Settling In

Saturday morning we assembled at our site and with our LCF, spend the day visiting each other’s homes. It was a leisurely walk around the village, giving us a familiarity with the environs, sampling the hospitality – lots of coffee, along with juice and water as an alternative, homemade pies as well as fresh fruit namely – figs, apples and grapes from their gardens. Our families are very patient with us as we spend a lot of time writing down the spoken word in Macedonian in our little notebooks or paper that we are carrying around. This is a spontaneous activity, and re-writing many of these words at night has not quite doubled my vocabulary, but has made me so comfortable in greeting others. When we arrived at my house, my host was still away registering my passport at the police station, as a temporary resident. I will have to do this myself when I reach my assigned site. I am expected to carry my passport whenever I am not in the village – exempt from this only in the village or town that I am registered. 

After a rainstorm, I headed back to my home while the others made their way to the internet café – I was lucky that my family had a laptop connected to the internet. Having missed the lunch hour, I ate my second proper meal at around 6 pm and that was it for me. Again a traditional rice and meat dish, which was really tasty, with a cabbage and carrot salad and beans mashed and refried in tomatoes! Later, I helped Mom (she is younger to me) clean 3 ducks from their menagerie, which I am guessing will be our meat next week. 

There were no scheduled activities on Sunday – the day for personal stuff like washing clothes in the washing machine and hanging them up to dry, washing my long hair – I think shorter will be the way to go, as so much of it fell out during shampooing. Mom made yeast white bread dough and I helped pat and shape some of it for frying and she prepared 4 loaves with the remainder of the dough for baking. After a late breakfast at 10:30 am, the outdoor wood grill was lighted and the red peppers were first washed and then roasted – the first step in making Aivar, a Macedonian sauce/condiment. I would guess it was approximately a bushel, yet it would barely make about 5 bottles. Each pepper was turned over by hand and collected in polythene bags and then individually peeled, and deseeded - a pretty long process, which took up the major part of the afternoon. Most of the food we are eating is from the garden – including the meat! Sheep, calf, chickens, the remaining 5 ducks, pigeons and the exotic birds – peacock and a couple of brilliant dominant yellow plumed birds, needed to be guarded, so each home has a dog. Here is a picture of a Macedonian Shepherd.