Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in katiemcdonough's LiveJournal:

[ << Previous 20 ]

Wednesday, July 11th, 2007
10:50 am	The backpackers have come Hello everyone Where to begin this time.... I don't think I have a whole heck of a lot to share. June came and went. The weather was cold, then hot, then cold and rainy and now it is getting warmer again. I love the heat and I find it funny when people go on and on about the heat and how they can't take it. I thrive in it. I like walking down the street with some sweat starting to form and eventually it running down my body. The backpackers have arrived. Macedonia is turning in to what Poland, Czech Rep. and Slovakia were in the early or mid 90's. At the time those countries were perceived as 'mysterious' and it was 'adventurous' to go there because they weren't tourist havens yet (except Prague). Now it is common to go there even for a full vacation and not just for a few days. Well, it has started here. I think it is a good thing. It will help the economy and hopefully tourist facilities will improve and in 10-15 years people will come from all over to spend their whole vacation here. This past weekend Mike and I saw 4 backpackers. People standing around looking a bit confused with big bags with a million patches on them. It is funny to think I live in a place where people are coming to visit as part of their backpacking tour. I read that wizzair (discount airline out of England) is going to start coming here as of September. Flights to London for a mere 40 euros. I hope it is true!! My English classes are going well. They are almost done. It is really amazing to me how good some of the students are. I would say that 85% of them do their homework every time I assign some and it is almost always done correctly. If I don't give homework they usually ask 'why not?'. I am pleased by this. They really try and some of them have made substantial progress. I hope they continue with it after I am gone. There is one girl who always comes to class, refuses to participate, never does her homework then asks me how she can get a visa to the US. You know, don't waste my time. We played pictionary last week and it got pretty heated. At first they really didn't want to play but once they got the hang of it they LOVED it. It was a fun class. I also brought in my jenga which was a big hit. I wrote questions on the wooden blocks so as a student pulled out a block they had to answer the question. It was a good time. I wasn't sure what they would think but as the tower got knocked over they kept re-building it until the hour was up. The essay contest has come and gone. I believe it was a success! Thanks to all of you who donated and helped to make it happen. We only used a fraction of the funds that we had to raise because we were able to get donations for all of the prizes. The prizes were GREAT, a weekend in Ohrid (3 hotels sponsored a weekend for winners), almanacs, English dictionaries, frames for the certificates, mobile phones with SIM card and credit on them, pizza lunch, sodas, etc. It was a donation success and we have one woman in the office to thank for all of the donations. She was such a big help! The Ambassador came to give out the prizes and having her there was a big hit. The 3 winners were all girls and they thought it was great and felt honored to receive their awards from the US Ambassador. I hope the essay contest continues next year. It wasn't perfect this year, no doubt about that but I do think it was successful and we can learn from our mistakes and make the necessary changes to make it run even more smoothly next year. Well, I guess someone else will make it run smoother because I won't be here. Camp GLOW is coming up. I am delighted to announce that we received full funding for the project! Yeah! Thanks to all of you who donated. So 60 girls will be coming to the camp. The days are long but sound very fun. From 8:30 AM to 11:00 PM. I had an informational meeting with the girls from Kicevo that are going and when I told them about the long days they kind of looked a little blank but they were so excited and giggly about the whole thing. I think they will really enjoy it. I am working on the environment day with 3 other volunteers. We need to start getting our stuff together. We're not at all ready yet! I am also excited because 2 girls who went to the camp last year are going to be junior counselors this year. I like the both and think they will do a good job. So Angie left last Monday. It was a sad day. She is back home in Nebraska now. Soon she'll be at school so I am happy for her. Sad to see her go but excited for her new adventure ahead. Sean, Jennifer, Mike and I were supposed to go to Albania this week. I asked in advance if I could take 2 days without pay and I was told that it was no problem. Mike and I plan to spend a few days in Romania and I didn't want to give any of those days up to go to Albania. I was excited to hear this so I filled out the forms and the vacation was approved! I only have a few vacation days left and it is hard to be so close to Albania and not visit there. I had the whole trip mapped out, even put a deposit on one of the hostels and I got a call saying that I couldn't use unpaid days and therefore my trip would have to be cancelled. It really irked me. It is a long story to say how it went through and got approved but if you approve a vacation then two weeks later call back and say it is not approved, it is your problem, not mine. I am a bit disgusted at the whole thing. Rules and policies are getting out of hand. A good example of this – if we go on vacation we have to leave the names, phone numbers and address of the hotels we're staying at. The problem with this is sometimes you don't know where you're going to stay. If you don't have something, your vacation will not get approved. So the choices are 1. Lie 2. Don’t go on vacation 3. Plan out your whole trip ahead of time just to satisfy a group in the US because they want to cover their asses in case something happens to you. One reason they 'require' this information is to have a way to contact you in case of an emergency. I have been on vacation and been contacted by staff for a non-emergency item and they called my cell phone. If there is an emergency, they are not going to call the hotel; they're going to call my cell phone. Plus who is to say that the people at the hotel will speak English? How will they get their point across? The hotel staff in 3 places where we stayed in Hungary didn't speak English. Plus, when I go on vacation my goal is to kind of not ever be in the hotel except to sleep so they probably wouldn't find me there except between 10 PM and 8 AM. It would be more likely to catch me reading an email then at the hotel so if you can't catch me on my cell phone, send me an email. In my opinion vacation is a time for R & R. My time to escape for my personal purpose and pleasure – not time for anyone to keep tabs on me. If something happens to me on vacation, it is probably my own fault or the fault of someone else from that trip, not something staff could have stopped because they aren't there. I have been to all kinds of corners of the earth from Uttrakeshi, India to Ulva Island in NZ (where I was the only person on the island), to Hammerfest in Norway and you know what, I am fine. I survived. The level of control over me is enough to make my head spin. I could go on and on about this but I think it would be best to keep my mouth shut. We are not supposed to have blogs (or I should say we can have them but they want each person to send what they have written to their supervisor so the content can be approved or censored before it is posted). Did I mention I feel like the control over me is making my head spin? Mike and I went to Kriva Palanka this past weekend. There is a monastery there and it might be the biggest one in Macedonia. It is set in a mountain about 30 minute walk from the town of Kriva Palanka. It was pretty but the nicest thing about it is its location. We ate lunch there and the food was great. I was so thrilled with the lunch I had there. They also have a small art gallery. We were able to obtain a key and a man showed us around the little gallery. They have an art colony there every year – this year it is Sept 7-17 – and one of the artists was from Wilmington, NC! Small world. Some of the pieces were great and he said they were all for sale but I didn't ask the price because I feel pretty confident that I couldn't afford any of them. I think that is about it. Nothing too exciting this time. I hope all is well with all of you where ever you are. Kaitlin (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007
7:23 pm	Spring is here - I think! Hello all, First I must say that on the last journal entry I ended with something like 'if you got to the end you deserve a metal'. I really meant medal. Well, I think Spring has arrived – at least it feels like it today and has felt that way for about a week now. It is sunny, warm, the flowers are starting to pop up, the trees are budding and I couldn't be happier. It is comforting to know that I have survived yet another winter here. Thankfully it is the last. The MAK2 who lived in Kicevo was here a few weeks ago. He visited in June or July and he just came back for his honeymoon. His wife Kim was a real trooper. I don't think this is a place I would want to come to for my honeymoon. They had a reception at one of the hotels with full dinner, live music and such. It was like a mini-Macedonian wedding with about 30-40 people. It was nice. We danced the ora (standard Macedonian wedding dance) for a LONG time (hours) and I am almost ashamed to say that it is really quite fun. Marionka (my tutor) was Josh's counterpart so she kind of organized the whole thing. It was fun. Unfortunately that night I woke up around 3 AM with a terrible stomachache and I ended up throwing up a few times. That part was not so fun. Mike was here two weekends ago and on Saturday we went to Ohrid to go to the yarn store. I am sure it is a GREAT time for Mike – what a patient man. Ohrid has a great yarn store that even sells knitting needles (they're surprisingly hard to find in a country of avid knitters). One of Mike's sisters is having a baby in July and I want to make a blanket for the baby. Anyhow, we got to the bus station in Kicevo at 6:53 to take the 7:00 bus and it had already left! The next bus was at 8 so we decided to wait. 8:00 came and went. Finally it arrived at 8:30 and off we were to Ohrid. When we arrived it was a bit chilly and we decided to have a warm drink. We found a place near the lake and ordered our drinks – Mike a cappuccino, me a hot chocolate. They arrived looking very tasty. I took a sip from mine and felt something in my mouth. I thought it was maybe just some cocoa powder that didn't dissolve but I spit it out and it was a bug! It was dead and very dehydrated so I think it had been in the cocoa powder for a while. It was about the size of a small bee. It was so gross. It was honestly in my mouth - not just touching my lips but fully in my mouth. It was so nasty. The waitress was kind enough to bring me a new one. After that we went and bought some yarn, ate lunch at the new Irish pub there then went to Vanessa's (a Vol who lives in Ohrid) to have some brownies for her birthday, then back to Kicevo. That evening was Marionka's daughter's wedding. Her name is Nikolina. Mike and I got there and were a bit overwhelmed with the amount of people. They had a receiving line and they take your picture there with the bride and groom. Later on the photographer goes around and sells the pictures for 100 Denars (about $2). We walked in and were told that there were about 400 people there. 200 for the groom and 200 for the bride. This is normal for a Macedonian wedding. I think if you ever knew them at one point in your life, you're invited. It was very nice. A full dinner, open bar, live music and cake. The service was fantastic and in my opinion puts American weddings to shame as far as service is concerned. These waiters were working the room like champs – getting food and drinks for everyone in a timely manner. I was a bit afraid to eat because at Joshua and Kim's reception I got sick (it was at the same hotel). The band was great and again the ora went on for hours. There is another variation of the dance where people jump a little bit. I want to learn that one. It looks like fun. The circles went around and around for hours and hours. At times people would get on chairs in the middle and clap and sing etc. It looked like a good time was had by all. About the cost of an event like this – I was told around $7200. If you think about it, that is 2-3 years salary for someone here. That would be like a $80,000-150,000 wedding in the States. This is a normal thing here – this kind of wedding. I just don't know where people get the money from. I don't know if the whole extended family chips in or what. Or if the bride's family and the groom's family split it or what. Crazy stuff. My new job is going just fine. There is still some uncertainty of what my role is exactly but I am fine with it. I just kind of help with whatever they ask me to help with and it seems to work out fine. They said they want to have educational seminars for the Roma population to teach them about elections and the importance of voting. I think it is a GREAT idea and I am excited about the prospect of this project. I think it will mostly mean we go from house to house talking about it with people but that works. The US Embassy funds democracy education so I am hoping the Embassy will fund it. We'll see. We've had some changes though. It is kind of funny because we communicate this way: I speak in English and Anita pretty much understands and she speaks to me in Macedonian and I pretty much understand. It will hopefully help both of us understand each other's language. However, I knew there were going to be some changes in the organization but I didn't know the extent of the changes. There was a 'meeting' with UNICEF and what it was was a ribbon cutting ceremony to open the office as a 'youth information center'. I think this is a good thing but what happened is that the Roma kids aren't coming anymore for after-school homework help, it has now switched to HS kids of all ethnicities. I just wasn't fully aware of what was going to happen and now my role (not that I even really knew what it was) has now changed dramatically. We'll see how it all transpires. Things at the NGO center are the same. I am still teaching a boat load of English classes and I am very excited for the thought of them finishing. I enjoy them but right now there are too many and because of that I don't enjoy it. They will be over the first or second week of May so not too much left. It is hard too because people keep asking if they can join but Beti, Ismet and I agreed that once they had had 2-3 classes that it would not be a good idea for people to join. People keep coming to ask (still – even though we're on the 12th class) and I keep saying no. Yesterday Beti asked me if someone could join. I told her no because we had already turned away a lot of people and it wouldn't be right to allow someone to join when we already told other people no. Then today her fiance asked me the SAME question for the same person. I gave him the same answer I gave Beti. 'But he is moving to America in 2-3 months and need to learn'. I understand this but if I was told no and then found out that the teacher let someone else in I would be upset. It's just not fair for those who I have already turned away. Then there is this other girl who asked me like 2 weeks ago. Here's the dialog (we spoke in English): Girl – Hi, you teach English classes. K – Yes Girl – When do you have them? K – (I told her the times) Girl – Which one can I join? K – I am sorry but the classes are full and we're in the middle of the course so you are not able to join at this time. Girl – But I know some English so I need a second level. When do you have classes? K – I am sorry but the classes are full and we're in the middle of the course so you are not able to join at this time. Girl – When are new groups starting? K – At this time I am not planning on having any new courses. Girl – You have a class tonight at 7- can I come? K – No, I am sorry. We are in the middle of the course so you cannot come. Now what part of NO did she not understand? Then – get this – she had the gall to ask my friend Lindita about it (about 2 weeks after I had talked to her about it). I was standing right next to them and I understood every word. Thankfully Lindita said that I was not teaching any new classes. Geez. Now there are several NGOs that want my help too. I hate to be this way but I am just too busy to help very much. I have been here a year and a half and almost no one asked for my help and now they all want it. I keep telling them that in June I can help because English classes will be over and I will have a bit more free time. Most of them say that they need help now. I keep telling them that I can't help them now but in June I can. They ask the same question over and over I guess hoping that they will break me down so I will say yes but it just gets me more determined to say no. I am willing to do it in June but I can't right now. 14 hours plus prep of English classes plus the hours at the Roma School plus the essay contest that is going on plus camp GLOW that is coming up plus the Eco-camp that I am working on plus updating the English for Adults II book. There just isn't time for anything else right now. I hate saying no but I am only one person and need to have some personal time or I will be just unhappy all around and that is not good for anyone. Mike had a rough week last week. He and his counterparts wrote a project to have valves put on the water fountains in Stip (along with a water conservation brochure to be handed out with water bills and signs above each fountain saying that water is life and to conserve it). Like just about all cities in Macedonia the water just flows and flows and it is such a waste. The project was approved and things moved forward. The valves arrived from Switzerland (after paying a 40% customs fee) and when the weather got warmer the work began. Part of the proposal was to have the valves welded on so nobody would steal them. Yes, that is correct, weld them on so people wouldn't steal them. They installed 2 of them and they hadn't welded them on yet. Sure enough within 5 days one of them was stolen. It is just frustrating. Here we all are, trying to do some kind of good and people destroy what it is you have worked on. I felt really bad for him. This past weekend I was in Prilep for a party. There are several April birthdays (3 on April 8th – what are the chances?) and there was a 'good or evil' party held to celebrate. It was a nice time. The weather was spectacular and a few of us hiked up to Carly Marko's towers. Apparently he declared himself king of the Prilep region for a while at some point in history. Originally we wanted to go to the monastery there but somehow we ended up at the top of a small mountain with a cross and his towers instead of the monastery. Oh well, another time we will visit the monastery. On Sunday I noticed the monastery on the drive back to Kicevo and it is located on the same mountain as the cross I think we were just up too high to see it. The party was a good time – I went as a 3-eyed fish from the Vardar river with Jennifer as the fisherman trying to catch me. Other costumes were – Energy conservation (Mike), A person from Fashion TV (Danielle), A Turkish toilet (Mary MAK10), Tabloid (Shaydra), A yak-trak (Vanessa), 'Plastic princess' (Marita MAK10 – basically covered herself with plastic bags) and many more. They were all quite original and funny. The essay contest is coming along. I can't remember what I have told you all about this. There are 3 Vols (Jesse, Todd and myself) who are organizing an essay contest for the whole country in commemoration of PC's 45th anniversary. A lot of Vols have agreed to hold essay writing workshops, judge, organize things and ask HCNs to help. So far, so good. It is a lot of work but I think in the end it will be worth it. The essays are due at the end of April so right now we're working on getting things donated and writing a grant. I think the Ambassador is coming to the National awards ceremony to give the winners their prizes on June 2nd. That will be nice. Hopefully it will all go smoothly and that the Macedonian postal service will not lose any essays. That will cause some real havoc. Cross your fingers for us. Now I am back in Kicevo into another week. The weather is supposed to be pretty nice all week so that is such a great thing. I swear the weather has such an effect on me. Last week Erika and I went for 2 walks – both about an hour to an hour and a half and it was so nice. It was a little release for me. I hope we do that more often now that the weather is getting better. I hope all is well in the States and I will write again soon. Love, Kaitlin (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006
8:37 pm	Almost done - where does time go? Hello All, Things here are winding down. Only a few more months to go. I walk around my apartment now looking at things and think to myself 'that will stay, that will go to my host family, that will go to Erika'. It is hard to believe in 16 days I will have been here for 2 years. Where does time go? The update – Camp GLOW was a big success. I think it was anyway. I think the girls felt the same way because according to their evaluations they learned a lot and had a great time. The camp itself was 6 full days. The counselors and junior counselors had one extra day to prepare and stuff. The place where the camp was held (Strezhevo) was absolutely gorgeous. It was about 15 minutes from Bitola so we were secluded but not super-secluded. The scenery was outstanding with the mountains surrounding us. It was great. So much better then last year. Last year wasn't bad but this year was even better. The days were long – from 8:30 AM to 11 PM. It took a day or two for all of us to get in the swing of that kind of schedule. There were some fun activities that we didn't have last year like a field day (2 hours really) where the girls played capture the flag, steal the bacon and football. It was so fun. Once girls get into high school it is kind of shunned if a girl is physically active. I think because of that the girls really let their hair down and had such a fun time running around and being competitive. We were in an environment where it was fine for them to do so and there wasn't anyone around to judge them for being active. It was great. I hope they are able to have it again next year. Cheryl, the girl who will be in charge of it next year, is already doing a great job to try and encourage Club GLOWs around the country and girls will have to do some fund raising to hopefully make the camp sustainable. This year we got money from a PCPP (Peace Corp Partnership) grant and they have since 'banned' camps from being acceptable items to request funding for. It is a long story but I think the whole thing is a crock of crap. PC Washington says that their donors want measurable activities where impact can be evaluated. The thing is, a PCPP grant comes from private donations so there isn't anyone to report the 'measurable' activities to. I know people who have donated to PCPP before and they've never received any kind of final report giving any kind of data of how the project went. It is another PC way to cover their asses as they tend to make a lot of rules these days to do just that. It is annoying and frustrating. Right now I can say that I think PC is headed in the wrong direction. However, there is a new PC Director who was a Volunteer (I think this should be a requirement for all PC employees) so hopefully this person will recognize the bad path PC is heading down and will make some changes to bring it back onto the right track. Just my opinion. Mike and I went to Romania for 8 days. It was fabulous! We had such a great time. We took the bus to Sofia then a train to Bucharest. The train was delayed 3 hours leaving and we ended up getting held-up at the border for an extra hour or so. It was a long trip. Romania was everything I thought it would be and more. I loved Bucharest. There were so many parks and spaces for people to just sit and relax. Mike thinks I am morbid but I enjoyed going to all the places of the 1989 revolution. I love those kinds of things. We also walked out to where Ceaucescu and his wife are buried. We got to the cemetery with only 30 minutes to wonder around. We walked inside and this guy said he would show us. He would not leave us alone. We asked to be left alone because we just wanted to wonder and he would not go away. It was so annoying! Then he told us that life under Ceaucescu was so much better then it is today because people back then went to school, had jobs, had money, blah, blah, blah. Sounds like some people in Macedonia when they talk about life under Tito. After Bucharest we went to Brasov which was great. Then off to Sighisoara which was so charming. It is where Vlad (Dracula) was born. It felt like a mini Prague to me. That is what most of Romania felt like actually. There was one church we went up to see and there was a cemetery next to it so we went inside to stroll around for a few minutes. Honestly we were there for less then 10 minutes. We walked back to the entrance and we were locked in! It was the middle of the day! After about 5 minutes the guy with the key came to let us out. If worse came to worse we could have scaled the fence but the thing is - why was it locked anyway when it was open 5-10 minutes earlier?? Oh well. We made it out fine. From Sighisoara we went to Sibiu which was a big disappointment. I thought this place was going to be very cool and it was a let down. Our hostel was clean and nice but there were 3 rooms – one had 12 beds, one had 8 and the other 4. There was one toilet and 2 showers for ALL those people to share. Originally we were going to stay there 3 nights but after the first night we decided to change our plans and left. The town itself was cute but there wasn't a whole lot to do. After a morning visiting the sites we were done and decided to go back to Brasov to meet up with Sean and Jennifer. They were also in Romania but they left Macedonia a day or two after Mike and I so we just kind of missed each other at each city. We had made plans to rent a car and drive on the highest road in Romania (one of Ceaucescu's ideas). There isn't any public transportation on that road so the only way to do it is to rent a car. When we left Sibiu it was raining cats and dogs and we asked the driver to drop us off at the crossroad of where the Transfgarasan road started. We were told there was a hotel at the crossroad and then Sean and Jennifer could just come there to pick us up the next morning. The driver passed by it and took us to the next town. If it hadn't been raining it wouldn't have been a big deal to walk back (it was 6Ks to walk back to the crossroad) but it was pouring. The driver was pissed when we said we would just continue to Brasov. To make matters a bit worse there was a kid next to me puking up a storm. When we got on the bus I saw his mother feeding him fried chicken and some other food and I remember thinking 'this is going to be bad news'. A hot, stuffy minibus + windy roads + greasy food + young boy = vomiting disaster. Later on in the trip the driver SLAMMED on his brakes. There was a very big accident on the road. 2 cars smashed to bits. Thankfully it didn't look like anyone was seriously wounded. There were people standing outside (the rain had stopped) and there were people bleeding but everyone looked fine – thank God! It must have happened very few minutes earlier because there were no police there yet. I can't help but think that if the driver didn't stop to let us out at the wrong stop and the kid hadn't been puking that we may have been a part of the accident. When we finally reached Brasov we met up with Sean and Jennifer and had a nice night at the Scottish pub they have there. The next day we left early to drive the Transfgarasan road. The weather was spectacular!! We got so lucky. We had had a few days of rain and it was all worth it to have a clear day on this totally amazing drive. The road curved around and up and left and right and up and up. The mountains were just gorgeous! Eventually we made it to Lake Balea which is kind of the highest point. We got out to walk around. It was pretty darn cold and windy up there. It was so cool to look down on the road and to see its path snake its way up the mountain. We ate at the restaurant there and walked over to the snow that was on the bank of one side of the lake. My head was a bit woozy – I think because of the altitude even though we weren't that high. I think only 7000 feet or so. On our way back down the mountains on the other side we saw para gliders and a TON of traffic near a dam. Sean did a superb job of keeping cool and navigation through the almost parking lot of cars. Just being in the car made my blood pressure skyrocket and I wasn't even driving. Eventually off in the distance and up to the right we saw it – the 'real' Dracula castle! We stopped and climbed the 1430 steps up to the castle. It's really not a castle at all but a bunch of ruins and it is very small. Honestly, it wasn't worth the trip up the steps except for the novelty factor. Back down at the bottom Sean and Jennifer drove us to the town where we needed to go and dropped Mike and I off. Sean and Jennifer's trip would continue but Mike and my trip was about to end. Boo! Then next day we took a bus back to Bucharest and booked a sleeper car on the train back to Sofia. We walked around Bucharest for a few hours and off we went – back to Sofia. The train rocked out! We paid an extra $20 or so to have a sleeper car. We had a compartment all to ourselves. Starched white sheets, a sink, mirror, outlet, they came by to give us water, towels, soap, toothbrush and toothpaste. It was great and money well spent. When we arrived in Sofia we booked our bus back to Macedonia and had a few hours to wonder around. We went to this yarn shop that I knew about and Mike touched this ball of yarn that was in the window and I thought the worker-bee was going to crucify him. We ate lunch at this place where we know the food is good and then we were off – back to Macedonia. We had a cumbie (minibus) for the trip so it was pretty fast at the borders and stuff. We got back in time to take the bus to Kicevo. We honestly had been traveling for 24 hours by the time we got to Kicevo. Things have been pretty low key since I got back from vacation. My organization is on summer holiday and my English classes ended in July so I am just kind of hanging out and visiting my friends who are locals. This does fulfill one of the 3 PC goals. Honestly, I am fine with it. I am getting some knitting and reading done, enjoying the summer and hanging out with locals. It has been nice. Speaking of locals, I visited one of my friends who works at the reception in one of the hotels here. She hasn't been paid since June. I feel bad for her. The only good thing about that is once she does get paid (if the boss ever forks over the cash) she'll have 2 months worth at once which is a nice chunk of cash for around here. I might help out with a Human Rights camp that will be held in Ohrid next month. The girl in charge of it sent out the agenda last week so I need to look through it and see if I feel like there is something I am qualified to present. It sounds like a great camp – there will be people ages 18-24 coming from 7 European countries. I guess the funding came from the EU. We'll see. They do have 2 discussions on the UN which I feel like I know a bit about and would enjoy presenting but it is on a day when I can't be there and there is no way to have those presentations on different days. Oh well. Well, I think that is about it from this end. Mike and I were both approved to leave in early November so we're pretty excited about that. It will be nice to be back in the US for the holidays. I hope all is well with all of you! Take Care Kaitlin (Comment on this)
Thursday, June 1st, 2006
1:17 pm	Hello again Hello all, So it has been a while. The biggest development to share is that Mike and I are engaged. He proposed on April 13th. It is all very exciting and we're working on getting things planned. It is kind of hard to do from over here. Funny how we both moved half way across the world to find each other. Who would have guessed? The weekend of April 14-16 was an Eco-camp that I worked on with one of the NGOs here in Kicevo. It is called Studencica. I wrote the project with the 2 women in charge of the youth program part of Studencica. After it was written and approved they pretty much took over which was great. It is exactly what is supposed to happen but rarely does. I was totally impressed with their organization of the whole thing. They stayed on top of things and kept me in the loop the whole way. The camp itself was held in a mountain home about 30 minutes outside of Kicevo. There were 2 houses. Each house had 8 bedrooms, 2 kitchens and 2 bathrooms. It was great. There was one meeting room where we had lectures and ate. The biggest part of the camp was a 7 hour hike we went on. It was fantastic! It was only supposed to be 4 hours or so but there was a lot of snow so that slowed us down. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. It couldn't have been better. We jumped over small streams, looked at wild flowers, fish eggs and even went into a cave. This part was a bit creepy. Our guides knew of a cave that had human skeletons so that is where we went. We took turns going into the cave – it was kind of small – in groups of 8 or so. There were so many spiders and as we went down one corridor there were many skulls and bones. On accident I put my arm down (to catch my balance) and my hand was resting on a skull. Kind of gross. Then I noticed I was standing on a hip bone. All in all it was cool but I don't think I would want to go back there. The guides said that some of the bones have been taken to be tested for their age, etc. and allegedly they are from the 3rd century. They don't know the history of it – why the people were there etc. It seemed as though the bones were petrified into the stones so I imagine they were pretty old but what do I know about that stuff? At the camp there wee lectures on water conservation, volunteerism, cultural differences, healthy eating etc. It was great. I was really impressed. It was a successful project and I hope Gordana and Milanka (the 2 women in charge) are given more opportunities to hold camps or direct other projects. Mike and I spent a few days in Turkey at the beginning of May. It was great. The bus ride was quite long but we managed. I love Turkey! This was my 3rd time there and it was great. It is so much more expensive now then it was 9 years ago when I first went there with Tina. Holy cow – American prices and for someone earning $220 a month it seemed like a fortune. One fresh orange juice was $4-6 and in Macedonia it is about 50 cents. I was in sticker shock. The museums too – Topkapi Palace was $8 to get in then an extra $8 to go to the harem and an additional $8 to get into another part of the palace. Visit all 3 places in one palace and you've just spent a good chunk of your monthly earnings. Regardless of the cost, it was worth it. We went to a Dolmabache palace (probably not spelled correctly) and it was great. I had never been there before so it was extra nice for me. It was kind of gaudy but still nice to see. We went to Troy and Gallipoli for 2 days. I really enjoyed going there. Troy was a bit of a let-down because there were so many cities built on top of each other and it was hard to figure out what was what. Still nice to go and see for historical purposes. They had a very cheesy wooden horse that you could go inside and stick your head out the window and have your picture taken. I went in. Super cheesy, I know. Mike took the photos and refused to go inside. Gallipoli was cool to see too. I learned about Gallipoli when I lived in Australia. It is the site of a very long (8 months, I think) battle between the ANZAC (Australia, New Zealand Army Corps), British and French against the Turks and Germans in WWI. The whole thing was a stalemate and in the end a couple of hundred thousand people died. Their trenches were 24 feet apart so they could hear each other's conversations, they would talk to each other, throw food, tobacco and other things back and forth, etc. The whole thing was just a big mess. I am glad we went because I wanted to go there last time I was in Turkey (with Heather in 2000) but instead we went out the night before and I was too hung-over to get on the bus to go there. That was not very mature of me. Usually there are 2 or 3 workers on the bus rides. One who drives, one who keeps him (I've never seen a female bus driver here) awake and someone who goes around the bus giving out coffee, etc. Well on the way back to Macedonia one of the guys took a few of our passports. I didn't think much of it because I just thought it was for customs or something. We were at the duty free stop and then I figured out that he took our passports so he could go and buy cartons of cigarettes! I was so mad! Had I realized what he was going to do with my passport I would have told him to piss off. Then when we went through customs he started to give the cartons to people and told them to claim them as theirs. Thank God he did not ask me because I would have refused. The nerve of some people. I swear. Thankfully we did not have any problems at customs. When Sean and Jennifer were on their way back to Macedonia from Turkey they were delayed 5 hours at the Bulgarian border because the customs people got a tip that the bus had drugs on it. Turns out their bus didn't have any drugs but the one behind them did. I got a haircut. One of my students is a hairdresser. She did a good job. I did have a slight mullet (in style here if you can believe that) which I wanted to get rid of in full so she cut the back, almost nothing off the sides and now I have a bob with bangs. I am happy with it. I decided I am going to grow it long so when Mike and I take our big trip I can pull it back into a ponytail. I may try to grow it long enough to do locks of love but I don't know if I have that much patience. We'll see. The haircut – a whopping $3. Vanessa (she lives in Ohrid and is from Columbus, OH), Laura (from Dayton and went to UD) and I were put in charge of running a Project Design and Management (PDM) workshop for counterparts of the MAK 10 group. It was 3 ½ days long (from Tuesday afternoon to Friday afternoon) and held on the mountain Vodno outside of Skopje. This hotel is nicknamed 'the cheater hotel' and we learned firsthand why the area and the hotel is named such. I'll get to that in a bit. When we arrived we were the only guests in the hotel. It was a bit creepy. We kept joking about 'redrum'. The hotel itself looks like it hasn't been changed one bit since it was built in the 60s. It was a time-warp but a fun one. I tend to love 60s fixtures so for me it was fun to take a look at the stuff. On Tuesday morning we were sitting outside on a nice patio they had where you could see Skopje. The weather was beautiful. Not too hot, not too cold, sunny and just right. We were looking around us and noticed a church next to the hotel. Kind of between the church and the hotel was this small field with very tall growth and Vanessa commented how she would like to 'frolic in the meadow'. Sure enough 5 minutes later we hear the engine of a weed-whacker start up and they were destroying her meadow. As in standard fashion in Macedonia, something is nice and pleasant and before you know it, it is gone; weed-quacked away. It made all of us laugh. Later that day we saw some smoke coming from the city and we hypothesized what it could be. The next day we learned that a bomb had gone off. Thankfully nobody was hurt. After the sessions were over on Tuesday we walked up to the cross on Vodno. We were told by one person that it would be a 30 minute walk. After an hour of walking we refused to give up. 40 minutes after that we reached the top. I walked up her last year with Mike and Doug. The views are great. There is a mountain home at the top and we went inside to get some water and there were some retired men who were there celebrating a friend's retirement – eating, drinking and singing to some music. 2 of them spoke English and we told them why we were here and the standard stuff. They were very nice, not creepy or anything. We bought some water and chocolate and as the music played they started to dance the ora which is a circle dance that Macedonians are always doing. We all joined in which the men got a real kick out of. They proceeded to bring out fish for us to eat and begged us to stay. We couldn't because it was already 7 PM and it would be getting dark soon so we had to go. They understood but wanted us to stay. It was a very fun cultural experience that lasted all of 5 minutes. Something I think I will always remember and I think they will too. They happened to pass us in their car on the way back down the mountain and they slowed down, honked and waved. It was nice. Now about the cheating situation. On Thursday after the sessions were over we decided to go to the restaurant at the end of the road to get a soda. We wanted a change of scenery and this hotel (besides the restaurant at the end of the road) is very secluded. I guess that is why cheaters bring their cheater significant others here because it is outside of town, on a mountain in the forest. Anyhow, the weather was beautiful so we decided to sit outside. There was one other table of people sitting outside – 2 men in their 40s/50s and a young woman in her 20s. As we sat down a woman in her 40s/50s came storming up and grabbed the hair of the young woman. She started yelling at her and throwing punches. The young woman was not really fighting back but just taking it all which lead us to believe she knew she was doing something inappropriate. It was like a Jerry Springer episode. At this point we decided to go inside. The fighting continued and the owner of the restaurant and the waiter went out to break it up. They called a cab for the older woman and they literally had to place her inside the taxi. I felt really bad for her. I feel pretty confident her husband was a cheater. The thing about divorce here is that women have absolutely no rights. It is not like she can leave him and sue him for alimony or anything. It just doesn't exist. If she leaves she leaves with absolutely nothing. No house, no money, no kids, nothing. Not very fair is it? The rest of the workshop went well. I feel like overall it was a success. I threw up on the bus the other day. It was really gross. I was coming back from Stip and for breakfast I had cereal and a lemon-lime drink with it. I think the milk and lemon just curdled in my stomach and that was it. It didn't help that it was probably 150 degrees on the bus (can't open the windows because people here are dead-set on the fact that the breeze will kill them). I made it to Veles (45 minutes from Stip) in one piece but started to feel a bit 'not right' on the continuing journey to Skopje. It was one of those mental games where I just kept telling myself, you can do it, look out the window, focus on the trees, hang in there, etc. Then it got to the point where I turned to the guy next to me and warned him of the upcoming event. There were no other seats on the bus so he had to sit there (he turned sideways and put his feet in the aisle) while I puked a few times into some plastic bags that I luckily brought with me. It is strange how things like that happen. I NEVER bring plastic bags with me but for some reason that day I had 3 with me. Thank God or it would have been a big mess. For the other bus ride from Skopje to Kicevo I just sat with my head on the seat in front of me. I know everyone around me thought I was a weirdo but you know, when you're sick your really just don't care what anyone thinks. At least I don't anyway. I was fine the next day. I think it was the milk/lemon/150 degree bus combo. I will avoid that in the future. Now the essay contest. Oh the essay contest. It is a great thing but it has turned into this big escapade that I don't think Jesse, Todd and myself thought it would turn into. Jesse, Todd and I are the 3 organizers of the event. It is an essay contest where the students who submit essays write them in English on the topic of Volunteerism. It all came about because the PC director in Washington wants PCVs to do several activities to promote the 45th anniversary of PC. A good concept but sometimes I think forcing people to do things because someone else wants you to is not the best motivational factor. However, if there wasn't a reason (such as the 45th anniversary) I don't think this contest would have ever been developed. We had Volunteers volunteer to teach an essay writing workshop (some with their counterparts). We hoped that the students who went to the workshop would write essays for the contest. Some did. We split the country into regions and certificates were awarded for first and second place for each region. The regional winners went to the national competition. Oh, there were 3 age groups too, 7th & 8th, 9th & 10th and 11th & 12th. Then one national winner would be determined for each age group. The awards ceremony is this Friday. The Ambassador is coming to give out the awards so it is kind of a big deal. We all think it is great that she is taking time out of her schedule to come and recognize these students that have really done an outstanding job. There are a few glitches we have run into. I am not going to get in to them but lets just say that there are things we (as organizers) could have done better such as following up with judges better and allowing more time for national judges to do their job. Overall I think we've done a pretty good job though. For the first go at this I think it has been fine. You live and learn though, right? There is one person who will remain nameless who is making me absolutely crazy through this whole process. I have had a tax-paying job for over 16 years now and I have NEVER worked with such a micro-manager. Oh my gosh it is making me crazy. I am to the point that I have to literally bite my tongue when this person speaks or sends me an email. I understand this person wants to help and make it a success and I appreciate that but when I get the same request literally 6 times, I am not thankful for the help anymore, I am angry and annoyed. If this person can't trust that I (as well as Jesse and Todd) am capable enough to be responsible for this project then they can take it on himself/herself. I could do without the aggravation of someone asking me for something 6 times. I knew it was important the first and second time you asked and I know that the 6th time you ask it is still important. WHY are you asking me 6 times??? You may be thinking well, give the person what they need. The problem is that I don't have the information and I am relying on others to get it to me and those people are out of the country and don't have access to email or phone so they can't get it to me. I told the micro-manager that as soon as I get the information that I would pass it along and every single day I continued to get emails requesting the same thing. Did I stutter when I told you the first 5 times that I would get it to you as soon as I had it? I am not withholding this information to make you life difficult. When I get it, I will pass it along, I know it is important! I even said that to the micro-manager too. I don't think he/she was happy with that but I don't care about offending this person with regard to this project anymore. I am at the end of my rope. Holy cow – breathe Kaitlin, breathe. It is almost over. I hope it is a success on Friday. What I do know is that when I get my next real job if my manager is a micro-manager I think it would be in my best interests to find a different job. If you can't trust that I can be responsible for something, don't hire me. If I fail, kick me in the ass but don't hover over me day in and day out and ask me 8 million questions – 2 million of which is the same question repeated over and over. It is enough to make any person lose their mind and patience. So spring is here and I am so happy about it. The past 2 weeks have been just glorious! The birds are chirping like crazy and it sounds wonderful. There is something special about the birds here. You seriously can walk outside and it is like you are at a bird concert. I love, love, love it. On my walk today I swear that I heard a coo-coo bird. I saw another bird that was beautiful. It was mostly grey with a little black on its body and head with a rust colored stripe along the side of it. I never thought I'd be a bird lover but I am. I am not ready to go invest in special binoculars to check them out or anything but they sure are nice to listen to and see (when you can find them). When I walk along the creek I can hear the frogs croaking and it is great. The flowers are spilling out of people's flower boxes and it is the best time of year to be here. The colors and scents of the flowers are something I will never forget. Macedonians really know how to create a garden. It is as if they are all professional landscapers. Ok, maybe that is a stretch but it doesn't seem to me like American's know how to create a beautiful yard with flowers. Macedonians seem to be born with the skill. I just love it. I want a yard (or place) with flowers. That is one of my goals in life. After living here I recognize how much pleasure I get out of seeing the colorful flowers everywhere. I also know how much I love hot weather. People here keep telling me how hot it is and how they are just dying because of the heat – yeah, it is like 80-85. Not hot in my opinion but warm. I love to walk down the street and get just a little bit sweaty. It makes me feel good. Unfortunately it is supposed to get colder again – highs in the 50s as of tomorrow and it will last through the weekend. Boo! I guess it can't be nice all the time. Sometimes it seems as though all I do is whine. I guess I feel like this journal is my space to say whatever I want. I am happy here. I am happy with the experiences I have had here and I am grateful for that but there are cultural differences and aggravations as there are in all types of work and situations. Like Doug once said 'Macedonia looks digital but it's really analog'. I think that says it all. Have I mentioned that I have taken up knitting? It is like a drug. I can't stop doing it. I am always going to yarn shops, looking on line for patterns and dreaming up the next project. It is so nice and relaxing for me. That is about it for now. Only 5 more months to go – can you believe it? 21 months have passed since I first arrived here. Where does time go? I hope all is well with everyone. Kaitlin (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, March 12th, 2006
5:35 pm	Egypt and more Oh Egypt! What a fabulous trip it was! I can't say enough good things about the country and the people there. At the end of the trip Sean made a good point. He said that the Greeks are so proud of their history (as they should be) but there is a certain air of arrogance about it. The Egyptians are also proud of their history but without even a glimmer of arrogance. It is more of a want for people to come and visit, explore and discover their unique and amazing history. As an example – the passport control guy as I left (after I told him I had a wonderful time) said 'you are welcome back anytime'. Another example is a 4-5 year old girl with little pink bows in her braided black hair yelling out to us as we walked past her (as she played with friends) 'welcome to Aswan!' as she waved frantically at us. Granted there is a lot of economic differences between Greece and Egypt – Egypt relies a great deal on tourism $ but I still think if the country was rich they would feel the same way. It seems to be in their nature. I would recommend anyone to go there and not to go with a guided tour. I think our experience was VERY different then if we had gone with a tour group. Just about everyone speaks English, French and German too so there was no language barrier. The biggest expense is the flight. Once you get there you could live off of about $15-20 a day if you wanted to. So go on expedia, travelocity or call your travel agent and book a flight. I promise you will be pleasantly surprised. About the trip... Cairo was a good starting point. If we visited it on the last leg of the trip I think I might have a different opinion. Like any large city, things are a little crazy. People, cars, buildings, more cars, sites to visit, more cars etc. Crossing the streets requires a sign of the cross and a prayer. It is like being a live version of the video game frogger. When in doubt, follow the locals and don't hesitate. Our hostel was in a great location and in the main room there were the most beautiful curved windows. I later noticed similar windows all around Egypt. They would cost an absolute fortune in the States but I guess there they are not so expensive. I wish I could package them up and bring them home. The first day we visited the Christian section of town and the bazaar. The bazaar was the standard bazaar with lots of junk that you have to haggle for. Just about everything in Egypt is negotiable when it comes to price. From the toilet paper to the carpets to the taxis. All of the prices are negotiable. It takes a few days to get used to. We went on a boat cruise that night on the Nile. The Nile is much wider then I expected it to be. It doesn't look as dirty as Macedonia's Vardar river but I still wouldn't go in for a dip. I met a British guy when I was in Israel a few years ago who swam in the Nile and caught dysentery. The dinner cruise was kind of cheesy. There was a belly dancer and a Sufi. The Sufi was cool. As he twirled and whirled I got a little motion sick. The next day was the venture out to the pyramids! We hired a driver (the hostel set it up for us) and we went to 3 places. First to Sakarra, then to the Memphis museum then to the great pyramids of Giza. The weather was weird – not overcast, not quite foggy but kind of hazy it was strange. We all hoped that by the time we got to the Giza pyramids it would be sunny and sure enough it was. The weather the whole trip was perfect. It took us about an hour to get to the first pyramids. We got out of the car and there it was – complete with armed guards on camels all around the area protecting the site. That is another thing – there are tourist police EVERYWHERE and I mean EVERYWHERE. We went into one museum there and went down into a pyramid there. I was a bit nervous because of the small space and feeling of being trapped but it wasn't bad at all. There was plenty of room to move around and stuff. We descended down a ramp then crouched down through a hallway and emerged into a room. There was one room to the left and one to the right. The one to the right was about 10x15 with a marble tomb in it. The ceiling was adorned with stars that were very cool. The stars were my favorite part of any tomb. The room to the left was much smaller – maybe half the size of the first one. We were only in the pyramid for a few minutes and that is all you need. I am glad I went in. We went back to the car and off we headed to the Memphis museum. This was not worth the trip or money. It was just a big statue. Cool to see but not worth it. From there – off to Giza! As we drove we could see them off in the distance and what a sight they were! As we approached so did the tour buses and camels. Our driver tried to get us to rent a camel but we weren't interested. We found our way to the entrance and WOW! The sight was just amazing. We went near the sphinx first. It was much smaller then we expected but I think it was my favorite part of the area. By now the haze had burnt off and we had a bright blue sky. It was just spectacular. We walked around the pyramids and considered going in but it was pretty expensive and since we already went into one we declined to do it here. We just walked around gazing at the enormous structures. I can't even imagine what they would have been like a few thousand years ago when they were built. It really is a sight to see. After visiting the pyramids we were all starving so if you can believe this, we ate at a Burger King/Pizza Hut across the street. So as we sat with our lunch, we gazed out the window at the pyramids. Nothing like old meeting new. The driver dropped us off at a local bazaar that some guy from Sweden told us about. It was definitely a local bazaar and I don't think they are used to seeing westerners there. This is the only time I felt a bit nervous. Just a lot of staring going on. The next and final day in Cairo we went to the Egyptian museum, walked along the Nile, ate lunch at Hard Rock, went to a 'lovers' park (people can't date so they go here to stroll around and chat) and off we were to Aswan. The museum was great but it was kind of dilapidated so it concerns me. The artifacts are not in any kind of climate controlled cases and it was built in 1906 so I wonder what kind of damage is being done to the items there. I heard they are building a new museum so that is good. The ride to Aswan was cool. We booked the overnight train. Mike and I had a cabin, Sean and Jennifer had a cabin and we had a door connecting them so we had a little suite. I could tell the train was old but it was very well kept and clean. We had 2 beds with starched white sheets and a blanket, sink with towels, dinner and breakfast served to us, climate control etc. It was a cool get-up. The 12 hour trip in the cabin with food was only $55 per person. Not bad. One unlucky event on this part of the trip is that I ate something that did not agree with me at all. When we arrived in Aswan we needed to get to our hostel FAST or I would surely have an accident. Thankfully by about 1:00 I was better and was able to explore the city. We took a boat over to Elephantine Island to explore the Nubian village. Nubians are the indigenous population of Egypt. The houses were painted with such bright colors. It was beautiful. We met some other travelers who directed us to a lady whose house is a small museum and she explains about Nubian history and life etc. We were able to find the house and go on the little tour. The woman was great and the house so interesting. They all have a room that has a ceiling on only over half of the room kind of like a little patio on the second floor. The top floor has a ceiling but doesn't have walls so it is a great place to catch a breeze and relax. Hers had furniture made from coconut trees. It was so comfortable and we all could have stayed up there all day. She had a little shop where we spent some dough and off we went – back to Aswan. I bought some fabric that I LOVE. At first he said it would be 65 Egyptian pounds per meter (about $11) and I ended up getting it for 15 EP (about $3) per meter so I felt like it was a good deal. Sean traded his sunglasses for a t-shirt. It was great to walk around the market in Aswan. There are a ton of spice shops and they are so fun to just stand there and stare at. So many colors and the spices are piled so high. Aswan is such a nice little city and so much more relaxing then crazy Cairo. I could spend many days there just wondering around. For dinner we walked to a Nubian restaurant. We got a bit lost but finally found the place. The food was great and the service was excellent. I really like the Nubian people. All that we met were so kind and just pleasant people. I feel bad (like most indigenous populations) they have been crapped on their whole existence. The next day we went to the Nubian museum which was one of the best museums I have ever been to. It is so well put together (with UNESCO funds) and easy to follow. It traces Nubian and Egyptian history. Behind the museum is a large garden but they didn't let us go because they 'closed in 20 minutes'. Kind of a bummer. From there we went to the west bank to go to the Monastary of St. Simeon. We had to go to Elephantine Island first then catch another boat to the other side of the river. We found a nice felucca owner who took us across for a reasonable price. He was jolly and had a fun sense about him. We agreed that we would take his boat 'round-trip' so when we were ready to come back to Elephantine Island from the west bank we were just supposed to 'wave Jennifer's blue jacket' and he would come back over to the west bank and get us. We all agreed that we would take a camel ride up to the monastary. There were tons of camels there so we negotiated a price for the 4 of us and off we were on our large, beautiful creatures. Camels have great personalities. They don't like to be told what to do and they let you know when they're pissed off by yelling at you. They always look like they are smiling and their eyelashes are long and gorgeous. As they step down their feet spread out as to make a bigger surface area to hit the sand. I read on line it is so they don't sink in the sand. Their necks are so long and as I got on mine I was looking at what I was doing and as I looked up it turned out the camel had his neck and head turned all the way around and was staring at me kind of as to say 'what the hell are you doing?'. Giraffes are my favorite animals but camels are now a close second. We made our way up to the monastary in our 4 person caravan. It was so fun. It is not something I would want to do everyday or for a long time but to do it once was fun. The monastary was great. It was more like a fortress. Lots of rooms, stairs, walkways, a nice fresco, arched doorways, views of the desert, etc. From there I saw one man riding a camel and the creature was galloping along. It looked like a scene from Star Wars. The body of the camel seemed to stay kind of stationary with the legs going like crazy and the neck and head kind of bobbing up and down slowly. They are really cool animals. Jennifer wanted to bring one home. Going back down to the bank of the river was a bit scarier then going up. You have to lean back or you will surely catapult off the front of the camel. I was gripping onto the saddle so hard that I got a blister on my left pointer finger. It is on a crease too so it is taking forever to heal. It's ok, it was worth it. We waved the blue jacket and over came our felucca man. Once we got back to Aswan we ate lunch at a little place on the river. I sat there thinking about how great it was to be in Egypt, sitting on the bank of the Nile, eating good food, having good conversation with friends and how darn lucky I am in so many ways. Soon after lunch we caught the train to Luxor. We arrived in the evening and didn't do much except grab a bite to eat at the Irish pub. The beer was bad but the onion soup was great. The next morning we made our way to the bank of the Nile, walked along it and went to the Luxor temple. It was amazing. The size of the structures are just unbelievable. We kept having these teenage boys following us around asking to take pictures with us. We kindly refused. It was weird. There is an avenue of sphinx which did go from the temple all the way to Karnak 3K's away. These statues are very close together so I can only imagine the street when they were all there. It would have been out of this world. From the temple we went to the bazaar. We wanted to just walk around but ended up finding a carpet shop. The owner was very nice and we all had a good time chatting and negotiating prices with him. Mike and I walked out with 2 rugs and 2 ½ yards of fabric. I really like both rugs but one of them I am in love with. It is about 4x8 and has a whole village scene with people, mosque, animals etc. I just love it. Its not something you would put in a living room but somewhere very casual. Sean and Jennifer bought a few rugs (some as gifts). We were all happy. We couldn't lug the carpets around all day so we went back to the hotel to drop them off and then went to lunch. After a good lunch we walked to Karnak which is a temple 3Ks away from Luxor. As Murphy's law would have it, we got there as they were closing at 4 PM. C'est la vie. If we wanted to go we would have to go the next day. We walked back to town and went to the mummification museum which was a big disappointment for me. I expected it to walk through the whole process step by step but it really didn't do that. It had some brief explanations of how it was all done but that was it. Boo. We walked back to the bazaar street, looked at some more carpets, checked out some scarves and went to have some grub. We found a place called Ali Babas so we went for a snack of hummus and tahina. Delicious! Later to an English pub for dinner and off to bed. We woke up early the next morning to get a good start on the day. There was a lot to do! First off, valley of the Kings. We got on the local ferry that took us to the west bank and rented bikes. At first I kind of didn't want to do this. The valley is 11Ks from the dock and I just kept having visions of my ride around the sea of Galilee a few years ago when all I wanted to do was die. It was at least 120 degrees on the black pavement, it was August in Israel and we had 26 miles to cover. I got so dehydrated I wanted to suck off the salt on my arms. Everything hurt. I only made it about 2/3 of the way and had to take a boat back. Thankfully, this ride was very enjoyable and pleasant with no dehydration or big hills. I felt it had to be kind of easy when we went to get the bikes and they were circa 1950 with no gears. To our surprise the Luxor marathon was being run this day so we got to ride past runners and cheer them on. I really enjoyed this because when you are running a marathon it is so hard and at least for me there are so many times where you want to stop but when there is someone on the side of the road who you may or may not know cheering you on, it gives you the extra punch to keep going. The marathon made us take a detour from our straight shot to the valley but it was fine. Eventually we found the way and headed up the incline. It wasn't bad at all. I never even had to get up and pedal, I could remain seated so you know the incline wasn't too bad. Eventually we reached the valley and it was like we had stepped into another world. It looks a lot like Arizona but the color was more brown/yellow instead of red/brown that you find in AZ. Standing there I wondered how many tombs there actually were there. I imagine that there is still a lot to be discovered there. A week or so before we went a team from the U of Memphis found another one. We saw where their work was being done. We couldn't go into it but we saw the little sign and the railing around the excavation area. Pretty cool. We parked our bikes (the guard there later wanted us to give him a tip for watching them – yeah, nice try buddy – we locked them up) and went inside. We weren't sure which ones we wanted to go to. We originally thought King Tut but it is an extra $18 to see his tomb over and above the $8 entrance fee. I mean King Tut is cool and all but a mummy is a mummy. They all kind of look the same. Wrapped dead bodies that are cool but also a bit creepy. With the ticket you get to go into 3 tombs. I can't even tell you which ones we went into but they were all very cool. The artwork on the walls was amazing. Like the pyramid we went into, most of these had some kind of stars on the ceiling. Some of them had long chambers that took you from room to room, one of them was just one hallway to a tomb. One of them had a mummy of probably a servant or something in one of the small rooms off of the tomb room. One of the workers showed it to us with a flashlight. Then he wanted a little tip, of course. It was very hot in all of them. I can't help but wonder what kind of damage is being caused to them having people shuffle in and out everyday. All the pictures being taken, all the breathing, the lights etc. I hope they are still intact for thousands of years but I doubt they will be. That makes me kind of sad. After the valley we took the bikes back and went for lunch. We found a place at the top of a hotel that overlooked the Nile. Again, good company, good setting, great friends etc. Another wonderful experience. We went back to the other side and decided to bite the bullet and try to go to Karnak. We took a cab and were able to visit the site. It was bigger then Luxor temple but I don't think it was as impressive. We were all a bit tired so it didn't seem as interesting to any of us, I don' t think. We walked back, shopped in the bazaar street some more, went back to the hotel, went for dinner and went to bed. Yet another great day in Egypt. The next morning we were off to Hurghada for our all inclusive, Red Sea getaway. We went to the bus station and waited, and waited, and waited. We met a couple from Australia who were also going to Hurghada so that was kind of nice. Finally the bus came and the 4 hour trip turned into 7 hours with lots of stops, one bus switch and heat. We made it though. As we got off the bus we were ATTACKED by taxi drivers. We found one guy who took us where we needed to go for a reasonable price and this was strange – when you get in a cab there is a security person who checks you in and calls your destination to let them know you are coming. I guess this is done so people don't kidnap westerners or something. As we pulled up to the hotel all of us were amazed at the sight of the place. It looked like we entered the cartoon Aladdin. Lots of colors, onion domes etc. We had to leave our bags at the entrance and go to check in. We were given a suite and immediately went to eat some food. We were all pretty excited for this all-inclusive thing. It didn't turn out to be as great as we thought it would be. The staff was not so friendly, if we tried to pay for drinks (alcoholic ones) and not charge it to the room they got mad, if we paid in the local currency we were penalized and had to pay more. It was just not as good as we expected. We thought we would arrive around 1 but we didn't end up getting there until around 3:30 or so. It was too late to go to the beach, the towel guy had already taken his beach towels in for the day and wouldn't give us any so we decided to drink some free beer, play cribbage and wait until dinner. After dinner we went back to the bar to just relax and they had an 'animation team' that is responsible for organizing all entertainment events. I guess we are not just in to these things. We all felt it was very cheesy. I can't explain, really. Just trust me. We thought about taking a flight back to Cairo because our bus ride was long and not so pleasant and we missed most of the day here so we wanted to savor as much of the beach as we could. We went to the little Internet cafe that they had at the hotel and checked for flights. Flights from Hurghada to Cairo were around $130 – not too bad. It beats a 7 hour bus ride. Here is where we had one of our issues with payment. The price said for a half an hour it was 3 euros. Extremely expensive (most other places we went to were about .50-1 euro for ½ hour) but we knew that and were willing to pay for it to check our email and flights. When Sean went to pay he wanted to pay in the local currency – Egyptian pounds. Well, 3 euros is around 19 pounds. The guy charged Sean 25. At that time Mike, Jennifer and I were not in the cafe anymore. Sean came out and looked a bit confused and asked what we thought the conversion was and we told him and he said he just got screwed. This made me MAD. So I marched back in there and had a little conversation with him. He said that his manager said that if someone wants to pay in local currency they must pay 25 (around 4 euros) instead of 3. It went back and forth and eventually it came down to me asking Mike to go back up to the room to get 3 euros so we could pay and not pay more. One thing Mike noticed too is that when we signed the little sheet the guy put 20 down next to our names instead of 25 so we don't know if he was lying to us about his manager and just pocketing the extra 5 pounds or what. Oh I was fired up! We retired early and decided the next day we would go to the beach! Yes! The hotel had a shuttle to the beach. Turns out it was pretty close (maybe 15-20 minutes walking). We found some chairs and rested in the sun. As we were sitting there we were approached by a guy who organized snorkeling trips. They start at 8:30 AM and end around 4:30 PM. He showed us pictures and made the standard sales pitch and we were sold. One good thing about knowing some Macedonian it is like we can talk in 'code' to discuss things before we make a decision. This came in very handy throughout the trip. We all agreed we wanted to go but it depended on if we could find a flight from Hurghada back to Cairo. Sean took one for the team and went back to the hotel to get flights organized. He was able to organize a flight at 8:30 PM for $125! Yes! We were all so happy – now we could go on the snorkeling trip and not have to sit on a bus for 7 (or probably more) hours. We relaxed on the beach for a few more hours, ate lunch there and walked back to the hotel instead of taking the bus. Again we sat a the bar, played cribbage and just hung out. The next day we were up early, ate breakfast, checked out (which went surprisingly smooth) and left for our snorkeling trip. The hotel said we could bring their beach towels with us on the trip and let us shower when we got back so that was great. Little did we know that later on it would turn into a bit of a debacle. We collected our snorkeling gear and headed to the boat. There were 25 people on the trip from all over the place. I am pretty sure we were the only Americans. The guide went over where we were going, how much time we would have at each place and off we went. It was a bit chilly at first because it was 9AM and there was a breeze going. The water was such an amazing color – green and blue like toothpaste. The first stop was nice but not great. Sean liked this spot the best. Mike had never been snorkeling before so it was an experience for him. He really liked it. The water was cold so it took me a minute or two to get up the courage to take the plunge. The reefs were nice and there were some pretty colorful fish but not an abundance of them. I only lasted about 15 minutes because I was so cold. The next stop was nice but the 3rd one was my favorite. The reefs were long and I saw a lot of great colorful fish there. When we all first got into the water there were 2 fish that were pretty big. The don't have teeth so there was nothing to be afraid of but they were probably 2 high by 3' long with huge lips. Mike claims that they were bigger then me but I don't think they were. I was able to tolerate this water for much longer. It was later in the day and I was a bit warmed-up by then. After that we were taken to an island to sunbathe. It was so relaxing. It was so nice to lie there and think that at that time we were supposed to be on a bus to Cairo but instead we were sitting on warm sand on an island in the Red Sea. Eventually it was time to head back to Hurghada. This is when the magic happened. We started going back and the boat started to turn a different way and there were a few boats kind of in a circle. In the middle of that circle were 6 dolphins. They were jumping and flipping as if we were at some kind of sea world show. The dolphins left and came back, some boats left and this went on for about a half an hour. Eventually all the other boats left and it was only ours. The captain turned the boat in circles so the dolphins could swim in the wake but not wake – whatever the boat makes in the water at the front of the boat. Well I guess dolphins really like swimming in this and I was at the front of the boat so literally the dolphin was about 4' from me. It swam along then went under the boat then came back out then did a little jump out of the water right next to me. Very cool! Oh, I forgot to say that at one point when there were a bunch of boats that some snorkelers (from another boat) got into the water with the dolphins and were petting and swimming with them. I am not too sure how I felt about that but what is done is done. So the trip was complete. Great weather, good fish, reefs, dolphins, sunbathing etc. Another experience to file away in my head of memories. We got back and there wasn't a bus to take us to the hotel so we had to walk. When we got there they said we could shower in the health club. That worked out fine. We used the towels that we had been using all day but that wasn't a big deal. Sean returned his to the person there and Mike took his, Jennifer's and mine back to the place where we got them. Well they have a system there that when you check in to your room you get a card that entitles you to towels for the beach or pool. When you get the towels you give them the card and they give you the towels. When you bring the towels back they give you the card back. When Mike returned the towels there wasn't a card for us even though we turned one in. We figured that since we checked out of the room that they just gave it to the new people that were occupying our room. We collected our stuff and went to the front of the hotel to catch a cab to take us to the airport. The security guy said we couldn't leave because we still had 'outstanding towels'. Mike and Sean went in to get it resolved. Jennifer and I waited outside and tried to negotiate a cab price. The driver wanted 20 British pounds to go to the airport. Now, it cost us 30 Egyptian pounds ($6) to get from the bus station to the hotel and it was about 2x as far as the airport. I told him 20 Egyptian pounds. We went back and forth and the guy really pissed me off so Jennifer and I just got out of the cab and started to take our bags. Then of course he was willing to negotiate. His argument was that he had to pay the entrance fee to the parking lot to the airport and that is why it was so expensive. I asked him how much that fee was and he said 5 Egyptian pounds (.90 cents or so). Finally we agreed on 35 EP and it was still a rip off but that is life. It was taking Sean and Mike FOREVER so I went inside to see what the deal was. They would not let them leave and were conducting an 'internal investigation' for the towel card. Give me a freaking break! Clearly we had to have the card to get the towels (I got the towels in the AM and gave the guy the card) and when we came back there was no card so THEY lost it somehow. It was not our problem. Sean and Mike were both on fire and the guy told Sean to 'not get angry'. Sean replied 'if I am angry, believe me, you will know it and I am not angry yet'. Oh my gosh the towel drama. I think it was the most angry I have ever seen Mike. Finally the guy from the towel check-in came to verify that Mike did in fact bring the towels back so finally they let us go. Holy cow! What a nightmare. Finally we were off to the airport. At the airport we ate some sandwiches and the guy who worked there and made the sandwiches was so nice that he redeemed Hurghada for us. Off we were to Cairo. The thing about Hurghada is that it is a resort town it in no way, shape or form is Egypt except for the fact that it is located within the country's borders. It is a shame that so many people go to Egypt and only go to these resort places. They don't see the real Egypt at all. Not that we did either but I feel like we did see a bit of the 'real' Egypt. In Cairo we tried to sleep. It was a bit noisy and there were a ton of people there. Sean talked to one person and he said that they were all refugees from Sudan. Some were off to AZ, some to Australia and some to Canada (I think). Pretty cool. Our flight left at 4AM and we were all zombies. Mike and I had a problem because they checked our bags through to Skopje but we were staying in Italy for a day so we needed them. We had to have them switch it when we got to the gate. I am glad we noticed it before we got on the flight though because I would have been so mad if we arrived in Italy to find out that our bags went on to Skopje and there I would be in a t-shirt and light pants. The passport control guy was so nice. He said something to me in Arabic and I just smiled and he said 'you don't speak Arabic?'. I said no but said the 2 words I knew – hello and thank you. He laughed and asked how I liked Egypt. I told him I thought it was great and he said 'you are welcome back anytime. Have a nice trip home.' Just nice. He was just nice. I love when people are just nice for no reason. He was not going to get anything from me but he was nice just for the reason to be nice. Not expecting anything in return. Off we were to Italy! Sean and Jennifer stayed in the airport to continue on to Skopje, Mike and I made our way to downtown Milan. We bought a map and got on the metro. A lady tried to rob Mike but thankfully he felt her and yelled at her. So typical Italy. I must say, this is my 4th time to Italy and my 3rd encounter with an attempted or successful robbery. That is not such a great record. Freaking Italy. We found the hotel. It was still early and we couldn't check in yet so we went for a bite to eat. Mike had to run an errand so I went to the post office and went back to the hotel. He showed up an hour or two later and was kind of annoyed. The place where he was supposed to go was closed so he had to go back at 2. We got there a little after 2 and what he was supposed to get was shipped from the US to the other store in town (the wrong store). So the guy said 'come back tomorrow'. Again, typical Italy. No, we can't come back tomorrow because we won't be here. So WE had to get in a cab, spend 15 euros to go to the other store when it was THEIR mistake. We got there, Mike went inside and what he ordered was incorrect so he refused to take it. Oh the joy of countries with absolutely no customer service! Soon enough we were off to Torino! Yeah! We arrived and wondered around. It seems like a beautiful city. We went to the sponsor park area which was great. We both wished we had more time to just wonder around. We made our way to the Arena. As we walked we saw Canadians walking out – all decked out in their maple leaves. It was fun. There was a lot of energy with people all around from all over. Everyone was in good spirits and it was just fun. The game itself was great. Russians to the left and in front of is, some British people to the right, some Americans off to the far right, some Swiss on the far left. It was just cool seeing all the people with their flags, chanting and having a good time. Unfortunately, Mike and I had to leave about 2 minutes into the 3rd period because the last train from Tornio to Milan was at 11:00 and if we missed it then we were in for a several hundred dollar cab ride or sleeping on the street. I wish we had thought of this before we went but we didn't. We both kind of hoped that there would be special transport because it was the Olympics but we were wrong. Oh well. Even though we had to leave early it was a great experience. I would love to make a vacation of going to the Olympics sometime. Save up and spend a week at the games. I really just love the Olympics. Back in Kicevo I settled into my routine. 2 days after getting back I went to Ohrid to spend the weekend with Vanessa to learn some knitting tips. I had a great time. She is kind of a knitting queen so it was great to spend time with her and pick her brain. At the ripe age of 23 she has produced sweaters, ponchos, hats and many scarves. Great stuff. We spend a good amount of time at the yarn store there and it was great. I just stood there staring at stuff, touching it all. I love doing that. I could have stood there for hours and I swear the place is no bigger then 15x15. She has a box of 'a pattern a day' so I looked through that, made some copies and choose some yarn for a poncho. So far, it is turning out pretty well. We'll see. Vanessa is just fun and has a good head on her shoulders. On Sunday Vanessa, Tessa (who also lives in Ohrid), Tessa's host sister and I went to Josh's (who also lives in Ohrid) for lunch. He made a great salad with grilled chicken. His apartment is lined with windows that overlook the lake. I sat there thinking how nice it was to be there with friends, eating a good lunch with that kind of view. It is things like that that I will miss about being here. The following week we had our mid-service training in Skopje. It was pretty good. The Ambassador came, a Foreign Service guy came and the mayor of the only Roma municipality in Europe came. Believe it or not it is on the outskirts of Skopje. All of them were great. There were several other lectures which were pretty good and we watched a film called 'Whose song is it?'. It was interesting. A Bulgarian woman was at a restaurant sitting with people from other Balkan countries and a song came on and all claimed it to be their own. She then went on a mission to all the Balkan countries to see where it originated. It was good until she almost got attacked by some Serbs who wanted to just about kill her. Macedonia is the only place that said 'No, this is not ours. We don't have this kind of tune in our folk songs'. Yeah for Macedonia having the balls to be honest and for not trying to claim it if they knew it wasn't theirs. Then last week was kind of a week from hell. I kind of had a 'I hate Macedonia' week. It will pass, I am sure. This was not the first week like it. One good thing was that one student told me that I was a very good teacher. That really made me happy. I have these 3 students who cheated on their first test so I told them they would have to take it again. One lady came in and took it and did really well. She didn't cheat. The other two came at a different time and strategically put a bag in front of them so I couldn't see what was going on and when I went over to them an old test (with answers) was on the table between them. I then proceeded to take their tests and excused them. Then, get this, one of the ladies husband's works as a police officer in the next village. He told one of his subordinate police officers to come to the office to try and 'persuade' me to pass the woman. Yeah, I don't think so. This class is just to learn and I don't give the test to be a pain but you shouldn't proceed to the next level until you have a grip on the first level. Plus if you cheat, sorry but you lose. Especially if you cheat twice. I mean come on! I know 'helping' each other is part of the culture here when it comes to tests but I can't follow that rule. I do let some small things slide by but not when you are taking the test and have the book on your lap or a test with the answers next to you. Even after I told them not books and no cheating. Oh joy! I hope she doesn't have the gall to come back to class because I don't want her there. Angie came here this weekend so that was nice. Especially after a 'I hate Macedonia' week. I needed some American companionship. We didn't do much beyond watch movies, talk and eat. Not bad. I am hoping the weather has something to do with my feelings. I think just about everyone thought spring was here but then it snowed on Monday. Then it has been raining. I just want the warm weather to come. Well, that is about it from this end. Congrats to those of you who actually read this whole thing. You deserve a metal. Hope all is well in the States! Kaitlin (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 22nd, 2006
10:00 am	2 months have passed Wow, sorry everyone. It has been almost 2 months since I last wrote. Well Thanksgiving was nice. Peace Corps had a dinner in the same restaurant that they had it in last year. This year I made a mad dash for the food because last year I got only a sliver of turkey. This year, I had my fill. It was fun to see all the MAK 10s there with their host families. It was a nice night. Then there was the Thanksgiving weekend in Berovo which was nice except for one thing which I will get to later. We all arrived in Berovo and made a shopping list. A few of us went and bought all the goods then went up to the house in the mountains. It was a great house- perfect for a weekend away. Only 15 minutes from Berovo but far enough away where we felt like we were in the wilderness. The house itself was very nice. I think there were around 12 of us there and all but 2 people had a bed so it was a pretty big place. Meals were assigned to groups of 3-4 so nobody felt like they had to work the whole time. It really worked out well. We played games, listened to music and drank a lot of toplo rakija (warm brandy with sugar). On Saturday we went for a hike led by one of Doug's friends. The weather was great – not too cold, sunny and just perfect. I was a bit hungover so that part was not so much fun. When we got back from the hike we ate lunch then went out to play some football – the Thanksgiving tradition. We divided up into teams and it was fun....up until Ricky fell and broke his collarbone. At first we all thought he pulled his arm out of the socket but that was not the case. It was too late to catch the last bus to Skopje so he had to take a taxi all the way and Dr. Mimi (the PC Doctor) met him to see what the problem was. Turns out he broke longways across the bone and he was shipped off to America a week later to have surgery. When he fell he didn't scream or anything. He just got up and said his shoulder hurt a lot. It seemed like it would be one of those things that he would just 'shake off' after a few minutes. Unfortunately he was really injured. We found out last week that he will not be returning to Macedonia to finish his service. When you're sick and get medically evacuated you have 45 days to recover. If you do, they send you back to the country where you serve to continue your service. If you don't heal, you are medically separated from PC. That put a slight damper on the mood. We discontinued our football game and went inside to start the evening events. That consisted of playing more games, drinking more toplo rakija and hanging out. Sunday we all went back to our respective homes. It was a nice weekend but would have been better had Ricky not gotten hurt. I guess there is not a whole lot to say between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Life just kind of plugged along. Work, visit people, relax, knit. Have I told you all that I am addicted to knitting now? It's like I can't stop. I guess that isn't such a bad hobby to have. I guess some stuff happened at work but I will get to that later. The Thursday before Christmas I went to Bitola to do a presentation at the American Corner there. The presentation was on the holiday traditions in America. It think it was a success. I made some sugar cookies (with the help of one of the new Vols in Kicevo, Erika) and one of the women who works there made eggnog. I got there early enough to meet with Jesus (he lives in a village outside of Bitola) and he took me to the best yarn store in Macedonia. Going to those kinds of stores is just a little piece of heaven for me. You can even find knitting needles there and let me tell you, those are impossible to find in this country. Everyone knits but nobody sells knitting needles. One day I went to 14 stores in Kicevo with no luck. This store itself is maybe 12x12, somewhat organized with yarn from floor to ceiling on 2 ½ walls. The other walls have other decorative crafty stuff. I gave myself a limit of 500 Denars (about $10) which doesn't seem like much but in the Macedonia yarn world, it can go a long way. I walked away only spending 365 Denars. Anyway, the lecture went well and one of the girls who attended Camp GLOW was there. It was nice to see her. After the lecture Jesus and I went to eat with some of his friends. They were all super nice and I wish I had a group of people like that to hang out with in Kicevo. I have some friends here but nobody that I am really close to. I think there are only 2-3 Macedonian (or Albanian) people who I will keep in touch with after PC is over. Eventually we made it back to his house where we exchanged knitting ideas and went to bed. I had to be up early in the morning to catch a bus to Skopje for a meeting. I must share that I love Bitola. It is my favorite city in Macedonia. It is the old capital of the country and it just has a lot of charm. It has a nice park, beautiful buildings, progressive people and it is all at the foot of Pelister – one of the highest mountains in Macedonia (some of you may remember I climbed it last year at the end of April). Christmas was nice. Mike came to Kicevo and we celebrated just the two of us. A few people had parties but we just wanted to be alone. We really celebrated on Christmas Eve. I had a small light-up tree that a MAK 8 left behind for me so that was nice in helping the atmosphere. I also had some decorations sent to me by my nieces. Paper snowflakes, wreaths and trees. They were all really cute. We opened gifts sporadically throughout the day but saved our 'biggest' gifts for each other for after dinner. My final gift to him was a cribbage board (we play all the time and I always get my ass kicked) and he gave me a nice rain jacket. We made a chicken, scalloped potatoes and a broccoli and cheese casserole. All of it was delicious. On Christmas morning we took a bus to Bitola to go to Mass. There is a Catholic church there. Mass was at 9 AM so we had to take the 7 AM bus. It was absolutely freezing on the bus. We didn't have heat for the 1 1 /2 hour ride. We were both popsicles. We arrived in Bitola and decided to have some kind of warm beverage. We found a cafe and downed some hot chocolate as we waited for 9 AM to come. We left the cafe and in front of the church was Jesus, Tessa and Doug. They mentioned that they planned on going to Mass at some point but that they would probably go to the midnight one. Turns out they didn't go so they met us for this one. The church was small but pretty. It doesn't have heat so slowly our now warm bodies turned back into popsicles. Apparently Catholics here don't go to Communion – same as the Poles. I am not sure what the deal is with that but because only about 10 people went up to receive, we all declined to go. After Mass we all just walked around, stopped at a cafe or two, ate pizza, walked around the grocery store and enjoyed the day. Mike and I took the 4:00 bus back to Kicevo and that was Christmas weekend in a nutshell. For New Year's Mike and I went to Bulgaria. Neither of us had been before so it was a good opportunity to go. In PC, weekends are not vacation days so if you go on vacation from Friday to Tuesday it is 4 days of vacation you lose (the first and last day of your vacation count as ½ days). However if it is a national holiday then the day does not count as vacation. Monday and Tuesday were Macedonian holidays so Mike and I went from Sunday to Wednesday and only counted as 1 day of vacation. Also there is no real way to get around it because when you get back into the country you have to contact them within 24 hours of when you are supposed to be back. If you don't, they have to contact Washington and get a search going for you. PC is great in a lot of ways but in even more ways I feel like I am in Kindergarten again. I wish there was some way to sign a release form so that I didn't have to be babysat all the time. Mike and I made reservations for a bus to Sofia from Stip (the town where Mike lives) sometime around the first week of December. They told us how much it was and where we needed to go to catch the bus. Mike gave them his # in case there was an issue. Sure enough, in standard Macedonian fashion, we went the day of to get the tickets and we were told 'no bus. Come back January 3rd'. Oh Macedonia! No idea when it comes to customer service. M&K – Is there a bus from another town? Bus lady – I don't know. M&K – Do you have any phone numbers of any bus stations in the eastern part of the country? Bus lady – No, I don't have any numbers. M&K – Do you know of any other bus companies? Do you have a phone number of one of the other companies? Bus lady – No. I can't help you, come back January 3rd. There are a few buses each day from Skopje so there HAD to be buses going but we were in Stip and didn't want to go all the way back to Skopje without calling first. We came up with an alternate plan. We were able to go to Berovo for the night and stay with Doug. Then in the morning we took a bus to Delchevo (a town 9K's from the border) because there is a bus that leaves from there at 8AM to Sofia. We got there, no bus. We took a taxi across the border to a town across the border. Then we got another bus to Sofia from there. Oh the joys of Balkan travel! I can only imagine how much more frustrating it would have been if we didn't speak even a little bit of the language. The one good thing is that because we were in a taxi the border crossing was fast and we were able to get in a taxi and a bus right away so we didn't have to wait. That part was good. Now Bulgaria. I thought I was going to LOVE it. People warned me that it was no Budapest but for whatever reason, I didn't believe them and I should have because I was a bit disappointed. It was nice but it wasn't anything out of this world. It is cheaper then Macedonia which kind of makes me laugh because they are going into the EU in 12 months. Logically it should be more expensive there but it is cheaper. The whole trip with food, lodging, transportation, and souvenirs was $250. Cheap. They have some great yarn stores too! It is much cleaner then Macedonia so that was nice to see. There are also some old pretty buildings in Sofia. I imagine Skopje had some similar buildings before the earthquake knocked them down about 40 years ago. The food was great. I had one of the best meals I've had since I've been away from America. It was just chicken with wild rice but it was so wonderful. I also ate 3 dunkin' doughnuts while we were there. I never eat them at home but because they were there, I went for it. I was amazed at how similar the languages are. Bulgarians speak faster but it is almost identical to Macedonian. We went to the Rila Monestary which is about a 2 hour drive from Sofia. It is nestled in the mountians and its adorned with bright frescoes. They are stunning and the colors are so vibrant. We checked out the church there, went to the museum they have and wondered around the grounds. The driver gave us 2 hours to do what we wanted. It was the perfect amount of time. After Sofia we traveled to Veliko Turnovo. It is the old capital of Bulgaria and is just about smack in the middle of the country. It is a college town so there is a lot of energy there. The city is kind of up on the side of some large hills/mountains and a river runs far down below. It is quite pretty. The architecture is old school and there is a lot to do. There is a fortress there that still needs a little work but worth a look. We went into some churches, a house museum that showed all different kinds of traditional clothes and explained traditions, walked around and just enjoyed our time there. Then back to Macedonia. The following weekend Mike and I went to Buzalkovo to see my host family. They were very open to having Mike there. We even slept there on Sunday night. Hacibe explained to me that in their culture men and women don't really 'date' and are almost never seen together before marriage so this was strange for them. I told them that in America people date and know each other very well for months or years before they tie the know. Different culture. I was happy to see Avne loves school and is keen on getting all 5's. It was nice to see them and I think they had a nice time with us. Work is a long, long, long story. I have come to the realization that I can no longer work for the organization where I currently am. They want me to be there 7-8 hours a day when there is NOTHING for me do to. I spend about 5-6 hours a day there and 90% of it is me doing personal things. It is a waste of time. In many ways I think they think they own me and can tell me what to do at all times. I have tried to resolve the situation and Ema from PC came to help resolve the situation and Ismet (one of my counterparts) said that there was no problem and that I was just 'too emotional and shouldn't be'. It is kind of hard to solve a problem when one person who I believe is part of the problem doesn't believe there is one. 2 situations to give you an idea: (work around 2:30) K – Ok, I am leaving now. I will be back before class. Ismet – Can you come back at 4:30 because Beti and I have to go to a meeting at 5. K – No problem. See you at 4:30 (I leave to run some errands) 4:13 my phone rings - I – Are you at home? K – No I – Where are you? K – I am in the center of town. I – You need to get to work now. K – Ok, I am leaving now. I am walking so it will take me 15 minutes or so but I will be there soon. I – No, you need to get here now – in 5 minutes. You need to take a taxi. K – I am sorry but I don't want to pay for a taxi but I am leaving now and I will be there within 15 minutes. I – No Kaitlin. You take a taxi and you get here in 5 minutes. K – Ok Ismet, If you want me to take a taxi you will need to pay for the taxi. I – Fine, I will pay for the taxi. Get here in 5 minutes. What I don't understand is that when I left at 2:30 why didn't he say – be here at 4:15 instead of 4:30? I could have done that, I just needed to be asked. I don't appreciate being spoken to like that and I made it clear later on that evening that speaking to someone like that is unacceptable, unprofessional and degrading. I got all kinds of excuses blah, blah. There have been several stories similar to that one. Here's another one: Setting – It is 6:15 – the center closes at 8. I do not have a key. I – I am going to pick up some invoices K – Ok, see you later. Time passes it is 8:15. Ismet has not returned and there has been no phone call. Ismet walks in. I – Sorry I am late. K – It is fine if you are going to be late but I wish you would have called so I knew what time you were going to be back. I – You should have called me! K – How would I have known to call you if I didn't know you were going to be late? I – When it got to be 8 you should have called me. I am not going to use my minutes on my phone to call you. K – Ok, next time I will call you but I have always been told not to use the phone in the center especially to call cellphones because it is too expensive. I – Kaitlin this is for a work purpose. Shame that you have been a year and don't know that you can use the phone. What a shame. Again, don't talk to me like that. I am not a mind reader. How am I supposed to know that you are going to be late? Weirdo. So, what it boils down to is that I am probably going to be working with another NGO soon. It is an organization that works with Roma (gypsy) people. I have been working there 2 times a week as it is so now I am hoping to make the switch permanent to be there full time. I will still teach English at the NGO center (if they want me to). Hopefully it will all work out. It can't stay the way it is. Talking to Ismet is like talking to a brick wall sometimes. About the Roma NGO – I really like going there. The kids are all so cute and I think they appreciate my just being there. My Mom's office wanted to do something to help the Roma community so they sent warm clothes that we distributed to needy families. Last week we went to give out the clothes and it is amazing to see how some people live. Honestly, in a one room house, maybe 12x12, no running water (there is a well pump outside that a few houses share) and an outhouse that is just a hole in the ground. It was awful. Something you see in a commercial or something. I am sure there are places like that throughout the world and especially the developing world but it still a shocker for the eyes. Everyone was so nice and thankful for the warm clothes. I am in Stip now. The ride here was so nice. I love going through the mountains. There is a lot of snow on them and it is just so pretty. I also like passing through one part on the ride just before you get to Gostivar and if you look down you can see the river. The water looks so clean (you can see the rocks at the bottom), the river is so full and rushing so fast. It is really pretty. Mike has Orbit ESPN and the AFC game is going to be on – Live! I wish the NFC game was too but it's not. I'll have to listen to that via Internet. Mike was in Kicevo last weekend and we listened to the Panthers/Bears game. It is great to still be able to be connected. 2 or 3 other people are coming to watch the game tonight so we're having a little party. It will be fun. It will be even more fun for me if the Steelers and Panthers win. 4 of us are off to Egypt on Feb 12th. I can't wait! Our flight goes through Milan so Mike and I are stopping there on the way back and going to the Olympics for a day – the 21st. That night the US plays Russia in hockey and we are checking ebay daily to try and get tickets for it. We would both love to go. I hope it works out. Egypt is going to be great. It will be warm and there is so much to see and do! I think it will be a little overwhelming and I'm afraid one tomb will start to look like the other tomb. We'll see. That's about it from this end of the world. So far the winter has been pretty mild with regard to snow so I am quite happy about that. I hope the weather where you are is not too freezing. I promise it won't take another 2 months for me to update the journal. Kaitlin (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, November 19th, 2005
11:48 pm	Winter is here Going to the post office is almost always a frusturating event for me. There are no lines, people push and shove and make their way to be next in line and the tellers make stuff up as they go along (this also applies to the bank). I have gotten pretty good at telling people of all ages that I am next in line. I have respect for the elderly but when they push me, don't say excuse me and try to get next in line, well, that is where I draw the line. Today at the post office I didn't have a line issue but a teller issue. I went to mail 3 pieces of mail - Kacie and Megan's birthday cards and a letter to my sister Shannon. The letter to Shannon had a few sheets of paper in it along with 3 pictures. It was .03 grams over the cheaper rate for air mail. If I wanted it go go air mail then it would have cost $5.50 as opposed to 95 cents. I said OK, send it regular mail then please. I am not crazy enough nor is it urgent enough to spend $5.50 to mail a letter. She told me it wasn't possible. This is the problem. I have mailed NUMEROUS items over .20 grams regular mail before. That is what I told her. She just looked at me and said no. So I told her to give it back to me. I stood there (fuming I might add) opened the envelope, took out one picture, sealed the envelope back up and handed it back to her. Then she looked at me as if she wanted to tear my eyeballs out. It was .19 grams, just under the limit. Great - 95 cents it is. It just makes me CRAZY how there is no system at the post office. Sometimes they will let you mail stuff, sometimes not until they open the package or envelope to see what is inside will they let you mail it. Sometimes you pay customs on a box (they open all boxes to see what they can charge you for) sometimes not. Mike got a box last week and the customs charge was for half of the amount of the value of the box. What is the system you ask - there is no system. It is such a problem. Naturally I walked away from this situation cursing the lady and this country in my head. I hope the EU makes Macedonia work on this as one of their first things to get into the EU. Oh I would be so happy. After the post office experience I went to the grocery store. I went up to the deli counter (I use the word 'deli' very loosely) and waited my turn. There is a new guy that works there and he is probably fresh out of HS. There are 2 older guys that normally work the counter and they know who I am and what I usually buy. I have had this young guy help me once or twice. As soon as the 2 older guys (who were there but stocking merchandise) saw me go up to the counter they came rushing up to explain to the young guy what I wanted to make sure it was done the way I wanted it. It was so nice. They went over it with me like 3 times to make sure it was done correctly. I walked away from that feeling good about this country again. Things here can be so cyclical from minute to minute. One minute I will curse the place and the next minute I will gush about how much I love it and how interesting it is to be here. My friend Justin came to visit. He was one of my roommates when I lived in Australia. He currently lives in Japan and decided to use his frequent flyer miles to make a trip to Macedonia. What a nice thing to do! He is the first person I have been able to show around Macedonia. Tina came to visit but we met up in Budapest. It was so great to see him! Unfortunately the immigration people at the airport ripped him off. Oh the corruption in this country! He asked his travel agent if he needed a visa, he asked the flight attendents if he needed a visa, he consulted a website to see if he needed a visa. All of the above said no visa was needed for Australian citizens. Naturally when he arrived here they told him he needed a visa and that it would cost 900 Denars (about $18). He said all he had was USD and they said that was fine. He handed over $40 or so not knowing what the exchange rate was, they gave him some change in Denars and turns out they charged him $38. Nothing like pocketing an extra $20 and screwing a visitor to your country. We visited Skopje, Bitola (my favorite city in Macedonia), Ohrid, Struga and Tetovo. It is funny when you meet up with an old friend - after about 1 second it's like you saw each other the day before. He was really impressed with the country. He wasn't sure what to expect but said it was nicer then he expected. He also couldn't believe how cheap everything was. I guess if you live in a country where salaries are more then $200 a month this place does seem cheap. He must have said it 100 times. He was one of the tour guides at the haunted house that we had on Halloween in Tetovo but more on that later. I was sad to see him go - the week went by too fast. For Halloween a haunted house was organized by Angie and Laura who both live in Tetovo. There is a new University there (SEEU - it is 5 years old) and it is a very new thing for this country. The Univ. collaborates with U of Indiana so the classes are more American style and structured. It is (or has the potential to be) a fantastic University. I don't know how to explain it really. Most Uni's here you can go to class if you want or you can just read the text and then take the exams and if you pass then you pass the class. Very different from an American University. Well Angie and Laura both do a lot of volunteering there (Angie's original organization pretty much closed so she primarily works with the Unversity now). They came up with the idea to teach the students about Halloween and have a scary movie and a haunted house followed by a party. She asked all of us to help. In the end about 25 of us were there. We helped plan the event as to what would be in the haunted house (the theme) etc. It was a lot of work. Then the day of we had to be on campus by 8 AM to go to all the English classes to talk about Halloween (we were dressed up when we went to the classes)- its history, traditions etc. Then we had to set up the haunted house and have everyone go through it. It was an insane assylum with some escapees. It was something completley new for people so we wern't sure how it was going to go. When we went to the English classes most of the students just stared at us as if we were crazy. After that experience we thought only 20 people would show up. Turns out around 300 people came! It was great. We think that the first groups to go through went and told their freinds to go and in the end we had to turn people away because it was 1 AM and it was supposed to end at midnight. It was a long day but it was so much fun! A few of us went to the party for a few minutes to judge the costumes and give out prizes and all of the students there raved about it and said how much they just loved it. We were all so happy. We didn't finish the cleaning up until around 2:30 AM and got back to Angie's around 2:45. We were all exhausted. It was such a long day but well worth it. I was at the American Corner in Skopje a week after the event and the women there (they came to it after hearing about it from another volunteer) came and said they were absolutley terrified. So much so that they didn't enter one room and couldn't remember one of the rooms at all. I think it was a big success. It feels good to be a part of something that was successful. 2 days after Justin left I went to Athens with a few other volunteers to run the marathon there. It was so freaking hard! There was a hill that went on for no joke about 14 miles. I ran the first half of the marathon and walked the entire second half. I just wasn't physically prepared for it. I trained from June to September and once I went to Budapest in September I just kind of gave up on the training. Not a good idea. I only ran 3x between September and November. At any rate, I finished and it was the last marathon I will ever do. Mike was also one of the runners and he could have finished WAY before me but decided to stick with me the whole time. He said ,'this is your last marathon, right?' I said 'yes' so then he said 'well then, this is our last chance to do one together so I think I will just stick with you'. Super, super nice. The route itself was pretty boring. I thought because it was the 'original' route from the city of Marathon to Athens that we would pass historical sites and stuff but nope, notta one. It was all main road and highway the whole time. Boring! There were almost no spectators either. The city of Athens itself was great. They have done a TON of work since I was there the last time (5 years ago). I was really impressed. We all went to Hard Rock for dinner that night which was a nice treat. Now I am back in Kicevo - freezing my a** off. It is already below zero at night and it snowed last night. 12 1/2 months to go! Work is fine. Nothing new to report. I am teaching a heck of a lot of English classes. I am up to 5 so about 50 people with a list of people that want to join. Those new people are going to have to wait for the next round in February. Most of the classes are fun. I like the people, they try, do their homework and have a sense of humor. I also go the after school program for the Roma kids once a week. They have English in school and what I do is just to kind of reinforce what they learn in school. They are all soooo cute. 4th and 5th graders and mostly girls. It is hard because if you look statistically, some of the girls will be married in 4-5 years and it makes me so sad. They are eager to learn and smart and I hope their brains don't go to waste. I'm not saying they shouldn't get married, just wait until they're at least 20 (or even older, if possible). There is going to be 2 more volunteers in Kicevo. Yeah for Kicevo and for me to have some company! They were here this past week and they came over for dinner on Friday night. Erika is from LA, 38 and will be an English teacher at the HS. Jasmine is from MI, 24 and will be an English teacher at the Elementary school by my house. I know both of their counterparts who are great so they are very lucky. Hopefully we will be able to work together on some stuff. They move here mid-December. I am having some problems with my landlords. I don't want to get into the full details because that would take me forever to type but I'm irritated. They have just strolled into my apartment several times now with me home and with me not home. I understand they own the space but for now it is mine and I wish they would at least knock before entering. I would say ring the doorbell but it has been broken for 2 months now. Mide goes into this storage area that has a window that looks into my kitchen, peers in and bangs on it if she needs me. Her husband just strolls in. It is making me a little crazy. I talked to Mide about it and I think she gets it but I don't think she talked to her huband about it becuase today I was watching TV and heard the door open. He came to deliver the mail and just left it on the shoe rack that I have near the door but what if I was on the toilet or in the shower? How embarassing would that be? Especially considering the bathroom door doesn't shut so if he walked in he would get a full view. It is just invasive. Even though Mide bangs on the window instead of just walking in it is annoying! Get the doorbell fixed and don't peer in on me! One weekend while I was away they came into the kitchen and took all of the dishes and bowls except for a few. She said it was because they were having a big dinner one night which is fine and I didn't use all of the dishes anyway that part is not the problem - the problem is don't come in when I'm not here. Plus that stuff is on the inventory list so when I leave I will have to say that it is not here and I don't want to be 'charged' for it. There are several things that make me think they are not the most honest people either. I just feel like when I leave they are going to say I broke this or that or stole this or that and I'll be charged for it. Some examples of why I feel this way - I got the 3rd degree as to why the doorbell was broken. You know, I don't know why it is broken. It has been sitting on the same shelf since I moved in. It worked before I went on vacation and didn't work when I got back. I don't know what they want me to tell them. It is their responsibility to fix it. There was a DVD player in the apartment. I used it ONCE because all of my movies are from the US and don't work on it because they are from the wrong region. I did use it for the radio. One day when I pressed the button to get the radio on the drawer to the DVD player opened. They looked at it and took it to be fixed. Then they said they needed 100 euros to fix it and I had to pay for it because I am the one who broke it. (I guess I am giving all of the details now) They said it was new but it was over a year old. I found the receipt. I still don't accept responsibility for it breaking but I thought a logical compromise would be to divide the cost of the repair in a ratio as to how old it is and how many months I had lived here before it broke and I would pay that portion and they would pay the rest. She said no and that I would have to pay for the whole thing. Peace Corps was absolutley NO help whatsoever in getting this resolved in a fair way. I said to give me the player back and I would bring it to a different repair person to see if I could get it fixed cheaper. Part of the problem is that the son-in-law bought it in Italy so the laser for the drawer (the part that needs to be replaced) needs to be imported. A guy from work took me to a shop in Kicevo. The repair man opened it and said that it had already been repaired once before! He did say that he could fix it for about 40 euros and he would order the part. That was about 5 months ago and they keep asking me about it - where is it, when is it coming back. I honestly don't care if it takes another year because I never use the darn thing in the first place. Then the cable bill. When I first moved in the deal was that I was going to pay half because the cable is spliced. They gave me the copy of the bill every month so I was paying the whole thing. Then one day I asked to see thier bill and they said there was only one for the whole house (because it is spliced) so I asked why I was paying the whole bill and I got no response. Ok scammers. So I told her I would not be paying the bill for the next 6 months. They also told PC that the daughter would be going to school in Bitola and that her husband was going back to Italy or Germany so that is why the apartment was available. Because of this PC figured out the electric and water bill and estimated how much it would be for just Mide and her Husband and I would pay whatever was over and above that. Well, her daughter and son-in-law have never left - they live upstairs with Mide and her husband. She does go to Bitola for school but she is still here a lot and her husband has never left. He is on the road a bit with work but he still lives here. So, taxpayer dollars are paying for their electricity and water. It may sound silly but it just makes me mad because they are scamming and it is a lie. I wish I could find another apartment but the chances of that are not so likely. This Thursday is Turkey Day! Yeah! Can't wait to eat some bird! Hopefully it will be bird-flu free. PC has organized a dinner at a restaurant in Veles so I will go to that. I plan to visit my host family in the morning then go to Veles in the afternoon for the feast. My host family must hate me by now. I have been SO bad about keeping in touch. I didn't call them for Bajram because I was in Greece. I suck. Maybe over the Orthodox Christmas when the whole country is basically shut down for 10 days I will go and stay overnight with them. For the weekend Doug has organized a gathering at his counterparts mountian house outside of Berovo. There are 15 of us going. Plans include touch football, a hike, a murder mystery dinner and euchre (I hope anyway). I think it will be a ton of fun. That is about it from this end. Winter is here. I am already wearing wool and my down jacket. I hope the weather there is a bit warmer then here. Kaitlin Again, no spell check. Sorry for the mistakes. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, October 14th, 2005
2:37 pm	Only in a village Last Sunday (the 25th) I went to a village outside of Kicevo with my friend Lidija. She is the lady who owns the bookstore. She and her husband own this house which has been in his family forever and they go there on the weekends. A good number of people here live in an apartment in the city then have a house in village nearby - the 10-minute commute by car would just be too overwhelming to do every day. Really though, most people don't have cars and I would do the same thing if I was in their situation. Well, she picked me up around noon and we were off to the village - about 20 minutes to the north east of Kicevo. In very un-European style she picked me up 20 minutes early and I was still in my PJ's. I was excited for this jaunt because I have never been in any of the villages outside of Kicevo. It was a pretty drive along the mountains and past the oh-so-lovely mining facility and its enormous smoke stack. Her house is at the beginning of the village. The houses around her are absolutely gigantic and belong to people who live in the US and only come here for the summer. When I say enormous I mean 3 stories - 6 bedrooms or so - and they only live there 3 months out of the year. I met Lidija's mother-in-law who seemed nice enough, her kids who are cute but shy, some neighbors, a cousin etc. Lidija made lunch, she fired up the brick oven that is outside on the lawn and we had grilled chicken and peppers. Delicious. We also walked through her garden area and collected walnuts. Oh, I also have a walnut tree in the front of my house and if I am ever hungry, I am supposed to grab the broom and hit the branches (says my landlady and her husband) and collect the nuts that fall. No need for nutcrackers anymore - they are for wimps. Just put two in the palm of your hand and squeeze. It is good exercise for the forearms too. After lunch we went for a walk in the mountain just behind her house with her 2 kids (one boy Nikolas age 6, Nora age 10), a neighbor and a cousin. We walked for literally 100 yards and had to take a break. "I can already feel my legs getting stronger!" is what I was told. After a 10-minute rest, which included eating some walnuts, chips and ice tea; we carried on up the mountain. After 2 more rests we made our way back down. There used to be a railroad that went through there and it was shut down after WWII so we walked along where the tracks used to be. The tracks have long since been removed by the locals and have been used for various things. At Lidija's house they are the base for the canopy for the grapevines. Resourceful. As we walked away from one of our rests 2 people who will remain nameless left their garbage on the ground. I went and picked it up and explained that we should take it with us and throw it in the garbage when we got back to the house. It was a foreign concept but Lidija laughed and said they needed to take lessons from me. Yup, that is right, the whole country does need to take lessons from me and all the other foreigners here who understand that you don't throw your trash on the ground. What is ironic about them leaving the trash is that 20 minutes earlier they were all agreeing that it was such a nice walk because there wasn't any garbage. Even though we took it with us the trash will most likely end up in the river near Lidija's house. There is no trash collection in the village so people burn it or just dump it in the river. The trash here in Macedonia is a plague, an epidemic. After the walk we went to a neighbors house to see it. It was only a year old and I felt like I had walked into a house in America. It was not my style but it was so much like a house from home as far as amenities are concerned. Granite countertops, solid wood cabinets and floors (hand done floors too, nothing pre-fab), central heating, granite steps, Jacuzzi tub, open foyer etc. It was just magnificent! I could hardly believe my eyes - they were literally out of my head. Huge house too. 4 bedrooms and 1 1/2 baths on the top floor, 2 bedrooms, 1 full bath, living room and kitchen w/eating area on the middle floor and I don't know what was on the ground floor because we didn't go down there. After the walk Lidija and I (mostly Lidija) made pizza from scratch. It was absolutely delicious. Once again it was baked in the brick oven outside. After dinner we cleaned up and everyone was packing up their stuff to go to Kicevo for the week. Her husband dropped us off earlier in the day so we were waiting for him to come and pick us up. He was supposed to come at 7. He called at 6:20 to ask if we were ready and she said we were just starting to eat dinner and he said he was glad because he was in Debar! 2 hours away! I was happy to be there with her and her family in the village but after 7 hours I was ready to be home. Then she called him at 8 to see how far away he was and he said he was just leaving Debar now! Holy cow! Another 2 hours! If I had had enough money I would have asked her to call a cab but I didn't so I had to wait it out. I got home around 10. I was tired. On Monday I went to Dashmire's village to watch her teach English. I found her 'uncle' (really just a family friend) who drives a mini-bus and off we went. He lived in the states for 20 years and his daughter was born there. She sat next to me in the front seat. She is in High School. It is so funny driving around here. It always makes me laugh. One-lane asphalt roads, people who drive too fast in their 1970 Yugos without seatbelts, stopping for cows and chickens, swerving to avoid the potholes, reversing without looking etc. It is always a little adventure. As we arrived in one of the towns he informed me that they only got running water 2 years ago thanks to a grant from the German government. Have I ever mentioned that they have a LONG way to go before becoming part of the EU? Have I also mentioned that everyone here is pissed because they thought they were going to be invited to be a member of NATO in 2006 and enlargement (for all countries, not just Macedonia) has been pushed off until 2008? To say they have a long way to go is an understatement. From the outside this country looks pretty modern but when you get down to it, not very modern at all. There is so much mental change that needs to happen. I think progress will continue to be made but it will take time and it will take the people who are in power now to change and leave their old school thinking behind or retire before anything significant will happen in this country. That is my opinion. EU in 2015 is my realistic guess - my hopeful guess is 2010 - and that is just to be a candidate country, not a full member. I've gone on a tangent.... back at Dashmire's school....The kids all swarmed around me like I was a movie star. Her classes are VERY small - 7-8 students for the whole grade. The 7th graders were typical 7th graders and the 4th graders as cute as ever. They were very attentive and tried really hard in class. After school we went to her Aunt's house to wait for the mini-bus. As we sat there - with her 2 aunts and 2 cousins-in-law - I noticed a chicken hobbling around. One of its legs was broken and I asked what happened and she said that the horse kicked it. Only in a village. Her family members all were knitting, crocheting or doing some other kind of handicraft - standard village work for women. They all seemed very nice and were curious as to why I was here. About 30 minutes later there was still no bus so we started to walk toward the next village. We saw the bus and I was on my way back to Kicevo. As I got in the car the driver told me - she was born in America, and so was she, and she lived there. So there I was in a minibus with 2 High School girls born in America and one of their mothers (along with a few others who kept staring at me as if I was an alien). The girl next to me didn't say much but the girl in front of me turned around and in perfect English had a small conversation with me. Often I will meet people who were born in America or lived there but it is not the same as meeting an 'American'. They won't get my slang or jokes. This girl was right on. I asked why her parents moved back here and I said just 'cause and she responded with 'yeah, just 'cause'. Most people around here wouldn't understand what that phrase means because it is slang. The mother of the girl next to me turned around and said 'I lived in America for 9 years in Chicago'. This was so completely funny to me. She was dressed like a village woman - long skirt, blouse, headscarf, (all kind of tattered) one gold tooth and one missing tooth, and I never expected her to speak English. It just goes to show you can never judge a book by its cover. So those were my 2 days in villages outside of Kicevo. On Tuesday our office had a big meeting. I think I have talked about it before. It is funded by 2 organizations - ZELS and OSCE. They have contracted FOSIM (the donor agency that funds my office) to organize meetings with all the city council members to explain what decentralization means to them. During this meeting books and CDs about their new responsibilities would be distributed. For Kicevo this means 2 meetings because our office covers the largest and most ethnically diverse region in the country - basically the whole western part of the country. It was decided that one meeting would be in Kicevo and one in Gostiavar. The date for the meeting in Kicevo was decided then Ismet and Adrianna (the director of all the NGO support centers) went to training in Ohrid for the week where all the critical planning needed to be done. This was also the 2nd week of my vacation so I wasn't here. My counterparts were instructed that in no way, shape or form should they contact ZELS or OSCE directly, it should all go through Adrianna. But where was Adrianna during the week of planning? At a training. Adrianna is nice but I think she is a terrible manager. This is not the first time she has made a poor decision that leaves the people who work for her in a 'throw up their arms' situation. Beti made the decision to call one guy from OSCE directly because she had to get the buses organized to pick up the council members then got screamed at for doing that. "All of our future collaboration with OSCE is out the window now because you did that" is what Adrianna told her. Back off lady, if you had been there to do your job in the first place this situation would not exist. I felt pretty bad for Beti. She was so stressed out about it - and smoked about 10 million cigarettes and drank about 100 cups of coffee that afternoon. Some of the organization here is kind of funny though. For example, the books (and CDs) that were going to be distributed were at our office packaged nicely in bundles of 20. Ismet started taking them out of the bundles and I suggested doing that once we got to the location of the meeting because they would be easier to carry in bundles and the books would not get damaged in the car on the way. 'But what will we do with the paper that bundles the books? We can't leave it there?' Ok, I said, 'we can find a garbage can or we can put it back in your car and when we get back to the office we can throw it away'. Ok, yes, good idea. Then the CD's. We counted them out and I could tell he was thinking 'how are we going to carry these'. I went and got a box to put them in. 'Oh yes, good idea Kaitlin'. Stuffing the invitations in the envelopes was another adventure in inefficiency. I won't get in to that but they both told me 'you are so fast, how do you do that many envelops so fast'. Because I consolidate my movements to be more efficient! I didn't say that though, I just said that when I worked at the Alumni House at UD I had to stuff envelopes for Reunion Weekend so I just became fast at it. The meeting in Kicevo went pretty well, I think anyway. 120 out of the 200 people invited came. I was with Ismet when he got a call from one of the 2 speakers of the day. 2 hours before the event was to begin, he canceled saying that the Ministry called him to Skopje. Ismet said that he would call ZELS and OSCE and have them contact the Ministry to get him out of the meeting in Skopje. He refused this offer - probably no meeting, just didn't want to come. Only in Macedonia! Imagine that happening in America! This meeting and project is a big deal! There were several TV and radio stations there along with newspapers. Ismet was furious and said the guy should be fired. I agreed. During the meeting this one guy got up and left. Ismet and I were in the lobby and as he walked toward the door Ismet asked him where he was going. He said to drink a coffee. Ismet told him that there was going to be coffee and food after and to please go back into the assembly hall. The guy just waved him off and left. Some people just don't care. One thing I must share before I forget, it is one of the things that I love about living here. When you go out to eat the presentation of what you have purchased is excellent. Everything is garnished and even if you are at a pizzeria where you will only be spending $3 the staff treats you as if you were spending $100. All beverages are in bottles. In my opinion everything tastes better when it comes out of a glass bottle. All beverages are served in a glass that corresponds with the beverage you have purchased. For instance, if you buy a coke, you get a coca-cola glass. If you buy as ckopcko (beer) you get a ckopcko glass (sometimes frosted). I love how the staff carries the drinks to the table - they place the glass on the table (if you get a coke it usually has 2 thin slices of lemon and sometimes ice), then the bottle of the beverage. They put everyone's drinks on the table then they go around and open each bottle and pour a bit into the glass. I love the sound when the cap comes off and a little bit of what looks like steam trickles out of the bottle - and the sound of the pour. It is a great Macedonian dining experience. Before the food comes out they bring over a plate with the utensils. They are usually organized in some creative way. It is just great. I love it. One thing I am doing now is teaching English at the after school office for Roma (Gypsy) children. I only do it on Thursdays for 2 hours and it is fun. The kids are so cute. They are 4th and 5th graders - there are only about 15 of them. The place itself is funded by UNICEF and I think it is a big help. In general, the Roma kids don't get as much attention at home as other kids. The idea of education for these kids is not reinforced at home so this is a place where they can go to get help with homework and whatever else. They have English in school so this is just kind of a supplemental thing. Two weeks ago a camera crew was there because UNICEF is doing a documentary on 5 Roma girls from Macedonia. The program will be shown on TV here and UNICEF has chosen girls who have some kind of hardship at home. The girl in Kicevo was chosen because her Mom has MS. It is a video to encourage the children to continue to go to school despite what may be going on at home. Hopefully it will work. I received a call 2 weeks ago from my friend Justin who was one of my roommates when I lived in Australia. He called and said 'I have a free flight to Macedonia with my frequent flyer miles, can I come and visit from October 25-November 2?' I am sure all of you can imagine my excitement. He lives in Japan now and we only see each other once in a while so it is great that he is able to make the trip. He is the first person I will have the opportunity to take around Macedonia. It will be great to show him around. He even said he wanted to sleep at my host family's house and deal with the Turkish toilet and freezing temperatures. It will be fun! Angie and Laura (both live in Tetovo) have decided to have a Halloween party and haunted house at the University there. They have talked to the facilities people at the University and they are all for it. It will be for the students there. A bunch of volunteers are going to be involved in the planning. First they plan to show some kind of scary movie then take them through a haunted house. They have come up with some great ideas and I think it will be a big success. Justin will be here for that so I am going to put him to work! This past weekend some volunteers organized a big field day in Veles. It was for the MAK 8s (who are mostly all leaving at the end of the month), MAK 9s (my group), and the MAK 10s who just got here 3 weeks ago. It was such a fun day that lasted from 11-5. There were 4 teams with a mix of people from all groups. It was a good opportunity for us MAK 9s to meet the MAK 10s and to say goodbye to the MAK 8s. We had games such as the tug-o-war (the rope broke on the first attempt and everyone went tumbling into the dirt. It was so funny to watch all of their faces and thankfully nobody was hurt - after that we doubled up the rope and it was fine), limbo, crab walk soccer, egg toss etc. It was so fun. I am pleased to say that I won the limbo contest but even with that my team came in last. The weather was great and everyone was in good spirits. It turns out 2 girls from the MAK 10 group are coming to Kicevo. That is pretty exciting. What boggles my mind is that they are living in Buzalkovo (the town where I lived) and they are learning Albanian first (Macedonian will come later) but both of their counterparts are Macedonian and they will be teaching Macedonian students. I think I will never understand Peace Corps logic. One girl will be in the High School and one in the Elementary school that is a stone throw from my house. Hopefully they are fun and will want to do some stuff together. I almost forgot, I was in Buzalkovo and the school is finally finished! It is amazing. I will take pictures next time and post them. It has several classrooms and 2 that are not even being used yet. The principal has made a rule that the students must bring a separate pair of shoes to school so they don’t track mud in. The playground has been renovated too. The swing set now has swings! It is such a great sight to see. The school is insulated and it is just amazing. I am so happy for that little village. That is about it from this end of the world. Hope all is well in America. Kaitlin (Comment on this)
Monday, September 26th, 2005
10:55 am	Oh the vacation. What a joy it was to be away in 2 countries where the norm is to put garbage in a trash can instead of on the ground! Where to begin - it was a wonderful 16 days away. We (Mike, Doug and I) rented a car in Skopje and driving again was quite fun! The roads through Serbia were MUCH better then American roads (we were able to drive on them for a LARGE toll fee). Someone said that the roads were built to make the commute between Western Europe to Greece easier for the Olympics. I think that may be true. I should introduce the cast: Sean and Jennifer, Mike, Doug, Angie, Patty (for part of the time, she left when the rest of us went to Tokaj), Adam (for part of the time, he also left after the rest of us left for Tokaj), Adam's twin brother Brian who flew in (they are freakishly alike), and Tina (my friend from home who flew over) Budapest was a joy, as it always is. This was my 4th trip there and it gets better and better every time. I want to live there. It is European but its own kind of European. I just love it. It is my favorite city in Europe. Mike, Doug and I walked around for a bit and went up to the castle. The place was FLOODED with American retirees. This would be our first taste of the retirees. First of all let me say that I have nothing against retirees. I think it is great that people are willing to get out and explore - no matter what the age. However there are some things that people (they tend to be retirees) do that make me ashamed to be American. For example, I was in a souvenir store. The lady in front of me was buying 3 things. The sales person went over the prices with her at least 5 times. Then she wanted to pay part in $, part in euros, part in Hungarian forints. Ok, fine, no problem - the thing is the sales lady kept going over and over with her how much she needed of each currency and she just wasn't getting it. First, if you are coming to Hungary, pay in forints. That is their currency. Second, if the sales attendant is being patient (Oh my gosh was she patient. I would have lost it after repeating myself the 2nd time), work with her. Don't be a pain in her ass. Third, listen! If you can't listen, write it down! The sales lady was explaining it in a way where it was as clear as red, white and black. The sales lady was not confusing at all. After 10 minutes (no exaggeration) the sale was finally complete and the lady who bought the stuff left the store saying that she thought she paid too much and got ripped off. And we wonder why the world hates us? Whew! Our first night there we ate at TGIFridays. I am sure some of you are thinking - what are you doing eating at a place like that? - but let me tell you, as much as I love Macedonian food there is absolutely no variety whatsoever. It is Macedonian or nothing. No Chinese, no Mexican, no Thai no nothing besides Macedonian. We all took every chance we could get to eat 'Western' or 'American' food. Unfortunately Fridays was a big disappointment. Not very good at all, super expensive and a mean waitress to top it all off. The morning of the first day we went to The House of Terror. It is a building that has been used for various things over the years but most famously for holding, interrogating, torturing and killing people who spoke out against communism. It was very interesting and the museum was well done. Tina arrived the later that day and it was great to see her. Mike and I went to pick her up and as we waited he said he wanted to see if he could pick her out (he had an idea from the stories I had told him). He got it spot on. We waited and waited as people came out of the doors and as she emerged, he said 'that is her!'. Sure enough it was. It was so great to see someone from home. She fit right in with the group. Getting to the airport wasn't too hard but I am sure Mike was making illegal turns. We needed to turn left and the sign said to go left but it is kind of a loopy turn on the sign so there is probably some other kind of way you are supposed to do it but we just ignored it and made the left turns. Our first big event was the half marathon. There were a few thousand participants from all over the world. Tina, Angie and I ran almost the whole thing together. It was an excellent route (mostly flat, thank God) that took us past some of the greatest spots in the city. Unfortunately we did see one guy who was on the side of the road getting worked on by an ambulance. The weather was great - a bit warm but overcast so at least we weren't melting under the sun. It took me a bit longer then I would have liked to finish but that is life. For me the goal was to finish and not worry too much about the time. Our entry into the half marathon also gave us free entry into the baths at Hero's square (where the race started and finished). It was awesome. There are 3 pools outside - one was cold, one warm and one warmer (not quite hot). The coldest pool had a small whirlpool/river thing in the middle. It was pretty fun. Going to the baths was a nice way to relax for a while after running for a few hours. I have never been to the baths before so this was a highlight for me. We all really enjoyed it. Monday morning Mike and I went out to move the car from the street to a parking garage. We went out at 8:10 and sure enough we were issued a ticket at 8:05. We were both a bit bent out of shape. We spent the day in Budapest (I got to go to my favorite clothing store H & M, didn't find anything worth buying) then made our way to Tokaj in the north-eastern part of the country. This town has been known for its sweet wine production for over 600 years. The town itself is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. If any of you know me, you know I love those sites. I think it is the quaintest and charming town I have ever been to. Colored houses, flowers of all colors spilling out of their pots, sunny skies and good wine. The lady who owned the place where we stayed was so cute. She didn't speak a word of English but we got by just fine. She was trying to explain to us how to get to the train station and even did a 'chuga chuga' sound to help her explain better. The night we arrived she even kept the restaurant open late for us so the weary travelers could eat some pizza. Very nice of her. The next day we went wine tasting. We went to two cellars. The first was my favorite. The girl who gave us the little tour was really nice (she is a college student) and I think she thought we were pretty funny. We were drilling her with all kinds of crazy questions - what kind of people are the most fun, why do you work here, when do you go back to school, which win is your favorite and why etc. We had 6 almost full glasses of wine in about an hour. We were all a little saucy and I think it was only like 1 o'clock. We ate lunch - funny, I can't remember where - then went to another winery. This one was more of a sit outside and we'll bring you the tastes. Still nice but it didn't have the kind of ambiance that the first place had. All of the wines were pretty sweet and I liked them all very much. At dinner later that day Sean and I made a bet with Mike that Michael Jackson did the duet with Paul McCartney for Ebony and Ivory. Mike insisted it was Stevie Wonder. Sean and I lost and we had to buy Mike a beer each. We checked it online later that night. I had a great dinner that included potato croquettes. I am addicted to those little potato things (not for long, Macedonia doesn't have them). The next day the boys all took the train and us girls drove to the next town of Miskolc (mostly because we wanted to go shopping at Tesco and the guys didn't want to be dragged around with shopping women). This day was Tina's 31st birthday. I drove and it was fun. We didn't know where the Tesco was in Miskolc but we knew it was the 2nd largest city in Hungary and there HAD to be a Tesco there. I made one U-turn that almost gave Jennifer a heart attack but we all made it just fine. In case you don't know, Tesco is kind of the European version of Wal-Mart. Again you are probably thinking why would I want to go to Wal-Mart? But the stores in Kicevo don't even have aisles. That is how small they are and how much lack of variety there is. I just wanted to see all the stuff that is available. It was a fun stop. I ended up buying some warm lounge-around-the-house clothes and spice packets. I can't have enough warm clothes as far as I am concerned (especially considering it is already in the 40's at night here and I had to break out my heater already). When we arrived at the hotel the guys were already there. The rooms were super nice for a mere $20 each. We met this young British couple (Rob and Lara) who had just arrived and we invited them to come along with us to the cave baths. In my opinion these were a huge disappointment. They were not warm and to me it seemed like a totally fabricated place although it was supposed to be authentic. When we left we stopped at the post office so Tina could buy a phone card to call home for her b-day. She bought one; we drove back close to the hotel and left her at a pay phone. She wasn't able to get the card to work and was a bit frustrated. We tried from the room and kept getting the front desk. The guy didn't speak any English and we couldn't ask for a line out so we went down to the desk to try to get it sorted out. The guy was less then helpful (he turned out to be our waiter at dinner later that evening). I realize we should speak Hungarian because we were in Hungary but we kept trying to hand him the card so he could read it (in Hungarian) what it was and to show what we needed. He was a complete asshole and then just kept ignoring us. Stubborn Tina and I just stood there. We refused to leave. Finally another guy came and he looked at the card and knew what we needed, he called the English speaking lady and the problem was solved. The mean guy made my blood boil! I think I was more mad then Tina. Back in our rooms (on the terrace actually) we drank some beer with our new friends, ate some dinner at the restaurant at the hotel and went back to one of the rooms to continue the party. We had so much fun. It was Tina's birthday so we had a cake for her and cards etc. Earlier in the week there was a discussion about the jazz move pot-a-bourie. I don't know how to spell it. Well Jennifer and I both took years of dance lessons so we proceeded to do a recital for our audience. We even went into the hallway to choreograph our routine. Doug wanted to join in so he came in with his MC Hammer moves. It was really fun. The next day we went to the castle that was basically just outside our hotel. It was so cheesy. From the outside the castle looked awesome then we went inside and it was filled with wax people showing the different eras of the castle's history. We were all disappointed. From here - off to Eger to drink more wine - this time red. We decided to drive through a national park to get to Eger. It was a gorgeous drive around some mountains and we found some great tunes on the radio (ironically Ebony and Ivory came on). Finding the hotel was a bit frustrating. Advice for anyone trying to drive in a place where they don't speak the language or know the way, buy a map of the city before arriving. Our hotel again was awesome for only $15 a night. Mike and Doug went to go pick up Angie, Sean and Jennifer (they didn't have a car) from the train station so Tina and I walked around. We went to the HS - home to a camera obscura and a painting (on the ceiling) of the library. The painting is of the council of Trent. The camera and the painting are my 2 most favorite things in Eger. The painting is done in such a way that you feel like the room is domed but actually there is only a 3 foot height difference. It is a great optical illusion. The camera is just out of this world. I was fascinated by this the first time I saw it 8 years ago and I was just as fascinated this time. There are mirrors in a tube with knobs that turn the mirror to reflect what is going on in the city. It projects onto a white table and when the lights are off it seems as though you are watching a movie without sound. I just love it. In the evening we walked to the wine cellars. The cellars themselves were no different then they were 8 years ago but now they have a hotel, nice roads and restaurants. None of that was there last time. We went into the first cellar where a drunken South African lady served us wine. The walls were moldy and damp, people have shoved coins into the walls and they are now permanent fixtures. Kind of gross. The seat cushions were a bit damp and as we stood up to leave all of us had a small case of swamp-ass. We went to one other cellar then decided to eat dinner. I think we were all pretty tired and after this we got cabs to take us back because none of us felt like walking. One perk of the restaurant was they gave all of us girls blankets to wrap ourselves in. A nice gesture. The next day, back to Budapest. All we did back in Budapest was go to the Ballet at the Opera House. This is my most favorite building in the world. Mike, Tina and I went on a tour of the place the Saturday before and now was the chance for all of us to see a show there. Just my luck though, it was the Taming of the Shrew and if you can imagine - that is the show I saw there 8 years earlier. It doesn't matter though. It is all about the experience. Saturday was a sad day. We said goodbye to Angie, Sean and Jennifer. Mike, Doug, Tina and I walked up to Gellert Hill. I was pretty excited about doing this because I have always wanted to go but never have. It was a nice walk and gave us a great view of the city. Later on we took Tina to the airport. It was sad to see Tina go. It was a wonderful week and traveling with everyone was so easy. No real stress. Everyone was agreeable and fun. Refreshing. The week went by too fast and there was talk of Tina coming next year...I hope she is able to swing it. Mike, Doug and I continued our driving to Zagreb. Again, beautiful roads. We found our hotel with excellent navigation by Doug and Mike (I was driving) and we decided to take the tram into town to get some dinner. We found Mexican! I was super expensive but well worth it. The next morning I woke up to go to the bathroom and it was occupied. It was pretty early and the shower wasn't running so I figured the person was just drying off and it would only be a minute. The bathroom is shared between 2 rooms - 10 people. Well, I waited and waited then resorted to going to another bathroom. When I came back up there were definitely 2 people in the bathroom having sex. Ok, whatever. I went back to bed and 2 hours later they were still in there, holding up the bathroom for 10 people. People were FUMING. When they finally emerged everyone just glared at them. Eventually we made our way downtown and started our sightseeing. Zagreb is a nice city but it doesn't do much for me. We went to the cathedral (one of the most beautiful churches I have ever seen), a naive museum (artists that have not had formal training), and watched a cannon get blown off at noon. It is a daily ritual. We also went to the arts and crafts museum - it was nice but nothing out of this world. That is about it. There isn't much to do there. We walked around their pazar, the higher part of the city and along a park that leads to town from the train station. As we walked we saw a lot of people in Dinamo jerseys. This is the soccer team in Zagreb. Doug is always on the soccer up and up so Mike and I asked him if there was a game today. In fact there was, at 8 PM. (Doug is a language god and got a paper almost every day. Croatian is close to Macedonian so he was able to read it and knew about the game from the paper) It was only like 3 o'clock and there were already a ton of fans being rowdy and drinking beer. Originally we had discussed going to a movie but Mike and I suggested skipping the movie and going to the game instead. Doug was like 'really?, you guys would want to go to a game? We can go to a movie now and then the game later.' Mike and I suggested just skipping the movie because we can see one anywhere and just going to the soccer game. (Is soccer a game or a match?) Doug was so excited. Like a little kid. He said he can never find people willing to go to soccer games so he was thrilled. The stadium was very close to our hostel so it was all pretty convenient for us. We bought tickets - we were in the 'grandma' section as we were told, walked back to the hostel to rest up and then we left for the game. Dinamo was playing Hajduk - the team from Split and their biggest rival. There were thousands of police out and 350 in full riot gear. We went into the stadium and climbed the many steps to the grandma section. The game started and in what is now standard European fashion; people began to throw flares onto the field. Not one or two but many, many flares. The game had to stop a few times so the fireman could collect the flares. It was pretty dangerous looking and I am not sure I understand the logic of it all. One almost hit a player from Hajduk and everyone cheered. How is hurting someone fun? That made me kind of mad. The game ended with no goals. Thankfully there didn't seem to be any rioting either. After Zagreb we made our way to Plitvice Lakes National Park (also a UNESCO Heritage Site). We pulled off the side of the road close to the entrance to the park to find a room in a house. The lady was nice and Doug did most of the talking. She was quite impressed with his language skills. We were her first American guests ever. The cost - $15 each a night for clean, nice rooms. After dropping our stuff we went to the terrace to eat lunch and she presented us with a bottle of rakija. Rakija is a Balkan drink like brandy. If you have ever seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding it is kind of the Balkan Windex. They use it for everything and most of all drinking. When Mike was with his host family he had rakija with breakfast, lunch and dinner every single day. This particular one was made from apples. We each had a small glass then we headed to the park. The park was fantastic. I can't remember how many lakes there are but they all flow into each other via waterfalls. There is a wooden boardwalk that takes you through the entire park. It is really well done and the water is so blue, green, and clear. The only hard thing is that there are a million buses of retirees who come and it is great that they come but the concept of walk or stand to the right and left the faster people pass on the left didn't exist. We got some dinner (I ate more potato croquettes) and went back to the hotel where we met the father of the house. We got roped into sitting on the terrace and proceeded to polish off the bottle of rakija. Some other guests came (from Germany) and they got roped into drinking some rakija too. An hour or two later we finally went to bed. We took a small town road to Zadar. Through the mountains, through a national park and along the Dalmatian coast. Gorgeous! We stopped and ate lunch at a place where we could see the sea. The ride along the coast was just stunning. We stopped at one place so Doug could get out and go for a quick swim. With some troubles (again no map) we found the hostel. Zadar was nice but not great. The main attractions for the 3 of us were the restaurant called the arsenal which is brand new. The food was great and the atmosphere cozy. Our other favorite thing was just completed this year. There are some steps that lead down into the water. They have drilled holes in the steps so as the waves come it pushes air through the holes and creates a sound like an organ. We sat there waiting for the sun to set and went back after dinner to listen some more. It was so relaxing. We decided not to go to the island of Korcula. After discussing the possibility we decided that it would be just too much rushing around and instead we would continue to drive along the coast, stop when we wanted and find a place to sleep along the way. It worked out just fine. We made a pit stop in Trogir - an ancient city. It was a really cute place with a small castle next to a soccer field right on the Adriatic. How would you like to play there? We continued on our way down the coast and found a place with rooms. The following morning we made our way to Dubrovnik. Again, frustration was the name of the game as we tried to find our hostel down the narrow, one-way streets. I knew we were close (it was the same hostel I stayed in 5 years ago) so Mike just parked the car while Doug and I scouted out the hostel. We found it with no huge dramas. We were one street off. As we walked back to get Mike and direct him to the hostel I has a slight incident with a waiter at a cafe. In my opinion the situation was one where we were equally at fault. I was looking right, stepping off of a curb and the waiter was looking left and started to walk right while still looking at the table (on the left). His tray knocked into my head. I said I am sorry and he proceeded to yell at me. It really pissed me off. He didn't drop the tray and nothing was broken but instead of both of us just saying I'm sorry, he yelled at me. It was an accident on both of our parts. Oh it made me so mad! Doug and I found Mike and we were able to find a parking space very close to the hostel. We walked to the old part of the city, wondered along the city walls, went into some churches, looked at some mummified body parts that the Catholic church worships (of St. Blaise, the patron saint of Dubrovnik), went into the Pharmacy museum, looked at some mortar hits from the war, ate some food and just walked around. Walking along the city walls was nice but again it was filled with retirees who don't know the 'slow people to the right' concept. I know this is going to sound mean but I felt like I had entered the movie Cocoon. Most of the visitors here were Polish, French or Italian. The next day we decided to take the boat to the island of Lokrum. It is very close to Dubrovnik. If you were an ambitious swimmer, you could swim there (it wouldn't be too bad either because the water is so salty you could almost float there). The weather was great and it was so nice to lie out on the rocks, sunbathe and swim. Doug and I jumped off some cliffs into the water. It was great fun. I seem to be jumping off of tall things into water lately. We caught the last boat back, showered and went out to dinner. It was a nice, relaxing day. The final day of the trip we drove from Dubrovnik to Medjugorje. In 1981 Mary appeared several times to several high school students. Many miracles have happened in this town. We were going to go almost right by it so we decided to stop. I wish I could say that I felt like it was a spiritual place but that would be a lie. It was FILLED with religious shops selling all kinds of stuff. Lawn ornaments, hologram pictures, rosaries and other miscellaneous stuff. It was a religious site gone bad. Way too commercialized for me. My Mom asked if I said a prayer there and I said that I couldn't because it wouldn't have been an honest prayer. I just could not stop laughing at all the junk around. It killed the experience for me. From here we went to Mostar. The old part of this town is a UNESCO Site. There was a bridge here from the Turkish times but the Croatians bombed it many times over the years of the conflict and one day it crumbled. Nothing like blowing up a 400 year old bridge because you are mad! Thankfully the bridge has been re-built. Boys jump off of it (29 meters up from the water, I think) if you pay them 25 euros. I guess it has been a tradition since the time the bridge was built. There was a lot of hang time for the guys who jumped. The river is only 4 meters deep. The old town was cute. An old town. From here we continued on to Sarajevo. Ever since I found out I was moving to Macedonia the place I wanted to go was Sarajevo. Talk about many worlds colliding! I felt like I was in Istanbul at some points, Rome at other points and Israel at times. The city is a mish-mosh of everything - Mosques, Synagogues and Churches (Catholic and Orthodox). We arrived at 3:00 so most things were closing up and we had to leave the next morning so we really didn't get to do much except walk around. We did go to one museum which gave the history up until the Austro-Hungarian Empire but that was it. I am most interested in the place from WWI to the present. We found the plaque that showed where Gavrilo Princep was standing when he shot Archduke Ferdinand and his wife Sophia, we walked around the old bazaar and drank Turkish tea, we tried to go to the Synagogue (but it was closed), we tried to go to the WWI museum but it too was closed. I am sure there is a lot to do there but we came with no time to explore. The city itself is not what I expected. I am not sure what I expected but what it is is not what I thought. It is in a valley and I guess the Serbs just lived in the hills and just bombed the shit out of the place. There are still some buildings totally bombed out. We saw some buildings riddled with bullet holes and some spots on the ground where mortars hit and killed people. Those spots are filled with red wax and are called 'Sarajevo roses'. It is crazy to think the conflict ended only 10 years ago. We ate at a place that Doug had read about. The food was great. It was called 'to be, to be'. It is funny going to small places like this. A place like this could never exist in America. Let me try to paint you a picture: There were 3 tables outside. The room inside was very narrow - maybe 8-10' wide and 16-18' deep. There were 2 tables inside on the left hand side of the room - along the wall was a bench then 2 tables then 4 chairs. On the right side there was a long beureau that housed all the plates, silverware, glasses, wines etc (all exposed). At the back of the very narrow room - completely exposed - was the kitchen. I am not kidding when I say the kitchen was maybe 4x6. We were able to watch the entire preparation of the food - along with watching the chef munch on the leftover veggies from the garnishes he made. There was no glass covering the area for sanitary reasons. At the back of the room on the left were some very narrow, steep stairs that led to a couple of tables and a bathroom. Now, the reasons why this could never exist in America, the stairs were to narrow and steep, there was no handicap access for anything, the chef wore not cap, gloves etc, There was not much clearance for anything, His prep area was no bigger then 2x2 for all the foods (meat, veggies and starches), the whole place is a fire hazard. I realize that America has certain laws to keep people safe but that is why we lack charming places. Everyone sues everyone for everything instead of thinking that if they used some common sense they may not be in the situation they are in in the first place. Does all of this make sense? As we left the restaurant we heard 'Doug'. Can you believe it, there was a volunteer from the group before us eating dinner at one of the tables outside. What are the chances of something like that? She was there with her boyfriend. In a restaurant with only 5 tables (downstairs anyway), of all the restaurants in a city of a couple hundred thousand, we run into another volunteer. We sat down and chatted with them for a few minutes then we were off to a Dance ensemble. We saw a poster for it and it was free so why not. It was pretty cool. Very modern but inventive. The next morning we work up to rain, rain, rain. Our only real day of rain on the trip. I tried to navigate out of the city and the road we were supposed to take was actually a road of stairs. Hmmm. So we had to re-navigate and 35 minutes later we were finally out of the city. According to the Michelin website the trip should have taken us 7 hours and 15 minutes. 11 hours and 30 minutes later we were back in Skopje. What a trip that was! Parts of the road were under construction and the whole way was a 2 lane road up and down the mountains. It rained until we reached Kosovo then it stopped. Thank God. Northern Kosovo near the Montenegrin border is stunning. Mountains, trees, water - it is lovely. As we drove through Kosovo we saw a TON of construction. We passed by a UN convoy and I don't know how many troops. Mostly Danish. It may sound crazy but part of it felt like India. People near the street, shops that are half finished, bikes, cars, motorbikes etc. It was odd. It was a great trip. It is hard to be back but I guess all vacations must come to an end. Work has been fine. Nothing new to report there. I met with a girl today who teaches English in one of the villages. She is super nice. Her name is Dashmire. She was born in Belgrade (she is ethnic Albanian) and came here just before the Kosovo conflict. Her parents are originally from here. She is modern and has Serbian, Albanian and Macedonian friends. She says people make fun of her because she is friends with Serbs but like she said - I grew up in Belgrade - my friends are my friends no matter what their ethnicity. That is about it from here. Oh the new group of Volunteers arrive today. The MAK 10's. I can't believe it has been a year since I arrived here. I hope all is well in the states. Take Care, Kaitlin (Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 30th, 2005
3:06 pm	no title 8-15 I found a cubs game on TV tonight. Cubs vs. Cardinals. The commentary was in German and it was funny to hear germangermangerman'base hit'germangermangerman'foul ball'germangermangerman. The good thing about it too is that it is last nights game so it is one continual game - no commercials. We had a meeting with OSCE today at work. They are implementing a project to teach council members of the municipality and members of the community about decentralization. It sounds like a good project and is going to be implemented in 2 parts. First a meeting for just the council members where each person will receive a handbook about their new roles and responsibilities with the newly implemented decentralization plan. Our office is responsible for the entire west of Macedonia. We are going to have a meeting with 367 people. It will be interesting for me to see this all come together. The second phase is a town meeting that the town/city councils should hold with their community. The whole project idea is great (in my opinion) and I hope people participate. 8-17 I have said before that there are a ton of cars here with US plates. Well, today I saw a hummer from Illinois. It is crazy. People will buy Hummers yet they won't send their daughters to High School. Most of the foreign cars are Mercedes and BMWs. Lately I pass people on the streets speaking perfect English with an American accent. I think there MUST be something illegal going on because most Americans can't afford these types of cars. The ones here have to be paid for in order to get them out of the US so where does all the money come from? I am sure some are legit but everyone seems to 'own a restaurant'. Restaurants in the US are notorious for failing. So, what else is going on behind the scene? My guess is something not exactly legal. Rumor has it drugs and human trafficking. I see both as a huge possibility. People here aren't exactly the most business savvy people either. As an example, at the end of my street there are 2 small shops. They sell the same stuff - chips, eggs, coke etc. A very small 7-11 with mostly outdated stuff because nobody shops there. Well, some genius built another one across the street and it sells the exact same stuff. Why? They have no concept of franchising or doing something different that would make them stand out as a business. No business plan, no marketing scheme, no advertising - did I mention that I live on a dirt street so it is not exactly a thoroughfare where people would see the 'grand opening' and stop in to take a look. People are just lost and when I suggest something I am told 'that just won't work here, this is Macedonia' yet they have never tried. We had a 2nd meeting with OSCE today. We received the handbooks and they had some in English so I took one. I have only read the first 6 pages (out of 155) but I think it is EXACTLY what the council members need. It is a book of how things need to be done differently in the municipality now that decentralization has taken place. It is going to put a lot more responsibility on the Mayor and city council members and I hope people will take it to heart and step up to the plate. If people will believe in this book and make the changes, this country will succeed. I am hopeful. I have a conversation class 2x a week with a few girls from the HS. Today Marija was the only one who came and she informed me that 2 of her friends got married. Thankfully one of them is going to finish HS but the other one is not. They are both 17 and one of them is pregnant. Thankfully Marija also thinks they are too young and that it is crazy but nothing can be done. Both of the girls parents are happy about it. The one who is pregnant even told Marija that she was still a girl but yet now she is married and pregnant. Absolutely nuts. 8-25-05 Last weekend I went to Stip. I spent the day in Skopje first trying to get some stuff organized and went from there to Stip. While in Skopje I had to go to this place called the RamStore. It is a new 'mall' type place. It is sort of like an American mall which is unheard of here. I think it is nice but it doesn't have all the glamour of an American mall. Unfortunately, I think it will fail in the long run. I think some Turkish guy or company built it. Anyway, there is an AVIS store there so I went to see about renting a car to go to Hungary and Croatia. The people were super nice and let me leave my backpack there so I didn't have to carry it around. The girl later told me that she didn't know how I could carry such a large bag. It was pretty heavy. Then I went upstairs and passed by 2 booths of books - all in English. This caught my eye because I am a book junkie. I looked around and decided not to buy any books because I already have a ton here waiting to be read. I did however find maps. Another one of my addictions. The girl who was helping me was so cute. I think she spoke English but didn't use it because I was trying to speak Macedonian. She was giggling at my fascination with the maps and the Bradt travel guides that they have. The Bradt travel books are in my opinion the best ones. Better then Lonely Planet. So I ended up buying 4 maps - relevant to the upcoming trip so they were worth the $. I really could stare at a map for hours. After that I went to the grocery store and when I walked back by the book seller girl she smiled, laughed and waved. It was nice. Buses here usually have 2 workers - one to drives and one who takes the tickets. The ticket guy said that I had to put my bag below just in case I had a 'bomb'. He was joking of course and it was pretty funny. When he found out I was from America he cleared the first seat on the bus - the one where normally the elderly people sit - and told me to sit there. That was nice - he was just a jolly man. Later on he took some kind of pill and asked the driver for a bottle. The driver reached to his left and pulled out a bottle of vodka! The ticket taker took a huge swig. I am guessing 4-5 shots worth - maybe this is one of the reasons why he is so jolly. Amazing. They also had some posters that a person asked them to take on the bus and deliver to someone in Stip. They opened up the posters and while the driver was driving, they were looking at them. The bus ran just slightly off the road. Too funny. The weekend in Stip was nice. Nik had a party and gave away some of his books. So, I have collected more. I thanked him profusely and said I felt like I had just visited Barnes and Noble. He had a ton of books. I was thankful to get some more books - now I really don't need to buy any. We had a meeting with some external evaluators of SDC (Swiss Development) this week. It was a good meeting for many reasons but one in particular. I kept asking my counterparts what the meeting was about and what I should be prepared for and just got the brush off. Beti and Ismet filled out an evaluation form and when the guy asked if I had seen it I said that I was not familiar with the form. He said "people, you need to share these things with your colleagues". That made me very happy because I think they think they tell me stuff but they don't - at all! Maybe this comment clued them in to the fact that they keep me out of everything and our communication just plainly sucks. I also went to the meeting with the mayor that the SDC people had. It was nice to FINALLY meet the man. My counterparts have had meetings with him before but I have never been invited. He seems like a good guy and doesn't feel threatened by citizens taking action. The SDC guy was a bit odd though. He said to the translator to 'not translate this but he (the mayor) has very sexy eyes'. Not exactly professional but whatever. He was nice enough to me and I appreciated his openness and comments. Tuesday night I went over to one of my students houses after class. She (Mira) is the lady who at the fish head a few months ago at the women's conference. She is super nice. She is a widow and her 2 kids are in college. I have met both of the kids and they are great people. Her daughter especially. We made a cake that was delicious and she also made a shopska salad which I have an addiction to. That might explain why I've gained 12 pounds since I moved here. She is kind of a food connoisseur and enters food contests. She really knows how to garnish something. It was a nice night and I am glad I went. Sometimes I feel like 'I really don't want to go and do this' but after it is over I always walk away feeling good. Her English is great but sometimes there are just barriers and it takes patience and at times I just don't have the patience. 8-29 I decided to go to Berovo (via Stip) this weekend because my counterparts were making me crazy and I wanted to get away. It was a last minute decision and a good one. Berovo is pretty far from Kicevo - it is 7 K's from the Bulgarian border. Actually it is not that far miles-wise (about 170 miles) but on the buses it takes around 7-8 hours. If they had a road going straight across the country it would probably be only around 120 miles. One bad thing about Macedonia is that there are very few roads that run east to west. First you have to go north or south to catch up with a road that goes east or west. Another example, Andrea lives in Debar which is directly west of Kicevo. If I could just go west it may be around 16 miles but because there is no road I have to go to Struga first then to Debar - about 67 miles and 2 1/4 hours on the bus. Back to Berovo...this past weekend was their 'celebration' weekend. Most towns and villages have some religious holiday that they celebrate and it is a big deal. People will come from all over the place to be part of the festival. They had an arts and crafts fair, traditional dancing and a lamb stew at a church. It was fun and I am glad I made the trip. It is a really cute little town of around 8000. On Saturday we ((Mike, Doug (he lives in Berovo) and I)) walked up to a man made lake. It was a gorgeous walk. We passed by many weekend cottages. Doug said a lot of people from Skopje go to Berovo to escape the heat. Naturally they wouldn't go west because it is 'dangerous' because Albanians live there. The terrain of Berovo is just like Kicevo - the elevation, weather, mountains, trees etc - all about the same. We ate dinner outside overlooking the lake. We walked back to Berovo this time via the road and went to see some of the festivities. A lot of singing and some traditional dancing. On Sunday morning we decided to go for a run. We all need to get ready for the big half marathon next weekend. Doug led us through town to a village about 4 1/2 miles away. It is so nice to be running through the country, passing by sheep and orchards. On the way back we passed by a shepherd with his sheep and enormous dog and to pass the time he was playing the flute. Not too often in America would that be a scene. A shepherd with his sheep playing the flute. Things like that make me happy to be here. When I see something that just seems so different I ask myself 'what would I be doing if I was in Charlotte right now?' The answer is never as unique as what it is I am experiencing at that moment. Walking into Doug's apartment is like walking back in time. He lives on the ground floor and it is cold and damp. The walls are white and the trim is gray. The ceilings are low and some of the doors are extra small. He has a pantry room with old cabinets and a small window. The carpets cover the concrete floor; the TV and phone are most certainly from communist times. From the things on the wall to the clutter of trinkets - It feels like it a babas (grandmothers) house in 1965 and Tito is still a 'god'. I wouldn't want to live there but it does have a certain charm that can't be duplicated. Mike and I had to skip the lamb stew because of the bus schedule. Back in Stip we went to the Irish pub that just opened. We were really hoping for some Guinness and western food. The pub itself is pretty darn nice. Cozy chairs, lots of hardwood cabinets, brick walls, Irish music, lamp posts etc. We were impressed. In typical Macedonian style they didn't have 2/3 of the stuff on the menu but it all worked out. We had chicken fingers that were delicious, fries that were not dripping with oil and a very interesting chicken burger. It was chicken with bits of cheese and ham throughout and it was perfectly seasoned. Mike and I were both very impressed with the food. There is really a lack of variety in food choices here so seeing or eating something that is pretty western is a real treat. It was all very reasonably priced too. I came back to Kicevo and now here I am - getting ready for the trip to Hungary and Croatia. I can't wait. You guys probably think I am always on vacation and this summer it kind of feels that way but really most of my adventures thus far have been weekend excursions. It will be nice to be away and to be in a city where there is not trash everywhere. I plan to eat at TGIFridays, shop at H & M (if it's open), and take in a little culture - as well as run the half marathon and have fun with friends. I'll let you all know how it is when I get back. Have a good 2 weeks everyone! Kaitlin (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, August 13th, 2005
7:59 pm	Two words Forest Strawberries. They are the most delicious fruit I have ever tasted. Perfectly small and sweet. In Montenegro we could buy a plastic cup full of them for 1 euro. They were priceless. Those who know me know that I don't like fruit but I could eat these little berries all day, every day. It has been a while so I have a lot to catch you up on. First, Camp GLOW. I believe it was a big success. From the evaluations the girls filled out I believe they think it was a success as well. This was not a camp for R & R, it was real work. We were on the mountian of Pelister but there was no real free time to go on any hikes. That part of it is a shame. For some of the girls it may have been the only opportunity they would ever have to be on this mountain and there was no free time for them to explore it. We were busy from 8:15 AM until 10 PM. We had break for breakfast, lunch and dinner and one or two small breaks during the day. Every day was jammed packed with activities from how to conserve water to self defense to a lecture on democracy. It was a long week but well worth it. There were supposed to be 60 girls but 3 didn't show up. Not a bad turnout. The whole thing was funded by OSCE (organization for security and co-operation in Europe). Next year we might try and do 2 camps each with the same amount of girls one right after the other. That is of course if we can get funding. I think next year I would rather be part of the organizing committee instead of a presenter. I was responsible for the day on environment (not just me, I worked with Lenora a teacher from Kicevo, Kristin who was one of the organizers and 2 junior counselors) and I am just not all that great at it. I need to learn how to ask follow-up questions and stuff. It wasn't bad but I think I would be better at helping get it all together before the show goes on. Marilyn was one of the presenters and her day was the love, relationships and marriage day. I think I have mentioned before that she was a speaker and had a radio show by profession. She is just such a great speaker. The girls were mezmorized by her and what she had to say. She also taught yoga one night and again the girls loved it. They were amazed to find out she is 61. Marilyn said that being here is one of the first time she loves her age because most people her age here are kind of falling apart and are in the old school world but not her. She said going back to the US is going to be a shock for her because it is not going to be an asset anymore. A lot of people in their 60's in the states are like her. One of the biggest parts of the thing is to get the girls from different areas of the country to meet each other. Girls from the east never get a chance to meet girls from the west. Most of this refers to the fact that people of different ethnicities rarely have dialogue. The west is seen as the place with a lot of money, Albanian mafia and just lawlessness. One day there was a discussion about it and I was happy to hear an ethnic Macedonian girl say that she was having a great time in her room with girls from the west (mostly ethnic Albanian) and that she was realizing that they were girls just like her. The same interests, desires and problems. Then an ethnic Albanian girl said that she was glad that the ethnic Macedonian girls in her room were asking her how to say some things in Albanian and asking her about her religion and traditions. For me this is what it is about. The only way to stop this craziness in this country is to get the young people of different ethnicities to meet each other so they can see that people are pretty much the same. They may have a different religion, traditions, hairstyle or whatever but at the core they are people and they are the same. People are usually afraid of what is different but when they have exposure to what that different thing is, they find out that maybe it isn't that different or scary. It was a great week. After GLOW I was at work for 4 days. Ismet pushed the 'you need to tell me where you are at every minute of the day' stuff again but I am doing my best to nip that in the bud. He wants me to send him emails of my meetings, where they are, what the agenda is etc. I explained that I put up the schedule and I write on that schedule what I am doing and that will need to suffice. I told him as kindly as I could that when he starts emailing me his agendas, meetings etc., then I will do the same. I just don't like someone trying to control me. It makes me crazy. The other 2 volunteers don't have this problem at their NGO support centers, just me. To help with this, I made a flip chart size calander and hung it on the wall and suggested that on that we can all put what we have going on so not only the 3 of us can see it but all the NGO members. This way if someone wants to know what is going on in the center, they can refer to the schedule on the wall. Sounds logical, right? Ismet thought it was a good idea but then when I actually made it and hung it up I could see how much he actually despised the idea. I could see it in his expression that he wanted to rip it to shreds. Beti said she loved it but when I asked her if she would use it she said no. However, this week she told me of 3 meetings so I took a marker and went to mark it on the calander. Then she got kind of excited and came over with a highlighter and marked the things that I had just written. It may take a while but I really want them to get used to using this tool. I can't tell you how many times that they tell me they 'just don't know how to use a schedule'. These are college educated people and they just have no idea to plan and use a calander. Crazy isn't it? That is one of my goals while I am here - get my counterparts to use a schedule. After 4 days at work I left for Montenegro with Mike. Annette and Hugo left on Wednesday and they were going to meet us there. This country has so much to offer. The Adriatic, rich history, lakes, canyons, rivers and some amazing mountians. A little something for everyone. The whole thing with getting there was kind of a debacle. We were going to rent a car but one person told Annette that the roads were too dangerous and it would take us 15 hours. According to the Michelin website it should take about 4 1/2 hours. Now, I can see 6-7 hours because you never know about border crossings and getting lost but 15? Come on. That must have included the 25 coffee breaks that Macedonians make. Then someone told her that going through Kosovo was like heading into Al Qaeda. Naturally this was coming from an ethnic Macedonian who had never been there before. Maybe that person should have come to the camp. So we cancelled the car and ended up taking the bus. Kosovo was pretty darn nice in my opinion. At least Pristina was. It looked a lot more developed then Skopje to me (although we were there at night so I couldn't see much). I thought the guy at the border was going to take Mike and I home with him and give us his first born child. I am pretty convinced the Kosovars like Americans because we did a good bit of helping out when the Serbs tried to kill them off. We had to wait about 1 1/2 hours at the border getting into Montenegro from Kosovo. That was long and tiring. It was an overnight bus. The roads were windy but they really were pretty good the whole way and we could have EASILY driven on them. I was suprised at the speed of the trip. Mike and I took a guess of how many breaks we would make and I guessed 4, he guessed 3. We really only took 2 official breaks so I lost. We decided to take the risk of being dropped off at this one town kind of close to where we needed to go. If we had stayed on the bus to the capital we would have had to backtrack for about 6 hours. It was worth the risk. We got to this town at like 5:30 AM and we looked at the board and no buses to the town where we wanted to go! How could this be? They are only 60 K's away from each other! They had a bus from this town in the middle of nowhere all the way to Belgrade but no bus to Zabljak. We considered a bus that was only 3 euros but it would talk us to a bridge where we would have to get off and wait for someone else or something to just happen to pass by and pick us up. No thanks, we were too tired to deal with that kind of frusturation. We decided to take a taxi and it was well worth it. 30 euros and an hour later we were at the hotel. The whole trip, on the bus including the border stop and waiting for the taxi took a whopping 8 1/2 hours. Well below the estimated 15. The first day we slept, went on a small walk where we oohed and aahed the scenery. On the walk back to the hotel we ran into Annette and Hugo on the street. We weren't sure if they were coming on Saturday and Sunday and there they were. They went to Budva on the coast from Wed until Sat. Annette just kept saying over and over how hot Budva was and how she couldn't wait to get out of there. I am glad Mike and I decided not to go there. They had a heck of a time getting a hotel too. Nobody wanted to rent a hotel for 1 night so they wondered and wondered until they found a place. We went back to the hotel, ate dinner, played some cards (Rook) and went to bed. Sunday was rafting day. The 4 of us went rafting down the Tara river in a canyon second in depth to the Grand Canyon. Let me tell you, this is the most beautiful river I have ever laid eyes on. The water was the most amazing shade of blue/green. It kind of looked like a lighter and much cleaner version of the river in Chicago when the dye it for St. Patty's day. The water is potable and in a few places we saw it rushing out from inside the mountain in a mad fury. Just spectacular! It was so clear that it looked like it was a foot deep but when you looked closer it was more like 15-20 feet deep. I am not kidding. I jumped in for a dip and it lasted about 10 seconds because my legs started to hurt from the freezing temperature of the water. At least I got in. We also went over to a small waterfall where we all sampled some more water. Oh it was so good! There were no real rapids, it was more like floating but that was fine, the scenery was gorgeous and the weather was perfect. The trip was only about 2 hours - way too short. There is a 2 day version but we didn't know how good it would be so we didn't sign up for that. We all wish we had. Next time.... Back at the hotel we walked down to Black Lake and drank a beer. It was a great day. On Monday Mike and I went for a long hike while Annette and Hugo stayed behind to do their own hike. Mike and I looked through the guide book and found a hike we thought would be good. We should have believed the book when it said 'very difficult' hike. We scaled the mountain. The first part of the hike was in the forest. They have bears there and at one point I heard someting and Mike did too. I froze and he just kind of looked around. It sounded like a horse to me and I swear a month's worth of adrenaline was used up in that 5 seconds. Turns out it was some kind of enormous bird. We kept walking and we went through meadows and meadows of wild flowers of all kinds of colors - yellow, purple, pink and lots of white daisies which I love. We were feeling pretty good then we emerged from the forest to see a mounain of rock ahead of us. Ok, we can do this. We start walking up and up and up and it was hard. Think of taking steps on your instep or outstep about knee high for 30 minutes. There was no real way to walk straight up or we would have literally been climbing. There were parts that were like that. We made it to the top and ate some snacks. Ironically enough there was a garbage can a the top. Yeah, I wonder how often that gets emptied. The book said is should take 3 hours and 15 minutes to get where we were and it took us about 2 1/2 hours so we were hustling. We decided to follow a trail which took us over a ridge and a little down on the opposite side of the mountain. When we reached kind of the end of that mountain we would look for another path (the map said there was one) to make our way down. The path on the other side was slightly scary for a section. Holding onto a cable - let go and bye bye! Seriously at parts it was more like mountian climbing then hiking. You might not die but serious injury would most certainly be inflicted. Along the ridge was also a bit scary. One or two steps right or left and again - bye bye! We got to the other side and paused for a minute. We could hear something and it was a rock slide on one of the other mountains. We looked for it but couldn't find it. We sure did hear it though! Thankfully we wern't on that mountian, I hope nobody was. It lasted a minute or two. We also heard a guy yelling and finally spotted him exactly on the top of the mountain across from us. Very cool. There was still a lot of snow in the crevices. I imagine it never melts. Well, we looked for the other stupid trail for an hour with no luck. Finally we decided to take a different trail back down. It would bring us out on the other side of the mounain on the other side of the lake. At that point, I was in for anything that descended. It was a good choice. We passed by some huts that looked like if you blew on them they would fall over but there were people actually staying there. We saw some guys near one of the small lakes (the water in that lake must have been absolutley freezing!), a dog that was tied up, passed by a cave and made our way back into the forest. The cave looked like it would have been cool to check out but we didn't bring a flashlight and at that point all I wanted was food. Next time... We left at 9 and had plans to meet Hugo and Annette for lunch at 2. We were an hour late. Not too bad. I couldn't wait to eat! It was a great hike but I should have been more prepared with food and mentally prepared myself for a 'very difficult' hike. Mike said it was one of the most difficult ones he has ever done so I didn't feel too much like a baby - unless he was just saying that to make me feel good but I don't think so. Again we drank some beers, ate some forest strawberries, played some rook and went to bed. Tuesday was our last day in the adorable town of Zabljak. I was really going to miss the quaint cottages and most of all the A-frame houses. I am in love with them. I already have one designed in my head to build one day. Originally we thought we would rent mountian bikes but I suggested just lounging by the lake instead and thankfully everyone agreed. We walked into town and bought some lunch supplies and went to the lake. It was so relaxing. Annette stole a sheet from the cleaning people so we had a picnic blanket or sheet I should say. We made sandwiches, drank some wine and coke and sunbathed. Mike and I went for a quick dip in the lake and the fish came right up to our feet and nibbled on them. Later on back at the hotel we sat ouside, drank some beers and played rook. The hotel people told us we were not allowed to play cards on the tables outside. I am not sure where this rule came from because we saw other people playing the day before. We just ignored them. They ended up telling us 3x and when it was time to eat dinner we finally got up. Dumb rule. Goodbye to Zabljak and to my forest strawberries! I will be back. The next morning we left for Podgorica and Cetinje. The bus ride was a van instead of a bus which was nice - and faster. We got to Podgorica, left our bags at the bus station and boarded a bus to Cetinje. The bus was really a minivan and it was PACKED. It was so hot inside that van. 30 minutes later we arrived in Cetinje. This is the historical capital of Montenegro. First we went to eat and it was the most delicious pizza! Sorry to the Italians but the Balkans have really mastered pizza production. I just love the pizza here. The town was so charming. We went to the national musuem where we got a short history lesson and looked at an icon called Our Lady of Philermos. Science says it is from the 9th-11th century but legend says that St. Luke painted it in the 1st centry. Either way it was somewhat mystifying and intriuging. I could hardly see the image. I walked around to try from several different angles and then I saw it. An illusive image. From the museum we went to the Monastary where they have St. John the Baptists right hand mummified and a piece of the cross. Mummified body parts are just kind of creepy, I think. Who thought it would be a good idea to save someone's body part and preserve it? I know in the Catholic Church it is a first class relic but I think it is bizarre. Anyway...from there we went to another musuem where they have an enormous relief map (20'x20' is my guess) of the Balkans. It was made in WWI by the Austrians so they could figure out their strategy. I am a map junkie so I thought it was awesome. We walked around and around trying to identify towns and lakes. Zabljak and the Tara river were there - along with Skopje. They even had little houses to show where they were. It was really cool. Our next stop was my favorite of all in Cetinje - the Palace of King Nikola. I love places with all the furniture, curtains, clothes etc. They almost didn't let us in because it was close to closing time and you have to be led around. They said we could hurry up and catch the Italians but as we walked up the stairs this lady said she would take us around. Super nice. I think at the end she got in trouble for it. We went to the center and drank some lemonades then headed back to Podgorica. The instructions for getting the bus back to Skopje were kind of odd. Wait at a gas station about 6 K's outside of town and the bus will come and get you between 10:30-11. We got there at 9:30 and played more rook (on a suitcase), it was raining and chilly. 10:00 came and went, 10:30 came and went, 11:00 came and went, 11:30 came (I had given up hope around 11:15) and the bus showed up. Thankfully Mike is an optomist. We got the last 4 seats on the bus in the last row. We bounced all over the place the whole night! There were some parts where the bus felt like it was going 100 MPH down a hill at 3 AM and I wondered and prayed that the driver was awake and that this speed was on purpose. He was and it was. We made it to Skopje alive. And that is the end of the trip to Montenegro. I will most definately vacation there again. It is amazing how they were part of the same country that Macedonia was a part of and how much further ahead they are as far as development goes. It is just mind boggling. I was home for 2 days then the birthday weekend in Struga on Lake Ohrid! Woo hoo! More fun times. We decided to have the party at the green center which is kind of like a hostel. We couldn't have the beds inside because there was some youth group there so we were in the tents outside. All the tents had 4 cots and they were quite cozy. Patty works with the organization that runs and owns the place. Proudly build with money from USAID. We got a ton of beer and wine and slowly people started to show up. We went out for pizza and came back to the campsite where we just hung out. It was cold outside! The next morning we woke up to a grey sky and chilly weather. Jeans and jackets and it is August. Kind of a disappointment but we all made the best of the crummy weather. Some of us played euchre in the morning then went for a stroll. It was decided that at 4 PM we would go jump off the bridges. It was so fun. It was actually much warmer in the water then outside. Coming out of the water was a shock to the system. There were 5 of us that went off the big bridge 3x. A few of us also went off of a smaller bridge where the lake starts to feed into the river. On this bridge you jump off the back end then turn around and get shot through to the lake underneath the bridge. It is kind of like a rapid. I did this one a few weeks ago and I did it again today but I didn't jump out far enough so when I turned around I was already almost under the bridge and I had to take a very fast breath. Still fun but I like the higher bridge better. After bridge jumping we played volleyball and it was great fun. After volleyball, dinner, bonfire, music, dancing and just hanging out. Angie and Laura made a cake for the birthday people so that was nice. Naturally on Sunday it was sunny and gorgeous. Most people left early but a few of us hung around and went to the beach for a while. The weather was perfect. Not too hot, not too cold, sun shining etc. Glorious! Mike came back to Kicevo with me to take me out to dinner for my b-day which was very nice. He left on Monday morning and I had my first full week back at work in a long time. Busier then usual. I went to run some errands today and I stopped by to see Lydia at the bookstore. She informed me that she is going to start taking classes at SEEU in Tetovo. She wants to get a degree in English language. I am so excited for her. Her husband fully supports her and she is excited about it. After vising with her I went looking for a cookie sheet and went into one store that I have bought stuff at before. I was having a hard time explaining myself so he called his brother over who lives in Rockford, IL. He's been living in the states for 14 years now. He is ethnic Turk but it was nice because this is not something that he told me within the first 30 seconds of the conversation like most people do. He was super nice and everything that he said Macedonia needs work on I agreed with. He has a medical clinic that he runs with his wife (x-rays, MRI's, etc.) and also has some kind of mobile medical unit doing x-rays and stuff. It was nice to talk to him and after those 2 visits, I finally returned home - 4 hours after I left. I am currently making pizza from scratch, I am waiting for the dough to rise. So that is the past month or so in a nutshell. Lots of fun stuff. I hope all is well in the US. Love, Katie PS - I apologize for never spell checking these things. (Comment on this)
Sunday, July 10th, 2005
11:03 pm	No water again today I went out for a run at 11:15. Great run, needed to get ready for work and I go to take a shower and nothing. Naturally I am disgustingly sweaty and gross. I was able to get a few drops - just enough to wet my body and I just kind of scrubbed with the towel to try and make myself slightly clean. This morning I had a few errands to run. One of my stops was at the tailor to have a dressed hemmed. The place I went was near the market (pazar) in the Albanian section of town. I went in and there was an older woman behind the counter. I told her the dress was too long and that I wanted it shorter. I marked the spot with a safety pin. She asked if I spoke Albanian and I told her 'no' and she asked where I was from. I explained why I am here and she seemed pretty happy to hear it. When I told her I was 'only American' not Albanian American or Macedonian American her eyes lit up and she called the rest of the workers into the room to see me. Amerikanka! There were about 4 girls who looked about high school age and one other woman probably in her 40's. They all smiled at me. I asked when I should come back and they said it would only take 15 minutes. I ran some other errands and came back and when I walked in one of the girls yelled to the others 'Amerikanka!' and everyone came into the room again to stare at me. It wasn't a creepy stare, a stare as if I was a long lost relative or something. The price for the repair - $1. I will continue to do business there. There is a guy (Josh is his name) visiting who was part of the MAK 2 group. He is here with his girlfriend and they are staying at my tutors house. She was his counterpart when he lived here. He is very nice and it is great to have the opportunity to talk to another volunteer who lived here and understands the city. He was here when the Kosovo crisis started and he was evacuated to Greece then Bulgaria then back to America. He said the whole thing was pretty weird because he was watching CNN and the embassy in Skopje was on fire, diplomatic cars overturned and rioting all around the embassy. Some genius in the US governement agreed to let the Macedonian police be the safety and security of the embassy instead of the Marines. With Yugoslovia being such a volitale area at that time why would someone EVER allow such a thing. Idiots! (For reference of this word please watch the movie Napoleon Dynamite) Naturally they had to fly some Marines in to restore order. Some guys in their 20's threatened Josh on the street that they were going to 'take care of him' that night. He went home, called PC and got in a cab to Bitola. His group ended up staying in Bulgaria for a month and finally they were sent back to America. Nobody expected the conflict to last more then a few days. It must have been hard for him becuase he never got to say goodbye to anyone and he had to leave everything (all of his stuff) here. It can be strange because in general Albanians love America because of our help in Kosovo and in general Macedonians are a bit bitter about us helping the Albanians. For the most part all people are fine one-on-one but if you get to talking about it, some Macedonians will tell you how much they don't like the American government and the choice made to protect the Albanians and destroy the Serb aggression in Kosovo. I think those thoughts are shifting because of the US recognizing the name 'Macedonia' instead of 'Former Yugoslov Republic of Macedonia (FYROM)' and because they will probably be a part of NATO in a year or two. There are stickers here that say 'don't you FYROM me'. I think they are quite clever and I want to get a hold of some. The name thing is such a hot topic too becuase Greece refuses to recognize the name 'Macedonia' becuase they feel like that name is in reference to a territory in Greece and should not be used for the name of the country. The compromise was FYROM but now that many countries have recognized the name 'Macedonia' Greece is furious. This will continue to be a hot topic as Macedonia makes its way toward becoming a member of the EU. Greece will do what they can to block them from joining as long as they want to be called Macedonia and not FYROM. History in the making.... I saw my host family last weekend. It was a nice time. I helped them with the tobacco on Friday night. We just put it on the strings to be hung to dry. My host Dad (Veli) came home and like I said a few entries ago he is doing something with cows now. He came back with a HUGE cow in the back of the truck and it was a sight to see watching him and another guy get the thing off the truck. The cow was so reluctant to go and Veli was in the truck pushing from the back with all his might (Veli is a former wrestler so he is a pretty bulky and strong guy), a guy on the ground pulling the cow from the rope and the cow was doing whatever it could to avoid getting off the truck. All 4 legs were spread as far as they could go. Then it bucked and was airborne flying off the truck. It was kind of scary. If someone had been in its way they would have been seriously injured or history. An interesting sight to see. The next morning I went with Vagide and Nebhat (Avne came along) to the school to get their grades. Naturally it is a big event and the kids couldn't sit still. We all went together into Vagide's classroom and I sat in the front row. They said it wasn't a problem that I was there. Maxot (the teacher and kind of 'mayor' of Buzalkovo) gave out the grades. He called names one by one and the kids went up to get their school picture and report card. They could not have the documents until they shook Maxot's hand. It was really cute. Vagide had all 5's. I was not suprised. Nebhat didn't do as well - some 3's, 4's & 5's. She was disappointed but she doesn't do any school work at home while Vagide is always making sure everything is done and that she studies for tests. Nebhat is just as smart as Vagide but she doesn't work or try. We took a tour of the new school and I tell you what, I am SO excited for this little village to have this school being built. It has about 9 classrooms. Much better then the 2 they currently have. It is connected to the old school so I guess there will be a total of 11 rooms. It is 2 floors, the rooms are big, the kids are excited! We went up into what will be Vagide's room next year and all the kids wanted a picture taken in their new classroom. There were about 10 men there working on it so I am hopeful that it will be done by next school year. I just hope there is enough money for desks, chairs and blackboards. I know it is a long shot but I hope there will be money to make a playground for the kids. What they have now is a death zone and it would be great to have a place where they can play without the fear of stepping on a nail or some other dangerous item. It turns out Buzalkovo will have more volunteers there come September. At least that is what I have been told. I think we made a small impact because Maxot met with PC and he said that people are willing to take men this year. I guess last year nobody was willing to accept a male volunteer (with the exception of Adam becuase he was married to Danielle) but this year they will allow men. I am also thankful because I think Maxot is a good person and will do what is best for the people of the village. An example - PC gives the town some money for hosting us. In one of the other villages the mayor bought himself a TV and who knows what happened to the money in the other villages. About 5 days before we were supposed to move to our homestay villages one town demanded more money. PC said no (thankfully) but then the PC had to scramble to find families for for people to live with in other villages. Not in Buzalkovo. Maxot used the money to put in concrete near the fountain, a little overhang at the bus stop and some park benches. Maybe he kept some of the money for personal things, I don't know but it doesn't seem that way to me. Villages like that need to be rewarded becuase their efforts are geniune. Oh, they are also getting underwater pipes too! I think I told you all about how the water just runs down a ditch on the side or in the middle of the street. Well, they are digging the streets up and installing drain pipes! Great progress! My host family even said that their street is going to get pavement sometime this summer. I am hopeful. I met up with Mike, Sean, Jennifer and Nik in their training village - Gradsko - on Sunday morning. There is an ancient site called Stobi about an hour walk from Gradsko. Turns out only Mike and I went. It was pretty cool. There were some incredible mosaics and one of them is actually on the 10 Denar note. There really wasn't any kind of protection over the ruins. You could honestly just walk onto them and destroy stuff if you wanted. Mike and I both talked baout how we think this would be a professor's dream to excavate with a group of students. The following weekend was the 4th of July celebration on lake Ohrid. It was a good time. Go figure, it was very hot and sunny all week but on that Saturday it was chilly and rained a bit. We (there were about 16 of us) still went to the beach, swam a bit, threw the football and ate a LOT but it would have been a bit better had we had nicer weather. On Sunday Mike and I went to Sveti Naum (St. Naum)which is a church very close to the Albanian border. We were the only 2 really interested in going. So, we took a bus out there and lucky for us it was St. Naum's saint day! The place was packed! It is right on the lake and there is a spring that creates a small pond or lagoon if you want to call it that. It was peaceful and the water was so clear. The church is kind of up on a hill and we decided to fight the crowd and go in. We watied for about 40 minutes to get inside and in standard Eurpean fashion there were no lines, just kind of pushing and shoving and trying to be paitent. Finally we made it in. It was worth the wait. The frescoes were pretty and it was nice to see what people do on a saint's day. It involves bringing someting as an offering - most people had bottles of oil, kissing an icon of the saint, putting some money in a tray and bowing. Interesting. This past weekend I went to a folk dancing concert at the cultural house. 1 of the girls who comes to my conversation class was in it. There was a group from Australia here to do their dances. The Australian group is made up of people who are from Macedonia but now live in Oz and still do traditional Mac. dancing. The Australians were excellent. Good coreagoraphy, colorful costumes etc. They really had it together. The people from Kicevo wern't bad but they need a little work. Saturday morning I went to Struga to hang out on the lake for the day. I got there and Patty took me to the water to meet some of her friends who own the sailing club. So, they took us out on a small boat then we got on some small sailboats and sailed around the lake for an hour or two. It was beautiful. The lake is just gorgeous - the water is green, it is surrounded by mountains and it is just CLEAN. A rarity here in Macedonia. Josh rode his bike from Ohrid to Struga and spent the day with us. We layed out on the beach, went for a walk, had a bar at a cafe on the water, made some dinner, watched a moive and figured out the details for my and Patty's birthday weekend that we are going to celebrate the weekend of August 5-7. It should be a good time. So I went to the final day of an Albanian wedding. Albanian weddings last 5 days. The first 3 days are with the trumpet (that goes on at night until around 1 AM, I lived just behind the house where the bride is from so I had the joy of listening to that for 3 days), the 4th day is with the tambourines and the 5th day the bride leaves her house (or she is taken from her house) and everyone goes to a restaurant for a party. I went with this girl Teuta who is one of the girls coming to the girls camp next week. I walked in the restaurant and there was room for about 450 people. She introduced me to the groom's father who said "Hey where are you from? I've lived in Wisconsin since the 70's. Welcome to the party." We got there around 7:30 and the bride and groom didn't come until 9:30. During those 2 hours the band played Albanian music so loud I am suprised I am not deaf. I am not convinced that Albanian women wear a head scarf to try to muffle the booming music. There we sat - 450 people - not saying a word because if you wanted to say anything you would have had to scream at the top of your lungs. People got up to dance. When I say dance I mean one dance. It goes something like this - join hands, pump them up and down to the beat of the music, with your feet take one step to left, two to the right, one left, two right. That is it. For 2 full hours. The same dance. And if you are at the lead of the dance you need to have a hankerchif and twirl it around. Almost everyone was dressed like you would dress at a wedding in America. The bride and groom came in and they went under an arch of flowers. The bride looked as if she was the worst day of her life. The groom was smiling a bit but not the bride. I think that is pretty normal. It is not an arranged marriage or anything, I think brides here are trained to not smile. They SLOWLY walked around the room as people threw US $ at them. It was an interesting experience. I had to leave at 9:30 just as they were starting to serve dinner. Teuta said they usually last until 1-2 AM. Oh, all the flowers are fake. Everything was actually very pretty but then all the bridesmaids and the bride carried fake flowers. I don't get it. They have a ton of beautiful flowers here, why use fake ones? It sounds like I am knocking the wedding. It was actually very nice. It so similar to a wedding in the US yet so different too. That is about it from here. Not much to share on the work front except that I think they somewhat got the picture that they are not to leave me in the office by myself for a full day. Thankfully I think that is resolved. Hope all is well in the US of A. Kaitlin PS - Tomatos, peppers and onions are now only 20 cents a pound each! I am in vegetable heaven! PSS - I am too lazy to do spell check so sorry for the mistakes. PSSS - My pictures can be viewed at mkpics.adamanddanielle.com (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, June 24th, 2005
1:34 am	It is the little things in life. I had one of those 'feel good' moments last week at IST (in service training). I found myself in the back of a van with a few other volunteers. We were on our way back to the hotel from a church that is somewhere around 900 years old. From the outside the church looked like a run down barn but inside it housed a nice suprise. The frescos were out of this world with vibrant colors and details. One of the frescos is actually on the 50 Denar note. The church has never had any 'touch-up' work done on the frescos. The roof has been replaced and there have been conservation efforts made to preserve what is there but what we saw was original. The funny thing about going to these churches is that they are in the middle of nowhere and you just need to know who to go to to get the key to get inside. We drove to a town and picked up this guy on the side of the road. He was the guy with the key. How would anyone ever know this? Anyhow, so we were on our way back to the hotel, I am with friends, I just visited a beautiful church, I can see Lake Prespa from the van window, I am surrounded by mountians, my hand is resting on a beer which I intended to consume with friends later (while playing euchre) and I find myself tapping my foot to the music of some Turkish (I think) song from the Eurovision competition. How can things get much better then this? All I could think of was a year ago how I was in a job that was just 'a job' doing the same thing day in and day out in a boring city (sorry to those of you in Charlotte but it isn't the place for me). I am pretty lucky. Last weekend I was in Skopje and Veles. The 'running' group had our montly run. It was a great route. It was on the road to Buzalkovo. The whole way there was uphill but managable the good thing about that is the way back was all downhill. Everyone felt great on the run. I surprised my host family with a visit on Sunday. Angie, Meg and I all decided to go visit our families and we brought some others with us who wanted to see the village. I scared the crap out of Vagide and Avne. I went to the gate and it was locked. Remember, Vagide is 10 and Avne is 5. I kind of tried to get in and when I realized it was locked I peered through the keyhole. They were out of the house at this point and just kind of looking at the gate with scared faces. I told them it was me and they opened up and there were a bit overwhelmed with the 7 visitors I brought with me. Turns out the rest of the family was out in the fields working with the tobacco. I told her we were going for a walk and that I would be back later. We headed up the mountain behind my house and I guess Vagide and Avne left the house on the other side and were on their way to tell the family I was home. So we bumped into them on the way and they led us to the rest of the family. Sure enough, working away. They kept working and the rest of us went for a walk up into the mountain. The weather was great. We returned to my host family's house later only to find lots of food prepared for us. I told my host Mom not too but she insisted. I might spend next weekend there with them. Mike came to Kicevo this past weekend. The visit started out kind of rough. Sometimes the buses don't stop in Kicevo. They pass right through town but don't stop at the bus station so if you have never been here before and the bus doesn't stop, you are screwed. Even if you have purchased a ticket that says you will get off in Kicevo. Well, Mike realized that he had passed the town after a few minutes and went up to the driver and asked him to let him out. By this time I am going to guess that he was about 7 miles outside of town. He called me and I started walking in his direction. Finally after about 50 minutes of walking we met up. Poor guy, not only did he have his backpack but he had a box full of coloring books for the anti-litter campaign. It was pretty heavy. The weekend turned out alright though. Saturday we went biking to a monestary a few miles outside of town. The ride to the base of the mountain was pleasant then it got tough. Straight uphill for a mile or two. We had to walk the bikes at some points. We went into the church and sat outside and ate lunch. The view from the mountain was great. There were some people there so we talked to them for a few mintues. They were nice. Coming back home was nice, all downhill. We parked the bikes at my house then decided to go for a walk up another mountian to a church and to my surprise we also came across the art colony. We met some boys on the street and one of them was carrying a football and was clearly from America. The city of Kicevo is now flooded with people from America who are here for the summer to visit their families. I don't need to hear them speak, I can tell by their clothes. I want to see if the art colony has classes. During the walk we came across two tiny birds in the middle of the road. They were so cute and small. Mike moved them out of the road so they wouldn't get squashed by the cars. We made chicken buffalitos for dinner and met up with Violeta for a bit then met up with Afradia for a beer. Sunday morning we went for a walk. It was a pretty active weekend. One thing Mike suggested to me that I think is a great idea is a bicycle safety week. A ton of people here ride bikes but for me it is normal because this is all I know. Mike said that almost nobody in Stip rides bikes. Maybe I could try to combine this with some kind of get up, get out and exercise project. Before I get thinking about it I need to find some locals who agree with the idea and want to work together. There is no sense in doing it if I am the only one who is interested in it. That wouldn't be very sustainable. So I have told you all the good stuff, now for the bitch session about work. Remember a few weeks ago how I said that I was going to have to stay in the office alone - well I have done it a total of 4 times now. Each time I have told them that I am not happy about it and that is not why I am here. I called my PM (progam manager) to let her know what was going on and she said I absolutley do not have to stay in an office by myself. So, one Tuesday I asked if there were any important meetings on Friday and the answer I got was 'no'. I told them that because there were no meetings scheduled that I would be coming in the office from 9:30-12:30 then taking the 12:50 bus to Skopje. Then they tell me that Beti is going to be in Debar and Ismet is going to be in Skopje so they need me to run the office again. Then later on they tell me that they want me to go to the seminar in Debar with Beti but that I will have to pay my own way. I don't think so! Wednesday and Thursday I kept asking what the deal was and I kept getting blown off. Thursday afternoon Ismet asked me what would happen if I didn't go to Skopje. I told him that I WAS going to Skopje and if one of them was going to be in the office in the morning on Friday that I would be there but if not then oh well. Then he tells me that according to the memorandum of agreement I am his employee and I am required to do the same things that he and Beti do which is total BS (bullshit). I had to clarify that I am a volunteer and not an employee and my work at their center is only 33% of what I am supposed to be doing here in Macedonia. I also said that the center is important to me but I am not going to sit there and stare at a wall because they feel like I should be there. Especially when I could be out doing something productive - meeting with people, building relationships, working on a project. He asked what I suggested they do and I said that he should call members of the NGOs and ask them to have office hours (the other support centers in Macedonia do this but for some reason not our center). If people use the facilities at the center they should pitch-in when help is needed. Finally I suggested meeting with PC and their director because clearly we were not going to be able to come to some kind of compromise. He said he thought that was the best idea and when I asked when a good time would be he said he would get back to me. So I went to IST and came back on Friday. I asked him when a good time would be and he said he didn't talk to his director and that 'we will talk about it on Monday'. When Ismet and I had this conversation it was actually calm and not heated but it just frusturates me. I will not be held captive in a place because they want to drag me down into their misery. There are things to be accomplished here and I will remain optimistic about what can happen here in Kicevo and in Macedoia and I won't have them me change my mind about it. One of them thinks life was better under Tito but what that person doesn't understand that Tito happened to die before all the things he did actually came to light. He was lucky to die while things still seemed good. That man really did a number to this region. Oh, Beti is getting married. Crazy but I had to ask her - to whom are you getting married? She is not dating anyone. This guy who she dated for 2 years called her and asked her to marry him. They broke up last September and she has told me time and time again how she thinks they were SO wrong for each other. Get married - good solution. I am happy for her if it is what she wants but it just seems a bit irrational. There is a creek on the way from my house to town. There are so many frogs in it and I love hearing them croak. It is a great sound. I also love the calls to prayer. I am not sure if I mentioned this before. One minaret goes then another then another and soon you have 5 calls to prayer ringing throughout the town. I love it. I find it soothing. Lucky for me that some people send me plain M&M's so I can get my fix. Today as I ate some I realized that I still separte them by color. Why, why after almost 30 years do I still separate the candy? I don't want to just pop a few into my mouth. I must coordinate the colors and never eat 2 of the same color at the same time unless that is all that remains - because each color tastes different, you know. I forgot to tell you last time... Andrea and I watched the movie The Terminal and we understood what Tom Hanks was saying in whatever country he was supposed to be from. I know it is based on a true story but I am not sure which country. He was speaking some kind of Macedonian/Bulgarian/Serbian/Croatian language. It was really funny because we were casually watching the movie and when he spoke we both kind of looked at each other and said 'did you just understand that?'. We both did and it was quite funny. Some of my pictures are now on-line for your viewing pleasure. Go to - mkpics.adamanddanielle.com. You'll see all the folders and mine is one of them. I hope you enjoy them. This is another thing Mike helped me do. Because I am pretty computer stupid, he showed me how to do it and now I think it is a fun tool. We had a storm in Kicevo that reminded me of a summer storm in Charlotte. One minute sunny then wind, rain, thunder and lightening. After the storm passed we had 2 rainbows! The lower of the two rainbows was the most vibrant rainbow I have ever seen. I could clearly make out each color and it was beautiful! the larger one that was kind of above the vibrant one kept going in and out and the colors were reversed. The inside later was red and the outer layer was purple. Very, very cool. Ismet had never heard that if you can find the end of the rainbow there is a pot of gold. Tonight I went to a cafe bar with Katerina. We went last night too because I had her Eurovision CD and I needed to give it back to her. While we were there last night drinking lemonade and juice I asked one of her friends where I could find a Ckopcko t-shirt. This is the 'budweiser' of Macedonia. I have wanted one for a while and I am not sure what prompted me to ask him - I just saw a sign for the beer and for some reason just asked. He said he knew the owner of the cafe bar that we were in and he would ask him. Her friend (who's name is Goran but everyone calles him 'heart') brought over the owner who said we should come back the next night and he would have a t-shirt for me and for Kate (Katerina) - the next night being tonight. I got there and Kate wasn't there. This guy who I have met before (but I have no idea where) invited me to sit with him. His name is Goran and after a minute I figured out he owns the store next to Lydia's (Lydia is the woman who has US citizenship - she runs one of the bookshops). Anyhow, I ordered a lemonade - this has become my new favorite drink - it is fresh squeezed and delicious. We chatted and Kate showed up a few minutes later. We talked and she called the owner to see what the deal was with the t-shirts. The owner came later with his wife and he not only gave us t-shirts but later called the manager of Ckopsko for Kicevo and asked him to come so we scored hats too! Naturally we put them on right away. Kate is a girl who is super fun and is friends with everyone - she is 28. She and Afradita are good friends and they both went to college for phys. ed but are unemployed at this time. Kate speaks a little English and I speak a little Macedonian but we are able to get by just fine. I think we are both paitent with each other. 'Heart' came later with his brother and the owners brother showed up too. Next thing I know there is chilled whiskey in front of me and we are all cheersing (I realize this is not a real word) each other. There were also bowls of almonds put on the table and I am telling you they were the best almonds I have ever tasted. I think I ate about a million of them. Perfectly salted and crunchy. Next thing I know we are all done with our first glass of whiskey and they are pouring more. It is a school night! I was not prepared to drink any alcohol! I am listening to them talk and I am getting bits and pieces. Then I get an SMS from Andrea in Debar. She is engaged! Holy cow! Her fiance is super nice but they have only known each other for 3 months or so. Naturally I am happy for her and I tell the others and we are cheersing to Andera and Ibram! Next thing I know it is midnight and it is time to go go home. It was a fun time. There I sat with 6 Macedonians - enjoying their company despite the language barrier. They told me they don't belive that I will go home in December 2006. They said they think I will stay here forever. I told them that time will tell. People here are just NICE. They are relaxed, enjoy new people and are so welcoming. It is not a competition for them like I feel it sometimes is in America. Again, one of the small things in life that makes me smile..... One funny thing about the language barrier - when someone is telling you a story and you get it up until the last word. They are laughing hysterically because whatever they said is funny but you don't know the last word so you are missing a key part and you don't want to laugh with them because you don't know why it was funny but you feel stupid because then you have to tell them that you got it up until the end. It kind of kills the moment. That happened to Kate and I tonight. Luckily 'Heart' speaks English so he told me what she said and I laughed too but it is hard when someone is telling you a good story and you can't laugh with them. I hate that. I want to be able to get it up to the very end. The good news is that I think I am getting more and more every day because a few people who I have known since I got here tell me that I am getting more and that they are impressed that I have been here such a short time and understand them. I guess I still feel pretty lost but I do get some things. Joshua is coming tomorrow. He is from the MAK 2 group (I am part of the MAK 9 group). I think he was here in '97 & '98. I look forward to meeting him. I am actually going to Skopje for a GLOW meeting tomorrow then to Buzalkovo then on Sunday to Gradsko and Stobi (an ancient site) and will be back in Kicevo on Sunday night. I guess I will meet him next week. I will invite him to a big 4th of July party that Josh is having next Saturday on the lake. That should be extra fun. Well everyone, I hope you all have a nice weekend. I'll be in touch soon! Katie PS - I am too tired and lazy to do spell check right now so sorry for the mistakes. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, June 4th, 2005
6:58 pm	I broke down... and bought a bike. It was killing me seeing all these people riding around and me not being able to. I picked up a bike helmet from the PC office last week and decided that I wasn't going to be left out of the cycling world any longer. I was in Debar over the weekend and almost bought one there but the chain kept slipping so I waited. On Tuesday I spend the big bucks - almost half a month salary - and I bought one. Because you all know how much of a cheap-ass I am naturally I bought the best one I could buy for the cheapest price. I did a bit of shopping and swindled a basket for the bike out of the deal without paying extra. I pick it up tomorrow. I can't wait. I write these things during the week so it may seem odd that I say 'tonight' but really it happened on Tuesday. Just an FYI. I was in Debar last weekend - visiting Andrea. It is such a cute little town but very, very isolated. I can see in the winter how she wanted to do whatever she could to get out of the place. The drive to Debar from Gostivar is beautiful but not for those with a weak stomach. It is in the mountains and there is also a nice lake there. The town is right on the Albanian border. You can stand near the lake and see a town that is in Albania. Kind of strange. She hasn't been there yet. It is literally a 5 minute car ride to the border. It would be too tempting to be so close and not to go. I would have to take the risk. I met her boyfriend who is very nice. I wasn't sure what to expect but I was pleasantly surprised. We watched a ton of movies and as in standard Macedonian procedure, the electricity went out for several hours and she didn't have water for most of one day. The water thing seems to be a problem here. 2 days in the past week I have not had water. It usually only lasts a few hours but it is still kind of a pain. For example, this morning I went running and came back to a dribble. I was able to get some water on me but there wasn't enough water available for me to use soap - the hair remained unwashed. (Monday) As if I haven't already told you all how much I love my host family....They called me tonight. This is kind of a monumental thing because they never have enough money to pay the phone bill and they told me tonight that they were able to pay the bill and they decided to call me. They are people who are VERY poor and yet they are willing to take the time and spend the money to call me. It sounds crazy to think they are not able to pay the phone bill but that is how poor they are. To me it just means that they think of me and care about me to use their resources to get in touch with me. They are such wonderful people. I don't think there is any other family in Macedonia that would have been better suited for me. I will visit them one weekend in June and help with the tobacco. I really do adore them. A form of protest that is a common occurrence in Macedonia is road blocks. They happen all the time and are a serious inconvenience. There was one on the road from Tetovo to Skopje for 3 weeks - this road is the main artery to the west. At first it was just for 3 hours a day - 9-12 then it grew to 5 hours a day - 7-12 then it grew to all day - 7-5. I haven't seen one but from what I understand people just stand in the road and won't move. The people protesting were police officers who were hired and trained then let go because there was no work. They wanted their job back. This kind of stuff happens all the time. (Thursday) So I went to lunch today with Lydia and Edita. Lydia runs one of the many bookshops. She has dual American/Macedonian citizenship. I think I have talked about her before. She lived in Chicago for many years but now she is here. We said a long time ago that we would meet and go to lunch. Her shop is connected to Hotel Arabella (the nicest hotel in town and it really is very nice) and they make a killer chicken salad (or so she told me) so we met up to finally have our salad lunch. Edita runs a private English school. I went to her class a few weeks ago. She is a very energetic teacher and I really like her personality. Her mannerisms are very American - even though she has never been there. She is just fun to be around. Lydia and Edita are friends. We had our salads and Lydia was right - it was fantastic. Lyida paid for my lunch which I appreciated but I wish she hadn't. I feel better going dutch on those things. We went back to Lydia's shop for a while while they tried to give me a lesson on the Balkan conflicts and Kosovo. They both lived in Kosovo for many years. She also gave me 6 notebooks and 6 pens that I planned to buy for the girls’ camp coming up. We are supposed to get them donated but with her buying my lunch and all I couldn't ask her to donate them. She asked, 'are you going to get paid back for this stuff?'. I told her no and she said I could have them for free. Again, very nice of her. It is only about $3 but still it is a nice gesture for her to let me just have them. On the walk home I strolled by a bush and I knew the smell immediately. Honeysuckle! I couldn't believe my nose. Naturally I had to stop and eat some of the flowers - or drink the nectar I should say. I love the sweet taste (and smell) of those flowers and it always reminds me of walking home from the beach in Sea Girt, NJ with my Aunt Cathy. As I continued my journey home I passed by 3 boys. I would say between the ages of 8-12. The one in the middle had on a NBA jersey and I overheard him say in PERFECT American English - "we should put a big sign on the wall that says 'Lakers' " and then I couldn't hear them anymore. Kind of funny to hear some American English coming out of the mouth of a boy in the middle of Kicevo. I guess I shouldn't be so surprised considering a good portion of the population lives in America somewhere. After that experience I walked by a house that had the most stunning flowers. If there is one thing this place has mastered it is growing beautiful flowers. All colors, pink, red, orange, purple, white, yellow.....it was a delight for my eyes. Now I am home, feeling good. I have my meeting tonight with the girls who were asked to come to the camp. I am very excited about the whole thing. I guess because I feel like I am doing something and helping someone learn something new. 6 girls from Kicevo are invited. One teacher from the school is also coming. Her name is Lenora and she is an English teacher. The meeting in Skopje couldn't have gone much smoother. It is hard to have about 10 people in a room that all want their girls to come but we went around the circle and came up with a total of 62 girls so the only wheeling and dealing that had to go on was for 2 girls. Not bad. The whole thing is hard because 24 girls from Kicevo interviewed to go and only 6 can come. It is hard saying no to the others but I guess that is a part of life. I had one parent come into the center (I wasn't there, thankfully) and he talked to one of my counterparts to put a 'good word' in for his daughter. Then yesterday I had a lady ask me if there was more room if I could get her daughter in the 'yes' group. Another guy who I know (Darko, his dad is the director of the hotel where Violeta works) tell me that 'you will choose my girlfriend, right?' I told him no and that each girl has an equal chance. This didn't go over very well with him. Darko drives me INSANE. He is an 18 year old trapped in a 13 year old's body. He thinks he is very smooth and cute and mostly I just want to strangle him. If he is at the hotel I usually tell Violeta that I will have to come back another day because I just can't be around him. He makes me crazy. I even had their teachers telling me - this girl is good, this girl is not so good etc. I did my best to block it out. Then the girls who you don't take people think it is political and that I favor someone because they are Macedonian or Albanian or 1st year in school or 3rd year in school etc. It is a foreign concept for them to think that people were judged on their essays and answers in the interview and that is it. Everything is a conspiracy in their eyes. One of my tutors even asked me if her students weren’t chosen because they were 3rd year. I told her I didn't even look at that and I don't know which students are with which teacher. Such is life; hopefully I haven't made any permanent enemies. My landlords are making major improvements to their home. It is really coming together. They put tile on the steps outside. The project took a whole week. In America it would have taken about a day - maybe. The craftsman had to build up all the steps so they were the width of a tile. It really looks nice. In America the job would probably have been crappy but not this - real workmanship. Then they finished the back part of the garage where they store wood and the bicycles. Now they are working on the inside. They pulled up all the flooring and installed laminate and pulled out a half wall. Houses here are built with red cinderblocks so while they were taking out that wall it was a bit loud. Mide told me to come inside and take a look and she said in English 'oh my gosh! - catastroph!' It was really cute. Debris everywhere. It will look great when it is done. Next on the agenda - painting the outside. I'd like to think that my living here is giving them the extra funds to do this work. My tutor Marionka gave me a desk yesterday. I am so completely thankful! My kitchen table has been my junk collection area and computer spot and it has been driving me crazy since the day I moved in. Marionka used to own an internet cafe so they have a couple of desks and she said I could borrow one. The problem was getting it to my house. Finally last night we called a station wagon taxi and it came home with me. Now the kitchen table is clean and only for meals and the desk is the computer/book collection area. It is great. Some superstitions here - I always put my purse on the floor. It stands up quite well and I never think anything of it. I did that at Lydia's store today and she almost panicked. She said, "I am sorry Kate but you can't put your purse on the floor. We believe that a purse on the floor means that all of the money will be taken out of it soon". That is the second time that someone has asked me to take my purse off of the floor. Another superstition - if you sneeze during a meal it means that you will eat with the same people again. (Saturday) I woke up craving french fries and a coke. I went out last night with Afradita. I think I have talked about her before. She is 26 and an Albanian Muslim. She is great. I think I drank one too many beers when I was out with her last night - hence the craving for grease, caffeine and sugar. Scandal - her brother has been dating this girl for around 4-5 years. The girl is 9 months pregnant and they want to get married. I should make a side-note that it is very standard procedure for people to wait until the girl is pregnant before making the decision to get married - even if they have been dating for 10 years. People just usually wait until a baby is on the way to make their relationship official. Anyway, he is Muslim and she is Orthodox. Afradita's family doesn't care because she is a great person and her brother loves her so her whole family just wants them to be happy. The pregnant girl's family on the other hand just won't have it because he is Muslim. She has left her family and lives with Afradita's family now but it is too bad. Her family will miss out on their happiness. The bar we went to was nice. When we arrived - around 9:30 - there were a bunch of high school students there. At 10 the place cleared out because they had to go home to make their curfew. I think 10 is really early - especially in this town where if you needed to find someone it would be pretty darn easy. I stick out like a sore thumb because my clothes are not nearly tight enough. Anyhow, we sat there drinking beers and when all the HS people left the music got better and was turned down quite a bit which was nice because normally the music in these places is usually so loud your clothes vibrate. Some friends of hers sat with us and one of them had a pack of gum - it was Big Red. He said I could have 2 sticks because I am American and I probably miss Big Red. One to have then and 'one for tomorrow'. That was nice of him. Chandra came to Kicevo today. We had a great day just walking around the town, going to the market, eating lunch, taking a walk etc. She is nice and I am glad she is so close by. I didn't really know her during training but I feel like I know her now and she is great. We are the same age and have a lot in common. Her town is about 18 miles away and I told Marinka that I wanted to ride my bike there and she told me it was not a good idea because it is dangerous. I respect her opinion and I don't want to jinx myself but I feel like this is one of the safest places in the world. She said some men will do some mean things to a girl who is riding alone on a bike. She is also the person who said I live in a 'dangerous' part of town. I promise you, it is not dangerous. The most dangerous part about it is the wondering dogs. Anyhow, another week bites the dust. I hope all is well in America. Kaitlin (Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 25th, 2005
1:05 pm	More weekends to brag about. Maybe all of you are tired of hearing me talk about how much I enjoy this place. I am sure I will have some down points (and I do) I guess I just choose to share the better stuff with you. I must say that I am so thankful for the people I have met here and the friendships I have made with other volunteers and HCNs (Host Country Nationals). It really makes my time here a pleasure. While I have crappy moments or days I usually have a fun get together to look forward to or an interesting seminar coming up on the schedule. I need to rewind a bit to two weekends ago. I went to Tetovo to judge a debate competition between SEEU (the only private university in Macedonia) and the University in Bitola. The topic was 'should there be one working language of the EU and if so, what should it be'. It was interesting. The debates were in English. The project was funded by the British Embassy and the British Council. The girl in charge is British and works at SEEU part time and does something in Pristina (Kosovo) part time. Everything here is done by who you know or who you can influence so she wanted these debates to be as transparent as possible. The judges were members of different debate teams and a member of a team would not judge its own team. There were 4 University teams involved in the competition. At the debate on that Saturday there was a judge from a Uni in Skopje, I (the independent judge) and the other judge was the coach of the Bitola team because the 3rd judge didn't show up. Naturally that is a problem because he was judging his own team but there was really no other option. Our score sheets were to be filled out independently. When the debates were over the coach from Bitola told me and the other judge that we could 'look at his scores to decide what we needed to do'. Thanks buddy; I think I can do that on my own. SEEU was clearly more prepared and kicked Bitola butt. I spent the night in Tetovo at Angie's. I have decided to try and figure out the 'povraten' bus system. Povraten means round trip. It is like playing a game. All of the buses are independently owned so if you buy a round trip ticket you need to get on the same bus company to go back. The thing is, half of the time they don't stop at the bus stations in the town where you are going because they don't want to pay the royalty fee to that particular bus station. So, you just stand on the road and hopefully you kind of know a time when they are supposed to come by and you need to flag it down. I am proud to say I was able to do it 2x in one week. By doing this I saved myself a whopping $2.50 ($1.25 each time). That is big bucks for someone who earns around $200 a month. I know it sounds stupid but I feel like the system is out to trick people and I feel like I have in a small way conquered the system. I went back to Tetovo on Tuesday for the debate finals. It was also very good. The British Ambassador was there along with the head of the British Council. It is mean to say but the Ambassador has some serious 'British' teeth - if you know what I mean. He was very nice though. The debate this time was 'should smoking be banned in public places'. It is a very hot topic right now because if there is one thing that is cheap in this country it is cigarettes and just about every person breathes in the cancer. However, as many laws here exist but are not enforced, this one is going to be enforced as of June 5th (according to the government). Everyone is in a huge uproar. The debate was heated and SEEU came out on top - again they were much more prepared then the other team. On Wednesday Chandra (the volunteer who lives in Makedonski Brod about 18 miles away) came to Kicevo to help me interview the girls for the camp. There were 2 girls that really blew us away. One is only 14 and the other is 17. There were a few others that were good but these 2 girls were just fantastic. They were comfortable speaking English; they knew what the camp was about, what they wanted to learn from the camp and were energetic but not dominating. I think they are great candidates and I get more and more excited for the camp every day. I think it is going to be a great time. On Friday I went back to Tetovo for a seminar/lecture put on by the American Council. It was a full day - 9-6. It was the first regional American conference. There were several speakers and my favorite was a professor from U. Kansas who talked about the Brown vs. Board of Ed. He was great. A few of the speakers were from the US and a few from here. I am obviously a product of the American school system because when the American people spoke I followed the speech and was completely engaged. Their speeches were organized and they shared the goals of the lecture before they began talking. When the Macedonians spoke I was lost - and it was not a language barrier thing. They spoke in English but the lecture was unorganized and confusing. A couple of us volunteers sometimes say that people will speak English to us and we know all of the words but what is coming out of their mouths makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Then you walk away thinking 'What just happened back there? What did I commit to? What in the world were they saying?' We laugh about those situations often. It is very common. After the seminar I went to Skopje to meet up with Mike, Doug and Ricky. Once again Mike organized an unbelievable hiking trip. Friday night we just cooked dinner and watched South Park. Saturday morning we woke up and headed out. Ricky lives in Skopje so we stayed with him but he was unable to go hiking with us due to some work engagements. We walked up Mount Vodno. It took us about 2 hours to get to the top from Ricky's apartment. Not a bad walk. There is a huge cross on the top of the mountain. By huge I mean 225' tall. From there we walked on the western side of the mountain and the goal was to walk to Lake Mateka. This side of the mountain was much more beautiful then the Skopje side. There were purple, yellow, orange and pink wild flowers everywhere. Sometimes we passed cows and we could hear the lizards running into the bushes when they heard us coming. The sun was shining, there were a few white clouds in the sky, it was warm but not hot and really it was just perfect. Once again, beautiful scenery, good company, good exercise - what else could I ask for? Our map was not very helpful and the trail just kind of disappeared many times so we were kind of lost but 5 hours after we left the cross we were finally making our way down the mountain into the valley where there was a river and an incredibly steep mountain in front of us. The walk down was pretty steep but we made it just fine. I guess we never really found the lake but the river was good enough. We sat at a restaurant and drank a beer and shared a shopska salata. I have an addiction to these salads. I don't eat tomatoes in America because they are gross but here they are delectable. The salad is made up of cubed tomatoes, cucumbers with a little vinegar and salt topped with grated cirenje cheese. They are to die for. I can't eat enough of them. We took the bus back to Skopje, bought dinner supplies, cooked dinner (burgers), drank beer and played euchre for 6 hours. No joke, 6 hours of euchre - from 9 PM to 3 AM. I am proud to say that Mike and I have finally won not just a game but 2 rounds - if that is what you want to call them. We won the first group 3 games out of 5 and the second 2 games out of 3. I imagine there will be a full-on bracket tournament of euchre at IST (In-service Training) that we have in June. There are a bunch of us that love to play and some of the others boycott learning. Angie is one of them. I keep telling her it is fun but out of principal she doesn't want to learn. Sunday morning we walked to the fortress and to the bazaar. We ate really cheap burek (filo dough piled high like a pie with filling - ours had spinach and cirenje), Turkish tea and ice cream all for the hefty price of $2.00. I ended up buying a teapot to make Turkish tea. It is kind of a double boiler system. Water in the bottom part, tea leaves in the top part. I need to buy the glasses to go with it and I am good to go. It is the best tea in the world! In my opinion anyway. After the wonderful weekend I was unhappy to receive a call from a co-worker who told me that I would be the only person in the office on Tuesday and Wednesday. I guess this is where I share some 'I am pissed-off' feelings. My counterparts are going to a seminar in Skopje for 2 days so they want me to hold down the fort. They asked me to change some plans that I had (to go to Makedonski Brod to interview Chandra's candidates for the camp) and to be there alone with no break from 12-8. If I were reading this I would tell myself to suck it up and I am but I am not happy about it. If I felt like I was a part of the office 'team' maybe I wouldn't feel so mad about this but the thing is that they don't include me in things and now because they need a body there they are relying on me to do it. I asked Beti what they would have done in the past if they were both out of the office and she said that it would just be closed. I told her I thought this request was unreasonable and that I would do it this Tuesday and Wednesday but not to count on me to it again. I told her I had no problem with coming in for a few hours but that I would not be there for 8 hours again. I have to check on this but I am pretty sure PC will not allow us to be in an office by ourselves. It is not part of the 'having a volunteer' deal. I emailed the other 2 volunteers that are in support centers and neither of them are going in so why do I have to? Honestly, I don't mind going in for a few hours but part of it is how I was told and not asked. This makes me angry. The bright side is I can work on the itinerary for the Budapest trip in September and other personal things I want to get done. Some tidbits of info for you...I have seen more Alaska license plates here then I have seen in the States. There are a bunch of people here who have US plates - Alaska, Illinois, Iowa and New Jersey to name a few. Doug didn't believe me but when he was here a few weekends ago we saw one and he couldn't believe it. My house is spider kingdom. I live on the ground floor and the other half of the floor is the 'storage' room. It is damp and cold and the spiders love to be in my apartment. I know they are good for the earth but I do kill most of them. If I can get them outside without freaking myself out, that is what I do. Most of the time they get the shoe or sucked up in the vacuum. Speaking of spiders I was bit by one (or at least I think it was a spider) during he hike last weekend and my ankle is getting some hard welts on it. They are not very big but they itch like crazy. Maybe I should see Dr. Mimi about it when I am in Skopje on Friday. Merideth and I are going to do a lecture on American football at the American corner in Skopje. If anyone out there has any pictures from a game - tailgating, the game itself, pictures of fans, or anything related to the game, please email them to me. I would love to include it in our lecture. I guess that is about it from here. I hope all is well in America. Kaitlin (Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 11th, 2005
1:37 pm	The best 10 days yet The weekend of April 29th started off the 10 days of fun. I had to be at the PC office on Friday for a VAC (volunteer advisory council) meeting. The meeting was fine and much to my surprise I had a package waiting for me. It was sent in October. I had considered it long gone and figured it was lost or stolen. I figured the movies and wing sauce were being watched and consumed by some person somewhere else. Not the case! It was just an extra slow delivery. After the meeting the weekend started on a bad note, not for me but for another volunteer. There were 4 of us in Skopje for a meeting and we left the office and went to the center of town to get some lunch and start our weekend. Josh and I had to go to the bank because it was going to be a 4 day weekend. The Orthodox Easter was on Sunday and Labor Day was on Monday so everyone had Monday and Tuesday off of work. We came out of the bank and our 2 other friends were sitting on a bench talking to some kids. Everything seemed fine until we started to walk away to catch a bus to leave town. The kids followed us and the all kind of surrounded Josh. He was robbed of all of his money. All $240 or so. The must have been watching him to see where he put his money after he walked out of the bank and unfortunately he put it in his pocket and not in a bag or wallet. They just did their typical crowding thing and reached in and took it all. I felt really bad for him. Now the good stuff - I caught a bus to Bitola where we would start a hike up the mountain of Pelister. The bus was packed to the gills because of the holiday weekend. I arrived in Bitola to the smiling faces of Patty, Doug, Mike and Ricky. Meg would arrive later. We got some grub and went to an apartment of one of the people who worked with us during training. Mike organized the trip and asked her about were to stay in Bitola and it turns out she has an apartment there and said we could use it as our ‘base’ free of charge. Very nice of her. We spent the night preparing for the trip. The next morning we were off. First we had to take a cab to a town called Brajchino. It was about a 30 minute taxi ride near lake Prespa and around the mountain. We were dropped off and the adventure began. The hike to the mountain hut (located at Golemo Ezero - Big Lake) is supposed to take about 6 hours. The first hour was a breeze. Then the marker sent us straight up the mountain. From here on out it was a pretty tough hike. There were times that snow covered the path too so we weren’t sure if we were going the right way. When this happened, Mike would take off his pack and go running (I don’t know where he got the energy) to where we thought the next marker was to make sure we headed in the right direction. We walked for a few hours, ate lunch and walked for a few more hours. Parts of the trail were a bit scary because there was still a bit of snow on the mountain and naturally we didn’t want to go tumbling off the side. We also had our backpacks on with the 2 ½ day supply of food as well as sleeping bags and clothes. They were pretty heavy. I know for next time how to pack. Meg and I both had on sneakers because Meg doesn’t have any hiking boots (she is from San Diego and has never had a need, until now) and mine are brand new and not broken in at all so I knew I would be miserable if I wore those. The sneakers were bad because they are slippery. So, Meg and I had to go very slowly over the snow at times. 3 others would go first and create the foot holes for us and one person behind just in case we were to slip. Meg is also quite afraid of slopes but she did great. We finally came over a small peak and there was the man who runs the hut waiting for us. It was a site to see! We were all so happy. It was a long day and we were all very tired. It ended up taking us 7 hours. I think if we didn’t have to go at a snails pace at some points (because of the snow) we could have made it in 6 hours. The hut was great and the man who ran it became our new best friend. The big lake was more like a big frozen pond. The hut is a stone house that is much nicer then any of us expected. No running water, showers or toilets or anything but we all expected a wooden house, no water at all and where we might be very cold - but this place had multiple wood burning stoves and water outside that came through a hose - I am guessing from a spring or something, the toilet was a standard Turkish toilet not too far away from the house. There was a room waiting for us with 3 sets of bunk beds. We changed clothes, made dinner, and played cards . Our new best friend played with us and he picked all the games up very quickly. We were the only guests and the first ones of the year. This is good and bad. Good because it was all ours, bad because we had to pay the 50 euro opening fee. The stars at night there were out of this world. I felt like I could reach out and touch them. I was quite excited to see a shooting star that night. We were all in bed by 9:45. The next day was equally as beautiful and thankfully not as hard on the body. We didn’t have to carry the extra 20-30 lbs with us (on our backs) and the walk was not nearly as vertical as the first day. We had a nice stroll across the ridges from mountain to mountain. We reached the summit of Pelister in about 3 hours. There was some kind of tower there and some kind of building that had workers in it but we aren’t sure exactly what it was all about. At any rate one guy invited us in. He led us upstairs where he offered us tea. We relaxed for a few minutes and talked with him. Turns out he was one of the 4 men on the Yugoslavian expedition to Mt. Everest in 1989. He was very modest and didn’t share the information until we asked because at the summit (of Pelister) there is a plaque for a guy who died on the way back from the top of Everest and we asked him about it. Only then did he share that he was one of the 4 men that was part of the expedition. This guy is from Bitola and the guy who died was also from Bitola. I am assuming they were friends. I think the other people were from Croatia and Slovenia or Serbia. I can’t remember. After our tea we decided to head back. We made it back to the hut faster - going down is always easier. Doug had the bright idea of sledding down this snowy patch outside the hut. Ricky liked the idea and we all went out to watch him sled away - on a plastic bag. It looked so fun so we all joined in. It was great. I felt like I was 12 again on the hill in South Orange, NJ - or 19 at Stewart Hall sitting on a cafeteria tray heading toward Founders Field in Dayton, OH. A good time was had by all. Back inside we cooked dinner, consumed some vodka and played cards. Mike and I are always euchre partners and we just can’t win. We played several hands and we won one but we can never get the 2 out of 3. I need to go back to euchre school. The final day - sad to leave. We packed up the stuff and headed down. We took a different path down the mountain. It only took us about an hour and 45 minutes to get to a village at the bottom. It was such a charming village with a ton of little weekend cottages. It was Monday - the Macedonian Labor Day holiday so people were eating outside and absorbing the sunny, warm weather. Back to Bitola and reality. I must say that those are the best 3 days I have had here thus far. Good exercise, beautiful scenery and excellent company. We had so many funny conversations ranging from why we joined PC to body odor farts. I think all 6 of us are pretty comfortable with each other now and any topic is free game for discussion. Mike organized the whole trip and he gets extra kudos from me for getting it all together. Finding out information here can be quite tricky but he managed to figure it all out and guide us on a spectacular weekend. Patty and Doug came back to Kichevo with me after the hike because they didn’t want to go all the way home and turn back around to go to Krushevo. We had a training in Krushevo from Thurs-Friday and it is in the south-western part of the country. It was nice to have visitors. Poor Patty, she had flip flops on and one of them broke. Those were the only brown sandals she had so she was bummed. We decided we would look for some new sandals the next day. I had a pleasant time walking them around the city. We found some teva sandals at one store but it was closed for the holiday. I loaned Patty my teva sandals and go figure, the sole fell off. The sole is kind of in 2 parts and they separated from each other. I can’t be disappointed, I paid $20 for the things 10 years ago. But because I am the way I am, my parents are sending some epoxy glue over so I can make the repair and hopefully bring the sandals back to life. They are my favorite shoes. Lucky for Patty ‘boy scout‘ Doug happened to have duct tape with him so we made a temporary repair. About Kichevo, Patty has been here a few times before so she knows the area but Doug lives in an all Macedonian town near the Bulgarian border. He was a little envious of the west - where the really good outdoors stuff is - and where the ethnically mixed cities are. The training in Krushevo was a workshop on project design management. I brought 2 people with me. Vera and Victor. Both are 18 and in their 3rd year of high school. I wondered what it was going to be like with them - especially considering I met Victor the day we left and Vera only a few days before that. A woman who is the president of one of the ecological societies recommended them. Turns out they were great! Very involved, wanted to work and very un-Macedonian. Vera’s English was great and when I asked her how much she has had she told me only 4 years but that she loves English. She reads, watches TV and listens to English music to improve her language. She wants to study English in the States and I will do whatever I can to help her get there. I have only known her for a week or so but I would have no problem putting my name on the line for her. Victor was also great but I didn’t spend as much time with him as I did with Vera. It turns out the store where we saw the Teva sandals is owned by Vera’s family. Small world. Much to my surprise at this meeting I received another package! This one was sent in December and naturally I thought this one was long gone too. The Christmas Hershey kisses were a bit off but the Christmas cards were a nice surprise - for May. My lucky week! From Krushevo Patty, Angie and I all went to Struga to spend the weekend at Patty’s house on the lake. Unfortunately for us the weather was not so great. Rainy and cold on Friday and Saturday but Sunday was nice. We had big plans to go kayaking on the lake but those were postponed until the weather gets better. Friday we didn’t do much except lounge around, watch movies and eat. Saturday we went for a run and went to a women’s basketball game. Patty knows one of the girls on the team. Angie was so excited to go to the game. I didn’t know she was so in to basketball. Turns out she played in High School and regrets never trying out in College. She was calling out plays, telling me what the players should do, who the best people on each team were and why, who needed to work on what etc. It was kind of funny. She was a bit stressed about not being there for the tip-off too. We also brought this little girl names Zakera with us. She is a Roma girl who lives in Ohrid but her parents send her to Struga everyday to beg. Patty has kind of taken her under her wing. She is 8, very smart (she speaks Albanian, Macedonian and the Roma language - yet she has never been to school), she is kind and has gorgeous eyes. Patty is teaching her basic things such as washing her hands several times a day and how to brush her teeth. Patty went with her to her house one time to meet her parents so if Zakera talked about Patty they would know who she was. She said it was a sight to see. I guess Zakera’s mother or aunt just had a baby and the child was not registered. They were trying to sell the baby to some Swiss lady. Crazy shit. I think this is a common practice. On Sunday Angie left and Patty and I went to a lunch with Gaddi Vasquez and his entourage. He is the Director of PC for the world. At lunch there were 4 volunteers, our Country Director, Diana Schmidt another guy from the office Paul who is in charge of all the finances, Gaddi, Jay - the regional director for this region, Barbara a press lady and an assistant whose name I forget - Allison, I think. Anyhow, the lunch was nice. Better then I expected. Thankfully Gaddi and I have the same taste in food so lunch was a large salad, grilled chicken, French fries and corn. The salads here are so good - I just can’t even explain them. I am not normally a huge salad eater but here I can’t get enough of them. At home, I hate tomatoes; here I eat several of them a week. I often get a salad that is just tomatoes, cucumbers and shredded cheese on top. The dressing is always vinegar with salt and it is so tasty. All of the produce is just delicious. So the lunch was good, it was free and I got some PC patches out of the deal. Really though, I am glad I went and met all of them. Now, I am back in Kichevo. The Irish never came. I guess their trip was postponed. That is bad but the director for our organization is coming next week so Beti and Ismet are sill in organizing and cleaning mode which makes me very happy. We did some of the bookshelves in the front today. I think by tomorrow they will be done. Yeah for organizing! People here are in a frenzy because a no smoking law goes into effect on June 5th. Like just about any law here, they have them but they are not enforced. This is already a law but I guess the government is telling the people that it is going to be enforced as of June 5th. My counterpart said the fine is 350 euros but I think that is a bit steep and I am not sure I believe it. In any case, I hope this news is true. You can cut the smoke here with a knife and I hate to go out for a short time only to come home smelling like a smoke stack. I’ll keep you posted. I hope everyone will raise a glass to my friends Michelle and Scott who are now parents. After many years of wanting a child Michelle gave birth to Abbey on May 10th. Cheers to them! It is crazy to think I won’t get to meet her until she is 2. Have a good week everyone. Kaitlin (Comment on this)
Sunday, May 8th, 2005
9:47 pm	I think I was born in America… by mistake. I wouldn’t trade my family, friends or experiences for anything in the world but I am pretty sure I am not supposed to live there. America is a nice place, don’t get me wrong - it will always be my home - but I think I am supposed to live an ex-pat life. I don’t know where or doing what but I think that is what I am supposed to do. I think the only places I would want to live in the US would be DC or Chicago and if I lived in either of these place I would need to have a pretty damn good job because I want to take public transportation which would mean that I would have to live IN the city which means big bucks. I don’t see myself with a big bucks kind of job (I guess you never know but I don‘t think so). Next week I could curse this place but right now I feel like I could stay in Europe forever. While some people may see Europeans as very lazy - and at times they are (refer to my last entry about my counterparts) - but they value leisure and LIVING. By living I mean relaxation and personal fulfillment. From my work experience in the US I have found that American employers suck their employees dry and don’t respect the balance between personal and professional life. I don’t want to be a part of that ever again. What is the American nonsense of 10 days of vacation a year? I my opinion that is just it, nonsense. I went to a seminar this weekend about domestic violence. It was great. I could only understand about 10% of it but this very nice lady took me under her wing and did brief translations for me. Her name is Mira and she is a dentist. She is about 45, her husband is dead and she has 2 kids. A son who is 25 and a girl who is 24. Her English is pretty good and she was quite excited to sit next to me and help me understand what was going on. She is one of those ladies that holds your hand while she is talking to you. Not offensive or creepy, very genuine. On Friday night we sat next to each other for dinner and she ate fish. Fish here is served as the whole fish. Scales, head, tail and all. She took the head and said, “I eat the head. It has a good vitamins for people going through menopause. I am going through menopause”. Then she popped the whole head in her mouth as if it were and M & M. I cringed and she laughed. I ended up going out with the girl who was the facilitator of the seminar. Her name is Gabi and she is 24 and lives in Skopje. Her co-worker also came with us. He is a lawyer who volunteers his time at the organization. His name is Darki. We had a nice time talking and drinking beers. From what I didn’t get out of the seminar in information, I got out of it in good conversation with Mira , Gabi and Darki. This past week I had to go tot he high school and start recruiting girls for camp GLOW. I think I’ve talked about this camp before. Girls Leading Our World. Thank God for my tutors because they took me around to about 15 classrooms to talk to the students. The camp is a week long in July. It only costs about $6 for the girls to come but the good and bad thing is only 3-6 girls from Kichevo will get to go. There will be 60 girls total from all around Macedonia. It seemed like a lot of girls were interested so we’ll see. I hope they are but the bad part is I don’t want to have to choose. They fill out an application then come for an interview. I asked Chandra - the volunteer who lives in Brod (about 15 miles away) - if she would come and do the interviews because I don’t want to have to tell girls they weren’t selected and that I am the reason why. I know some of the girls too so I don’t want to be biased in any way. I already had this one guy who I know come up and tell me that I ‘was going to choose his girlfriend, right?’. I told him no and that I don’t have any part of the decision making process. He asked me if I knew the person who was making the decisions and I said that I did then he suggested I tell her to just choose his girlfriend. I told him no because it was not fair to the other girls. He was baffled. Things here always work with ‘who you know’. Then I told my counterpart Ismet about going to the classes and that I thought a lot of girls were interested and he said I should stop recruiting. I guess I should preface this by saying that the schools have 2 sessions and I have only been to one session so far. I am supposed to go to the other session next week. “The girls will be disappointed if they are not chosen so you should just stop telling people about it”. I told him that would not be fair for the girls in the other session because they wouldn’t even have a chance to apply because they wouldn‘t even know about it. I do feel bad that some girls are going to be disappointed but in each class I told them that only 3-6 girls from Kichevo would be asked to go so they know the odds upfront. Ismet and I just think so completely differently. You know the screen saver where there are 2 green hills/mountains against a bright blue sky with a cloud or tow? Well, I think I live in that place. The screen saver is probably a computer-generated image but I swear it could have been taken here in Kichevo or in Buzalkovo. I kind of felt bad for Ismet today. He had some brochures made up for a meeting that they are going to have with the new mayor. He went to the print shop with a whole mock-up of the thing and they printed all the stuff on the wrong pages. He was so mad and I was mad for him. I asked him why he didn’t ask them to do it over in the correct way he showed them. This is were being in a small city gets tough - he said that he would make an enemy if he did that. He could have asked them to re-do it but then he said their relationship would be severed and it would cause a problem for him in the future. I see his point but its not like Ismet is in the wrong. He showed me the mock-up and it was very easy to follow. I think I feel bad for him even more because for the first time I saw him do something very specific and it looked good - then the printer had to go and screw it up. I met a girl from the US today. She is 17 and was born in Chicago. Chicago and Alaska must be FILLED with Albanian people because every single one that I have met here has some connection to one of those two places. Her parents moved back here 2 years ago and naturally she came with them. I asked her how she felt about it and she said quite plainly ‘it sucks’. I could tell by her body language that she was nervous to talk to me for some reason. It was really cute - she said ‘can we go out for coffee sometime, as friends?’ I think she is happy to have a fellow American here. I am sure we will go out sometime. That is it for now. Have a good week everyone! Kaitlin (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 20th, 2005
5:37 pm	2 weeks have past Brace yourself, it’s a long one. 2 weekends ago I spend 2 days in 2 beautiful cities. I felt like I had taken a weeks vacation by the time I came home on Sunday. And I was home by 4 PM. On Friday I went to Struga. I have been here a few times before and this is where Patty lives. She hosted a bunch of us - we are all part of the ‘running group’. Struga is on Lake Ohrid. Patty has a beach about 2 blocks from her house. It is still way too cold to swim but in the summer the beach near her house is going to be ideal. Everyone arrived on Friday night and we consumed delicious lasagna. Saturday morning we woke up and went for our run. We ran north west around part of the lake. The sun was shining, the temperature was just right and the gorgeous blue lake was in sight the whole time. We ran to a hotel then walked for a while to a fishing village close to the Albanian border. We walked into town and naturally got a ton of stares. Not mean stares, curious ones. People here don’t really go out and get exercise very often so there we were - a bunch of foreigners walking up in shorts, jackets, sneakers and red-faced - it sparked some thoughts, I am sure. We found a small restaurant where we sat next to the window and glared at the lake the whole time. We shared a huge salad an drank cokes. Then we went walked up to a cave church in the side of the mountain. After coming down from the mountain we sat at a table where if I didn’t pay attention one of the legs of my chair could have easily sent me tumbling backwards into the water. We drank beer and waited for the local bus. It is just so nice to be in good company, have spectacular weather, cold beer, delicious salad, beautiful lake, 600 year old church etc. What more could one ask for? Saturday evening Vanessa (another volunteer) was hosting a party at her house in the town of Ohrid. There are 3 volunteers who got very lucky and live in this city that reminds me of a village in Busch Gardens. Vanessa is working with the parks department, Josh is working with a fish conservation society (the Ohrid trout is being poached like crazy and he works with them to help bring up the population of the trout in the lake. During the mating season he sometimes spends every day on the lake in a boat - lucky guy!), and Tessa who is a teacher. Tessa was my roommate in Washington and in Veles for the first week. Ohrid lake is one of the oldest and deepest lakes in the world. It is spectacularly beautiful. It is surrounded by mountains. The town itself has ‘a church for every day of the year’ and the whole place - city and lake are on the UNESCO world heritage list. If anyone knows me, they know I love the UNESCO world heritage list. The streets are narrow and cobblestone, the cafés are plentiful and delightful, the houses are unique and charming. The only downer of Ohrid is that the beach is kind of far away. You can’t really walk to it, you would need to take a taxi, bus or drive. The party - it was good fun and I brought Velveeta cheese and ro-tel chilies to make cheese dip. It was gone in about 5 minutes and people were thrilled that I brought food from home. Again - good people, cold beer, fun times, what more could I ask for? On Sunday we woke up early and wondered around the town and the lake front. Josh showed a few of us where he works and some of the fish they are working with. They are very funny looking fish. Grayish-tan and spotted. Apparently they are delicious but because they are in serious danger - even if I liked fish - I wouldn’t touch them with my fork and knife unless I knew for sure they came from a farm and not the lake itself. The people Josh works do the best they can to get rid of the poachers nets but they are not allowed to touch the nets so they have to call the police who then have to get on a boat and find them and by that time the poachers have pulled up their nets and have left. From what Josh says the police are in on the deal and it always takes them FOREVER to get out on the water so it is kind of a losing battle. The fish sell for $20 a pound and considering the avg. salary here is $200 a month this is some easy and quick money for a lot of people. I saw a building get insulation last week. This was a new sight for me. ALL the houses here are red cinderblock brick and this is the first one I have seen to have some sort of insulation. Amazing. I also saw a driveway get poured. This took about a week with 10 people ‘working‘ on it. The whole driveway is MAYBE 15’ long. Every day I would walk buy and one person would be working and the others watching. The work ethic here is just so different. I am now friends with a woman who sells tickets a the bus station. You definitely want the people at the bus station to be your friend. I went to find out some info about buses to Belgrade and Bitola and she asked me in the little booth for tea. An hour and 15 minutes later I was leaving. She doesn’t speak any English so it was good practice for me. She is 31, married, has 2 kids and 10 people live in her house - all family members, of course. Her background is something medical but she couldn’t get a job at the hospital so she works at the bus station - every single day from either 5AM - 1 PM or 1PM to 9 PM. Every single day. All for about $150 a month. That is about .67 an hour. Sure it is not stressful and there is a lot of down time so she can read and stuff but think of how boring that would be and how little money she earns! This past weekend I went to Buzalkovo and to Tetovo. I had a meeting in Skopje for a camp some of us are putting on this summer. I am not really an organizer, just a participant. I was in the main meeting room and Diana (the country director who I really like) came in. There were about 7 or 8 of us in the room. She looked right at me and said, "Laura, when are you moving to Tetovo"? I think I have mentioned before that there is another volunteer here who went to UD and everyone gets us confused. It was a bit embarassing for her and for me. I didn't want to embarass her by my response but I am not Laura and I don't know when she is going to Tetovo. She was mortified but I just laughed and told her that everyone does it. I went to Veles with Andrea and from there took a local bus to Buzalkovo. People here are very afraid of dying of a draft. Doors and windows will remain closed even if the temperature in the room is 100 degrees. The draft will get you sick and you will surely die. Andrea opened her window on the bus because it was 100 degrees and we both fell asleep for a few minutes. Sure enough, when we woke up the window was closed. She opened it again and stuck her arm out of it so nobody could close it. The local bus from Veles to Buzalkovo was packed to the maximum. People standing in the aisles and all. We arrived in Buzalkovo and it always makes me smile. My host family painted their gate (that was the first thing I noticed) and when I opened the door they were all sitting on the front stoop. They knew I was coming and they were so excited to see me. Avne put on his best jeans and jean jacket in the morning and when I wasn’t there by 4 he changed because he wanted to go outside and play but didn’t want to get the clothes dirty before I came. He came running over and about attacked me. The girls were also excited to see me. I was just as happy to see them. Within 5 minutes they told me I got fat. This is kind of a normal thing here for people to tell each other that they have gotten fat or skinny. Consensus was that I got fat. Thanks family. We made chocolate chip cookies together and they loved them. They all love my new haircut. I was kind of afraid because they all have long hair and that is the Muslim thing to do - have long hair. I told them last time I was there that I was going to cut it and they begged me not to. But they loved it and Hacibe must have told me 30 times how much she liked my new haircut. I brought them a Parcheesi game and they were so thankful. I think I mentioned before the they had a similar game but it was made out of flimsy cardboard and one day Avne ripped it half so when I was in the states I bought them a new one. It was a big hit and we played many, many games. Hopefully it will avoid destruction by Avne. I did learn something while I was there that gives me great hope. I was asking the girls - Hacibe and Nebhat - if they wanted to go to high school would they be allowed to go. They said if they had had 5’s and 4’s (as their grades) they would be allowed to go because it wouldn’t cost the family anything. If their grades were worse then that then the family would have to pay to send them and their father would not send them because it would cost too much. Neither of them are very good students and that is why they didn’t go. I didn’t even ask but they told me that because Vagide does very well in school (all 5’s) that she would be allowed to go and she would go to high school in Skopje. The closest Albanian high school is in Skopje. They have family in Skopje so she will live with them. I was SO happy to hear this news. I just hope she keeps up her personal drive and continues to get good grades. They did say that no matter how bad Avne’s grades are that he will be allowed to go because he is a boy. Crazy but at least the parents are not closed to the idea of Vagide going. I didn’t think my host Dad would be against the girls going and this proves that he is not. They are very poor and not that I agree with it but I can understand that if they had to pay for school for all of them it would just not be possible. One thing that made me sad at my host family’s house is that they no longer have a toothbrush. They used t have 1 that the whole family shared but now they don’t have even the one to share. I wish there was some way I could give them each one without offending them. You would think that after Nebhat had to have her tooth pulled that they would make the connection that if you don’t eat so much sugar and brush your teeth that maybe you won’t have to lose your teeth but I am not sure they get it. They see me brush 2x a day but they just don’t have any interest. I tried to show them dental floss too but they were just not interested. I don’t think Avne has brushed his teeth once in his whole life. They are pretty black around the edges. The good thing is that they are all baby teeth, the bad thing is that what has that done to his jawbone? Has it rotted away? When he gets adult teeth will he use a toothbrush? I really hope so. The 2 oldest sisters came over later that night - Phylis and Nazmeah. Phylis brought her little girl Besnike with her and she has grown like a weed. She is 2 and is absolutely adorable! She is just such a cute little girl. It was nice to see them and they did their usual hugging and kissing on me. They are always holding my arms, hugging me, stroking my hair etc. It is really cute. I feel pretty bad for Nazmeah though. She is 19, doesn’t like her husband at all and she is basically trapped there for the rest of her life. I know it makes her very sad. She told me that she hates wearing the head scarf and that she thinks it is stupid but she has to because her husband says she does (Hacibe, Nebhat and Vagide also told me they don‘t plan on wearing them). I think she looks at me and sees the freedoms I have and wishes she could have the same. She knows her life doesn’t have to be the way it is and that there is a whole other world out there. When she left on Friday night she was crying a lot when she said goodbye to me. I really hate to see that and I wish there was something I could do to help her. They bought a small truck. They now have 8 cows. I know my host Dad is now working with the cows doing something but I couldn’t quite figure out what exactly they are doing with the cows. Maybe next time I will figure it out. Maybe next time I will ask my host Mom to teach me how to milk the cows. Oh, and remember last time I was there I said they killed a huge cow and the head was drying on a tree branch - it is still there - kina gross. The next morning I said my goodbyes and went to Angie’s host family’s house for a few minutes. One of the girls there just had a baby. I think I mentioned this before - she turned 17 while we were living there and she was already married and pregnant. So yes, she was a 16 year old bride and is now a 17 year old mother. It is insane, I know. The baby was bundled in about 4 blankets and they had 2 sheets over her face. All I could think of was how this poor little girl was going to suffocate. She was very cute and tiny. I hope she does not die before she is a month old due to lack of oxygen. I had a wonderful time in Buzalkovo and I look forward to going back. It is terrible because when I am on the way there I want it to be time for me to go. Not because I don’t want to see the family or spend time with them but once you’re there, you’re trapped. There is no real escape. You can’t really go out and walk to a store because there are no real stores. You can’t catch a cab because they come from Veles and you have to call one and they don’t have buses on weekends. You really are just kind of stuck. Back in Skopje I got my hair cut again. This time it is really, really short. I think I will like it better in about 2 weeks when it hopefully will have at least another ½” on it. It is as short as a boy’s haircut. That is no exaggeration. I went to Tetovo and made tacos with Angie and her friend Ashling. Ashling is British and works at South Eastern European University in Tetovo (part-time) and works in Kosovo (part-time). She is very nice and has done a ton for being in her late 20’s. Later on that night we met another girl Amelja who is Macedonian but spent a year at IU and has almost no accent whatsoever. She is super nice and if I saw her on the street I would think she was Spanish. She doesn’t look like she fits in here at all. Sunday morning Angie and I went for a walk to the area around the football stadium. The night before Amelja told us that there were a lot of houses around there with bullet holes in them from the 2001 conflict. Anige runs over there all the time and said she has never seen them - so we went looking. We went into the stadium which was pretty cool. It would be fun to see a game there sometime. We walked along the street behind the stadium and sure enough, one house had probably 10 holes in it - the house next to it had a few - the electric pole a hole or two etc. Strange to see. These were big holes too - tennis ball size. I can’t imagine people picking up guns and really trying to kill people who live in the next village. It is bizarre to me. I went back to Kichevo and Afridita picked me up for my first Macedonian aerobics class. She showed up an hour early and I was so unprepared for that - such is the way of life here - come unannounced, early, late etc. It is all perfectly acceptable. The look on my face must have said, ‘what the hell are you doing here, you are an hour early!‘. The class was kind of fun. Mostly stretching, almost no cardio. The girl who teaches it (Kate) is in my English class on Mondays. I met Afridita a few months ago. She is 26 and ethnic Albanian. She and Kate are good friends and are both unemployed phys-ed teachers. There are only a handful of phys. Ed teachers here and basically they can’t get a job until someone retires. I asked about moving and she said she would be happy to but because the salary is so low that she would not be able to afford it. For instance, her salary bight be around $150-200 per month and an apartment is $100 - then food, electricity, water etc. It just wouldn’t be worth it. I asked her about getting married, what she does in her free time, etc. At 26 she is quite old for not already being married with a child or two - at least for this area. She said she goes out all the time and drinks beer, she is afraid of marriage because ‘the men here are controlling and crazy’ and that she is too independent for marriage. Hopefully we will get together sometime and go for a beer or two. Now, work. I was told last week that ‘the Irish are coming!’. This caused great excitement in the office. Last year Beti went to Ireland to see how their NGO’s work and now they are coming her to check out this place. I suggested we do some ‘housecleaning’ before they come. I wish you could see this place. It is packrat heaven. It makes me crazy. There is crap everywhere and none of it is organized. Even if I am a packrat sometimes, it is organized crap for the most part. This cleaning sounded like a fantastic idea until I asked them for very minimal help. When I say minimal I mean 1 ½ hours of each of their time over the next 2 weeks. I don’t think that is too much to ask for considering they check email, smoke cigarettes (Beti does, Ismet doesn’t), play on the internet, drink coffee, read the paper etc. Now when I ask for help I get ‘I must to read report.’ or ‘we will do it tomorrow’ or ‘we have time, they are not coming for 2 weeks’. Comments like this make my blood boil. I am not sure if you remember or not but we were going to organize the library about 3 months ago and I got the same comments so I gave up. This time I am going to be stubborn and not give up. I don’t mind doing 90% of the work but I do need 10% from them. Yesterday I asked Ismet to schedule a time with me to work on it the next day. The word ‘schedule’ is like the word ‘Satan’. I swear the look on his face was if I was standing in front of him with an AK-47 riddling him with bullet holes. I got him to commit to 4:30. Then I got a call last night that someone who works in the Skopje office had a death in the family and the office would be closed for the day because they were going to Skopje for the funeral. I am sure now I will have to listen how they need to play ‘catch-up’ (on their smoking, coffee drinking, reading, email checking) and mourn the death of a person neither of them have ever even met. Do I sound a bit frustrated? If it sounds like you are not getting that feeling I will just say plainly that I am very frustrated. On this endeavor I will stick by the motto -NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP! Another work frustration is the collection of newspapers we have. I am not sure how many there are but I am going to guess 2 years worth of 4 different publications. Most of them are packed in boxes in the back room. When I arrived in December I asked Ismet about them and he said someone was going to collect them and take them to Skopje to be recycled. I asked when and he said in 2 weeks. Naturally they are still sitting there - its is almost 5 months later. 2 weeks ago I asked what was going on with them and he gave me the same answer and I reminded him as kindly as I could that that is what he told me back in December and that it was now a few months later. He agreed and said if they were not gone in 2 weeks that I could throw them away. I jumped all over this one like a fly on cow shit. He laughed and he said ‘Beti is my witness’ and I told him I was going to hold him to it. Yesterday he told me that he talked to the man from the place that was going to pick them up and he said in a very sad way, ‘I guess we need to throw them out.’. About an hour later I asked him which boxes could go because I could start working on getting rid of them, He said, ‘don’t you worry about it, I’ll take care of it’. Famous last words. I swear if they are not gone the day before the Irish come I am going to ask again and possibly lose my cool with the situation. I hope he surprises me and actually does what he says he is going to do. Enough about bad work stuff - good work stuff are the English classes. They are fun and I really like teaching more then I ever thought I would. I am also meeting some very nice people through teaching. Hopefully I can work with them in the future. Next weekend I am going to Pelister on a 3 day hike with a bunch of other volunteers. The mountain is around 10,000 feet and there is a lake somewhere on the way, on the top, I am not sure. I’ll keep you posted on how that turns out. It is a 3 day weekend that weekend because of their May Day holiday. Yeah for me! I have to go to Skopje for a meeting the Friday before so it is a 4 day weekend for me. Even better. The director of PC for the whole world (Gaddi Vasquez) is coming here and I am part of a group that is having lunch with him on May 8th. That will be nice. He came to talk to us when we were in Washington at our staging so I know who he is but it will be interesting to hear what he has to say or what kinds of things he asks us. That is about it from this end of the world. Whoever made it to the end - bravo for finishing this entry. Hopefully you are not doing the ‘head-bob’ as you read this line. I know I can be a bit long-winded and boring. Have a nice week everyone, Kaitlin (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, April 9th, 2005
5:49 pm	The toilets in America... have a lot of water in them. Americans also drive big cars and have a ton of packaging on all of their products. I knew these things before I moved to Macedonia but things became more apparent to me when I went back to America for a visit. The US is also very clean and organized. It is amazing how much crap you can buy in the US. Hey, I am not judging the people who buy the crap, I buy it too, I just can’t believe how much of it there is. About my trip to the US.. I had a great time, once I finally got there and got my visa and flights squared away. Damn Kichevo police department. I think it was quite possibly the fastest 9 1/2 days of my life. Reverting back to the day before I left, I had a free day in Skopje due to the fact that the person at the airport decided to follow the laws that day, so I went to get a haircut. Thankfully I did not end up with a mullet (a ton of Macedonian women have mullets) but I did end up with very short hair. I haven’t had hair this short since I was 12 and was called a boy by accident in the drugstore in NJ and vowed never to have short hair again. Well, I guess with my poor language skills I couldn’t convey the ‘I don’t want to look like a boy’ style. Actually she kept asking me if I wanted more off and I kept telling her ‘more, more, more’ so I ended up with very short hair. It will be good for the summer. My Mom called the new hairdo ‘sassy’. I guess it beats the Gidget bob that I have had since I was 13. Hair grows back I went to Atlanta the morning after I arrived. My friend Heather (fatgirl) Hughes got married on the 12th to wonderful Kurt Lofters. I spent Thursday and Friday with Heather and we had a nice time visiting, running errands and getting ready for their big day. I even got my nails and toes done for the 2nd time in my life. The wedding was at Christ the King Church and the reception was at Anthony’s which is an old plantation house that was moved from small town in Georgia to Atlanta. Everything was spectacular! Heather looked beautiful and Kurt looked Handsome. The weather could not have been better, the atmosphere of all the guests was fun and relaxed and the DJ was great. The reception was supposed to end at 12:30 but Heather’s step-dad - David - had it extended an extra hour. A good time was had by all. On Sunday I went back to Charlotte and got on a plane to visit the Chawk family in Tampa. The whole family is fine - especially Siobhan and Maeve. The first morning Siobhan wanted me to do something with her and I said I would after I took a shower. She said, "Yes Aunt Katie you need to take a shower because your hair is a bit crazy." Thanks 3 year-old Siobhan. I was her best friend while I was there so that was fun. Maeve is extra cute. She is one of the happiest babies I have ever seen. The visit was short but I am glad I was able to make it down there - even if it was only for 48 hours. Back in Charlotte I visited with the Neurohrs and some friends. I did arts and crafts with Kacie and Megan one day and watched Hannah run around a bit. She wasn’t really sure what to make of me. Kacie and Megan have grown a lot in 6 months (and learned so much) and Hannah is like a whole new person. I guess that happens to little kids over even a short period of time. I got a new license while home and this is important to share because it took a whole 11 minutes at the DMV. Record time. That is one of those things that could take 1 hour to 1 day. 11 minutes. Can you believe that! Lucky for me! Before I knew it, it was Saturday and I was leaving to go to the airport. Could 9 ½ days really have already passed? Then the flight took off. The trip back was uneventful - thankfully. I do have one story to share from the Frankfurt airport. I had a 5 hour layover so I wanted to take a little nap. I found an area near all the food places and sat in one of the seats. I put my backpack out in front of me to use as a leg rest, put my coat over my body and my arms through my purse. I slouched down low so I could lean my head on the back of the seat. Soon enough, I was out. You know when you sleep when you are half awake, half asleep and everything feels really heavy and you try but can’t do whatever it is you think you should be doing in your dream. Well, that was me. I was kind of awake and I knew my mouth was open and I was drooling but it was just too heavy to do anything. I kept telling myself to wake up but it wasn’t working. The funny part about it too is that I think I was saying out loud (probably quietly) ‘wake up!’. I just couldn’t. So there I was, a girl dressed like a vagabond, drooling, mouth open and talking to myself in my sleep. Now I am back in Kichevo, back at work and happy to be here. It was nice to be in America but this is home now. Even if it is only for 2 years. I was very happy when my counterpart Beti said ‘I really missed you!’. It made me feel pretty darn good. I had my English classes again. Once again the Monday class zipped through all the material in an hour and 15 minutes. Next Monday I am going to have 4 hours of stuff planned and maybe it will take the full 2 hours. The Tuesday people were good and they took the 2 hours with what I had planned. A lot of the Monday people have had English before but almost nobody in the Tuesday class has had English before. I guess the Tuesday people thought I went a little too fast in class this week so I will need to slow it down a bit for them and come up with more exercises. Live and learn, right? I have never taught before so I have a lot to learn. I like the people in the classes. They all seem very nice. One lady in particular I must talk about. Her name is Medime. She is the president of the Red Cross here in Kichevo. She just seems like a fun lady and I hope to work with her on something while I am here. They had local elections here while I was gone. Get this, Kichevo has to re-do 2 polling stations because of corruption. I asked my Macedonian tutor about it and she said that in one of the polling stations 99% of the voters turned out. There is no possible way that is a reality. What happens is a person will somehow make copies of the ballots and just submit them. How do people get away with this crap? It probably happened at other polling stations too but the results weren’t so blatant. As a result of the corruption, the elections for those 2 polling stations will happen this Sunday with a run-off election in 2 weeks. There were a heck of a lot of police out on the streets this week too. This country really has a long way to go. I am not kidding when I say from the outside this country looks pretty ‘Western’ but you get down to the real dirt and they have so much to change and learn about. They just haven’t adjusted to Democracy yet. I think spring might be here. Hopefully I am not speaking too soon. The weather this past week has been gorgeous minus some small showers today. It has been in the 50’s and maybe into the 60’s at times. People are getting their gardens ready for planting and it is nice to see. I guess the dogs are out of hibernation too because I have seen tons of them in the past week. The travel in packs of 4-6 and are all over the place. Any pack could take me, no question. I brought some candy back for my co-workers and I had it in a ziplock. The ziplock with the sliding top not the one kind you press together. She looked at the candy and told me she wanted some but didn’t know how to get to it. Once I showed her how it worked she thought it was the coolest bag. Kind of funny. I have to complain about my co-worker Ismet for a bit. He is acting like a parent more and more every day. Where are you going, what are you doing, when will you back, where are you going this weekend, with you are you going, how did you hear about this conference, who is it organized by, who is going to be there, you need to work on your Albanian and I am going to call your teacher and tell him to meet with you more often (I nipped this one in the bud and asked him not to call. It is none of his business how often and when I meet with my tutors! If my tutoring was such a priority for him he should have helped me find tutors. I found them myself, thank you very much.), if you are going to go to a meeting or seminar I want a copy of the formal invitation (I told him there almost never one and he should just make a note of it and mark it on his calendar but they don’t really use calendars here. I also told him I could give him a copy of the emails that are invites but he wants me to ask people to create a formal invitation for the things that I am going to go to. It is all resolved now. I basically printed out a calendar and posted it on the wall and told him when I am going to be out of the office that I will mark on that where I am going and what it is for. Well, I didn’t mean to end on a bitching note but I am. I hope all is well in the US of A and I’ll write more soon. Happy Easter everyone. I can drink coke again! Kaitlin PS –sorry this is a bit outdated and that I haven’t updated my journal in a long time. I have windows home edition (it sucks) and I have been having a hard time trying to find a computer to read my memory stick. It is a long story. I’ll try to write again this week. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 8th, 2005
11:28 am	No structure Hello everyone, I will get to my thoughts of 'no structure' later. First, what the past week or so has been like... Well my dream of it remaining warm vanished when it started to snow 2 Saturdays ago and didn't stop until Wednesday. There wasn't too much accumulation but the flurries fell off and on for many days. With the snow came cold temperatures. Oh how I dislike the cold! I haven't been this cold since I emerged from the womb! I had my first English classes last week. I think they went pretty well. My first class was on Monday. There was supposed to be 10 students but because of the snow there were only 5. 3 of the people (women) had had many years of English before but were just afraid to use it. One other man knew quite a bit and the final person didn't know a thing. My 2 hour lesson plan was over in 40 minutes becuse 4 of the 5 knew so much already. I had to ad-lib (which I am terrible at) and finally after about an hour and half they left. I think I want to make a beginner and an intermediate class because that one poor man is just going to be lost. I suggested this structure to my counterparts but they shot it down. The 2nd class (on Tuesday) went much better. 8 of the 10 showed up and they are all pretty much beginners. It took the full 2 hours. I think the guy from the Monday class should just move into the Tuesday class. My counterparts and I never set up a time for the 3rd class so that will start when I get back from the states. That is of course if I ever get to the states (that has to do with my 'no structure part of my journal). I think I will enjoy teaching these classes because it will give me something to plan for. My only issue with the English classes...they are at night which is fine but my male counterpart (Ismet) still wants me to come into the office and sit there from 11-6 and then have a 2 hour class. Now, if I have a meeting or something to do (preparing for class) I have NO PRBLEM being there for the whole day. Considring that I have not been overly productive while at work, I am not going to sit there and waste my time in an office when I could be out running, meeting people, walking around the city etc. I will win this battle. My female counterpart (Beti) completley agrees with me. Ismet kind of likes to have control of a situation and we get along just fine but I think he finds it a bit odd how independent and outspoken I am. I basically just told him that I wasn't going to sit there, read, email and stare at the wall all day. I don't mind being there at all and I know I need to be there sometimes without a project or something to do because you never know who will walk in the door, but I can't do sit there every day for the next 2 years. Maybe I can rotate the days or come up with some kind of schedule we can all be happy with. He said we would talk about it when I get back. Remember I talked about how much TV people watch? Well Ismet and I were having a conversation about it and he said his kids just love TV. He has a 5 year old girl and a 3 year old boy. He said they often stand to close to the TV and just stare away. I told him he should set some rules of how much they are allowed to watch and once they reach their limit, turn it off. He said that they cry when he turns it off. I told him that he was the parent and to set some ground rules. Then he said 'but they are awake for 12 hours a day, what am I or my wife supposed to do with them?" I couldn't help but laugh. Well, they are people, they are going to be awake for a good portion of the day. I suggested teaching them the alphabet, listening to music, playing games, going for walks etc. These ideas seemed a bit foreign to him. I am making it sound like I don't like Ismet and that is not the case, I do like him, sometimes we just think very, very differently. One of my English students, her name is Kate, is teaching areobics classes and I hope to take them. This past weekend I was in Stip to start my marathon training with some other volunteers. Stip is a very quaint city in the eastern part of Macedonia. We ran about 4 miles and one part of it was up to the top of this very large hill/mountain. There were sooo many steps and I am sooo out of shape. At least it was a good starting point to see how much further I have to go before I will be ready for the marathon. Now for my 'no structure' story. Rules here change often. Some people follow them, some people don't, and some people make them up as they go along. I went to the airport this morning to get on my flight which would take me to America. Back to my family and to my friend Heather Hughes' wedding. Well, I am up early, no dramas, taxi is waiting for me at 5 AM, get to the airport, no dramas (it snowed out of the blue from Sun to Mon night and I was a bit concerned), I check in, no dramas, I go to the passport control and they won't let me leave the country because the police department in Kichevo gave me a visa to work in the country but never gave me a visa to live here. Because of that I they wouldn't let me out of the country. So there I was crying and begging them to let me on the plane. No such luck. I called Biljana (the safety and security person at the PC office) at 6 AM to see how she could help me. She talked to them and still no luck. I had to watch my plane take off without me. I had to go back to Skopje, go the police station, get a visa, re-book my flights and now here I am. I leave tomorrow morning (hopefully). I am so mad at the Kichevo police department. Because of them I am going to get home a day late and I have to pay 100 euros to change my ticket. All because they don't know the rules or the structure of their own department and job! I am at the PC office now and another volunteer told me that the same thing happened to him last year but they let him out. Again, some people follow the rules, some do not. You just never know. That is one reason why I think this country has a long way to go. There is no structure, the standards are ignored and the rules all depend on many factors. From the outside it looks very 'western' but deep down they are so far behind. I can half laugh about it now because what can I do really? I will be able to fully laugh about it when I arrive in Charlotte. That is about it from this end of the world. I hope everyone has a good week and I'll write soon! Kaitlin (Comment on this)