Impressions

Life is quite busy in the village for my family – certainly not at the leisurely pace that I heard is quite the norm here. On Monday, after spending so much of her day making Aivar the day before, not to speak of the big meal of the day with everything handpicked and cooked in different spaces in the house, she started on a apple, pear, plum and peach marmalade, which filled 10 8” jars! Every fruit, but the plum was handpicked in her garden, then washed, peeled, grated in preparation for the cooking. I am truly sorry that I was in class while all this activity took place, as I had truly enjoyed participating in making the traditional Aivar.

In addition to all these time consuming, labor intensive farm activities, taking up a PC trainee in their home, with very clear cut instructions to what is to be provided – especially the meals is humbling. I am truly pampered by the running hot water and an indoor western style toilet and their total attention to meeting my needs and comfort. 

However, when I was ready to leave home for class at 7:45 am, everyone was sleeping and as the kitchen cum living room cum dining room also served as sleeping quarters, I skipped breakfast. I was hungry when I returned at about 12:30 pm and found no one at home. Fortunately, I had been given a key to the house and let myself in and made myself a meal of bread, salt and Macedonian peppers with some fig preserves, which her friend had brought the first night I was here! She was mortified and yet it was an incident that cleared the air a bit. It had not bothered me that no one was at home and though I had been puzzled when I was given the key, I realized that not only are they busy but sometimes when they are in the backyard, the front door is locked (for my security?). My actions made it clear in a way no words could, that I did not expect to be waited on or that they need to worry about what I would eat –my choice of the traditional bread and salt saved the day.

In the evening about 5:30 pm, as I was studying at the kitchen table, I learned that one of the two exotic birds flew the coop and they were going to set out to search for it. I did not join the search as my priority has remained focused on learning the language and I am not familiar with the village as yet and it was late evening. The dusk turns rapidly to night and they didn’t need me getting lost or tripping somewhere in the dark. They managed to find it and secure it in the coop, after an intensive search.

Classes are fast paced and each one of us was asked to share 2 new Macedonian words with everyone. Writing them down is becoming a little easier, though I still mix up the letters and the sounds – for example the sound of English B is bat but in Macedonian it is vat; an X in English is an H and P in English is R in Macedonian and so on. In order to keep it clear in my mind, I have cut out little one-inch squares of paper and written down the Macedonian alphabet. I mix them up and then sing along as I sort them in order – it certainly made it a little easier to find the words in the dictionary and is helping me with the sounds at the same time.

In the afternoon, we split into our two main sections TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) and CD (Community Development). TEFL volunteers’ met at a site outside our village while the CD section met at this village. TCL trainers brought all our material on a computer, which was loaded on the 2-gig flash drives that were issued to each one of us last week! 

Later, I walked around the village with sis to get a little perspective and become familiar with the neighborhood - it is a mixed Albanian and Macedonian community. The streets have no names, per se and people just know who lives where – not unlike a village in Punjab, India! I have roughly mapped the area with points of interest like the post office, about 4 of the few village markets, the mosque and church, the village school, our own little schoolhouse and the homes of the volunteers! It has made me feel more settled in as I am oriented not only to the location of the village but also where it sits in relation to a north south orientation as well as Skopje and our training site of Kumanovo.  

The village school has been rebuilt a couple of years ago with an EU grant from the Norwegian government. It is built on the grounds of the old school, which has not been torn down with the material hauled off to a landfill. It remains on the property in a ruined state and I feel it is a hazard, as it seems to me that it will be a magnet for a place to “escape” or “hide”. 

We also stopped at a home of a family friend, whose front yard was torn up to lay a new water line. All the digging was being done by picks and spades and I spotted a concrete mixer, so I presume they would rebuild it reusing some of the material. Later I joined in playing a spontaneous game of football with the young village kids on a rough (thorny) and grassy field. It was fun and soon there was enough of a crowd that gathered to watch the Americans play with the kids.