The Chuck Norris of Macedonia

Karli Marko, or Prince Marko, is somewhat of a national legend in Macedonia.  Some HCNs call him the “Chuck Norris of Macedonia.”  Luckily for me, his former abode is only about a 2.5 KM hike from my home.  Two weekends ago, my site mate Nick, Ted, and an EVS volunteer named Maud climbed the mountain with me for a leisurely Sunday hike.  I appreciate the fact that the ruins of Karli Marko’s castle, or Маркови Кули (Marko’s Tower) as it is called in Macedonia, are accessible to locals and tourists.  Posted below are some pictures of our Sunday hike (for my family and friends who are Facebook friends with me, you probably have already seen many of these photos).  But I assume that some of you want to know more about Karli Marko and his legend in Macedonia.

So let’s start with the oral tradition: what do modern Macedonians say about Karli Marko?  Well, as I mentioned before, to them Karli Marko is a Macedonian hero and is described as a sort of demi-god.  According to Macedonians, he would reign over his kingdom from his tower in the mountain.  When the Turkish armies would invade the poor, helpless people of his kingdom, he would rush down from his mountain on his horse with his giant spear and single-handedly defeat the “Black Rape” brought about by the Turkish invaders.  Macedonians never forget to mention that he had a manly mustache, and his legend is so important to the national culture that a crappy light beer produced in Prilep is named after him.

However, according to historic sources (read: Wikipedia), many of the assumptions about Karli Marko are incorrect.  He was not a Macedonian king but a Serbian king from 1371 to 1395.  Although the death of his father and of another Serbian lord resulted in his coronation as the King of Serbia, his reign was limited to the western half of Macedonia since the other lords of Serbia did not recognize his authority in their territories.  Eventually his ability to rule extended to only the small territory surrounding his castle in Prilep. Due to his weakness and the rise of other lords in the remaining lands in Serbia, the Serbian kingdom was fractured and would occasionally result in conflicts against each other.

These conflicts made it easier for the Ottoman Empire to invade the Balkans.  It is true that the Serbian kingdoms were able to band together to face the Ottoman armies at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, but that battle drained much of the manpower of the Serbian armies, allowing the Ottoman Empire to continue its invasion into the region.  When all was lost, many of the Serbian lords fled their kingdoms to Hungary.

While Karli Marko may have initially opposed the Turks, he eventually decided to remain a vassal and joined the Ottomans in battles against other Christian kingdoms.  For example, he aided the Ottoman armies in the battle against the Kingdom of Wallachia (in modern-day Romania) in 1395. During this battle, Karli Marko was killed, and the Ottoman Empire annexed his lands into their kingdom.

So, as history shows, Karli Marko was actually a weak lord who saw the uprising of other Serbian lords within his kingdom.  He did not stand up to the Turks but actually chose to remain a vassal for the empire in his lands.  But the ruins of his castle and the oral legends continue to represent him as a regional hero. 

Starting the hike to the top

The hike starts from Varosh, the town surrounding the mountain

A view of the top from the bottom

The Elephant Rock

Prilep

Part of the trail

The entrance into Marko's Towers

The cross at the top

Our “Refugees” from Ukraine

Tomorrow (March 15) marks the half-year mark of my time in Macedonia and the Peace Corps.  Time does seem to be flying by in the Peace Corps world, but our group still has ahead of us another 20 months, so there is plenty of time remaining to work!

However, no longer are the Mak18s the newest group of Peace Corps volunteers for Macedonia.  A handful of Americans have been invited to serve in Macedonia!  The new Mak19s have about 6 months to wait before they start in September, but it is exciting to meet (read: creep) via Facebook some of the future volunteers. 

I also feel bad for this first group of volunteers because most (if not all) of them had originally been chosen to serve in Ukraine.  Given the evacuation of the PCVs within the country, those originally invited to serve in Ukraine were reassigned to other countries.  They were scheduled to start sometime in March (this month), but now they must wait another 6 months before they begin their Peace Corps adventure.  If they were anything like me, they would have already ended their jobs, purchased all of the items to bring to site, and learned a bit of the language.  They may have also mentally prepared for their journey ahead, and now they must reimagine what their new country will be like and which challenges they will face here.  But if they are like me, they will eventually come to love the people and culture here and happily accept their new assignment.  All of the other PCVs in Macedonia are excited to welcome these new Mak18s when Ukraine was unable to accept them.

On another subject, there is one thing about Macedonia that is the same as in the US.  March is the dullest month of the year.  Anyone who really knows me is aware that I hate the month of March.  Even though the weather here is warmer than I am used to in Chicago during March, work has become endless and repetitive.  I am finally at the stage in Peace Corps where I do not need to fabricate things on my list in order to feel like I am accomplishing something.  As was the case in the States, accomplishing something on my list is like cutting a head off of a hydra- by the time I accomplish one task, two or three more are added to my list. 

What sort of things am I busy with?  Last weekend AIESEC Skopje organized the seminar for Go Clean in Prilep.  We finally met with about 30 high school students in a formal setting, and pretty soon we will review and select the candidates to become team leaders in the municipality.  But it looks like the NGO in charge of the project will continue to rely on us to coordinate the activities in Prilep, so our involvement with the project has no end in sight.  Simultaneously, I have been working with other members of AIESEC to promote the AIESEC internships.  This involves standing in the universities and passing out flyers to students, as well as visiting classrooms to give a short speech on the importance of internships and explaining to students how to apply for internships through our organization.  It is very boring work, but promoting the internships is the main focus of our organization, and the income we make from the small participation fees provide the funds for the local projects we will eventually organize.

Go Clean Seminar at the Prilep Library

AIESEC Prilep President, Megi, facilitating a presentation

All of the participants and facilitators at the Go Clean Seminar in Prilep

The Local Coordinators of Prilep for Go Clean!

Promoting AIESEC Internships

AIESEC hard at work at the Economics Faculty

So, just as in the States, March can be best described as a “numb” month.  But despite how boring or normal this experience (and by the transitive property, this post) seems to be, it is in many ways a profound moment.  Life here is beginning to become normal.  I no longer experience on a daily basis an awe-inspiring revelation, but also I am no longer burdened by the problems of transitioning to my new life here.  I have projects to accomplish, and I am already comfortable with the methods I need to employ to meet those goals.  In Peace Corps talk, I have switched gears from focusing on PC Goal #2 (To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served) to Peace Corps Goal #1 (To help the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women- in other words, development). 

So this post answers the questions that many of you have back home- yes, I am busy.  I am actually surprisingly busier than I thought I would be this early in my Peace Corps career.  But I am happy working this much and could not ask for anything different.

Some others ask if I will travel to another country sometime soon.  Yes- at the end of March, my fellow site mates and I will leave Prilep and head south for a day trip in Greece.  My goals in Salonica- to eat fresh seafood, drink a beer with lots of hops, and buy some American products that I cannot find in Macedonia.  The daytrip will not be lofty, but it is what I strive for as I march forward through this dull month.

RIP Pero

This past weekend brought to me a series of small wins.  For the PCVs in Macedonia, March 1 marked the first date that we were allowed to travel out of country.  Some of my good friends took advantage of that opportunity and decided to travel to Pristina in Kozovo for the weekend.  Others enjoyed the Macedonian holiday of Prochka (the equivalent of Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras) by attending the largest carnival for the holiday in Strumica.

I was invited to both excursions, but declined the invitations since I was called to attend a last-minute preparation meeting for Go Clean in Skopje.  Despite missing these cultural opportunities, I think that I enjoyed my trip more than I would have enjoyed the others because it reinforced my feelings of being busy and helpful to my organization.  Even though I was exhausted by the endless meetings and traveling in Skopje, I was also invigorated since I really enjoy working on projects like this. 

Working at the Go Clean office

From Skopje, I took a bus to Lozovo to visit my host family from PST.  My host mother in Lozovo has the same birthday as my mother (March 4), and I decided to visit her since I had missed the opportunity to travel to Lozovo for Macedonian Christmas.  Before leaving Skopje, my counterpart pushed our departure time as late as possible, even though she knew that I needed to stop at the grocery store before departing to buy food and presents for my old host family.  With the five minutes we had, we dashed from the supermarket to the bus station and luckily caught the bus just before it was exiting the lot.  We had to stand in the aisle since the bus was packed, but I think my counterpart and I pushed our luck to the edge on this occasion.  Once in Lozovo, my family and I chatted, ate some delicious sarma, and watched her grandson, Vedran. 

Happy Birthday to Jagoda!

I returned to Prilep just as the parade was ending for Prochka.  Tired and burdened with my bags from traveling, I skipped the festivities and headed home to unpack and clean my apartment.  When I became situated back in Prilep with my host family, my host mother informed me that Pero was “no longer with us”.  He had passed away on Friday in the morning.  It was very sad to hear, since he was fine for the week preceding his death.  However, when I left early on the morning on Friday for Skopje, I saw him on the terrace, shivering and giving me a painful stare, only making very weak meows.  I thought that he was just tired or maybe mildly sick, but I had no time on Friday to stop and pet him.  I feel very bad that I had no time to say goodbye.

In many ways I felt blessed to have Pero with us.  He was not my cat, so I would have no guilt about leaving him here when I returned to the USA.  However, I of course had the benefit of having a cat while serving in the Peace Corps.  But I did not think that he would die so soon.  The cause of death is a mystery to me since he was my host family let him outdoors everyday.  Once when I was hanging out in my apartment with friends, Pero was with us, and he was very sick.  After eating a bit of food, he threw up on the floor the food he had eaten along with live worms.  At times when I was sleeping, the shrill screams of cats fighting right outside our front door would wake me.  I would often hear a cat falling from the metal awning, and I only hoped that it was not Pero that fell.  Pero also likely had a female cat that he was going with, so he may have caught something nasty from her.

RIP Pero

In the end, his passing was quick, but not altogether unexpected.  Pets like cats and dogs have their own personalities, and I was very sad to hear that my “little host brother” had left us so soon.  I was even more surprised to hear that even before I returned from my trip, my host family had adopted another cat.  He is small and cute, but it is tough for me to replace a cat with another so soon.  I also hope that he does not have the same, quick fate as Pero. 

Posh Corps

Before I left for the Peace Corps, I embarked on a series of trips throughout the United States to see my closest friends for the last time before I started my service.  During my stop in NYC, I remember hanging out with two of my best friends, Roshan and Chad, while we were at a bar.  When they thought I was out of earshot, I caught them saying to each other “of all of the places for him to be placed, Chris is going to have it easy living in Europe, in his own apartment, with internet, indoor plumbing, etc.”  That was about 6 months ago, and I was a few beers deep, so obviously I could not remember what they said verbatim, but the gist of what they were discussing had a point.  I was assigned to a country that many other PCVs called “Posh Corps.”  What makes a country “Posh Corps”?  Accessibility to such items as indoor plumbing, reliable internet and plumbing, modern supermarkets, scheduled modes of transportation, and an absence of exotic diseases like malaria and yellow fever are some factors that contribute to making one’s experience in a Peace Corps country more “posh” than the experience in other countries.  Eventually, independent filmmakers and PCVs will release a documentary addressing the experience of “Posh Corps”.  To see a trailer of the movie, access the link below.

http://forgottenarchive.com/posh/

Now of course, as I describe the idea of “Posh Corps”, many people would naturally respond “Well, any Peace Corps volunteer serving in a country in Europe is going to have an easier time.  It’s Western Civilization, so the challenges continent-wide naturally will be less basic than the needs of the people in the countries of Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Oceania.”  Before I started my service here, I thought the same as well.  I was mentally preparing myself for service in a country where I could make the biggest impact, but I was “unfortunate” enough to be placed in a country where people were not struggling to make ends meet.  As we progressed through the first week of PST, Peace Corps assuaged our worries about being in Southeast Europe by saying that the “problems” here were different than those in other continents.  For example, in some countries, volunteers may be building a well.  Currently, I am working to create online promotions through Photoshop.  Even though the problems are unique, building a well will more often receive a bigger pat on the back than the latter project.

As recent events have shown, these caveats about the unique problems in our host countries have proven true.  As those who keep up with the news know, Ukraine has succumbed to protests in the capital, and the president of Ukraine has fled, leaving much of the national government in flux.  Due to the protests and lack of stability in the country, the 200 PCVs currently serving in Ukraine have been evacuated (see below for the official link).  And the issues that led to this terrible situation are ubiquitous throughout the region- corruption, ethnic tensions, graft, etc.  I do not believe that Macedonia is heading toward the fate of Ukraine anytime soon, but the major issues in both countries are not very different.

http://www.peacecorps.gov/media/forpress/press/2331/

Reflecting on the “Posh Corps” label, I decided to undergo my own research to see how Macedonia ranked in terms of poverty when compared to other Peace Corps countries.  I have a friend/ college classmate who is currently serving in Botswana, and I decided to compare both of countries.  For comparison’s sake, both countries were luckily similar in some demographics.  Both are landlocked countries, and while Botswana is much larger than Macedonia, both have about the same population (Botswana had a population of 2.03 million in 2011, and Macedonia had a population of 2.06 million in 2011).  However, the GDP (nominal) of Botswana is certainly higher than Macedonia’s ($16 billion per year compared to Macedonia’s $10 billion per year).  Since the cost of living is much lower than that of Macedonia, at PPP the citizens of Botswana are more than 4 times richer than the citizens of Macedonia (when measured in GDP per capita). 

Of course, much of the economy of Botswana relies on mining, so the income gap among the people of Botswana is most likely wide.  However, a current comparison of the two countries cannot be made.  While the Gini coefficient of Macedonia in 2008 was 44.2 (even lower, or with better income equality, than the income gap in of the USA!), Botswana’s Gini coefficient measured at 63 in 1994.  This is one of the highest Gini coefficients on record, but much has probably changed in the past 20 years.  Finally, PCVs in Botswana probably face issues volunteers in Eastern Europe never face, including debilitating diseases and serious natural disasters.

I was definitely surprised by the numbers that I found when comparing the two countries.  It is likely that some of the host families with which the PCVs are living with in Botswana are moderately richer than the families in Macedonia.  Of course, I do not know what it is like to live in Botswana, but if the equality in Botswana has approached that of Macedonia, then volunteers there are probably addressing the same issues that we are, including institution building, youth development, health awareness, and education.  Overall, this comparison is made to show a PCV’s experience may be similar across regions.  It also shows that, although continents like Africa and South America may seem more dire, certain countries on continents like Europe can all of a sudden fall apart (as Ukraine did). 

In the end, I am fully aware that my experience here is more posh than in other host countries.  But PCVs would not be here unless we were wanted and needed.  And sometimes us PCVs need to remind ourselves that it is not only the volunteers who sleep under mosquito nets or bathe in rivers who make the most impact.  Some volunteers increase their neighbors’ life expectancy by increasing health standards, helping to build infrastructure, and introducing basic technologies to a community.  Other volunteers improve the quality of life by improving attitudes and institutions that underline democracy, gender equality, youth development, capital markets, and efficiency.  I am finally beginning to understand the different challenges that my host country faces, even if they are more “posh” than those of other countries.