Finally, the dreary overcast rainy weather has given way to a couple of days of clear blue skies and sunshine. Both wild and cultivated, spring flowers nourished by the rain and with the warmth of the sun are abundant everywhere, ushering in a new mood as mother earth shakes off the blanket of snow. Earth Day, now come and gone, a reminder that we need to protect what mother earth gives with abundance, a renewal and a promise. Why does stress enter into this idyllic picture? A disturbance of that unique emotional balance that we maintain in our day to day lives can create stress – a word spoken here, a word spoken there, an action that floods us with emotion.
Since April 21, when I began this writing I have gone from the top of the mountain down into an abyss. Now I am alone moping about with a nightmarish cough without the close support of a network of friends or the companionship of a spouse and the laughter of my children about me. So what happened? How can a common variety sore throat throw me off balance? This is a time when even small acts of omission take on significant meanings. Why don’t I feel like facing anyone or going out into the glorious nature that I just mentioned in an earlier paragraph? Why am I unable to see any accomplishments – only a feeling of standing still, getting nothing done. What kind of experience did I think I would have reliving a childhood dream? Did I really think I could make a difference in people’s lives just by being myself – self assured, cocky and independent? Where is that self-assurance now? How did I end up teaching adults English without teaching experience, creating lesson plans that fall apart in class? What results do I expect from this? Organizational change? A few people may emulate my can-do spirit, but like I am today, will also get discouraged and disheartened. They don’t have a safety valve like I do of “going back home”.
To be really honest, this disturbance of my equilibrium started not with the common cold, but with listening about the dark undercurrents in human relationships – unable to forgive and forget minor (minuscule is probably more accurate) slights and continue to remain mired in age-old problems, repeating ad infinitum the same behavior. Some family members excluding each other out of their lives and their celebrations, others isolating one from the other with impossibly difficult to understand reasons of past conversations real or imagined. No culture seems to be immune from this nonsense.
Yesterday, I read a piece of fiction – not a classic in any sense of the word – but a refreshing tale of companionship. Five strangers who converge over a creative and collaborative piece of art – a quilt and how that positive energy finally transforms their daily lives back home. Though the book lifted my spirits, you my reader, who is now fulfilling the triple role of my network of friends, companionship of my spouse and the laughter of my children have sustained me throughout my sojourn here!
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Daily Challenges
Just when I feel confident of my ability to ‘negotiate’ my way with the combi drivers, I am reminded how easily my confidence evaporates! Last Saturday, I made an impulsive trip to attend a teacher’s conference at the South Eastern European University at Tetovo – a city I had never traveled to before. I certainly had prepared myself by checking google earth – both the location of the campus and the landmark that I had to get off at, before calling the combi driver. I told him where I wanted to go and where I needed to get off. He told me fine and the time the combi will leave my town.
What he didn’t tell me was that this was the weekend he was off work! I came to know only after being picked up! I am quite happy with the friendly competition between the drivers because they come to the police station adjacent to my house to pick me up. My first clue was the combi did not have the correct markings when he arrived. The second was that he was not driving, but directing the driver to the various stops to pick passenger’s up. After circling the town and picking up all his passenger's, he informed the driver where we were to be dropped and got off!
As we pulled into Tetovo, the driver of this combi dropped me at a corner short of my destination or so I thought. My comprehension of Macedonian is not all that fluent, though I can mostly infer and get by. A block away? "Nema" problem, as it was early in the morning, about 7 am and I love walking in the mornings. Armed with some knowledge of how to get to my friend's house I set off. Since I was to meet her at the Painted Mosque, I walked towards a towering minaret in the near distance. I walked confidently in that direction but soon started getting a queasy feeling that this mosque may not be the right one, because it was just the standard white and grey and the name ‘Painted Mosque’ must mean something a little more colorful than this! About 20 minutes later, more than a kilometer away and with phone contact with my friend, I finally arrived at ‘The Painted Mosque! What a beauty, as you can see it is picturesque!
So the next day, after the conference, I was determined that he pick me up at the ‘Jamjia Pasha’, as it is referred to locally. And making sure I used the local word for it so there would be no confusion! Yet the combi didn’t show up and instead went to the stop from the day before! This driver had the audacity to call me up and ask me to take a cab there to meet him! After some confusing phone calls between this driver, my regular driver and I, this new driver called me back and told me in English “one minute” which I conveniently translated to "wait right there for one minute" and that he will come and pick me up. Fortunately, I had somehow inferred correctly and he did drive up and pick me up! Success!
One would think after such a stressful experience, albeit for 15 or so minutes, I would play it safe by opting for the bus station and buses with fixed schedules! No, not yet. It is such a pain to wait around for connecting buses at bleak, inhospitable bus stations that I am always willing to take those 15 minutes of stress with a combi. Is he on time? Will he remember to pick me up from a designated spot? Will he recognize me in the crowd of people waiting to stop and pick me up? Will I recognize his combi? Will he be another driver that I don’t recognize? The bottom line is that combi’s are really a very safe form of transportation and I think I would have no trouble with them if I was fluent in their language, which alas I am not. They are also full of friendly people from your community and who look out for each other. On the other hand, taxis – wild or licensed, are not my cup of tea!
Thus when returning from a conference from beautiful Ohrid covered with wild spring flowers this week, I realized that getting from the hotel back to my hometown by bus would mean, waiting at two bus stations for about 2 ½ hours, plus the 1 ½ hour journey for a total of 4 hours. There also remained the possibility of missing the connecting bus at the second bus station and ending up with an expensive taxi ride or waiting another 2 hours. Thus it made sense to use the military combi that made a daily trip taking soldiers to and from my town. The catch - be there on time (punctual is unusual for this country) and wait just outside the gates of the military barracks on the left curb (easy). It would take only an hour and a half to get home from that point and all "waiting" would be in our posh hotel, before heading out to the pickup point. The funny thing was the taxi driver bringing us from the hotel didn’t know where the military barracks were or couldn’t believe we wanted to go there or most likely thought we were making a mistake about where we were to go. No one in their right mind would go from that hotel to the barracks - we certainly didn't look like soldiers. I finally called my friend to give directions to him and viola we were there in a minute. The barracks are walking distance from the bus station, but as it was raining and we had to be on time, we had to be dropped at the correct spot. This incident just reinforces my lack of confidence in taxi drivers.
I have learned combi driver’s are always willing to bring you home from whichever city you are in, if it happens to be on their route (slight detours acceptable). The trick is to find out which combi's are making those inter-city trips, what times they are scheduled and where their pickup and drop-off points are! They are so much faster and cheaper than the buses, because they serve the needs of their small communities - towns and villages that are not near the two or three main highways in the country. I will use them as often as I can!
What he didn’t tell me was that this was the weekend he was off work! I came to know only after being picked up! I am quite happy with the friendly competition between the drivers because they come to the police station adjacent to my house to pick me up. My first clue was the combi did not have the correct markings when he arrived. The second was that he was not driving, but directing the driver to the various stops to pick passenger’s up. After circling the town and picking up all his passenger's, he informed the driver where we were to be dropped and got off!
As we pulled into Tetovo, the driver of this combi dropped me at a corner short of my destination or so I thought. My comprehension of Macedonian is not all that fluent, though I can mostly infer and get by. A block away? "Nema" problem, as it was early in the morning, about 7 am and I love walking in the mornings. Armed with some knowledge of how to get to my friend's house I set off. Since I was to meet her at the Painted Mosque, I walked towards a towering minaret in the near distance. I walked confidently in that direction but soon started getting a queasy feeling that this mosque may not be the right one, because it was just the standard white and grey and the name ‘Painted Mosque’ must mean something a little more colorful than this! About 20 minutes later, more than a kilometer away and with phone contact with my friend, I finally arrived at ‘The Painted Mosque! What a beauty, as you can see it is picturesque!
So the next day, after the conference, I was determined that he pick me up at the ‘Jamjia Pasha’, as it is referred to locally. And making sure I used the local word for it so there would be no confusion! Yet the combi didn’t show up and instead went to the stop from the day before! This driver had the audacity to call me up and ask me to take a cab there to meet him! After some confusing phone calls between this driver, my regular driver and I, this new driver called me back and told me in English “one minute” which I conveniently translated to "wait right there for one minute" and that he will come and pick me up. Fortunately, I had somehow inferred correctly and he did drive up and pick me up! Success!
One would think after such a stressful experience, albeit for 15 or so minutes, I would play it safe by opting for the bus station and buses with fixed schedules! No, not yet. It is such a pain to wait around for connecting buses at bleak, inhospitable bus stations that I am always willing to take those 15 minutes of stress with a combi. Is he on time? Will he remember to pick me up from a designated spot? Will he recognize me in the crowd of people waiting to stop and pick me up? Will I recognize his combi? Will he be another driver that I don’t recognize? The bottom line is that combi’s are really a very safe form of transportation and I think I would have no trouble with them if I was fluent in their language, which alas I am not. They are also full of friendly people from your community and who look out for each other. On the other hand, taxis – wild or licensed, are not my cup of tea!
Thus when returning from a conference from beautiful Ohrid covered with wild spring flowers this week, I realized that getting from the hotel back to my hometown by bus would mean, waiting at two bus stations for about 2 ½ hours, plus the 1 ½ hour journey for a total of 4 hours. There also remained the possibility of missing the connecting bus at the second bus station and ending up with an expensive taxi ride or waiting another 2 hours. Thus it made sense to use the military combi that made a daily trip taking soldiers to and from my town. The catch - be there on time (punctual is unusual for this country) and wait just outside the gates of the military barracks on the left curb (easy). It would take only an hour and a half to get home from that point and all "waiting" would be in our posh hotel, before heading out to the pickup point. The funny thing was the taxi driver bringing us from the hotel didn’t know where the military barracks were or couldn’t believe we wanted to go there or most likely thought we were making a mistake about where we were to go. No one in their right mind would go from that hotel to the barracks - we certainly didn't look like soldiers. I finally called my friend to give directions to him and viola we were there in a minute. The barracks are walking distance from the bus station, but as it was raining and we had to be on time, we had to be dropped at the correct spot. This incident just reinforces my lack of confidence in taxi drivers.
I have learned combi driver’s are always willing to bring you home from whichever city you are in, if it happens to be on their route (slight detours acceptable). The trick is to find out which combi's are making those inter-city trips, what times they are scheduled and where their pickup and drop-off points are! They are so much faster and cheaper than the buses, because they serve the needs of their small communities - towns and villages that are not near the two or three main highways in the country. I will use them as often as I can!
Networking
When I recently heard that the closest meaning in Macedonian to networking was a negative term, it bothered me enough to write about it, because I love to network and meet new people and don’t think networking should be considered negatively.
Combing through the thesauruses’ and dictionaries’ on the internet, I found that the word “nexus” is the root of “networking” – originally an information age word. The definition, “a connection or series of connections linking two or more things” originated in mid 17th century from Latin, ‘a binding together’, from nex-‘bound’, from the verb nectare. Thus networking can simply be considered as people helping people when connected together by a common interest, conference, goal, vacation trip, etc. They can do this through mentoring, sharing skills and resources, guiding and directing others and thus remain connected to others through a series of actions and exchanges of information.
Networking among people is a social skill. Job hunter’s are often advised to ‘network’ as a way of getting a job. This almost always results in frustration because networking is not a job finding tool or a way to access inside information, even though that may be the outcome of having a good network! A network of friends, acquaintances, colleagues, and peers is dynamic, opening exciting new opportunities all the time!
Of the hundreds of conferences that are scheduled every year in academia, industry, non-profit sector, government etc where papers or ideas are presented, the attendees not only get new information about the conference topics, but also spend unstructured time each other! Connections are constantly being made, deliberate, random or accidentally and often unaware where these connections will lead us!
Though esoteric and maybe a boring topic, just writing about networking has hopefully given you, my reader some insight into the true meaning of networking.
Combing through the thesauruses’ and dictionaries’ on the internet, I found that the word “nexus” is the root of “networking” – originally an information age word. The definition, “a connection or series of connections linking two or more things” originated in mid 17th century from Latin, ‘a binding together’, from nex-‘bound’, from the verb nectare. Thus networking can simply be considered as people helping people when connected together by a common interest, conference, goal, vacation trip, etc. They can do this through mentoring, sharing skills and resources, guiding and directing others and thus remain connected to others through a series of actions and exchanges of information.
Networking among people is a social skill. Job hunter’s are often advised to ‘network’ as a way of getting a job. This almost always results in frustration because networking is not a job finding tool or a way to access inside information, even though that may be the outcome of having a good network! A network of friends, acquaintances, colleagues, and peers is dynamic, opening exciting new opportunities all the time!
Of the hundreds of conferences that are scheduled every year in academia, industry, non-profit sector, government etc where papers or ideas are presented, the attendees not only get new information about the conference topics, but also spend unstructured time each other! Connections are constantly being made, deliberate, random or accidentally and often unaware where these connections will lead us!
Though esoteric and maybe a boring topic, just writing about networking has hopefully given you, my reader some insight into the true meaning of networking.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Kuli
Veligdon – Easter
There is a local tradition in town to “build towers” on Easter which is unique to this city. The following story is one version of the birth of this tradition.
During the Ottoman empire, the Turkish landlord or "Baig" of this large estate, now known as Makedonski Brod was so pleased with the work of his Macedonian peasants, that he granted them a day of freedom from work – coinciding with Veligdon. To this day, after the elaborate religious observances, the “Brodians” gather in the square and a group of sturdy men stand shoulder-to-shoulder forming a circle. Five men clamber on their shoulders and form a circle atop the first. Four such “towers” or “Kuli” were built this Monday.
To the sound of drums and the Balkan bagpipe, the towers slowly moved up the road to the next open space, where after disbanding were soon joined by the whole crowd in the traditional ora (dance). The energy is high and by this time all the residents, who had gone to their villages earlier in the day to celebrate easter service at their respective village church were also back. In addition, gauging from the fact that there was not a place to sit in any of the coffee shops in town, many people came from the all over Macedonia to witness this unique celebration.
There is a local tradition in town to “build towers” on Easter which is unique to this city. The following story is one version of the birth of this tradition.
To the sound of drums and the Balkan bagpipe, the towers slowly moved up the road to the next open space, where after disbanding were soon joined by the whole crowd in the traditional ora (dance). The energy is high and by this time all the residents, who had gone to their villages earlier in the day to celebrate easter service at their respective village church were also back. In addition, gauging from the fact that there was not a place to sit in any of the coffee shops in town, many people came from the all over Macedonia to witness this unique celebration.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
