Go hiking like it's your birthday

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.

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."

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.