Coming Full Circle

The time was approaching midnight, and all of the executive boards of AIESEC Macedonia were sitting around the room, at a row of tables configured like a U.  We were in the middle of a legislative meeting, and one of the procedural motions was slated to be addressed.  It read, “Motion for AIESEC Prilep to regain its status as a Full Voting Member.”  This motion was procedural, since we met all of the requirements to regain our status and no longer be “under threat”.  This moment was a culmination of how hard our committee worked over the past year to preserve our membership status in AIESEC Macedonia.  As I looked over at our counterparts, I noticed that one of them was crying tears of joy.  Seeing her cry now reminded me of the time she cried over a year ago at MILDs, when it was announced that LC Prilep was in danger of being shut down.

It was at this year’s PLANCO, which took place on July 10-14 in Koradzica near Skopje, that my Peace Corps experience with my organization had come full circle.  It seems like a fleeting memory that I had feared that I would need to switch organizations if AIESEC Prilep were to shut down.  Now, AIESEC Prilep has emerged from an impending doom and is on an upward path to becoming more active and successful in its operation.  

Strategizing made easier by the the beautiful view of the mountains

It was also here that I finally felt that I was leaving AIESEC Prilep.  From the beginning of PLANCO, it was announced that I would work with AIESEC Tetovo.  This made sense since my participation in all of the workshops would be geared toward strategizing for AIESEC Tetovo’s year ahead.  However, with no current members in the Local Committee, no contact with the university, and no idea about the mindset of the students or the corporate climate in Tetovo, all of the numbers and projects that I planned were, in many ways, shots in the dark.  I only had my experience with AIESEC Prilep to guide me.

After participating in every session, which pertained to almost every functional area, I realized that my role in AIESEC Tetovo was less Talent Management Team Leader, which is my official title, and more of the Specialized Unit President, which in a way organizes and manages every functional area of the LC.  A lot of my success will also depend on the success of the member recruitment and education, which will occur when I am technically still a Peace Corps volunteer for AIESEC Prilep (and still living in Prilep).  My hope is that I can transfer many of the responsibilities to the newly recruited members by December.  Therefore, the first few months will be challenging and crucial for the successful existence of the LC. 

 My motivation and decision to work with AIESEC Tetovo was also reinforced by our work in PLANCO.  After attending three national conferences and two planning conferences, I have witnessed how much AIESEC Macedonia and all of its Local Committees can achieve with time.  LC Prilep has emerged from a threat of being shut down, Stip has accomplished the unexpected in its first year of existence, and all of the LCs are bonding together for a shared cause.  The missing piece of the puzzle is AIESEC Tetovo.  Albanians constitute about a quarter of the population of Macedonia, and without a major presence in AIESEC Macedonia, this organization does not fully represent the voice of the youth of this country. 

Macedonia is also terribly separated by ethnicity in every general sense.  Students have the option to study in either Albanian or Macedonian (without learning the other language), and many ethnic communities segregate themselves, creating a bifurcated society.  Even though cities like Kumanovo and Skopje are diverse with Macedonians and Albanians, the barriers they have built within society prevents the youth from interacting with and learning about each other.  A few Peace Corps secondary projects are designed to integrate the two communities through activities, including Macedonian MUN, YMLP and GLOW, and the Spelling Bee.  But these secondary projects are fleeting moments, and many students do not build dependable relationships with students of other ethnicities and from other towns.

AIESEC serves as a great opportunity to bring the youth of Macedonia together due to its inherent values and its operations.  Students in university are at a major crossroad in their life, as they are finalizing their education and preparing themselves for their careers.  While high school students still hold onto the hope of a bright future, university students feel the pressure to realize that hope.  Thus, students who join AIESEC are ready to develop their selves and their backgrounds into the professionals that they wish to become.  AIESEC promotes certain values, like “living diversity” and “striving for excellence”, and it operates in a business-like process.  Through these values and through its operations, AIESEC has been able to connect young leaders from all over the globe.  So at a simpler level, AIESEC has the potential to connect young leaders from different ethnic backgrounds within Macedonia.  If AIESEC can connect young leaders from far-away places like Brazil and India, then it should be easier to connect young leaders within Macedonia, albeit of a different ethnic background.

AIESEC Macedonia leadership on its descent from the conference

All of this will not have potential if I do not succeed in building AIESEC Tetovo, especially during the autumn months.  Fortunately, through my work with LC Prilep, I have already experienced the challenges and potential strategies of building an AIESEC organization from the ground up.  My remaining months through Peace Corps are not expected to be easy.  But I did not extend to enjoy my time, but rather, to try to create an impact that helps bridge a gap in Macedonian society.

My Recent Peace Corps Decision

Imagine you had an important secret to tell your parents, but it is a secret they may not understand without further explanation.  For example, imagine you have decided to join the armed forces, or to marry a woman/ man they never met, or to move to the Democratic Republic of Congo for a job.  Now imagine trying to explain all of that in your best, albeit imperfect, foreign language.  That is what I had to do with my host mother today, and the difficulty of explaining the circumstances to her in Macedonian made me procrastinate this task so late.

Some of my family and friends already know, but I have recently decided to extend my service in the Peace Corps.  Especially given all of the problems with my father’s health during my time here, I did not think it was possible.  But with his health stabilized, and with the prospect of an operation in the next year improbable due to the current risks, I realized that I had an opportunity to continue my work here if I wished.  The biggest question I mulled over during my travels through Central Europe was, “What will I do between when I return to the USA and when graduate school starts?”  Pondering this question, I felt that finding a part-time job until school starts would be a significant gap in my CV.  However, work with AIESEC Prilep no longer was as challenging for me as it had been before.  The organization has made HUGE strides over the past year, and more can be done with different energy and ideas from a new Peace Corps volunteer.

Eventually a new idea popped into my mind- What if I changed organizations to AIESEC Tetovo?  Then I could focus on the Talent Management functional area (which I prefer over other aspects of AIESEC) and rebuild an organization that has been struggling over the past year.  Therefore, I consulted with the leadership body of AIESEC Macedonia, submitted my request for an extension and a site change with Peace Corps, and decided that I would move to Tetovo and work with AIESEC Tetovo until May 2016.

Given that I was extending, but not in Prilep, I felt that my host mother may feel betrayed by my decision to move to a different city.  Tetovo is VERY different from Prilep, and she has taken me in as part of her family.  On the other hand, I never lead her on to think that I would extend in Prilep, and she has the opportunity to host another volunteer for the next two years. Based on our conversation today, she seems to understand my reasons for this decision, and nonchalantly commented “Тоа е живот,” or “That is life.” 

Overall, this decision to extend has evolved pretty quickly.  Already I have an apartment lined up for Tetovo, and I am tutoring in Albanian via Skype (there are virtually no Albanian speakers in Prilep).  Furthermore, I already have planned the member recruitment and a small seminar in December during AIESEC’s planning conference this past week.

As one of my earliest posts note, I had always been interested in working with both Macedonian and Albanian cultures, and I am a bit surprised that I will actually be able to work in such a community during my final months of service.  One of the realizations I came to during my trip through Central Europe was that I was not ready to leave yet.  Eating kebabis and pickled cabbage in Serbia, I noticed that I missed the food despite only being away for about a week, and that I would miss it more once I return to the States.  My time in the Peace Corps not only has made me fall in love with Macedonia, but with the Balkans in general.

 So with this extension, I am facing challenges and opportunities that I did not imagine at the beginning of this journey.  Many of my new friends that I met in DC will leave for the USA months before I do.  I will spend another half year away from family and close friends from back home, delicious American food, and my cat.  I will again have the experience of entering a new site, making new contacts, probably experiencing culture shock, and then facing a departure shortly after.  The last few months of my Peace Corps service will definitely be exciting, busy, frightening, and challenging.  But it will be another half year of living in this beautiful country.

Macedonian MUN

A few weekends ago on June 27, Macedonia hosted its Model United Nations Conference for the youth of Macedonia.  Macedonian MUN is a secondary project for PCVs, and executing this event was the first major task for me (as my absence from this blog reflects) for what appears to be a pretty busy summer.

Organizing this conference with the local NGO was anything but an easy process.  As I mentioned in a previous post, financing the event was a major issue, but many other small yet persistent problems made the preparations for this project very arduous. 

However, once the delegates arrived, the conference took a life of its own, and the delegates seemed to really enjoy discuss international affairs and foreign diplomacy with students from other cities in Macedonia.  The striking difference for this conference was the participation of a team from Kosovo.  Earlier in the year, we were contacted by a PCV from Kosovo who had discovered our MUN conference and asked if his team could participate.  Charles, the PCV, trained his team well, and the delegates seemed to have no issues with competing with the Macedonian delegates.

[Note, all photos posted below are taken from the Coalition SEGA Facebook Page]

Opening Ceremony

Speech by Peace Corps Director Cory

PCV Charles and one of the teams from Kosovo

PCV Coordinators

Matka Canyon

A few of the past posts were pretty word/ link heavy, so I will change things up a bit by posting mainly pictures.  A few weekends ago, I took a quick trip to Ohrid to hike Matka.  The canyon is located about an hour bus ride from Skopje, and it is also hike-able from the Millennium Cross on top of Vodno.  The hike along the canyon is pleasant, though we hiked for quite some time before discovering that maybe the footpath along the water did not lead anywhere.  Otherwise, hiking the canyon through the shade of the forest was a pleasant respite from Skopje's summer heat.  And there were so many butterflies!

Reception of Refugees: Done Right

During the first months of arriving to service, I wondered to myself, “How far away is Syria from Macedonia?”  Obviously, both countries were once part of the Ottoman Empire, but mountains, seas, and national borders made the two countries seem worlds apart.  To get a better sense of the distance, I did a Google Map measurement  based on the fastest route by driving and discovered that the distance between Skopje and Damascus is roughly the same as the distance between Chicago and Miami. 

For most of my service, Macedonia was not much involved with the conflict in Syria.  However, much of that changed once refugees started fleeing towards Europe.  As many who keep up with the news know, the stem of refugees increased over the past year, likely due to many reasons.  The civil war in Libya intensified, ISIS added to the threats in Syria, and countries like Italy and Greece attempted to minimize the flow of refugees to their shores by turning away boats or destroying barges at bay in Libya.  Thus, many refugees are finding alternative routes to Europe, through places like Turkey, Bulgaria, and now Macedonia.

For many of these refugees, Germany or the Scandinavian countries are their final destination.  Not only do they seek shelter from a war-torn country, but they also hope for economic prosperity in a prospering capitalistic democracy.  As this news article shows, even after leaving Syria and arriving at the border of Macedonia, refugees face the threat of mafia robbing them of their only assets and police detaining or deporting them.

However, this article lacks a clear account of what the refugees may have gone through while traveling through Macedonia, most likely because the government and people in this country have done many things to make the refugees’ transition through less daunting.  Until recently, many migrants snuck through Macedonia by walking along the train tracks, which run along the Vardar river north toward Skopje and Kumanovo.  However, in the past few years, many travelers had died along that route.  So a new route had emerged that is much safer for these refugees: biking along the highways toward Kumanovo. 

As this article describes, refugees are allowed by the Macedonian government to flee through the country on bicycles.  Some locals are taking advantage of this method by selling bicycles at exorbitant prices to these refugees.  However, a few NGOs, including Red Cross in Negotino, are aiding the refugees by donating un-used bicycles, food, water, and other supplies.  Some of the campers who will be attending our YMLP camp are supporting such projects in their town.

However, recently Macedonia’s politicians passed a law that allows migrants to stay in Macedonia for up to 72 hours, before they are deported or seek asylum.  This law permits them to use public transportation, including buses and trains, so many of these migrants no longer need to bike or walk across the country.  Traveling to Skopje a few weeks ago, I was surprised to see so many bikers along the highway.  My last trip to Skopje, just this past weekend for the MUN conference, had fewer migrants, so it seems that the law is working.

Overall, the Macedonian government’s response to the migrants and the people’s reaction to them is very commendable.  As far as I know, not many other countries in Europe treat the migrants with such dignity.  Of course, Macedonia’s stance on these migrants is not completely selfless- Macedonia knows that none of the migrants want to stay in Macedonia, but are heading for Central or Western Europe.  However, Macedonia makes part of the journey easier and much safer for a group of people who are simply seeking for a future and chance to live.  Many Macedonian youth have expressed to me their interest in leaving Macedonia to find a better future in Western countries.  It is nice to know that many Macedonians have empathy for those also seeking a different life abroad.  This hospitality compares to Hungary’s response, which has contemplated in building a 110-mile fence along the border with Serbia.

To get a sense of the tide of refugees from Syria and the overall EU response, take a look at this website’s depiction.

http://greenmediabox.eu/syrianrefugees/