I am a week away from a full month of being in Macedonia and boy has it felt longer. Next week we are planning on celebrating by having a small cookout, while we still can, before the cold weather sets in for the long haul.
Oh, by the way, let me know (aka email me) if you ever want to Skype. I’ve been able to touch base with a few people this week and it is a great thing for me. It reminds me that America is still there and makes me feel that I am just away for a little while. It helps to be able to talk to someone as if really no time has passed since I last talked to that individual. Let’s keep that rolling.
This week I feel like I am finally hitting some sort of schedule for myself, which helps me to feel grounded and makes it easier for me to focus on the tasks at hand, which really is learning the language and spending time with my family. So, I have been waking in the morning and running for various lengths of time with a longer run, about an hour, happening on Saturday or Sunday. Then it's time for class and after that home for lunch.
I normally eat what I consider breakfast and lunch alone. I am pretty sure my host parents do not eat breakfast during the week and the kids eat something in the morning after I have left for class. Lunch for me is around 12:30pm. The family does not eat at that time because the main meal in Macedonian houses does not happen till 4pm and I usually cannot wait that long. So I try to eat just a little around noon and then eat again around 4pm, though today it wasn’t until 4:50pm. Then a smaller amount of food - tomatoes, cucumbers, cheese - comes out around 8pm or so for people to munch on as they please, but I try not to eat that late.
We eat a lot of tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers. I never realized that one group of people could consume as many peppers as Macedonians do. But on the flip side, most all of the food I consume is grown on the land around the house or the farm plots near my host mother’s mom’s house, around the corner. So far I have helped the family pick grapes, apples, and peppers and have helped to make ajvar, a pepper spread that can sometimes have eggplant in it too. For the most part all the food has been good; I think I have only passed on one meal.
So, after the main meal we often go over to the host mother’s mom’s house or someone from the family may come here (like her sister, husband and the cousins). This is called на гости and really it’s just the act of going and visiting people. This is something I have always felt uncomfortable doing back home, just going to someone’s house to sit around and talk, and really to talk about nothing much all. It would always make me apprehensive cause I would think about all the other things I should or could be doing at the time, instead of just sitting around and talking. I am starting to get a little more accustomed to the practice now, though it is difficult not really being able to fully engage in the conversation, but each time there are more and more words I can pick out. Oh and an important part of these visits is having coffee, the female host always makes the coffee and serves everyone. Soda and rakija, locally brewed whiskey, is also an option, though the men are really the ones who do most of the drinking of alcohol.
Something that I really need to try to do is spend regular time with one of the Albanian families (while I still can) and listen and try to speak the language with them. The house I am in now speaks Macedonian and so I really only hear Albanian in class. So that’s a goal for the next week. This weekend is more Community Development training and the chance to see other training communities. I’m excited about getting to see more parts of the country.
making ajvar
Enid and host dad
the comb
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