A Second Set of Holidays Away from Home

Looking back, last December was probably the least memorable month of Peace Corps service for me, and I am somewhat surprised the poor spirits that I had then.  I was bored with work and completely confused on what to do.  I was integrating with a new family and a new way of living.  Even though I was welcomed warmly by HCNs and my sitemates, compared to PST I felt more solitary.  Furthermore, I was just coming down with my 5-week sickness. It was a rougher month than I how I recall now.

However, this December has been better in terms of being in the holiday mood.  After being so busy with work for most of autumn, I really looked forward to Sveti Nikola, Prilep’s (and more broadly, Macedonia’s) most widely celebrated slava.  As I mentioned in earlier posts, slavas are celebrations where the households cook enough food to fill a table and invite their closest friends and families to drink alcohol and feast.  As part of the Orthodox faith, Advent is also a period for fasting (no meat besides fish), so the typical dishes at the Sveti Nikola dinner include baked beans (similar to tavche gravche), fried breaded fish, cabbage salad, and rice-filled sarma. 

On the Sunday of Career Directions, I returned home for a few hours to help my host mother cut the cabbage leaves, which were stored in brine for some weeks.  These cabbage leaves were cut smaller than usual, since Prilep has a “special” sarma for Sveti Nikola, which is about 5X smaller than the typical sarma (Prilepska sarma is about the size of a tablespoon of butter, so I always think of them as little pillows of delicious goodness).  The big dinner was on the night of December 18, and I forgot how late families typically started eating (around 10:30PM).  I invited Husted again for the dinner, and we all enjoyed hours of endless conversation, this year made easier by my improved Macedonian.  At the end of the night, I volunteered to help my host mother by washing all of the dishes.  Ljube, my host father, worried about my comfort (washing dishes is a “woman’s” job in Macedonia) and told me to sit.  My host mother rebuked him by saying, “Let him wash!”, which I thought was funny because this short debate boiled down to a “Who’s the boss?” situation.  However, I knew how hard my host mother worked to prepare the Sveti Nikola dinner, so I continued to wash the dishes until all had been cleaned.

Prilepska Sarma

Besides attending and helping with the traditional meal, I was also busy with helping our CLIPS students bake cookies for the Sveti Nikola bake sale.  This sale is important for the students because it helps them raise funds for an excursion to Bitola or Skopje.  On Wednesday night (before Sveti Nikola), we all gathered at a CLIPS member’s house to make Christmas cookies.  I am not the biggest fan of baking, so my cooking skills were not helpful in making these treats.  For example, when making the first batch, I mixed many of the dry ingredients, all out of order, which turned those sugar cookies into more of sugar biscotti.  The second batch of sugar cookies were done right, but a visit from Sitemates of Prilep Past (Terri, a MAK16, was the master of baking) would have saved our first disastrous attempt at baking.

On Friday, our CLIPS students gathered in the center to sell the cookies while the square filled with Prilep’s citizens.  A shrine in the square was filled with devout individuals lighting candles, and then the president of Macedonia gave a few words regarding the holiday before scores of Styrofoam boxes of sarma and beans (along with rakija) were distributed to all those in the square.  CLIPS was able to capitalize on the crowds, and with the help of our students’ great selling skills, they were able to sell all of the baked goods and nearly all of the cards, enabling them to raise funds for their next field trip.

While part of enjoying this holiday season was fully participating in the Macedonian holiday of Sveti Nikola, the other part was dragging out the Western-ey Christmas festivities with our American sitemates.  On Sunday, I invited all of the new sitemates (including our Spanish EVS volunteer) to Mexican dinner.  We all gathered at my apartment as most of the MAK19s were returning from their own weekend in Ohrid.  One MAK19 decided to share her care package goodies, so Reese’s peanut butter cups and Cheetohs were devoured along with the tacos (most likely breaking this new group’s hiatus from the cuisine) and watching Love Actually. 

Later that week, a bunch of volunteers gathered for Christmas Eve in Bitola.  Contrasting last year’s desire for some spiritual fulfillment on Christmas, I decided to join the others in attending Catholic mass.  We preceded the service by gathering for a dinner at a nearby kafana, enjoying appetizers and meeting again with many of the MAK19s.  Just like the other mass that I attended last year, this one was delivered mostly in Serbo-Croatian (but also with some parts in Macedonia), but it was not until after the mass that I learned that the priest was Colombian (who spoke fluent Croatian).  Additionally, as the line for communion passed our pews, I noticed that a Filipina was taking communion, and pointed her out to Helen, a MAK19 who is half-Pinoy like me.  Talking with her after mass, we discovered that she married a Macedonian in Toronto, and they were returning to Bitola to visit his family for the holidays.  This woman joked that if you ever want to find a Filipino, no matter which country you may be in, just go to Catholic mass and you will find one (especially on Christmas!).

It is easier to feel more of the Christmas spirit the second time around in Macedonia.  I suppose that the comfort of feeling like Macedonia has become a “home away from home” makes spending Christmas in a foreign country more festive.