Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Some Family Time in the Village

Today I spent a part of the afternoon in a village near Prilep called Borotino.  This village is the home town of my host mother, and today we visited her brother who (I believe) lives on the same property where she grew up.  My host brother invited me to this excursion about a week ago, but I did not know when it would take place, and luckily he accommodated for me today so I can enjoy the valuable host-family time with him and his.

My host brother, his friends from South Africa, and his new car

Enjoying rakija and salad before lunch

A picture of my host mother as a little girl

My host-mother's relatives' house in the village

The reason we were all visiting the village today was to honor the town saint, Sveta Marinela.  I had celebrated Lozovo’s slava in October (Sveta Petka), so I had some ideas as to what the celebration would be like.  However, the music, tables of food and beer, and oro were not part of the celebration at this slava.  Instead, we enjoyed a nice family lunch with beans and fish.  Usually this type of meal is served during fasting times in the Church calendar (ie. during Sveti Nikola, which takes place a few weeks before Christmas).  I am not sure why we were observing the fasting diet during this occasion.  

According to legend, Sveta Marilena became infuriated when the villagers were working the fields on her day.  As punishment, she engulfed them in fire and flew them in the air.  According to my host brother, these people did not die, but it is unclear if they lived the rest of their lives as smoldering carcasses.  In order to honor her (and possibly appease her temper), they nominated her as the village saint.


Host niece, also named Marinela, playing with some puppies 
My host mother and host nephew washing their hands

Inside the church near the graveyard


Visiting the deceased relatives in the village graveyard


After finishing our dinner, we visited the local graveyard to pay respects to my host-mother’s deceased relatives.  We were able to enter the adjacent church that was built in 1864.  According to the Church Slavonic written above the door, the church was built to ward off a plague that was killing all of the livestock.  After a few hours in the village, I appreciated seeing a part of Macedonia that I experienced every day in Lozovo.   

Sunday, July 27, 2014

Pivo Fest

Pivo Fest is the biggest celebration that Prilep hosts each year.  It is usually a four-day event that takes place in the middle of July.  Highlighted during this event is skara (grilled meat/ BBQ), live music, and of course, beer.  One may compare this to Oktoberfest, but even though the beer flows cheaply, the choices are still limited.  For many, it did not matter about the diversity of beers, because Skopsko outdid Prilep this year by selling 6 beers for 4 Euros.  That rebate in itself led to many people’s shameful downfall.

In regards to the live acts, it was surprising how diverse the musical performances were.  Many of the stars from Adrian X Factor, including the Macedonian winner, Daniel Kajmakoski, the runner-up, Maid, and the ever-so-beautiful judge, Emina Jahovic, were highlights.  Many of the other singers were Yugoslavia-era folk singers, hired to appeal to the older generations.  Lucky for us, there was even an American ska band that played on Thursday night!  (If you want to find out more about the event, feel free to visit its official website at http://www.pivofestival.mk)

Now, over the four days that Pivo Fest took place, Thursday was my favorite.  It is estimated that over 100,000 people come to Prilep to enjoy the festival, but hardly any of these visitors came to Pivo Fest on Thursday.  Therefore, the streets were empty, lines for beer and meat were short, and it was easy to run into many of my local friends during that night.  Only three guests stayed by me on Thursday- Kelly, her friend from the States, and Jake.  We enjoyed a quick game of beer pong before descending into the center.  While I missed Daniel’s perform, I really enjoyed the Ukrainian DJ.  Listening to live EDM played in the main square of my town felt like somebody dropped an EDM festival onto my site.  All of my friends, and even my host brother from Poland, gathered in a circle, and many of us enjoyed dancing the night away until 3AM.  It was such a fun night that even Jake danced (and he usually never dances).

Ready for the grilled meat


Daniel Kajmakoski singing!

Some of Prilep's EVS volunteers





Listing to EDM with my host brother
 
EDM Artist from Ukraine

Friday was the dreaded day when everyone would arrive at my place.  I really looked forward to seeing everybody, but I definitely take hosting seriously.  Most people arrived while we were in the center enjoying some delicious skara.  Prilep is supposedly famous for its grilled meat, and according to Terri, an RPCV who recently left Prilep, the first two days are best for enjoying skara.  The meat tastes noticeably worse on Saturday and Sunday because many of the stands that cook meat have no refrigerators to store them properly.  After eating some grilled chicken on a Saturday, it became evident that she was speaking the truth.

Saturday started out slow, but Emily and I quickly switched into gears to cook breakfast for everyone staying at my place.  Due to some generous bed-sharing, only two of nine people were forced to sleep on the ground on Friday night.  After we digested our food, a few headed to the pool while Emily, Jake, Dave, and I went for a quick run.  We all then headed to the center where we enjoyed the newly opened Turkish Doner place.  It was secluded and empty, so the restaurant served as our respite before we dived head first into another night of Pivo Fest.  We kept ordering the Turkish teas, which surprisingly had a high level of caffeine.  After downing three Turkish teas, Jake, Dave, and I had the bright idea to share a bottle of rakija, chasing it with heavily caffeinated beverages.  Spoiler Alert! The night ended fine, and we were actually more sober than we thought we would be.

Main street lined with Pivo Fest


So much skara!!!

And beer!






YMLP Reunion- Yellow, White, and Black Counselors

Enjoying Turkish Tea at the Doner Place

Ready for our night of rakija


Some of Prilep's volunteers



Just before sunset, we met the other volunteers in the center, and as large groups do, just stood around and talked.  Many decided to partake in bumper cars or other carnival rides.  Eventually, I became tired and disgruntled, and hoping to shake some of my inebriety off, urged others to go to the concert to listen to music and dance.  Nobody was interested, so Brian, Emily, and I decided to go home, eat some burek, maybe have a mini dance party, and then go to bed.  With this plan, I would be able to end the Saturday night of Pivo Fest peacefully and early.

All of that changed when I received a call from the PCV from Kochani who was staying by me.  He happened to run into EVS volunteers working in his town (originally from Turkey) who were in Prilep for the festival.  They mentioned to him that their plans for lodging had fallen through in the last minute, so they asked his permission to stay by my place.  At first I conceded, but since it was 2AM and I worried about my host family, I called him back and told him that there was no way I would let strangers into my host family’s home at 2AM.  He indicated understanding and hung up the phone.

Just as Emily, Brian, and I had finished eating our bureks and were ready for bed, 6 Turkish volunteers and 5 of the other PCVs who were staying at my place showed up at my front door.  Still intoxicated from drinking all day, prepared to fall asleep, and now angry and disappointed in my friend, I tried my best to come up with a solution.  There was no way that I could turn away guests that were at my (or my host family’s) front door, but there was also a limited amount of space in which they could sleep.  My mind instantly started running different configurations where to place people, and at one point I told the Turkish girls (they were all girls except for one guy) that one of them would have to sleep with a certain male PCV volunteer (not me, I am not that smooth).  In response to my answer, they stared back at me in reluctance, which is understandable because that was not a reasonable request.  I also was not sure if being a good host meant offering them alcohol, and at one point accidentally offered them olive oil since we exhausted most of my stock the night before.  It became evident I did not have the state of mind nor the patience to deal with this problem properly.

Eventually things worked out as two PCVs slept on the balcony and three or four of the Turkish girls managed to fit on a twin-sized bed (even though they were twenty years old, they looked like they were fourteen, which makes it even creepier that my friend brought them back to my place).  Morning came around, and as we woke from the confusion of the night before, we laughed at a story that was humorous in retrospect.  By mid-afternoon, all of the PCVs had left my apartment, and I scoured my apartment to rid it of Pivo Fest’s lingering existence.

Sunday was the last day of the festival, so Husted and I joined Prilep’s EVS volunteers in the center to see Maid and Emina sing.  It was a very sober, yet pleasant outing, but it was not as exciting as the preceding three days.  After waiting for and catching a glimpse of Emina sing, my task was fulfilled, and I returned home.


As this post shows, Pivo Fest is definitely a unique experience in Peace Corps Macedonia.  In the end, I had worried for months about hosting Pivo Fest, but many of the memories that we shared over these days make up for any stress I may have incurred.

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Alcohol: In Macedonia and in Peace Corps

This past weekend, Prilep hosted Pivo Fest, or Beer Fest.  It was a 4-day, annual celebration that typically attracts over 100,000 visitors to our small town.  Since discovering that I would live in Prilep, I was both excited for and worried about this festival.  I was happy to know that the town that I lived in commemorated a day to beer and grilled meat.  But I also worried about hosting other PCVs from other towns and protecting my reputation (and the reputation of Americans) within my site.

Before I write a post about what happened this Pivo Fest, I feel like I need to write a disclaimer.  Thus this post serves as that, as well as an overall explanation of the attitude and culture of alcohol and drinking in the Republic of Macedonia, as well as among PCVs.  It is a post that I have mentally prepared to write for my whole service, and it has taken me almost a full year to grasp the drinking culture in this country.

First Impressions
As I was preparing to embark to Macedonia, I had some stereotypes about drinking among Slavic cultures.  Many of us Americans share the same stereotypes- that people from cold climates, like Russia, Ukraine, and Poland, drink liters of vodka each day, especially in the winters to keep warm.  When I first hung out with RPCVs in Chicago, some of them who lived in countries like Georgia and Turkmenistan said that it is expected of men to drink a whole bottle of liquor on nights of hanging out with the locals.  I mentally prepared myself to give my liver a rough beating until it was trained to tolerate as much liquor as these rumors were telling me.

As we arrived to Macedonia, I instinctively avoided drinking too much alcohol among the locals so that I can be more attentive to the language and pick up on subtle cultural cues.  For example, when we first arrived at our training sites, I refused beer or alcohol, and instead drank water, just to make sure that my host family did not think that I drink too much. 

By the time we had our training for alcohol safety at a hub day in Kumanovo, the Peace Corps training staff used their whole arsenal to diffuse any misconceptions we had about the drinking culture in Macedonia.  Overall, they agreed that, yes, Macedonia has a drinking culture.  But it is more of a sipping culture, and it is not the binge drinking culture like the stereotypes may say.  Rakija, wine, or beer are drunk during most meals, and during special occasions, but they are drunk slowly and enjoyed over company.  While men, and sometimes women, are expected to drink during dinner or during special occasions, the HCNs highly disapprove upon binge drinking and of people becoming too imbibed. 

My whole training group in Lozovo wholeheartedly adapted this policy.  Not only did we avoid getting drunk, but we would sometimes go for a walk or hide behind our classroom when we wanted to enjoy one beer with each other.  Lozovo was a small town, and we knew that any mistakes we made when being drunk, or simply by being seen too many times drinking (even with one beer) in the streets may hurt our reputation.  In small towns, word travels faster than the trains.  During my whole time in training, I only got drunk once, and after being too loud while walking in the streets during that moment, I thought my reputation would be ruined in the village (Luckily, it was not.  My PST host mom never even mentioned how silly I was that day).  Similarly, all PCVs looked forward to hub days for the simple fact that we could enjoy more than a couple of beers in the company of Americans.  Hub days were our sanctuary, because we were in a town where people did not know us personally, and even if we became buzzed that evening, by the time our kombi drove us back to our village, the alcohol would have been processed completely within our system, leaving us much more sober, albeit sleepy.

Change in Atmospheres, Change in Perceptions
By the time I moved to my site in Prilep, my perceptions of alcohol and Macedonian culture changed again.  Here I was in a larger city with plenty of young people, and on the first nights that I went out with them, I was acting like an older person in a small village.  Accustomed to drinking slowly, I experienced culture shock as young people would order bottles of wine and beer in order to get wasted in the clubs.  It took me some time to realize that drinking culture depends on the atmosphere in which one lives.  Smaller villages will be more conservative than larger towns, and thus I had to reshape what I thought about drinking culture.

As I started to go out in Prilep or hang out with my counterparts, I started to question what Peace Corps had taught us.  They had prepared us to adapt to the drinking culture in smaller villages and among older adults.  But they did not prepare us to adapt to the drinking culture among younger people in larger towns.  How much am I expected to drink as a man?  How would those expectations change for women?  Of course, one should always be safe and not binge drink.  But how imbibed is acceptable?  And how imbibed do these young Macedonians expect us to be in order to make them feel comfortable around us when they drink?  My counterparts have complained to me many times that I do not get drunk around them, and they promised me that one of these days they will get me drunk.  Peace Corps had never trained me how to prepare against these statements, nor have they clarified whether statements like these are offhand comments, or if they lie deeper into a subsection of the culture within Macedonia.

One of the cheapest things to do in Macedonia
Even though Macedonia has a sipping culture in regards to alcohol, its legal and economic policies regarding alcohol say otherwise.  Alcohol is everywhere (in Christian communities) and is very cheap to attain.  Most families distill or brew their own rakija or wine.  Many families either own or know somebody who grows their own grapes, and in the fall they distill the alcohol for consumption throughout the year.  Below I will give a quick explanation of the types of alcohol most consumed in Macedonia.

Rakija- This liquor is similar to brandy, and it is often distilled using grapes. However, some families experiment by making rakija with plums or other fruits.  There are typically two types of rakija- “white” and “yellow”.  White rakija is the purest form of the liquor, and yellow rakija is infused with bark during the distilling process, giving it its hue and making the drink slightly “smoother”.  Rakija is usually 80 proof, but many families distill it so that it is much stronger.  Rakija is also usually the cheapest alcoholic beverage available at restaurants, costing less than a euro for a shot (to be sipped, of course).

Wine- I really looked forward to drinking the Macedonian wines before arriving in this country, since I really enjoyed drinking a nice glass of dry, red wine on some nights after working in the USA.  Many will say that Macedonia has a burgeoning wine industry, which is somewhat true, especially since wine here can be pretty cheap (an acceptable bottle of Macedonian red wine costs about 2 euros).  However, most of the wine in Macedonia, either professionally created or homemade, is too sweet in my opinion.  Also, most wines are slightly carbonated or fizzy.  Many Macedonians continue to mix their wines, fusing red with cola and white with sparkling water.  I have likewise adapted this practice, mixing red wine with diet cola, since the wine is nothing like a good cabernet sauvignon in the USA, and otherwise is already bubbly and too sweet.

Beer- I have never been disappointed by the beer in Macedonia because I came to this country with low expectations.  It is almost impossible to get any beer in Macedonia that is not a pilsner or a lager.  Beers here are designed to be light and refreshing.  It seems that the Macedonian palette is not designed for hoppy, bitter, or sweeter beers.  Again, buying a bottle of beer is cheap (one can purchase a Zlaten Dab, in my opinion the best tasting beer in Macedonia, for about 2 euros for a plastic 1.5L bottle).  Thus, these light, tasteless beers are designed to refresh and intoxicate.

Our Sweet Escape
Now given all that I described here about the drinking culture in Macedonia, one must be aware of the problems that alcohol poses to the Peace Corps world.  In most countries where PCVs are stationed, alcohol is a major obstacle to a volunteer’s service.  Of course, in some countries alcohol is forbidden (ie. many Islamic countries) or traditionally frowned upon when women consume it.  But most countries experience some sort of incident with PCVs becoming too drunk and making a scene.  For example, a PC staff from HQ once told us that a group of agricultural development volunteers, who were mostly males and recent graduates, had figuratively destroyed their host country (Zambia) through their incessant drinking and drunken romping. 

Even though most PCVs join Peace Corps with good intentions, one can understand how alcohol can be the ideal escape.  As volunteers try to adapt to culture shock, experience difficulties with host families or counterparts, miss family and friends back home, feel isolated in their community, or start to get bored or despondent at their work sites, alcohol may be the only available release for these volunteers. 

PCVs in Macedonia may not experience the isolated, alcoholic-like issues that other PCVs from other parts of the world may face, since we usually have access to wi-fi internet in our places, or since it is relatively easy to leave site and make it to a larger town within a couple of hours.  However, adapting to a new culture, living with host families, and struggling with a slower or different work environment often leads us with urges to relax and throw a few back among other Americans.  Thus, if we decide to binge drink, we will often do so among ourselves in enclosed settings.  We will escape to some apartment, become intoxicated among ourselves, and if we decide to go out, we will choose a club or other loud, dark space where we can blend in with the surroundings. 

Thus, most PCVs in Macedonia have adopted a two-faced approach to alcohol drinking.  Generally, we restrict how much we drink around HCNs and try our best to preserve our reputations publicly.  However, when we get together as a group of Americans, we will secretly indulge in alcohol drinking in order to avoid creating a scene.  We try to simultaneously find an instantaneous escape from our troubles while preserving the reputation of Americans and ourselves in our host country.  In a way, our approach to drinking alcohol is similar to the approach of the average Macedonian youth, since they often stick to binge drinking in the clubs in order to avoid being talked about in the rumor mill that is often Macedonia.  In other words, you will seldom see a Macedonian youth walk around drunk during the day, or get wasted at a family party (ie. at an imenden, or name day event).

So here is where this prelude leads to Pivo Fest.  Pivo Fest is everybody’s excuse to be publicly intoxicated.  One can compare Pivo Fest to Oktoberfest, or for a more local comparison, to the South Side Irish Parade a few years back.  The main square of Prilep is filled with stands of beer and BBQ, and music is playing at every station.  On this holiday, Macedonians release their inhibitions and are more inclined to be publicly intoxicated.  Now do not get me wrong- people are not rambunctious and destroying the city.  However, women are more likely to drink more than a couple of beers in clear daylight, and men are more likely to release their drunken emotions in song and dance as they sit among friends.  And since everybody accepts that this behavior is normal for Pivo Fest, people are less likely to spread rumors that they saw this person or that person get drunk in the center.


So, in the spirit of “When in Rome,” the PCVs who came to Pivo Fest had a grand ole time.  And at this point, I think most readers will understand how unique Pivo Fest is, and that PCVs in Macedonia do not embark on these types of celebrations every week within service.   Pivo Fest is a lot of fun, but it is also an anomaly.