The Holiday Season Year II

While the hectic holiday season is probably boiling over in America and the non-Orthodox Christian world, here in Probistip the inklings of the holidays are beginning to surface. Since the biggest holiday is New Years Day, I am just now beginning to see the decorations and lights in town and on individual homes and apartments. Fireworks, which are illegal but still tolerated as in my home state Massachusetts (you are only fined for possession of fireworks after you blow your finger(s) off and are leaving the hospital post-surgery), are sporadically being set off by the local youths. The recently elected mayor and town counsel purchased some new decorations for the center (with of course some discontent from some of the older residents but no complaints from the children) which remind anyone walking in the center about the special nature of this time of the year.

Rather than have me explain again in detail the customs and rituals of the holidays in Macedonia, refer to my blogs from last year – Christmas in Macedonia and The Macedonian Holiday Season. Remember, Santa visits the Balkans on New Year’s Eve, having enjoyed a week’s rest after bringing joy to the children in other parts of the world. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are relatively quiet family days in Macedonia.

School continues until the 30th and then the entire country seems to go on a hiatus from working although it is not officially vacation time, similar to the workweek between Christmas and New Years in the USA.

Skopje on the other hand, is magnificently decorated and in full holiday mode as I found out on my trip there last week for a warden’s training meeting with Goce, the Safety and Security Officer for the Peace Corps in Macedonia. The training for selected (from a pool of volunteer Volunteers) wardens insures the execution of the Peace Corps ‘ plans for PCVs in case of a disaster or civil unrest . The Peace Corps puts a great deal of effort into insuring everyone’s safety in emergency situations.

Thanks to the wonderfully generous Macedonian-Americans from the Midwest, we now have a library of English language reading materials for the students at our school. Their organization held a “book raiser”, collected over 500 books and magazines, boxed, shipped, and paid an enormous sum of money to get them to us. When they arrived (after a few misunderstandings at the customs office), the children and teachers were elated to have the riches of so many new reading materials. From having only soft-covered textbooks and workbooks, they now had a library to help them learn a new language.

We are in the process of cataloging the reading materials so the students can sign them out and read them with their families at home. Alexandra has already assigned book reports to some of the advanced students, both to challenge them and get their recommendations. She has used the library to provide supplementary reading to the student s who have completed their work (in the past they would idly sit at their desks waiting for everyone to finish). And we are in the process of designing lesson plans that supplant the rigid structure of the textbooks yet meet the same instructional goals.

The new Student Council is learning its role in the school. We are in the process of developing standardized rules for the entire school to replace the rather hodge-podge set that are in place now. It’s a fact that students like order and well-defined structure and the Student Council members, with input from their classmates, have corroborated that hypothesis. So in the near future, with student ownership of the rules, and consistent enforcement by the teaching staff, the days of Dodge-City-like behaviors should mellow out. We’ll see.

Since my first days at Nikola Karev, I had wanted to get everyone together, as we do in America, and recognize the Macedonian patriots that had come before them. I put together a plan and “sold it” to the principal and then as usual, Alexandra took charge and executed the plan with the help of our new Student Council. Therefore I am extremely pleased to announce that on Monday morning, the 21st of December 2009, the entire school population met prior to heading to their home room classes, and sang their National Hymn (anthem) led by the school chorus. Everyone was talking about how great an idea it was and we will continue this ritual every Monday morning from now on.

If you read this blog before Christmas, then accept my wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Healthy New Year. You can of course post-accept them if you read it any time after then. December 25th is a workday for me but I’m looking forward to New Year’s Day. Hopefully you will not have overburdened Santa (or as we call him “ Father Ice”) with too many presents to deliver on Christmas Eve, so that he will have the energy to bring me mine the following week. Meanwhile I am looking forward to enjoying the gathering at my brother Mark and sister-in-law Joanne’s home on Christmas Day via Skype.

Mov'in Along

Although we’re astronomically into the winter season, the weather has been pretty mild. While we have had a few frosty nights and the mornings are chilly, the afternoon temps get up into the high 60’s. Snow isn’t expected until late December according to the locals. The trees for the most part have shed their leaves and have been swept up and deposited into the dumpsters that are located throughout the neighborhood.

Speaking of leaves, I recently discovered and purchased two grass rakes at a hardware store in Kumanavo when I was strolling around there last month. I believe they were the only two grass rakes in Macedonia (an unverifiable fact). They are sold without the handles, so that I was able to bring them back to Probistip. Having watched my neighbors and the custodians at school sweep leaves with the short handled brooms and pick up trash that didn’t make it into the dumpsters with their hands, I thought I would introduce the concept of a grass rake into my neighborhood. Most of my friends and neighbors had never seen a grass rake (everyone has a garden rake) and they weren’t sure what it was for. So I obviously drew a crowd the first time I used it outside my apartment and was able to Tom Sawyer the local children, convincing them it was fun to rake leaves with this wonderful tool. The men were very curious and several of them asked where they could purchase one. My answer was the same answer I give to the children when they ask where they can purchase a Frisbee, “Not in Macedonia, yet”. I will try to convince one of the local hardware shops to stock them. I donated one of the rakes to the school where I have noticed that it is being put to good use.

School is in full swing now. On Friday, the students finally received their books for geography, math, Macedonian, biology and informatika. Since this is the first year that the government is providing books to all students, there was a delay in shipping them all out to every school in the country. We are four months into the school year and the students now have their books . Since the students must return the books at the end of the school year, late deliveries won’t be a problem next year. The downside of not owning the book, is that the students must spend a lot of time copying grammar rules and vocabulary during class time which puts a strain on the time we have to actually teach.

The Director has been very supportive of our suggestions and she is a pleasure to work with. After a meeting with her last week, we have now started a Student Council, will display the Macedonian flag at the school , sing the National hymn during Monday morning home room time, involve the school in ThinkQuest ( http://www.thinkquest.org/en/ and in the World Map Project (http://multimedia.peacecorps.gov/multimedia/pdf/library/R0088_worldmapproject.pdf ). We will also establish and implement an emergency evacuation plan for the school.

This school year I am running an after-school sports program entitled “Games From America”. So in addition to the usual basketball, jump roping and Frisbees, we have already played Kickball, Capture the Flag, Knockout, and Ultimate Frisbee. The students who show up seem to really enjoy the exposure to games other than football, volleyball and handball. The first time we played Kickball, I was very lucky to have Amber, Kate and Dan (the three trainees living in Probistip) participating. It dramatically reduced the time it took me to explain in Macedonian, the intricacies of the game, as they were able to demonstrate and model the somewhat complicated rules. The students loved the game so much, that we wound up playing for two hours and it has become the number one game request.

Thanksgiving Day coincided with Swearing-In Day for the MAK14’s. So we all – trainees, host families, and Volunteers – assembled in Kumanavo for a wonderful time. The American Ambassador to Macedonia sworn in the Trainees (this will the last time I have to use the word “trainee”) after which we enjoyed a somewhat traditional Thanksgiving meal, highlighted by the turkeys flown in from America and prepared by the function hall staff. I actually ate nothing but turkey, consuming at least three pounds of meat, knowing full-well it will be 364 days until my next opportunity to savor my favorite non-flying bird. We all returned home to Probistip around 8PM, time enough for the new Volunteers to spend their last night with their host families and time enough for me to Skype my family in Massachusetts to participate in a family-cyber-Thanksgiving-dinner.

Dave moved in on Friday morning and is currently settling into his apartment. He is looking forward to working in the Municipality, learning how to cook for himself, and utilizing the Macedonian language. Dave is my age, so I now have a playmate and we will have to like one another, otherwise it will be a long 13 months living right next store (no one ever says “nexT (pause) door)” to one another.

A Good Time Together

The month of October was highlighted by a visit by my honey who describes her visit in the previous Blog. We had a great time just hanging out, visiting PCV’s in Skopje and Bitola, attending “na gosti’s with neighbors, exploring the new supermarket, walking around the neighborhood, and editing English translations for the Municipality.

A new supermarket? Yes! Probistip now has a place where I can shop for many items which the small food shops couldn’t stock because of limited shelf space and a lack of refrigeration. My Market (yes, it’s in English) is a small chain of supermarkets in Eastern Macedonia. Opening day at the new My Market was heralded in with folk dancers, traditional Macedonian music, and free food and beverages (I saw a few of my students enjoying a beer) . I can now find a selection of cheeses and breads, diet sodas, frozen foods, a reliable supply of beef, and alcoholic beverages other than beer and wine. Unfortunately, some of the smaller shops (prodavnitzas) will probably lose out to this new competitor, putting more people out of work. I will continue to shop at the ”prodav” and butcher shops for the items I can get there, but the variety at the supermarket is a tantalizing drawing card.

The six trainees that are here in Probistip (we all hate the word “trainee”) are in their final three weeks of preparation. They are a great group and are having a wonderful time together in “The Probe” – as they like to call it. Two weeks ago they found out where they will be assigned for the next two years and last week they visited their new homes, met their new counterpart, and toured their new community. Amber will be going to the city of Strumica; Kate will be going to a village (Gradsko); Dan will be going to the city of Stip; Jennifer will be going to the town of Makadonski Brod; Keri will be going to the capital city; and Laura will be going to the town of Kocani. I realize these locations are meaningless if you don’t have a map, but for those of you who do – Bon Appetite or whatever. They all will all be TEFL’ing in Eastern Macedonia.

On Halloween, the six of them, plus Maja their language instructor, costumed up for their training day in Kumanevo with all the other trainees in MAK14. Their costumes were hilarious (see photo) and they got more than their normal share of stares when they walked to the school in costumes to be picked up for the ride to Kumanevo. They actually went out Trick-or-Treating to each of the host families homes on Halloween night and were a big hit with everyone they encountered.

On the day after Thanksgiving (Thanksgiving Day also happens to be the day the trainees on this cycle will be sworn in as full-fledged Volunteers and I won’t have to refer to them as Trainees anymore) they will all depart Probistip and for the first time since they’ve been in Macedonia, they will be un-tethered and on their own. It’s hard to believe that a year has gone by since I was wearing their shoes.
Their departure from Probistip is offset by the arrival of a new MAK14 Volunteer who will be living here for the next two years – Dave from Michigan. Dave was assigned here (the first time The Probe has had two PCV’s) to work in the Municipality. I’m not sure what exactly that entails, but I’ll soon find out. Dave will be living in the apartment right next to mine (it’s an unusual arrangement to have two volunteers in the same town living so close to one another) because the Peace Corps staff couldn’t find a suitable place anywhere else. At least I know where to go now to borrow a cup of sugar. With Dave’s arrival I will no longer feel the pressure of representing 300 million Americans. I will now have to represent only 150 million, which is a more tolerable number.

There are lots of new activities happening at school which I will address in my next Blog.

Toether in October

Once again, I’m told (by Michael in his Lieutenant Colonel Erhartic incarnation), that I have been given the great honor of being “guest editor” on his blog and get to share some of my experiences in this ever-fascinating new country.

Owing to technical difficulties (meaning I have difficulty with all things technical) the format of this month’s blog will be different from the usual, which separates photos and text. Michael’s pictures tell the story of our adventures much better than my words can, so if you will copy and paste the link below onto your browser, it will (I hope) take you to a series of photos and captions that tell the tale of October in Macedonia from a visitor’s perspective.

http://picasaweb.google.com/barber229/OctoberBlogPhotos#

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.

Back to School

With two weeks of preparation behind them, on a brilliant September morning the teachers welcomed their students back for another year of learning. Similar to the first day of school in America, everyone was a little anxious, quite excited, and for the most part, glad to be back. Children and teachers were wearing their new back-to-school ensembles and they all (the children) appeared to be a little bigger and taller than when we left them in June. The parents of the first graders, who were escorting their children to their very first day at Nikola Karev, seemed just as apprehensive as their charges as they waited for the welcoming address of the director and the welcoming performance by the fourth graders.

In America, a new school year usually means new teachers, new classmates, new subjects and a chance to get a fresh start. In Macedonia the system is set up so that from the fifth grade through the eighth grade, the students are grouped as a class and stay together for each subject throughout the day. They keep the same home room teacher, who gets to monitor their progress (or lack thereof) over the course of four years. So the first day is somewhat tempered by the reality of the fact that basically, you as a student , just had a two month respite from your four year journey with the same 22 people.

This administrative-system, which takes precedence over an educational system, fosters a sense of boredom and familiarity that challenges the students’ motivation and enthusiasm. They are cheated of the opportunity to observe the learning styles of other students in their grade level as they are lumped into a one-size-fits-all learning group. Students who choose not to learn but to be disruptive; students who want to learn but need more time to grasp a concept; children with learning disabilities who require individual attention; the average students and the students who are high achievers remain classmates until graduation. The primary school teachers –especially teachers who must travel from class to class and school to school because they lack their own classroom – are challenged to teach multi-level classes with no resources. What might the results be?

Scheduling classes is a major undertaking. The teachers, rather than the administrators, work out the schedule amongst themselves. In the past, it has been a paper/pencil/eraser affair but I showed Alexandra a scheduling program I found on the internet. In keeping with her interest in trying new things, she mastered the workings of the program, and became the school's Master-Scheduler. The only downside to this new hi-tech practice, is that every teacher needed to talk to her about making changes here and there. So most of her free time during the first three weeks of school was spent updating the schedule to keep up with the hourly changes.

One of the reasons for the delay in producing a final schedule is that teachers must have 20 classes per week to be considered full-time and earn the maximum salary.This year due to the loss of one full class and the Ministry’s decision to limit students to one elective course, some teachers were unable to find 20 hours at Nikola Karev. The Director and the teachers worked out times with other schools in the region, which took some time and added to the delay in producing a final schedule. Now three weeks into the school year, the schedule is in place and most of the teachers have their 20 hours.

Despite this system imposed upon the teachers, learning does happen. The school is a fun place to be and the children love to be there. Change is coming down the pike. The Ministry of Science and Education is aware of many of the problems and is implementing changes. This year for the first time, the Ministry is providing all required books without cost to every student in the country. This eliminates the problem of the poorer students coming to class without books and just sitting, unable to follow and learn and eventually dropping out of school, believing learning is boring. Hopefully, sometime in the near future, funding will be provided, so the teachers can have paper and copying machines to enhance their teaching material arsenal.

The next group of Peace Corps Volunteers (MAK 14) arrived in Macedonia last Sunday (which means that Mak13’s have been here a year) and I had the opportunity to be on a panel which tasked me with describing my experiences as a senior volunteer in a mostly Macedonian-speaking community. The other panelists described life as a married couple in an ethnically-mixed community (Macedonian-Albanian) and as a Volunteer in a mostly Albanian community. It was great sitting up front, a seasoned veteran and mister-know-it-all. I delivered my spiel, and listened to the presentations of the other Volunteers. I watched the faces of this wonderful group of TRAINEES who had been in-country for two days and had the same questions and concerns as I did, not really sure of what lay ahead.

However, sometime before the end of the presentation, I remembered that one year ago I was sitting where they were, and then I realized that I had only been here a year, and was not yet a qualified veteran, that I was really a long way from knowing it all, and like the newly arrived TRAINEES, not really sure of what lay ahead.

There will be more in my next Blog about the arrival in Probistip of six PC TRAINEES who will be spending three months as my neighbors. They will be learning the ropes before being sent out on their own and perhaps preparing to sit on a panel next year upon the arrival of MAK15.

Be sure to check out the newly added photos.