Adventures in the Wild, Wild East!

I am one of the first people to admit that I have a pretty cushy PC assignment. I live in a resort town, on the ‘rich’ and ‘well educated’ side of a fairly well developed country. However - this is still the PC and this is still a developing country. Anyhow, I have recently been hassled a great deal by volunteers living in the eastern part of the country who tell me that I have never been there, I have no idea what it is like, and it is a totally different place. So I made a trip.

Shaun and I decided to take advantage of a long holiday weekend to travel to visit my and his host families and some of the volunteers in the east. We arrived in Veles (the medium sized city right in the middle of the country where I had my training) on Friday night, and stayed at the apartment of the older married couple volunteers who live there. Saturday we visited with my host family, Sunday we traveled east to Vinitza to stay with another married couple volunteers. We had quite a time getting to Vinitza - non-existent busses, broken taxis, difficult drivers, etc., but finally made it. Monday we visited Shaun’s family, and returned back to Gositvar. Tuesday I was supposed to head back home, but the bus didn’t come, then Wednesday there was a bus strike, so I finally made it home Thursday. It turned into a really long holiday weekend for me…

But it was a nice trip. My host family didn’t seem overly impressed with Shaun, but I credit it to ethnic issues. They hate Albanians and Shaun lives, works, and is friends with Albanians. We got a 45 minute lecture on why Albanians are bad, after Shaun told my family where he lives…

On the other hand, his family was really impressed with me. I credit to the fact that I knit, was interested in there sheep, and I agreed that dark honey is better then light. I guess when I got up to go to the bathroom, they told Shaun how marvelous I am, and that he should do everything he can to keep me around.

As for the east… it is more rural, but villages are villages everywhere. There is more open anti-Albanian sentiment, which is interesting seeing that there are hardly any Albanians in that part of the country, the buses where difficult, but I didn’t get caught in a strike till I got back to the west. I think what I can conclude in that what people from the East see is mostly the capital and Ohrid in the west, and these places are definitely different, other wise it is all Macedonia to me. However, it is possible that I need to spend more time in the east to really know, or perhaps it is possible that the easterners need to spend more time in the west to really know…

Anyhow - enjoy the pictures from the trip, including never before seen photos of the village I lived in during training!!