The Longest Time Away

Today marks the longest time I have lived outside of the US, and more importantly, outside of Chicago.  Never before have I lived for so long away from my home city.  Yet, in some ways living here still seems natural, and in other ways, it is a bit underwhelming.

Starting this Thursday, Americans enter what I consider my favorite time of the year- Holiday Season.  Nothing reminds me of home more than Thanksgiving, holiday decorations, Michigan Avenue lights, and Christmas songs on the radio.  I thought that I would be craving for a return home, and maybe I will once the Holidays start passing on the calendar.  However, everything has been very busy during PST, and with the addition of this current flu, my time and energy is pretty drained. 

Also, with PST coming to an end, I thought that all of the groups would be celebrating, either among the volunteers or with our families, for our final days and especially for the final weekend at our training sites.  However, we have all taken this past weekend pretty easy as we will soon prepare and pack for our future, permanent sites in cities across the country.

It has been a while since I last posted with updates on Macedonia, so I hope to post a longer update today.  Bear with me!

Excursion to Skopje

On the weekend of November 9-10, I had traveled to Skopje to see my host-brother’s new apartment.  He recently purchased his own flat in a new building that is  surrounded by other recently constructed apartment complexes.  He lives relatively close to the river, and his neighborhood is called Novo Lisice, as it just borders Lisice, a town just to the East of this neighborhood.  This old town (Lisice) is currently engulfed into the Skopje metro region, and I am interested in seeing what it will look like in twenty years from now. 

A map of Skopje, for your convenience.

Overall, Skopje is an expanding, dynamic city, and it is no surprise that all of the young people want to live and work in the capital.  The downtown center has a new facelift, as I mentioned in a previous post, but other neighborhoods are booming and expanding in Skopje as well.  Given the expansion and the number of jobs that are growing in the capital, I assume that most investment into the country is being directed to the capital.  Thus, it is pretty difficult for other parts of the country to expand and attract investment, or more importantly, to retain its young talent.

While Skopje is one city, it is divided into different municipalities based on the population, so each municipality, or neighborhood, has its own mayor.  Novo Lisice lies just east of Aerodrom, which arguably is the most modern and most-demanded neighborhood in Skopje.  The mayor of Aerodrom is very popular, as he is focusing on renovating this part of Skopje with new parks, arenas for sports, and basically all types of common spaces for the young families who are moving into his neighborhood.  Many of the pictures taken below were shot during our stroll through the neighborhood.  We ended our stroll at the fort on top of the hill near the center.  From there, most of downtown Skopje was visible, and it was surprising that crowds had not filled the fort to enjoy the sunset.

Toshe Park in Aerodrom

Along the river front, lots of young people running and working out

From the fort

The next day, Alexander had his apartment blessed by a priest.  We all followed rituals involving holy water and candles as the priest recited and sang some hymns.  Afterwards, we all enjoyed the potluck of food and talked for hours on end.  Alexander and Kate were told that they could inherit his father’ saint (St. Ovan), or they could visit a church and randomly pick a saint from one of the books.

Language Proficiency Interview

The Language Proficiency Interview, or LPI, is each trainee’s final test for the Macedonian or Albanian language.  The test was conducted this past Thursday or Friday within all of the communities (although the final LPI will be proctored to the dual-language group three months into service in a language of their choice).  The test is not a prerequisite for our service.  If we fail, we are not sent home, but instead, given additional help and monitoring.  However, we all felt pressure to do well since we wanted to make our teachers proud, and for some, to show off our language skills with a rating based on performance.

The LPI is interview-based since most of our interactions throughout our service will be verbal.  Throughout the interview, we are basically asked to talk about ourselves, our work, our families, and whatever else we want to discuss.  Some of us fell into traps- a few other trainees mentioned that they had watched movies the previous day, and thus they were asked to describe “Batman” or “The A-Team” in Macedonian.  Having made this mistake once in Japan (and being forced to describe the plot of Casablanca in Japanese), I found these stories both humorous as well as unfortunate.

However, the LPI is best approached with a bit of humor.  In the end, it tests our current fluency and ease with the language, and is quite lax on accuracy. Furthermore, our learning does not stop with this test, and it is up to us to continue practicing and speaking Macedonian with our future site mates and host families.  Some volunteers will rely on their knowledge of Macedonian to have a successful home stay and work experience.  Others will be able to get by on English.  Hopefully, I will be able to continue learning the language and improving my own knowledge and fluency.

So here I am now, with a mildly upset stomach, pondering the next moments in Macedonia.  The end of training is looming over the horizon.  Yet, I am not sure why I am not so fazed.  Maybe it is because I am taking this experience one day at a time.  Or maybe it is because I am ready to move to my new site.  I am not sure, but pretty soon, the habits I have developed in Lozovo, and everything that I have become used to, will go away.  No longer will I see the same group of trainees, no longer will I be taught Macedonian each day from an amazing professor, no longer will I enjoy the hospitality of the wonderful family here, and no longer will I enjoy the serenity of the Macedonian countryside.  Yet I know that for the longest time I have been away from Chicago, this experience has been fulfilling so far.  There are things I can look forward to in my new city, and there are things that I will miss from Lozovo.  But first thing is first- this flu needs to go away!!!