добра нок

#2
16. January
Saturday
My coworker, Ilir, who was born and raised here, but is ethnically Albanian, picked me up this afternoon and took me around the city a bit. I learned straight off that all of the words I had learned last night were actually Serbian, but many are quite similar or actually the same. He was great in putting up with my constant questioning on the pronunciation of new letters and foreign words. He showed me around the city center, the old Turkish fortress, and took me out with his friend for a Turkish pizza and tea. So very delicious. We continued on to the old train station, which was destroyed in 1963 (?) during an earthquake, which seems to have also destroyed a significant amount of the city.

I made sure I was home by 4:30, because the landlords had invited me to “lunch” at that time. The family consists of the father, a burly looking man, his wife, an architect, and their son and daughter. The daughter is just finishing her studies in architecture, and the son works as a civil engineer. It’s quite normal for a family’s children to live with their parents until, or even after, they marry and start a family, as evidenced by David and his sister’s being almost 30. We ate a very traditional Macedonian meal: what we would call a Greek salad (don’t mention that here), a sort of cheese filled cake, broccoli, potatoes, and two types of meat. We finished our meal with what the husband called “reform-cake”, which I guess is named after the tumultuous history of this country.

Over dinner, the entire family was very excited to tell me about the traditions and the pride that Macedonians have for their country. Although I knew many of the facts from my research pre-arrival, I found myself very surprised and moved by the connection they felt to their unique history and troubles with Greece over rights to the name, flag, and Alexander the Great. We also discussed what it means to belong to a country or to be a national of a specific country. I think this is a question that Americans have dealt with much longer than European countries, whose ethnic make up and language have defined them for much longer than our has us.

…. 18.Jan (Sunday)

Just a few first impressions:

1. The people here, at least those I have met, are not only very nice, but genuinely open and welcoming. Perhaps they only ask me how I am because they know it is customary in English, but they seem genuinely interested and concerned about my response!
2. I really want to learn Macedonian. One of my biggest mistakes when I lived in Bremen in 2004-2005 was how timid I was about making a slight fool of myself for the sake of learning German. I now know how much it inhibited me in making friends and in furthering my understanding of the German culture. I know that only a little can possibly be learned in the next 9 weeks, but I hope to learn as much as I can. I’ve already learned the new letters and one of my coworkers doesn’t believe that I have never used the Cyrillic alphabet before!
3. The culture is so multi-lingual and multi-cultural. When Ilir and I were on our city tour, I asked him about traditional Macedonian food, and all that he could think of were Turkish specialties. We met up with a friend of his who is half Turkish and half Albanian and the two of them spoke Albanian together when not talking to me. Many of the food products are labeled in German (making it much easier for me) or Turkish.


I’m very excited to be here. On Thursday, I may be accompanying my supervisor to Struga, which is the other town I’ll be working in. It’s right on the Albanian border, a few minutes away from the popular tourist destination of Ohrid. Both towns are on Lake Ohrid.

I have so much to learn and so much to take in in my short amount of time here, but I’m going to do my best to get over any fears or hesitations.

I haven’t mentioned this at all, but even here, I’m thinking of our Haitian brothers and sisters who are suffering unimaginable losses right now. Their livelihood and that of their loved ones are in my thoughts and prayers.

Hope all is well.
In love and in Peace,
Tess