I finally was coerced into taking my Mid-Service (which passed many months ago) Language Proficiency Interview. My fear of the tape recorder, as well as my worsening health problems in March, caused me to take evasive action when the time for my interview came. Having it over with feels good; I was truly making something big out of nothing. I had a few glasses of wine before the interview, and I received an �Advanced� rating. Ne zajbavaj! (No kidding!) Now I just need to work on hypothesizing more with the appropriate verb conjugations in order to receive an �Advanced High� or �Advanced Superior�, the only remaining levels, on my COS conference LPI in 4-5 months from now. I think I smirked to myself for an HOUR after Ivana came and told me. Certainly I drank more wine.
What is more interesting is the lightning storm that struck (not literally, I suppose) my town the night before I left for Oteshevo. It was Sunday the 13th and lightning and thunder were attacking from the dark sky. The sound was fierce. I curled on the couch reading and flinching in dismay, although it�s nothing new for up here in the mountains. I avoided connecting my modem. I plugged in my water distiller to run another gallon through; I already had my water bottle packed for the cross-country journey the next day, but I was thinking ahead about returning to the apartment after a week and having a full jug ready. Nothing happened when I turned it on, and convinced it had finally given out on me after almost 17 months, I searched for the owner�s manual. Finally in exasperation I moved the whole unit to another plug, and voila! Too tired to be suspicious, I went to bed and let it run as usual.
In the morning (truth be told, only about 3 hours later), I rose at 4:30 am (to shower and let my hair air-dry as much as possible before leaving the house at 6 am) (Did I mention my hair is LONG?). I turned on the stove to make tea and oatmeal, but, nothing! I switched on the kitchen water heater, nothing. I opened the fridge, dark. Shite! I went to shower and the plug in the bathroom didn�t work � no heat. I took a fast shower, shivering, annoyed that my washing machine wasn�t operable although I had nothing to wash at that hour. Indeed, as usual, my hamper was near-empty and a variety of clean, damp clothes were drying on the metal rack in my back bedroom. But I couldn�t have verified this visually; upon marching into my room to find something to wear, I flicked on the bedroom light, and you guessed it, nothing.
I was lucky enough that Nikola was heading part of the way in my direction so I could sleep in a little bit more and go with him at 6 am rather than catching the 5:15 am van to Skopje. Even though Oteshevo is on the southwest corner of the country, the eastern and western parts of Macedonia aren�t connected whatsoever, so in order to go from one side to the other (I live about as far east as you can go without tripping and falling into Bulgaria) you need to go to the capital. (I mean this both of terms of roads being connected, or lack thereof, as well as the public bus transportation system.) So after spending a couple of tired hours in Skopje, I went to the Skopje bus station to find the �one and only� bus that goes directly, supposedly, from Skopje to Oteshevo, a very small town on Prespa Lake. (Prespa Lake is shared partly at its corners with Albania and Greece.)
I had forgotten that the employees of the Skopje bus station have all been on strike since I-don�t-know-when. That means you can�t call and verify bus times; indeed, you can�t even buy a bus ticket. So if you don�t know the schedule, sucks to be you. I took a taxi from the Peace Corps office (their official vehicles that were going down were all full of staff) to the bus station and was almost immediately accosted by street vendors trying to yank my suitcase out of my hand. �No! Get the ^@*# away from me!� I told them in their native tongue. The biggest effect of that was laughing and more people following me.
I made it through the turnstile, and almost asked a question of a couple of older men there, until they started shouting out names of towns and I realized they were cab drivers trying to steal me as a customer. Disturbed, I realized slowly that the chaos normally present at the capital�s filthy bus station had at least quadrupled, order and schedule disintegrating into a free-for-all. Different bus line representatives had set up small card tables with signs, shouting out fares to different towns all over Macedonia.
As I stood waiting over an hour for the bus Peace Corps told me would arrive at 13:30 (which never came) I was approached by begging gypsy children, street vendors selling everything from socks to kleenex, bus station transients demanding to know where I was going, and foul-smelling cab drivers sidling up to me saying �I can help you, let me help you�. I walked back and forth so many times to get away from all of them that I had toured the whole (as if it were a large place) bus station without ever seeing my bus. I did run into the van driver from my town, Igor, which made me feel a little better. I parked my suitcase next to him and chatted as if I weren�t alone. He asked me where I was going and when I told him, he just cocked his head, and smiled and said, �You will find a way.�
Shortly thereafter, three other Peace Corps Volunteers � Liz, Beth, and Shaun � ran up, calling my name and said, �Hey! You�re here? We just found a bus!� And off we went. When I returned to Pehcevo on the 18th, having had forgotten to hand over my keys to Nikola, my plants were all still alive, I had plenty of water ready to drink, and everything in my house that hadn�t been working had mysteriously come back to life. (Bedroom light was on and very hot, nothing in the fridge was spoiled because it was innocently working as if nothing had ever happened, etc�.)