Editor's note: Though I wrote this piece back on February 1st, events caught me off-guard and delayed the posting till today. After much debate with myself, I decided that I will go ahead and post this and quickly follow-up with last month's news.
In the last week of January things have started coming together at my workplace. I am comfortable in my adjunct role as a teacher of conversational English, which in turn has created an atmosphere of learning and sharing. I have started understanding many of the functions of the workplace and find everyone more forthcoming about what they are doing as they realize my understanding of their explanations in Macedonian and English was getting better. Soon we will be able to exchange complex ideas along PDM lines. This is an exciting time of discovery for me as I begin to see possibilities.
I am also involved with Camp Glow, a brainchild of a Peace Corps volunteer in another country a few years ago. It is a girl’s leadership camp and its design has been adopted successfully across the globe. In Macedonia it is in it’s 5th year, bringing approximately 80 girls in the 14-18 year age bracket from all areas and ethnicities in Macedonia for a week in the summer. Many of the participants have returned time and time again as junior and senior counselors, putting into practice the skills they learned!
What an invigorating and exciting time, rejuvenating me with the possibilities and reinforcing the choice I made to become a volunteer. Things are going well at the home front too– and I am more relaxed and have fewer daily obligations compared to those back home. My only challenge seemed to be able to create new dishes from the available ingredients and at times I miss ingredients such as whole-wheat flour to make Indian roti, paratha and poori etc. However, I do manage to create tastes of home, like the sandwiches I wrote about in my last posting.
To top all this, I am going to have another family member visit me. One daughter is coming for a few days, arriving in three days on February 4. Although not ideal weather - a bit cold but nonetheless we plan to spend the weekend in the city of Ohrid, listed in the New York Times travel guide as one of the 30 places to visit in 2010.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Monday, February 1, 2010
Last weekend in January
I think I speak for all the people who travel overseas for long term assignments, when I say that there comes a time when the novelty and excitement of new foods fades and all you want is the familiar tastes, even if it is just fast food, like McDonald's with little nutritional value.
Anyway, I woke up this morning thinking about food, nothing exotic, but just to be able to walk into my kitchen back home, filled with nuts, fresh fruits and vegetables and other favorites and make myself breakfast. I am not sure this feeling was triggered by the McDonald’s hamburger and fries I ate yesterday afternoon in Skopje or a walk through the aisles of the adjacent grocery store looking for something as basic to me as whole-wheat flour! I finally found it in the organic cereal section in a small 500g packet.
I made myself oatmeal and raisins for breakfast – not using Quaker oats, but a German brand. For lunch I had a delicious tomato-cucumber-lettuce sandwich using whole grain bread. Doesn’t it look absolutely delicious? It was. I finished my meal with a cup of Indian tea. Dinner was a homemade piece of poppyseed cake and muesli with milk.
With whole-wheat flour in my pantry I was ready to make Indian style food on Sunday, starting with chicken curry and with full intentions to make paratha or roti to go with it. While I was preparing the curry late - about 11 am, I was interrupted with an invitation to visit some new people in my town and I immediately took up the offer. 5 hours later, I served the delicious chicken curry with ‘integral’ or whole wheat bread instead and a tossed tomato and cucumber and lettuce salad to my Macedonian language tutors. I had to skip making the roti's because I just didn't have the time. Here is the accompanying salad.
On Monday, I am still talking about food. After my afternoon English lessons about food, I expressed a strong desire to eat beefsteak. Guess what, a coworker who was in the city of Prilep for an errand, volunteered to stop and purchase steaks for me! I am in food heaven. Ce la vie!
Anyway, I woke up this morning thinking about food, nothing exotic, but just to be able to walk into my kitchen back home, filled with nuts, fresh fruits and vegetables and other favorites and make myself breakfast. I am not sure this feeling was triggered by the McDonald’s hamburger and fries I ate yesterday afternoon in Skopje or a walk through the aisles of the adjacent grocery store looking for something as basic to me as whole-wheat flour! I finally found it in the organic cereal section in a small 500g packet.
I made myself oatmeal and raisins for breakfast – not using Quaker oats, but a German brand. For lunch I had a delicious tomato-cucumber-lettuce sandwich using whole grain bread. Doesn’t it look absolutely delicious? It was. I finished my meal with a cup of Indian tea. Dinner was a homemade piece of poppyseed cake and muesli with milk.
With whole-wheat flour in my pantry I was ready to make Indian style food on Sunday, starting with chicken curry and with full intentions to make paratha or roti to go with it. While I was preparing the curry late - about 11 am, I was interrupted with an invitation to visit some new people in my town and I immediately took up the offer. 5 hours later, I served the delicious chicken curry with ‘integral’ or whole wheat bread instead and a tossed tomato and cucumber and lettuce salad to my Macedonian language tutors. I had to skip making the roti's because I just didn't have the time. Here is the accompanying salad.
On Monday, I am still talking about food. After my afternoon English lessons about food, I expressed a strong desire to eat beefsteak. Guess what, a coworker who was in the city of Prilep for an errand, volunteered to stop and purchase steaks for me! I am in food heaven. Ce la vie!
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