It isn�t quite as simple as it sounds. On the news in California, they interview someone for less than a minute, the reporter firing question after question. Here, the reporter says a couple of words to introduce the person, and then the person proceeds to talk, and talk, and talk... I have watched interviews and shows where the person spoke, uninterrupted, for longer than forty-five minutes. This is MORE than too much for me, it�s ludicrous. I would love to see people who think I should be doing this go live in another country and speak on television in a foreign language, and just watch them squirm.
I felt dreadful all morning just waiting for them to come (and waiting, and waiting). When they finally did, the �reporter� was a lady I had never met. She had no clue how much I understood and how much I didn�t understand. She started asking me all these questions with her lovely local dialect and I felt like a real moron. I was so nervous when they started talking to me off camera, that I totally flaked and told Jasminka I couldn�t do it. All their staring at me didn�t really help. I have not felt so uncomfortable since, well, probably just the other day, but anyhow.
Jasminka suggested that I speak just a few things about why I came here, where I am from, and so on, but by then I was so nervous that I could barely say anything in any language. Just looking at the lens of that camera out of the corner of my eye made me feel sick. I would rather get up in front of two hundred kids and speak (which funnily enough I have to do tomorrow at the school) than be broadcast on Macedonian television so everyone can make fun of me for days to come. Jasminka offered for me to speak in English and for her to translate, but I refused. That wouldn�t be true to why I am here, and besides, I speak Macedonian. I just have a problem with sounding like a five-year old on television. It�s bad enough having to sound like that in front of my host family, guys, my neighbors, little kids who cuss me out and laugh because I don�t understand...
Maybe a negative attitude, but I don�t like being on the spot when I know I am not on the same level in this capacity as the others. I felt bad and I know Jasminka and the people from the television station were disappointed, but I can�t help it. Jasminka did the whole interview in a much more competent and professional way than I could have, which ultimately is the point, as far as I am concerned. Sometimes it is still difficult for me to even determine the sequences of events for this weekend, as they seem to fluctuate a little bit. The only thing that made me feel better at all was the reporter and cameraman congratulating me on my language, after hearing I have been here now five months and one day.
Nikola, one of my colleagues, made a joke once about gathering a crowd outside of the television station (the first time I went there supposedly to record a radio spot and we never got around to it, we just drank a lot of coffee) and making everyone scream for my autograph when I came out. Some say that being in the Peace Corps is the closest most people will ever come to being a rock star. I have to draw the line at being a TV star right now. Trying to answer questions in a professional forum when I don�t understand, and wondering why they still keep staring expectantly at me after I have run out of things to say in any language, just doesn�t appeal to me. if a reporter hurriedly comes up to me, asks me an easy question, and then thanks me and leaves me the hell alone...fine.