More Snow, Less Electricity

Hello patient readers, and welcome to February in Macedonia. Two weeks ago, we were blessed with this amazing break in the weather. For several days, I would wake up to bright sunshine penetrating through the blinds rather than the dull, overcast mornings that persisted through the majority of January. For these several days the temperature also reached a lovely high of approximately 12 degrees, Celsius, not Fahrenheit. It seemed that the all was going to be right in the world, that the spring would be fast approaching and all up hill from there. No. Two days after I awoke, wide-eyed and excited to begin another beautiful warm day, I was morbidly disturbed to walk outside into drifts of snow and the cold driving winds that Bitola is known for during the winter months.

Here comes the snow, yet again! While this photo may be picturesque and pretty to all you out there who LOVE snow, and enjoy the cold weather, for me it is not so. 

On a better note, my apartment has electricity again. Now, I know full well that it is extremely selfish to complain about losing power as a Peace Corps Volunteer (since there are PCVs in other countries without power or running water for two years), but this past week, half of the fuses in my apartment decided to blow, leaving me without lights or hot water. Ironically enough, it only affected the light switches, leaving all the outlets in my apartment functional. If I had a lamp that plugged into the wall, I could have had light... yet alas, I have no such lamp in my apartment. So the only working light source available was my laptop screen, and the blinking green light on the wireless router. For three nights, I had to conduct my work by the pulsating glow of the router, after visits by my coworkers, landlady, neighbors, and finally, an actual electrician who fixed the problem in approximately 32 seconds.

During this miniature electricity crisis, my body also decided that it hated me and everything happy in my life. I started feeling flu like symptoms on the first day I noticed that there was no longer any hot water or lights. This quickly degenerated into being completely incapable of leaving my bed for two whole days, and sleeping for approximately 18 hours. Fortunately, without electricity and a sunset that occurs around 4 pm, sleeping for 18 hours is an easy accomplishment.

Finally getting back to work, we have a number of very exciting activities and changes coming to the organization. Sadly, our EVS volunteer from Turkey finished her six months of service, and moved home to Istanbul. But this week, we also welcomed a new volunteer from Turkey who will be working with Together Macedonia for the next four weeks (short term service). There are some exciting workshops coming up with the organization, including a Speed-Dating event for Valentines Day that I will be the photographer for. The following week will begin my English Conversation Hour, on Tuesdays. I am very excited for this opportunity, because I will be structuring it differently from last years session. We will be focusing more on casual conversation and American pop culture, television and music. This provides me an opportunity to share shows with the Macedonian youth (18 - 25) such as Always Sunny in Philidelphia, Southpark, Family Guy, Futurama, Friends and Seinfeld. We will watch American shows, listen to American music, and then discuss its value and relativity in today's society. I have high hopes, since it would be a terrible shame if the younger generation abroad was subjected only to American culture via The Jersey Shore and Top 40 songs from the radio.

Welcoming the New Year

It is mid-January now in Macedonia, which would normally mean by this time (especially in Bitola) that the current outside temperature should be -10 degrees Celsius and all signs of life outside temporarily cease to exist. However, this is currently not the case. As I sit currently in the office and stare out the window at the Shirok Sokok, it is a dreary and rainy day, with the temperature hanging out around 8 degrees Celsius. As the rest of Europe is currently in a ‘deep freeze’, potentially the second Ice Age due to global climate change, I briefly consider the possibility that Bitola has switched roles with foggy, rainy London. Being someone who despises the cold weather, I cannot complain too much, for me this is much preferable to everything being coated in thick ice and meters of snow.

There is snow on the distant peak of Pelister, but there is none here on the ground. The streets and rooftops are nice and dry!

The start of the New Year means lots of exciting things going on all over the country. First on the list is an exciting New Years Eve celebration. Now each town in Macedonia has different traditions, and from what most people have told me, a majority of people (especially the younger crowd) flock to Skopje for a raucous evening on the town, much like people would in Times Square. However, living in the second largest city in Macedonia also has a plethora of benefits. Here we had a massive gathering in the town center; a few thousand people, and listened to live music, drank rakija, and watched the fireworks. Firework safety in Macedonia however, is hilariously nonexistent as compared to the U.S, where people will freak out for selling M-80s and fireworks must be set off from a safe distance. In Bitola, there is not a chance in hell of this type of micromanagement. The epicenter of the show was from the roof of an embassy in the town square. The fireworks exploded directly overhead of the massive crowd to the point of where if you starred at the sky, the remnants of phosphorus and shrapnel would rain down into your eyes. After the celebrations, the streets remained full of people into the wee hours of the morning, with children throwing firecrackers at things (and people) while the revelers stumbled back to their warm homes.

So an interesting fact, the "Christmas Tree" in Macedonia is actually used to symbolize New Years instead of Christmas. When I think of people in the United States, up in arms about some bullshit 'War on Religion' over saying, 'Happy Holidays' instead of 'Merry Christmas,' I can just smile, because the religious holidays here are personal and spent with family while the big, fun, secular holidays are celebrated by everyone.

Following New Years is a slew of Macedonian holidays; including Bozik (Orthodox Christmas), Stara Nova Godina (Old New Year), and Vodica (the Orthodox equivalent of the ‘polar bear swim’). I, like many other of the MAK 17s, decided to use the week of vacation to travel back to Kratovo to spent time with my host family and see some friends. Spending time with the family during the Macedonian holidays is extremely similar to the United States. There is a tradition of lying around all day and eating, visiting family members and sitting awkwardly because you still cannot speak much of the language (still!), and watching movie after movie on TV. Overall, visiting the family during the holiday is great! If Bitola was closer to Kratovo, I would come back much more frequently… but considering it takes approximately six hours to go, I feel it is best to save the trips home for special occasions.

Visiting Kratovo gave me lots of time to go visit friends and take scenic pictures of the town. This is from the front yard of my 'cousin's house in Kratovo. 

I had some new housemates to visit when I went home to Kratovo. These fellas were hanging out in our garden, waiting for the right time to be deliciously butchered and cooked. Looks like their chickens have come home to roost, bawk bawk!

The biggest adventure by far from the trip was returning back to my site in Bitola. First, I had to catch the bus to Skopje, which is relatively difficult because there are only a few per day in Kratovo. The first bus was insanely crowded, with half the passengers standing like the Tokyo Metro, and the driver looked at my suitcase and just shook his head, “nema mesto dechko.” Since there was no space, I waited two hours for the second bus to arrive, while the temperature outside was -5 (but felt like -50). The next bus, probably built during the 1920s, decided around Kumanovo that it was tired of living, and died on the side of the highway. This meant another hour waiting for a new bus, while the other passengers rotated on and off the bus, chain-smoking cigarettes like Joe Cool. By the time we arrived in Skopje, it was 7:40, and I was delighted to learn that the last train to Bitola left at 7:30. Ten minutes, seriously!? All I could do was catch the next bus, which was another 2 hours of waiting, followed by 3.5 hours of traveling, all the way back home. I left my family in Kratovo at 2:30, and finally arrived to my apartment at 12:30; angry, exhausted, but generally relieved to finally be able to sleep.

Back to Bitola also means back to work! We started off the New Year with more meetings, and new plans for the upcoming spring. Some of the plans include new exchanges, new EVS volunteers, and some opportunity to travel. The trip I am most excited for is Montenegro, which was pushed back to later in the Spring, so that the weather will be better. For now, it will be sometime in late April, hopefully not the same weekend as the Peace Corps in-service training. I have exciting plans to take a day trip from the exchange to visit Kotor and Budva, two very old and beautiful ancient cities that 99% of Americans do not know exist. The exchange itself will be exciting as well, since the topic will be “Youth, Media, and Democracy,” three topics that I will be getting to know very well in the next two years with Together.

Even more exciting news, I was finally able to eat at the Thai restaurant in Prilep. Officially the only Thai restaurant in Macedonia, it is also extremely delicious (albeit somewhat expensive). For me, someone who is kitchen illiterate, making a day trip to the City of Monkeys (weird nickname, I know), hanging out with some friends, and stopping by the restaurant is a very worthy day trip. Hopefully there will be many more day trips in the near future that I can take my camera along for, and upload proper photographs to this blog. As of now, I am still a slave to the ease and accessibility of Instagram.

Feast your eyes on the only Thai restaurant in all of Macedonia. The owner is actually from Thailand, somehow he moved to Macedonia, married a Macedonian woman, and by some miracle, opened up this restaurant in Prilep. I feel like fate has brought him to us, and give thanks on behalf of all the PCVs in Macedonia.

Happiness comes in many varieties. For me, it is always through traveling, eating delicious food, and learning new and exciting things. This upcoming week, I will be blessed enough to return to Skopje to pick up some things from the office, and this adventure will afford me the chance to eat at the one and only sushi restaurant in Macedonia. Surely there will be photos to document the adventure!

A Warm Christmas

Seasons greetings friends from around the world,

Today is the 25th of December, also know as Christmas in most parts of the Roman Catholic/Christian world. I would like to extend Happy Holiday/Christmas/Haunakah/Kwanza tidings to everyone I know. For us here in Macedonia, this is not yet the case. We celebrate the Orthodox Christmas, which is on January 7th. Today in Bitola is just another average workday, however we are very lucky that today is much warmer than usual! Last week, the temperature in the city was around 0 degrees, every single day. This week, we are fortunate to have temperatures at 8 or 9 degrees (these are Celsius degrees by the way), so it has been much less miserable to do any sort of outdoor activities. However, there are tons of decorations all around Bitola (and the rest of Macedonia) to celebrate.

I suppose I should include an update on how work and life has been going. The short answer, is good. The slightly longer answer, is better. I have been fitting in well at work, and hanging out with the coworkers is always a good time. I found a suitable language tutor to continue my Macedonian language lessons with, but at the same time, not being in class for four hours a day has definitely had a negative effect on my speaking and comprehension abilities.

Also this week at work, we had to bid farewell to 4 of our EVS volunteers. It will be very lonely around the office now that they are all back in Turkey and in France. Hopefully they will get a chance to come back and visit, go out to the nightclubs, and buy a Zastava to drive back to France. I should look at the positive side of this and be happy to note that I will be spending significantly less money on going out and having fun... yet remember that now instead of having fun, I will be sitting inside, near the thermo petchka and working on productive things, like reading... or writing this blog.

All quiet on the office front. It was a calm day to sit and relax. Lucky me I have a new smartphone, with Instagram so I can join the hipster legion and snap photos of every meal I (don't) eat, and take over-contrasted pictures. So long artistic integrity!

Let me just say that work has also been quite busy the last few weeks. Around the office there has been a lot of catching up to do on events, and filling in all the reports of the past years activities. This is the last week of the year, so next week we will be taking some time off, for New Years, and of course Божиќ (Orthodox Christmas). Following this, is a whole mess of other holidays, including Old New Year, and several Saint days... Realistically, I am not planning on being very productive until February.

On the bright side, there is a strong possibility that I will be going to Montenegro in January, for a 3 day conference on APV training. This is a very important opportunity with the organization because it is a critical component of what we do for all of our international exchanges as well as most domestic programs that we hold ourselves. I am thoroughly looking forward to this potential opportunity for two reasons; first being that it will be a great learning experience to better understand the nature of the organization and to provide assistance; and two, its an excellent way to travel! I will get to visit Montenegro, one country I have wanted to see for the past several years, as well as stopping in Kosovo along the way.

Speaking of traveling, I was fortunate enough to not spend the holidays without any Americans. On Sunday, I was able to visit a nearby town, Prilep, to spend the day with some Americans and to American things. It was a nice reminder that I am not alone in Macedonia. We drank some beers, ate pizza, and generally had an all-around good time. However, I got to experience the never-ending frustrations of the Macedonian bus system as I was leaving! Since I had purchased a round trip ticket at my bus station in Bitola, I had to wait in Prilip for the same company to return. I had missed the first bus from that company by 10 minutes or so, and the next one was 3 hours later. It was more frustrating seeing that every 40 minutes, another bus from a different company would stop and be on its way home. However, I am the cheapest person that I know, so I certainly was not about to pay another 100 denars (2 dollars) to buy another ticket. Long story short, I waited, drank coffee, and eventually made it back with no problems!

Welcome to Prilep! I took this photo before being trapped in the town for three hours. Lucky for me, it is a nearby town to Bitola so it only is 45 minutes by bus, and makes for a nice day trip!

I have many great events to look forward to coming up, and hopefully I will be motivated to share some of it with you all. New Years Eve in Bitola is less than a week ago, and there is an event being hosted by my organization at a local nightclub the weekend before. Overall, I think its going to a good start to a good new year!

Среќен Нова Година, и Среќен Бозиќ!

Settled In and Ready for Snow

Greetings family, friends and neighbors! It has officially been one week since I said goodbye to my wonderful family in Kratovo, packed my belongings, and moved down south in search of wild Internets and warmer weather. One thing when thinking about Bitola is that, when you look at a map, it is very far in the south, approximately 12 kilometers from Greece. This would lead one to think;

 “Ah! Look how far south this city is, it must be MUCH warmer than in Kratovo or Skopje.”

I think that this misconception is the biggest lie ever perpetuated since the moon landing. I firmly believed that people were teasing me when they would say things like:

 “Oh, you will live in Bitola! It’s the coldest city in Macedonia. Hopefully you have lots of warm winter clothes and long underwear.”

But no, I was lured into a false sense of security, believing that simply being further south would automatically mean that it is warmer. Bitola is at a higher elevation, and is next to one of the largest mountains in the country. This means that all winter long, the cold frigid air blows down from Mt Pelister, down the Shirok Sokok, and freezes every man, poofla, and child as they are sipping their coffee to stay warm.

On the bright side, I am officially moved into my own new apartment, and it is exquisite by Peace Corps standards. A year ago today, I was wondering if I would be living 2 years in a mud hut in Mozambique, but instead, I get a palatial flat in Bitola. There is even a massive, energy-draining thermo petcka to keep myself warm all winter long. Interesting side note about heating in Macedonia: Most families in this country use small heaters and wood stoves to stay warm during the winter. This is because the cost of electricity in this country is obscenely ridiculous. This creates a conundrum for a few different reasons. The first reason is that it has lead to moderate amounts of deforestation in parts of the country due to the demand for heating wood in the winter months. This, as you can imagine, comes with the standard negative ecological side-effects. However, it is more cost efficient for people in the villages and smaller towns to use wood heat. For me, since I live in an apartment, on the 4^th floor, it is completely impractical to rely on wood stoves for heat. So, this leaves me with a massive 300 lb. thermo petchka that is probably older than Tito and sucks electricity like flowers in the desert after the rain.

For me, the best way to combat the expensive heating costs associated with the petchka is to downsize. Now I only heat the one small room in my apartment. I literally took my mattress from the bedroom and sleep in the kitchen/dining room. Actually, it is kind of nice being in this one room. It is almost like living in a dorm, with my own personal kitchen and bathroom, and no obnoxious roommates to wake me up at 4 am after coming back from ‘Cabaret’. Once April rolls around, I will most likely move the mattress back to the bedroom and open up the doors. Violia! My studio apartment will magically transform back into a grand entertaining space with a living room, separate bedroom, and dining room.

Here are a few photos of my new living arrangements for the next two years!

 Добредојдовте сита! This is the happy entrance to my humble abode, complete with a mirror and coat closet!

 This is the only room in the apartment that gets heat. It is completely impractical to heat all the rooms just for myself. So here you have the dining room table, and pro tem bedroom. Also, please note the lovely Oklahoma spirit on the wall.

Here is the kitchen, it is small but has all the essentials (red wine and olive oil). For some reason however, the sink is on the opposite side of the room. I blame poor Yugoslavian planning.

 

Here is the unused bedroom, currently serving as storage during the winter months. Also, this is potentially a guest room that could be heated for a day or two, if required. I keep the shutters drawn because the amount of light in the morning is absolutely blinding.

 Here is the living room, and possibly my favorite room in the house. It leads out to the balcony where the clothes can dry in the summer, and has two very comfortable sofas for hosting guests. I dig the traditional Macedonian floors.

The organization in Bitola is going excellent so far. We are a small group of volunteers, but there is a great dedication among the staff members of Together Macedonia. There are loads of interested youth in Bitola who also enjoy working with the organization do work events, plan workshops, and to partake in the English language lessons. A large portion of my responsibility will be conducting English language lessons for the EVS volunteers as well as high school and university students from Macedonia. Each Monday evening, I will be teaching a brief, informal English conversation course. My first class is tomorrow, and I am very excited to start.

Other events with the organization include holding workshops in Bitola, attending workshops abroad (rumor has it that I will be in Albania in March, and then Luxembourg in April), and local cultural events in Bitola (particularly BitFest in July/August). As of right now though, all I can do is plan for my English lessons, sit inside next to the heater, and watch the snow fall outside. Тоа е Тоа.

Here is some early morning snowfall outside of the dining room balcony. The building just past the salmon colored apartments is where my office is located. With this weather, I am thankful it takes just 5 minutes to walk to work.

 From the other balcony, you can see Mt. Pelister, however today in the snowstorm you cannot see much of anything. It is very pretty though, almost like a wintery Bitlola postcard.

Hopefully soon I will be able to act like a tourist and go around to take pictures of things in Bitola. Until then, try to stay warm and have a nice day!

"Osogovo Style"

Добар Ден, yall. The final days of the Kratovo life are coming to an end. Its hard to believe that in 10 days I  will swear in and become an official Peace Corps Volunteer. After that is off to Bitola to work with the organization for two (hopefully) wonderful years. So what does a trainee do in their community the last couple weeks before leaving their families and going off to actually begin work? They go on mini-vacations of course. A group of us this past weekend were fortunate enough to have some time to get out of Kratovo and visit a nearby town, Kriva Palanka, and stay the night at an old monastery, and drink delicious wine on our Na Gosti with the current volunteers. What follows is a 'picture blog' entry of our descent into madness at the beautiful Monastery of St. Joachim of Osogovo.

So this here is the building we stayed in. The rooms were housing for monks back when this was an actually functioning monastery. Now its a nice place for tourists, especially us PCVs because its inexpensive and there is a bar/restaurant attached. Also, interesting fact, the mountains in the farther background are in Serbia. 3 more months and I will be able to travel there if I wish!

Here is our happy group of MAK 17 Trainees, all gathering to pose in front of the actual church itself. The scenery in this part of the country is absolutely beautiful. It is almost worth living here and dealing with the -20 degree temperatures in the winter time.

 Lots of the rocks are painted with religious icons, which makes a very awesome photograph. This image was on the rock face near the room we stayed in. 

The monastery was founded in the 12th century, though there are no remains of the original monastery. The smaller church in today's monastery complex got its present look in the 14th century, while the larger one was built in the 19th century. Currently, the monastery is home to approximately 23,249 cats, all of whom seem to thinks is a great place to wander about with the tourists because they feed them. This one was kind enough to let me take its picture. Meeetz!

So the church itself has many awesome frescos that are painted on almost every possible surface. This one is a happy Orthodox version of Jesus, and some nice fellow cutting off someones head. There is a slow process of actively restoring the frescos but this one has not been redone yet. 

Since the Jesus crowd was being represented, I felt that the other side also should have some press coverage in this blog. Don't ask me why, but apparently they felt the need to restore the depiction of Satan before the one of Jesus. So things don't need to make sense I guess.

The live music in Osogovo was excellent as well. This man is playing a traditional istrument beside one of the religious frescos. It was an excellent day, despite the small hangover.

Hopefully the next post in this blog will be from my own internet, in my own apartment, with my the comfort of having heat while I type away on the keyboard. Currently I would trade anything for that but it will be very distressing to move away from the great family and be on my own, in a new city, when it gets dark around 3:45 pm everyday. If I am already complaining about the winter now, I am worried to see how it is going to be in late January.

"Fall in Love, not in Line"

Greetings all! While it has been merely a week since my last post to this illustrious blog, many new developments have occurred that are ‘blog-worthy’ to write about. This past week, all the volunteer trainees in Macedonia were sent on a 3 day field trip known as ‘site visit.’ This visit is a prime opportunity to visit with the schools and organizations, see the town or village, and potentially learn where you will be living for the next two years. For myself, I was fortunately able to experience all of these, and they are greater than words can describe.

First, on Monday, I began the agonizingly long trip that is Kratovo – Skopje – Bitola. Overall, it took approximately six and a half hours to make it to the final destination. Upon arrival at the bus terminal in Bitola, I was greeted by my new counterpart and immediately knew that I would be having a good experience and an easy time integrating into the organization. The organization I will be working for, Together Macedonia is part of a larger network of the ‘Together’ Organization that functions in several European countries, and is currently branching out to Central America and China. Our organization in Bitola is small, only 4 full-time staff, but there is a brigade of youth volunteers from Bitola who help to work on the projects. Projects include activities such as organizing cultural events in Bitola, working with youth to promote democracy and learning, teaching English to adults, and working with the partner networks of Together on projects across borders. We are funded primarily through the European Commission which is very helpful in working on cross-border projects.

The most interesting thing about working with the new organization is presence of EVS volunteers. EVS is, in a way, like a European version of the Peace Corps, except the amenities are much greater and the time is much shorter. EVS stands for European Voluntary Service and is an adjustable time commitment (between one month and one year) that places European youth (18-30), in another country and puts them with an organization where they volunteer in the community. It is a really great tool for helping expand intercultural awareness and to meet some great people. Currently our organization is working with two volunteers from Turkey, and one from France; however, by the time I officially start working with the organization in December, we will have two new volunteers from someplace new.

The office is in an absolutely amazing location, right in the heart of the city center of Bitola. We will be working on the second floor of the House of Culture, with a nice lovely window and a view of the main shopping street where all of the cafes are. I do not think my office for my Peace Corps service could be in any better a location, even if it was on a white, sandy beach in Vanuatu. Everything about this city makes me feel like a truly privileged, and mildly spoiled, volunteer.

The city itself is great also! As the second largest city in Macedonia, there are many modern amenities that most PCVs would be extremely jealous to have. For example, near my office and apartment building is a Vero. Vero is grocery store in Macedonia that is essentially like a Home Plus in Korea, or a Super Target in the United States. This store has everything anyone could ever need, especially when compared to the local stores in the smaller towns and villages. I can even buy hot sauce and peanut butter! Two luxury goods I was sure I would be required to live without are now merely within an 8 minute walking distance from my apartment.

Speaking of my apartment, I do not think it would be possibly to be living in a better location, anywhere in Macedonia. The apartment, which was found by a fellow PCV, is a mere block from the main street of Bitola, the Широк Сокок, and is on the 5th floor of an older, but very nice building. I have two balconies, one which looks to the center of the city, and the other which looks out over Mount Pelister, and the national park. Also from my balcony, I can see the major park in Bitola, as well as the football stadium, where I will hopefully make many friends with the local Bitolians by being a loud and nationalistic supporter of Pelister. As a side note, the crazed fans of Pelister are called ‘Chkembari’ (Чкембари), which translates to ‘beer gut’ in English or ‘sul bae’ in Korean. I am sure you can imagine, I’ve already beginning my search to find a flag and a scarf to wear to the matches.

Coming back to Kratovo, it is difficult too contain my excitement over my situation that I will be moving into within the next month. I have an excellent and well functioning organization, a beautiful city with great food and coffee bars, and an apartment that is at least as nice as my apartment in Oklahoma (and probably the same size, if not bigger). My only concerns are going to be heating in the winter, and what I will do with my life once I have internet again! Internet right now is an earned luxury that requires a very cold afternoon sitting at an outdoor café in Kratovo, and drinking hot tea. Only three weeks left until the Swearing In and site move, and time is moving slowly. The best thing now to do is enjoy all the time with my host family in Kratovo, because they have been fantastic hosts, and to make copious amounts of lists for the things I will need to buy when December comes.

Ah yes, and the final word, related to the title of this post. Bitola has some excellent street artists, which is extremely refreshing to see after the only graffiti we have in Kratovo is stick letters, all hailing the BMPO political group (there is an insane amount of political graffiti in Macedonia). In Bitola however, there are great murals and walls thrown up by artists with real talent. One of my favorite tags that I read while in the city was on the side of an apartment, saying: “fall in love, not in line,” and it made me a very happy little anarchist to see such sentiments. In fact there is another tag across from my apartment that proclaims “stop police brutality!” which also makes me smile every time I read it. I discussed this art potential in the city with my workmates and they informed me that they have projects with local artists where they donate walls for murals. My ship has landed at last! I have a good feeling that I will be fitting in extremely well with my organization and community as a whole.

Also, I apologize that I have no photos to offer you all for reading this long and potentially boring blog entry, but as soon as I move to site, I will be sure to take some to post!

The Rocky Road to Bitola

Good news everyone! The curtain has been lifted and Peace Corps has finally informed the current trainees where their sites will be for the next two years. This is extremely relieving for me as I hate being kept in suspense with anything, and am even more irritated when people withhold information from me. Let me start off by saying exactly how nervous I was before our site announcements. Luckily, Macedonia is an absolutely fabulous country, with zero bad site placements. However, some places are much more suited to certain personalities than others. For example, my biggest concern was that I would be placed into a small rural community (~200 people and without a pub... yikes!), working at an NGO that specializes in cat rescue and rehabilitation (I hate cats and am extremely allergic to them), and living with a family that has 20 children (over half of our 36 volunteers this year were placed in home stays). I calculated my odds at dodging all of these potential PC hazards at approximately between 7-8% through a very careful and thorough country map and cross-sectoral analysis. Honestly, I spent way too much time trying to calculate the odds of being absolutely miserable and it nearly drove me insane. Also it is important to note that while these things may not be appealing to myself, there are many people who would actually want all of those things I tried so hard to avoid.

However, now that the news is out, I can breathe a major sigh of relief. By some absolute miracle, that is absolutely a complete shock; I somehow managed to get every single thing I wanted without ever telling anyone in the organization what I actually would prefer. Luck has placed me in the second largest city in the country (beautiful Bitola with approx 80,000 people and presumably several pubs), at a democracy-advocacy NGO that works on an international scale with young adults through various organizations including the local university (no cats for this guy!), and I have been truly blessed to be receiving my own apartment somewhere within the city (no children with sticky fingers!). Everything that could possibly have been in my wish list has been realized. It makes me extremely guilty knowing that some volunteers were extremely upset with their site placements, while I received everything I ever wanted without saying a word but that is exactly how the Peace Corps goes sometimes. Complete luck. I half-expected a sign to pop up, ala Civilization V style, and say ‘your Golden Age has ended.’ The karma bank has run dry, all reserves have been used up.

Please bear with me for a bit as I torture you all with another history lesson, since I love to lecture so very much. In the shadow of Mount Pelister (Baba Mountain), Bitola is built on the ruins of one of the oldest cities in Macedonia (Heraclea Lyncestis), dating back to the time of Philip II, in the 4^th and 5^th Century B.C.E. The town is the site of many historical mosques, Turkish baths, and old bazaars that have been around for centuries. Ruler of the Ottoman Empire, Ataturk, went to university in Bitola, and many other historically relevant things occurred here over the past 2 centuries. If you would like, you can read ALLLL about it on the world’s most trusted academic resource, Wikipedia. I joke of course, but really, the basic history of the city is all there, complete with credible citations from various academic sources.

In a week from now, all the current trainees will get to experience the wild adventure of going to their sites for a 3-day excursion that includes learning how to use Macedonian transportation, meeting our workmates and counterpart, and hopefully seeing where we will be living for the two years at our site. I will be taking over the apartment of a departing volunteer, as also will be Joe, the other volunteer who will be working in Bitola as well. Joe also was placed in a great NGO, which specializes in small business incubation to help entrepreneurs manage their own new enterprises. Living and working in the same city with another volunteer will be a great joy, seeing as how some volunteers are placed far away from anyone they can converse in English with. Please be patient in the coming weeks as I can only update this blog so often with pictures and snippets of information about my new home. I still have a month left of living in wonderful Kratovo, but the excitement of starting a whole new adventure all alone is tantalizing. Hopefully at some point everyone, from all around Macedonia as well as other parts of the world, will be able to visit as well!

Please continue to do some research via the Wiki here, there is a lot of very interesting things to entice you all to come spend a week or two.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitola