katiemcdonough (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} katiemcdonough) wrote,@ 2005-11-19 23:48:00 |
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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.
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.
