because we encountered only a handful of other Americans at the hostels and I didn’t even see one senior citizen group from the states. Ok, that affordability demands some compromises that perhaps most Americans couldn’t make but for posterity, here’s how it can be done with Part 1, Albania and Montenegro.

Albania was the cheapest place we stayed—6 Euros ($9) per person to share a 3-person room. Sounds great, right? Ok, I should mention the toilets were Turkish (squat) toilets down the hall, the shower was upstairs, and the door of our room didn’t actually lock—but what a bargain! Not that it mattered much where we crashed, everyone was tired from taking the overnight bus because nobody sleeps well upright, even me who amazed Kaylee and Kerry with my ability to fall asleep almost instantly on every bus we took.

Our destination in Albania was Shkoder (also called Shkodra), in the northern part of the country. There isn’t a ton to see there but it was a convenient jumping off point for our next stop, Montenegro. I did enjoy checking out the Rozafa fortress where I bought some filigree silver earrings made locally (or so I was told) and we had fun scandalizing the locals by drinking a 3-liter tower of beer while taking in the nightlife on the pedestrian mall. Traveling in Albania was made infinitely easier with Kerry’s “mad skillz” with the Albanian language—Kaylee and I were most appreciative to her for not letting us get stuck in the outskirts of Durres.

From Albania, we used a taxi/bus/bus to get to our next destination: Kotor, Montenegro. Kotor is a walled town located on the northern coast on a large bay in the mountainous nation of Montenegro. Since it was sunny and warm, we availed ourselves of the pebble beach walking distance from town. We also forked over some euros (Montenegro is the only country we visited that actually uses the euro as its currency but they are widely accepted in tourist destinations) for a day-long tour hitting some of the country’s highlights. Unfortunately, due to a flat tire on the van and our guide’s Balkan sense of time, we didn’t hit everything on the itinerary. After almost 2 years living in the Balkans, I’m still working on just trying to go with the flow and be happy for the good times; however, this may require increasing my rakija consumption.

Kotor is the only place we stayed for 3 nights, which was great for relaxing and bad when the hostel kept running out of toilet paper—what were we paying 15 Euros (~$22) a person per night for if not TP? Not that anything that trivial could spoil our fun and you can see for yourself in the pics here.

Pre-gaming

2011-07-31T12:23:00.001-07:00

I truly don't know where to begin--I'm currently on Day 16 of 25 straight days on the road. Right now I'm in Novi Sad, Serbia as the tail end of what I dubbed the "Kosovo Doughnut" tour, all the countries bordering Kosovo but not including Kosovo because until literally days ago, Peace Corps forbid volunteers from going there. Now, in their infinite wisdom, they've changed the policy just as I've run out of vacation days...oh well, I'm going there when I'm released from the clenches of their control in November anyway, a time when vacation days will no longer tie me down!

There's lots to say about the Doughnut but for now, I want to catch up on the "pre-game" in Macedonia, getting me psyched up for vacation. First we had another baseball session with the American Sports Club, where we managed to have fun despite the searing heat on our now completely brown field.

Next came Pivofest, aka Beer Fest, in Prilep. Of the new beers I tried, the Czech beer Staropramen stood out above the rest. Mostly Pivofest is a fun excuse to catch up with friends but over grilled meats and, of course, beers.

Last but not least I traveled to Gostivar for Sheep Day which is exactly what it sounds like, a day devoted to sheep. The many facets of sheep were represented, from milking and shearing to cheeses. My favorite part though was the traditional wresting, where shirtless men literally poured sunflower oil all over themselves and then wrestled. Before the matches, they did some pumping up exercises which you can watch here.

After Sheep Day, the Doughnut began. I'd like to say that I'll write about that trip soon but at dawn tomorrow I am being picked up by YMCA en route to the Ukraine for a week-long festival, 300 young people from throughout Europe converging near Kiev. Yeah, the next installment might not be for awhile...

We Lead You Follow - YMLP 2011 Camp

2011-07-15T10:51:00.000-07:00

I do not command
I use democracy now
I am a leader
- Marko

The haiku above was written during a poetry elective at the 2011 Young Men's Leadership Project summer camp and that teenage boys would voluntarily choose to learn poetry tells a great deal about the caliber of guys attending this year's camp. One thing that made camp this summer even better than the last was that with only 40 campers in attendance, I could really get to know the guys on a personal level. Around the campfire in the evenings, we could discuss everything from the music of Kid Rock to which of the 6 languages a camper speaks is the easiest and which the hardest. Relaxation time around the campfire was well earned by campers, instructors, and counselors alike because we jammed a ton into each and every day...

The boys would line up at 8:00 for breakfast, including any teams who camped out the night before. Two of the 5 teams would sleep out every night, camping with our volunteers from the West Kent YMCA in England. The Brits drove 3 days straight to be there and run the camping out, not to mention the extremely popular archery range. Then classes started at 9:00, with subjects in democracy, health, film-making (taught by my super YMCA Bitola colleague Jovce), project design and management, and of course the best, my environment class. As if that weren't enough for a full day, then we had electives, dinner, and more electives. Electives covered everything from languages like German, Korean, and Spanish to fun topics like American Slang, the Evolution of Rock Music, and origami to sports like baseball, flag football, and ultimate Frisbee.

At times, I was afraid that the environmental lessons were not sinking in but then on the last day of camp we had a sort-of mock United Nations where each team represented a country and negotiated a set of protocols for managing a lake bordered by all the countries. Suddenly the guys were objecting to the use of dynamite for fishing because the lake was an ecosystem and damaging one part affected the rest of the lake. They were worried about sustainable fishing practices to ensure their livelihoods and wanted measures to protect water quality so tourism would continue to flourish on the lake. I was all smiles because they got, it they really got it!

I have a hard time putting the whole week into a few simple paragraphs, there were just too many great things--like how the guys started pointing out to me every cool beetle and butterfly they saw; how one camper, upon trying a smore for the first time, declared it "the best American food ever"; how another camper taught an elective on the local sport of handball, patiently teaching us what turns out to be a really fun sport combining elements of water polo, basketball, and floor hockey; how we had to take traffic breaks during 4 Square because we played on the road and tractors kept driving by; how we celebrated 4th of July by singing the American anthem and lighting sparklers (and teasing the Brits about how we would go dump some tea in the river); how everyone at camp, including the lunch ladies, learned how to dance the Bernie (for those unfamiliar with the Bernie, you can watch the campers Bernie-ing here).

To get the full effect, please check out these photos. They show lots of grinning guys, learning and playing together. It may be surprising for my friends from home, but it is a rarity to have young men from the various ethnic groups here interacting like that. Generally, students are educated in their native tongue (be it Macedonian, Albanian, Turkish, etc) and they socialize mostly with people from their own ethnic groups. Seeing inter-ethnic friendships form and grow at camp definitely feeds my optimism about Macedonia becoming a more stable and successful country as these teens become national leaders. Already, through the project design class at camp, the campers made plans to lead projects to improve their hometowns. I cannot wait to see what they all do next. Thank you to again to everyone who donated money for camp and made such strides possible. Here's one more haiku about what you imparted to the boys...

Teamwork always makes
Dreamwork. Good leaders include
followers' ideas.
- Georgi

Yes, it's another blog about hiking

2011-07-01T12:15:00.000-07:00

If you're thinking to yourself, "Are you kidding? Another post from Katie about hiking? I can't be bothered," then go ahead and stop reading now. So, recently I got to go hiking in two new areas, each different but with their own charms. First, I did a weekend trip to a village near Struga in southwestern Macedonia near the Albanian border. Jane's friend Irena invited her and told her she could bring a friend--lucky me! Irena is an amazingly talented photographer who is usually accompanied by her sidekick, Chica the dog. The picture above is from Irena and you can see more of her incredible work here. Irena's nephew hiked with us the first day and his parents were our hosts, kindly feeding us all weekend at their cute village house.

Our first hike that weekend was 6 hours up to a church perched way, way high on a mountainside. In my photos here (with some more from Irena too), you'll see its crooked cross which was about all Jane saw last time she was there when there was snow up to the roof. Ironically, and completely accidentally, Jane and I wore almost identical outfits. Maybe we've spent too much time together...

The second day, we arose at 4:30 AM with the sun and started hiking up, up, up, as hikes here tend to begin. The wildflowers were incredible, such great hues, and I guess that makes up for the pesky pollinating insects that we dealt with. We encountered a curious shepherd who abandoned his flock to lay down and watch us ascend one of the mountains and otherwise saw nobody else. Except for panicking Irena a bit when we got separated and the aforementioned insects, it was an exquisite day of hiking--nothing like finishing an 8 hour hike by 1 PM. I felt really fortunate that Irena invited us, it's an area that I never would have seen otherwise.

One thing I will definitely miss about Peace Corps is saying hey, let's go hiking on a Thursday and getting 7 friends to come along. About a week ago, we did just that and surprisingly we began hiking from the capitol, Skopje, taking the brand-new gondola up to a huge metal cross on Mt. Vodno and then walking a ridge to Matka, an artificial lake. For most of the 5 hour hike we were in the sun, so it felt great to plunge quickly--really quickly--into the icy river and then have some beer at a lakeside cafe. Then the cherry on top of a great day was eating at the Mexican restaurant afterwards. It's no Chipotle, mind you, but I'll take what I can get.

Rants and Raves

2011-06-27T12:18:00.000-07:00

Back in my America days, I was a big peruser of the website Craigslist and I seemingly utilized every category on the site save one: rants and raves. As the name implies, it's a section where people can expound on what's driving them crazy, bad or good. But since I have my own blog, I'm going to post my first rant and rave here instead.

First the rant: what is going on with American leadership?! I read the news and yes, I know the federal budget is in a bad way but the extreme tightening of the purse-strings is starting to be felt on my side of the planet. First, my group of Peace Corps volunteers who are finishing up our 2 years of service were told that, due to budget cutbacks, only a few people could do a yearlong extension. Yearlong extensions are optional but hugely beneficial--you have people who are already trained and integrated into their communities voluntarily choosing to give another year of their lives to work practically for free. My group being full of extremely dedicated and bighearted people has many would-be extendees who will be literally turned away. The annual cost of a Peace Corps volunteer is less than $50,000; the annual cost of a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan: $425,000-$1 million, depending on whose figures you use. By cutting one soldier, all the extendees could be paid for and then some. I'm not trying to pick on the military but since both have corps serving overseas, it seems like not an entirely unfair comparison.

The money troubles continued when the U.S. Embassy declined to fund the Boys Leadership Camp that Peace Corps runs every summer with the Red Cross and YMCA. Oh, and did I mention we learned this less than 2 weeks before the camp is scheduled to start? In this case, for with 0.0001% of the Federal Treasury money spent on bank bailouts, we could have taught 80 young men how to be leaders in their communities and foster positive change from within. It brought me to the verge of tears to think that the boys I've been mentoring since March might be denied this capstone to their leadership training. Enough messing around, American leaders--it's time to step up and get our funding priorities in proper order.

Luckily, there's a rave: no matter what the American government does, the American people are AMAZING. Learning that the embassy funds fell through, we quickly posted a request for funds online. The call went out from me and the other volunteers here, looking to raise almost $5,000 in less than 10 days. And you know what? IT HAPPENED, and in under a week at that. I want to personally thank everyone who dug deep and made a contribution. Particular thanks to my friends who forwarded the fundraising request on to their friends--I was humbled by the generosity of people who are complete strangers and may have never heard of Macedonia before that message reached their inbox. You all represent the nation that I'm glad to call home.

We'll only be able to have half as many boys at camp as planned but I'm looking forward to meeting and working with the best and brightest from all around Macedonia. Expect more raves about these future leaders soon!

Кашкавал

2011-06-21T02:08:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when I take photos here, I jokingly tell people to say кашкавал (cheese) which isn't a practice here but they get it (usually) from watching American movies and laugh, making for good pictures. I personally have taken over 4,000 photos in Macedonia and yes, you can thank me for posting only a small selection here. Extrapolating this to the 70 volunteers here, you can imagine that we had some good choices for assembling a photo exhibit honoring the 50th Anniversary of Peace Corps worldwide and 15 years in Macedonia.

The exhibit was recently on display in my city and whether it was the photos or the homemade American treats that were the main draw, we had a good turnout for the opening. Sadly almost nobody came to the other two days the photos were on display so lesson learned--no cookies, no crowds. Bitola was well represented within the exhibit, including a photo of me taken by Lauren and photos of Ashley and Helene taken by our sitemate, Phil.

A local TV station covered the event and then invited me to their station for a live (LIVE!) broadcast to discuss the exhibit and volunteerism. I was very fortunate to have Zoki, a high school student interning at the American Corner, acting as my translator. I posted a clip from the interview here (taped directly from my TV, hence the quality or lack thereof) and you can watch the news story on the exhibit (with Zoki's voice humorously dubbed over mine) here.

I was on the committee that helped select the exhibit photos and I think it is a nice representation of the variety of activities that make up a volunteer's Macedonian experience--working with the kids, dining in people's homes, dancing the oro, the whole crazy shebang. For those who cannot see the exhibit in person, I encourage you to virtually check it out here.

**Photo credit for some of the photos above to the American Corner Bitola.

This was Yugoslavia?

2011-06-15T14:01:00.000-07:00

After my family's visit to Macedonia, my parents and I flew on to Zagreb, Croatia to spend a week exploring Croatia and Slovenia. Almost immediately I was thinking, this was Yugoslavia too? Compared to Macedonia, Croatia was so clean and the buildings were in much better condition. Slovenia was even a notch above that in terms of appearance, plus in the capital city there were so many people cycling that it rivaled Portland or Copenhagen. Lacking an explanation for the discrepancy, I developed my own theory called the "neighbor effect." Slovenia, perched close to the meticulous Austrians, were influenced by their neatness and outdoorsy-ness which melded into the Slovenian culture. Croatia has a lot of Italian visitors and I perceived them both as cultures with lively people and good pasta. And who's around to influence Macedonia but Greece, which despite being part of the EU is still run-down. Can Greece and Macedonia be the next Slovenia and Croatia? Maybe, but not anytime soon in my opinion.

My parents and I were all pleasantly surprised by the natural beauty we encountered. An early stop was Plitvice Lakes in Croatia, which has been making all sorts of lists lately like "beautiful places to visit" and top 10 most beautiful waterfalls, and it lived up to the hype. Sure, I fell up to my ankles in mud during my rush to pass the mobs of school children and we had a run-in with one power-tripping school teacher, but other than that it was completely delightful. Slovenia was gorgeous literally top to bottom, from the breathtaking Julian Alps to the ginormous Postojna cave. I tried to take a run around Lake Bled and kept stopping every couple feet to take a photo. Check out some of the results and other trip pics here.

Mom and Dad were good sports about my quest to indulge in cuisines not easily found in my neck of former Yugoslavia, like sushi and Indian. I also ate truffles for the first time and they have a new fan. Another delight was rakija made from cherries, offered to us by a lovely Croatian couple whose guesthouse we stayed at in the town of Motovun. Through them, I discovered that if I spoke Macedonian they could largely understand me and vice versa with their Croatian. I'm guessing it's similar to Spaniards talking to Mexicans but it was a pleasing discovery to know that my Macedonian comes in handy outside of this Vermont-sized country. In Slovenia, the language was more like Macedonian swirled with German and having studied both languages it was both interesting and wholly confusing so I stuck mostly with English.

I'm inclined to agree with my parents that the scenery on this trip was at times reminiscent of Italy, particularly the coastal towns of Piran, Slovenia and Rovinj, Croatia that we visited. Unfortunately the prices rivaled Italy too, particularly Slovenia on the euro. Thankfully I had my generous parents around to make this trip possible. No really, thank you Mom and Dad!

My family, live and in person!

2011-06-14T12:34:00.000-07:00

It was pretty trippy to open my front door and see my mom, dad, brother, and sister-in-law all standing outside. But there they were, come to see me in Macedonia! We started the visit as one must, toasting with rakija and eating ajvar. My family was a greater fan of the latter than the former--rakija takes some getting used to. Those who know me well will not be surprised that this sitting around business was short lived and soon we were literally running around so I could show off my home away from home.

The running began with a rousing game of Ultimate Frisbee with the American Sports Club. My family was rightly impressed with how well spoken and polite the kids are, while my dad got a kick out of being told that no Macedonian man his age would play sports like he was. And I forgive my dad for hip-checking me to the ground--I'm pretty sure I know where my competitive streak comes from.

The favorite site we visited, by my family's account, was either ever-lovely Ohrid where we got a great tour from David or the scenic vineyards near Demir Kapija where we drank wine with Zach. In addition to David and Zach, my family got to meet several other volunteers that I was happy to introduce as good friends that I've made here.

Not surprisingly, it was the people part of Macedonia that seemed to most impress my family. They got to visit my host family in Sveti Nikole, who really rolled out the welcome mat with a lunch feast prepared by my host mom. Going there I was nervous that relying primarily on me as a translator might make for a long, quiet visit but it wasn't a problem at all, particularly since my host dad just cracks joke after joke, language barrier be damned, putting everyone at ease.

My landlords also had us over, giving us a homemade walnut liqueur at 9 AM and of course feeding us despite my protestations that we would have eaten before our visit. In my brother's words, on comparing his week in Greece and then in Macedonia, "I especially enjoyed seeing Macedonia, the people there are really nice." A special shout-out to my brother, Teddy, for getting his private pilots license last month. Even though I told him it worries me to have him up there flying, I'm glad he's pursuing his dream.

And lest you think that's all we did, you underestimate my ability to cram vast quantities of sightseeing into a single week. We also saw two archaeological sites, went to a lovely village in Pelister National Park called Malovishte, shopped at the open-air market where I get my produce. visited a monastery and 3 cave churches, and toured the capital, Skopje. Kudos also go to my sister-in-law, Jenny, for presenting at the American Corner about how to become a U.S. university student.

Tired yet? I was, but still I am so happy that my family came to visit me. For one, Macedonia is a wonderful country that deserves more visitors. Secondly, it will be nice to have people at home who really have a sense of what it is like to live here for two years and serve as a Peace Corps volunteer. And finally, they are the only guests from home that have made it all the way to my doorstep--it was far, I know, but I hope it was worth it. For those who haven't made it all this way, feel free to check out the photos and you can virtually tour with us.

Kaleidoscope

2011-05-13T11:48:00.000-07:00

The best thing about spring is unplugging my heater but second to that is the explosion of color. It is the perfect time for a project going on at the American Corner, Picturing Macedonia. Those great teens I'm always talking about are at it again, this time using photography, art, and literature to capture images of the country. I was lucky enough to tag along on one of their trips recently. My favorite stop was the Painted Mosque in Tetovo, which inside and out is covered with colorful paintings.

We also stopped at the "World's Smallest Etno Museum" which is literally a closet, spilling out into the curator's yard, and then the modern art museum in Skopje where parts of the collection are hung with duct tape. We ended our tour at a Turkish cafe with tea and a traditional food kind of like pizza, a good end to a good day.

I took this next shot at a rest stop on the way back to Bitola--the beauty here is almost inescapable. More photos from Tetovo and Skopje here.

Before I could blink, I was back in Skopje to run the half marathon. The half was much, MUCH less painful than doing two laps last year. Also, Kerry and I did the whole race together and it was great to have each other's encouragement. Together with Kaylee, running her very first half marathon, we kept each other going with periodic shouts of Beer!, our prize at the finish line. The golden hefeweizen and the dark stout, some of my other favorite colors.

It's Unofficial--Summer is Here

2011-05-10T11:27:00.000-07:00

May 1st is Labor Day in Macedonia (and much of the world outside America) and the unofficial start of summer. Picnicking is the most common way here to spend the holiday and I did just that. A gaggle of volunteers (or is it herd?) gathered in the town of Makedonski Brod and then snagged a fabulous picnic spot along a stream outside the nearby Peshna Cave. The cave has an impressively large entrance, big enough to hold the remains of a fortress rumored to be built by King Marko (1335-1395) for his sister, Peshna.

Never before (and likely never again) could you witness a group so excited to eat asparagus. Tracy and Slave found it growing wild and shared it with everyone--you would have thought is was candy, the way we kept asking for more. Asparagus is not sold here and obviously I wasn't the only American missing it--we even took pictures of ourselves with it. Behold Lauren, Marlys, and Kaylee in one such photo:I swear, I wasn't the only one taking asparagus photos. That was really only the tip of the iceberg though when it came to culinary treats. We brought along an amazing potluck spread and even carried in a grill for Happie's special marinated chicken. 3 types of potato salad, 2 types of pasta salad, 7 different desserts--they all had to sampled (and sampled and sampled again).

After the picnic, I traveled further up the road to Manastirec, a village that when it got a Peace Corps volunteer increased its total population by almost 1%. Impressively, Jen knows not only the name of everyone in the village but their dogs too. Unquestionably she is having the experience here most like what is brought to mind by the name Peace Corps and I greatly admire her for embracing it. I doubt that I would have been as uncomplaining about being so isolated, she's a rock star. It is a lovely place and I'm glad that I got to see the opposite extreme of my Peace Corps assignment.

My M&M bars (a big potluck hit, btw) were the perfect choice for a M&M (Mak Brod and Manastirec) weekend. More photos of it all up on Picasa.

Play Ball!!!

2011-05-05T11:26:00.000-07:00

Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical. - Yogi Berra

I think Mr. Berra was right--baseball takes 140% effort, particularly when you are teaching the sport to 25 complete novices ranging in age from 8 to 18. Last Saturday, the American Sports Club put on a 4-hour baseball extravaganza, starting with the basics and working our way up to a full-fledged game and man, it was really, really fun.

Pulling off this event could only be done with the help of many parties that I want to give a shout-out to. First, the American kids who donated equipment and the organization Pitch In For Baseball for collecting it and sending it to us (and my wonderful parents for covering the shipping). Second, the American Corner Bitola staff for finding a playing field, buying snacks and T-shirts, and the Corner's interns for covering everything from translating instructions to playing catcher. Third, to the American Sports Club founders who applied for the equipment and helped teach the younger kids on Saturday. And last but far from least, my fantastic regional sitemates from Peace Corps who got up early on their Saturday, who didn't complain when we ran out of snacks, and who know WAY more about baseball than me so the kids actually learned how to play properly.

All week I had been dreading that the forecasts for rain would be true and cause the game to be canceled but miraculously, we got an ideal sunny spring day. We played on a field outside the soccer stadium and I guess the magnetism of baseball is undeniable--several kids defected from soccer practice and joined us instead. I must say, the youth impressed me with their ability to pick up the game even if it took us awhile to get everyone to understand that if you don't run over the base, it doesn't count. I think when we have real bases instead of egg cartons this will be clearer because, after all, why would you stomp egg cartons? Also memorable was when one kid hit a homer and proceeded to run the bases carrying his batting helmet tucked under his arm.

One of my favorite parts was Kaylee and Lauren's solution for putting the kids in a memorable batting order--they just lined them up in height order, shortest to tallest. I'm sure the major leagues will be switching to this approach soon, it's so logical. And the night before the game, we had a baseball talk at the American Corner where I gave them cracker jacks made by yours truly and we sang "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," a requirement for earning a taste of said cracker jacks.

There are photos and even some video of all the baseball revelry up on Picasa. Some of the pictures are taken by me, but most are from Helene, my sitemate, and Stefan, an American Sports Club founder who is an amazing photographer. To close, I'd like to use another Yogi-ism:
I just want to thank everyone who made this day necessary.

Spring Bouquet

2011-04-25T04:03:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm calling this the spring bouquet entry because it is a wild collection of random happenings from this spring.

Ashley and I visited our friend Ivona who had her first child, a baby girl. By tradition here, there is a mandatory lock down for about 6 weeks after a baby is born where mom and child do not venture out and nobody visits. Then, after that period, there is sort of an "open house" where people are encouraged to come by and meet the baby. Here we are holding baby Ilina.

I went hiking yet again, this time a group hike to an area about 30 minutes outside of town called Mariovo. Jane and David joined me and about 150 locals participated. The low point of the hike was when we saw a guy chuck his granola bar wrapper down the hillside. I told him (in Macedonian), "Don't throw your trash on the ground," to which he responded, "There's no trash can." Well duh, there's also not a prodav (store) selling granola bars but somehow he had one. Anyway, I actually responded, "You have a backpack," and when he just kind of shrugged and I called him a budala (fool). Luckily the hike ended on a higher note with a local specialty, tavche gravche (baked beans), served at a monastery and a nap in the sun before we hiked back to the buses. David and Jane dining at the monastery pictured below; more Mariovo photos here.

That Macedonians are perhaps the kindest people on the planet was proven yet again for me on Friday. I needed to get my stitches removed and rather than trek to the capital, Peace Corps found a doctor in my city to do the procedure. Well, as is typical here where it's all about who you know, Dr. Alekandar is actually a classmate of a doctor that worked temporarily at the Peace Corps office. He lives just down the street from me and he drove me to the hospital, took out my stitches for free, and drove me home--all that for a complete stranger and on a holiday, no less. I didn't think getting stitches removed could be enjoyable but when Dr. Aleksandar told me his first stop when he visits family in Ohio is Papa Johns pizza, we got into a great conversation about America's best fast food. Maybe I should open a Papa Johns in Bitola, since pizza restaurants are very popular already. The hard part would be deciding whether to serve the tomato sauce on the side (as is done here) or serve it American style, right on the crust.

And finally, here are some pretty pics from around town. I am obsessed with the hand door knockers like the one pictured, they are all over town. I have one that I bought in Syria, so I'll always have a reminder of calling this area home.

The Big One

2011-04-21T13:17:00.000-07:00

The big one--a major, bold, and innovative project. Most Peace Corps volunteers, at least in my estimation, want a Big One that they can point to as their success story, their volunteer legacy. I do not seem to be immune to this desire and I have to say, it's looking like the Big One will elude me. When I leave Macedonia, there will be no new building or annual event which I can say I created. Maybe I have unrealistic expectations for myself but lately I feel like my efforts have fallen short.

Tomorrow is Earth Day and as the lone environmental volunteer in my group, I feel as though I should have done a huge activity. Instead, I taught two classes with environmental lessons, one to kids and another to an adult English class. With the kids, it was organized chaos as I tried to be heard over about 16 rambunctious children in a small area. If I'm lucky, a few of them got the green messages above the din. Counting the 30 or so people in the adult class along with the kiddos, I reached about 0.05% of the city's population so, go me.

I got turned down to be a trainer for the next group of incoming volunteers, mainly because Peace Corps wants me to spend more time with my new work site after leaving the national park. I feel like I am being punished for being given a bad assignment in the first place and if the intent is to help me land the Big One, I think it will be for naught. Maybe I'm just grumpy because I have stitches on my back (minor thing, don't worry) and I haven't been able to exercise all week.

With the recent coverage of how Greg Mortenson allegedly exaggerated his accomplishments in his bestseller "Three Cups of Tea," maybe it is a good thing that I am keeping it real and saying yeah, I've only done a little bit. Thinking about writing this entry, I came across this Chinese proverb that gives me some reassurance:
It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.

I think it's the small stuff for me and I'm trying to be okay with that, embracing the forward momentum. Small but significant, for instance, is that I got two guys from my new boys club to volunteer in helping me teach the kids for Earth Day and they did a super job. And hey, if there was any doubt that I'm still a top notch volunteer, I suggest you read this great writeup by my friend Patrice, formerly a volunteer here and now a life coach. It's part of a series she is doing in honor of the 50th anniversary of Peace Corps, so I encourage you to scroll through her blog and read about other volunteers' contributions, big and small.

Go hiking like it's your birthday

2011-04-15T01:50:00.000-07:00

Churches and monasteries, hiking and friends--you know, just another birthday celebration in Macedonia. Like last year, I spent my birthday weekend outside enjoying nature and happily the weather was cooperative (mostly--more on that shortly). First, I finally crossed off my to-do list a hike to a monastery called Treskavec with my volunteer friends Jane and David. There is a monk who lives at the monastery and we saw him driving up in his jeep. For the common man though, it's about a 3 hour hike so the monastery has plenty of solitude. We nearly had the monastery to ourselves and it is quite picturesque, so I encourage checking out these pics. The monastery dates back to the 14th century and they just don't build 'em like they used to. On the way back into town, we made a new friend Spiro who gave us his phone number, his wife's phone number, and encouraged us to call him anytime we were back in the area. It just gives me a warm feeling when people here are so welcoming, I will really miss these types of encounters after I leave Macedonia and that time is not so far away anymore, just 7 months from now.

Maybe the monastery visit helped my prayers for good weather and on Sunday morning, I happily met up with about 10 volunteer friends and 6 locals for another hike. My colleagues at YMCA helped organize a hike going between 3 villages bordering the national park. Following a rather un-detailed map provided by the park, we visited churches and monasteries located in the villages (photos up on Picasa).

We began in the village of Trnovo, which had a church with some images that I had never seen in an Orthodox church before like Adam and Eve and Noah's ark. About 20 minutes later, we arrived in the village of Magarevo. This time, we had to ask around the village for the key to the church and monastery. Usually whoever lives closest to the church keeps the key. Up until this point, everything was sunny and easy but...

Despite asking in Trnovo for directions to the next village, Rotino, and asking a cow herder along the way to confirm our path, we got lost. This might not have been so bad had it not led us to be on the side of a mountain hacking our way through scratchy, dense underbrush. To my friends' credit, they maintained good spirits and we distracted ourselves playing a guessing game. Of course, then it started to hail a little. This was more of less the point where I became frustrated with thrashing through the brush and started emphatically calling in English and Macedonian for us to go, "Down! Долу! Down! Долу, долу, долу!" Then I set off and indeed got us off the mountain. The sun came out again and everyone was happier. We decided to press on to Rotino...

Then the dark clouds rolled in and it hailed again, this time pea-sized pieces for about 5 minutes. Also, we still didn't really know where we were going. Some farmers rolled by in the their tractors and we got more directions. Eventually we got to Rotino and a really sweet baba loaned us the monastery key, even giving me a kiss when I asked to take her picture. Luckily Peace Corps volunteers are almost happier when things go awry because they can flex their survival skills and have another good story to tell, so my pals had a great time. I'm less certain about the YMCA members' enjoyment level but they claimed to have fun, although they did say they'd take a path they knew on the next group hike. After hiking, the volunteers came back to my place for a pasta feast and Jane demonstrated making Amaretto sours completely from scratch, assembly-line style, a very nice birthday treat. I'm not sure how my 30s became the decade for pushing myself with demanding hikes on my birthdays but I'm kind of liking it.

Априлили!!!

2011-04-09T08:37:00.000-07:00

The title of this blog entry is the name of the holiday celebrated on April 1st in Macedonia. Like April Fools' Day in America, people try to say things that trick their friends and family but Aprilili is even better because there are kids in costumes too. I doubt I will ever see so many Spidermans (Spidermen?) in the same place again. Popular costumes included other non-Spiderman superheroes, princesses, pirates, cowboys, and witches. The photos on this page (plus more here) are mostly from the kids participating in a costume catwalk in Bitola's city center. Personal favorites of mine were the Indians, Harry Potter, Orthodox priest with a broken arm, the tiny Turk, and Uncle Sam.

Project Czar

2011-03-31T07:22:00.000-07:00

Every year, Lake Superior State University puts together a list of words that should be banished due to "mis-use, over-use, and general uselessness"; if I were to banish a word right now, it would be project. In Macedonia, everybody likes to talk about "making a project." Correctly said, they want to do a project and by that they mean figure out some way they can get money, write that idea on paper, and then try to get somebody to hand over the cash.

Some of these projects are legitimately good ideas related to an organization's mission and should be funded, but all too often it's a way for them to pay for something entirely unrelated to the stated project. Or an organization that works on a topic like healthcare will apply to do something entirely outside their stated mission, like homeland security, just because there is project money available.

Lately I have been helping people write projects. It is my sincere hope that they will use the pointers that I offer for genuinely needed projects and so far, that seems to be the case. I collaborated on grant applications with two Peace Corps volunteers to renovate a firehouse and to build a language library in a school, valuable additions to their respective communities. With local teen girls who take part in the Girls Leading Our World (GLOW) clubs, I gave guidance on designing successful projects, meaning projects that are truly valuable and then thinking about how to get resources needed to do the projects. I know I say it over and over, but the kids here are amazing. I thought I was an all-star in high school but I wasn't spending my Saturday in grant writing workshops conducted in a foreign language.

The systemic problem with projects is that they imply something short lived--we are handing out fish*, not teaching people to fish. But teaching fishing is hard--you have to find people who want to learn, gather rods and bait, find a place stocked with fish, etc. As Peace Corps volunteers, we are fishing instructors but sometimes you give somebody a fish so the have the energy to keep learning to catch one themselves.

*In Macedonia, the fish carp is (transliterating the Macedonian) called "crap." This makes me smile every time I see it on a menu.

Strumica Carnival

2011-03-15T05:19:00.000-07:00

As in many corners of the world, the lead-up to Easter begins in Macedonia with carnival. The main celebration is in a city called Strumica and last week I took a 4 hour bus ride to this southeast corner of the country for my first carnival. I stayed with Jim and Dianne, a volunteer couple in their 70s who put many of us "youngins" to shame with their energy. Dianne fed me and her other guests with the ease that comes from being a mother of 5. I must say one of the highlights was toast. Toasters are available in Macedonia but not common and it's not an exaggeration to say that I probably hadn't eaten toast in a year and a half and I hadn't thought about it much but man, it's some delicious stuff.

This year, carnival fell on May 8th which is International Women's Day which is a holiday for honoring women and our many contributions. The holiday is marked by giving flowers to women from their families or coworkers and often women will go out to eat together to mark the occasion. Below is a photo of Dianne and Kerry with flowers they got from Dianne's language students.

After carbo loading on toast, Kerry and I did some exploring of Strumica. We came across a trail with signs instructing dubiously advantageous exercises and we proceeded to take photos of each other trying them out.

The evening was the carnival itself and it was rather frigid and blustery out, which made the slow procession of the parade (about one float every 5 minutes) hard to enjoy. By far the most fun was taking goofy photos pre-parade and watching the fireworks that were launched directly above our heads.

Robert and Aimee having a Mustache Party

Me, Jim, Lillian, Kerry, & Gordana

As I had been warned, the second year of service is much busier and it was hard to get away but once I was out of town, I realized that a break was a welcome breather. Plus really, how could I miss my last carnival in Macedonia?

When the Saints Drive In

2011-03-07T04:59:00.000-08:00

They were joking about being treated like saints but it did seem like they had performed a miracle, getting a slew of equipment for firefighting and lifesaving across Europe to Macedonia. By "they" I mean Bruce and his colleague (far right and left in the photo above) who are members of a group named Operation Florian, which provides training and equipment for improving firefighting worldwide. These guys drove literally for days, including 15 hours in Serbian customs, from England with gear for fire departments throughout Macedonia. Happily, they also managed to bring 5 CPR dummies for Red Cross Bitola!

Red Cross Bitola met with me a few months ago about their need for new CPR dummies to do trainings on CPR and first aid in the local schools. Their dummies were broken and Red Cross is essentially the only CPR trainer in the area, so the students had no opportunity to learn and practice this important skill. I wanted to know that the Red Cross was serious about this project, so I asked them to write a proposal outlining their needs and their plans for trainings and I was pleasantly surprised when they did so. After a little polishing, I sent the proposal on to Bruce.

Bruce and I first crossed paths in Sveti Nikole as he worked with the firefighters there and I had language classes above the firehouse. Then we were both at the young men's leadership camp last summer, where instead of fire equipment he brought young Brits who shared camping with the guys. Knowing of his work with Operation Florian, I thought Bruce might have ideas about how to fulfill Red Cross' need. He didn't make any promises but it seems there was divine intervention that made the dummies materialize.

Red Cross was ecstatic about the new dummies and their gratitude is what made Bruce say he was going to be named a saint. Giving so much of his time and energy to supporting the people of Macedonia, I would say he's well on his way to sainthood.

Doubleheader

2011-02-27T12:09:00.000-08:00

Saturday was my monthly American Corner doubleheader--American Sports Club followed by Readers' Club. Only 6 kids came to sports club but they were happy to break in our new (to us) donated baseball equipment from a U.S. organization called Pitch In For Baseball. It's still very much winter here, evidenced by the snow flurries that Lauren and I walked through pulling my suitcases filled with baseball gloves and balls, so we did Baseball 101 inside.

Lauren and I make pretty interesting coaches with only a couple years of little league between us, but thanks to the power of You Tube and its tutorials on such helpful topics like coaching youth baseball catching drills and how to catch a baseball, we did a respectable job (in my opinion).

As suggested in one of the videos, we started by tossing around a bean bag (OK, lentil-filled sweat sock) that Helene nicely whipped up at 10:30 on Friday night. Pros at throwing and catching, we moved on to catching grounders. Then everyone broke off into pairs and did that most American of pastimes, playing catch. With the exception of one kid, everyone was playing baseball for the first time ever and they were shockingly good. The kids were very enthusiastic and are eager to have an actual game outside in the spring.

After rolling the equipment home, I hustled over to the American Corner for the Readers' Club discussion of The Aspern Papers by Henry James. I'll be honest--I wasn't crazy about this book and although some of the other book club members liked it better, I wouldn't say anyone gave it a ringing endorsement. Next month's book is O Pioneers! by Willa Cather and I've been a bit ashamed that I went to University of Nebraska but never read anything by this fellow Husker and venerated author who set many of her stories in the state, so I look forward to finally reading one of her tales.

It was a very American Corner/You Tube week for me--I also gave a presentation there on Wednesday about Presidential Monuments (Mt. Rushmore, FDR Memorial, etc) where I used some You Tube videos to give people a virtual visit experience. Maybe I needed a spicier presentation title though--only 5 people came. I'm blaming the cold weather, even if it wasn't all that bad out. Besides learning to make my title zippier next time, I also discovered an amazing dance (watch this video from about 3:10 minutes) and did you know Eleanor Roosevelt was born a Roosevelt?

Two Saints, One Day

2011-02-16T13:36:00.000-08:00

February 14th is Valentine's Day...or is it? The whole Saint Valentine thing has not really caught on in Macedonia, in part because it is already another holiday, Sveti Trifon, celebrating patron saint of wine growers. Last year I traveled to wine country and went with Macedonian tradition, standing in a city center with a couple hundred other people consuming wine at 9 AM, but this year I opted to stay closer to home for a more Valentine holiday.

At the American Corner, I told a group of 8th graders about Valentine's Day while we played a game and made a poster.
We talked about the candy hearts with messages on them and the kids made their own clever Conversation Hearts.

The Corner also provided apple cake because, I think, it's an American dessert. We Americans tried to explain that it's not traditional for Valentine's Day but they went with it anyway and hey, it was tasty nevertheless.

In addition, I got to play cupid to my sitemate Lauren by delivering a surprise bouquet from her boyfriend in America. He requested my help to get flowers to her and we'd been conspiring over Facebook. Seeing her initial shock and subsequent teary happiness was lovely. I may not have had a Valentine, but it was a sweet day.

Retaking the field

2011-02-10T08:29:00.000-08:00

"You give 100 percent in the first half of the game, and if that isn't enough in the second half you give what's left."--Yogi Berra

This week, I participated in what Peace Corps calls our mid-service conference but in fact I am 17 months into the 27 month commitment, so well past the halfway point. I would say that my group of volunteers has in fact given 100% in the first half, leaving our tanks somewhat empty for the second half. The conference was intended to recharge our batteries and well, they tried...luckily we are a determined, awesome bunch and will not be satisfied until we make a good dent in our long project lists before we depart Macedonia.

My game has changed a bit, for the better. As mentioned in earlier posts, working with the local national park, my "job" if you will, was not going smoothly because I struggled to get my coworkers involved in any projects with me. I brought my concerns to Peace Corps and the staff supported me in changing jobs. My new job is with the YMCA in Bitola. YMCA Bitola works with youth on developing leadership skills, leading healthy lives, and exploring the arts through comics and movies. The name YMCA may conjure images of children and rec centers so let me clarify. First, youth in Macedonia means 15-30 year olds (yes, I still make the cut, barely) and second, our only facilities are a small room in an office building.

I have actually been working with my YMCA Bitola coworkers, Viktor and Jovce, since March. They asked me to help them develop their first strategic plan, a three year plan outlining their goals and how they intend to achieve them. Believe me, thinking much more than a month into the future is unusual for organizations here so YMCA Bitola is taking a big step to make themselves better and stronger. My rapport with Viktor and Jovce is great, lots of sharing of ideas and I appreciate their openness to trying new things. Finishing the strategic plan has been one of my biggest accomplishments as a volunteer, so now I'm looking forward to taking a larger role in its implementation too. Game on!

Me and Viktor (far right) with the U.S. Ambassador to Macedonia

Me and Jovce at the YMCA Bitola Office

Schools in a Century

2011-01-18T04:56:00.000-08:00

I didn't know what I was getting myself into when I agreed to collect essays and find judges for an essay contest that Peace Corps organized. It sounds so simple, doesn't it? Yet how quickly it descended into me having a spirited exchange with one of my judges who threatened to sabotage the competition because she didn't approve of one of my other judge selections. History from previous contests factored into where this irritated judge was coming from but regardless I was frustrated by the fact that what was in the best interest of the kids was not the first priority. Fortunately, the judging was eventually completed and Bitola's winning essays will go on to the national competition.

The contest topic is "My School in 100 Years," so the 7th - 12th graders described (in English) how education in Macedonia will be different in a century. The students did a terrific job of being inventive, and yet I was also struck by how some of what they envisioned is already a part of many American schools. For instance, many students wanted a cafeteria where they could eat while socializing with friends. Students here attend either a morning or afternoon shift, so meals are eaten at home or snacks are purchased from shops near school. Swimming pools were another frequently mentioned but relatively commonplace feature of American high schools. Items like these were a reminder to me of how fortunate students in the U.S. are.

Some of the ideas were pretty fantastical--flying schools, robots as teachers, classrooms that reconstruct themselves depending on the class, German classes held in Berlin, and microchips in students for learning lessons, just to name a few. Other students pragmatically honed in on correcting some of the flaws they see in the current system, such as, "A big improvement will be if the teachers pass through a thorough teaching test...if a test is conducted, the professors will be chosen by how good they are at teaching, not by who has the friend with the highest position in the school." One essay went so far as to predict that schools would vanish all together due to neglect by greedy politicians, but the student encouraged taking action to prevent schools from disappearing. Which predictions will prevail is impossible to say but since most of the essays focused on improvements, I think their generation has the will to turn some of their dreams into reality.

Entertaining Evils

2011-01-17T13:44:00.000-08:00

Evil spirits and costumes conjure up Halloween for Americans but in Macedonia, these are the making of the Old New Year. As I did last year, I went to the village of Vevchani where they have an incredible parade in homemade costumes. The costumes are burned after the parade, a way to rid evil going into the new year, so all new creations were on display. There is not much more to say except check out the photos on Picasa and if you do you'll see that boy, are we looking for Bin Laden in the wrong place.

Putting Macedonia's Water to the Test

2011-01-11T02:24:00.000-08:00

"In an age when man has forgotten his origins and is blind even to his most essential needs for survival, water along with other resources has become the victim of his indifference." -- Rachel Carson

When I was in 3rd grade, my class was given a list of famous people and we had to choose someone on the list to write a report about. Somehow I chose Rachel Carson, a scientist who raised awareness about the natural world and risks to it, particularly the dangers of pesticides. Now, no one thing made me gravitate towards working on environmental issues, but I have to think that exposure to the ideas and work of Rachel Carson at a young age was formative. That's why I am excited by the success of a project that I have been organizing in Macedonia, World Water Monitoring Day.

Last summer, Peace Corps Macedonia was contacted by one of our former volunteers named Patty who works now for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). She asked if we wanted to receive kits to use with local students to test water quality. Sciences classes here rarely have the resources to do lab experiments, so this was an excellent opportunity to do something hands-on and to teach the kids about the importance of clean water. To make a long story short, I took the helm of organizing the project in Macedonia.

In eight different communities, Peace Corps volunteers led the kids through testing water from local rivers. As is apparent from these pictures on Picasa, the water testers had such a good time they almost forgot they were learning. What really impressed me was that in many communities, the youth shared the results with their peers and even local leaders. Our partners in the U.S., EPA and CH2M Hill, also put us in touch with schools in Colorado and Costa Rica to exchange photos and videos with. This international dimension helps show the kids that water is a global resource that we all need to work to protect.

Lauren and I did water testing with an 8th grade class at the primary school where she teaches. Unfortunately there wasn't time for the students to help us collect water from the river, which left Lauren and I alone attracting stares from passersby as we lowered a bucket from a bridge into the river running through town. The students did enthusiastically participate in the testing though and found the Dragor River is relatively healthy, which surprised some of them, mentioning the trash they had seen floating in the river. We are exchanging photos with students from my old school district, Aurora Public Schools, which should be interesting for the kids in both locations.

At the suggestion of my country director, this project got written up on the Peace Corps website. Already it has been pointed out that my "village" of 100,000 people is hardly that but hey, it's still a flattering writeup. It is a bit embarrassing that my name is mentioned so often because it truly was a group effort, so let me take this opportunity to thank again Dianne, Amanda, Sarah, Kerry, Jen, Lauren, Kaylee, Phebe, Lync, and Mike for being water testers extraordinaire!

Holidaze

2011-01-09T03:29:00.000-08:00

Three holidays in the span of one week still leaves me somewhat dazed. First there was New Years Eve, with the celebrations in Bitola drawing a crowd of about 15 Peace Corps volunteers.

We watched the fireworks in the city center and then danced to the live music, which garnered us some spectators as dancing anything but the oro here "implies something about you," as I have been told.

The guests staying at my house were treated to some Thai chicken soup, which I was told rivals "the" Thai restaurant in Macedonia, and in the morning, we taught our French friend Astrid how to make breakfast burritos.

January 5th was Kolede and like last year, I joined my neighbors (along with my sitemates Helene and Lauren) for our neighborhood bonfire.

With a drink in one hand and a fork in the other, we ate sausages and chatted, watching to make sure the cute little boy didn't careen in excitement into the bonfire.

My tutor Bile was kind enough to invite me to join her family for Christmas dinner on January 7th.

Her sweet grandparents hosted and in addition to being Christmas it was her grandfather Risto's name day. A name day is the day that recognizes the saint that a person is named after and usually close friends and family will be invited by a person to celebrate his or her name day. After a wonderful filling meal, the guests started singing traditional songs. I still find it remarkable how people here will spontaneously break into song and almost everyone takes part. Click here to watch a clip that I filmed at Christmas dinner.

More photos from the holidaze are up on Picasa.

Signs of the Season

2010-12-27T08:23:00.000-08:00

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!

Professor Kalinowski's Excellent Adventures

2010-12-15T12:40:00.000-08:00

I began trying to write a blog based on the carol "12 Days of Christmas" but got stumped on about day 5, so it's going to be the usual prose instead. First off, I think it's important to note that winter is officially here and I dug out my long underwear again. It snowed about 6 inches on Monday and it hasn't gone anywhere because the temperature also hasn't broken freezing since then. Thank goodness I am one of the volunteers here with a decent heater--others are literally wearing stocking caps inside.

A new project of mine, a Readers' Club, officially kicked off in the last couple weeks with discussions of the books Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne and The Awakening by Kate Chopin. For a new book club, I thought the meetings were well attended and the discussions were lively. We face the limitation of only having 8-10 copies of every book, but everyone is encouraged to read the book within two weeks so we can have up to 20 people take part each month.

With the new chilly temps, American Sports Club moved inside this month with Finger Football, otherwise known as folded-paper-triangle-American-football. Although not as cardio intensive as previous months' sports, Finger Football was a good introduction to American football terminology (touchdown, field goal, extra point) and scorekeeping. Plus, everyone had a good time and went home with their own paper football.

Professor Kalinowski has taught two lessons recently, one to an adult English language class on Thanksgiving and another to college students studying public administration on Strategic Planning. After both classes, the students were invited to ask me questions about my experience in Macedonia and the queries ranged from, "What is your favorite food here?" - answer: sarma and ajvar, to, "Do you find guys in Macedonia attractive?" - answer: I have seen attractive guys, but I'm not much for the ones who wear flashy jeans or lots of hair gel.

There are good and bad things to report about Pelister National Park, my work assignment from Peace Corps. The good news is that Pelister held a grand opening for its new tourist information center. This is the center that they have been telling me would open any day now since August, so it was gratifying to see the day indeed arrive. However, we seem to have our wires crossed when it comes to when they want me to work and my counterpart has gone incommunicado, so that's bad. Luckily I have kept myself busy with the above and helping my new sitemates get acquainted with Bitola.

It is tough for me to believe it is less than 12 days to Christmas because here it will not be Christmas until January. I miss the carols and decorated trees the most, but there are some lovely lighting displays up the center of town and my parents sent me super packages with goodies like homemade cookies and new running shoes. Truthfully, being in a country where gift-giving is not a major part of Christmas is very freeing but I'm not sending back all my new treats either!

Double Serving of Turkey

2010-11-28T11:40:00.000-08:00

A week with Turkey, the country, and turkey, the bird, is a very good week indeed, at least in my book. My vacation wound down with 5 days in the nation of Turkey, primarily in the Cappadocia region near Goreme. I first visited Turkey three years ago, but coming now from Macedonia I was struck by similarities between the two nations, both formerly part of the Ottoman Empire. Many words and food dishes are the same in both countries, so I must confess that Turkey felt decidedly unexotic compared with the other places I visited on vacation. Nevertheless, I enjoyed hiking around Cappadocia's unusual rock formations that were used for centuries for everything from churches to pigeon coops to residences. At the end of the trip, I had a few hours in Istanbul for souvenir shopping at the Grand Bazaar and my semi-annual Starbucks chai latte.

The edible turkey made an appearance on Thursday at the Peace Corps Thanksgiving celebration / swearing-in. After successfully completing their training, the newest 37 volunteers were sworn in by the U.S. Ambassador with their proud host families looking on. Shortly after the ceremony, I started staking out the pumpkin pie until given the all clear to dive in and claim it, as well as the turkey that is flown in especially for Thanksgiving.

One volunteer even had a can of cranberry sauce, which we passed around the table so everyone could have a spoonful. I'm thankful to have made it through my first year in the Peace Corps and thankful that there is a year left to accomplish more and for additional exploration of Macedonia.

Now official, the freshly minted volunteers departed Friday for their new homes and Bitola welcomed two new ladies, Helene and Lauren. Helene is my new upstairs neighbor and will work at an NGO called LifeStart. Lauren will teach at a primary school and lives 15 minutes from us. My sitemate Phil extended for a third year and Ashley from my group lives just outside the city, so there is no shortage of Americans in the greater Bitola area.

Tomorrow I officially begin my usual hodge-podge of projects again, not to mention I'll resume my workouts to counteract the holiday treats I recently consumed. If you check out my photos on Picasa, I would be thankful if you would imagine me 10 pounds lighter.

Syria: Souqs, Sweets, & Sheep

2010-11-18T10:40:00.000-08:00

Entering Syria, I felt like I drank two Coca Colas back-to-back and was all hyped up because my group got into a verbal and physical fight with a rude Dutch-Syrian couple about whose turn it was at the one window for foreigners entering Syria. Ironically we couldn’t escape these same people in Damascus, running into them at least 3 times in the souq (shopping corridor). As much as I would like to say that we just ignored them, I think some sneers were exchanged by both parties.

The majority of my time in Damascus was spent in the aforementioned souq. The souq ceiling is covered, but you can see light coming through the bullet holes created by French machine guns flying over during the nationalist rebellion in 1925. The first night, we listened to a storyteller at a café and despite being entirely in Arabic, it was a delight because he was so animated and the café had a great atmosphere. The courtyard of the Umayyad mosque proved quite picturesque, with its golden mosaics and shining marble floors. The girls paid 50 Syrian Pounds ($1) for the required hooded robes to enter the mosque grounds. I had an interesting time waiting for an old courtyard to open, miming with an old man sitting in the spice row about the operating hours. He invited me to sit with him and gave me some tea, which I watched him prepare with about one part tea to three parts sugar so of course it was delicious.

Prices in Syria are even better than in Macedonia and somehow being surrounded by salary-earning group members made me forget that I have volunteer wages, so I indulged in some souvenir shopping. I invested in some wonderful food as well, including the legendary Bakdash ice cream shop in the souq with salep-flavored ice cream rolled in pistachios. There were wonderful little pizzas for less than $1 and falafels for the same price.

From Damascus, we took a very fume-filled van to Palmyra. We drove within 100 miles of the Iraq border, which may be the closest that I ever want to get to Iraq, but it felt strange to see highway signs to Baghdad. The attraction in Palmyra is the ruins, which are the first that I’ve seen with dual language inscriptions, in Greek and the local Aramaic. There was also an interesting astrological carving in one of the temples. Katie Travel Tip #3: When traveling in the desert and around ruins, khaki pants hide dirt the best.

From Palmyra we took a tiny but better maintained van to Crac des Chevaliers (Fort of the Knights). The fort was originally a small Kurdish outpost but was expanded by the Crusaders, and eventually turned into living quarters for locals until the early 1900s. Our hotel was perched on a hillside directly across from the fort, so it was a tremendous view to wake up to.

From Crac des Chevaliers, it was back in the cramped van to the city of Aleppo. Luckily we were able to add two stops, seeing huge wooden water wheels in Hama and then a “dead city” called Sergilla. We arrived at Sergilla just at sunset, so the abandoned stone buildings had a beautiful hue. At our van driver’s advice, we went in the “back entrance” i.e. over a crumbling rock wall and paid the entrance fee on our way out. In the Sergilla parking lot, a local family was using the pizza oven, an intriguing process. Basically they rolled the dough, put sauce on it, and then used something akin to a catcher’s mitt to slap the dough against the oven wall. Once it was cooked, they would peel it off the oven wall. They gave us some to try and I liked it.

Our arrival in Aleppo was the night before the beginning of Eid al-Adha (Festival of Sacrifice, called Kurban Bajram in Macedonia), a three day Muslim holiday celebrating the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son, before God offered him a ram to sacrifice instead (at least that’s what Wikipedia says). Our hotel was directly in the souq and carrying our bags in was like salmon swimming upstream. Insanity is the word that comes to mind to describe the souq that night and the next couple days were carnage. Sheep carnage, that is, as sheep butchering in all its stages went on day and night. Coming and going from the hotel, we were forced to dodge piles of discarded sheep parts, rivers of blood, and the live sheep milling about before their demise. If you don't want to see such things, don't look at my photos on Picasa. Apparently all the women and girls were home cooking the sheep because the first day of the holiday, only men and boys were out. I felt like the last woman on the planet with all this testosterone surrounding me. Almost everything was closed for the holiday and the KFC that I searched out closed two months ago, so my main memory of Aleppo will be sheep.

Exiting Syria, our shuttle bus operator filled the empty seats (and let one guy sit on a drum in the aisle) and we slowly made our way through all the requisite fees and windows without any throwdowns. Overall Syria was great because there were very few tourists and it was inexpensive. I think it would be a difficult place to live though, with websites like Facebook and Blogger banned and the President’s picture splashed up everywhere. Now I’m in Turkey for the second time, heading towards more geological wonders and marketplaces.

Red, Dead, & Well Fed

2010-11-17T10:50:00.000-08:00

My arrival by ferry in Aqaba, Jordan got off to a good start with a functional ATM card that put some Dinar (not to be confused with the Macedonian Denar) in my pocket. The tourist track in Jordan is not cheap though, so my Dinars didn’t seem to go nearly as far as Denars. There is not much of note in Aqaba but from there my group departed by minibus for Wadi Rum with our Jordanian guide, Jemal.

In spite of Jemal, I greatly enjoyed Wadi Rum which is a desert region tinged red and covered with giant rock formations. I say this about Jemal because although he endeavored to be a good emissary for Jordan, his machismo and tendency to not listen to our requests made him come across as a tool. However, nothing can spoil the greatness of Wadi Rum with its glyphs of camel caravans, big stone bridge to climb on, and a lovely sunset. We slept out under the stars and then started our next big day with some delicious sage tea and pita bread with yogurt and spices.

If there was one reason I booked this vacation, it was to see Petra—otherwise known as the place where the Holy Grail is hidden in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The Treasury is what is featured in the film, what looks like a building façade carved into a cliff wall. The sight really is dramatic and impressive, only appearing after walking about 20 minutes through a narrow canyon. What I didn’t realize beforehand was how much more there would be to see, with other such building-like fronts throughout the area including Royal Tombs and a Monastery. Our second day there, I took off with Simon and Richard from my group on a trail labeled “dangerous” without a guide. The primary danger seemed to be getting lost and unfortunately we ended up standing on top of the Treasury, instead of across from it as we intended. After a couple hours of exploring, we came out another “dangerous” path that was essentially a drainage canyon, a fun scramble once I felt secure that the Bedouin who led us into the seemingly dead-end canyon wasn’t after my Dinars, other than some baksheesh (tip).

After the dust and sweat of Petra, the next logical stop was to freshen up at the Dead Sea. There are many fun facts about the Dead Sea that make it so unique: it’s seven times saltier than a normal ocean (30% salinity) and the lowest point on earth (1,378 feet below sea level). Accordingly, the Dead Sea visit had a warning associated with it that I’ve never received elsewhere in my travels: don’t shave before going in the water. I followed this guidance but nevertheless, water that salty has a way of burning in uncomfortable places. Still, pushing past that, it was fun to float completely effortlessly like a cork. The other girls and I treated ourselves to a Dead Sea mud treatment (3 dinar = ~$4), slathering ourselves with black mud and taking a million photos while we waited for it to dry. Then we washed it off in the sea and I think my skin did feel nicer (though I must confess I did it mostly for the novelty of being smeared in black mud).

This trip is taking me smack dab through the Promise Land, which was laid out in a mosaic map on the floor of an Orthodox Chruch in the city of Madaba. The map was discovered when the church was being renovated, so it’s not complete but the way the locations are labeled is quite something. From Madaba, we drove an hour to (and two hours back, due to a van breakdown) the Roman city of Jerash. Katie's Travel Tip #2: Always bring a snack and water in the case of breakdown/transit strike/apocolypse/other. The highlight of Jerash for me was a group of teenage girls on a school trip. We were all in one of the site’s amphitheatres and several of them said “hi” to me and we chatted a bit. Then, a drummer and bagpipe started playing and the girls flooded the stage to dance and sing. With their head scarves and school uniforms, I thought the girls would be reserved but instead they were spirited and having a good old time. We took some pictures together, which along with my other Jordan images are on Picasa.

Being in Jordan solidified that my group is on the fresh squeezed juice and falafel tour of the Middle East. Seriously, I have both almost every day, with falafel sandwiches going for about 50 cents and fresh juices for $3-5 a large mug. All this would be healthy if I weren’t chasing it with equally delicious baklava—Jordan has amazing bakeries on almost every corner.

Our visit coincided with the Parliamentary elections, so we visited a different Crusader castle than the one on our itinerary. Apparently the decision to close the scheduled castle to tourists was a good one because a candidate was shot there around Election Day. Luckily we didn’t observe any other violence, at least not until we got into some words with a Dutch-Syrian couple as we entered Syria—more on that in my blog on Syria.

Chasing Moses

2010-11-09T11:09:00.000-08:00

After 6 hours by car, 7 hours of layovers, and 3 hours of flying, I arrived at my hotel in Cairo to begin my vacation. The start seemed somewhat dubious after I couldn't get any of my ATM cards to work, leaving me to get through all of Egypt on $100. On the plus side, I saved money and my cards are now working. Katie Travel Tip #1: Always bring some cash!

I'm traveling with 8 other people plus our tour leader, and it is a good mix representing Canada, Australia, England, Scotland, and Singapore. Our first day on the road, we climbed up the 3,750 "Steps of Repentence" up Mt. Sinai, where Moses is said to have received the 10 Commandments. The highlight was supposed to be the sunset at the top, but I thought the climb was the best part because of the great terrain. We came down in the dark but skipping most of the steps, for a total trip of about 5 hours.

The next day we saw nearby St. Katherine's, a Greek Orthodox Monastery marking where Moses saw the burning bush. The big story that morning though were the mosquito bites that nearly everyone had all over their faces, including yours truly. For most of the last week, it's looked like I have the chicken pox. The bumps have largely receded now, but we were overjoyed to have mosquito nets at our next stop, the Red Sea.

At our Red Sea beach camp, each of us had our own bungalow. There are pictures of this and more up on Picasa. I greatly enjoyed sitting in the shady lounge area reading and dining oceanside. The downside of talking with my fellow travelers is that now my to-see list is even longer. We all get along well and it is nice to be with a mature group that is responsible about the departure times and whatnot. After the Red Sea, we took a ferry to Jordan and I'll write a dispatch on Jordan, my 35th country, soon. P.S. Sorry about any typos, Blogger thinks that I am writing in Arabic, so spell check isn't functional.

Scary Good Fun

2010-10-30T13:01:00.001-07:00

Today it was frights and delights bringing America to Bitola with Capture the Flag and Halloween. The American Sports Club played Capture the Flag this morning in a new location, the city park, which seemed appropriately spooky filled with fog and autumn leaves. I learned to say Capture the Flag in Macedonian, which has a wonderfully fun-to-say rhythm: фати го знамето (fah-tee go znah-meh-toe). The realization came to me today that I enjoy playing these types of games much more now than I did as a kid and I think it comes down to the fact that I was so short as a child that it was almost impossible to play as well as everyone else, but now my 5'2" stature puts me squarely in the middle of the pack among kids and I can capture the flag now and again.

Halloween is not celebrated in Macedonia, but the American Corner held a Halloween party with a terrific turnout of ghosts, witches, and Arabs (seriously, these were the most popular costumes). I went as a pirate, proud of my homemade cardboard-and-aluminum-foil dagger and blue eyepatch (blue because, well, I don't have a black marker). Almost everyone there was celebrating Halloween for the first time, so we filled them in on the traditions and their origins, followed by playing games. Some more of the boo-tiful shots from the party and sports club are up on Picasa.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

2010-10-29T05:59:00.001-07:00

At least once a month I conduct English conversation hour at the American Corner, an opportunity for people in Bitola (locals, expats, visitors, anybody really) to discuss various topics in English. This week, I decided to raise the topic of ending (maybe? probably?) the U.S. military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. I chose this subject because, to me, that is more or less the attitude towards homosexuality in Macedonia--people don't ask if someone is gay and gay people don't say that they are, in fact, gay. There is a huge stigma to being gay in Macedonia and acts of violence can result from being openly gay. Nobody from here has ever told me that they are gay. Some people deny that there are even homosexuals in Macedonia at all. As a straight person who feels everyone should be free to embrace whatever their sexuality is, I oftentimes feel uncomfortable about how homosexuality is treated here.

During Tuesday's conversation hour, the range of views here were represented, everything from being gay is a "disease" to it's "okay." On the disease end, being gay was considered in the same category as pedophilia. Some felt it was okay, as long as gay individuals kept their gayness to themselves. On the fully okay end were those who suspected they had gay friends. Overall I was happy we could have a frank discussion about a typically taboo subject. Also, it was a chance to relate how attitudes are evolving in America to where more and more states are legalizing gay marriage and adoption, not to mention the potential change to the military's policy.

Among Peace Corps volunteers, we have codeword for "gay." We use this codeword so we can discuss the topic without accidentally drawing negative attention to people who are, or may be, gay. As far as I know, no volunteer in Macedonia has been able to serve openly as a gay person. Such volunteers may have revealed the truth to select people, but I think it must be especially trying to hide such an important part of their identity.

A campaign has been launched in America by Dan Savage, a sex advice columnist, called "It Gets Better." He wanted a way to let LGBT teens know that even if their sexuality is resulting in abuse, loneliness, or other hardships now, it gets better when you reach adulthood. On the website he started, people can upload videos talking about their challenges growing up as a LGBT person but how life gets better. America is far from a perfect place, clearly evident from the teenage suicides that inspired this project, but there is some solace in knowing that in America, life for LGBTs can get better. I can only hope that as more people in Macedonia shift towards the "okay" end of the spectrum, the same will be true here too.

Bitola Goes Hollywood

2010-10-28T01:25:00.000-07:00

I liken Bitola to the Los Angeles of Macedonia--the people are fashionable and they love to sit outdoors to see and be seen. Last week the city truly went Hollywood with the annual Manaki Bros. Film Festival. The Manaki brothers brought the first movie camera to Macedonia in the early 1900s, so the festival in their honor is dedicated to cinematography. For the first time as part of the festival, some Manaki films were shown. Black-and-white and silent, the films nevertheless were fascinating for the great architecture (of which I wish more remained) and style of dress remiscent of Turkey (lots of fezzes) because of the then-recent separation from the Ottoman Empire.

Actress Darryl Hannah was honored with an award at the festival and I wondered what the audience at her talk thought about her story about getting arrested for protesting coal mining when coal is the top employer in Bitola.

Every day I saw at least one movie, with the $1 ticket price nicely fitting my Peace Corps budget. My favorite was "Four Lions," a movie that takes what is seemingly totally unfunny--jihad--and makes it into a bittersweet British comedy. To close the festival, the U.S. Embassy held a reception and I got my picture taken with the U.S. Ambassador to Macedonia, Philip Reeker. Never did I envision dignitaries and cinema figuring into my Peace Corps service--I guess there's no denying that I'm in the Posh Corps.

A World Away from Great Clips

2010-10-13T13:40:00.000-07:00

Most days now, the fact that I am living in the Balkans doesn't register high on my level of consciousness, but today I got my semi-annual haircut and it all seemed so very Balkan. First of all, the salon I go to is decked out entirely in harvest gold, from the countertops to the exterior, and it looks like it gets cleaned about once a year. Now I'm not very squeamish about cleanliness, which is good because the 3 or 4 times the hairdressers dropped hair clips on the floor and then picked them right back up to use in the clients' hair might have really bothered some folks. The guy who cut my hair was wearing a track suit, the Balkan man's uniform, and Stereo Love, the anthem of my arrival in Macedonia, played on the radio as he slowly and deliberately re-layered my hair. I happily paid $4 for this reminder that I'm so not in America anymore.

On a somewhat related note, I have a fascination with the local barbershops which to me look as though they haven't changed since the 1950s. See for yourselves...

Brajchino and Dihovo

2010-10-12T06:02:00.000-07:00

This post is woefully out of order and I tried to come up with a valid excuse but I can't. At the same time, I didn't want to skip it altogether, especially lest you miss the pictures. Sans car, it is not the easiest thing to explore the villages of Macedonia although at least it can be done, which I don't think I could say about rural America. And the villages are not to be missed, whether reached by foot or by taxi. In September I did both to see the villages of Brajchino and Dihovo.

Visiting Brajchino was part of a hiking weekend. I joined 4 other volunteers (I was the baby of the group, having only been here a year and they are nearly out the door), first hiking 3.5 hours uphill to the Golemo Ezero (Big Lake) mountain hut in my national park, Pelister. This was slightly easier than in the winter but not much because it's still all uphill. Then for some crazy reason we decided to try and get to the actual peak, which would have been another 4 hours of hiking but turned into 3 after we wandered off trail. It turned out to be a fortunate mistake, though, because we took in the full effect of the sunset over Lake Prespa. Having worked up an appetite, we chowed down back at the mountain hut on some special sausage prepared by our friend and mountain hut proprietor, Pepo.

Setting a new personal record for most hiking in 48 hours, we set off the next day for another 6 hours of walking to the village of Brajchino. The time passed quickly though because the terrain was diverse, the scenery wonderful, and we were kept company by Dum-dum (as we dubbed him), a dog that followed another group up to the mountain hut and we were tasked with escorting back home. Dum-dum didn't always want to stay on the path or partake of the refreshments we offered him, hence his new name, but overall he was a welcome addition to the group. Once in Brajchino, we feasted on Macedonian food served up a wonderful woman named Milka who previously worked with a Peace Corps volunteer. We slept at a monastery called St. Petka and compared to the mountain hut it was like a 5 star hotel but for about $8 apiece. Then, through the magic of Macedonia's van and bus networks, we all made it home without any more walking on our aching legs.

A few days later, I went to the village of Dihovo, only a 15 minute cab ride from Bitola and bordering Pelister National Park. A former Bitola volunteer, Patrice, has been visiting with a group of American tourists and Dihovo was one of the places she focused on during her Peace Corps stint. She helped open two guesthouses in Dihovo, one of which is actually named after her. She also got them listed in Lonely Planet and they've since been shocked by the waves of guests from around the world. I should also mention my former neighbor Heather helped start one of the guesthouses in making microbrews that I look forward to sampling sometime. The day I visited, a local TV crew taped Patrice, the guesthouse owners, and the American guests for a segment on village tourism. Afterwards we were treated to a wonderful dinner of all the local specialties. Like many places around the world, Macedonia's villages are shrinking as more people gravitate towards the cities but I hope they somehow survive, charming and engaging as they are.

K-k-k-kickball!

2010-10-09T14:07:00.000-07:00

Explaining a baseball-like sport to people who have never played the game--this was the task before Ashley and me as we participated in the Bitola American Sports Club's second event, kickball. For the uninitiated, kickball is essentially baseball but you kick a bouncy ball instead of batting. However, as I said, none of the kids had ever played baseball so we needed to explain everything--what is a base, what are the bases called, which order do you run them, what's a foul, what's an out, etc--and do it before we lost everyone's attention.

The game actually started well although we did realize in the course of our play that we forgot a few key points, such as you can't actually pass the person in front of you as you run the bases, even if you are faster than him or her. Also the batting order is not to be renegotiated every inning, and players on the bench cannot kick the ball away from the catcher in an attempt to help their runner reach home plate. We had to move the second base, aka egg carton, about halfway through because it was getting lost in a mud pit. A few shoes (and one pair of glasses) came off in early innings until everyone got their kicking techniques perfected. All-in-all though, the match-up between Ashley's Wild Dogs and my Wildcats was a rousing success.

More pics are up on Picasa and I think you'll agree, we have one of the most scenic fields in all of sports. Our baseball equipment donation was approved and everything is in the mail, so next time we play kickball the kids will get to really run the bases and not egg cartons!

Golden Gostivar

2010-10-06T13:05:00.000-07:00

The last sporting contest I won was in hula hooping and as for running, I have always just been in competition against myself. Then came Saturday, the inaugural Gostivar Harvest Festival and 5K race. Volunteers Candy and Kerry from Gostivar worked with the local sheep breeders association and many other sponsors to celebrate the community's healthy agricultural bounty and also threw in a fitness aspect with a running race. They did a tremendous job promoting this first-time event and got 130 people, mostly teens, to run the 5K.

At 10:30 AM, we all lined up at the start and then took off through the streets of Gostivar. The kids galloped for the first kilometer and then started to drop back until I was left racing a handful of boys. The spectators seemed to have mixed feelings about this, with some cheering me on and others egging on the boys about letting a girl beat them. In a bit over 21 minutes, I crossed the finish line in first place for the women and 10th overall. Surely this is the one and only time I will ever win a running race but it was great, especially when some of the little girls came up to me after I got my medal (yes, there really was a medal) and congratulated me. The Americans also swept the silver medals, so kudos to Natty and Jane for their excellent runs, along with the other volunteers who ran.

Other than running, I helped with race registration and did the 3 things everyone must do in Gostivar: go to the gourmet cheese shop, eat baklava, and drink salep. Salep is a hot drink made from orchid root and it is served in a lair-like Turkish cafe that I love. Between getting the gold, seeing many friends, and treating myself to delicious eats, the weekend was a winner all around.

Bravo Boris

2010-09-17T07:57:00.000-07:00

Now is the season for two of Macedonia's most important crops, red peppers and grapes. I love catching a whiff of roasting red peppers as I walk around town these days and I am keeping my fingers crossed that somebody gifts me some spicy ajvar. And then there are the grapes, which brought me last weekend to the town of Kavadarci for their Grozdober grape harvest festival. Kavadarci's city park was transformed into a carnivore/wine aficionado's dreamland with grilled meat and wine tasting stands as far as the eye could see. Unable to turn down something so delectable sounding, I tried my first ubiach, grilled pork or chicken stuffed with cheese and bacon. The verdict? Gooood.

The three Peace Corps volunteers that live in Kavadarci were nice enough to invite us visitors to celebrate Grozdober with some of their friends, in particular a guy named Boris. Who is Boris? He's a wine maker--which was evident from a glance at the label of the wine we were drinking that bears his name and grinning face.

We all sat around for several hours talking and enjoying the fruits of Boris' labor, never paying a denar.

What a guy, that Boris, what a guy.

Што сакате?

2010-09-15T04:24:00.000-07:00

The MAK 15s, the newest group of wannabe volunteers aka trainees, arrived in Macedonia this week. This also means I have officially made it through my first year, with another 15 months to go. When I read the newbies' blogs about their orientation, it feels like I was just there, wondering what the 1,000 bill in my wallet could buy and struggling to remember good morning vs. good afternoon, but it also seems like a lifetime ago because so much happened here since.

I want to think that I arrived in Macedonia not believing that I would solve world hunger through my volunteer service but even so, it has been frustrating sometimes to realize how little I can do. The role of politics in multiple facets of life here is discouraging, and it is hard to see projects stall and people I care about struggle as a result. I myself wrestle with whether I try to initiate a new endeavor and attempt to build up local support or just wait for interested locals to come to me. So far I've taken more of the latter approach because I don't want to start something and then just have it fall apart after I go. However, that means that I see a lot of needs here that don't necessarily get addressed. I hope in my second year to figure out how to strike the right balance and get more accomplished.

Reflective as I am hitting this anniversary, I took a trip down memory lane and re-read my blog entries and I certainly couldn't have asked more a more eventful year. I met tons of new people, am perfecting cooking from scratch (good experiment lately with baba ganoush), and my Macedonian is good enough that I'm starting a verbal battle with my noisy neighbors about their propensity to yell outside my window. My expectation is that there will be plenty more craziness and drama to chronicle for another 15 months, but I want to make an appeal that if anyone has some facet of life in Macedonia that they want to hear about and I have not touched on, just leave me a note in the comments. As the blog title says, what do you want?

I heart hiking

2010-09-09T06:26:00.000-07:00

If you get up at 3:15 AM, it should be for something really good. Fortunately I feel like this was the case when on Sunday I got up at that ungodly hour for my second hike with the Pelister Hiking Club. Kaylee and I were surprisingly not sore from the previous day's Ultimate Frisbee (or maybe it was just that 4 AM shot of whiskey from our fellow hikers that dulled the pain) as we piled into the van for the 3 hour drive to the mountain.

Dreading a repeat of the previous day's rainy weather, I was pleased to awake to a day that couldn't have been more perfect for hiking. Kaylee and I teamed up with Pelister hiking club member Igor and a friend of his from Skopje who I will call Tommy (because his name was something that sounded like Tommy but not quite and then I forgot it). Reaching the summit took us 4 hours and about 3 of those were uphill hours. I took 70 photos, in part because the scenery was gorgeous and partly because it was an excuse to rest. A selection of my shots is up on Picasa.

Kaylee and I wore matching T-shirts that say "I *heart* MK" and people got a big kick out of them on the trail. They were also a bit confusing to the Pelister club members because they had trouble telling us apart since we are the same height, similar coloring, both from Colorado, and our names in Macedonian are only one letter different (Кејти vs. Кејли). Okay, so admittedly we knew matching shirts would cause some confusion but it was fun confusion.

2.5 hours later, we were back at the trailhead eating snacks and drinking what seemed like the most delicious Coca Cola ever. Somehow all that exertion yet again barely phased the seasoned club hikers, who drank beer and sang songs the whole van ride home until we returned to Bitola at 10:30 PM. I myself slept most of the drive back, so I guess that I need to keep working on building up my "endurance."

Ultimightier Ultimate?

2010-09-09T04:46:00.000-07:00

Saturday was the Bitola American Sports Club's first event, Ultimate Frisbee, and when I awoke to a light but steady rain, all I could think was, "Oh no!" The kids did such a great job promoting the event with flyers around town, a Facebook page, and a website, but all I could imagine was that nobody would come to play in this kind of weather. Dutifully fellow volunteer Kaylee (who got up at 5 AM to come help) and I went to the meeting spot and were pleased to see a few hardy souls waiting. All told, 10 kids showed up to play!

I feel like I can't emphasize enough what troopers these kids were--first of all, it is a half hour walk to the field where we played. Then they ran warmups in the rain, practiced throwing in the rain, listened to the rules in the rain and, you guessed it, played Ultimate Frisbee in yet more rain. We were wet, we were sliding around on the muddy field dodging cow pies, and we had a blast! I posted some pictures on Picasa, but it really doesn't do justice to how terrible the conditions were but clearly everyone was smiling and having fun nevertheless.

I am happy to report that, if we can figure out the shipping and customs, we will be getting a donation of baseball equipment from a group in the U.S. and another organization may be donating American football equipment. I am not sure what sport we'll tackle next month but we are having a planning meeting tonight to figure it out. I am certain, however, that we will play Ultimate Frisbee again sometime!

I've got friends...

2010-08-31T05:24:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-28T11:35:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-16T07:30:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-04T10:08:00.001-07:00

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

2010-08-04T09:06:00.000-07:00

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.

Staff Retreat

2010-07-24T13:42:00.000-07:00

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.

Direct with the Director

2010-07-16T12:19:00.000-07:00

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.

15 Minutes Away

2010-07-12T02:46:00.000-07:00

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.

Habitat for Humanity

2010-07-10T09:30:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-10T08:22:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-10T07:34:00.000-07:00

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.

Wild for Wildflowers

2010-06-12T03:35:00.000-07:00

After what Heather told me was "unseasonably cool" weather, summer seemed to arrive this week with high temperatures approaching 90 degrees. In the last few weeks though, I took advantage of the pleasant weather to slather on my sunscreen and see more of Macedonia's beautiful scenery.

I took a weekend trip with the Pelister Hiking Club to do an annual hike. We left on a Saturday morning for a bus ride punctuated by 2 coffee breaks and a stop at the market for provisions. I'm still frankly perplexed by how groups in Macedonia decide how to get food for hiking trips. It seems to involve each person randomly buying what the want, including lots of vegetables, and then everyone puts their stuff together and making seemingly bottomless salads. We stayed at a hotel in a village, eating said salads and drinking rakija. Lots of other hikers descended and we spent the evening chatting and dancing oro--the hand-holding, going-around-in-a-circle dance done at most celebrations here.

On Sunday, the hike began at 6:30 am and I think this is the time to note that when people say hiking here, they really mean mountain climbing. In fact, the word for "hiking" comes from the word for "mountain." This isn't surprising I guess, considering 80% of Macedonia is covered by hills and mountains (according to Wikipedia), but suffice to say every hike here seems to start up an incline. In fact, we hiked more or less uphill for 4 hours and then 3 hours back down. The scenery was incredible and well worth the inclines, occasional blustery wind, and a bit of rain. I especially liked the wildflowers, seeing all the people who participated, and taking photos at the top. Also I had a lot of fun getting to know the Pelister Hiking Club folks who put up with my shaky Macedonian and made sure I had a good time. There are pictures on Picasa in the Hiking with Pelister Mtn Club album.

The next day provided a whole slew of new beautiful scenery in and around Struga, a lakeside town in the far southwest corner of Macedonia. In Struga I reunited with the rest of the volunteers from my group for a week of language training. Before things kicked off though, I took an incredibly lovely walk with Kerry and Zach to two villages near Struga. Our destination was several cave churches, dating back to the 13th and 15th centuries. The churches were definitely incredible, tucked up into these rock cliffs right along the lake, but the journey itself was just as enjoyable as we took in more great wildflowers and watched people tending lakeside gardens. The third church, dedicated to the Archangel Michael, was my favorite, not the least of which because you have to pick up the key to it at a restaurant below it and there was just something funny about being given a church key with an angel keychain. Look on Picasa under the Struga Language IST album for the pics.

Full up on natural beauty, I threw myself in to trying to pick up some new words and phrases. Although I took many interesting courses like animals, stereotypes, basic Albanian, women's talk, and men's talk, it seems like the words that stuck in my brain best were the slang--things like how to say something is really boring and that pretty girls are not "hot chicks" here but rather "good fish."

Now I'm back in Bitola and spent a good share of the week on grants. I'm helping Pelister National Park to write a grant application and for the Small Project Assistance (SPA) Committee that I'm on, I "championed" an application with fellow volunteer Lillian. As a champion, I provide feedback to Lillian as she puts together a SPA grant application and when the SPA committee meets to evaluate the applications, I present the application. I put an album on Picasa of some summer scenes from Bitola, so you can see why focusing on grant applications can be tough.

Advanced Placement

2010-05-27T13:03:00.000-07:00

Volunteers in Macedonia do some amazing stuff and perhaps nowhere more so than in the kitchen. Peace Corps Macedonia has earned the moniker "Advanced Placement Home Ec" because of the lengths we will go to in order to recreate our favorite dishes from home. In the last month, I've made apple pie from scratch (including peeling the apples and making the crust), made Tom Kah Gai Thai chicken curry soup after hauling canned coconut milk from the capital city because we were out in Bitola (I know, I know, I'm really roughing it here), and prepared a pesto pizza with homemade crust and non-pre-shredded cheese (pre-shredded cheese being my go-to back home). Usually people want to know what I'm doing here and honestly cooking is often the answer, especially if you factor in shopping time at the market for ingredients.

Is cooking volunteer work? Tonight it was because Sam, our soon-departing Fulbrighter, gave a presentation on American Food and Drink. It's really something to be in a room with people who don't recognize a picture of a burrito, don't know guacamole or what it is used for, and have never seen a tater tot, let alone in a Midwestern casserole. To complement the presentation, we made a sampling of American dishes. My contributions were oatmeal M&M cookies and PB&J sandwiches. The cookies were a big hit, the sandwiches less so. Ranch dip may have been the most popular contribution--people were loving it on potato chips. What I scarfed down as much of as possible was sushi made by one of the American Corner members of Macedonian-Polish heritage who learned sushi-making from his aunt. Sushi hadn't crossed my lips at all in the last 9 months and I had to make up for lost time.

Ingredient substitutions build character, or at least creativity, this much I know is true. Below you'll find some photos of my recent creations.

In Other News

2010-05-18T12:50:00.000-07:00

You have read a lot about what I'm up to, my impressions of Macedonia, yadda yadda yadda and since I don't have anything particularly new and thrilling to share, I thought I'd point you towards some other takes on Macedonia. First up is Pauza, Peace Corps Macedonia's quarterly newsletter written by volunteers: http://macedonia.peacecorps.gov/resources/pauza/Pauza_Winter2010.pdf. I particularly recommend "Momentous Occasions" on page 5, Macedonia hotspots on pages 8-9, and the article by yours truly on page 11.

Also, CNN recently did a series on Macedonia that can be found at: http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2010/ilist/. My recommended top features are "Name Squabble," "Future of Education," and "A New Napa Valley."

Finally, if you aren't getting enough of volunteers blogging about Macedonia then you can find my comrades' blogs at http://www.peacecorpsjournals.com/?showcountryinfo,mk. As much as I'd like to think that I've got the market cornered on funny stories and cultural insights, I must admit there's other great stuff out there in the blogosphere to check out--but come back!