Ajvar and everything else: October 2005

My pumpkin! I mean, teaching tool...

Happy Halloween!!

Tonight I am going to go speak to a group of high school English students about Halloween. The point is for them is to learn about Halloween and to speak with a native English speaker. The point for me is to have an excuse to carve a pumpkin - As if I really needed an excuse. I just hope they aren’t too critical that I carved a face and stuck a candle in one of their fall food staples. This could be an interesting cross-cultural exchange…

Shaun- looking like a 'real' PCV.

Me- looking like a 'real' PCV.

A Little Jazz

Last weekend was the International Jazz Festival in Skopje. Shaun, Shayne, Kendra, Adam, and I went Friday to see Erika Stucky (http://www.erikastucky.ch/) and Abdullah Ibrahim (http://www.abdullahibrahim.com/indexf.html).

Erika Stucky, I thought, was really fabulous. She made me laugh, made me cry, and had some wonderful musicians playing with her. The second performer was a good musician, but not a good performer. About half the audience left during his performance, but he has kind of a fun web site…

Enjoy the pictures, one looking at the stage before everyone came in and the other of the ceiling of the hall, which I thought was really cool.

The ceiling of the music hall. I am not sure what it does for acoustics, but it sure looks cool!

The hall before it filled up - we had pretty good seats.

Sunset at the pier in Ohrid

Another Peggy Sighting!

Yesterday I was walking with some other volunteers that were visiting and as we passed a group of boys they called out "Peggy? Peggy!" They kept calling and I didn't turn around, mostly because I am not Peggy. (You will remember that I have been mistaken for Peggy before)
However, now I am very curious about this Peggy person. So many people know her. What was she doing here? When was she here? Does she really look like me?

I also feel a little bad because people are going to start think Peggy is suddenly really unfriendly if I keep ignoring them when they call out.

Also, I am wondering how her reputation might be effecting me in ways I can never know. Are people friendlier to me because they have a positive connotation with Peggy? Or maybe she wasn't very well liked and I have pre-made enemies. It is all very interesting.

Things Fall Apart

(Mostly my apartment)

So, a while ago the water heater in my kitchen had a bit of a fire. I wasn't home when it happened. In fact, I don't know when it happened, but at some point I noticed that smoke had come out of the top and wires had melted through the bottom. It still worked, but Shaun made me unplug it. It took a while for me to get it fixed, mostly because I had to call my landlady to tell her there was a problem, but finally last Wednesday, I got up the nerve, made the necessary calls, and got the water heater fixed.

Thursday I came home from watching a movie at Tessa's around 8:45pm. When I walked in I heard a loud hissing, which I attributed to a gas leak, till I remembered that I don't have gas. On further inspection I discovered that the hose from my toilet to my water source had snapped. There was water spraying all over the bathroom and hall way. Everything was soaking wet, there was water running down the doors and windows and dripping off the ceiling. I spent a few minutes running around, hassling neighbors for tools, and running to the hardware store, which closed at 9:00pm to get the new part I needed.

Friday morning I woke up and the water was out in the building... I was kind of starting to hate my apartment at this point, but I was on my way out of town so I just picked up my stuff and went for breakfast out till it was time for my bus to leave.

I guess these sorts of problems could happen anywhere, (although the water seems to go out an awful lot), it is just that much harder when in a country where you don't really know what is going on and don't have the language ability to ask...

My New Friend in the Old City

I get stared at a lot here, especially by old women. I am not sure if I should take it personally. They may stare at all foreigners, or at all young women, or at all people in general, I am not really sure. In any case, the staring makes me a little uncomfortable so I have developed a strategy to shake the babas out of there trance. As I approach the person staring, I look them in the eye an say, friendly but firm, which ever greeting in appropriate for the time of day. A nice “Dobro ytro!” (good morning) with the ‘r’s rolled and just the right intonation usually surprises them enough to get them to stop gaping.

Well, since I have stared working at the East West Institute, which has its office in the old city, I find my self greeting these staring old women much more often, as the old city seems to be primarily occupied by old women. One women in particular, whom I do not know the name of quite yet, is almost always sitting in her door way when I pass by. Our first couple of encounters were nothing more then hello, but then last week as I passed she asked me something about “Peggy”. In Macedonian ‘peggy’ means ‘freckles’ and as I have quite a few freckles from the summer, I responded, “Da! Od sunseto.” (Yes! From the sun.)

The next day we ran into each other on the street and through a kind of circular conversation we came to the following conclusions: 1- I look just like a German women named Peggy. 2- Peggy used to live around the corner down by the lake with a man named Artzo. 3- I am not Peggy. 4- I do not know Peggy, where she lives, or Artzo.

After we got all that worked out, I was free to go and be slightly embarrassed that I thought she was talking about my freckles. But since then she seems perfectly happy to chat with me despite me not being Peggy. She seems like an interesting person. We have a tentative coffee date tomorrow, and I will keep you up to date on my budding friendship.

Till then enjoy the pictures of the lake I took during my lunch yesterday, including a photo of a responsible boat owner dumping his left over paint in the lake…

Citizen of the year, Ohrid, Macedonia

Lake Ohrid looking towards the national park

Lake Ohrid looking towards Albania

A rainy weekend away

Last weekend Tessa (a volunteer also from Ohrid) and I went to visit Shaydra in Prelip. It was cold and rainy most of the weekend but that didn't keep us from having a good time. A little drinking, a little indoor soccer, a lot of Macedonian food, and a lot of catching up on the lives of our most famous Americans leads to a very nice weekend. Just a few pictures to share, but enjoy all the same!