Strong Macedonian Women

The young, under 30, women here in Macedonia are so very impressive. The professional women I have met are very well educated, fluent in a number of languages and determined to make something positive happen in their country. They are, to an individual, very worried about bringing up children in a very polluted country, but question their ability to change the course of events in a country where even the best educated throw trash into the river. They take full advantage of opportunities to travel and learn, and each one I have met has attended university courses in the US, Germany, Asia, France, England or Canada.

Attached is a picture of me with two energetic young women who are helping to develop a HR training consortium here in Macedonia. I am in the middle with Afrodita Kermicieva Panovska on the left, who runs the largest independent training company in Macedonia, called CS Global and, on the right, Zaklina Gestakovska, who is staffing the consortium, which is known as HRDF - the Human Resource Development Fund. She is the former training manager here in Macedonia for the US Peace Corps. I have been working with them to help the consortium get off the ground and giving them tools, copies of forms and advice on what works and what doesn't for basic management training. A number of companies, such as Microsoft, Hannaford Bros. Co., Wright Express and LL Bean, gave me copies of their performance tools to share with Macedonians doing exactly this kind of work. It has been such fun to get to know them! One of the women I met yesterday is off next fall to either Syracuse University of Georgia Tech on a Fulbright fellowship to study information security. She handles all of IT training development for the consortium mentioned above.

Take a look a the consortium website:http://www.hrdf.org.mk/

A Skopje Saturday Afternoon

Saturday, February 11, was the first day since my arrival in Skopje 5 weeks ago that featured the weather combination of clear, sunny and relative warmth – the temperature actual rose above freezing and stayed there for the better part of the day. Usually, looking out of my kitchen window in the morning is like peering through a fogged-up car windshield. However, the misty smog that typically hangs over this valley city had disappeared overnight, thanks to a front that had pushed through from the northwest. I could tell that the air had improved as soon as I awoke, as I wasn’t congested for the first morning in weeks. I had nothing planned, so I decided to stroll, with my camera, through parts of the City that I hadn’t thoroughly explored, particular the Old City, known as the Albanian side of the River Vardar.

I discovered a path through the City Park and Skopje Zoo – a mere 100 yards from my apartment – that led to the riverside walk. In the spring, I imagine this path must be lovely, as it is lined with towering cedars and trees sporting only dried pods this time of year but, I suspect, looking rather showy in the spring with flowers and large leaves. The part of the zoo that I could see from the path featured ponies, the small, stocky kind used as workhorses and seen in Skopje pulling the Roma, or gypsy, wagons through the streets; elk, several with full racks on their heads, and three dogs that looked like German Shepards – they could have been wolves, I suppose, or perhaps they make up a zoo exhibit of American house dogs!

The walkway stretched along the River Vardar to the City Center and it was, as promised by colleagues of mine, a more pleasant walk than along the sidewalks, without the killer traffic and with cleaner air. Once at the Center, the path continued along the river and branched up onto the Old Stone Bridge which connects the New City to the Old City. I crossed the bridge, to be greeted by a little Roma boy, sitting in a cardboard box on the bridge, begging. He looked as if he might be 6 or 7 years old, but with the rampant malnutrition in the Roma population, he could have easily been quite a bit older. This wasn’t the first time I had seen this phenomenon and often, the children begging on the bridge will fall asleep on their scraps of cardboard while sitting in the sun. A native Skopje-ite told me that the children often sleep this way because no one bothers them and they are safer sleeping in broad day light than they are at night. Once their begging is finished later in the evening, they gather with other homeless children or with their families under bridges, behind public buildings or squatting in shacks for the night, where they are subject to being beaten, raped or killed. Therefore the children learn to stay awake at night and sleep during the day. I made a deal with myself to take his picture if he was still there on the way back, not knowing what reaction to expect from him once I displayed my camera.

I continued toward the Turkish Bazaar and walked through the lumpy cobblestone streets, passing 500 year-old mosques, and watched a local artist, Nico, complete an ink and water color sketch, which I purchased from him for 500 denar or $10. I should have bargained with him, but I really didn’t feel like it, so I handed him the 500 denar note without argument and he pumped my hand in thanks, grinning ear to ear and repeating “fala, fala” – thank you, thank you – over and over. I am sure I had just provided him with a week’s salary. Could I have purchased the sketch for less…for half of what I paid, no doubt! But who can really put a price on a piece of original art, even if it is earmarked for gullible tourists?

I was in the Old City at noon, when the call for prayers came. Hearing the chanting from the mosques has to be my favorite experience in Skopje. I love it because it makes me realize, without doubt, that I am in a different world. When the prayer call began at the stroke of 12, men either left their shops and walked toward the local mosque, or pulled out prayer rugs and began praying on their floors. I used that moment to walk back toward the bridge so I could watch the progression of prayer time. I learned that some Muslim men download “prayer alarms” to their cell phones so they are reminded of prayer times if they are in meetings, driving or out of ear-shot from a mosque. You have to love technology.

The young boy was still on the bridge, so I decided to offer him a little bit of money if he would let me take his picture. I took out my camera and he started complaining to me, I think, until I held out the 10 denar note – worth 20 cents in the US but equivalent in Skopje buying power to about a dollar. A Macedonian man walking across the bridge saw me offering him the money and began emphatically telling me something, which I ignored while trying to get the boy to stop waving at the camera – which, as you can tell from the picture, I was unable to do. The boy snatched the bill, like a wild animal might grab a piece of meet offered by human hand. All I could think of was that the boy was worried that if he didn’t get the money quickly, with the man telling me not to give it to him, he wouldn’t get it at all.

The man called out to another fellow selling perfume on the bridge that I had given the boy money…at least that’s what I think he said The perfume seller began walking with me and said ”Why give him money? He has no home, no place to live, no bills to pay, no business to run.” “He needs it”, I responded. “Are you American lady? Spend your money on some wonderful perfume I have for you!” he urged. I smiled and responded that I was American, knowing how much Americans are appreciated in Macedonia. “Here for business?” he asked and I knew how to respond to get him to leave me alone, as educators are revered here. “I am a professor”. “Oh, a professor”, he repeated, wide eyed, and called in Macedonian to his friend who first spotted me with the little boy “She is a professor!” I kept walking, and he waved goodbye, shouting “visit me again for wonderful perfume, American professor lady!”

You bet cha – as soon as I run out.

Office Life

Ankica (pronounced Ahn-kee-tsah)is the technical secretary of the office, which essentially means she is the office manager. She is a thin, 46 year old buxom, chain smoking, off-the-charts extrovert with hips that are sashaying every minute of the day. Take a look at her picture. You’ll see what I mean. There is no doubt - she is in charge. A winker, Ankica describes herself in three of the 15 English words she knows… “young, sexy girl”. She is forever hugging you, blowing kisses, wrapping her arms around your waist and giving you little squeezes…regardless of your gender. Her picture should be next to the term “unwanted touching” in the sexual harassment dictionary. She also takes crap from no one, including taxi drivers, open-market stall keepers and anyone else she has to or chooses to deal with. She crosses the street when and where she wants and the crazy Skopje traffic actually stops for her! I learned today that she is married. I have got to meet the man who is married to her, just to either congratulate him or give him my sympathies. Regardless, I adore her. She is warm, loving, takes me with her whenever she goes to the local open market and makes me laugh everyday.

Zlatko runs the photocopy machine. That is all he does. No one else can use the photocopier. No one else knows how to use the photocopier. Zlatko keeps a collection of pictures taped to the inside of a closet door in his office…yes, his office, which houses the photocopier and his desk and is one of the largest offices in the building and immaculately clean. His pictures – they are of him with all of the women in the office, including the few visiting professors that they have had (no, I’m not there yet, but it’s a matter of time, no doubt). He enjoyed telling me in very limited English that women think he looks like Charles Bronson but he thinks he looks like Omar Sheriff. Zlatko also takes great pride in teaching me new Macedonian words and phrases each day. I can thank him for being able to conduct this complete conversation in Macedonian: “Hello! How are you! I am fine! And you? Thank you! Goodbye!”

Zlatko has no real sense of personal space. A close talker. He is quite a flirt, is always winking at all of the women in the office – the younger, the more exaggerated the wink – and follows many of the women to “breakfast” in the hopes that they will invite him to sit with them, which usually is what happens. Can you say “hostile work environment”?

The Institute of Economics also has a driver, as I mentioned, Gritzo (greets-oh), whose job it is to drive people places in the little white Cracker Jack box of a car. For instance, today he drove me to the immigration office to pick up my passport with my new Macedonian visa. When he isn’t driving, which is most of the time, he answers Ankica’s phone when she is having a smoke or sits in the library – that would be the office I share with Sretanka - and reads the newspaper. End of job description. He can say “goodbye” in English - that’s it for his English. He says goodbye to me every day.

Each job, each position at the Institute is very specific and somewhat narrow in its responsibilities. Everyone takes great care to fit in breakfast with each other during the late mornings, as well as various coffee and cigarette breaks to catch up on family, health, upcoming travel, and monumental occasions. When the day is over, which it is for most everyone at 3, the day is over. If work isn’t finished, it waits until the next day, because family dinner is waiting, which is rarely eaten later than 4 or 4:30.

Some tidbits about Macedonia that I have learned just by being in the office have been fascinating and fun and sad, in a way:

These folks are convinced that they have little crime because they have no drug problem (which they don’t) because they are poor – they all state firmly that they would rather remain poor than make more money and have their children tempted by drugs.

They let me know that February is “cat sex month”; indeed, you can hear the little critters crying day and night like new born babies as they seek out mating partners.

My office colleagues still fondly remember socialism where everyone had a job; everyone got a free university education, as well as grants to study in graduate schools abroad. Indeed, the population to which I have been exposed is very well educated, regardless of position. What they don't seem to remember is everyone had the same job for life with a salary that never ever changed, year to year. One of my colleague's mother worked for the Ministry of Labor for 40 years and never had a change of job, office or salary. Imagine.

Burek, the filo-like pies that I LOVE are eaten for breakfast...only. No one eats burek anyother time of day. Every Macedonian who knows I eat it for dinner some times thinks I am crazy(hey, at 40 cents for an 8 inch wedge of spinach and cheese, fresh from the bakery, why not?). They then tell their friends about the crazy American woman who eats Macedonian breakfast food for dinner. Wonder what they would say if they knew that omlets are my dinner about twice a week?

They hate the fact that Macedonia is associated with corruption – Transparency International has Macedonia way down on its list of corruption levels, which is not a good thing – but everybody knows someone who knows someone who can get their kids a job, or a quick visa to go to Greece, or an inexpensive TV or a scholarship for courses in Italy. So, they benefit from the “gray market”, hate that it exists, but can’t imagine living without it.

Beth at the Institute of Economics

Well, let me tell you a bit more about my life at the office. What am I doing? Ab-so-lute-ly nothing. Here’s the scoop. The Institute professors told me and the US Embassy that they had started an undergrad business admin program. I was to teach at least 2 courses as part of that program. However, what I didn’t know is that the program hadn’t actually been started. The Embassy didn’t know, either. It hadn’t even been approved by the government. Low and behold, it never was approved. There is no undergrad program. Therefore there are no courses for me to teach. Add to this that a new piece of legislation has just been put in front of the Macedonian Parliament to consolidate the Institute of Economics with the University Faculty of economics, which are now separate. One entity hates the other for reasons that would bore you. Suffice it to say that this consolidation makes the university faculty happy and the institute faculty spitting mad. So, that is all anyone at the office can think about. I finally got Vesna – you remember her – to level with me and admit that there were no courses to teach. The 5 graduate courses that are being offered this semester are spoken for and there are no others. Now, she has asked students if they would be interested in doing a one-session ethics training with me in March on a Saturday, but Saturdays are also the days when the grad students have all of their classes, so the answer everyone expects is…”no”…

Needless to say, the State Dept. Fulbright person, my Fulbright officer and the Embassy are fit to be tied. Heads will roll…well, perhaps just a ear or two, as I am certainly not that important… but people are pissed, and you can count me as one of group.

The US Embassy is looking for work for me to do, but it is late in the semester. The embassy Public Affairs Officer came up with a need in the University Economics faculty marketing department for an ethics course, but the students can’t handle lectures in English. Hmmm. A slight problem there since Zlatko the photopcoy man and my self-appointed tutor in the Macedonian language, hasn’t taught me enough of his native language to lecture on ethics in Macedonian. Then there is a course that the Economics faculty will offer in English, if I want to teach it, for the E-Commerce majors, titled Legal and Ethical Issues of the Internet. The course description created by a visiting Danish professor last year is very technology-law centric and has to focus on European technology law…not really my specialty, even with some prep time, of which there would be none. Regardless, the semester starts in 5 days and the University is not sure that anyone will sign up for it even if it is offered.

So, what am I doing? Well, I do about 30 minutes of yoga every morning after watching CNN for an hour and drinking 2 cups of black coffee. I help out a bit at The American Corner, have breakfast everyday with someone from the Institute who wants to practice her English, check my e-mail a couple of times a day, walk an awful lot and look for other things to do. I had coffee today with some young Macedonian women all with business graduate degrees who have started a training company and they would like me to help them design some training courses for local HR managers. They were smart, fashionable, funny and very energizing. All spoke at least 3 languages – English, Macedonian and German - with one also speaking conversational Japanese and they all admitted they could probably hold their own in French. They could have been my daughters (ok, not the 32 year old one… when I was 16, I didn’t even know how women became pregnant) and I loved spending time with them. But, there’s really no work there for me with them, although I’ll help them out in any way can.

So, you may all be seeing me sooner than you think. Keep your eyes open. I may walk by any day. Peter and Seth arrive for a visit on February 19th and leave the 25th and there is a very good chance I’ll be with them. Stay tuned!

The US Ambassador to Macedonia

This picture features the US Ambassador to Macedonia, Gillian Milovanovic with the scarf on, Michael Orlansky, to her left, the Embassy Public Affairs Officer, and the Mayor of the City of Skopje on her right. The young woman whose long curly hair you see leaning over is Marija, a lovely young woman employed by the American Corner and acting that day as the translator for the Ambassador.

On Thursday, January 26th, I was at the American Corner from 11:00 to 2pm for its one year anniversary. I had a chance to meet the US Ambassador, a very congenial and warm woman . She has been here since last summer when Ambassador Lawrence Butler was assigned to the Bosnia High Command. She spoke at the celebration, as did the Mayor of Skopje and the Director of the City Library where the American Corner is located. A string quartet played afterwards and food (i.e. bread in various forms) and juice was served by uniformed waiters. Hordes of press were present, with each local TV station, several radio stations and newspaper photographers all covering the event. Fortunately, I guess, it is a slow news time here.

Here is some information from the Embassy about the Ambasssador. She has has quite an impressive career:

In her previous position, Ms. Milovanovic served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa, from August 2002 until July 2005. Before that, she served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden, from July 1999 to August 2002.

Ambassador Milovanovic joined the Foreign Service in 1978. Her early assignments included a tour as an International Relations Officer in the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, Office of Fisheries Affairs. She served as Vice Consul in Sydney, Australia; Staff Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs; and as a Political Officer in Paris following a year of study at the French Ecole Nationale d'Administration.

In 1987, Ms. Milovanovic joined the U.S. Consulate General in Cape Town, South Africa, where she served as Political-Economic Officer and Deputy Consul General. From 1990 to 1994, she was Political-Military Affairs Officer and Deputy Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Brussels. From 1994 to 1997, she served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Gaborone, Botswana. She was Director of the Office of Nordic and Baltic Affairs at the Department of State from 1997 to 1999.

Ambassador Milovanovic is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, and the Ecole Nationale d'Administration. She is the recipient of two Superior Honor Awards and two Meritorious Honor Awards from the Department of State.

Ms. Milovanovic was born in New York. She is married and has two daughters.

More luxurious facilities

Ok, here's the last pathetic picture of the inside of the glorious place that I am calling "the office" these days. This is the washroom portion of the ladies room. It is perpetually freezing, as there is a window open 24/7 because no one can reach it to close it. It is also perpetually filthy. I have no clue why, as there is a cleaning lady who comes in every day at noon and works until 6. She is always doing something in the bathrooms - apparently everything but cleaning. I will not go into detail, as that would not be appropriate especially for the squeemish among you, but suffice it to say that I have started carrying waterless disinfectant (another Christmas stocking goody) with me and using it regularly, even when I walk past the ladies room.

Assistants Elisabeta and Alexandra

The top Master's students are often hired by the Institutes as assistants. They do everything from make copies, get coffee, research publication material for their professors and gather information for possible doctoral work.

Elzabeta, aka "Betti",in the red with short, darkish hair (although newly streaked with maroon and orange - a particular favorite hair style here) has been assigned to me as my Assistant. So far she has made copies for me, shown me the faculty/staff kitchen as depicted below and given me directions to various places in the area. She has her Master's in Economics.

Alexandra is also an assistant, although a Junior assistant, which means that she has not quite finished her Master's degree. Her English is quite good - better than Betti's, actually, and she is enormously helpful.

Professor Vesna Stojanova

Vesna is the senior professor at the Institute of Economics. She had a cigarette in her hand when I took this, but quickly tossed it into an ashtray just as I clicked the photo. She is about 5 feet tall in heels - she and I look like Mutt and Jeff walking down the hall.

Staff kitchen

Dont ever complain about the facilities at your work place unless they look worse than these. The bunsen burner type thing in the front is, indeed, just that - it's powered by the little tank of gas, is lighted with a match and is used by the Institute staff to make Turkish/Macedonian coffee. KA-BOOM!

Sretanka, my "office mate" and the librarian

I used to LOVE weekends!

Saturday January 28, 2006

Well, weekends are tough. By 1:30 today I had slept until 8:30, done a longer yoga workout than usual, put in a load of wash, stopped in the American Corner to check email, walked all over town but finding nothing interesting to do, and decided to splurge by spending $24 on a tea pot and a little Moka stove top espresso maker, as well as an International Herald tribune and a Financial Times – the only English language papers available here. Fortunately, it had warmed up a bit in the sun to the high 30’s.

I decided that, at least once, I had to have lunch at McDonald’s, so today was the day, which was my idea of fun – double cheeseburger, fries (unsalted…ick…) and a Sprite for about $3. Diet coke is available, I found out after I had ordered, but not as part of the meal deal and it has to be specifically requested. Mickey D’s also sells beer, the local Skopsko brand. The place is very clean, and the food is brought to your table once the order comes up, as everything is cooked to order, by young women in stylish red skirts and sweaters (red is the official color of Macedonia). Following lunch, I walked some more and I headed back to the American Corner, which closes at 4 pm on Saturdays and 8 pm on weekdays, with an idea of checking the airport schedules to see where I might be able to travel on weekends rather than spend every one here. This is a depressing city, which is quite a sad realization after only being here for 2 weeks. My hope is that when it greens up for spring, it will be a bit more welcoming, as there seem to be a lot of trees and gardens around. That way, at least Skopje would come close to matching its delightful people, who have been universally wonderful to me.

I may go to Prague for the weekend soon – maybe even next weekend. There is a flight leaving mid Friday afternoon and returning late Sunday night. It is no colder in Prague than here, so why not? I found a hotel raved about on Fodor’s Online that is running a February special for a single, non-smoking room with breakfast. My son, though, noted that the youth hostel he stayed in while in Prague last spring was only 8 euros a night – he said he was on a bunk in a room with about 30 other bunks. Not my style. I need some pampering, or at least my own room and bathroom.

From Skopje, I can easily get by air to Frankfurt, Zurich, Budapest and Istanbul, which I want to visit, but I don’t think I want to go to Istanbul alone, as well as Vienna and Rome, where I have visited in the past couple of years. I’m going to check out the trains from Frankfurt and Vienna, as well, and may explore some other areas during future weeks, esp. after I find out my teaching schedules. For instance, I know I can get from Vienna to Salzburg easily and quickly by train.

I did find a little café to frequent, called Broz Kafe. I had passed it many times as it is near my apartment and noted that it was usually busy. I vowed today to try it out. It’s a funky, very colorful and clean Starbucks look-alike with Euro dance music playing, a large non-smoking area on the bottom floor with smoking on the top floor (halleluiah!), a good, large cappuccino for $1.50 and comfortable easy chairs. It has wireless internet available, also. I sense I will become a regular. I had a cappuccino and read my paper for a while to delay coming back to the apartment. It was a good idea.

That’s the whole week. Sunday – yikes – what to do Sunday? Well, I plan to wash the floors in the apartment (oh, I swept the floors today, also) and do another load of laundry – I have to split up the laundry into small loads, as I have no dryer and limited space to dry things. I’ll walk to the RamStore mall and buy the new Economist and a few groceries. I’ll call Peter and Seth later in the afternoon (4 pm my time) and check email and use the internet at the same café where I make the calls. Then home.

Let’s hope I sleep late!

Sunday, January 29, 2006
Which I did, until 8:45. A longer yoga work out and watching CNN helped stretch out the morning, together with washing the floors and putting in a wash. I headed out at about noon, with the through that I would walk across the stone bridge to the old city and climb up to Kale, the ancient fortress that sits above the Vardar River, overlooking Skopje. It was sunny and in the high 40’s in the sun – it felt positively toasty compared to the past few days. However, as I walked across the bridge, to the old city which is also the Muslim part of Skopje, I noticed that all of the people strolling around were men, and many more just hanging around, watching people. I get a lot of attention, thanks to hair and height, and I became a bit intimidated by the scene. So, I turned around, and walked through Makedonski center to the RamStore mall, did some grocery shopping, pick up the new Economist and head back to the Center for lunch at about 2.

I decided to go back to Dal Met Fu, the café where I had lunch last Sunday, as I’m a Norm kind of girl – I like places where everyone knows your name...not that they do there, but I will be the only blond, English-speaking almost-6-ft-woman who regularly lunches there on Sundays, I guarantee. I was seated at the same table as last weekend – my table? – with the same waitress and had a delicious green salad which came with more than just greens - grated cabbage, beets and carrots, as well as cukes, tomatoes, corn, olives and sliced egg - and some of a small cheese pizza, ½ of which I brought home to have for another supper this week. A cappuccino finished off the meal and I headed, about 3 pm, to the internet café for some email checking and calls to my boys. I was able to talk with Peter and Seth, who Peter picked up from a sleep-over at a friends house at 9 am – horrors! – to talk with me. I also had a chance to talk with Bennett for the first time since leaving, which was nice. He urged me to travel on weekends, saying that trick was the way many college students studying abroad got through weekends. The wisdom of my college boy! He had done just that last spring when he visited Prague, so he gave me some ideas of places in that city to visit. He was wonderfully encouraging, which was just what I needed.

Those completed, I paid my $5 for the access and calls and headed home. It takes hard work to find things to do, but at least the walking while lugging the groceries tires me out by the evening and makes arrival at my apartment welcomed. I wonder what’s on Hallmark this evening? I have actually become interested in the Judging Amy reruns and feel involved in their lives. That, and knitting my second scarf in the same number of weeks. But, tomorrow is a “work” day, and I will meet the translator, Dafina, a lovely Macedonian woman with an English degree focusing in translation, who is doing work for me so that I may apply later this week for the visa. We’ll see what the week brings!


PS - Prague's a GO! Leaving Friday afternoon, returning late Sunday night. YAHOO! Hope its better than here...

Thessaloniki, Greece

Here are a couple of pictures form our trip to Thessaloniki. Richard, Svetlana and I stopped first at the waterfront plaza for coffee, and then we strolled thorugh the market. Here are pictures of Svet and Richard, Svet and me - to prove to you that I am not really somewhere in Cape Elizabeth making this all up, and a picture of one of the little stalls in the market

The Old City Turkish Market

The Unemployment Issue in Macedonia

Friday, January 27

Vesna asked me to meet with her and help her with a project. Finally! To make ends meet and help her son pay for college, Vesna is involved with literally 5 or 6 positions or contracts, through the university, the government, the Soros Foundation or through EU grants. She is working on a project proposal for EU funding to create a network of training centers around the country for the unemployed, all directed at giving people the basic skills to start their own companies. Vesna is convinced that this is the way – by developing entrepreneurship in Macedonia and creating SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) – to develop the country’s economy. She has asked me to help her develop the proposal for the infrastructure and wanted to know if I could do some research on similar things that exist in the US. I was on the Board a while ago of the Training Resource Center and am familiar with the work of the Workplace Learning Center that the University of Southern Maine has thanks to its work at National Semiconductor and Fairchild Semi, so I enthusiastically said yes. I let her know what I already new about networks that exist through state Bureaus of Labor, the federal Dept. of Labor and Universities and sent her some web links ot take a look at. I wondered a bit whether this is the way to help the 37% unemployment rate, since there is so little money in this country to buy things or services, but I’ll leave that for another morning’s worth of cigarettes.

We talked about the logistics of how to get people enrolled in training classes and the need here for certificate programs that are shorter and more affordable that diploma programs. That led to a conversation about the ethics training I have done at St. Joe’s and how much the students like the certificates I give them at the end of the semester, evidencing their participation in the Ethics training. Vesna asked me if I could do the training for the Institute’s Master’s students (I said “yes” of course), so I am now sure that I will be teaching Business Ethics, somehow, sometime. There is a possibility of a business communication course, as well as an HR course, but I am guessing here. I had been asked via e-mail to teach undergrad courses, but the Institute’s under grad program won't get going until the fall. However, they are very active in getting Junior Achievement going in the high schools, so I'll help out with that, as well as curriculum design for the undergrad program, as they want something very similar to what we have at St. Joe's. Flexibility is definitely the key to being fully, or at least partially, utilized.

Office life at the Institute of Economics

I decided I would investigate my office space and get to know my “roommate”. My desk is in the library (which is a room about the size of a typical home dining room) filled with cabinets stuffed with books and folders of material. Everything is paneled in thin dark brown fake wood paneling and is vintage 1965. It is like being in a 1965 rumpus room – remember those??... and looks and feels like what you might imagine a post communist office building would look like – lots of concrete, rusting metal, worn carpet and a 2 by 4 foot “kitchen” out of a tenement. The city of Skopje was destroyed by an earthquake in 1963 and the structures built following the quake have not been updated…at all.

My desk had a computer on it – it has since been removed - that was about 20
years old, ran a DOS-based program and didn’t work. I met the computer boy, Emil, who told me to bring in my laptop because the computer I was supposed to get was taken by someone last week and no one felt like asking for it back. However, there was only one network cable into the library, and no electrical outlet available, so he would figure out a solution, maybe even tomorrow. He would get right on it, though, because the Fulbright agreement says that the host institution has to provide me with office space, a computer, printer and Internet connection...and these folks take that very seriously. As of Friday, nothing had yet been done because the Director didn’t feel comfortable asking for the computer back. Vesna is pissed about that attitude, but I have asked her, and she has agreed, to get me a computer, regardless, as the Institute agreed to do, because my laptop is too heavy to lug every morning a mile and a half there and back. She assured me on Friday that something would be in place by this coming Monday. However, Emil appeared once on Tuesday, promising to be back the next day with a fix for everything and I haven’t seen him again yet.

The librarian, Sretanka (sree-tunk-a), is very kind, in a brusque, eastern European kind of way, teaching me new Macedonian words every day and "treating" me to some home made boiled Macedonian coffee, also known as Turkish coffee. Wow, you think that an espresso will get you jazzed - this stuff packs a wallop like none other. And, to add to the delight, it is thick and tastes like coffee that has had cardboard soaking in it for a day or so. But, I drank most of it on this first day to be polite. The only problem is that because I drank it, she was thrilled and expects me to regularly join her for coffee. I was also shaking for about 2 hours thanks to the caffeine jolt.

Why the coffee?
No one eats lunch. They wake up, have strong, black coffee and maybe a hard boiled egg, then go to work. Between 9:30 and 10:30, they break for a half an hour and have breakfast, which is usually coffee and some form of bread. That's it until work ends at 3, when they go home and have "lunch" with their family. Virtually everyone drinks coffee and smoke cigarettes all day, which is probably why no one is hungry. I haven't figured out if they eat a late dinner or not, but I don't think so, as one woman told me that they usually have coffee and dessert around 6 or 7.
So, I went for a walk mid way through the day and tried to figure out exactly where I was in the City, which I did quite successfully. I felt a bit better after the walk, as
the cigarette smoke had made me nauseous for a while, which still lingered even after the walk. Probably not having a decent lunch did that to me, as well. However, I find, after being in a smoky place like Vesna’s office or the internet café or a restaurant, at least one of which I seem to be every day, that nausea sets in.

Later in the afternoon, Vesna wanted to show me the area and treat me to a snack. I was able to learn more about her during our walk down the streets around the Institute offices. She has a 23 year old son, whom she misses terribly, studying art and design at Otis College (I think?) in Los Angeles and she loves yoga and meditation, although I can just imagine her sucking on a cigarette while doing the downward facing dog pose. She showed me the best and cheapest places to get a snack and the cheapest and best stocked little market in the area where you can get anything from laundry soap to fresh feta cheese, to hair color, to wine. These little stores are everywhere and remind me of the little Korean groceries in NYC. She treated me to a slice of apple strudel (for lack of the Macedonia name) and a macaroon cookie - Macedonian specialties, which was my lunch, together with the apple I brought and ate earlier.

I have developed a bit of a routine during my 1st week:I take a walk at 12:30ish (like I’m not getting in enough walking…), usually to get a yogurt for lunch, or a slice of burek, if I am particularly hungry which is delicious and filled with either spinach, feta cheese or sometimes meat (like the Albanian vegetable pie, lakror, that I grew up eating). I have realized that 12:30 pm here (6:30 am east coast time) is a good time to give Peter a call from the cheap little internet café, so I’ve done that once or twice. I get a change of fumes, too, from cigarette smoke to car exhaust during my walk and then back to cigarette smoke at the internet café.

The week has been interesting. The professors at the Institute of Economics loved the books I brought. Vesna was so excited, she started babbling in Macedonian (she also speaks fluent Italian and excellent English) and jumping up and down as I unpacked the 4 books; getting books (or affording books) is a huge obstacle here. From the Fulbright book stipend, I was able to get lots of books thanks to used books from Amazon and donations from publishers. The books on statistical analysis were particular favorites, as the good ones are over $100 a piece and only available in the US. I bought a couple of those from Amazon that were over $100 even second-hand, which I was able to do with the money saved by the donations.

I'm to be back there daily for smoke filled conversations and Lord knows what else - students don't start back until the 16th of February. However, the projects that Vesna is involving me in are interesting and Monday I will visit, with her, the Macedonian Ministers of Labor, Economics and Education to get their feedback on the training proposal.

At about 3 or 3:30 pm each day, the Institute clears out for the day, so I walk home, stopping in at the American Corner to use the internet, despite the fact that it has been 15 degrees about that time until this week. I could take a taxi, but I like the exercise, the air and the time that walking takes. I am not in any rush here, which is a very new sensation for me, as I seem to always be late for something in my US life. Other than cold fingers, I‘ve been fine, as I brought insulated, LL Bean walking shoes with me, which have great treads and are very warm. Every local tells me that this is very odd - that spring usually is on its way by Feb 1st. Eventually, it will get here!

The reason for being here - work begins...sort of

Tuesday, January 24

Well, here I am, at 3:40, at the American Corner after my first (kind of) day at the Institute for Economics. I was to meet my supervising professor yesterday, but she never showed – some meeting that she hadn’t planned on – but then again, no one in Macedonia plans anything. It’s simply a concept that doesn’t exist here. Macedonians will tell you that since the country has been attacked, invaded and traded by countries, empires and tribes so many times in the past 2000 years (which it has) that they don’t feel they should plan anything, as they never know when things might change. They have been stable and completely conflict-free since 2001, have just been named a formal candidate for EU membership and have been successfully independent from the rest of Yugoslavia since the early 1990’s, but I guess compared to about 2000 years of unrest, that isn’t long enough to convince anyone that things won’t change tomorrow.

Well, on to my 1st day at work.

Vesna, the professor of economics with whom I am working, offered to pick me up in the Institute car with the Institute driver. I had the image of a Lincoln Town car – well, in Macedonia, probably a BMW or Mercedes - pulling up to the end of my street, parking right next to the trash bins with cats perched, vulture-like, on top, a black-suited chauffeur emerging to take my briefcase. Wrong. The car was the size of a miniature matchbox, dirty white and badly dented on both the front and back. I almost started laughing when I saw it. I barely fit in the front seat, which Vesna insisted I take, thank goodness.

Vesna is a little spitfire of a thing, 50-something years old, with good command of English and a fierce smoking habit. Actually, everyone smokes, although only in designated offices as of January 6th thanks to a new law mandating specified smoking and noon-smoking areas in all public places and workplaces. But the first thing Vesna and the Director of the Institute of Economics, Antonija, did when we arrived after picking me up by car (both live very close to me) was get their secretary to get us black coffee and light up in Vesna's office - one of the designated smoking areas. After tolerating three cigarettes from each of them, together with 2 cigarettes by Natasha, the junior professor who shares Vesna’s very large office, I felt as if I had been smoking all morning - I could literally taste the cigarettes in my mouth. It was nauseating and had me coughing most of the afternoon and evening.

I did have to hold back a laugh, though, because once Vesna and Antonija get smoking, their voices get gravelly and hoarse. With their eastern European accents and husky overtones, Antonija’s heavy eye makeup and her Russian-styled fur hat and coat, I felt like I was in the middle of a 1965 James Bond movie. I expected Sean Connery to appear and quietly order a martini, shaken, not stirred. Unfortunately, he never appeared. Vladmir did appear though, and then Dejan and Grigor ( in the spirit of the James Frey controversy, these names may not be quite correct, but they’re close)… Economics professors with constant smiles, crazy hair and wild mustaches as well as decent English, warm demeanors and a love of all Americans, thanks to George Bush (ok, so finally W has done something that has actually benefited me) … but Sean Connery they were not.

Vesna and I talked for a while and I asked her to describe to me what they would like me to teach and how they would like me to work with them. “Not to now worry” laughed Vesna “we do not want to overwhelm you!” I assured her that as I arrived almost 5 weeks before classes started (at her insistence) I was more than ready to actually DO something. She chatted with me for a bit about what the institute was doing, assured that a meeting would be held with all of the professors so I could learn about their individual research projects and choose with which project I would like to become involved. That conversation lasted about 2 hours, as Vesna continually interjected her personal thoughts… about the Macedonian government… “so much corruption to get money to the people who make them feel powerful and so little brains”… and the Macedonian economy…”I am embarrassed, as an economist, of the state of my country’s economy, as it is collapsing and no one seems to care”…. That conversation was the end of my intense interaction with her for the day, which was fine, as by that point I could barely breathe.

Epiphany Celebration on the Stone Bridge in Skopje

Beautiful Skopje

Installment Two: A Trip to Greece

Installment Two – Beth Does Skopje

Friday, January 20, 2006

This evening, I attended a poetry reading and lecture at the Skopje City Library’s American Corner given by Professor Carl Schmider, whose wife, Mary Ellen, is a Fulbright scholar here in Skopje teaching English for the academic year. I met Mary Ellen and Carl during the Fulbright orientation this past July in D.C. and quickly took to them – they are 73 and 68, respectively, full of energy, humor and life, both semi-retired professors of American Studies. They have been working for the past few years for the University of Maryland teaching at military bases around the world, helping military personnel and families get a college degree through that University while serving abroad. Now there’s a retirement plan I had never thought of! They have taught primarily in Germany, as both speak fluent German thanks to their ancestry, as well as Turkey and have each had Fulbright teaching assignments before, Mary Ellen in China and Carl in Japan.

Carl’s talk was on e.e. cummings, who I had heard of but, I suspect, never read, thanks to my serious aversion to college literature classes. Carl’s readings were terrific and he showed cummings to have irreverent and sentimental characteristics, a humorous streak, a spiritual side and a sensual tendency. He adored his mother, writing “if there are heavens my mother will (all by herself) have one.” I suspect my sons feel the same about me. There was also some weird stuff, so I daydreamed during those poems.

After the reading, I joined Carl and Mary Ellen at a Chinese restaurant a block from the City Library, which turned out to cheap and delicious, just as every dining experience has during my past 5 days in Skopje. We shared a bottle of red Macedonia “jug” wine which was wonderful – about $8 for the bottle, smooth, deep and rich with a juicy finish. To purchase it at a store, you might pay $3.00! With dumplings and 3 mid-priced entrees that we shared, the entire bill, including a full bottle of wine, was well under $20. Trying sticking to that budget that at Imperial China! The service was genuinely pleasant, delivered by congenial young Macedonian men who were engaging, warm and polite. Actually, like the wine and the food, I haven’t yet experienced anyone here who has not been kind. One of the waiters insisted on helping me on with my coat, mentioning that next time I dined with them, he would get a chair to stand on so he could best help me with me coat. Apparently, there is a Napoleon complex going on here…or a Vladimir complex or whatever short Macedonian men have when dealing with tall women.

Late Friday night brought a visit from Svetlana, inviting me on a day trip by car to Thessalonica, Greece, leaving at 8 am on Saturday. Richard, a contractor providing diplomatic training through the State Dept., who Svetlana works for here in Skopje, wanted to go to Greece for the day and, at her urging, invited me to come along. Why not! My only concern was that I would end up in the back seat, vomiting ½ way to Greece, if I made it that far. I explained that to Svetlana, who didn’t get it (“its only a 2 ½ hour drive”, she replied) but when I mentioned it to Richard, he noted that he wife can’t even look at a boat with out throwing up, never rides in the back seat and that he could sit on his head while reading in the back seat and have no problem at all. Therefore, I was permanently enthroned I the front seat as toll-money assistant. Worked for me!

Saturday, January 21, 2006

The ride to Thessalonica took about 2 ½ hours to get to the city limits and another 45 minutes to get into the heart of the city and find a parking place. The drive through the Macedonian countryside was beautiful, even in the brown and gray of January, as we passed through snow capped mountains on narrow, winding roads that were mere indentations in the side of cliffs. We looked down on the Vardar River, gushing through narrows and as suddenly as the mountains appeared, they were replaced by wine country, with vineyards reaching to the horizon. The grapevines were planted exactly as the ones in Napa and Sonoma, staked on wire trellises, creeping up hillsides and defining terraced mountains. I have had two local red wines so far and both have been delicious – very different, but never the less wonderful. No preservatives are used, none of the sulfates and additional sugar often relied upon by the bulk California producers, so, I am told, headaches from red wine rarely happen. I’ll research the red wine headache issue further and report in periodically.

The arrival at the border was interesting. Macedonians are often hassled at the border, due to tension between the countries, but we had no problem thanks to the US passports handed to the Greek officers. Macedonians must have a visa to enter Greece. The Greeks refer to people from my adopted country as being from Skopje – they refuse to recognize the name Macedonia, as they hold that to be only a geographic and demographic region of Greece. Actually, the southern-most province of Greece is, indeed, named Macedonia, although history seems to indicate that the Greek province of Macedonia was taken by the Greeks from the indigenous Macedonians. The current tale goes that Greece worries if it formally recognizes the Republic of Macedonia’s name, it will consequently give Macedonia an opportunity to demand return of that stolen land. In addition, Greece also has concern that its well-being would be threatened by a Muslin-centric country possibly formed by Albania, Macedonia and Serbia. This is something that Macedonia does not want, but the possibility is in the back of everyone’s mind here. Actually, politics is easily the favorite topic of Macedonian’s conversation. They are disgusted by the Greeks, love George Bush because of his recognition of the country’s new, formal name immediately after his re-election, are wary of the Albanian Muslim population, distrustful of the Turks and fascinated, though frustrated by the EU. Everyone I have conversed with is amazingly knowledgeable and everyone has ad educated opinion, is eager to engage in discourse, not argument, and have been universally respectful of differing opinions. Such conversations have been delightful, educational and refreshing.


Greece generally, and Thessalonica specifically was, I must admit, a disappointment. Once we entered Greece, the landscape became crowded with industry, smoke stacks, junk yards, and then lighter industry…sort of a Rumford, Maine meets Detroit kind of feel. In Thessalonica I could have been in any big, crowded, commercial city in the world with palm trees, if it weren’t for the Greek lettering everywhere. Thessalonica sits on the Aegean and I hoped for a beautiful ocean view, but the harbor was filled with tankers. There were some lovely buildings and I understand that the Thessalonica museum has the best historical display in the country, but the two people I was with wanted to eat and drink (Richard was a large-stomached man) or shop at Ikea and Carrefour (Svetlana). I kind of insisted that we at least stroll through the open market, where fish sellers hawked octopus, squid ink and a head-spinning selection of fresh, whole fish and butcher shops were festooned with whole, skinned lambs and goats –eyes, ears and noses intact - hanging from their hind hooves. There were probably a hundred little shops, selling everything from dried fruit and local nuts (I bought some Greek figs), honey, ouzo, icons, brassware, fruits and vegetables, local and imported. Clementine trees were the one saving aesthetic grace for Thessalonica, appearing fruited and colorful everywhere along the plazas, as they are now in season. The tomatoes, though, were pink hothouse. My traveling companions were anxious to get to a restaurant, so I didn’t have time to shop for some fun things, but I will return as I have been invited to lecture to the business students at Aristotle University in Thessalonica.

We decided on lunch at an ouzoy, which is the Greek version of a pub with many different kinds of ouzo. It was crowed, filled with smoke (when will this continent get the smoking-death connection??) and offered fabulous bread. For a starter, I ordered for the table a local sweet red pepper stuffed with feta and herbs, dipped in an egg batter and lightly fried. They were wonderful, although “lightly fried” in Greece seems to be the same as “deep fried for an extended period of time” in the US. As an entrée, I ordered a Greek salad, wanting to stay away from anything potentially poisonous, figuring that tomatoes, cukes, feta, olives and olive oil couldn’t do too much to me, and I was right – it was a fresh, succulent salad with olive oil that was easily the best I had ever tasted…ripe and smooth tasting with a deep green glow, though light and so flavorful. The vegetables were inconsistent with cukes that were tender and sweet, tomatoes that were pink and dry, but fairly tasty for the color, and olives that were…well, they were Greek olives and I was in Greece, so, yes, they were incredible.

My traveling partners had potentially hazardous food, with Svetlana ordering Aegean mussels in a cream sauce (can you say food poisoning…) and Richard, after not being able to decide what to have (…men…) and quizzing a waitress whose English was at about the same fluency level as my Macedonian, finally opting for aged lamb chops in a red wine and rosemary sauce. Well, Richard thought he had ordered pork and couldn’t understand why the meat tasted so gamey. He gave me a small bite and it tasted, to me, I told him, like lamb in red wine sauce…at which point he realized that he was eating lamb and not pork. He then stopped eating it, opting for bread and the stuffed peppers, noting finally that the meat tasted too aged and asked me if thought it tasted bad. I said no, it tasted like lamb and inquired if he had eaten lamb before. “More times than I can remember” he asserted, assuring me that his palate was sophisticated and that the lamb was bad. Svetlana finished his lamb after emptying her serving dish of mussels and admitted, when pushed by Richard, that the lamb might have been a bit off, although it certainly didn’t prevent her from scarfing it all down. She ended up not feeling very well, although I think is was the cinnamon liqueur that we were given to finish off the meal that made them both sick, as I tasted just a bit of mine (too sweet) but they tossed theirs back and then struggled over who was going to drink the rest of mine.

Following lunch we found the car and drove to Ikea, a massive home goods store for those of you who aren’t familiar (fyi, there’s a new one outside of Boston) where I treated the apartment to 2 inexpensive lamps to replace some of the garish overhead lighting, as well as kitchen towels, hangers for the closet and small items that I couldn’t readily find in Skopje. Why hold back? Well, in an EU country such as Greece, goods are very expensive and everything, with the exception to larger electric appliances, are cheap cheap cheap in Skopje. We then moved onto Carrefour, a French equivalent of a super Wal-Mart, which had everything from motor oil and tires, meat, fish, produce and vegetables, clothes, hair gel and kitchen appliances. Massive. By the time we left, at about 6 pm Greek time (7 hours ahead of the US and one hour ahead of Macedonia) Svetlana and Richard were both feeling ill.

The next task was, I thought, to go home - a 2½ drive – but, no. Richard had to find a bottle of that vile cinnamon liqueur. Carrefour didn’t have it, despite a liquor department the size of which rivaled anything I’ve ever seen, so he insisted that we find the restaurant where we ate lunch so that they could tell him where to buy that swill. He had an interesting way of getting what he wanted from Svetlana, who was driving, worked for him and, theoretically, in charge of this trip. “Svetlana, don’t you think we could, if we really wanted to, find that restaurant so we could get exact information about where to buy that wonderful liqueur, as it’s something we just must have? Don’t you think we could, if we really wanted to, find more about it so we wouldn’t have to leave Greece without it?” A future Dr. Phil guest, no doubt, to discuss how to use “I” messages.

Well, we finally did find the stuff, although it took an hour for Svetlana and Richard to agree on where in the entire city of Thessalonica the restaurant was located (A city of 2 million people by the way). We finally found the pub, and the waiter told us we could buy it around the corner. The store had the liqueur, either formally bottled or available by the liter, poured by hand from a 5 gallon jug into a clean glass liter bottle. Both of my traveling companions opted for the liter for 8 euro. I passed. I can brush my teeth with cinnamon Crest and get the same flavor.

The young woman waiting on us was the daughter of the store owner and offered us a taste of a liqueur called Vinsanto from the island of Santorini. Now, I am not a lover of liqueurs but I was intrigued. It tasted like sweet plums with the tartness of green apples – like eating a hard Macintosh straight from the tree – sweet-tart. Vinsanto is supposedly made from red grapes that had been left in the sun too long and is created without the skins so it is a pale rose-amber color. 25 euro a liter, poured from another 5 gallon jug, as it was made by a family on the island. Yikes! Could they sell a small bottle to me, I asked? After checking with her father, our young friend grabbed a ½ liter water bottle, filled it up and charged me 10 euro. Peter will love it, I know, but most of it will come home with me in May. It is something that is served by the thimble full and best enjoyed with friends.

We retuned about 9 pm Skopje time and I had, I’ll admit, a serious episode of homesickness. Why? Well, I haven’t figured it out entirely, but 2/3rds of the way home, in the dark, I began missing Peter and the boys big-time. Was it the disappointment of the Thessalonica trip? I didn’t know. So, arriving home, I used the rest of my minutes to call Peter, crying most of the time, while hearing Peter say “I knew this would happen sometime soon…” (I am nothing if not predictable) and agreeing to talk at length on Sunday 9 am Maine time, 3 pm Skopje time. My phone ran out of minutes probably at the right time and I faced Sunday – with stores closed and no American Corner for internet access and companionship – with some trepidation. Nothing good was on TV, so I hit the sack and read until 11:30.

I awoke Sunday morning at 7, hesitant to start my lonely day that early, so decided that I would lie in bed for awhile. Apparently I fell back to sleep quickly and awoke with the thought that it was probably about 8 am. One wave over my Brookstone sensor travel clock (a Christmas-stocking gift) and I realized that it was 10:30 am! I hadn’t slept 11 hours in one night since I was in college. Thinking about this unusual situation, I realized that the homesickness was, in part, jet lag finally catching up with me, as I hadn’t missed a beat since arriving last Monday. I dawdled a bit through the rest of what was left of the morning, contacted Svetlana for directions to a cheap internet café with even cheaper calls abroad and ventured out to find this gem of a café. Thanks to her directions and my map, I easily found Café Ajavar, a hole in the wall with smoke and euro-pop dance music filling the air. However, it had 20 terminals with super fast internet access, and calls to the US through the internet for 5 denar/10 cents a minute. I checked email and wrote back to some folks, including Bennett who had sent me a wonderful update on the beginning of his career search. I received an instantaneous e-mail reply from my dear friend Ellen to call her NOW…for a pep talk. OK, time to try the phone.

A 10 minute call to Ellen, a 20 minute call to Peter and a 13 minute call to my mother, together with an hour on the internet – 240 denar or $4.80. A sound investment, I decided. I felt better connected to home, it didn’t cost very much and I wasn’t crying any more. I walked around the center plaza, bought another cell phone card to use for local or emergency calls, and remembered that the entire Turkish RamStore complex, which is a huge, new, 3 story mall, was open on Sunday and decided to take Ellen’s advice to take care of myself, shop a little since it was so cheap, read an easy, fun book and relax. I took out some money from the ATM for the next couple of weeks, as taking money out multiple times costs me multiple charges, bought the International Herald Tribune and the new Economist, as well as 2 books. The book store surprised me, as a used Jane Austin book was $2 but a like-new Anita Shreve book was $10. I am getting very stingy. $12 can buy groceries for a week!

Before heading home, I visited the RamStore itself, which I have described before as a super supermarket, and picked up some wonderful looking Turkish oranges, learning that the store puts fruit on sale on Sunday as it gets deliveries on Monday. A different kind of tea cookie, some Tide so I can try the washing machine tomorrow, some local gnocchi and Romano cheese – good stuff but not too heavy, which has become the basis of my definition of necessary – how badly I need something can be gauged by how heavy my bags are. I have learned to buy my bottled water at the market next to my apartment, as it’s too heavy for the 1½ mile walk from the grocery store! A far cry from tossing everything in the back of my Volvo wagon without a thought!

I walked back the way I had come, through the City Center, thinking I’d find a café where I could get some lunch and a coffee, while reading the newspaper. I tried out the Dal Met Fu café – I have no idea what the name means – which was not crowded (but had been earlier, so it couldn’t be too bad), filled with plants and nice lighting, as well as about 20 pretty and friendly young waitresses in very short, very tight, red dresses. I mentally noted the length, or lack thereof, of their dresses, trying to decide whether to bring Seth there when he and Peter visit or shield him from such exposure.

I sat in the café and ordered a cappuccino, which came covered with whipped cream (I didn’t send it back  ) bottled water ( 99 cents! robbery!) and a small olive and tomato pizza. The pizza dough was thin and crisp, and covered with a mozzarella-type cheese, slices of fresh tomato and whole, pitted green and black Greek olives. No sauce, though. The sauce was served in a small syrup-type pitcher at room temperature, to pour on the pizza as you like. The food was good, the atmosphere cheerful with not as much smoke as I had anticipated, thanks, I learned, to a new law that went into effect January 6th mandating that public places have more non-smoking areas than smoking. I was in non-smoking, but too near the smokers. Next time, I’ll know exactly where to sit. I read the paper, ate about ½ of the pizza, taking the rest home for the next day’s lunch, and enjoyed the linguistic mélange around me, with English, Macedonian, Albanian, German and Italian…I think… all being spoken within the café. All in all, it was worth the $8 investment.

I stopped into the Orthodox cathedral on my way home, which is open 24 hours a day. I had been to a couple of Albanian orthodox weddings as a child, but really had no memory of the services, other than understanding nothing that was being said. Outside of the church, there were vendors selling thin, tan candles and small vials of holy water. The structure was round, had no chairs or pews, a high domed ceiling, stone floor and hundreds of lighted candles placed in wooden holders around the sides of the church. The air was thick with incense. There were workers in deli counter-like uniforms scraping dried candle wax from the stone floors continuously during the few minutes I was there and a steady stream of people entering, viewing the eclectic collection of icons, lighting candles, praying and backing out of the cathedral, making the sign of the cross three times before they exited. I made a short visit, as the incense was a bit too much for me following a day of cigarette exposure and headed on my way.

I was home about 6 pm, with a short but full and not too teary day under my belt. Monday would be my first day on the job. Another adventure on the horizon!

Post One, Day 3: Bad food, bad air

Thursday, January 19, 2006


I begin this diary on my 3rd full day in Macedonia. I arrived Monday night, about 5 pm, to an airport that reminded me of the old airport on Anguilla, the little Caribbean island that we have been visiting for the past 20 years…although the military helicopters that lined the tarmac certainly brought no memories of home or of the Caribbean, for that matter. Rather than the chickens and goats that I remembered from the early days on Anguilla, the Skopje airport was decorated with feral cats, running, walking, climbing over the radiators, sitting like decorations on chairs, counters and abandoned trunks and cases.

The airport had 2 passport lines – with computers, though, as technology is ahead of the rest of life here – one for locals and one for non-residents. The immigration agent stared at me intently, after examining my Macedonia visa, trying, no doubt, to decide whether the cropped head in the passport picture was, indeed, the same woman who stood before her with chin-length, plane trip-disheveled hair, glasses and puffy eyes. She either gave up or decided that no one would want to admit being either me or the picture on the passport and let me through.

I watched with held breath as luggage began to appear. And then, like clockwork, all of my suitcases appeared, having survived a trip from Portland Maine to Washington DC to Frankfurt, Germany to Skopje, Macedonia – all 5, 3 of which cost me in excess of $600 in excess luggage and weight charges. I loaded them onto a luggage cart, (and no back ache, can you believe it – me, with no back problems after loading luggage – strong Macedonian woman) pulling my carry on and one other rolling small case and tried to make my way to customs, pushing, pulling, dragging and moving my luggage along in shifts…with the entire staff of the airport watching me, but no one offering a hand. The customs officer took one look at what I was attempting to do on my own, smiled just a bit and waved me through…no way he was going to take up his evening looking through 5 gargantuan pieces of luggage. One of the same men who was watching me with some amusement at the baggage claim, rushed to my aid when I moved outside and located my name on a welcomed sign, decorated with the American flag in the upper right hand corner. There was the Embassy staff, waiting for me, right on time, with a classic American minivan, welcoming smiles, a hug from Jeanne, the Embassy APAO (that would be State Dept. lingo for Asst. Public Affairs Officer) and a welcomed hand from the Embassy driver. I gladly tipped the airport guy a couple of Euro and climbed into the front seat where I could actually stretch my legs while seated for the 1st time in about 18 hours. We were off to my new apartment in downtown Skopje.

After a 30 minute ride through, what seemed in the 6 pm dusk, to be a series of war-torn neighborhoods, we arrived at “my street”, Andon Dukov. Now, you need to know that I decided early on, when this apartment was offered to me and I was told it was on Andon Dukov St., that this housing would be perfect due to the name. My Albanian great Uncle was named Andon, a name that my oldest son, Bennett, has carried on as his middle name. OK, maybe I was really looking for assuring signs, but it worked for me.

My landlord’s daughter, Svetlana, greeted me with a hearty welcome in perfect English and a warm hug. We had been emailing for months and it already felt like a homecoming, with email relationships formed with the APAO and Svetlana. Before leaving, Jeanne handed to me a welcome packet from the Embassy, a bag filled with fruit, bread, cheese, bottled water and a bottle of Macedonia cabernet, and said good bye with a reminder of my security briefing at the Embassy the following morning at 10:30 am.

Svetlana showed me into her parents’ home and introduced me to her mother and father, neither of whom speak English (although both use “OK” and “No Problem” rather well). They were warm and kind, her mother, tiny and plump with short hair dyed a sort of brunette, henna red combination which has proved to be a common trait of women here in Skopje, wrapping her arms around me in a sincere hug and then rattling on in Macedonian about how tall I was… (Ok, so I’m used to that after 48 years of short people rattling on about my height). Svetlana the showed me to my apartment, on the 3rd floor of her parents’ building.

I’ll admit, I was a bit excited. You see, I’ve never had my own apartment and never lived on my own, as I went from home to college roommates to law school roommates to being married. The apartment was small, clean beyond description, and had crocheted covers on the sofa, bed, and chairs and table cloths on every other surface, reminding me of my Albanian grandmother’s house. A color TV with DVD and VCR sat ready, a small kitchen (we ARE talking small here, but with a ¾ size refrig which, I have learned, is quite a benefit here, with dorm style refrigerators being the standard in apartments.), small bathroom with the hot water boiler on the bathroom wall and a bedroom with only enough clothing storage for my underwear. The walls were all painted a fresh white, with hardwood-looking vinyl floors, natural wood beams and trim, and the living areas outfitted with simple, functioning furniture, dishes, pots and pans and the basics of Macedonia life in the frig – bottled water, Clementine’s from Greece, butter for my bread and a can of Turkish coffee. I looked out the windows (I should look out over rooftops, I thought, with a Parisian garret apartment image in my mind) but could see nothing but lights and hear cars in the distance. After having Turkish coffee with Svetlana and her parents in their 2nd floor apartment, during which visit I caused something of a commotion by not having sugar in my coffee, I received some basic instructions: on the door locks, the cable TV channels (CNN World News from Britain, the Hallmark Channel, BBC Prime and MTV all in English, along with some Macedonia channels that play US and British TV shows and movies with Macedonia subtitles), how to turn off the boiler before showering (“we have heard of people being dead from electricity and we don’t want that to happen to you”) and finally a last request to report to my landlord’s apartment in the morning for directions to the Embassy, I crawled upstairs at 20:00 (8 pm – I am trying to convert to standard time here, as well as temperatures in Centigrade which I am beginning to get thanks to the CNN weather woman, money in terms of denars – 50 denars to the US dollar - distance in kilometers and weight in kilo’s which I am not even close to understanding) and unpacked just enough to find my PJs and collapse into bed at 21:00.

The next morning, I awoke after about 9 hours of sleep. Now, I thought, the delightful Balkan garret view from my little apartment. WRONG. Oh, yes, a view of rooftops…terra cotta tile covered roofs that could be delightful, were they not accessorized by lots of ugly concrete and half-finished construction, tiny little smashed up cars that still manage to run, roaming feral cats, and trash lining the streets, everywhere. UGLY. I read somewhere that Skopje was the ugliest city in Eastern Europe. So far, I have seen nothing in 3 days to dissuade me from this depiction. Add to that a constant layer of smog. For those of you who have concerns about over-regulation in the US of air and water, think again. Live here for 2 days and come home every night with your hair and clothes smelling like car exhaust. You’ll change your mind.

But, I was here, and this was my home away from home, so soldier on. I had a banana and bread and butter for breakfast along with 3 cups of strong coffee (ok, I admit – and this will come as no surprise to those of you who know me best – I brought fresh ground coffee with me, along with some tea and a package of tea cookies…survival food), turned off the boiler (not good to die of electrocution on my first day), took a shower which fell OH, so good, dried my hair (YES, the travel dryer, appropriately switched to a European voltage worked!) changed into something non descript yet appropriate for an Embassy visit (black pants, dressy boots, nice white sweater, pearls in my ears…) and reported to my landlord’s apartment.

Svetlana was not there (she said she lives all over the place, often spending the night at her parent’s downstairs??) but her mother insisted on coming outside with me and showing me how to get to the Embassy. Now, she speaks no English…none. However, I figured out exactly what she was saying. I was about a 2 minute walk from the US Embassy, so I strolled past the entrance and continued down the street. More ugly, more trashed little cars screaming by, more smog and trash along the streets…and everybody walking past me sported a cigarette in one hand and a cell phone in the other. At 10:20, I reported to the guards at the front gate of the Embassy. They took my passport, decided I was who I said I was, found my name on the approved lsit and invited me into the guard station. They searched through my small backpack (I found a great black leather backpack at Marshall’s for about $30 that I imagined looked very chic, European and functional all at the same time. So far, I seem to have been right…). The guard had me pass through the metal detector, finding metal in my boots and began searching through my bag.

Palm pilot, digital camera…both had to stay locked up at the guard station. He asked, in somewhat halting English (these were Macedonia nationals) about my breath mints and rewetting drops for my contact lenses, and then held up something with a very confused look. “What this?” he asked, as I was putting my boots back on. I looked up and there was this stunningly handsome guard…dark hair, tanned, tall…kind of an Antonia Banderas-look with some decent height…holding up a Tampax Super tampon. “That is a tampon” I responded, trying oh so hard to stifle a hearty laugh. “Huh?” he responded, looking at the tampon closely, turning it around and trying to look through the paper wrapping. He showed it to his male colleague, who shrugged. I stood there, trying to think of how to explain to him what a tampon was without embarrassing him (me, I was already embarrassed…) and couldn’t for the life of me think anything other than he must not be married or that tampons hadn’t yet come to Macedonia. He finally said “Never mind, it stay here” and he locked it up with the Palm Pilot and Digital camera. Tampax super tampons - weapons against US interests around the world.

My Embassy briefing couldn’t be half as fun as the security experience, but it was informative, with the security attaché talking about staying aware of the Roma (Gypsy) population and how they pickpocket in gangs, usually targeting men and never seeming to grab handbags. The Public Affairs Officer, Michael, offered interesting insight into the growth of the Macedonian economy which was interesting to me, as everyone at the Embassy and the University here that I talk to seems to think that instruction in HR Management techniques will assure Macedonia’s destiny as a robust economy (ok, I’m good, but that’s pushing it a bit…).

The young woman who was also at the briefing, Melissa, an English Language Fellow through a Fulbright program for recent college grads who go abroad to help with English language instruction, had numerous questions about human Rights, religious discrimination, media ethics and the like, all directed at allowing her to save the world. She obviously hadn’t become jaded yet, like old me, and had the security and public affairs folks a bit concerned by the end of the morning when she admitted that although her contact at the Media Institute did not want her to teach an Ethics in Media course, she was determined to do so to help the Macedonian people overcome the communist effects on the media. Good God. She needs to get a life and experience a massage or a glass of wine once in a while.

I was reminded of my contact with the former US Ambassador to Maceodnia, Lawrence Butler (Waterville, Maine native, Bowdoin ’75, Ambassador to Macedonia from 2002-2005) by most everyone I talked with, being told that Ambassador Butler had exclamation points all over my application because I was from his home state and alma mater (who ever doesn’t believe that its all in who you know needs to rethink that, quickly). Butler is now working in Bosnia on the Dayton Accords as the number 2 person in the something, something High Command under the British which is, I believe, the international body that is overseeing Bosnia/Herzegovina right now. Regardless, he’s a very big international deal and will be coming to Macedonia in the next couple of months for a visit – the new ambassador from the US is a woman who I am supposed to meet in the next couple of weeks. During the welcome back visit for Butler, I was told I would be invited to a formal dinner with him. Need to make sure that the long black dress I brought fits!

OK, there’s another topic. As many of you know I love to eat and exercise. Eating doesn’t seem to be too big of a deal here. Food here, for me, is very cheap – I bought a week’s worth of groceries for just me, including paper towels, toilet paper, for about $25.And, surprise, I bought NO SUGAR at all, in any form. Fruit is from either Greece or southern Italy and wonderful and vegetables are only sold if they can be grown south of here – spinach, Brussels sprouts and broccoli are for sale in the market now, along with fresh cabbage which is a Macedonia staple. The yogurt from Greece tastes like sour cream and is so thick that I diluted it with milk to have with my muesli (not fresh milk but all in aseptic packages from Germany) and the cheese made here is wonderful – feta that doesn’t taste like it came from between your toes (salty, rich tasting, light and delicious), gouda that is creamy and delicious and local Romano that I tasted last night and will use everyday if I can figure out how. Eggs are all local, as is chicken, but most meat people eat is used as a condiment or flavoring and are preserved – salami, pepperoni and other cured or dried meats made here – or used sparingly in sandwiches with cheese. There is some fresh lamb and beef at the butcher shops. The red wine – I bought a bottle last night for a dinner at the home of another US Fulbright professor who has been here since September– for 339 denar – about $6.75 – one of the finest red wines sold, I was told, which was dry, nicely tanic and delicious once it had some air.

There are a couple of gyms, but exercise isn’t really organized and formal here. So, am I destined for weight gain? I don’t think so. The lifestyle here has to be very active. You see, I have no car, buses take for ever and I haven’t tried the taxi’s yet, which are cheap (about 1 dollar for a trip across town)…so I’ve been walking. Everywhere. Just like everyone else does. My apartment is in a good section of the city, relatively close to stores, the Embassy and the City library where there is the American Corner. Regardless, its more than a bit of a walk everywhere I need and want to go.

The American Corner is a place set up by the Embassy to encourage greater understanding of the US – there are 3 fulltime women who speak perfect English, 10 computers with high speed internet (I have none in my apartment yet), day old US newspapers, weekly US magazines (Time, Newsweek, etc.), a lending library with US fiction and non-fiction and talks by visiting US professionals (I am on for a March talk on Managing people and another one on business ethics issues in the US) and another floor dedicated to helping Macedonia students go to school in the US – the GRE’s and TOFFEL tests are given, college advice handed out and application assistance given. The people at the American Corner faun all over Fulbrighter’s (as we are called), taking our coats to hang them up, letting us use the computers for anything (email checking is prohibited to the public here – the computers are to be only for research- unless you are a visiting Fulbright Scholar – then you could almost produce porn on these computers, I think, and the staff ask how they could help you – its wonderful!).

The long and short of it, I have walked, I bet, about 5 miles for each of the past 2 days and will again today, as well. When you have dinner somewhere else - as I did last night, when I joined the Fulbright English professor and her husband for dinner at their apartment - you then walk home - 1½ miles home after dinner last night.

So, as you can tell, I am hoofing it all over the place – yesterday for about 2 hours with Svetlana to find an ATM that worked with my debit card and her new credit card (found it!), an adapter for my converter so I could charge my computer (found that also, for about 60 cents, at an open market thanks to translation by Svetlana) and to get my cell phone de-coded so I could use it here (had that done also, for $16 after going to about 5 places).I keep hoping I’ll be model thin when I return, at least not fat. Now, before I ventured out with Svetlana, I was invited for breakfast with Svetlana’s family, which I felt I should accept, even though I had already had my muesli.

OK, now this was an experience. They eat a big breakfast here at about 10 or 10:30. When they arise, they have coffee and perhaps bread and cheese or a boiled egg. The menu for this particular morning? Oh, dear. Polenta (home made corn meal mush) with pan fried chucks of pork which smelled either just a bit off or more gamey than I was used to, garnished with a dollop of sour cream and finished with tomato juice to drink. I ate it, had stomach distress for the rest of the day (unusual for me, as I traveled all over Asia on business for a couple of years, eating 20 kinds of seaweed, dog soup in So. Korea, fried chicken feet in Hong Kong, sea urchin in Singapore and lord knows what in Japan - as I chose not to ask what I was putting in my mouth - never getting even a stomach twinge once)…I ate toast and coffee today, in my little apartment, watching the sky clear to a sunny, cool day, thank goodness…yesterday’s smog made worse by an overcast day just about did me in.

During brunch, lets call it, Svetlana’s family asked about my family and I told them of my mother’s family being from Albania, Korce, specifically. After hearing my family’s names (grandmother Kaliopi, Aunt Vanthi, Uncle Andon Grigor and that we called my Aunt Teta), the family decided that my mother’s family was probably Macedonian Albanians with some Greek mixed in, as most Albanians are Muslim, unless they have Greek or Macedonia roots (my mother’s family were all Christian Orthodox). So, Svetlana began trying to find my Albanian relatives, she said, as she knows Albanian Christians here in Skopje (most, again here, are Muslim) who come from Korce. We’ll see – maybe I am an Albanian Princess and just didn’t know it yet!

But, despite stomach distress, I was successful at getting an operational phone. My telephone number? Here you go – if you feel like spending some time and money chatting or, decide after reading this that you just HAVE to visit Macedonia, give me a call: 389-71-730-109. I think you’ll need to dial 011 first. Give it a try if you’d like. I have some instruction from the Embassy that says if you call a cell phone here from the US, you need to dial 00 before the number but that makes no sense to anyone else here. Try both.

Well, today I am walking around town, trying to find the rest of the City and also trying to figure out where I’ll be teaching. I haven’t met the professor I am teaching with yet, but that should happen soon. I just got her cell phone number yesterday, so I’ll give her a call today. I’ll also see if I can get this email out to all of you. Let me know if you get it!


Friday, January 20, 2006

Yesterday, Thursday, absolutely exhausted me, but in a good way. You know, there is a certain freedom in not having a car, especially in a city such as Skopje where driving is an extreme sport. You can go anywhere you choose without worrying about parking, gas, insurance and directions, not to mentioned killing yourself in some awful accident. You just grab a map, plot out generally where you want to go, knowing you can stop and figure out additional detail as you walk, put on decent shoes and head out.

Thursday, I met Mary Ellen, the Fulbright English professor, in the City Center – Makidonija Square – to watch the Epiphany celebration when a blessed cross is thrown from the old Stone Bridge (we are talking old, built in the 15th century with its original stone work still standing, surviving a devastating earthquake in 1963 that wiped out most of the rest of Skopje). Once the cross was thrown, men dove into the water (it was about 4 or 5 centigrade - 40 degrees – yesterday) to retrieve the cross. While this was going on, the clergy from the Orthodox Church were chanting beautifully from the high point of the bridge. We watched this from the square, and then had lunch in a small Turkish restaurant, where we enjoyed a Greek salad, mint tea served in a small Turkish glass, falafel, eggplant spread and just-made pita bread, all of which cost me 220 denar, about $4.50.

Following lunch, we walked across the stone bridge to the old part of town and suddenly, I entered another century. The “Old City” is the Albanian section, which is the Muslim part of the city. Spires of mosques rise above the squat skyline, which is low because it is hundreds of years old, the only part of Skopje that survived the earthquake. The roads are all stone, resembling large cobblestones, uneven in color and level, winding throughout the area. Well above the roads sits the remains of the fortress Kale that has guarded Skopje for over two thousand years, first built in 200 BC.

We walked through the shopping area, which has the distinction of being the largest Turkish market outside of Turkey, where everything is sold, including much gold and silver jewelry, shoes, clothing, food, tea, coffee, you name it. I also saw many Roma, the type of people we would call gypsies, walking the street and selling bits of goods from squat tables along the streets and bridge. Many of the Roma sellers are men or old women, looking dirty, some disabled with only one leg or arm, hawking candles, icons, light bulbs, anything they can sell. The Turkish bazaar was absolutely beautiful in a distressed way, mostly because there was no late 1960’s early 70’s concrete anywhere – just old stone, tile roofs, Roma driving donkeys carts used to collect wood or cardboard for evening heat.

In the distance, twice during the couple of hours I was in the Old City, I heard the call to prayers coming from the mosques…a melodic, haunting chant that I had heard on the news but never experienced first hand. The men immediately moved from their tables, which then were watched by women who appeared suddenly, and headed toward one of the many mosques that dotted the area. The women always have their heads covered, and some are in full, black borqua, covered head to toe. I have found out which mosques will allow female visitors and will visit one in the next few days, using my scarf to cover my head when I enter. Exposed legs, arms and midriffs are not allowed in the mosques, which, due to the temperature and my never-will-be-exposed-to anyone-but-my-doctor-and-husband midriff, will not be a problem. There is only one mosque in the center of the city where I live, but literally close to 50 on the other side of the river, in the Carsija area where the bazaar is found.

There is true division here in populations. If you are Albanian, you are assumed to be Muslim. If you are Muslim, you are assumed to live in the Carsija area. There is concern by the Christian population here in Skopje that, unless there is unity between the Judeo Christian populations of the world that the Muslims, with their gender specific rules and ties to terrorism, will gain worldwide power and control. It is fascinating to engage in this conversation, as I did yesterday with my friend Svetlana. This concern is one of the reasons for enthusiastic support by the Macedonian people of potential European Union membership. Macedonia was officially given EU candidate status just 3 weeks ago, much to the delight of the people here. They see EU membership as a solution to many of this country’s challenges, both economic and political, as well as giving the population freedom to travel without first obtaining a visa.

Mary Ellen led me to the University of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, which also sits on the south side of the City over the River Vardar, just adjacent to the Old City. The buildings are all concrete, having been built in the early 1970’s with no updating since. From the outside, from a distance, there is a certain majestic beauty to the modern buildings, built in a bit of a campus concept. Up close, they are a shame – graffiti, crumbling concrete on the outside, torn up tiles, peeling institutional green paint and cigarette permeated walls on the inside. The class rooms have chairs that date from the 70’s, chalk boards (no dry erase boards and OPU’s here) and virtually no books or supplies. Depressing, but function here is what is important, not frills or ascetics. That’s for sure.

Fulbrighter’s are given a $1500 stipend by the Fulbright Commission to buy books for shipment to our destination – stretched by publishers willing to donate books as done by my rep at Thomson Southwestern Publishing and my friends at the Institute for Global Ethics – and with good reason. Students can’t afford textbooks. All come from either the US or Great Britain and many of us know what textbooks cost. A text for one of my courses last semester was $132 new, $99 used. $132 is equal to 6700 denar which is a month’s rent here and half of a month’s salary…if the student is lucky enough to have a job (35% unemployment here). So, visiting professors bring books, the school photocopies parts of them for the students and then they are donated to the library for general use. Libraries here are one of the few well-funded institutions and revered by students. I now know why. Amazing the things we take for granted.

Education is seen here as a ticket to a better life, so everyone wants a college degree and professors, as I have experienced, are worshipped – I’m getting a kick out of that! There are as many women as men in college – probably even more - and the women actually run most of the University. This seems to have happened because it is acceptable for women to live at home for a while, work part time in office jobs, to support the college bills while many men grab jobs as taxi drivers or laborers so they can buy a car or get married or leave the country. Therefore, more women seem to have Ph.D.’s and therefore positions as professors or administrators. As more educational and political ventures come to Macedonia, which is happening more and more as EU membership gets closer, it’s the women, not the men that are offered the visible positions with new colleges and expanded Embassy, UN and other international programs. During my visit to the University yesterday, the men were the greeters at the check-in desks, sporting very limited English and the women that I met were the program heads with Ph.D.’s, having had Fulbright grants for US study and speaking perfect English. Fascinating.

I ended the day by checking email at the American Corner, as the wireless internet that has supposedly been extended to the area in which I live is only available if I stand in the street with my laptop (which I did to see if it was out there) and then I couldn’t get it to authenticate. I picked up a loaf of wheat bread from a little bakery along the way (50 cents) and a treat of 2 wonderful meringue cookies for 20 cents (there goes the sugar thing), then stopped at my little local store to get bottled water, ground coffee and some tomatoes from Turkey that are actually red, not pink ($2.50 was my entire bill). I carry my string shopping bag in my backpack which at home, unless at the farmer’s market, would label me nerd, but here labels me as a savvy local and helps me fit right in and do my shopping as I need to.

I reached home at about 17:30, aching from walking half of the City, but refreshed from the freedom of movement and general activity and eager to catch up on the news about the Bid Laden tape and the weather. CNN World, out of London, is absolutely fabulous and not having to suffer through the stupid local stories we are tortured with all day on our local broadcasts gives a whole new perspective to news. Instead, CNN covers all of the European, African and American economic and political stories in fascinating detail. Then, the BBC was showing a fun series called Doctors (like ER without the dramatic surgeries or more like General Hospital with charming accents). My landlord friend Svetlana visited later, adamant that we find the wireless connection, hence our standing in the cold in the street in the dark finding what connections we could grab from the neighborhood. We found three, none of which my laptop would completely accept. She wants to install the internet, but is hesitant due to a contract that would continue after I leave. She knows I need it, so she is on the trail of a good deal that she can afford after I leave.

Friday, today, I’ll venture out to find #4 cone coffee filters and see if I can find a tea kettle and perhaps a tea pot for cheap, which shouldn’t be hard to do here. I’ll call my supervising professor, finally, after getting her correct cell phone number…I think…and attend a lecture by Carl, my friend Mary Ellen’s professor husband, who is talking about the work of e.e.cummings tonight at 18:00 at The American Corner. Am I attending because I am fascinated by e.e.cummings?? No, I know nothing about him other than he had a thing about capital letters. But, I have been invited, Mary Ellen and Carl are friends, it’s free, it’s what the US expats do here and it’s an event, with an invitation to dinner with real people almost guaranteed afterwards! Speaking of free, the Macedonian Philharmonic gives concerts every Thursday evening for $4 a ticket. I didn’t go last night because I am not over jet lag yet and falling asleep by 20:00 when the concert starts, but I shall go with Mary Ellen and Carl next week.


Its 3 pm Friday, Jan 20th.

Today, I successfully navigated a chunk of Skopje that I had never visited, including the City Center Shopping area where I bought a 128 MB flash drive for 890 denar or $17.50. Someone tell me if this is a good price!!??!! If you are reading this, it’s because it worked.

I found the Turkey-based supermarket RamStore, a huge, modern, incredibly well stocked supermarket that rivals any of Hannaford’s biggest stores in design, product and services. There I found the coffee filters I needed and the tea kettle I wanted (on which I blew about $12), as well as Greek olives, some breakfast yogurt (like Dannon with strawberries but not so sweet), oatmeal, pasta sauce, water, local Brussels sprouts, a bottle of Macedonian sauvignon blanc, tea biscuits (I’m out, heaven forbid) and other staples – for $32 – my biggest and last shopping trip for a while. Why the last for a while? Well, money is one thing, but my shoulders are killing me from walking all the way home (about 2 miles) with the groceries. I need a break and I’d rather spend money on wine and tea biscuits than taxis!

The City Center and the pedestrian-only streets that run off it gave me my first, very sad look at the Roma children begging. Wow, our children are so very lucky. These kids are maybe 7 or 8 and are expected to contribute to the family by bringing home a certain amount of money each day; I am told that they do not come home until they earn it, anyway they can, including stealing, which is why the pick-pocketing happens mostly at night with the cover of darkness and the family deadline looming.

The other phenomenon, which wasn’t a surprise, but is something I am reminded of every time I travel abroad, is the language capability of Europeans. Anyone who ever thinks that language classes in US schools are expendable needs to be in a city like this – not a sophisticated global Mecca like Paris or Frankfurt or Geneva, but the capital of a very small, economically suffering country. Everyone I have spoken to in shops, restaurants, malls, can speak English enough to communicate perfectly well. If they can’t handle the level of English needed, they will readily offer to switch to German or French. Their language training starts in their 1st year of public school at age 4 and continues through high school and usually into college. Demonstrated fluency in English is required for the business school where I will be teaching… in order just to apply. And English is just one of the languages these folks know. I know only some very basic stuff in Macedonian and don’t know my numbers yet, so I have used French twice, which I seem to be able to pull out from somewhere in the recesses of my brain, and that has helped. Basically, to survive in this world where, I am convinced, doing some sort of activity or business outside the US will be required of everyone in the next 10 or 20 years, our kids absolutely need to be conversationally fluent in at least one other language. We are nuts to over look this in their education.

OK, no more soapbox. I am off to the American Corner to try to send this to all of my friends, and then to attend a lecture there. Tomorrow is Saturday, the primary shopping day, but I am shopped out (well, my shoulders are) so I am going to climb up to the Kale Fortress and see the 15th century Orthodox church nearby, as well as the national Macedonian museum located in an 11th century monastery.


More after the weekend!

Love to all

Beth