A Visit From The Bro

As I type this post my brother is sitting in some international airport. Or maybe he's in the air between two international airports. He came for a visit to Macedonia and we just sent him off to begin the journey home, a trip with more legs than a spider. Even if he does arrive in Los Angeles relatively near his scheduled time, his luggage will undoubtedly be another story. His suitcase is probably drifting through some central Asian republic, heading for the far east and the international date line. Maybe it'll beat him home.

So to reflect on Matt's visit, I interviewed him about his travels and impressions of Macedonia. Seeing as how he's in the air somewhere or eating airport food in Rome, this is the interview I imagined he'd give if he even knew what time zone he was in, let alone the day of the week.

Dan: So where are you right now?

Matt: London. I'm enjoying a 5 -hour layover. If my math serves me, I just paid twenty-one dollars for an awful piece of pizza and a beer. But that was after converting my Bulgarian lev into Egyptian pounds into British pounds, so it was probably more like thirty bucks.

Dan: Why Egyptian pounds?

Matt: So I could buy twenty dollar pizza at the Cairo airport.

Dan: How was the bus ride from Skopje to Sofia, Bulgaria?

Matt: I've never had to pee so badly in my life. How do Macedonians do it? Do they have bladders of steel or what?

Dan: I guess they're used to it. And they don't really drink a lot of water.

Matt: We stopped at the border for passport checks and everyone got out and went into this little building. I thought, "At last, a bathroom." But no, it was a cigarette vendor.

Dan: Still, it had to be better than the bus ride to Struga.

Matt: Oh, that was like a sauna on wheels. Or the bus from Chashka which didn't even show up.

Dan: Ok, transportation issues aside, how did you enjoy the trip?

Matt: It was lots of fun. And incredibly cheap--I think I spent a hundred bucks all week.

Dan: Well, when beers are only $1.25...

Matt: Yeah, I love the cafe culture. What was that first city we were in?

Dan: Tetovo.

Matt: Right. There must have been ten cafes for every city block.

Dan: Yes, our tour of Balkan beers was quite impressive.

Matt: Lots of Skopsko.

Dan: Don't get too proud about that. It's the Bud Light of Macedonia.

Matt: But I have to say, we were enjoying it in some pretty picturesque places.

Dan: Yeah, what did you think of the historical spots?

Matt: Ohrid was great. My favorite stop was the fortress over the city--the view was incredible and the fortress is still in really good shape. Though I have to say, I can't imagine running up and down those steep stone steps in the heat of battle. That alone must have cost an army a few hundred men.

Dan: Probably not much workers' comp.

Matt: Just rub some dirt on it!

Dan: And what about Bitola? It was our first trip there, too. I was impressed.

Matt: Me as well. That central pedestrian area below the clock tower was awesome. Again, so many cafes.

Dan: And I couldn't believe how packed with people it was at night. By the way, you did a nice job ruining a perfectly good picture of you and Jillian on that street.

Matt: My eyes are closed, yes? Can't help it, it's a family trait.

Dan: When is Photoshop going to add an "Open Eye" feature, right next to the red eye reducer?

Matt: How did the pictures from Heraclea turn out?

Dan: Solid. Those Roman ruins were quite impressive. I was amazed at how much color the tiles still retain after all those centuries. And the fact that we could just walk all over the ruins.

Matt: The old amphitheater there was another highlight of the trip. I'd guess that place must seat about two thousand people.

Dan: No doubt they packed the place on Saturday nights for Antonious Bennettus.

Matt: Only when the toga-clad Tomas Jonius wasn't available.

Dan: Before I let you go, I have to ask you about the Macedonian food and drink you tried.

Matt: The food was quite delicious. That flaky pie we ate on the bench--

Dan: Burek.

Matt: --I think that was my favorite, though your host mother cooked up some pretty amazing stuff us. Not bad, considering we arrived unannounced.

Dan: Cell phone malfunction. And how was the rakia?

Matt: (long silence)

Dan: I think your exact words were something like, "If you hadn't told me what it was, I'd have assumed it was bad tequila."

Matt: I'll refer you to my earlier statement. I may be delirious, but I think I just heard my flight being called. Or maybe it was being canceled. Who knows.

Dan: Alright, enjoy. Chiao.

Matt: Chiao. And fa-la.

Postscript: To read some of Matt's actual thoughts on the trip and to see some more pictures, click here.

Nine Months In

It's official: We've been in Macedonia for the length of one human gestation period.

Maybe this is the sort of fact that one only finds interesting at 3:37 in the morning. I'm up watching the Celtics-Lakers in the NBA Finals on Macedonian television--it's the only way to see it live and on our decrepit TV set I have the choice of a color picture with static or a black and white picture with sound, depending on how I tune the channel with the little white knobs. I've opted for door #2 so that I might hear the Macedonian announcer. He keeps saying something that sounds like, "Boston feels tasty." Unfortunately, sports vocabulary wasn't part of PC curriculum.

Anyway, back to this whole gestation thing. We learned that two friends back in San Diego just had their first child and I was reminded of something humorous I read a few years ago about Rhode Island. In addition to being the smallest state in the union, it is also the largest unit of measurement, as in, "forest fires rage across a swath of land the size of Rhode Island" or "a Rhode Island-sized asteroid is hurtling through space." Utilizing that same logic, Jillian and I can now take stock of our first gestation period in Macedonia.

Summer is officially here with the end of the school year. If anything, this means our lives are getting a whole lot busier. We're currently working with a student organization in creating a week-long camp for elementary students. We call it "Healthy Kids" and its focus will be teaching fourth, fifth, and sixth graders the benefits of a healthy lifestyle (healthy eating, daily routines, anti-smoking, etc.), complete with all the fun camp games we got to play growing up.

The planning of this camp--which will be held in late June--has been extremely challenging but also completely rewarding. As PCVs we're given a wonderful amount of autonomy to create our own projects and in the high school we've found a small but dedicated cadre of students willing to partner up for something positive. Unlike in America, where parents often have a slew of options for their children during summer break, there is a real vacuum of opportunity here. That being said, it has been rather difficult to convince students to sign up for the camp--of all the logistical difficulties we've experienced, this one has been the steepest and most surprising. But it's coming together...

Speaking of logistics, on Saturday my brother is flying in for a week-long stay. He's coming into the airport in Sofia, Bulgaria, and then (hopefully...really, I'm crossing my fingers) catching the bus to Macedonia and asking the driver to drop him off on the side of the highway as they pass through our town. We even went so far as to write him a little note in Macedonian that he can slip to the driver like a bank robber. So if all goes well, we'll soon be touring the country, showing off all we've learned of the language, sites, food, and people during this first gestation period. And watching basketball at 3am.

The Tutor Dynasty

It's noon on a Sunday and the sun is directly overhead. It's a beautiful day. Green as far as the eye can see stretches in all directions courtesy of a healthy April rainfall and the recent turn to summer temperatures. But at the moment we're staring at the ground, fascinated, as Apostal maneuvers a miraculously simple irrigation project. Apostal is the husband of our Macedonian language tutor, Ratka. She's a teacher at the high school and he's the vice principal. Neither one speaks a word of English.

Like many Macedonians around us, Ratka and Apostal grow a wide assortment of produce in their yard and that's where we are, in the garden watching Apostal water the rows of potatoes. In lieu of a sprinkler or garden hose, he's running a stream of water from the house along the ground via a home-fashioned tube and then simply manipulating the soil to direct this mini stream in all sorts of directions throughout the garden.

All the while he's chatting us up in Macedonian. He's very difficult to understand, so Jillian and I spend most of the "conversation" nodding and chuckling. I'm sure Apostal knows we're not getting much of this, but he's clearly not bothered. So we stand, the three of us, enjoying the sun and watching the soil gobble up the water.

Ratka's disappeared into their small greenhouse to pull us up some greenleaf lettuce. It's called "salata" in Macedonian, which leads me to the inevitable joke each time Ratka hands us a plastic bag full of the fresh goods: "That's a lotta salata." [Tapping the microphone] Is this thing on?

We come here twice a week for lessons. No, Ratka doesn't speak any English, but it's not as difficult as our Macedonian friends, colleagues, and students assume. "But...she doesn't speak English," they say, furrowing their eyebrows in confusion. "I mean, how do you communicate?"

Well there's our dictionary. And there's pantomime. And drawing. And, no, Jillian and I aren't ready to take the SAT in Macedonian, but we learned a good deal of basic vocabulary during our Peace Corps training. You'd be amazed how far the verb "to go" can get you when you're really in a pinch.

Ratka's a Macedonian teacher by trade, so there's lots of focus on grammar. I'm not entirely convinced that knowing the imperfective and perfective forms of "to participate" is going to enrich my experience here, but no matter. Visiting our tutor (down the hill, over the bridge, to Ratka's house we go) is becoming more of a social date, especially now that summer has arrived. We look forward to many a "tutoring session" sitting outside, chatting with Ratka, trying Apostal's rakia, and enjoying the comfort of neighbors.

And eating a lotta salata.