Such a Beautiful Country

I had the opportunity to go with the seventh graders, and three teacher-chaperons, on their end-of-the –school-year excursion. This year our travels took us to the western part of the country. We went to the Mavroro National Park, which boasts a man-made lake and breathtaking mountain vistas and to Lake Matka, another man-made lake just outside the capital city – Skopje (I talked about Lake Matka in my April blog). Stops along the way included a visit to the head springs of the Vardar River and the historical Monastery St. Bigorski (St. John the Baptist). Check out my photos and if you are interested, you can find more information about these places on the internet: http://www.360cities.net/image/st-john-bigorski-monastery-macedonia

We left the school at 7:30 and arrived back in Probistip at about 10 PM. We spent a total of about ten hours on the bus, interspersed with timely stops along the way. For me they were very pleasant hours because they gave me the opportunity to sightsee the wonders of this country. I think the students could have benefited with more time hanging around but they behaved extremely well and for junior high school students, seemed very interested in the different sites.

Most of the Albanian-Macedonians (about 20% of the 2 million Macedonians) live in the western part of Macedonia. They adhere to the Islamic culture. Peace Corps Volunteers who are placed there must learn Albanian and some Volunteers learn both Albanian and Macedonian (God Bless them!). As we traveled through the many areas near the cities of Tetevo and Gostivar, there were times when I felt as though I was 400 years or more back in time. Everywhere there were horse drawn plows, donkey carts, families in traditional clothing, scarved women hunched over in the planting fields, goat and sheep herders, free-roaming cows, pitch forks, scythes, and hay wagons. Of course there were also luxury cars, extremely beautiful homes with vegetable and flower gardens, plasma TV’s and John Deere tractors. The extremes of the old and the new exist together very well in such a geographically small country. Macedonia justifiably has earned its title - The Switzerland of the Balkans.

Macedonia is a photographer’s and outdoorsman’s paradise. The beauty of the country is numbing. Perhaps someday, an entrepreneur will start a tour company specifically for photographers. I’ll be the first to come back and sign up.