As I've probably said before, there are 37 of us who came over to Macedonia as PC volunteers this year - we're the 14th group so are called Mak 14. After the first week, we went to live in different villages - 6 or 7 to a village. These are my compatriots from Cherkeze on Halloween - the 5 other volunteers and our two language and culture teachers. It's a good group - all very different personalities but, as you might expect, everyone has a sense of adventure. I will miss seeing all of them every day when I move to Gostivar, but expect to see them periodically on visits or official PC functions, and we've had an experience together that has created a bond like no other. Yesterday was our last Albanian class. Eventually we will need to pass a language proficiency class and yesterday we also had a practice test to see what it was like and what they were looking for. Hana, who tested us, said I used a lot of gestures to get my message across, which really wouldn't count on the test, which is taped, but would help in everyday life. Everyone who knows me is probably laughing, because not only do I use a lot of gestures in Albanian and Macedonian, I use a lot when trying to speak English! Nor is anyone in my group surprised that Kacy's first 'words' weren't words at all but animal sounds. I haven't treated them to a donkey bray yet, but they've heard goats, chickens and turkeys. How could we not come to Halloween as animals - animals in boxes, mind you.

I've also included a picture of Gostivar. You can see the little mountains that are on one side of town - the bigger ones are on the other side but it was cloudy and hard to see them. Yesterday my counterpart from the sheepbreeders association came and picked me up to go up to Lipcove to meet the Mayor of the municipality. Hmmm, a word about municipalities. As part of the 2001 framework agreement that I've mentioned before, the government agreed to decentralize some functions of government to make it more accountable to the people. The country was divided into municipalities where there is usually one big town or city and a number of smaller villages. Kumanovo has 48 villages as part of its municipality. It makes me smile to remember New England and how decentralized it is - essentially Marlow was its own municipality with a selectmen's board, its own police, fire, road, and school department. It would blow the minds of Macedonians. But I digress. The mayor was sick, but we met with two other municipal officials to discuss the centrality of agriculture, what kind of life the citizens wanted, and putting up billboards advertising seminars we're giving in February before the lambs come. Luli, my counterpart, is an agricultural engineer and is fantastic. He has a vision, and I only hope I can be of help to him. The meetings were conducted in Albanian, with Luli translating some, but some I could understand at least the gist of. It is a long way from when we moved in with our families and had only been taught the Albanian alphabet. Communication is definitely still a challenge, but at least we have some words, and our families have learned what we know and don't know as well and how to get things across to us.

Once I get to site I can get tutors in both Macedonian and Albanian. So I won't stop learning, but it won't be as intensive as it has been. Every now and then I have a conversation with someone not associated with Peace Corps, and it still is a thrill to be understood, although I am most expert in Macebanian. I have my Macedonian practice test on Tuesday, so this weekend will be a cram session for that, and hopefully I will not use too many Albanian words - I used several Macedonian words for my Albanian test! I encourage all of you to learn as many languages as you can when you're young - it's crazy, but crazy fun, to be doing this at 63!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Just a week to go before we're sworn in as official Peace Corps volunteers. They flew in a bunch of turkeys from the US and we'll have a huge potluck dinner after our swearing in. I thought you'd like to see the wheel of sheep cheese I got in Gostivar - it was lovely. Below is a sign advertising a cafe in Gostivar - the Barack Obama Caffeteria - it's Albanian and male only, so sadly I won't ever get to see the inside!

I haven't said much about the Peace Corps in my blogs. They really take good care of us. We have 2 doctors and a safety and security officer to look out for us, and they have been giving us all kinds of trainings on top of our language training. Everyone is very supportive. We have our own quite extensive medical kits for first aid, and anyone can be called 24 hours a day if something happens. The experienced volunteers take care of us as well.

I've grown quite adept at traveling in all sorts of ways - taxis, buses, both local and country wide, trains and by foot. Each and every trip is a bit of an adventure. I went and visited Sveti Nikoli the other day. It is a Macedonian town, and like everywhere, I was greeted with the greatest of kindness and hospitality. The family I was staying with took me and another volunteer to a 'naming' party. People who are members of the Macedonian Orthodox Church are generally named for one of their saints, and when it's the Saint's day the person has a naming party. They invite all kinds of folks over and have a wonderful spread of food. We arrived at about 9 or 10 at night, and there were salad, veggies, and cold cuts laid out. We thought that was great and ate up, and then came out the main dishes....Yikes. They served sarma (stuffed cabbage), dolma(stuffed peppers), and I think pork tenderloin slices. After that was dessert - mind you we'd been eating all day and this was late at night! There was much discussion at the table and good fellowship. The Macedonians also have house naming day, which is the saint's day for their family saint. They again have a feast for people and bake bread and take it to the priest to have it blessed and the family members blessed. The day after Thanksgiving is the end of Hadj for the Albanians and is the big Bajram celebration - we had the little Bajram celebration at the end of Ramazan. So all of us living with Albanians are staying an additional day to celebrate with our families. Traditionally a ram is slaughtered to represent Allah giving food to a starving family. Oh, and there will be lots of food!

So Thanksgiving one day, Bajram the next. If you're worried about me getting enough to eat - don't! As you can see, I am well fed and if I keep going at this rate, I'll be very round when I return home. Things will be changing when I cook for myself, though! Mirupafshem!

Site Visit in Gostivar

I just got back from our site visit in Gostivar. A site visit is our chance to meet our counterpart in the organization we'll be working in, see the city, and confirm our apartment site, so it is much anticipated by all the trainees. Three of us went to Gostivar, which is a gorgeous town nestled at the end of a mountain valley. Huge mountains rise up from the edges of town, which of course fills me with excitement - I can hardly wait to get out there and hike. My counterpart is a gem - very sweet. He works for the regional sheepbreeders association where I'll be based, and I spent 3 days meeting all kinds of people. We visited a cheese factory, extension office (much like extension offices in the States), the local municipal government, a microfinancing NGO and a major sheep farm. We also went to a 3 hour meeting, conducted both in Albanian and Macedonian, that is identifying an infrastructure project to do. I felt like I was already getting primed for the job he wants me working on with him, which is creating an overarching association that unites all primary producers with processors and technical experts to facilitate more efficient and competitive farm to market operations. We also had delicious pizza at his cousin's pizza restaurant, saw another cousin's produce store, and I met his other cousin who works in a business related NGO. That's typical of Albanian and Macedonian culture. It's hard for them to understand what we're doing here so far from our families. They trace them back for generations and seem to be related to everyone in town either directly or through marriage. But for me it's great - it means I have instant connections in Gostivar. My apartment is very nice - I have a living room, small dining room, kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom with a small washing machine. Kacy is moving into the West Village in NY, and I bet my apartment is as big as hers! BTW, a little motherly pride, we just received word she passed the New York bar - congrats, my sweetie! I took treats into class today to celebrate.

South of Gostivar is the major national park in Macedonia, which I've heard is lovely. The sheep graze in mountain pastures in the summer, and I've been promised that I will be taken up there to visit. The family at the farm we visited were lovely - we had a good visit and were served the most delicious soft sheep cheese ever. It was four months old and had been made by the owner of the farm. They milk 200 sheep in the summer up in those mountain pastures - all, of course, by hand. I'd love to see the operation. I still can't quite believe this is what I'll be doing - seems like a dream. I was also given a huge wheel of hard sheep cheese at the cheese factory - tangy and delicious. My co-volunteers call me mother cheese!

Enough for now, friends. I'll write more and include pictures of Gostivar after I move there - I'll have internet access at my house. I had to move to Macedonia to get good internet access - Marlow just had dial-up. Hope everyone is well and thriving!

Apple Festival in Tetova

A couple of weeks ago 6 of us - 3 Peace Corps trainees from my village and 3 from a neighboring village - headed west for the annual apple festival in Tetovo. Tetovo is in the northwest part of Macedonia, not far from Kosovo and Albania, though you'd have to go over some significant mountains to reach Albania. It was a gray and rainy day, and we took the bus from Skopje. Traveling in Macedonia is a lot like traveling in New Hampshire or Vermont - because it is small the distances aren't nearly as far as they look on a map. We almost missed our stop in Tetova and went down to Gostivar, but at the last minute a friend who was smart enough to remember her guidebook realized we were in Tetovo and we got our grumbling driver to stop again to let us off. At that point we discovered there really wasn't a festival - the person who had thought of the trip had told one of our friends that Tetovo had the best apples in Macedonia, and that got translated into a feste. But for us it was a feste! We visited with Peace Corps volunteers living there, went to see the painted mosque, and ate in a good Italian restaurant - I had chicken shishkebab which was very salty like much of the food here but also delicious. It was too bad the weather wasn't better - I could see that the mountains literally came down to the edge of the city, and when it's clear it must be gorgeous. It's an ethnic Albanian town of about 80,000 so we got to practice some of our Albanian. We went to the treg (bazaar) to get pictures of our apple festival before catching the bus and train home. It was a fun way to practice taking local transportation in Macedonia, and one of the nice things about being in the Peace Corps is that there are people everywhere that we can go visit.

Next week we go to for our site visits - to the places we'll live and work for the next two years. I am soooo excited - can hardly wait to see what I will shortly call home. Miss everyone and send my best.

Last Sunday we were supposed to go to a neighboring village to see one of their pigs get slaughtered. It's a village with mixed ethniticies, but all the volunteers are living with ethnic Macedonians, and their lifestyle is a bit different from ours. The volunteer who lives at the house where the pig was to be killed texted us about an hour before the event - instead of slaughtering the pig at the appointed time, we were going to have rychek - or lunch - and the pig had already bitten the dust. We arrived to fresh pork grilling on the brazier, cooking in the house, and a feast prepared. Ethnic Macedonians, especially those in the country, all make their own wine and rakija, the native drink. To make rakija, you distill your home-made wine a few times until the alcohol content reaches 50% (100 proof). They use rakija for most everything - medicine, bathing the body for fever, for wounds, and they are likely to drink it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. However, before you leap to any conclusions, it is really a no-no to be drunk here. They always serve food with rakija and expect you to monitor your intake. Anyway, back to our feast.

The host family set up the table and after first serving us cok(prounounced soak), which is any kind of soda or juice, gave us all rakija and set out grilled pork, sauteed pork, pork liver, cole slaw, pickled veggies, bread, and I'm sure some other things. Since we eat very little meat at my house (and certainly no pork) the meat tasted sooooo good. We were also poured big glasses of their home-made wine. On a tour afterwards, I was shown their store houses where they have all their winter vegetables and probably 10-12 big casks of wine - some of which they're going to distill soon. We sat and talked and ate for about 5 hours. After the main meal, the wine keep flowing and cookies or other treats would magically appear. They grind their own flour and grow feed for their animals as well as everything else they might need, so they're pretty self sufficient. And I must say, they are very gracious hosts. One son spoke English that he had learned from TV and movies, and they taught us words in Macedonian as well as just chatting with us. Macedonians pride themselves as being terrific hosts, and I can attest that they live up to that billing.

These are some random pictures from my last week. The picture on the upper left is my 'cousin's' house where I went for dinner. Ekram is the dad and his wife is the sister of my father. As I've said before, family is very important, and we visit family all the time. If you didn't have a family you wouldn't know who you were and where you belonged, and family is traced back for at least 5 generations. Another volunteer lives with Ekram, and they are one of the more liberal and funny families - it's great fun visiting them with my family. The picture at directly above is Premtim, who is our Albanian language teacher. That's how he looks after trying to get us to pronounce Albanian words correctly - try saying gjthashtu quickly 5 times. The picture above that is the bazaar - every at least medium sized town has one. It's a combination farmer's market and flea market - you can get almost anything there and the prices are very low. I stock up on bananas there, as well as assorted other things. My 'father' bought a crate of the most gorgeous tomatoes you can imagine last week for 40 denari - about one dollar. There are sacks upon sacks of peppers, cabbages, tomatoes, grapes - everything that is coming in from the harvest. In addition, there are booths with clothes, umbrellas, eggs, baby wear - you think of it and it's there. Enver, my 'father' brought me down to buy a immersible hot water pot - takes about 3 minutes to heat a big pot of water. He knew where to go and what to say - we went to an Albanian vendor and they found me a new one they sold to me for about $7.50 and now we have hot water every day in our classroom for tea. We've reached the half way point in our training - hard to believe - and tomorrow we head to Skopje for 'field day', a day we get together with almost all of the other volunteers in country and play games, socialize, and buy stuff from the volunteers who are heading home soon. I'm looking forward to meeting more experienced volunteers and finding out about their experiences! Last weekend 6 of us trainees went to Tetova for the famous Apple Festival, but more about that later. I also want to take more pictures of my family here to share with you. I can't emphasize how friendly everyone is. Children in the village always want to practice their English, so wherever I go I'm greeted with "Hello. What is your name?" There are a number of young girls who run up for a hug whenever they see me, and there is nothing more energizing than a hug from one of them. There are challenges, too, but for the most part things have been wonderful. Enough for now - my love to you all!

Hooray for technology. I was in my favorite place, a bakery with free wifi, and had tea and baclava and called my folks, sister, Chris, and my out-laws on Skype! Chris had a web cam so I even got to see him sitting in his office - it can't get better than that.

Yesterday was a 'hub' day - a day when all of us trainees in Macdonia gather with some volunteers and the Peace Corps staff for training. The staff is super-supportive. We couldn't ask for nicer. One of the sessions yesterday was a panel of folks representing the main ethnic groups in Macedonia - Macedonian, Albanian, Roma, Vlad, Bosnian, Serb - the Turk representative ended up with a last minute conflict and had to cancel. One of the challenges of any democracy is tyranny of the majority - how do you keep minority interests honored? Certainly America has and continues to struggle with this concept. When Yugoslavia fell apart and the troubles started in Serbia and Bosnia, there were considerable tensions in Macedonia between the different ethnicities. The Albanian, Roma, and Bosniacs are, for the most part, Mulism the Serbs, Macedonians, and Vlads are for the most part Orthodox. They all have different languages and traditions - think of the French Canadians and you get a small sense of the challenge - how to integrate but not assimilate. In the US we say how to have a tossed salad as opposed to a melting pot. Macedonia was able to avoid the kind of conflict that developed elsewhere by signing the Ohrid Peace Accord. It allows the different communities to have at least primary schools in their own language, allows each group to designate a holiday especially for that group to go along with other holidays, and mandates representation in governance along with some other strategies to protect the interest of the different groups. There still is tension, but it is an amazingly thoughtful attempt to solve this basic problem in democracies and the world should be watching to see how it works. It's only been 7 or 8 years since the Accords, and it is definitely still a work in progress. As one panelist said - a supernova went off, and we're still in the cooling phase. There is so much happening in this small country - am I not one of the most fortunate people in the world to be here?