Two Saints, One Day

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.

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.