Mama in Tetovo!

On Monday we went to Tetovo! Mama wanted to get a few suits made at this awesome tailor that I know.

So we visited him and then wandered towards the university seeing the sights of Tetovo as we went. Mostly the little art gallery in an old Turkish bath and the painted mosque.

We were supposed to meet Jen and Lizzie at 12:30 for burek, but we were super early, so we decided to walk to SEEU to meet them, since they were going to take a taxi to meet us there. We hung out at the university for a bit, then tried to taxi down to the center. We had to take a random detour for no reason that we knew of. And then the taxi driver ripped us off and didn’t even take us where we wanted to go. But we got delicious burek!

After lunch, Jen and Lizzie went to the tailor and we tried to make it to the top of the fortress. I use the word tried because we didn’t make it. The road was too icy for the car to make it up the mountain. The taxi driver was super nice! He told us about the history of Tetovo and where the Albanians and Macedonians live. He was telling us how the Albanians have no money to live in the big houses that the Macedonians live in on the mountain. We got some good pictures of the town of Tetovo.

We then had the guy take us back down to the bus station where we caught the bus leaving about 5 minutes after we got to the station!

When we got back to Skopje, we rode to the bus station so that we could walk back looking at new sights. After we stopped off at the apartment we went to Gusto’s! Ask any of the people that I bring to Gusto’s it has AMAZING cheese dip. Delicious rockfort cheese dip as well as delicious veggies risotto!

See the cheese dip?

Then home where we relaxed and went to bed.

See you around the globe!

Christmas Weekend.

Christmas Weekend was a BLAST if I do say so myself.

I was invited to a Christmas Buffet on Christmas Eve at a "new Embassy family" that turned out to be the Director of USAID. They were super nice and I was able to eat some American snack items. That made it kinda cool. There were a bunch of people there, I even made some contacts that might pan out for more NGOs.  I really loved talking to different people there. There were even some younger people there (the family has three kids, two older than me and one younger) that I was a bit shocked at. It was a nice surprise, I usually expect mostly "older" staff members and not younger people. Being the youngest Fulbrighter over here (I'm only 22, the others are 26, 29, 34), I often feel like I am in a different place in my life than most of them are. Anyway, a few of the new people I met were going to go out to a bar with a few local friends, and I got invited along. And then made some new friends! You should get to know their names, they will more than likely pop-up a lot the rest of the time. Hyun, who works at the Embassy; Danny, a new Marine at the Embassy; Vancho, Iva, Zlatka- new Macedonian friends who work in Skopje! Then we ended staying out until 4 am, well, that is when I left because I had to wake up early the next day.

I caught a kombe to Tetovo on Christmas to celebrate with Jen and Lizzie. That was a tough one to get up on 5 hours of sleep. But, it was still fun. When I got there, Jen was making fritta for our yummy breakfast.

When Lizzie woke up, we had our fritta with a lot of yummy fruit! (Have I mentioned that I love the food here?) Then we open Christmas presents.

Jen made sure to get us some toys!

Then we basically vegged out, watched movies, and talked to our family. It was actually a lot of fun for me. Lizzie was very unhappy and missing her family, as was Jen. It was actually the first time any of us had been away from our family for the holidays. We also made dinner. We had Squash casserole, potato pancakes, curried zuchinni, and the afore mentioned lemonade -raspberry cake. Here was our spread:

Of course, we had to take pictures with Santa. (it squeaked, by the way..kinda weird).

December 12: Kumanovo on strictly business- so no sight-seeing. Must go back later! If nothing else for the seasoned fries at the Irish pub!

 December 14^th: Taught a class on Advanced English learners at the university so they could hear a native speaker. Mira Beaker, a former Fulbrighter to the US, had met up with us a few weeks ago and asked me to present a topic to her class. We met on Monday to discuss the topic, and the I prepared to teach. I was kinda terrified, to be perfectly honest. But it all went smoothly.  I literally followed the examples in the book and had them do a popcorn reading of the text they were supposed to read. Jen would be a better resource than I am, but college is really different in MK than in the US. Classes are a lot easier, they have almost no concept of homework or outside preparation. But, they only have one or two exams in the class and if you don’t pass that you get two more chances. If you don’t pass by then, you have to take the course over again.

Dec 16^th: I met with an NGO contact in the morning. Then I went to an American Corner event: A Christmas workshop where we attempted to make German Christmas stars. I failed at the workshop, but it was a huge turnout and that was awesome! It was more than anyone expected! Then Nicola (sp?) the Peace Corps volunteer that taught the workshop stayed at my apartment overnight. But before that, we and another Peace Corps Volunteer (Lillian, who is leaving Dec 24^th) went out to eat at Mecho’s. I had been told it was a pizza joint, but it isn’t! It is traditional Macedonian food. Lillian ordered frog legs, while Nicola and I ordered Tavche Grache. Yup, frog legs. Apparently they are a specialty in Eastern MK. Nicola and I enjoyed hanging out and trying the stars again at my apartment later that night. It was refreshing to talk to a Peace Corps Volunteer that doesn’t hate the country and want to leave ASAP!

Dec 18^th: First train ride in MK! I went to Bitola, because I had two appointments with NGOs on the 19^st.  The train was pretty crowded, but cheap! I got a student discount that made the price 150 MKD or $3.17 USD. Yup for a 3.5-4 hour ride across a country. I met his really nice lady that helped me figure out which train to get on, and where to go. The train pretty much emptied out after Prilep, and I figured that the next stop would be Bitola. Well the next stop where most people got off (p.s. it was). Some pictures of Bitola decorated for Christmas!

Dec 19^st: Met with two different NGOs. One went really well, the other only sort of well. I ate lunch as a restaurant in the center of Bitola, but it was horrible food. The spaghetti sauce was basically sweet ketchup, ugh. I Couldn’t even finish ¼ of the food! I took the bus back to Skopje that afternoon. It was crowded, uncomfy and 450 MKD. I will try my hardest to plan around a train schedule to go back to Bitola. I do NOT want to take the bus again if I can help it. I even managed to aggravate someone. When people were getting off, I had to switch seats to let someone off, and then when people started coming back on, I went back to my original seat…but some lady thought she was supposed to sit there with her friend. Then when they realized that I didn’t speak Macedonian (it’s a great ploy even when you understand some of what they were saying). Turns out that it was ok, the girl just sat up front next to the bus driver. Then at the stop, when I tried to switch with her, the Bus driver thought I was crazy and then found me a seat somewhere up front (not next to him- apparently some one had gotten off, so there was a free seat). And the people in the front kept saying something about the Foreigner. The bus driver said something to the guy that he found the seat next to about me being English of French or something and I didn’t understand anything. I’m sorry- but I don’t understand all the social rules for riding a bus, we don’t really have that form of transportation in the US! I just keep smiling and hoping it will be ok.

More Bitola for Christmas!

Dec 20^th: First snow in Skopje!!!

Dec 21^st: I went and had coffee with the International Women’s Association (well hot chocolate). Then I went to a doctor. I will write a separate post on that soon- but the end result is I am fine, but getting over a virus. That night, I had Conversation Hour at the American Corner. We discussed Holiday Traditions (New Year and Christmas), vegetarian lifestyle (did ya’ know that children NEED meat to function?), and a few other random topics. I kind of like not having a real plan, it makes the conversation more free flowing.

Dec 22^nd: Off to Tetovo again! I seem to always catch the same combi driver. We pulled forward to a little bakery so the mom and kid also riding with us, could grab a bite to eat, and the driver turns around and goes “Sthul?” (the university that Jen works at).  Then he proceeds to ask me if I go over every day- now you know you take him combi too often! This guy is super nice and friendly however. I was going to Tetovo to see the Deputy Prime Minister of the Ohrid Framework Agreement (OFA) give a talk. Apparently SEEU had complied a book about the 10 years since OFA. The OFA ended the conflict in 2001. See this previous blog post for a summary of the OFA. The speech he gave was only about 20 minutes, but still worth going to see. He said some interesting things that I thought were poignant.

·        We should leave the OFA and the past 10 years to history and move forward to a new direction

·        The future of MK is the country of all parities with no one party better than another.

·        One of the goals was the protection of citizen’s ethnic identity and culture.

·        The implementation WAS hard (I liked how he used the past tense, implying that it had been implemented)

·        The implementation was an investment into the future of MK.

·        The OFA is a process, not just an agreement on paper. It is important for the democratization of MK. It was a goal for opening and strengthening the state institutions.

After the talk, he and the rector and editor gave a press conference while Jen and I picked up the book that they published. I have it in Albanian, Macedonian, and English. I look forward to reading it and then possibly donating it to FAU’s library. Then I went back to Jen's office and worked on my research blog while Jen went to her class that she teaches. After she got back we went to a 3:30pm linner with Vesna, who leaves for the US and her PhD program on the 28th! Linner (lunch-dinner, like brunch) was pretty good. I had pizzia because that was one of like 3 things I could order off the menu!

Dec 23^rd: I started a mini exercise program in my apartment, after realizing that I needed to get in better health and that finding a gym that wasn’t out of my price range would be hard. (I have a hard time spending over $40 for a one month membership, but maybe I will break down and do it in Feb…). I also just realized that I never told you about aqua aerobics in MK- see future blog post… I had a meeting with another NGO in the afternoon. But the guy stood me up. He thought that we hadn't confirmed the meeting, or he never recieved the email about confirmation. I also started private tutoring in Macedonian. It took this long to find a class or private tutor that I could afford. No one gave me any ideas for where to look for classes until mid-November! And then I found a wonderful lady at Lumina Lingua! She has VERY reasonable prices and is super super nice!

Settling into a Routine (kinda)

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, I presented at the second English class at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. It would have been on Wednesday, but Wednesday was declared Tree Day. No really there was a national holiday for a tree. Well technically 2.2 million trees, but still. Apparently back in (a few years ago) the decided to take a day to go plant 2.2 million trees in one day to represent the people of Macedonia. And now they do it about twice a year. We want to participate next spring. So classes were rescheduled to SATURDAY!!!! Icky!

After the class we went out to meet a former Fulbrighter to America, Mira, at this little cozy cafe. Turns out the cafe was reserved, but we decided to go to Ginos. Where we had yummy lunch with dessert and just talked. It was nice. I am going to talk at one of her classes in a few weeks.

I also started volunteering at my NGO. They are a lot of fun, and more will be posted on my research blog.

On Tuesday morning (at 1am) I was supposed to have a TFA meeting, but failed to set my alarm correctly. So instead of waking up 12:30 am, I woke up at 3:54 am. YIKES!!!!! I immediately emailed the person running the meeting profusely apologizing for my unprofessionalness. He emailed me back said he like my dedication for trying to wake up then and that "we would get along". Phew!

On Wednesday, I met with Naum to just chit chat and for him to give me some contacts and suggestions for dealing with cultural differences, since he is from MK originally. It was a great talk! And he helped me understand so much.

Later that day, Daniel (other Fulbrighter in Skopje) is starting a class at the American Corner about American Political Thought that will run about once a week that I decided to sit in on. We actually have homework. lol

Thursday deserves it's own special post, so check back later.

On Saturday, I helped out at the International Women's Association Christmas Bazaar. They raised about 400 Euros to donate to their charities. But they had a craft fair, bake sale, and kids bouncy house area. It was a lot of fun- and I won a free night at Casa la Kola for entering the raffle. Lots of fun expectations ahead!

Then I came over to Tetovo to hang with Jen and go to Ohrid with Vesna. See separate post coming later!

See you around the globe!

SEEU Celebration

On Saturday 11/19, I went to the 10^th anniversary celebration at South East European University . They opened in 2001 as an Albanian based university. They invited lots of important people- the Norwegian Ambassador, US Embassy staff (someone we had never seen), other Ambassadors, etc. (We were prolly on the news, but I didn’t think to turn it on at night to try to see.) After the talking part there was an unveiling of a statue and a huge cocktail party.

When they were talking it was switching between Macedonian, Albanian, English and Latin (yup-Latin, they made a presentation in Latin).  It was fun to try to follow the languages and try to (1) figure out What language they were speaking and (2) what they were then saying. If I lived here longer I would have to learn Albanian. I might try to find a class anyway- hey I have the time! I will have to look into that. Any way- onto the pictures of the event that you would rather see!

Look at all of the "certificates of appriciation" they had to hand out!

Слава/Slava with Vesna!

Once back in Skopje, I thought I would have a little down time, but I was invited to Vesna’s (remember she was the one that drove me the Jen’s Surprise Bday party) слава (slava). The Slava is a celebration of the family’s namesake. According to my Macedonian Language Textbook, families do not usually invite people over, but you are just supposed to “know” when the saint’s day is. However, Vesna told Jen and I :).

I caught a bus to Tetovo on Tuesday and arrived in time to go to lunch with a co-worker of Jen’s at this hotel restaurant. It was pretty good- well, what I had, but there was almost no veggie options so I got shopska salad and french fries with cheese (to split with Jen). Then the friend dropped us at Ramstore to try to pick up a small gift to bring back with us to Vesna’s. It took awhile, but we decided to make tissue paper flowers and put them in a chocolate candy bar vase. We thought it was inventive and different from anything else. And we were not sure if they drank wine.

Vesna picked us up at 7pm (right when it was starting, so she could help get everything ready and then come pick us up- so we didn’t have to try to tell a tax how to get there). When we walked in her parents greeted us (they don’t speak a lot of English), and showed us into the dining room/living area. Where there was SO MUCH FOOD! There was 3 meat platers, 2 bread platers, 2 dessert platters, stuffed and cooked red peppers for me (the vegetarian), salads, drinks!

Vesna sat us and then brought in this sweet cake thing where we were supposed to take a spoonful and eat it and put the spoon back into a little cup. It was pretty good- a little sweet, a little nutty. Not sure what was in it at all. Will have to ask Vesna. Then we were told to serve ourselves, while they got us something to drink (juice and soda for us boring people). They then brought out the stuffed peppers for me and served me one. I also got some of the bread that Jen and helped them bake the previous weekend. There were three different types of bread- little twisted sticks with a slight kick, pinwheel with sesame seeds, and little puff ones with cheese inside. And slices of cheese I ate with it. I also tried this fermented cabbage thing (not my favorite, but still good for people who like that kind of thing).

Jen and I then took a break form eating and went to sit on the couch when more people came. This round of people were mostly family members. And they were super nice, and the younger ones that we sat with spoke English. I got to practice my Macedonian with Vesna’s baba (grandma) while she told me about her family and how it made her so happy to have all of her children there with her. We discussed how you were able to become a pharmacist (you can work with supervision after high school, but you need a university degree to work by yourself). And jst life in Macedonia and the US. It was a nice relaxing night. Vesna took us home at about 10:40 pm.

Then, I stayed up until I found out where my Teach For America placement would be. And I found out at 12:23 am 11/9. Only abut 10 minutes before they officially notified us. I was placed in Jacksonville, FL in secondary social science!! So happy!! You can check out my TFA blog here at (http://borderlandjourney.blogspot.com).

Then we went to sleep after I called my family and told them where Iwas placed (read about 2:30 am.

To Tetovo (again) with a Purpose!

On Monday (10/24) I headed to Tetovo to visit Jen and to go to an NGO there called LOJA. When I arrived we went to Evergreen, which is located at the entrance to her campus. She had a yummy sandwich and I had “vegetable soup.” It turned out to be mainly carrots and (wait for it) NEON ORANGE! But it was warm and delicious and came with bread! After lunch we went back to the dorm to drop off some stuff and then headed down to the American Corner to watch MLK Jr’s son give a talk via the internet.

On the way we stopped off at this yarn store because Jen is going to teach me to crochet! I got some bright colored yarn to learn later this night. When we made it down to the American Corner, we were told that the electricity was out and so they couldn’t show the talk! We then asked if they knew where we could find some gloves, and this boy called someone. He then proceeded to walk us to this store where they might have gloves, but they didn’t. Then we wandered through this mall type thing just to look, grabbed some milk at the store and took a taxi back to Jen’s dorm.

Once we were at the dorm, we did normal American stuff- checking emails, watching TV, learning to crochet! Once we got hungry for dinner we tried to go to Peagasus, a small restaurant that supposedly had good food across the street from the entrance to her campus. However, they were only serving about 4 items on their 5 page menu and they were all meat! So Jen ordered something and I went back to Evergreen to get a cheese pizza (and a hot chocolate while it was cooking).

Then I learned to crochet, well, basically I can only make a blanket, or a scarf, but hey- it works! Then we began to crochet and watch American TV. We had two computers up and running so we could download one show and watch another one!

See you around the globe!

The reason to go to Tetovo.

On Tuesday (10/25), we got up and ate breakfast, then went to Jen’s work, where we basically sit on the computer and wait to see if any student will come in and talk to her, but they never have. Then to lunch with Vesna at(you guessed it!) Evergreen! This time I had pasta (it was NASTY!), but out of the meeting I got some homemade jam from Vesna’s family that I can’t wait to eat! Jen has some and it is delicious!

Jen was supposed to have Macedonian class today, but the professor came in and said, why don’t you wait until we spilt the class because there are 50 students in there right now. So we had some free time, which involved Jen meeting with her co-teacher to discuss their teaching plan. At 2pm, Jen had a conversation hour for one of the English classes, so we went back to….can you guess….EVERGREEN! This time just for drinks (still had hot chocolate. And this is not like American hot chocolate, this is literal melted chocolate in a glass that you eat with a spoon. No joke. It just depends on the restaurant where you go which kind you will get- American hot chocolate or European hot chocolate.

We then headed downtown to get pictures for our residency cards! We get residency- since we are now official and they created a whole special category for us in their visa regime. But it involved filling out a form in Macedonian and English and getting two pictures taken, and sending in a scanned copy of our passport page. We had some directions from a few people at the University so off we went! We followed their instructions but didn’t see a photo shop, so we ducked in this little store and asked this lady where the other store was. She told us in Macedonian and then when I nodded, she was all English? (the thing is I had understood her directions and knew where to go, but it was nice). Then she took us outside and walked us part of the way to the store. When we got there I said, “pictures for residency card (lechna karta)?” and we pulled out the form we had ready. He nods and tells us to go sit down as he get fancy camera out. Then he takes a few pictures of each of us, and said they would be ready in 30 minutes. We decide to go back to the nice lady and buy something from her store because we were hungry. I got (what I thought was a jelly filled) doughnut and juice and Jen got some pizza snacks and juice. We went to sit by the river and ended up sitting by Saturn. They have one of those “see how far apart the planets are” displays, complete with missing planets. Nope, not joking, there was a stick for the planets to go on, but no planets! As I was looking over it I discovered something interesting.

In Macedonia, there are 10 planets!

Not only do they still count Pluto, but they also count Ceres, the largest asteroid in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. We didn’t know that at the time and were intrigued by the concept of 10 planets. We both decided that we wanted a t-shirt that says “When I was your ago, Pluto was a planet!”

We went back to the store with the pictures and picked up our 6 pictures, we had asked for 2, but 6 works just as well and all for only 150 MKD! Then I called LOJA, the NGO I was meeting with to let them know we were coming. He agreed to meet with us and bring us to the specific office, since it was apparently difficult to describe. He was the only one in the office at the time to give people time off since they had to come back for the German Film Fest that night. We talked for about 1.5 hours and then left so he could go to dinner with the German Ambassador/consulate general. We wandered out a different way and found GLOVES!!!!

Then we went to dinner at a semi-fancy restaurant where I had delicious pasta with gorgonzola and what they called “pizza bread.” We have no idea what it is made with, but it is delicious! So yummy! After killing time eating here, we decided to get coffee/hot chocolate. We then went to the store to buy popcorn! It comes pre-popped and only cost 29 MKD for like two full bags of microwave popcorn.

After our shopping experience we went back to LOJA to watch the German Film Fest show. It was in German and subtitled in Albanian and Macedonia. The Macedonian covered the English, but not all the time, so sometimes we could get a glimpse of the English before we only saw languages we weren’t fluent in. I think I got about 50% of the movie. It was about this Turkish family that immigrates to Germany, lives their life there and then goes back to visit Turkey when the young man (now grandpa) buys a house there. Jen and I could totally relate to the walking into a store and trying to get bread and milk and NOT speaking the language at all. Sadly the grandpa dies in the end, and the house was just the front entry and not the rest of the house. There was a moral of the story, but it falls into the 50% I did not understand! They had a small reception afterwards with food and juice before we headed back to the dorm to go to sleep!

*If you want more information about my NGO visits, you should check out my Research Blog: MK Civil Society Civil Discourse.*

Day 2 in Tetovo with Jen1

On Saturday, Jen and I woke up a bit early (well, for me at least) to eat breakfast and get ready to walk up the mountain. We had bread and homemade jam (thanks Vesna and her family!) and one of peanut butter. The Jam was delicious! One was a plum base (we think) and the other was an apricot base (once again, we think) but of soo yummy!

Then we walk out and took a cab to the center where we were meeting the Peace Corps volunteers to walk up this:

Yes, that circle is where we were trying to go.

It took about 2 hours to walk up that mountain. I do acknowledge that to people who live in the Rockies or Alps, these are merely the foothills of the further mountains, however, it took us two hours to walk up and 1.5 hours to walk down and it hurt like ****. However, we got some awesome views of Tetovo:

Oh, aand their doggy Spike came with us:

We then went to lunch at Trivoli an award winning and much acclaimed restaurant and hotel in Tetovo. I had a sandwich with mozzarella, tomato, cucumber and salad.  Well, it turned out to be grilled flatbread, with cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, and coleslaw-esque “salad” with a mayonnaise based yellow sauce. While it was ‘good’, I wouldn’t eat there again unless showing people around Tetovo. The quality just wasn’t that yummy – to much mayonnaise. Maybe the food would have been better if I had been willing to shell out the outrageous prices for the pasta.

Since we were so exhausted from the super hard climb, we just went back to the school. I finished packing up, grabbed some snacks (including fresh picked apples!) and headed to the bus station. Where I bought a ticket to Skopje. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Ticket to skopje?

Cashier: Maybe *shrugges shoulders*

Me: yes, please. *confused looking smile*

Cashier: 110 denar. *takes money, hands ticket*

Me: thanks! (in head- what do you mean maybe? If I’m asking you for a ticket, that means I want the ticket! Oh well.)

I had to wait for about 30 minutes to catch the bus, but I just relaxed and ate some of my snacks. The “bus” (or rather combi, like the one I took from Sofia, but a bit smaller) was comfy and took about an hour. Then a taxi ride back home. I could have short cut the taxi and walked back from a closer distance, but was just too tired. On the bus, you can basically just ask to be let off somewhere and if it is on the way, then they will do so. Like just pull over and let you out. No joke. So while it was closer (about a 10 minute walk just by the Warrior on a Horse statue, I just couldn’t walk it. The taxi was just so worth it. ).

Then it was showering, relaxing and going to bed.

See you around the globe!