Thursday, August 25, 2005

Get Out of Town

Just thought it was about time for an update. Today (Thursday) I am heading back to the village to take advantage of a spanking-new PC Makdo policy: The old policy was that if we wanted to travel during the work week, we had to take vacation days (we are allotted 2 vacation days per month), even if our host organization or school was closed (as most are during July and August). Now, that policy is still basically the same, but with the exception of visiting our host families. If our local supervisor says it’s okay for us to leave, then we can go visit our host families during the week and not have to use vacation days. Hooray! Actually, I think my host parents are more excited than I am—after all, I’M the one who has to sit on a sweltering hot bus for six hours with people of questionable personal hygiene.

Anyway, I’ll be in Zrnovci making hundreds of jars worth of ajvar (Macedonia’s national condiment) until Tuesday, when I will board another bus (this time, only for about 3 hours) to go to a picturesque mountain town called Krushevo for our Close-of-Service (COS) conference. This will be the last official hurrah for my group, MAK8. We will do exciting things such as learn about the kind of post-service healthcare that PC provides, touchy-feely things such as reflect on our personal growth blah blah blah, and intoxicating things such as down many a gin and tonic. I should be back in Struga next Friday sometime, so don’t freak out if I don’t return your e-mails immediately (Mom).

And two months from today, I will be out of Struga and staying in Skopje to go through the official week-long COS probing.

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Happy Birthday, Rachel!

Rachel, I was going to send you an e-mail, but planet-save is on the fritz. And this way, everyone gets in on the fun. Happy Birthday! Soon, I'll be saying "Happy Thanksgiving" to you in person!

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Picture: Hike 'n' Swim

Yesterday, a group consisting of 6 PCVs, 2 Serbs, a Macedonian and a Polander went on a long day hike starting in the nearby village of Vevcani and ending at an awesome little lake between two mountain ridges. On the way up, we were moving fast and sweating bullets. Once we got above the timberline, though, it got really cold and all of our sweaty clothes turned into wearable ice packs. That wouldn’t have been so bad if we hadn’t been planning on going swimming in this mountaintop pond. Some people decided to stay on dry land, but the rest of us were stubbornly committed to going for a dip after all that hard work. Alex and Josh got in first, and said that the water was “cold but refreshing”. Ha! “Refreshing” my foot. The water was so cold that it knocked the wind out of me and I struggled to take in a single breath. After about a minute I was okay, and we swam around for a few more minutes before getting out. Getting dressed was a challenge because cold-induced rigor mortis had set in and my fingers stopped working. The sun was starting to go down and I had visions of turning into a human icicle. Luckily, once we got back into the trees and as long as I kept moving, I was fine. Look, ma, no hypothermia!



To get to the swimming hole, we had to climb a really steep ridge (not quite as forbidding as the ones in the background), but it was all worth it. I’ve never seen anything like this before.









Matt, Josh, I and Alex br(rrr)ave the snowmelt.




We had a great view of Struga and Lake Ohrid. My apartment building is one of those white blocks on the right.

Picture: Bridge Jumping

Struga has a (clean) river running through the center of town with about 5 bridges spanning it. A favorite summer pastime among local adolescent boys is to jump off the bridges. Of course, as Peace Corps Volunteers, we are supposed to participate in local customs, so we MUST jump off the bridges as well. On this particular day it was unseasonably cold, so I decided to put off jumping for another time. Here you see Chandra, Kaitlin, Adam, Josh and Alex taking the plunge off the highest bridge.

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Couch Surfing

A few months ago, I discovered a website that has potential to revolutionize travel as I know it. Lots of you probably already know about CouchSurfing.com (or the similar HospitalityClub.org), but for those of you who don’t, here’s a brief synopsis: These two non-profit ventures match up people who have a spare bed/couch/gymnastics mat with people who are looking to for a place to crash. The crash-ers search for crash-ees in destinations of their choice and contact those with whom they want to crash. Or, even if a match for accommodations isn’t made, folks can meet up for a beverage, meal, or other wholesome activity.

Well, the potential for free accommodations is very tempting, so I signed up for CouchSurfing.com. Both of these websites are based on systems of references, trust, and accumulated good experiences, so I figured that I should be open to letting people stay at my place in Struga. That way, when I want to invade peoples’ homes later, they will trust me to not harvest their organs while they sleep.

As a result, I hosted my first couch-surfer a few days ago and had a great experience. Her name’s Anna, and she’s a French medical student who was studying for the past year in Bucharest. Before coming to Struga, she had couch-surfed in Thessaloniki (Greece) and Skopje. She stayed at my place for two nights. I showed her around Struga a little, gave her my Macedonia travel guide, sent her off to Ohrid for a day, and talked with her about the post-communist mentality that is common to Macedonia and Romania. She also met a bunch of PCVs at a party that was going on in Struga. It was fun to meet someone new and introduce her to the area, and even better that she (probably like most couch-surfers) was happy to explore the area independently, leaving me to maintain my normal routine. And I still have both of my kidneys.

Anna, I hope you have a pleasant 30-hour bus trip from Bucharest to Lyon, and good luck with the rest of medical school! (And I promise to write you a nice reference soon!)

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Prague and Istanbul

A few days ago, I returned from a whirlwind trip to Prague and Istanbul. Originally, the idea had been just to go to Istanbul and meet up with my mother, but after realizing that I had extra vacation days to burn and that there were no flights from Makdo to Istanbul on the day that I wanted to go, I decided to tack a 4-day stay in Prague onto my trip.

Prague
Prague was an adventure for me because it was my first trip alone. I went there alone, I did all my sightseeing alone, I ate all my meals alone... and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I stayed in a great hostel, Sir Toby's, which had nice rooms and lots of friendly travelers to chat with over a pilsner. I also found a vegan buffet. Prague is a beautiful city, but completely overrun with tourists. I highly recommend going in the off-season.

Istanbul
My mother and I spent about a week in Istanbul. It was plenty of time to do everything that we wanted to do without having to feel rushed. Also, the ten words of Turkish that I know came in rather handy. Istanbul is also a beautiful city, and was probably not as overwhelming to me (and Mom, for that matter) as it might have been if I hadn't lived in Macedonia. Macedonia and Turkey share a number of cultural traits (the Ottoman empire included Macedonia, after all) that might strike some visitors as disconcerting, annoying, or simply different, but I have come to accept these traits as part of life here and have figured out how to accept or even enjoy them. That freed us up to enjoy Istanbul rather than freak out about the cultural differences.

I'll write more later.... There are some people here at the NGO center who need the computers to do some REAL work!

Picture: Whirling Dervishes


Probably the most interesting and unexpected thing we saw in Istanbul was the Sufi religious ceremony-show at the Mevlevi Monastery. My mother and I now have a whirling dervish obsession. We have started writing a musical about whirling dervishes using parodies of Beach Boys songs. Sample: "Round round spin around, I spin around!"

Picture: Bone decor


I took a day trip from Prague to the medieval town of Kutna Hora. One of K-H's big draws is a church that is decorated with the bones of 40,000 people. Here is the crest of some big-shot family, with a skull garland to make it more festive. That's a giant pyramid of bones behind the fence.

Picture: Prague Castle


Here's the requisite picture of Prague Castle. It's a very pointy city.