American Christmas in Macedonia after one month at site

It's been a few weeks since my last posting, so I figure it was time for an update. The month of December has been an eventful one, though my work at the municipality has been relatively slow. Many people at the office are busy trying to finish their end-of-year requirements (like accounting audits) but for me, definitely not busy yet. As we were repeatedly told throughout PST, the first couple of months are often slow, and also I think being placed in a small village without previous work with Peace Corps volunteers could be a factor. It will take them sometime to figure out what it is I can do, while it will take me time to get better at the language (particularly the dialect) and figure out how I can make my own contribution. It's not like I haven't been sitting around doing nothing, though. I've been in contact with another volunteer based in southeastern Macedonia with extensive knowledge of agriculture and the business world in general, and he has put me in touch with some people who might be able to work with the Rice Cluster (a cooperative of rice producers in the municipality) to address their desire to find international markets for their special brand of rice. I've also done some research on some programs that could be useful, such as study tours and knowledge transfer opportunities, but it is very much a work in progress at this stage. I'm glad at least to have a little more to focus my attention on, but mainly I just want feel more comfortable with the language. On the plus side, I've spent a lot of time reading Macedonian news articles and my vocabulary list is growing daily. I'm not going to lie, knowing how to Russian well is a huge help.

Outside of work, I have spent a lot of time both at home and visiting the nearby town of Kocani (9km) in the past few weeks. One of the volunteers from our class, Morgan, lives in Kocani and we have become good friends fast, and it practically feels like we are neighbors, except for the fact that I have to rely on unreliable buses and taxis that run through my village to get there. I have become quite used to standing at the bus stop for 40+ minutes and freezing my butt off waiting for a bus. The main problem is that buses are either a few minutes early or really late. So you have to arrive early in case of the former, but most of the time the latter is the norm. Last week I waited an hour and 20 minutes for a bus (partly due to weather) in the blowing snow. It was cold. But anyway, Kocani has become my 2nd home, which is nice because I really need to have a break from Macedonia sometimes and spend time with Americans who live nearby. Fortunately they are awesome people so I lucked out with my location in that sense.

Within the village, I've gone na gosti (basically means going over to a friend's house) a few times to my counterpart Blagoja's house, including a special occasion called slava. Slava is a Saint's Day celebration for an individual home, and in this case it was Saint Nicholas (Sveti Nikola). Generally, slavas involve a lot of food and a fair amount of alcohol consumption. In this case, it was more low-key but I also missed the first day of the slava where there were more guests.

Finally, the most recent big event was spending Christmas with my fellow volunteers in the nearby town of Makedonska Kamenica. It was a very nice way to spend a Christmas when away from family back home. In total, we had about 11 people from various sites throughout Macedonia, including places that are practically on the border with Kosovo. We spent the majority of our time just hanging out, making good food, enjoying hot and cold holiday beverages, and doing our best to make something normal out of the abnormal situation of not being home for Christmas. For me, it was my second Christmas away from home. My first was spent on my first deployment in the Navy, somewhere in the South Pacific, and I don't remember much other than watching Elf in the wardroom with my fellow officers. We didn't watch Elf this time, but we got the Grinch, and Love Actually...I would have preferred Elf, but it is funny that we watched Love Actually because it was definitely on the ship's close-circuit feed during Christmas back on that first deployment, and I remember always seeing the last 15 minutes of that movie, never anything before that. Random I suppose. Anyway, some other activities included chopping down real mini Christmas trees (elka is Christmas tree) in the forest near Sara's (our gracious host and legit domakinka) house, making Gingerbread houses, and feasting on three roast chickens and moussaka for Christmas dinner. All of us had a great time, and I can't think of a better way to spend Christmas when abroad and away from family. For now that's all I've got, but I've included some photos below from the last few weeks to show what I've been up to.