Thursday, June 30, 2005

Who's been to Prague?

In an attempt to use all my remaining vacation days, I have tacked a 4-day trip to Prague onto my rendezvous in Istanbul with the Flomster. The Flom is doing a great job planning the Turkey stuff, but I'll be on my own in the former Czechoslovak Republic of Czech.* My travel guides are pithy about Prague, so please pass on any recommendations, warnings, websites, or contact information of distant relatives that might be helpful. I'll be there from July 17 to July 21, then to Istanbul until July 29, then back to Makdo for a short 3 months of fun, frolic, and FINISHING!**

*If you don't get this, Google "FYROM"
**Finishing my service, that is. Not like finishing floors. Cowinkidinkally, another PCV in Struga actually IS finishing a floor in a nascent eco-tourism center.

Sunday, June 26, 2005

Picture: A Fruitful Day

In Macedonia, most people buy their produce at the pazar (think bazaar), the local marketplace which usually has some sort of open-air structure with display booths. Most towns have an everyday small pazar with a few greengrocers. However, once a week is the big pazar. On big-pazar-day, you can find everything. The freshest seasonal fruit? Check. Imported fruit that tastes like cardboard? Check. Livestock? Check. Lacy lingerie? Check. Some-assembly-required moonshine distillery unit? Check. It’s like Wegman’s, but everything has a thin film of dust on it.
Big-pazar-day (Saturday, in Struga) is always chaotic, with all of the villagers coming out of the woodwork to find the perfect sofa slipcovers or the best deal on ten kilos of parsley. Many people who are normally absent during the week will set up shop on the streets around the main pazar structure, selling their garden surplus, home-woven handicrafts, or “medicinal” mountain herbs off of cardboard boxes-cum-tables.

I love going to the pazar. Whenever I need a mood-boost (or, y’know, food), I go chat up my favorite grocers. On Saturdays, though, I go with a specific mission in mind: broccoli. Of the hundreds of produce stands, maybe one, occasionally two will have broccoli. And the good stuff gets snatched up quickly. Well, my friends, this Saturday, I found not only beautiful broccoli, but a host of other treasures…

1. Chick peas – it’s hummus time! Like Hammer time, but with a longer shelf life.
2. I don’t know what these are called. I think they’re related to plums.
3. Tofu – a store near the pazar sometimes has tofu, but often they only have gross flavored kinds (tofu with caraway seeds?!). Fortunately, they had unflavored tofu this weekend, so I stocked up and bought their entire supply…which was only four.
4. Eggplant – finally making its debut.
5. Dill – first time I have EVER seen fresh dill here. I was so excited that I almost shoved it up my nose to confirm that it was in fact dill.
6. Broccoli – to quote Shayne (who was quoting Gilgamesh or whatever his name is in reference to HER broccoli), “my precious…”
7. T-shirt – for the low low price of two dollars, I became the coach of the local sport feeling team. Right now, they’re just a rag tag bunch of kids, but a few show real potential in the 200-meter despair dash and the 400-meter boredom backstroke. We’re still working on curling with contentment.
8. Zucchini – pale, yes. These are small ones, believe it or not. They get up to two-feet long here.
9. Peas – I have no idea how to cook these. I just got caught up in the moment. It was an impulse buy.
10. Bonus banana – below-mentioned man-grocer always gives me a free piece of fruit for my patronage.
11. Cherries – I bought these from my favorite middle-aged Albanian man-grocer (like a man-servant, but more entrepreneurial). He likes me because I’m a non-Albanian who speaks some Albanian.

Thursday, June 23, 2005

Picture: Success!


Picture: Success!
Originally uploaded by lizabbett.
The main part of our "Future Environmental Instructors" project got underway this week. We had a three-day training for seventh and eighth graders, giving them an overview of how to design environmental projects and campaigns that their school environmental clubs can implement come September. We got off to a slightly confused start, but everything quickly fell into place. The kids who are participating are enthusiastic about the subject matter and about teaching others about the environment. Next week, we repeat the training with a group of fourth graders.

This is a picture of my counterpart, Nestor, helping the kids display their campaign outlines and posters. I'm really proud of the work that all the participants have done so far.

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

I'm Back

I'm back in Struga after a lovely 3-week vacation in the homeland. Wedding was fantastic, saw my entire family, chatted with a lot of friends, did some hiking, went to a Nationals game, had some job-related meetings, ate 4 pints of non-dairy frozen dessert, and rode the ubiquitous emotional rollercoaster (which I'm still on... PC friends tell me it should take about a week after re-entry for it to come to a full and complete stop). My Macedonian language skills are shot, my internal clock is WAY off, and I'm out of soy sauce, so right now I'm in the painful, head-banging corkscrew part of the rollercoaster. However, tomorrow I will visit Beth and continue on to Skopje where I can buy soy sauce, which might be akin to the soothing effects of riding a carousel.

Thank you to everyone who made my trip home great. I'll see you all in November!