A Week Full of Celebrations

Now, I know what you are all thinking. Its only the 9th of May, and this is already the second post for the month. Astonishing, right? However, the past week has been full of holidays and fun adventures, so I feel that it is my sworn duty as a Peace Corps Volunteer, to report on all of the excitement.

May 1st is an important holiday in Macedonia, mainly because its the equivalent of Labor Day in the United States. Just like in the United States, nobody goes to work on this day and everyone takes the day off to hang out in the great outdoors, picnic with friends, and enjoy the nice spring day. This year, I joined some of my Macedonian friends for a roadtrip from Bitola to one of the most famous monasteries at Sv. Naum. The monastery was established in 905 by St. Naum of Ohrid, and he is buried in the church. I was told that if you listened closely, you can hear his heartbeat. I paid 50 denars to go inside and see if this was true, but sadly I couldn't hear anything.. Such an outrage! I am  glad I was able to 'sneak in' by only paying the Macedonian price, rather than the international tourist price. If there is anything I gained from my language training... its how to buy something, tell people my name is Darko, and pretend that I am from here until they realize how terribly my accent is and that I don't understand anything they are telling me.

Anywho! The monastery is by far one of the most beautiful places I have been thus far in Macedonia. Its literally situated on the bank of Lake Ohrid, and is only a few kilometers from the Albanian border. Actually, driving down the mountain from Lake Prespa, at the summit you can see both Lake Prespa, Lake Ohrid, Macedonia and Albania. Its quite an impressive view, and extremely high up. Even on our very warm day, about 80 degrees Farenheit, there was still plenty of snow at the peak. However, the coolest part to me was the current residents of the monastery, dozens of beautiful, brightly colored peacocks. They roam the grounds, eating bread from the tourists, and pecking at the children who try to touch them. In fact,there are signs posted all around that proclaim the dangers of leaving your kids unattended near the birds:

"Warning! The birds will fuck up your kids! Don't let them try to touch the peacocks"

I paraphrase, of course, yet, this is essentially what the signs say... in Macedonian and English! Here are some of my favorite shots from the monastery.

 The long road to Sveti Naum. We turned south at Resen, and headed for the hills in between the two lakes (Prespa and Ohrid). I was told very few people actually drive this road, and I was lucky that as a foreigner, I would get to see it. It was quite scenic. 

Here is the iconic monastery! This is one of the most beautiful monasteries in all of Macedonia. I argued with my friend Goran about which was more impressive, Sv. Naum (here) or Sv. Joakim Osogovski (Kriva Palanka). They're possibly the two fartherst apart in the country, and are so different in design and significance.  

Another shot of the towers, the building has had some additions, but its over 1000 years old. about 10 times older than the oldest buildings at Oklahoma State. Crazy. 

"Pretty bird... can you say, pretty bird!" 

"Peetie!? You sold my dead parakeet to a blind kid!?"
Here is the monastery's current residents, not parakeets, but gorgeous peacocks that eat children. This handsome guy posed for a picture.

After leaving the monastery, we drove from Sv. Naum, up the coast through Peshtani, and eventually to Ohrid. Ohrid is by far the most tourist-driven place I have been in the past 8 months. Everything there is designed for the throngs of people coming to admire the coast and soak up the culture. Ohrid is very interesting to me, because it seems to be much more culturally diverse than Bitola... and differences are more tolerated. I saw Albanian, Turkish, Macedonian and Greek people all in the same place.. and nobody was complaining about it. It was like an alternative universe.

Perhaps this is because the city is extremely accustomed to having many different people all of the time. In fact, much to the confusion and dismay of my friends, began to take a count of all the different countries license plates that I saw. Everytime I saw a new country, I would loudly proclaim how cool it was:

"Oh look! this car is from Geneva! WOW! How interesting!"

"Uh yeah man? That... is really awesome?"

This was the general trend of my conversations all day, however, over the course of the afternoon, I saw cars from 15 different countries:

Macedonia, Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, Kosovo, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, and Poland

I was even crazy enough to create a nice map of Europe, with Macedonia in red, to illustrate how far each of these cars had to travel to get to Ohrid. 

Clearly I have way too much free time on my hands... and should probably find a hobby, like painting or chasing girls. Admittedly, I am good at neither of those, so I will just stay weird. Here's the map I made, showing all the countries that were visiting Ohrid and Peshtani on May 1. However, I also saw a new Chevy Camero, with New York license, but its not on the map.

Also, here are some more of the photos from Ohrid.

What idiot would wave their 300 Euro camera out the window to take pictures? This idiot! The chase is on, down the mountain, through Peshtani, and to Ohrid we go!

Welcome to Ohrid, the fortress town on the lake. Up on the hill is the fortress, and near there is a very awesome church.

Welcoem to yet another monastery  This one is accompanied by ancient ruins from many many centuries ago. The church is not nearly as old, but the ancient pillars make for a nice decoration. 

Our May 1 Crew. Hanging out near the lake, enjoying the beautiful weather and a day off work.

That about sums up the vacation day for May 1. Following was a very nice celebration for Orthodox Easter. Originally I had planned to travel back to my home in Kratovo to visit the host family, however, after traveling all through the west of Macedonia just two days before, I figured it would be best to wait until the summer to stop by. For Orthodox Easter weekend, some friends from out of town stopped in to Bitola, and hung out for a few days. I met some great new volunteers who live in Skopje, and hopefully will be able to stop up and visit them before they return to their own country.

Until then, I have only three more weeks left until leaving for the exchange in Estonia. Plus an extra day of traveling in Tallinn and in Italy. I am more than excited. It will be nice to see some new things and update all the hungry readers back in the US about a Europe that is more than just the Paris, Rome and London.

Feeling Frustrated? Go on Holiday!

Good day everyone! So, it has officially come to my attention that I am the laziest blogger on the planet... After checking the history, it has been an entire month since I have posted anything. Yet, from the beginning of April to now, there has been so many exciting activities to discuss. The second week of April was very important, for this week, all the Peace Corps Volunteers from the MAK 17 group (all 36 of us) had to gather in Skopje for four days of Peace Corps mandated fun and training. Overall, it was actually quite nice because it was a great opporuntiy to catch up with other volunteers from around the country and to share stories of projects (or lack there-of) in different sites.

Furthermore, Peace Corps was kind enough to offer us a very nice hotel in the capital and to give us 300 denars each evening to buy food with. For me, this is like a golden ticket. Normally for dinner in Bitola, I either starve to death or eat whatever snacks don't require cooking. Sometimes, if I am really lucky, I will go out to buy a sandwich or a fold-over pizza at one of the little shops near the apartment. Some days I even find people willing to sit through an entire meal with me at a restaurant.. For our training in Skopje however, every night was an entire meal in the restaurant! On top of that, Skopje actually has options for 'international cuisine'. I am pleased to announce that there are now TWO, I repeat, TWO!! Indian restaurants in Skopje. Both with absolutely delicious food. Also, there is one sushi restaurant and two Chinese restaurants, as well as two Mexican places. As a resident of Bitola, where the only 'International' option is pizza completely drowned with mayonnaise and ketchup, I can fully appreciate this variety.

Alright! So about this conference. The Peace Corps event was the in-service technical training, which is the first of many in-service trainings that we are heavily persuaded (meaning, we have no choice but to attend) into attending. With the seminar, we talk about thrilling topics such as 'how to fill out your VRF (volunteer reporting form), raising money with grants, and how to adjust to differences in working culture. This one poses the most interesting challenge for me. My organization still has this idea of how Americans are supposed to be, and how they work - all Americans are hardworking, on-time, and love being creative. I am about as opposite of this idea as humanly possible. For starters, and with all-due respect to myself, I am a lazy ass.. and I gave up on the concept of 'being on-time' to things the very second our plane touched down in Skopje. Mostly because, in general, Macedonians always run late to things... which to me is perfect, I can totally accept meeting people at 10 when we agree to be somewhere at 9:30.

Secondly, we are having issues with ideas and creativity. This is a difficult thing to grasp with the nature of my job, mainly because I have zero experience in this field of work - or this style of work. While I am constantly being asked for ideas of workshops and exchanges to write, I am asking "what makes a good workshop or exchange?" I have never been to a youth exchange, and every workshop I have ever attended has been a form of slow torture... where after 15 minutes, I have completely stopped paying attention to whomever is speaking. Some days I really do not feel I am a good match for this type of work. I am much more comfortable teaching things that I know, and leading class discussions than I am at developing workshop programs and sitting at a desk all day. However, these are not my things to decide. As much as I would love to give lectures at the university here or the economics school - my duty is to remain as lost and confused in the NGO sector as possible.

So many frustrations! I apologize for that unintelligible rambling, but it is difficult to discuss these issues without somehow pissing someone off, somewhere. Speaking of frustrations, the youth exchange that I was to take part in - in Montenegro, was unfortunately cancelled... thus dashing my hopes and dreams of escaping from Macedonia for at least a few days. However, last weekend, in spite of the trip being cancelled, I decided it would be best to take a weekend vacation to Sofia, just for a change of scenery.

Let me walk you through the grand adventure! Complete with stories, pictures, and our country director. So this journey began like any other.. except that it didn't, because I left Bitola at 3:10 in the morning, after not being able to sleep for some unknown reason, and taking the lovely train to Skopje. Arriving at 7 am, I had two hours to hang out, drink coffee and chain smoke a pack of Ron Hill Menthols before the crew converged on the station to set off for Sofia. Normally the bus ride to Sofia is a little over four hours, however... when you factor in the border crossing, you may as well add an extra two hours for the bus. Lucky for us, when we stepped off of the bus at the border, we were greeted by our country director! Driving in his fancy SUV with diplomatic plates, he was there to remind us that 'we cannot escape this country without him knowing, he will always know.' I was just happy that I had done the Peace Corps approved thing and turned in a vacation request form.

Welcome to Bulgaria, where your Macedonian nationality isn't recognized and your heroes are all Slavic. Since Bulgarians think that Macedonians are just Bulgarians with accents, the relations between the two countries are less than steller. Possibly an underlying reason that it took a few years for us to simply pass into the country.

Two hours later, we were finally leaving the border crossing and heading through the Bulgarian country-side. Now the Bulgarian countryside is actually quite pretty.. its exactly like in Macedonia, similar architecture, small town's, bullshit trivial politics, and in general, extremely friendly and warm people. Upon the first larger city we passed through however, I felt like we were driving into a post-apocalyptic Soviet nightmare. Picture, if you will, the most stereotypical Eastern-European town, complete with the concrete block - 'soul-deafening' architecture. Welcome to " Кюстендил " or in English, Kyustendil. A quick Google-search of this town is highly misleading. Between the communist-deco high rises and crumbling infrastructure.. I could only compare this town with the beauty of Kumanovo. A happy little Bulgarian Kumanovo, just across the border - an aging tribute to the bi-gone area of Leninism and communist prosperity. " Перник ", or Pernik, slightly further up the road, is much of the same... abandoned factories, crumbling facades, and desolate poverty. Driving through, I was reminded of the scene in the movie 'Eurotrip', when the group goes to Bratislava and the old man says 'Ah, it is good you come in the summer... in the winter, it is very depressing!' Looking out at the broken lives, I was overwhelmed by feeling that I could never be happy again.

And then we arrived in Sofia, which was to be fair, quite the opposite of everything else. The city was lively, full of beautiful eclectic architecture, mixed with Russian Bourgeoisie styles and lingering Ottoman influence. Sofia, or "София  ", is a very old city... with a long history foreign occupiers and cultural exchange (much like Macedonia). Formerly a Thracian settlement during the era of Philip II (of Macedonia - obviously), the city was under the rule of the Huns, the Slavs, the Ottomans, the Russians, etc. In fact, their Cyrilic alphabet, is the most similar to the modern Russian alphabet of all the Slavic countries, notice the 'io" looking character and the backwards 'R', with exception of Belarus and Ukraine. There are many reminders of this this foreign influence in the city, with beautiful results.

Here is the Russian Orthodox Church in Sofia. The style is much different from the Byzantine influence that is elsewhere, and the cross itself is different (with two horizontal bars, and one diagonal).  This was on the walking tour of Sofia we participated in the second day.

 Here is perhaps the most famous church in all of Bulgaria. The second largest in the Balkans, this is St. Alexander Nevsky's Cathedral. Who is Alexander Nevsky? Why, he is also a Russian of course! While the style is completely different, there are some Russian influences... including the 3 bar-cross on the front, and the golden domes.

Here at the end of the prominade, you can see the church of St. Nedelya. The patron saint of Sunday (Nedela). This is a much older church, build in the Medieval style sometime around the 10th Century. 

This was just a beautiful building I saw while on a walk down a side street near the hostel. I thought the color and style was spectacular and well contrasted against the bright sky.

Overall, it was a very solid three day vacation and could not have come at a better or more welcomed time. During the short time I was there, I visited Starbucks, ate sushi, drank amazing European beers, and basked in the glow of being an entire country's distance from any sort of responsibility related to work. It was an absolutely glorious feeling. One day I will be sure to go back and see some more of the town that I missed during the short excursion. It is a good mental preparation to travel, and in a few short weeks, I will (hopefully) be heading to Estonia to experience a youth exchange.

This is quite a lengthy post, I will save the stories from the First of May for another entry, filled with even more beautiful pictures of Macedonia.