I went to a couple Macedonian parties over the past couple weeks. The first was Etno Day, which is sort of like 'Tradition Day'. Risto, Zlatko, and I went to a picnic and festival in a random village near Strumica, in the SE part of Macedonia. The festival had loads of traditional Macedonian food and kids wore traditional Macedonian dress. The kids put on a dance that I assume people here used to dance. The fact that it was a random village struck me. Every year this festival occurs at the end of October and I wonder if every year, the residents of the village think to themselves, "Here are those city yahoos again" or something like that. That's what we would do in America. About 60 or so people showed up. The village is adjacent to a waterfall and after the festival, everybody hiked up the hill to the waterfall. The pictures of it were pretty cool. Well, being there was pretty cool too.
That hill was damn high too. I was winded after going up it.
About a week after that, my host family had a 'Svadba'. My family is Orthodox and from what I surmise, the Orthodox have Saints, like the Catholics. 'Svadba' is when the patron saint of the family has his day. I'm not explaining this well, but every Saint has a day. So, the 'Svadba' is the celebration of the family. We went out to the farm in the village and nobody tells me anything before it happens. So, when we went out to the village, I was expecting just the close family, but when I walked inside the house, there was prolly around 30-40 people. It was intimidating, man, because I don't speak Macedonian and the vast majority of these people (especially the older ones) don't speak English, but that doesn't stop them from talking a mile a minute in Macedonian to me. Running through my mind at the time: "FUUUUUUUUU..."
But I lucked out. There were so many people, they all just sorta let me be. And I know that's the wrong attitude to have. But, it is so hard to actively partake in conversation when you can't understand it. And you feel bad. Because you don't wanna seem impolite. But, you really don't understand what is happening.
As the party died down and people started to leave, I was talking basketball with some of the younger people. Kids love basketball over here, especially the NBA. I told them how growing up I watched Michael Jordan and how I thought he was the bets of all time. Then we talked about today's players, like Derrick Rose and Kevin Durant. Like I said, they just love basketball. And football. I talked a little football with them. I told them how Wesley Sneijder is my favorite footballer. Prolly cuz he's like the only one I know! It ended up being a lot of fun.
This past Sunday, I chopped wood. Over here, wood heaters are the norm and obviously, to obtain fuel for such heater, you chop it. It was a whole day process. We began in the village doing the chopping. Then, at around 1pm, we load up the trailer on a tractor with the pieces. And the trailer was full mind you. When we got back to the apartment, we put the wood in sacks, standard burlap size, and hauled them to the basement of the apartment building, where the family has a storage locker. Risto is a master at this. I am utterly convinced after this that he could be one of the world's greatest Tetris players if he tried. We stacked a trailer full of wood into what was a 4'x4' area. At the beginning of the stacking process, I would have bet my entire life savings that couldn't be done. And it couldn't if the family used my strategy, which would have been to just dump the wood on the ground as quickly as possible to be done with it. But that's why he's the Macedonian and I'm the American. I don't think I have ever been as tired as I was at the end of the today. I am terrible at chopping wood and I think some of the older guys seem to take a little pleasure at seeing the American make an ass of himself.
I took my final language assessment today. I'm sure I passed, which is a relief. I will get the marks back on Monday, but nothing to worry about. As far as the Peace Corps is concerned, I am functional in Macedonian. But, IRL, that isn't true. Our swearing in (where we become 'official' volunteers, and not just trainees) is Thanksgiving. The Friday afterwards, I will move to my site in Resen and the Monday after that, I will begin my job in the municipality building in Resen.
Once more, I apologize for the late posting. I will do better in the future.
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