Guest Blog

I am pleased to have, as a guest contributor to my Blog, my wife Lee, who will share her experiences traveling to and visiting me in Macedonia.

I’ll spare everyone and be brief about the first six days of, my visit this time: the jetlag; the lost luggage/no clothes because carry-on luggage was full of heavy stuff for Michael and the Peace Corps.; and the three-day flu, so vile that if it ever comes back, I will lop off my own head just to get it over with. I stared at ceiling moaning piteously day and night while Michael made excuses to all the people I had met on my last visit, many of whom expected to be first on my rounds of welcome back Na Gosti (barely translatable, means have a visitor as a guest).

Poor, poor me!

But I’m going to consider today, Oct. 11, the start of a three week visit and simply dismiss my first week here as a bad dream. It all would have happened anywhere in the world.

Except maybe the part about how I should spend five hours on various buses and an hour in a taxi to pick up my luggage at a different airport than the one I had arrived at…

Luggage balks at Balkans

I had arrived in Sofia Sunday afternoon excited to see Bulgaria, my husband and the lovely Macedonian town of Probistip, not necessarily in that order. Apparently my luggage did not share my enthusiasm and had decamped somewhere between Boston and the Balkans. Air Bulgaria would fly it to the Macedonian capital of Skopje when they found it, I was told, and I could go pick it up myself. (A clerk was unmoved by my despairing plea about the length of that journey, and the fact that by then I would be in my fifth day without a change of underwear. Apparently a long history of invading their western neighbor made any sort of ground sortie by Bulgarians onto Macedonian soil problematic).

Fortunately Michael is sophisticated in the ways of Eastern Europe by now and with the help of our Bulgarian-speaking driver (Bobbie), found someone who saw the wisdom of keeping foreign visitors happy. They would drive my luggage to the border when they found it and hand it off to Bobbie to drive it back to Probistip.

Faster, better, cheaper—the American way. This approach had apparently never occurred to them, so score another blow for international understanding.

There are grapevines, and then there are grapevines.

I continue to be amazed at how news travels in a town without a daily community newspaper, community center, phone chain or e-mail chain (there is a local TV station with local news and community happenings). Nattily attired in a pair of old slacks I had used to pad a delicate electronic device in my carry-on luggage and the most effeminate tee shirt in my husband’s wardrobe, I ventured out on day two for an espresso in the town square and the makings of dinner.

After 10 months of working and teaching in this small mountain town, Michael seems to have gotten on hailing terms with most of its residents, so just strolling to the center with him could turn into a half-day excursion. Many neighbors now wanted to stop and exchange a few words with the Amerikanski. Today was no exception.

As we made our way the few blocks from Michael’s apartment building to the café we discovered that, to a man--or woman, as the case tended to be at this time of day--each person we encountered already knew I was in town and understood precisely why I was so oddly attired. Our vegetable vendor knew. The butcher knew. The folks relaxing in the café knew.

Had someone posted a notice in the municipal building?

Staggering back home with our cloth shopping bags full we were not , of course, surprised to find that Yelitza, the tiny baba from the next building, knew all about my arrival. We’d spent hours chatting and drinking coffee in her apartment on my last visit, so she would have been considered an interested party—but how did people I’d never met know this detail of my life?

Who cares, already?

And why would anyone who did happen to know it think it was interesting enough to pass on? But Yelitza moved on quickly to news of her own: she had learned some Engliski since I last saw her.As we waited expectantly she drew herself up to her full 4’9”, thrust her thumbs up in the air and pronounced clearly: “aw-w-w-l-l-righty!” Jim Carrey’s mother would be so proud.

Back at apartment building #6 on 11 Oktombre Street, a never-before-met neighbor commiserated over the lost luggage, of course, and then chattered on to Michael for several minutes.

“She’s sorry about your luggage, but she says it will be here tonight,” Michael explained.

“You mean she hopes it comes tonight, right? You said that as if she knew,” I told him.

‘No, I meant she said it would be here tonight at 5. Bobbie left for the border an hour ago.”

And so he had, we discovered from a "missed-call' message on our cell phone a few minutes later. Even Michael doesn’t have enough command of Makadonski to find out how she came to know about my luggage before I did, but lesson learned none-the-less:

Don’t even think about doing anything in a Balkan village that you wouldn’t want every soul in town to know about.

I’m hungry (what else is new?) so I’ll sign off now and wander down to the front stoop. Someone out there is bound to know what Mikey is making for dinner tonight…

A Busy Time

We now have seven Americans living in Probistip, thanks to the arrival of six Peace Corps Trainees who will be undergoing preparations for their future assignments as English Resource Teachers in distant Macedonian communities. They are living with host families in Probistip while they are undergoing training. On their first Saturday here, I accompanied them as they spent about seven hours visiting each host family, with each family providing food and drink with the traditional Macedonian hospitality.

All reports are that they are having a wonderful time, keeping extremely busy, and picking up a little Macedonian language during their 4-hour daily language classes. Laura (Illinois), Keri (Ohio), Amber (Arkansas), Dan (New York), Jen (Oregon), and Kate (Ohio) are training at my school (I’ve become somewhat possessive of Nikola Karev), so I get to see them just about every day. The remainder of their MAK 14 brethren are training at various other sites within the Kumanavo region.

Actually, there are seven Americans in Probistip at the moment, albeit (I don’t think I’ve ever used the word “albeit” ever before!) one of them is only visiting. October 4th marked the arrival of my wife for her second visit to this wonderful place. She had a great time back in April meeting all my Macedonian friends and their families, visiting and participating in English language classes, and learning about the culture of Macedonia, which she enthusiastically talked about upon her return to Massachusetts. I picked her up at the airport in Sophia, which is about a four hour one-way ride (dependent upon the border crossing into Bulgaria) from Probistip by taxi (70 Euro round trip). She arrived on time but unfortunately without her luggage which was sent to some other country via Bulgarian Airlines. Initially the airline insisted that when it was found, Lee could pick up her lost baggage at the airport in Skopje at her expense in time and money. But with my innate diplomatic skills, great sense of humor, convincing arguments and a very nice Belgian Airline supervisor, we made arrangements to have the airline deliver the luggage to the border crossing (they can’t deliver out of country due to customs rules) where our driver Bobby would pick the luggage up, all at the expense of the airline. So Lee survived her first two days in Macedonia with only the clothes on her back and some reinforcements from my wardrobe. She will be writing about her adventures on this Blog as soon as I am finished monopolizing the computer.

School’s in full swing now despite the schedule having to be altered every other day. Final changes have yet to be made due to the haggling of the two primary school Directors who are trying to adjust the times of the elective French and German language classes. We’ve had four National Holidays in the first five weeks of school, which makes it difficult to have any flow in the classroom but it does enable me to display my Macedonian flag on a regular basis.

The Ministry of Education provided books to all the students this year. Although the English language books were ordered in June, they arrived late (four weeks into the school year). This gave us plenty of time to review last year’s lessons. Students must still purchase their workbooks, which complement the textbook, but the price of the workbooks has increased from previous years. The students will be required turn in their not-too-durable-softcover student books at the end of the school year, obliging them to spend a great deal of class time copying vocabulary and grammar rules into their copybooks. I’m curious about the life expectancy of the students’ books and frustrated by the loss of teaching time as the students transfer information from one reliable source (the textbook) to another unreliable source (their copybook).

The school went on a very nice picnic on Friday of last week. Actually the school didn’t go. It remained where it was built. The staff and students went on a hike to the new chapel on the hill where everyone seemed to have a very pleasant morning. The children brought blankets and food while the teachers had the affair “catered”. I made it a point to bring frisbees and jump ropes and they were in constant use by the students. I am not sure what activities the students would have participated in had I not brought them but the children here are resourceful and I’m sure would have found something to keep themselves occupied (checkout the photos). The students were dismissed at 10AM and then the teachers and staff enjoyed a hearty breakfast together.

I am currently conducting classes after school for some of the teachers and staff at the school who have an interest in learning English. A representative of the Police Department asked me to conduct basic English classes for his officers and that project is in the works.

My after-school sports programs will start once the final class schedule is published. With Lee here, we’re overbooked for visits to the many people that want to see Lee again, so I’ll be drinking a lot of rakija and speaking a lot of Macedonian in the next couple of weeks. I also have to get used to sharing my stuff but that will only be for the next 19-or-so days and nights. No more drinking out of the milk carton, leaving the toilet seat up, and or eating meals without vegetables, among other inconveniences.