Living With My Host Family

(This e-mail was sent during the second week of October)Lots has happened in the last few days as we continue on our journey to self-sufficient living with a conversational knowledge of Macedonian. The language training is conducted in groups of four or five and the pace is such that everyone feels comfortable before we move on to the next lesson.

I am writing this on Word and transferring it to a flash drive so that I can drop an e-mail at an internet café and quickly send it out. I am unable to add anything to my blog because they keep us busy from early morning until early evening with no access to the internet.

We met our host families on Saturday afternoon. The 35 of us who were training together were broken into 7 groups which were to be sent to 7 different smaller villages outside of Kumanavo and each person was assigned a host family. We still get together in Kumanavo on different occasions for group training.

My host family lives in the village of Negotino, which is a town about one hour from Kumanavo. It is in the wine growing region and is considered to be the best training site. The ambiance of the village takes one back to the old world with the quaint village streets and alleys, the red tiled roofs and the barns of animals and drying peppers. My host family, Kocho, Slavinsa, and their 30’ish something daughter, Violata, who just returned from Croatia to live at home, are salt of the earth people. They raise garden vegetables to sell at the market and make their own agvar(a tomato/pepper spread) and rakia (a homemade alcohol which is very popular in Macedonia). On Sunday morning, Kocho and I spent the morning learning vocabulary words while distilling the rakia. The neighborhood smells of burning wood, roasting tomatoes and peppers, and sometimes of the local animal population.

At 11:30 we met at the Town Hall to see were our classroom would be for the duration and then our instructor took us around to meet each of the host families and to show us where she was staying. At each of the five host families’ home we were offered drinks and homemade foods to include sweetened apricots, a sweetened pumpkin-eggplant concoction (which was very good), baklava, coconut/chocolate bars, and plenty of Turkish coffee. A 10 pound gain in weight is expected from each PCV during their home stay.

Needless to say, by 4:00PM we were not very hungry, but by then it was just the right time to have lunch with my family. Macedonians eat at 9AM, 3:30PM and 9PM. The heavy meal is lunch. Here they drink their yogurt and it tastes pretty good.

Some of the customs that are different from those of us in the U.S. would probably be considered unusual but are the way things are here and are considered to be normal: soiled toilet paper is deposited in a basket next to the toilet, not flushed; taking shoes off when entering someone’s home; filling up your tractor at the local benzene station; no indoor dogs; smoking wherever you want to; and tiny cars that are 40 years old belching fumes.

We start language and cultural training Monday morning. I am trying to find a way to call, but I have not had the time to determine the best way. My cell phone minutes are limited and I haven’t been in a place that will let me purchase more minutes. Someone told me calls from the US are only charged to the caller so I’ll verify that info. My cell phone number is xxxxxxxx. I’m not sure what the exchange is for Macedonia but you could look it up online. I can’t wait to talk to you and continue my blog, but I know that once I get my own place in December, I’ll have easier access and plenty of time to keep up a better dialogue.

I hope you are enjoying your first weeks WOM (Without Mikey) but you know that despite my crazy schedule, I think of you constantly throughout the day. Say Hi to my boys and tell them I miss them and that several of the Peace Corps Volunteers can’t wait to meet them and accept a marriage proposal.

I’ll talk about my training colleagues in one of my next e-mails. I hope I can get this one out real soon.

I love you.

Majkal Erhartic