Kumanovo and Romanovce

The rest of the week in Kumanovo went by slowly, though now it feels like the blink of an eye. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and today all began with language lessons. Tuesday and Wednesday we had other meetings all afternoon, and did little besides go to those meetings. Both nights I went into Kumanovo. I changed money the first night, the second was a bit of an aimless adventure. It’s about half an hour into town, so most of us took that walk, but then my buddy Patrick and I just walked around the center square, saw the park, and just generally took the city in.

Kumanovo is an interesting city. It’s big, about 100,000 people. Macedonia is a difficult country to categorize, because in some respects it’s no different from the United States—there is internet available in many places, modern supermarkets (though on a smaller scale) are fairly easy to find, and the way people are dressed wouldn’t be out of place on State Street in Madison. Then again, the unemployment rate is very high (upwards of 30% I have heard) so there are many people who spend their time mulling about downtown Kumanovo. Construction standards and building codes are a little less stringent than in the US. Driving is a contact sport. Pedestrians do not have the right of way, but cross the road where ever they choose. It’s very much a give and take atmosphere—reminiscent of how drivers and pedestrians interacted in Costa Rica. All in all, aspects of Kumanovo feel strikingly familiar at times, and at other times I feel as though I am on another planet.

Thursday we ended our sessions a little early and took a visit to a local mosque and then to a local orthodox church. Both were fascinating. The imam and pastor (?) we spoke with were both engaging and overjoyed to meet us—and to hear about what we would be doing in Macedonia. After our tours, which bookended a wonderful 15 minute walk through a downpour in downtown Kumanovo, several of the trainees met up with some of the volunteers from in and around Kumanovo to run errands. The group then made their way over to the local Irish Pub (because what’s a city without an Irish Pub) and had a few drinks, shared some pizza, and swapped war stories. It was an awesome opportunity to catch up with some of the local volunteers and get an idea for what our life would be like over the coming weeks, months, and years. The support we receive from locals, from fellow trainees, from volunteers, from Peace Corps, and especially now from our host families is unbelievable and makes this experience as amazing as it is. It is always a challenge, but these people make it a heck of a lot easier to get through.

All of the nights we spent at Hotel Satelit outside of Kumanovo we spent sitting around in the restaurant area playing games, telling jokes, sharing stories, and enjoying one another’s company. I have 35 new friends, many of them very close, and that is so valuable to me. Now that we’ve split up into our communities most of us are much farther away from each other, but it doesn’t so much feel that way. We’re still all in this together, we still form one giant support network for one another, and we’re still MAK17s. The camaraderie is inspiring.

Tonight we’re spending our first night away from each other. By the time this is actually posted, it might actually be much later. The WiFi at my homestay isn’t working yet, so I’m not sure if I will be posting this tonight or not.

I met my host family today, as the above paragraph implies. They are a mother, a father, a grandfather, and three brothers. My host brothers are Vladimir, Antonio, and Nikola: 26, 24, and 17, respectively. We met at the hotel shortly after lunch, shared pictures, and had a chance to talk. There was a brief ceremony followed by some traditional Macedonian dancing, which effectively consisted of the trainees attempting to dance while the locals laughed at us. Fun was had by all. When the ceremony was over we all said our goodbyes, collected our things, and left with our host families. Romanovce is my host community, where I will be learning both Macedonian and Albanian while preparing to be a primary school teacher. The community is small, only about 2500 residents. It’s a mixed community, so there are large populations of both Macedonians/orthodox and Albanians/muslims. Those two categories are not universally applicable, but there is generally such a correlation between religion and ethnicity that the two become virtually indistinguishable.

Once I arrived in Romanovce I was welcomed into the house and we shared some Rakija and coffee. After that we had dinner, which consisted of bread, cucumbers, bean stew, feta cheese, tomatoes and onions (fresh from the garden), and a spicey pepper dish (also fresh from the garden). Though we live in among many other houses in Romanovce we still have a large plot of land. It almost could be called a complex. We have pigs, chickens, a large garden with pumpkins, peppers, pears, apples, cabbage, cucumbers, grapes, sunflowers, melons, and two dogs, Medow and Sharky. The spellings are my phonetic translation. The pigs and chickens are slaughtered from time to time for meals, while the garden provides the vegetables and fruits that we enjoy. Sam, my roommate in DC and Kumanovo, lives nearby—virtually the next house over. We’re separated by a railroad track that runs passenger trains and a shipping route between Skopje and Greece.

Tomorrow we’ll have a tour of the city after breakfast, around 11am, then nothing for the rest of the day. Thankfully, the Peace Corps gives us a little chance to adjust to our new lives before sending us back into language classrooms and beginning our technical training again. I’m looking forward to tomorrow and the next week—though it will be really busy. Also exciting is the fact that I will get more than 5 hours of sleep tonight. Shout out to Sam Cicero for being an awesome roommate, but our health and wellbeing suffered for our roommateship. Wouldn’t have it any other way.

That’s all for now, my goal for the evening is to have another conversation in broken Macedonian, then I’ll call it a night.

Peace out. (get it?)

Ps, We came up with the idea for shirts that say Skopyay! this week, and it needs to happen.

Leaving and First Days

Saying goodbye when you go into the Peace Corps is kind of like attending your own funeral. It's a little awkward. People cry, talk about how different everything will be without you, and reminisce about good times gone by. Meanwhile, you just sort of stand there, a little excited for what's to come, and a little nervous, and not quite sure how to confront an emotional outpour like that. After all, two years is a long time to be gone, so the emotions are natural. But you also know full well that you're going to come back, fully intact, and better than ever, so it can be hard to get on the same page.

I spent my last week saying goodbye. To family, which was the most difficult, and to friends, which was also difficult, but in a way fun, and often revealed emotions that left me feeling even closer to the person I was leaving. I am better for the process of saying goodbye, if only because it provided some desperately needed closure.

I drove to the airport with my dad, my stepmother, and my step sister. We said goodbye at the security checkpoint (for some reason MKE lets guests past the ticketing area and into the shopping space beyond) and then I boarded my flight to DC. The Peace Corps holds a staging event somewhere in the United States for each departing group. In our case, we were staging in DC for one day before boarding our flight to Macedonia. Staging consists of some get-to-know-you events, information about the Peace Corps, and a genuine opportunity to reflect on why you have committed to serve and if that is a commitment you are prepared to keep.

My day in DC started with my arrival at the airport. I collected my overweight luggage at baggage claim (the fee generously waived by the woman at the Milwaukee Airport when I told her I was joining the Peace Corps) and headed out the door to catch a shuttle to the hotel. Fortunately, the shuttle was sitting immediately in front of the gate I walked out of, so I threw my things aboard and jumped on. Arriving at the hotel, my room wasn’t ready—as expected—so I stowed my stuff in their baggage check space. As I was doing this I ran into another guy, Patrick, also arriving for the Peace Corps. He checked himself in, dropped off his luggage, and we walked to a nearby mall to grab some lunch. My appetite is never good when I’m feeling anxious, but I managed to cram down some food before the training started.

We made our way back to the hotel after lunch and met a few other volunteers. Kelly and Jessica specifically, but the others soon began to trickle in for the beginning of the first session. We started with a mountain of paperwork and didn’t properly start the day until about an hour after that. As people completed their paperwork they entered a separate room and icebreaking activities began. The Peace Corps icebreakers actually worked exceptionally well. By the end of the day I knew almost everyone’s name—no small feat for someone terrible with names in a room full of almost 40 people. The rest of the day was filled with self-reflection and information about the Peace Corps—useful, but not a terribly exciting subject for a blog post.

As the day wore on we all got tired, and I began to get sick. I had the misfortune of developing a sore throat and cold during the last few days before my departure, and seven hours locked in a room talking did nothing to alleviate my symptoms. By the end of the day it was actually painful to swallow or talk. I really made the effort to keep myself involved with the group though, so as everyone went out to dinner at California Pizza Kitchen for the evening I tagged along. We all sat and split pizzas in pairs, so my pizza-buddy Karen and I split an artichoke heart and spinach pizza. Delicious.

After dinner we had pledged to go back to the hotels rotating rooftop bar to have a beer and take in the view of the city. The bar’s $10 cover charged wrecked those plans (and I discovered how cheap I really am!). We settled instead for a beer in the lobby with some good company. Shooting the shit for about an hour or so, I decided to retire for the evening and went to my room. I loaded up on every kind of cough medicine dreading the thought of a 9-hour flight the next day feeling so sick, and went to bed.

I slept well and felt considerably better in the morning. We grabbed some breakfast at the mall, packed our things, and checked out of our rooms. I had been advised that the airline might not be so lenient about the weight policy at Dulles, so I packed a separate checked bag and my awesome roommate Sam checked it as one of his own. In some freak-of-nature way he managed to pack only one carry-on. I was seriously impressed (and thankful). The flight to Vienna from Skopje was uneventful. I watched Moonrise Kingdom, which was very pleasant, read the first chapter of Team of Rivals, and caught an hour or two of sleep. We had a quick stopover in Vienna, not much to say about that, followed by another quick flight to Skopje.

Skopje was absolutely wonderful, though rainy. The airport was new and nice, the people were friendly, and the Peace Corps staff and volunteers met us to help us with our luggage. It was an amazing reception after travelling for so long. We threw our luggage in a truck and all hopped on a bus for the ride to Kumanovo, where our training takes place for the first week. On the bus ride we got an opportunity to meet some of the Peace Corps staff that we will be working with over the next two years and learn a little bit more about how they help us during our service.

We arrived at our hotel to more cheering Peace Corps Volunteers who had shown up to greet us and help us carry our luggage upstairs. We were placed on the 2^nd European floor of the hotel, so the 3^rd in the United States. The help was much appreciated. After we dropped our bags I showered and changed, then went down for lunch. At lunch we got our first allotment of walking around money, which is essentially just spending money for the time we’re in training when we don’t have to pay for meals or housing. It was really nice to have a little cash, and I promptly bought a beer to go with the enormous lunch spread that the Peace Corps set out for us. It was definitely a nice introduction to the cuisine in Macedonia, and I ate my fill.

After lunch some of the volunteers retreated to their rooms to catch up on some sleep, while others, myself included, ventured out with some of the veteran volunteers for a walk around the neighborhood. Along our walk we stopped at a local house/show (one in the same, I think) and the MAK15s and 16s (we’re 17s) chatted a bit with the owners. They grew grapes, along with other crops, and made wine and Rakija. Rakija is Macedonia’s local alcohol. The Irish have whiskey, the British have gin, the Russians have vodka, and the balkan countries have Rakija. A couple of my fellow 17s and I went in on a bottle of this moonshine Rakija (after assurances from the 15s and 16s that it would not blind us) and got a 1.5L bottle for 300 denar. That’s $6. Rock n’ roll.

We walked back and had a short meeting with some of the 15s and 16s about the volunteer services available to us. Truthfully, exhaustion had majorly set in for me at that point, so I was having trouble staying awake during portions of the presentation. I got the essentials though! After that we all had a light dinner and chatted a bit more, then the rakija came out.

I spent the rest of the night drinking rakija and playing spoons (with pens) with some of the finest company I have ever kept. The conversation went from strange to absurd but never left the realm of entertaining. All around: a wonderful first night in Macedonia. I think I could get used to this.

Beginning A Blog

I'll be honest: I've started blogs before and I never keep up with them. Never. I don't have it in me. But I'm really really going to try to have it in me for this one. In part because I want to; in part because I know there are a lot of people out there curious about what I'm up to.

I'll do my very best to keep this space up-to-date, which will hopefully mean a post a week or a little more. I can tell you right now that stretches will go by where nothing will happen. Other times I will furiously post three different things in a single day. It's how I operate. I'll try to be consistent though. And post pictures. Feel free to message me and tell me to write more, it'll get my ass in gear.

A few housekeeping notes:

 - This section of the blog will be for my weekly (or so) updates. Anything of serious substance will be here.
 - The Teaching section of my blog will be notes and thoughts about my job - something that will hopefully be of use in improving my work while also providing a (likely hilarious) record of my first teaching days.
 - The Thoughts section will be just that: thoughts I want to share, extended essays about various things, etc. This is the lost and found.
 - The Background section will be dedicated to the photos I use as background material for my blog. Right now I'm poaching photos off the internet, but in the future I'll be using photos of my own. Look under this tab for the full images along with descriptions, stories, etc.
 - The Disclaimer sections is exactly what it sounds like. The US Government doesn't have enough of a sense of humor to make me their spokesperson, so don't make the mistake of assuming I am. Everything expressed in this blog through any medium is a product of my own and in no way represents the views or opinions of the US Government.

And lastly, to anyone reading: thank you, you rock.

That should do it. Any questions feel free to comment or email me. I'll have another post up about my last few weeks before I jump on the plane next Friday!