A Family Visits

The highlight of the month of October was the fourth visit of my wife, Lee, and the first visit of my younger son and my “idna snaa”(translated “maybe my future daughter-in-law), Jesse and Nicole. My wife stayed for a month but Jess and Nicole could only stay for five days due to their limited accrued vacation time.

It rained everyday they were here but really didn’t prevent the four of us from having a wonderful time. They stayed in a huge elaborate hotel room in Probistip at the Hotel Cresovo Topce which had the most fascinating shower stall. The shower had a radio, blue lights, and nozzles that shot water from every direction (a truly unexpected perk). The hotel staff went out of their way to make sure they enjoyed their stay (45 dollars a night which included a large breakfast).

During their stay we all visited my host family (the family I lived with during my 10 weeks of training) in Negotino where they were treated with the celebrity status that was afforded to me during my stay. We hung around watching and learning how to make rakija, ate a traditional breakfast and lunch, and toured downtown Negotino. We also visited, via a three hour bus ride, the cosmopolitan city of Skopje and the old Turkish bazaar with my Peace Corps buddy Michael F. We had innumerable “na gostes” with all my Macedonian friends and hung out at the cafe’s meeting and talking with the locals. We visited Alexandra in her home in Zletevo. Jesse and Nicole spent a day at school meeting the students, participating in some language games, and answering all sorts of questions from the students. They said they had a great time, wished they could have stayed longer, and couldn’t wait to tell their friends about the hospitality and friendliness of the Macedonian people. If there is a next time, perhaps there will be some sun so they will be able to see that there really are beautiful mountains in Macedonia.

Meanwhile Lee B. was here for her fourth visit. It meant that for four weeks I was no longer a bachelor and had to share computer time and bathroom usage, eat vegetables, and endure her chronic habit of misplacing her things. I calculated that I spent at least 37 hours waiting for her to “be ready in a minute” or find something that was lost in her purse. As a “bachelor”, I drink out of the carton, eat out of the pot, use the same fork and spoon for days, change the sheets semi-annually, wash dishes weekly and have twice, in two years, cleaned the bathroom. My way of life dramatically changes during her visits. I have to readjust to talking when I have no interest in the topic, to taking walks for the sake of walking, to express my feelings, to eating when I’m not hungry, to listening to cat stories, and to purchasing stuff that I don’t need.

But when it’s all said and done, I find it’s all worth enduring. It’s the price I have to pay to be with my honey and best friend of 38 years (and counting).

Harvest Time

In most of the villages and towns and even in some of the larger cities in Macedonia, the people are preparing their winter stock of food, just as they have done for centuries. It’s a social time when neighbors get together and roast their peppers, salt/vinegar their cabbages, cauliflowers, peppers and green tomatoes, make wine and rakija, and split and stack wood. It’s a busy time but everyone seems to enjoy the season.

The market on Wednesdays is now stocked with canning jars and equipment, giant heads of cauliflower, peppers of every shade of red, yellow, orange and green, pickling cucumbers and cabbages that require a forklift to move.

Various varieties of apples, plums, blackberries, apricots, figs, quince, pears and earlier in the summer peaches, melons, cherries, and strawberries are being made into slatko (fruit in a thick syrup) and compote (fruit in juice) for something sweet to eat and drink during the winter months. Chestnuts, almonds, hazelnuts and walnuts are being shelled. Red peppers and eggplants are being made into into ajvar while tomatoes and peppers are being made into pinjur (a paste if thick or a soup if thinned) or are being preserved in oil and spices. Cabbages, cauliflower, green tomatoes and garlics are being preserved in a salt and vinegar solution in large barrels or large plastic containers. Strings of drying red peppers, to be crushed into paprika, are visible on almost every yard and balcony. The root vegetables –potatoes, carrots, beets, onions and garlic are available all winter at the local produce market, so that they are being somewhat ignored at the moment.

Hunters, with their hunting dogs, are industriously procuring their winter rabbit meat. Most of the winter supply of pork, goat, mutton and chicken is still wandering around the barnyards and fields, blissfully unaware of their date with the dinner table, not as a guest but as the main course. They will soon be butchered and the meat salted, smoked or packaged for the freezer.

So temporarily, during this harvest season, the outside air is filled with the aroma of roasting peppers and eggplants and the smoke and smell of burning wood from the outdoor grills and the sound of logs being cut and split. It’s an ambiance that I will miss upon my return to Massachusetts where open fires are prohibited between May and December ( and only between 10AM and 4PM with a permit between January and April on days when it is safe to burn) and where cutting firewood at 7AM or after 5PM would be inconsiderate to my neighbors.

Some Other Doings

Peace Corps Volunteers are encouraged to engage in projects other than their primary activitiy (TEFL in my case) known as secondary projects. Excluding anything that has to do with English teaching, I have quite a few of them that are in the works that enable me to interact with Probistipians outside of the school. I’ll mention several short-term activities to give you an idea of some of the things one can be involved with when not pursuing their primary activity.

I have observed the dearth of recreational activities(why do people use this word “dearth” unless they’re trying to impress someone), for the men in town. Granted, they have sedentary activities such as cards, chess, conversing and watching sports, but there are no golf, bowling or recreational activities that promote some sort of exercise. So as I mentioned in another Blog more than a year ago, I am going to experiment with the idea of introducing Probistipians to horse shoe pitching which is a very popular activity with many people in America. The biggest problem was manufacturing steel pitching shoes which are much larger than a genuine horse shoe. So in early September with the fabrication of our fourth pitching shoe having been accomplished by the local blacksmith (refer to the pictures in My Albums), we held our first afternoon of horse pitching in the town park. Those that tried it, really liked the game. With the frozen ground and colder weather arriving soon, we will probably have only a few more matches left until spring. Little steps.

David’s idea of a town-wide photo contest was a success, with 23 citizens submitting 50 photos to be evaluated.Three photos were selected as the ‘winners”. I mention this event even though I had minimal input, because I contributed the “internationally known photographer from America (PCV Phil) to be one of the judges. Since we arrived in Macedonia I have provided Phil with morale, financial and technical support and so I called in some of the cards and had Phil lend his reputation to the promotional material for the contest and participate as a judge. I will reluctantly agree that he did a fine job, just don’t let him know I said so. I am sure that this event will continue to grow over the years as word gets out and owning a digital camera becomes more commonplace in Probistip.

Back in April or sometime thereabouts, three girls from a pool of 27 applicants from Probistip were selected by a lottery to attend the Peace Corps sponsored GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) Camp held in July. http://www.flickr.com/photos/peacecorps/sets/72157624542888873/ and www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8hzQCvIAis .They successfully attended the camp with my expectation that we start a GLOW Club at the high school when they returned to school in the Fall. With minimal input from me, they organized, using FaceBook, the first meeting of their new GLOW Club. I was invited to attend and was totally impressed by their enthusiasm and organizational skills. They are planning a host of events over the course of the school year. I don’t think they’ll need me anymore but will check in from time to time and will be available if needed.

Perhaps my most important secondary project, if you want to call it that, is socializing with my Macedonian friends and neighbors and meeting new Macedonians. There is always an invitation awaiting me to have a “na goste”, have a coffee at the cafe, visit a village, meet a relative, or imbibe a rakija. There is no better way to share the spirit of America and to learn about the real people of Macedonia than lots of laughs and a good conversation. Luckily I can do it everyday. There is no dearth of opportunity or dearths(?)of opportunities.