Signs of the Season

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

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

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

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

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

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

Professor Kalinowski's Excellent Adventures

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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?

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

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?

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Facebook Volunteer

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

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

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

Christening Kijara

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

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

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

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

Celebrating Ilinden

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

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

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

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

Boy oh boys

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

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

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

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

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

Staff Retreat

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

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

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

Direct with the Director

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

15 Minutes Away

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

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

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

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

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

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

Habitat for Humanity

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

Digging Sveti Nikole

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

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

Albania Mania

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

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

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

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

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

Wild for Wildflowers

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

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.