Trip’in

This month I received two invitations to travel with two different school groups to destinations that I had wanted to eventually visit during my service in Macedonia. The first was an invitation to travel to the city of Strumica on Tuesday March 8th which is what we know as Fat Tuesday, Mardis Gras, or the day before Ash Wednesday - the beginning of Lent. People from around the country come to Strumica to observe or take part in the celebrations and parade – Carnival. This year there were also groups from Albania and Bulgaria that participated. Last year the students from Probistip won a major prize for their costumes (masques) and this year they returned en-mass dressed as Alexander’s renowned phalanx warriors. They spent many weeks preparing their masques for their return trip this year.

David and I were invited to accompany them on a very nice chartered bus to the Carnival and watch the evening parade. We were treated to a lunch along with the students and later on to a sandwich and juice for the return trip. It was a great photo-op (check them out) and would have been better if there wasn’t a security guard stationed every 6 meters along the parade route blocking the view. I believe it was one of the coldest days of the winter with steady wind, but many of the participants wore some pretty skimpy outfits. After the parade, people partied, as they do at Mardi Grases(what’s the plural of Mardi Gras?) around the world, with lots of loud music and drinks of your choice. I didn’t see any beaded necklaces. Being that we were with the students, we left at 8PM and returned to Probistip at 10:30, although some of the chaperons stayed to party. The students were well behaved, had a wonderful experience and did Probistip proud. Check out www.strumickikarneval.com and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7K36oyNg7o to learn more about the Carnival.

On the 15th, I was invited to accompany a group of eighth graders that were going on an excursion to view the new dam that was being built on the nearby Zletevo River. This was part of the geography teacher’s lesson on studying the water systems of Macedonia. Ivanchay, the teacher, asked me to take photos of the day’s events and wanted me to teach the students how to test the water at various locations. So I had two responsibilities besides being a spectator. The students were thrilled that I was going along and many of them spoke very good English, so there were no communication concerns. Once the 15 passenger mini-bus that Tito rode to school on (why do we ride on a bus but we ride in a car?) arrived, all 25 of us, along with lunches, drinks and backpacks piled onto it for the trip up the mountain to our dam destination.

Ivanchay did a great job planning the day’s events and as it turned out, we precisely followed the time line that he had planned and written out. Timeliness is not a common Macedonian trait, so I was thoroughly impressed. The trip included stops in the town of Zletevo; a stop at a monastery in the mountain inhabited by Orthodox nuns; a stop at a small waterfall for testing the water; a stop at a water treatment facility; a tour of the new dam; lunch along the river where we once again tested the water; a stop where selected individuals descended a 60 degree, 150meter, rain-slickened, rock-strewn incline to view a breathtaking waterfall; and a stop on the way home at a restaurant for tea (Ivanchay and I had a couple of beers. Drinking on field trips in front of the students is acceptable adult behavior, I was told.)

Some of my thoughts along the way: These students really, really get along well with each other. This country is soooo beautiful! How many nuns live in the monastery, do they teach school and if they do, do they rap students’ knuckles with rulers? Why don’t they install guardrails along this narrow mountain road with the 200 meter drop-off to my left,? These rock slides that block the road and that require us to de-bus to clear out of the way, do they occur at scheduled times or could one of them randomly occur at the moment we are passing and sweep the bus over the cliff? Do we have a First-Aid kit with us? Will the girls who were considered to be too-girlie, have their parents give Ivanchay a hard time tomorrow for prohibiting them from descending the slick, rock-avalanche-prone mountainside to see the waterfall? Will I have a heart attack climbing back up the mountainside after proclaiming to the students that I was in an Infantry Division for 21 years and I was used to such challenges? (N.B. I did receive an ovation from the students for having successfully completed the trip and I further embellished the reputation of ALL 64 year old American men in the minds of my Macedonian friends.) Maybe passengers' laps count as a place to sit when considering maximum seating capacities on buses in Macedonia? How well can the driver see now that it is raining when only one windshield wiper works and the windows are fogged-up? Will the bus driver (who by the way was very professional) answer his cell phone if it rings as we’re going around the next blind curve? How qualified is the mechanic who performed the last brake job on the bus and was he in a good mood when he did it? We sure did laugh a lot today.

Can any day get much better than this day in Macedonia was?