Near the крај of training

Since we arrived in Macedonia on September 11th, we've been in pre-service training, and finally tomorrow we will all be sworn in as Peace Corps volunteers in a ceremony to be held near the city of Kumanovo. The current US ambassador and high-level Macedonian government officials will be in attendance, along with two members of each home stay family from the training communities of Kratovo, Probishtip, Lozovo, and Romanovce. It will be an ironic moment for me, since the oath of service will be take is almost identical to the one I had to swear to back when I was commissioned as an officer in the Navy in 2004. Just replace "United States Navy" with "US Peace Corps". I suppose that means I have no excuse to screw it up! In addition to various speeches and presentations by each training community, I also have the honor to jointly speak on behalf our training class and will give a short speech in the Macedonian language to recognize the people who helped us get through training and prepared us for our future work sites. My friend and fellow volunteer Carly and I prepared the speech in English, and she will give the Albanian language translation. It is a bit humorous that the largest audience I've ever had for a presentation will listen to me speak in Macedonian rather than English. Once the ceremony is over we will have a big Thanksgiving dinner with all of our host families courtesy of the dozens of turkeys flown in from the US for the event. Apparently last year's dinner was quite a free-for-all for food, so it should be an entertaining and fun experience. On Friday I will leave Kratovo for my permanent work site in Obleshevo, and I will also meet my new host family for the next two years. I just found out today that this will be a different family/home from what I visited a few weeks ago, but it sounds like a good living situation.

This past weekend Mary and I managed to get out of our training communities for an excursion to the wine-growing region of Macedonia in the Southeast, and stayed overnight at the Popova Kula winery in Demir Kapija. While we only had about 24 hours in the area, it was totally worth every minute, as we had a chance to walk around a beautiful river/gorge area, taste several different types of wines, and had a incredibly nice dinner at the winery. The winery itself is one of the most impressive places I've visited yet in Macedonia. Everyone at the winery we met was extremely professional, spoke fluent English, and it was just plainly obvious that they knew what they were doing there. It reminded me of the nicer wineries I've had a chance to visit in California, only with friendlier staff. Here are some additional photos: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150374088984117.350403.525244116&type=1&l=f976d5d6c3

First Visit to Obleshevo

Today I just returned from a two-day visit to the village of Obleshevo, where I will spend the next two years working as a volunteer at the municipality of Cheshinovo-Obleshevo. Thankfully, the trip to get there was not particularly arduous since it is a relatively short distance away from my training site in Kratovo. Several of us decided to take a taxi to the town of Probishtip, where we proceeded to catch another taxi to the larger city of Shtip. Finally, I got on a bus from Shtip to Obleshevo, and ran into a couple of other volunteers going to their sites in Kochani and Makedonska Kamenica.

After a short bus ride, I arrived in Obleshevo, and met up with one of my counterparts (Dragica), met a few people at the Opshtina (municipality), and went off to the nearby (6km) town of Kochani for a two hour meeting with representatives from 11 different municipalities in eastern Macedonia regarding PR and tourism promotion (as far as I could understand, it was all in Macedonian). We returned back to the municipality afterwards for a meeting with the mayor (gradonachalnik), and then met with him one-on-one for about an hour (again all in Macedonian). My other counterpart (Blagoja) joined us at some point and then I went with him to his family's house in Cheshinovo after work for rychek (the main meal of the day). I enjoyed spending time with the family and they were definitely curious about me! Later in the evening we went over to a coworker's house for about an hour to chat and then went home (I stayed at my counterpart's house during my site visit). Exhausting but good day!

The next day in the morning I sat in on a 7th grade English language class at the primary school in Obleshevo (just a short walk from the opshtina), walked around town with a coworker, met some local business owners and toured a rice factory, and drove around various villages in the municipality with some coworkers to post flyers advertising a community forum to be held Nov 3 (today).

Also, I visited my new home- a two story house about 5 min walk from the opshtina in Obleshevo. I will be sharing the house with the two children of the landlady who lives in a house next door. The children are both in their mid 20s and work during the day, one I think is a nurse in Kochani. Apparently they eat their meals with their mother, so the kitchen space is basically mine, along with the refrigerator. My room itself seems pretty small and there was no bed in place yet, but I think it will work out ok. Here is a link to a Facebook album with some more photos: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150343758019117.345981.525244116&type=1&l=425f2c4b60

It was great to have a chance to see some of the municipality and get my bearings...I have a feeling that I'll plan some running routes to random villages once I move on the 25th just to figure out where things are. Fortunately, the mountains that surround the valley aren't too far, maybe 6km or so. Much better than living in Nebraska, when you had to go to Colorado to find the mountains. I am planning to buy a bike at some point after I move later this month, not only assist with my hiking plans but also to allow me to get to Kochani easier. Obleshevo does not have a bank in town and has a fairly limited selection of small food stores, so I think I will need to go to Kochani fairly often for groceries and other necessities.

Overall, it was a good visit to my future home. I've never lived in a village, so it will be an adjustment for sure, but I am excited that the people I've met at the opshtina are extremely nice and welcoming. There seems to be ample opportunity to contribute as a volunteer, and I look forward to seeing what that is once I've had a chance to get to know the community and how I can fit in.