Picture: Tree Hugging

A couple weeks ago, we had the second meeting of Struga's latest (and, as far as I know, only) environmental club. As of now, it's a spinoff of the Scout troop, but we're hoping to get more kids involved. One of the activities we did was called "Meet a Tree": the kids paired up, and one
person in each pair was blindfolded. Then the seeing-eye partner took the blindfolded partner to a tree and the blindfolded partner had to "get to know" the tree using senses other than sight. Then the seeing-eye partner took the blindfolded partner (circuitously) back to the starting point and removed the blindfold, and the blindfolded partner had to try to find his or her tree.

PS: "We" consists of Patty (PCV), Kristy (PCV), myself, and Patty's Macedonian coworker, Maja. We have grand plans for the club, but right now we're just trying to get the kids to show up on a regular basis.

Daylight Savings

Reason number 3,896 why Macedonia is different from the United States: Macedonia starts daylight savings time a week before the United States. That's right, folks--for a limited time only, I am SEVEN hours ahead of the east coast instead of six. And since so many of you call me, it's of the utmost relevance.

Of course, I had no idea that we were supposed to change our clocks until I was an hour late for a 4 o'clock coffee date. Oops.

Anyway, it's kind of cool that it's 5:00 now and the sun is still shining. Or the sun WOULD be shining if it weren't raining.

Also, on a completely unrelated note, I bought my plane tickets home! Now I can REALLY count down the days! (55)

Picture: Mazel Tov!

Would you like some potato pancakes? They're kosher!

Last year sometime, an American vegan living in Skopje invited me to join his monthly vegan dinners. He was working (not volunteering) for an international organization and making bank, so he had lots of tasty treats that he purchased when traveling. Last summer, he was preparing to move to England and let me raid his kitchen for vegan vittles. I made out like a bandit with such delicious delights as coconut milk, curry paste and (of course) sweet potato pancake mix.

Well, a year later, I realize that I still have a lot of these items to use, so this weekend I tried to make the aforementioned sweet potato pancakes. I was a little sad to discover that the mix contained not sweet potatoes but white potatoes with sugar. Beggars can't be choosers. I had
some trouble with the frying (since I don't have much experience with that), but managed mild success. I was a little grossed out by the amount of oil on the pancakes, so I tried to blot off the excess. In the States, I would probably use paper towels, but paper towels aren't terribly commonhere, and--c'mon--I'm an environmentalist, so I didn't have any on hand. I
ended up using cheap-o recycled toilet paper instead. (It was off a new roll that had yet to enter the bathroom, so it was clean... enough.) However, the TP is so weak that it stuck to the potato pancakes and kind of blended in. I grew weary of picking out maybe-TP-maybe-potato spots, so I just gave up. I'm sure I ate some toilet paper. Mmm...toilet paper.

Overall, it was an entertaining and tasty experience, proving that Passover foods can be fun for Gentiles, too! Thank you, Manischewitz, for your delicious potato pancakes!

Side note: the apron was a birthday gift from Ann. Thanks! Love it!

The Answer

I would like to thank all of you have been playing along at home, but the answer is...

They are all things that I wash in my shower!

That's right folks, I've gone Kramer. When you have a small kitchen sink, no washing machine, REALLY dirty spinach and no hot water in the bathroom sink (and scalding hot water in the kitchen sink), there's only one thing to do: hit the shower.

I was just amused by my own vegetarian ridiculousness the other day when I bought a pound (half kilo, really) of spinach and tried to wash it. I rinsed it, scrubbed it, soaked it in saltwater, soaked it in vinegarwater, and rinsed it again. (Lemme tell ya, appreciate that triple-washed,
pre-bagged spinach!) Then I cooked it, and it shrank to the size of a tennis ball. All in all, it was two days of work for a single-serving side dish. And there was still some grit.

As for the dishrack, my landlords bequeathed me a formerly-white-but-now-kind-of-mottled-brown souvenir of the former Yugoslavia. I'm too cheap to buy a new dishrack, so I assaulted this one with various caustic substances that I am sure have been outlawed in the US for decades.

With regard to the bedsheet (and all my laundry, for that matter) it hangs out in the red tub pictured above.

The Style Invitational goes Makdo

What do bedsheets, spinach, a dishrack and my face have in common?

Submit your answers via comment or e-mail! Check back later this week for the answer!

My Lucky Birthday

Before I launch into my rant, I want to let all of you know that the two weeks leading up to my birthday have been great. I look forward to coming home to a card or fat envelope (most of which are from Rachel), and almost every day there is something waiting for me. Yesterday it was my electric bill, but usually it's something more exciting. So oodles of appreciation from me on that front!

However, for the second year in a row, I am going to have a less-than-stellar birthday. Last year, my birthday fell on the last day of an in-service training (IST), which was a designated "travel day" to get from the training venue back to our sites, so I spent the whole day on a bus.

This year, my birthday is also the day of local elections. In Struga, particularly, these are very controversial since the municipality borders have been recently redrawn, and now there is an ethnic Albanian majority. Political parties here are ethnically segregated, with a couple of ethnic Macedonian parties and a couple of ethnic Albanian parties. This means that the current Macedonian administration will likely be replaced by an Albanian administration, and everything related to the government is fair game for an employment overhaul. Tensions here are high, and political activities have been plentiful. (I must avoid political activities like the plague, and twice in one day I was almost tricked into "meeting a nice guy...who wants to make Struga a nice place." Interestingly, the meetings were for the political parties that are on completely opposite ends of the Macedionian nationalist-Albanian nationalist spectrum. If I went to BOTH meetings, maybe they would cancel each other out... Just kidding.)

As a result of the potential for conflict, we have been told that we must stay at our sites this weekend, so no fun birthday travel or birthday visitors for me. Also, after witnessing a handful of fights between rival political factions break out, I am going to be spending the entire weekend in my apartment. Good thing that I have some new DVDs to watch! Birthday phone calls are encouraged, for those of you who want to help me pass the time. FYI: we're six hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time.

Picture: In Memory of Berta

Picture: In Memory of Berta

I received some sad news a couple weeks ago. Berta, my host family's German Shepherd, has passed away. According to my host mother, Verche, she was hit by a car. She suffered a leg injury and never recovered, despite a number of visits to the vet. She was only a year old.

Work Update

I haven’t written much about “work” recently. Things are fine, although I'm still in the "planning" stages of just about everything.

GLOBE Program
GLOBE is a US-sponsored worldwide environmental science education program (www.globe.gov). GLOBE started in Makdo a few years ago, but has been on a 2-year-long coffee break. It’s starting up again, and the high school that my host organization is affiliated with is a participant. A couple weeks ago, representatives from the Ministry of Environment delivered the chemicals and tools necessary to take atmospheric and hydrologic measurements. There is a small group of students who are trained in GLOBE protocol, as well as a few teachers who participate. We hope to recruit more students and teachers and train them in the procedures, as well as develop supporting activities and awareness of the GLOBE program in the community.

Eco-Club
As an extension of the GLOBE program (which is a science-based endeavor), we are trying to start a local eco-club with high school students. Patty, the other environmental volunteer in Struga who is from the new group of volunteers, and I are recruiting kids who are enthusiastic about environmental issues and activities. We hope to work with them over the next year to develop their own leadership structure and club activities, as well as reach out to younger students. I hope that this club will simultaneously address multiple needs of Macedonia on a local level, including increasing civic participation and volunteerism, developing youth leadership skills, improving the environment and improving multiethnic relations.

Paper Recycling
My organization is trying to start a non-residential paper recycling program. Right now, I think we are waiting for collection boxes to be delivered from the private paper recycling firm in Skopje. Next steps: making fliers and instructing offices/schools/organizations about the program.

Organizational Development
I have made a brochure for my host organization in English and Macedonian. Next, we want to make a website, which will be an adventure for all parties involved. This month, I would like to meet with the members of the Board of Directors to do an organizational capacity assessment and discuss what their priorities are for the organization and for their activities. Once I have an idea what their vision is for the organization, I can suggest steps to take to inch (or centimeter?) toward that vision, such as writing a mission statement, writing strategic and operational plans, and encouraging member participation through surveys, meetings and newsletters.

English Class
Now that I am armed with lots of suggestions for how to run an adult English class, I am hoping to start one with interested teachers from the high school. I’ll talk with the principal this week.

Elementary School Environmental Activities
I have been visiting the local elementary school and meeting with the biology/ecology teacher. We are going to organize after-school environmental activities with interested students.

Anti-litter Initiative
A USAID-funded organization in Macedonia is sponsoring local anti-litter campaigns as part of their support to the emergent tourism industry. However, this organization doesn’t have enough manpower to implement the campaigns so they have enlisted the help of PCVs (who are universally nauseated by the amount of litter in the streets). The campaigns are set to begin in May or June. Struga is a special target area, so I’m hoping that we’ll receive some extra resources and attention.

SPA Committee
No, I’m not wrapped in seaweed sipping organic carrot-mango juice. SPA stands for Small Project Assistance, and provides grants of up to $3000 for projects facilitated by PCVs. I am on the SPA committee, which means that I help a couple volunteers develop thorough, SPA-eligible project proposals, then I read through all of the submitted proposals and recommend which ones should be approved for funding. There are about 5 other PCVs on the SPA committee, as well as 2 PC staff members and a USAID representative (all Macedonians). The deadline for proposal submission is this Friday. I’ll spend the next two weeks reading and evaluating the submissions, then the committee meets, discusses and decides who gets the moola. The two project proposals that I am “championing” (advising) are the creation of an environmental resource center in one of the national parks and training for farmers interested in organic agriculture.

Mid-Service Conference

Last week, my group of volunteers (MAK8) had our mid-service conference. Never mind that it’s three months late. For those of you who haven’t been keeping track, my COS (Close of Service) date is November 27. However, that date is a Sunday and Peace Corps will most likely want to have us out by Friday so they don’t have to work on the weekend, so we’ll say I’m COSing on November 25. As of today, I have been in Macedonia for 18 months. I have 8 months and 18 days to go until COS, and roughly two and a half months until I go home for the wedding. Who’s excited?! (Hint: me.)

Back to the mid-service conference. This was a two-day, three-night extravaganza of reflection on the past year (or so) and planning for the next year (or so). It was held in Strumica, which is a city in southeastern Macedonia that is famous for their dialect, “Strumichki,” which is some sort of Macedonian/Bulgarian/Making-it-up-as-I-go-along hybrid. Fortunately, the only things I had to say in Macedonian during the entire time were “one beer,” “I’m a vegetarian” and “one more beer.”

We stayed at Hotel Sirius. Seriously. It greatly exceeded my expectations, considering that Peace Corps is on a tight budget and is doing things like moving volunteers to less expensive apartments. On the downside, to get from Struga to Strumica takes about 6 hours by bus, plus a layover of an hour or two in the middle of the journey. Both to and from Strumica, we encountered delays such as snowstorms, car accidents (not involving us) and shoddy breaks. A redeeming factor: we saw a volcano erupt on the way back! At least, we think it was a volcano. All of a sudden, in the distance, we saw this stream of glowing orange shoot down a hillside. I thought maybe it was the Balkan branch of the Gates of Central Park, but I don’t know how they would have erected it in a matter of seconds.

So the actual conference (that’s how I got started on this babble, right?) was great. A few months ago, some volunteers in our group suggested that we hijack the schedule and make sure that it wasn’t a complete waste of time. Volunteers in my group presented and facilitated discussions about relevant topics such as setting up adult English classes, after-school clubs and summer camps; conducting organizational development trainings for local NGOs; stimulating civic participation; and putting together a resource for us and for future municipal/NGO volunteers that gives ideas and instructions for how to do useful things in one’s community, since our role here is so ambiguous.

Another highlight of the conference was finding out that I do not have tuberculosis. That’s RIGHT! Whose immune system rocks the house?! Holla atcha girl!