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| (A snowman we made on a frozen lake - I call him Jeffrey) |
Deadlines are hard.
Self-imposed deadlines are even worse.
There’s something mythical & magical about self-imposed
deadlines. Maybe it’s because they lack real consequence (not to discount the
value of internal shame), or maybe it’s because we tend to just make them up on
the spot, but I undoubtedly feel I have a far harder time meeting
self-imposed deadlines than I do real ones (e.g. when my coke dealer tells me
to pay him off by the end of the week “Or else bub”). Thinking on it, maybe
it’s more of the latter.
I possess a bad habit of just doing a very quick mental
calculation (prone to high-level mathematical errors) based on my immediate mental
calendar (prone to low-level human memory errors) when I’m creating deadlines
for myself. So perhaps its not a surprise I struggle to meet them – if you say
“I’m going to the moon!” before you even check to see whether you can get a
rocket (much less a license), it’s probably not happening.
Speaking of which, do you need a license to fly a rocket? It
sounds absurd but I'd like to entertain the tangent for a moment because it amuses me. What is there to prevent Bill Gates from building a rocket
pad in his backyard & going where no
man has gone before? I have to assume the government regulates that, but
also it just sounds silly.
“Ah, yes sir if you’ll just sign here, here and here you’ll
be all set. You’ll just need to go wait over there to get this notarized. Oh,
and can I interest you in a personalized license plate for your rocket boosters?”
At least the lines would be short I guess.
Non-sequitur aside, it’s a good thing I said I’d post here
every two months & definitely not every two weeks. Because I’m 100 %
certain when I made that claim I consulted the second half of my training
calendar and noted how insane it became out of absolutely nowhere. If I
hadn’t, I might’ve made the mistake of committing myself to a two-week timeline
like an utter dunce. That would’ve been pretty difficult, what with us suddenly
making 4 trips a week out of community for training, working almost every
Saturday & of course frantically trying to learn a language before we’re
thrown into the metaphorical wilds of Macedonia. I doubt I could’ve pulled it
off. So yeah, thankfully I know I didn’t do that.
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| (We were really proud of Jeffrey - I personally taught him how to wear a scarf. They just grow up so fast.) |
Oh, and before I get started I just want to say something –
If any of my old English teachers/professors by some stroke of fate are reading
this, I’m sincerely sorry if I massacre this language at any given point. I’ve
noticed a negative correlation between my understanding of the Macedonian language
& my capability to speak above a 5th graders capacity.
So, with that out of the way let’s get to it. Quite a bit has
happened in the last couple months, so I’ll do my best to keep it succinct but
also do justice to the events. A quick list before I dive in:
- I found out where I’ll be living/working for two years!
- I traveled by myself in Macedonia for the first time.
- There was a fun Macedonian/American fusion Thanksgiving event.
- Christmas x 2 because it’s Christmas so why not?
- My Birthday in a foreign country – surprisingly, you still age at the same rate in another country as you would in America. Further study required to fully understand this phenomenon.
One day, long, long ago in millennial time, all of the MAK23
Peace Corps Trainees gathered together for a festivity to celebrate the
discovery of our two-year homes. We danced, we drank, we dined. We partied like
it was 1999.
Except we didn’t. Really, we just found out our future
homes. There wasn’t really any dancing, drinking or dining but there sure was a
whole lot of excitement. They put a large projected map of Macedonia up, with a number of little pins in it – like a voodoo doll or a corkboard,
whichever suits your imagination more. They zoomed in on each of the pins one
by one and revealed who would be staying there. It was a really fun &
interactive way to pull off the reveal.
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| (A photo from the top of the Krushevo town itself. Far out are what I believe is the Pelagonia Mountains. And I mean, like, "tottallyyy far out bro.") |
“Hey Zach, that’s cool & all but where are you????”
Great question, random figment of my imagination. I’m perpetually
impressed by how well you understand me.
I’ll be staying in the Krushevo Municipality, which is home
to a number of small settlements, including the tourist town of Krushevo. Krushevo
is this beautiful little place on a mountain full of adrenaline sports attractions. It’s rich with Macedonian history & culture, and the municipality works really hard to
attract tourists of all types – but, I’ll talk a little more on that later.
2. Travelling to visit my future home (Mid
November)
About two weeks after we had our Site Reveals, every trainee
traveled to their new homes to spend 3 days there. Which certainly sounds like a great way to let you meet everyone & relieve anxieties by getting to
test the waters for a few days before, well, taking the plunge. And that’s
largely true – except you also need to figure out how to get there on your own.
Or, more accurately, desperately ask everyone who actually lives here how to
get there without ending up in Albania.
At the time, I wouldn’t say my language was quiittteeee up
to the task of travelling solo. But, I like to imagine it was something of a
trial by Peace Corps. Either you rise to the challenge & successfully
navigate your travels, or you end up lost & starved in the wild. Which
probably is a win-win for PC – they either get better volunteers from the
experience, or they suddenly have some extra money in the salary budget for
2019.
What essentially ended up happening was I had to take two buses
from my training site to my new home & vice versa when I went home. I was
aided by some friendly locals who took pity on a poor American kid that struggles with new languages, and frankly probably would’ve had a rough time
without them.
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| (The museum to a very popular singer who passed away at a young age - Toshe Proeski) |
So that worked out
alright – and the actual experience in my site was fantastic. I visited with my
host family, saw a little bit of the work site, and toured through a couple
different places. I got the chance to see a bit of Krushevo, the tourist town I
mentioned before. It’s an absolutely beautiful place. It’s perched up about
5000 feet, built into the sloping sides of a mountain. They’ve been working on building
up their tourist base – which is currently based on two seasons of activities.
In the winter, there’s a ski-center focused towards beginner & intermediate
skiers. In the summer, the town becomes a haven for paragliding, hiking, and mountain
biking. Especially so on the paragliding front – they’re considered one of the
best paragliding locations in Europe, and they’re always working to improve the
experience. They’ve also got a number of cultural/historical monuments &
museums, which of course attract a variety of people from the Balkans who feel
a connection to those events.
3. A
Macedonian Thanksgiving
So our site visits were from the 19th to the 21st
of November. We got back on a Wednesday, and the next day was Thanksgiving. Which,
for those of you wondering, is decidedly not a Macedonian holiday. Turns out the
pilgrims didn’t also come here bearing the gifts of turkey and smallpox. But
Peace Corps knows Thanksgiving tends to be the time most volunteers feel
homesick, so they sponsored a proper Thanksgiving dinner in each of the
training communities. In Rosoman (my training community), each of the
volunteers came with their host family. Or extended host family as was often
the case to the chagrin of our original planners (if you’re reading this
Marcus, then let me just say “Woops, sorry about that.”)
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| (My training host family at Thanksgiving) (PC: Nicholas Jackson) |
Honestly though, it was a great time. It was a really interesting
blend of Macedonian culture & American culture. We had mashed sweet
potatoes & turkey while dancing to traditional Macedonian songs. Imagine it
as if you had a normal Thanksgiving with your family, except suddenly it got
crashed by a brigade of Eastern Europeans & you guys decided the best way
to mingle was to just have a dance-off. Which is essentially what happened to
us. We oscillated between traditional Macedonian songs/dances and “traditional”
American songs/dances. We went from doing a Macedonian jig that felt like it
was straight out of a medieval fair to “Wobble Baby” by V.I.C. I shamefully must
admit I bailed on doing the wop, but I took pictures of those brave souls who took
advantage of the opportunity to showcase true American culture.
4. Christmas in Macedonia
Shortly after Thanksgiving, I ended up moving to my permanent
site (where I’ll be for the next two years). It was early December, and things
move pretty slow around here in the winter so there’s not a whole lot to talk
about on that front. I started integrating with my host family, working to make
friends, and generally facing all of the normal acclimation challenges to any
new place. Importantly though, I had Christmas here. Twice, actually, because I’m
a scrooge & convinced them Americans celebrate two days of Christmas &
gift giving.
Well, I might’ve tried that if I knew the word for Christmas
in Macedonian before two weeks ago. Or the word for presents. Or wrapped. Or….
actually, maybe it’s best not to ruminate on my language challenges. While I didn’t
get two days of gifts, I did in-fact have two days of Christmas. That’s
because
Macedonian Christmas (Orthodox Christmas) is on a different day than American
Christmas.
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| (A giant pan of syrup infused Baklava diabetes) |
While we have it on the 25th of December, they celebrate
it on the 7th of January. Also, their Christmas seems to be a little
different. I don’t think they did any gift exchanges, and the whole affair was toned
down. People just hung out with their families, had a special dinner, and that
was it mostly. In some areas of Macedonia they also had this tradition where
they baked basically a giant circle of baklava (a Turkish confection of pure delicious
pastry likely created by the first person in the world to come down with a case
of diabetes). In that baklava, inside one of the pieces, is a coin. Whoever
gets the piece with the coin is said to be bestowed good luck for the rest of the
year, so the families just dole out pieces one by one to everyone at the table
like you’re playing a game of Blackjack with Lady Luck.
Families in my region actually did this about a week later, for an
event called “The Old New Year”, which is a celebration of when the old
calendars would turn to the new year prior to the usage of the Gregorian
calendar. I unfortunately won’t be blessed by the coins fortune this year, but
my host dad will be so shout-out to him I guess. Not that I’m bitter. Not even
a little, and don’t bring up the fact that I’m planning to replace his shampoo
with hot sauce. We’ll see just how lucky he really is this year.
5. My Birthday!
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| (My training host mom & myself. Viewers may speculate on who is who) |
Also, it was my birthday a little over a week ago! I went
and visited people in another town for a couple days, and then returned to my
old training community to celebrate with a proper cake. Turns out my old host
mom in Rosoman had her birthday on January 10th, so we decided to do
a joint birthday. I’d forgotten how much I missed them already, and after
another month and a half of language training, I felt like I was able to truly converse
in Macedonian for the first time. It was still something of a struggle, and
there were plenty of words I didn’t know, but I legitimately felt like I was
apart of the conversation. I’m hoping that by summer I’m able to be casually
conversational without all of the “Huh? What’s that word?”.
Wrapping Up:
Looking back over this post, let me just say “Oopfh”. I know
this was long, but I had a lot to catch everyone up on. I’m going to commit
myself to posting more regularly in the future – at the least, I’ll post once a
month. In the spirit of full disclosure, I found it difficult to write since I’ve
gotten into my permanent site. I’m a busy-body at heart, and for a couple of
years now I’ve always enjoyed having 60-80 hours of work to do a week. My
senior year I was juggling classes with my tutoring job and 4 other nonprofits
I was volunteering with in different capacities – and honestly, that made me
happy. I like to accomplish things, and I like to get out into my community.
I’ve had a much tougher time of that here. Like I said
before, things move slowly in Macedonia, especially in the winter. I’ve had a
tough time building any type of workload since I started early December, and it’s
very difficult to network in my town when very few people speak English while
my Macedonian leaves plenty to be desired. I unintentionally came in with that
same mentality of immediately wanting to start picking up commitments &
getting involved. Which is probably a great mindset for a new American home (or
anywhere that speaks English), but has proven largely untenable here. I think I
based too much of my self-worth on my accomplishments in the States, which made
my transition here rough. It took some time to get over that – I know it didn’t
make sense, but it’d become ingrained over a couple years. I’d heard a lot of
people say Peace Corps will make you realize the worst & best parts of who
you are, and I definitely felt like a shadow of myself for awhile.
Things are good now though. I had to remind myself this past
week that this is my adventure in Macedonia & not my adventure in finding 80
hours of work. Don’t get me wrong – I’m focused on integrating and doing as
much for my community as I can in a sustainable way, but it took some time to
accept the mentality that it'll take time to do things right. I’m continuing to
improve at the language, and I’ve remembered that it’s okay for me to take
things slow. I can have fun with the difficulties & laugh about them,
instead of becoming frustrated they're holding me back. I’ll surpass any of the challenges in front of
me, and I’ll enjoy my two years here by balancing that wanderlust that
possessed me when I first applied with that wanton desire to help affect
positive change that’s at my core.
All of this said, I’m looking forward to my next post! I’ll
be shooting for end of February, so thank you all again for reading my catch-up
update!