Среќна Нова Година 2014

So while Christmas has not yet come to Macedonia, the New Year is at our doorstep.  The New Year’s celebration is kind of a big deal in Macedonia.  Children are going crazy lighting fire crackers each day.  Adults are busy shopping in preparation for a large dinner.  Many Macedonians are leaving the country and heading to places like Athens, Sarajevo, Belgrade, Istanbul, or Podgorica to celebrate in style.  As for us youngsters- we are ready to bring in the New Year at clubs, cafes, and discothèques across Macedonia. 

New Year’s is the most anticipated holiday in all of Macedonia.  Youths, no matter where they come from, make a scene out of the holiday.  Many would not be caught celebrating in an outfit that is not new.  Most buy a package similar to that in the US, where “unlimited” food and drinks are provided all night long.  So, as one can imagine, the expectations and bill for a night of fun during New Year’s Eve can be kind of high.  What probably contributes most to this extravagance is the fact that New Year’s is the first of a string of holidays.  I found that in America most people are too worried about Christmas shopping and decorations to start thinking of their New Year’s plans before December 24.  Here in Macedonia, New Year’s Eve is not preceded by any major holiday, and thus students can start thinking of how they would like to celebrate as soon as they begin procrastinating their studies for tests.

In a way, I do not blame them for the hubbub that is created around this holiday.  Admittedly, New Years is my favorite holiday of the year.  Many people think that everybody hypes New Years’ celebrations and searches for the perfect experience, and I happen to agree with this as well.  I would be happy celebrating the holiday in an apartment surrounded by friends.  Personally, New Year’s Eve is a day I set aside to reflect on the year before, take stock of my experiences, and ponder on the potential progress as I look forward to the next.  In a way, New Year’s Eve is an important personal mile marker, and there is nothing I would like more than to celebrate the end of a year with good company.  This year I will be celebrating New Year’s Eve with some EVS volunteers and Macedonians (but no Americans) at a local café called Excalibur

Given how much importance I personally impose on the holiday, last New Year’s Eve was definitely a disappointment for me.  While I was able to celebrate my last New Year’s Eve in America (for a while) with my best friends in NYC, I also spent the whole night hunched over a toilet bowl due to an acute onset of the stomach flu (the bug first hit at 8PM, and I was throwing up all night as my friends partied in the next room).  I did not welcome 2013 well, but little did I know that, beyond a few stumbles toward the end of the year, 2013 would end up being filled with wonderful experiences and would arguably be the turning point in my life.  Receiving my invitation for the Peace Corps and learning that I would be a Community Economic Development volunteer in Macedonia was one of the happiest moments I experienced, for as long as I can remember.  Of course, the close of the year became worrisome for me as my father was sent to the hospital for months (he is still there).  But he is recovering strongly, further giving proof that 2013 continues to bring good news, even if trouble occurs.

So below I am posting pictures in remembrance of the most momentous experiences from the past year.  (Sorry, this turned from a Macedonian cultural post to a personal reflection, but it’s my blog so I guess I can do what I want!).  I wish my family, friends and future PCVs a happy New Year.  I look forward to the year ahead, but it will be more fun if I try to top the amazing experiences from the past year.

Robin's Wedding in India!

Sitting around the Tea Fields in Munar

Ultra in Miami 

Meeting my first Macedonian at EDC NY 

Wedding in Savannah

The newlyweds in Savannah

Christian visiting Chicago

SOOOOOO many 90s nights

My partner in crime at BSB Concert

Fishing for crabs in Vashon, WA

My going away party with my mom

The Quintos side of the family

Arriving in Lozovo

Cleaning up Lozovo

Climbing Bogoslovec

Partying at Zheleznichkata Stanitsa

With the AIESEC EB at the Fakultet

Shrouded in Mist

Prilep has not experienced as much snow as it did during the day that I moved to my site.  For the most part it has been rather warm throughout December (above freezing) and snow has been a rare occurrence in Macedonia this winter.  However, I do remember the first major snowfall in the city- I was waiting outside the Economics University to meet with one of my colleagues from AIESEC.  It was pretty peaceful since the ground was covered in snow and the sky had that soft, cascading feeling.  Yet there was something different about the snowfall here when compared to the snowfall in Chicago.  Back home when the snow falls, it feels like the sky is overtaken by the falling snow, and that it’s ability to envelop everything is neither matched nor challenged.  Yet, during the snowfall in Prilep, the snow in the sky was joined by one other element- the smoke coming out of each building’s chimney.  As the sky was already filled with the plumes of smoke coming from the burning wood of each home, the snow was unable to dominate the skies like it does in the States.

I did not know it then, but this moment highlights a major issue during Macedonian winters.  Macedonia has a problem with air pollution during the winter.  I did not know how serious the pollution was until I read the following article:

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/photo-smog-bound-macedonian-capital

For those of you who clicked the link and read the article, the descriptions do not appear to be out of proportion.  Lethal smog has hit the major cities in Macedonia (ie. Skopje, Tetovo, and Bitola).  Exactly how lethal?  Well, when the article was written, the pollution particulates reached up to 120PM, while the maximum allowable level is 50.  The pollution level is higher than Beijing’s, a city notorious for having high levels of pollution. 

Luckily, the government pursued some efforts to help eradicate the problem.  A few factories were closed to contain the pollution.  The Skopje airport was also shut down for numerous days, most likely since the combination of smog and fog posed a threat to air traffic.  Yet, despite these valiant efforts to curb air pollution, the root of the problem seems to be trickier to solve. 

Macedonia does not have the same issues with traffic as some other countries, so while pollution from automobiles contribute to environmental issue here, enough people walk or travel by buses to reduce automobile emissions.  So the likely contributor to all of this pollution is most likely caused by fire-burning furnaces.  Almost every family in Macedonia heats their homes with firewood.  These furnaces are essential since electricity is so expensive.  Macedonians receive a discount price for electricity between 10PM and 7AM each day and all day Sunday, so most people usually wait to wash clothes, shower, iron clothes, etc. during these times.  Some families have electric heaters, but wood for burning is much cheaper than the electricity bill to keep a house warm during the season. 

Firewood is not the cleanest form of fuel.  Burning oil or coal to generate electricity is much cleaner than burning wood.  Therefore, as each household burns wood during a winter day, a larger cloud of smog will accumulate and hang over the city. Earlier this year, before winter started, I read an article that listed the worst cities for air pollution in all of Europe.  Almost every city on the list was a city in Bulgaria.  Most Bulgarian households also burn wood to keep their houses warm.  The article mentioned that one could walk through one of the cities in a white shirt during a winter day, and at the end of the day the shirt would be mildly yellow due to the particulates and pollution in the air.  Most cities in Bulgaria are bigger than the cities in Macedonia, so the pollution issues are probably much worse.  However, the issues are not different.

One may think that the solution to this air pollution problem should be easy.  People logically should move away from using fire-burning furnaces.  Yet, with no other cheap alternative, there is no way for the people of Macedonia to make the transition.  Thinking about this in an economical way, everybody in Macedonia who uses a wood-burning furnace is contributing to the social costs and reaps the social gains (cheaper fuel).  Therefore, the protests that are taking place in cities like Tetovo (young people wearing gas masks were protesting there today) are protesting against an issue that will not be abated simply by closing factories or forcing stricter regulation on them (though that would surely help a bit).  Some small solutions may include providing each household with a free solar panel (or at least a rebate and assistance in installing it).  Yet the government is tackling the problem by additionally taxing households that have more than one chimney (linked, of course, to an additional wood-burning furnace). 

Until Macedonia is able to find cheaper sources of electricity, it will probably be stuck with its pollution problem.  Joining the European Union would probably allow it to acquire cheaper gas or fossil fuels for electricity, or maybe additional access to power grids of foreign firms that can sell fuel more cheaply or efficiently.  But until it can join the trade union, Macedonians may need to get used to the smog.

Merry Christmas!!!

Before I post my blog post, I want to wish all of my family and friends a Merry Christmas back home!  Enjoy the warmth of your loved ones (and your central heating), get fat with turkey, beef, and cookies (so envious right now…), and find peace when you celebrate religiously.

So today, as I woke up and entered my bathroom, I realized- whoa, it's Christmas!  I guess that can say a lot about how the holidays feel here.  Technically, Christmas falls on January 8 in Macedonia (Orthodox calendar), so I have a few more weeks of Christmas time left.  However, I have not really felt the Christmas spirit during my time in Macedonia, and I cannot explain why.  I do not see it as a sad thing, but it is quite curious.

This lack of holiday cheer is not due to a lack of effort.  I have been trying to recreate an American Christmas in many ways.  I listen to my brother’s Spotify Christmas playlist almost everyday.  The center is filled with Christmas lights and decorations, so I try to breathe it all in when I am there.  I am celebrating American Christmas three times, once already on Ohrid, today with the French at a Macedonain restaurant, and tomorrow with the American PCVs over breakfast for dinner.  Yet, despite all of this, I am just not feeling the Christmas spirit.

I have meditated on these thoughts a lot, but it is tough to find the source.  I miss my family, but not any more than I typically have missed them during my time here.  Living in a Christian nation that is cold in December replicates the atmosphere back in Chicago, but the sentiments are still hard to grasp.  Part of me thinks that it is the lack of commercial urgency that makes me feel this way.  Buying Christmas gifts for family and friends is not a Macedonian tradition, even on Macedonian Christmas.  Back home, as the days passed in December, buying Christmas gifts for my family and friends was always at the top of my mind.  But in many ways, I am thankful that I do not have to buy presents for anybody this year (plus, on the PC budget, I am too poor to buy anything worthwhile).

And so, after the conclusion of much meditation, I attribute my lack of enthusiasm to two things. First, I have not fully felt comfortable in my site, so my thoughts of integrating and feeling productive have probably superseded any longings for holiday cheer.  Work is slow, and will continue to be as my counterparts have exams and celebrate the holidays over the coming weeks.  Yet, even if I felt fully useful and integrated into my site, I do not think that I would be able to replicate the Christmas back home.  While certain holidays share common traditions that can be celebrated communally (like Independence Day, Halloween, or Thanksgiving), Christmas is so magical because each family has its own set of traditions.  When are presents opened, who comes over, or who goes where, what is cooked and eaten, etc.  Despite the amount of Westerners who are in Prilep, we cannot celebrate Western Christmas in a way that suits us all.  Not only do Americans celebrate Christmas differently than the French and Spanish, but we celebrate Christmas in different ways among ourselves.  Therefore, we have all decided to celebrate in a local way, dining at a Macedonian restaurant tonight.

The second reason why I think I am lacking any holiday is cheer is that I have not really had an opportunity to think about the religious importance of Christmas.  Macedonia is a post-communist country, and even though I am not zealous Christian, my beliefs are above average compared to those of the average PCV.  There are no Catholic churches in my town, and Macedonians rarely attend anything religious outside of slavas or special celebrations.  So it has been tough to mentally think of this holiday as the birth of Christ.  In the end, it does not really matter to me whether or not I meditate strongly on religious significances like these.  I have made peace with myself by thinking that, as long as I am selfless in my service as a PCV, missing mass and failing to observe Catholic dogma are things that can be forgiven.  So to put it simply, my Charlie Brown search for Christmas ended in a Linus-like realization.

So there you have it- the reflections of Catholic PCV on holiday cheer in a European, Christian country.  Not everybody feels the same as me, and everybody’s experience will be different this holiday time.  Yet, maybe it will help those who read this appreciate more all that they have and bask in the comfort and familiarity of their holiday celebrations and traditions.  Merry Christmas!

Ohrid

There is a story/joke that some Macedonians say about the creation of Macedonia:

As God was creating the world, he took extra time to create Macedonia.  He started with Skopje and decided to make it the biggest city in Macedonia.  He placed in Skopje the mountain Vodno and split the city with the river Vardar.  He placed the majority of Macedonians in the city and decided to make those people leaders of the republic.

Next, he created Prilep.  Nearby, He placed Marko’s tower, surrounded the city with craggy mountains, and placed Macedonia’s hardest working people in the town.  Next he created Bitola and decided to make it the most fashionable city in the republic.  He laid the foundations for Shirok Sokak and placed the mountain Pelister and plenty of beautiful forests nearby.  He placed there the most fashionable, good-looking people in Macedonia. 

As God continued creating additional cities and natural wonders in Macedonia, Satan watched and became eager to create something too.  He approached God and said,

“God, please let me create something in Macedonia.”

God responded, “Satan, you are an evil being.  I will not let you create a city in Macedonia.  Your job is to create temptation and spite among the people of the world.”

Satan responded, “Please, I promise You will not be disappointed by my creation.”

Losing his patience, God responded, “Fine.  You may create one city in Macedonia.” 

Satan started to create his city in the corner of the republic.  First, he created a beautiful lake and placed historical buildings near it.  He then erected in the city 365 churches, a church for each day of the year.  When Satan finished creating his city, which he called Ohrid, God remarked,

“Satan, I am shocked by your creation.  I expected you to create a city filled with havoc, and yet you created the most beautiful city in all of Macedonia.  What prompted you to be so giving?”

The devil slyly replied, “Well you should see the people I placed there.”

This past weekend, I decided to visit Ohrid to celebrate Christmas and the birthdays of the MAK18s who were assigned to the city.  Ohrid is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and somewhat objectively, one of the most beautiful cities in Macedonia.  Lake Ohrid, on the banks which the city sits, is split between Macedonia and Albania, and contains endemic species of fish and wildlife.  In the summer, Ohrid is bustling with tourists, both international and Macedonians alike, but during these winter months the city is a bit quieter.  Therefore, I felt lucky to have visited the city during the off-season.

Nick, Ted, and I caught the bus that took us straight from our cities to Ohrid.  Once we arrived, we were bombarded by taxi drivers and hostel owners who were eager to rent out their services.  Many Macedonians do not speak well of the people of Ohrid, either because those in Ohrid depend on tourism for their income, so they are naturally disposed to think of making money off of others, or because Macedonians are jealous of the beauty in which these people live. 

We all caught a cab and immediately departed for Dan’s place, which was in the suburbs of Ohrid.  Dan technically lives in a homestay, but his host father owns a hostel and decided to let Dan live in one of the rooms there.  Therefore, we all had the whole hostel to ourselves this weekend, which made it feel like we were on vacation in our own host country. 

Lake Ohrid

A view of the city

One of the 365 churches in the city

The Love Bridge

Ohrid during sunset

As we arrived, the other PCVs who had stayed Friday night were just waking up from their hangover.  We chatted and caught up on our lives, and then the guys decided to walk along the lake and head into town.  The climate in Ohrid is Mediterranean, so despite colder temperatures in the rest of Macedonia, Ohrid's weather was mild and sunny (50s Fahrenheit).  As we arrived to the center of Ohrid, we were amazed by the beautiful, historic buildings and the abundance of greenery.  We meandered through the  narrow streets and ended at the love bridge, which is a narrow wooden bridge built where the lake meets the steep cliffs of the city.  We eventually met the girls at a local restaurant where we enjoyed a few beers and Ohrid’s famous cheese pot.

As we returned to the hostel, we decided to make Mexican dinner.  After enjoying our dinner, we exchanged our White Elephant gifts and played a game of President-Asshole.   The gift to be claimed during the White Elephant was the Macedonian vuvezela, which Tara had won.  Finally, we decided to take a cab into center to go to the club, Cuba Libre, and danced all night until 4AM.

White Elephant gift exchange

The President and the Asshole

Celebrating the birthdays of Sarah and Dan!

This trip to Ohrid was definitely worth it.  Ohrid is beautiful, but it would be nothing without its lake.  While the city was definitely worth a visit itself, it was nice to have 24 hours of hanging out with just Americans.  While I enjoy my multi-ethnic hangouts in Prilep (with Americans, Macedonians, French, and a Spaniard chilling together), spending a night with just Americans in our own hostel and in a new city was a nice reset on our time here.  Unfortunately, three nights in a row of drinking culminated into a slight cold and 14-hour, coma-like sleep, but despite that I think I regained some new motivation and energy that should get me through the work and challenges of my site for the next few weeks.