The weekend before last I was in Skopje, Macedonia�s capital, visiting my best Macedonian friend Marija. She and I met online during the end of summer/beginning of fall 2002, when I had just been invited to serve in Peace Corps Macedonia. I was looking for information on Macedonia, and found her on a page called virtual tourist. I was pleased to discover that her English is on one of the highest levels of fluency possible.
We began a correspondence and met after I had been in Macedonia for a few months. In the last year and a half we have become very close, and hang out together when we can. I have met her aunt from Greece and lots of her other relatives, attended her college graduation party, walked around Skopje shopping and sitting for drinks, looked at her photo albums, and passed countless hours discussing everything and anything we could think of. Right now she is on a well-deserved vacation to Spain.
I have probably spent at least 20 weekends at her parents� apartment in Skopje, and consider it a kind of surreal refuge from the confusion, ambiguity and frustration that to me, is sometimes Macedonia. When I am with her, I feel like things make sense, and when I am in different situations I always try to imagine what she would do, or say, or how she would react. I guess that is my futile attempt to make sense of that which cannot be explained!! Maybe the bottom line is that it is difficult for me to picture her in many of the environments that I find myself in here in this country. In any case my relationship with her is one of the highlights of my time in the Peace Corps, one of the best friends and most interesting, genuine people I have ever met, anywhere, period.
Anyhow, that weekend I also attended the going-away party for Scott, a volunteer from our MAK 7 group that terminated his contract with Peace Corps and moved from his village site to the capital last fall on a business venture. His time in Macedonia has now ended and he is going back to the States, so it was nice to say goodbye and to see everyone again.
This evening I had the usual Monday night �directional� meeting with my colleagues for the week. I am excited to begin building the Kladenec Ecological Association web page � we had one up until recently when we could no longer pay the webmaster and our pages got yanked. So, now I am all about building a free one, and I am looking forward to it. Earth Day is coming up in a few weeks, and we are planning actions for tree planting, paper collection for transport to the capital (the only place in the country where you can recycle) and � I will keep my fingers crossed � some kind of action to clean up the riverbed. It runs through town and seems to be some kind of gathering point for trash.
Tomorrow I will probably work on some lesson plans because I plan to start teaching my colleagues English. Of course, they are all at different levels of speaking, reading, writing, and so forth, so it might get tricky! In any case I have lots of ideas and it should be fun. I remember when Radmila was teaching Steve, Jill, Jay, Katy & I Macedonian back during PST, she would say �Jas� and then throw a little paper ball to one of us, and we would have to come back with �Sum�, or �Ti�, �Si�, and so on, and throw the ball back. I think I will try that for grins.
Today for the first time I wore sandals to work, and since it was the weekly market day, I walked through the open area contemplating green onions and bananas while people looked in shock and amazement at my bare feet; most tsk-ed, and some even took the time to inform me that I was �barefoot� � as I wasn�t aware of that. =-) I was wearing a tee shirt with a light sweater, a long skirt, and platform sandals, and everywhere around me people were wearing boots, hats, sweaters, and coats. My heart is happy, because spring is here, we have already sprung forward on the clocks a week ahead of the States, the days are getting longer, the weather is warmer, and I relish everyday the warm sun on my face. This Sunday we will celebrate the beginning of spring like we did last year � by cleaning our office!!