The Token American

It’s a big confidence booster to be in a room where people are speaking English and to know that you speak better English than everybody else there. I don't want to brag or anything but it happens to me all the time.

Unfortunately, that’s not necessarily one of the perks of being an expat because the moment people start speaking in the local language, my language skills are easily the worst in the room. My terrible Macedonian is most likely the reason my host mom learned so many of the English words she did. One of the words she says most frequently is “understand.” She’ll ask it at the end of a discussion to make sure that I have a vague idea of what she said, and I usually just say yes. She probably knows that, which is why I’m sure she messes with me sometimes by cursing at me or trash talking my hometown, but I wouldn’t know for sure because I never learned any curse words since I don’t have a potty mouth.

In contrast, one of the benefits (sometimes) of being a foreigner is that you are automatically cool and interesting. No matter how off-putting or weird you are, this is your chance to be the popular kid because everybody wants to know about you. They bombard you with conversation, touch your hair (because it’s a different color so it must feel different), and constantly ask about the way things are in America (I’ve come to dislike these questions because I just don’t know the answer. America was a long time ago).

Aside from finally knowing what it’s like to be popular, there was one other thing that I was able to cross off my bucket list during my time here. It doesn’t really have anything to do with being here, but I’m gonna write about it anyway.

A series of events transpired on a somewhat stodgy summer day—in fact, I think it was two summer days because nothing much got accomplished that first day—that led me one step closer to being an official adult. Although, I am still a few steps away from becoming a full-fledged grown-up, I am quite proud of my recent development. That development was updating my antiquated signature. To most of you, recreating your signature may sound idiotic. You may think ain’t nobody got time for that. But, yes, it seems that everybody do got time for that because I can't think of a single adult I know that still has the same signature they used when they handed in their math test to Mrs. Pelling in the 6th grade.

This brings me to the word of the blog. This word is not one that is used all that often, but when it is used, it is always important. The word is:

потпис (potpis) - signature

So now instead of asking people for their John Hancock (because that sounds…weird), you can ask for their potpis. Looking at it now, people may think you’re saying pot piss. That’s at least as weird as John Hancock, so maybe let's all just agree to say signature.

Hmm, what else can I tell you about to help you procrastinate for a little while longer? You guys want to talk about manikins? Macedonia is renowned for its manikin population, at least among Peace Corps Volunteers. Macedonia humbly boasts the most diverse collection of manikins in the developing world. Maybe even the universe. You are more likely to see a manikin sporting a wig than clothing. They have obese manikins, toddler manikins, amputee manikins, and the list goes on. Some are appropriate, but many you wouldn’t see in the states. Just the other day, I saw a child manikin while walking through the mall in Skopje. It was wearing nothing but underwear and a belly shirt. It felt so wrong to look at it just standing there in the window so I had to look away. But the only thing there was to look away at was one of the topless nippled manikins. OK, this is getting uncomfortable. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up. Let’s change the subject.

One of the more normal manikins...on the right.

So, how ‘bout that Barcelona-Madrid match the other day? Did anyone see that? I don’t know if I’ve said this before, but soccer is pretty much the go-to sport here for most athletes, so if you want to watch some live sports, most likely that’s gonna be the one.

A while back, I went to one of the soccer tournaments up at the high school. By the time I got there, there was standing room only. It seems the only thing Macedonians show up to on time are soccer games. It was fine though. I didn’t mind standing—at first. From this experience, I only have one piece of advice for anyone planning on attending a soccer match in Macedonia. Unless you like having sunflower seeds thrown on your shoes by a middle-aged man with a stout belly that presses more firmly against your forearm as the game progresses, you should sit.

How do you eat sunflower seeds? This is how to eat sunflower seeds Macedonian style, I think:
Step 1 - Hold the sunflower seed “hotdog style” between your thumb and index finger.
Step 2 - Keeping the sunflower seed in your fingertips, bite the end of the shell to crack it open.
Step 3 - Magic happens. I’ve never really mastered this step, but this is where the insides are supposed to fall into your mouth and you can discard the shell without ever putting it completely in your mouth.

Olives are eaten in a similar style as this, but that’s all I want to say about that.

Well, It’s rainy season again, which means that you need to start checking the seats and windows of buses before you sit down. If you make a hasty decision, it may be the wrong decision—that is if you appreciate staying dry during bus rides. With that reminder, I’ll leave you all.

My time as a PCV is done, and once I get over this stupid illness that decided to torment me during the final days of my service, I will be heading out on a trip to explore Europe. My first stops will be in Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine before heading to Spain at the end of December. If any of you have plans to be anywhere in Europe in the next couple of months, let me know because I may be in the area.

Stay classy world.

Battle of the Bills

The people of Macedonia are in a constant battle with their currency--the denar. The current exchange rate of the denar is roughly 54 to the dollar (in case you were wondering). That probably tells you something about the economy, but seeing all of those digits in my bank account sure does make me feel rich anyway.

There are 1, 2, 5, 10, and 50 denar coins that nobody ever wants to be in possession of. And if they do come into ownership of a few, their goal is to dump them on the first unfortunate individual they get the chance to. I won't lie, I've deliberately partook in this inane activity as well. But mostly in a positive way, I think, by paying with exact change when I can. Like everyone else, I am simply not a fan of the coins--except for the 50 denar coins. Those silver disks of denar are downright dope. Probably because you can actually buy something with them and you're not weighed down by carrying a battalion of coins with you. Plus, there's no jingle jangling going on in your pockets while you're walking, which some people may like but I'm not a big fan of. I find that it interferes with my ability to ninja.

Remember when I said there were 1, 2, 5, 10, and 50 denar coins? These are it.

The banknotes are even worse (not for ninjaing, for the currency battle). There are 10, 50, 100, 500, 1000, and 5000 denar notes. Nobody ever has anything larger than a 1000 denar note though. Actually, nobody ever has anything other than a 1000 denar note. And these people that carry around their 1000 denar notes are constantly trying to get change for it or obtain smaller notes in some conniving way. They'll buy a burek and small carton of yogurt (a common breakfast combination) for 70 denars and pay with a 1000 denar note. Then they expect the person behind the counter to have change for them, which they never do because I don’t know why. Still, people are always paying with these larger notes, which wrecks havoc on the tills at these establishments. The cashiers end up having to run around to a few stores in the area in order to get the necessary change to give the paltry patron.

Consider yourself lucky. Most people never see one of them there 5000s. I've only ever seen one myself.

For the customer, this is better than going to the ATM if you ask me. You get a product you want, plus you are able to get rid of a hefty 1000 denar note and gather a temporary collection of smaller bills (for your sake, hopefully there were no coins given to you with your change).

Unlike the coin situation, the practice of paying for excessively small purchases with excessively large bills is one that I do not participate in (except for at bus stations). Having seen the dire need for smaller bills, I usually only withdraw 100s and 500s from the ATM unless I'm expecting to spend over 1000 den somewhere. Boy, are people happy to see those smaller notes. Please don't praise me. I'm just doing my small part to help out in this currency combat.

All this money talk is making me feel like studying Macedonian (probably because I know that it will lead to me getting a large signing bonus at my next job). Since I’m in the mood now, we should go over the Macedonian word of the blog. The word is:

пари (pari) - money

Speaking of пари, it’s time I start earning mine by going back to school (because we all know how instrumental I am in the proper running of the school). School started a couple of weeks ago, and entering the beginning of the school year made me think back on some of the good times I’ve had in the classroom with the students and my counterpart (the English extraordinaire. Seriously, this guy speaks English more good than I do).

This is unnecessary since 97% of the people that read this blog have probably met my counterpart in person.

It seems as though all of my favorite moments in school happened during the same week. I mean, any week where you get to flip off your students, stick your tongue out at them, and make a bunch of 18 year olds dance to “Head, Shoulders, Knees, & Toes” all in the name of education, is a good week at school.

Just like in America, there is a holiday at the beginning of the school year--Independence Day. It has been celebrated on September 8 since 1991 when Macedonia gained its independence from Yugoslavia. Instead of providing you with a thorough description of the celebrations that carry on throughout the day (since if I did that, there would be pretty much nothing to write about), I will inform you of another way to make money.

If you want to get in the kid making industry, Macedonia is the place to go. Due to the low fertility rates in certain regions of the country following the socioeconomic transition after Macedonia gained its freedom, the big man upstairs (no, not god. the guy that works upstairs in city hall) decided to start paying women that birthed multiple youngins (the PM talked about how successful this was in his Independence Day speech, which is why its being written about here. Just in case you were wondering where the hell this was coming from). Supposedly this was to keep their population from declining, but I’m pretty sure it was really just a ploy to make the big man upstairs pleased, if you know what I mean.

I don't know why, but this part always gets saved for last. It's time to talk about the English word that my host mom knows. The word that my mom knows is money. I know that I told you I wasn't going to make it the same as the Macedonian word of the blog again, but I'm lazy. You should have known it was gonna happen.

Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! Macedonia now airs live NFL games.

Stay classy world.

Football, Christmas, and Other Things Worth Celebrating

The only way you can convince yourself that these next few paragraphs are still relevant enough to read is that football season is officially about to start again. Football is pretty much the only sport that I’ve continued to follow while I’ve been here. I wish I didn’t have to specify what I’m talking about when I say football, but I know that I need to. I don’t mean soccer and I don’t mean rugby. I mean good old American football.

I was watching the Ravens-Patriots game (now last season), and the link I found online was run by some channel called Sky Sports from the UK (completely not not illegal). Now I don’t have a problem with the UK showing NFL games on the telly, but I was really disappointed at the cast they had commentating. There was an English guy, a Canadian fellow, and a hack American football player (this guy named Moore that was a tight end for the Browns for a couple of seasons) commentating on the game. I mean, what the hell is a Hamilton Tiger-Cat anyway? “The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are a professional Canadian football team based in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, founded in 1950 with the merger of the Hamilton Tigers and the Hamilton Wildcats.”1 That’s what a Hamilton Tiger-Cat is.

The reason people that don't live in America call the sport American football is because it's American (it’s definitely not because the rest of the world calls football what Americans call soccer). I don't know what these Canadians and Brits are doing in a studio talking about football. The only good English football player I know of is Osi Umenyiora, and the best Canadian player in the league is probably Shaun Suisham and he's a kicker. I guess Canada does at least have that going for them because they have had a few good kickers and punters in the league over the years.

With that said, I’m pretty pumped about the upcoming season. Just don’t expect me to watch any streams of the games that are from Sky Sports because British or Canadian accents are not something that I wish to start associating with football.

You may have realized that the title mentioned something about Christmas. That’s because I wrote this back in January. There is a good reason I waited until this exact moment to post this, but I’ll let you fully consider that matter on your own time. Right now I don’t care to delve into that subject with you.

I will tell you the Macedonian word of the blog though. Christmas is a big holiday here. It is celebrated very differently than in the states. There is no exchanging of gifts or singing of Christmas carols. But families do gather together to break some bread (literally) and enjoy each other's company. The Macedonian word of the blog is:

Божиќ (boszik) - Christmas

I really gotta stop using ж in the words I choose.

There is one Christmas story that I want to share with you all. Here it is.

First of all, merry Christmas to everybody who I may have missed saying that to back in December. There is this person who shall remain nameless (because I don’t know this individuals name) existing in Kratovo that has a very rudimentary understanding of the Christmas tree. In all actuality, I’m sure that there are many individuals in Kratovo that share this basic comprehension of the Christmas tree, but there is only one person that I would like to call out on it.

Christmas trees simply do not belong on the roof of a vehicle. Not once, not thrice, but on two separate occasions I saw this. The first time I happened to witness this outlandish act, I was under the false impression that the tree was being transported home and it just happened to be decorated already. The second time, however, I was not so foolish. It was very apparent to me that the roof of the car is where this tree was intended to stand.

I was waiting at the bus stop on a blustery December afternoon, and I must have seen this car drive idly by at least three times while I was there. Kratovo has one main road that basically does a lap around the center of town, and it is my genuine belief that this individual was on an excursion around town solely to exhibit the captivatingly placed Christmas tree atop their vehicle.

That’s not the only weird thing you’d see around Kratovo though if you stuck around throughout the holiday season. The same people that think you will get sick if you go outside with wet hair after a shower, sit in a cold room with a t-shirt on instead of a sweater, not wear socks around the house, be in a place with 2 windows open or a window and a door open, drink a cold beer in the winter…sorry I started to get a little carried away there. Anyway, the same people that believe those things are the people that are perfectly fine with practicing the age old tradition of jumping into freezing cold water in the heart of winter to get a cross and win a television, a nice chunk of change, and bragging rights for the year. Plus, it is symbolic of Jesus being baptized.

I’ve never seen any religious practice carried out quite like this one. It goes down at many different locations (pools, rivers, lakes) on January 19th all around the country, and I’ve had the privilege of watching it in Kratovo the last two years. This most recent winter was quite frigid here in Macedonia so prior to the participants recklessly leaping into the town pool, inches of ice had to be ferociously chipped away to make space for this event to go down. What the funk!

On a more pleasant note, possibly one of the best practices of the wintertime is eating pastrmajlija. That thing I wrote about in my second post. Having pastrmajlija and gazoza (a "carbonated aromatised refreshing non-alcoholic drink with a pear aroma."2 I had to look that up because I wasn't sure how to describe it.)  early on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon is equivalent to Americans getting a few pizzas delivered and enjoying them at home with some coke (the cola kind, not cocaine. Unless you’re into that kind of thing, in which case...never mind.) and a movie.

That's what your average pastrmajlija looks like

That’s pretty much all I have to say about wintertime activities here.

I suppose I'll wrap this up with the English word that my host mom knows. There was a period where I spoke mostly English at home, and I was really surprised and pleased that we could actually have conversations with each other like that. She may not be able to say a great deal in English, but she can definitely understand a lot. Even now we still greet each other in English sometimes. Well, mostly I do that but she can. She'll say, "Hello. How are you?" And if I ask her, she can respond with "good" or "bad." She may know more English than I know Macedonian now.

Stay classy world.

Works Cited
1. "Hamilton Tiger-Cats." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 22 Jan. 2015.
2. "Gazoza." Prilepska Pivarnica. Prilepska Pivarnica. Web. 22 Jan. 2015.

Medical Mayhem

I don't know how many of you have ever had an MRI or know what it sounds like, but it is torturous. I had been having knee pain for quite a while, and it was getting pretty bad, so I ended up going in for an X-ray to get both of my knees checked out. The results were a little wishy-washy so the next step was for me to hop in this MRI machine. I had to lie there listening to this contraption while being bombarded with sounds of humming, roaring, buzzing, and chinging like a rogue car alarm for almost 45 minutes. I did have these bulky headphones on with classic rock songs whispering in my ears, but even those didn't come close to blocking out the sound of this beastly machine.

Because the music from the headphones wasn't doing the trick and the sounds were beginning to make me feel a bit anxious, I ended up having to entertain myself. And that is how I created the story "Jangor: A Robot's Tale." Please read the following paragraphs out loud using your best robot voice (even though Jangor is referred to as a man, both male and female robot voices are appropriate to use. also, there are no humans in this story so only the third law of robotics applies here).

"Oh tartles!" cried Jangor as he scurried toward the electric fence that surrounded the entire estate. He had been spotted by the guards manning the searchlight, and, in his current state, they were much faster than he was. Now all of the alarms around The Farm were raging. Jangor reached inside his chest compartment and dug around for an explosive he had made from various parts he managed to find around The Farm over the last few weeks. As he scanned the yard for more guards coming from other directions, he closed the compartment and hurriedly slid the explosive into the barrel that slightly protruded from his chest (that gives a real meaning to barrel chested, am I right?). So far, most of his parts hadn't been harvested, leaving him largely operational. Besides the wiring in his left arm and his left eye, which was given to one of the older diving models that recover significant articles lost at sea, he possessed all of the other essential components that he arrived there with.

The guards were quickly gaining on Jangor as he threw himself over the ditch filled with water from the latest rain. After being at The Farm for only six weeks, he could already notice the stiffness of his joints from the early stages of oxidization. That's the disease that took both of his grandparents, and he was becoming worried that the same thing would happen to him if he didn't get off The Farm soon. That's why it was so important to him that his escape attempt was successful.

Being sure to keep a safe distance from the electrical fence that had been the death of many of the robots during escape attempts, Jangor began to slow down and lean over. Aiming towards the base of a fence post, he fired the explosive. Upon impact, sparks instantly shot out at him from the wires connecting the posts, and they encompassed the entirety of The Farm as they spread throughout the fence. The fence rocked and roared violently causing wires to tear apart and the circuits to trip. Fortunately for Jangor, the backup generator had been damaged by the recent rainstorms, so he now had the protection of darkness to aid him in his escape. And now that the electricity was out, he was more confident in getting past the fence.

Jangor had also been lucky enough to be equipped with night vision by his previous owner just before arriving at The Farm. Because night vision technology had only recently been introduced to the general robot population, he was the only robot at The Farm that had it. But since wiring had been taken from Jangor's left eye, the night vision was only fully functional in his right. Once his night vision had activated, he took one look at the fence to see where it had been cleared and he bolted toward the broke down section right where the explosion had hit it.

The guards were closing in quickly with their stun guns unholstered. Jangor approached the fence, and as he prepared to jump to avoid anything that was still holding on to any bit of electrical charge, his right knee hinge became stuck, probably from the oxidation, and he fell over.

That's as far as I was when the MRI scanner turned off because most of the time it was hard not to picture a car alarm going off in the middle of a packed parking lot. Or even worse, parked next to the curb outside of an apartment building at 3 in the morning. Feel free to make up whatever ending you want for Jangor. I like to think he survives though.

By the end of my MRI, my left leg had fallen asleep. But it didn't have the typical sensation of a limb that had gone numb so I wasn't aware of it until I climbed off the table and nearly fell flat on my face. I don't think the technician noticed what had almost happened, but I immediately hobbled and hopped to the wall and leaned against it while I tried to think of a way to stall because they were rushing to get me out so that another patient could come in. I still had to get my shoes on so I was able to waste some time doing that. It was a struggle though. I could barely get my foot in my shoe, let alone try to bend over and tie it. Eventually I just sat down on the ground to put my shoes on. But I did manage to make it out of the room before they started yelling at me. I'll call that one a success.

After all of this MRI crap, I ended up having a couple of weeks of physical therapy. In the meantime, I was posted up in a hotel room in Skopje. While I was chilling in the hotel room, I watched a lot of CNN. During the Oscar Pistorius verdict (now you know how long ago this happened), I noticed quite a few important looking people not paying attention to the judge. I'm pretty sure I even saw one guy doing a crossword puzzle. But that's not nearly as bad as the guy that was playing Candy Crush on his smartphone. Seeing that kinda made me want to be a lawyer again. Something to think about anyway.

Another lovely memory I have in my hotel room is having the cleaning lady almost come in my room while I was naked. It's almost a blur now, but I will try to recall the moment as best as I can for you. I had just got out of the shower and I was getting my daily CNN fix. I was leisurely rubbing myself down (no, not that way you sickos) so I was unclothed a little longer than I had to be, and just as I was doing the finishing touches, I heard a key quickly being shoved in the keyhole. I stepped back behind the corner of the wall to make sure I had some coverage and I started making a bunch of noise so that she would know I was in the room and just leave. As quickly as the door had opened, it closed, and it wasn't touched by anybody but me for two days.

In the end of all of this medical madness, I got a knee brace to wear on each knee while I'm exercising, shoe inserts that I probably don't use as often as I should, and a kick-ass set of exercises and stretches to do every other day. It sure beats surgery...I think.

Dealing with all of this medical stuff made me think about getting old, and I think I was drawn to this facet of aging because I happened to be getting ready for bed when I was thinking about being old. When you get old, there are many things in your life that change. One of those being your bed time routines. Instead of brushing your teeth, you take them out. You don't wash your face anymore but you do have to take your hearing aids out. Gotta make sure you go pee right before bed so that you can sleep for at least two hours before you have to wake up and go again. And instead of saying your prayers to whatever god you talk to, you pass out before you can even remember your god's name. But you do snore loudly and mumble rubbish to nonexistent people. I can't wait to get old.

I don't know how, but I almost forgot to include the Macedonian word of the blog and the English word that my host mom knows. Since I'm feeling lazy, I'm gonna make them the same word this time. But I promise I will only do this once:

старo (staro) - old

On a separate note, my host mom just celebrated the 10th anniversary of her 32nd birthday. Happy belated birthday my Macedonian mother!

Also, sorry for not having any pictures this time. That's my bad.

Stay classy world.

The Next Post

I know it's been a while, but in all my excitement about ajvar, I completely forgot to rub it in your face that I went to Italy and Albania over my summer break (not that anybody even remembers what happened over summer at this point). They were pretty cool trips. That's all I want to say about that. Eh, I guess I could tell you some weird things about where I went. In Italy I spent most of my time in Venice. I'm sure you already know that there are pretty close to zero roads in Venice. Instead they use these fancy things called canals to get around (that was a dumb one). In Albania people hang up stuffed animals in unfinished houses to ward off evil spirits. And they are obsessed with watering the concrete. Gotta keep it clean, I suppose. Since I came up with two for Albania, I should probably come up with another one for Italy. Shops in Italy—especially restaurants—tend to be closed at random times throughout the day. What that is about, I have no idea, but it is a very sneaky tactic utilized by the shop owners to create a state of confusion among the simpleminded tourists. Really the only bad thing about it is that it can cause those doltish out-of-towners to become quite belligerent. Some of them even got so mad they walked away and went to another restaurant. It was out of control.

Over the summer, I also helped out at a few summer camps, which was pretty freakin' awesome. If I could, I would do that all year long. But I looked into it and unfortunately summer camps are only during the summer. Who knew? The kids at the camps I went to were great. They've got some pretty good heads on their shoulders (I should be clear that there is only one head per pair of shoulders. I know it sounded kinda weird the way I wrote it so I thought I'd clarify that just to make sure we're on the same page. A lot of you have never been to Macedonia before so maybe you think that a different type of person is bred here. I don't know what's going through you're head. I can't even figure what's going on in my head half of the time).

My boys and me from YMLP

I should preface this next part by saying that I'm kinda nervous about this whole situation (I don't expect this sentence to translate to Macedonian very well because most Macedonians use the word nervous when they really mean angry. So any Macedonians reading this might think that I'm angry and that's just silly). This might be why I've waited so long to put up another post. It could also be that I've had computer problems, but I already used that excuse before so I'd hate going to it again.  

Anyway, what I've been trying to say is that my host mom just started reading my blog (and by just, I mean she read my last blog post three months ago), so now I'm gonna have to be extra careful about what I say. When she read that my last post was all about ajvar, she asked where I learned how to make it and then told me that I wasn't allowed to write about ajvar unless I made some. I'm taking that as an official invitation to an ajvar making party. Now I know that it was an invitation to a day of ajvar making because I did end up helping a bit. At least as much as the women would let me. A bunch of pics were even staged so that it looked like I was the one doing all of the work, but all of those pictures have since been lost forever. I've never seen them anyway.

OK, I know they aren't in season anymore, but what's the deal with grapes? I tossed a grape into my mouth and started chewing without thinking, but instead of the sweet explosion that I was expecting, I bit into something hard. Crazy things were going through my mind. Has the middle of the grape miraculously been petrified? How did a rock get inside of my grape? Do insects have teeth, and how big are they if they do? Well, I looked into it a bit, and before I could find out whether insects had teeth or not, I discovered that grapes actually have seeds. They aren't nearly as cool as cherry seeds, which are the only fun seeds that come from a fruit as far as I'm concerned. I guess I've just been spoiled all of my life with seedless grapes.

Which leads me to my word of the blog. The word is:

грозје (grozye) - grape

Grapes are an important part of the culture here in Macedonia. Yes, people eat them, but I think more grapes are used for making вино (wine) and ракија (rakiya). Pакија is homemade liquor. It's usually between 40% and 50% alcohol and it's almost always accompanied by salad of some sort. Also, it's important that I add that it is drunk from shot glasses (or a reused plastic water bottle) but it is NEVER shot. There are so many other drinking rules when it comes to ракија but as long as you know not to shoot it, you'll be good. I guess you should also probably know that you're supposed to use your right hand for drinking ракија. Those two rules ought to do it.

I don't know why I'm throwing this in here, but it is happening. You know how when people say hello to answer the phone and then the person calling says hi back? Then because the answerer doesn't know where to go from there since they weren't the one that decided to pick up the phone and call someone, they give a second, more personalized hi to the person. So of course what does the caller do? They say hi again and then get on with the business of the call. That's four hi's where there should really be no more than one. Two tops. That's enough of this uselessness. Will you cut the malarkey (I had to throw a Dave Chappelle reference in there because nobody here ever gets them)!

You all already knew that my host mom could rap, but I bet you didn't know that she got her inspiration from old school classics. I was sitting alone in the living room and listening to the song "Three Little Indians" by Run-D.M.C. when my host mom came in. Now she's not a fan of any kind of rap or hip-hop so she wasn't feeling the song. But when she heard the words "father" and "mother" in the song, her ears perked up a bit. For the rest of the day she wouldn't stop saying those words around me. And that is how I know that she knows how to say those words. Other family members that she knows are brother, sister, and cousin.

Again, I don't know why I'm putting this in here. For some reason it was written down on this document so I guess I'll share it with you instead of deleting it. I would like to present some words of wisdom to the reading community out there. If you can't read, then you probably aren't smart enough to understand this anyway: People who don't use their head use their feet.

Stay classy world.

It's Ajvar Season, Baby

I woke up this morning craving Jolly Ranchers. And I don't even particularly like Jolly Ranchers. I had to settle for some iced tea though because that was the closest thing I had to it sitting around in my room. Believe it or not, it was pretty satisfying.

I don't know what Jolly Ranchers have to do with anything else that I'm gonna write about, but they have somehow managed to find their way into the first two paragraphs. Unbelievable. This paragraph was supposed to be all about the cute new kittens that Boni had, but the Jolly Ranchers are completely taking over. Which makes me wonder, how would a cat react to eating a Jolly Rancher? This thought of course led me to YouTube where I watched three very real videos. From these videos I have come to the conclusion that cats love Jolly Ranchers.

Boni's kittens have now been pushed down to paragraph three, but I promise they will not be neglected any longer. The tale begins on Friday night. I was sitting in the living room with my backpack on the floor by my feet. Boni seemed to be very exploratory that night. There had been a documentary about 15th century explorers on The History Channel earlier so I thought that is what had gotten her in the mood, but that wasn't the case. Eventually Boni was drawn to the backpack and climbed inside. I couldn't stop laughing at how ridiculous she looked but my host dad got her out of there pretty quick because he was pretty sure that she was looking for a place to give birth. And whad'ya know? The next morning I woke up to the news that Boni had five kittens. It looks like that sly cat got his paws on her after all.

The tired mama with her 2 remaining babies

I know this is a bad picture, but just look at how small that thing is

And here's that picture I promised you last time of my cat and I cuddling. I bet you thought I forgot about that, huh? And I bet you forgot about that too, didn't you?

I'm sure that at this point, the Macedonian word of the blog is very predictable, so I bet you could guess what it is. And, no, it's not gonna be Jolly Rancher, but just in case you're interested, Google Translate says it's весела ранчо (vesela rancho). The actual words (yep, there's more than one) are:

мачка (machka) - cat

&

маченце (machentse) - kitten

Use those words wisely.

Let me tell you a li'l' bit about this ajvar (i-var - a sweet pepper spread) stuff that's mentioned in the title. This stuff is like crack only it's legal. Every year around this time people start gathering as many peppers as they can from their gardens, the local пазар (pazar - outdoor market), or they even resort to stealing peppers from their dear friends and neighbors (see, I told you it was like crack). After they finagle as many peppers as they can, all of the women within earshot are assembled and they get to work.

The first thing that needs to be done is having all of the bugs and dirt washed off of the peppers because, well, nobody wants to eat that shtuff (ooh, I almost said a bad word). Now comes the time where you get to play with fire or an oven if you're spoiled. The peppers need to be roasted so that the skin can be peeled off (much like the tradition of flaying among the ancient Assyrians and Aztecs or pretty much everybody during the Middle Ages. I assume this is much less painless for the peppers though). After being roasted, the peppers are put in a pot to steam for a while to make the peeling easier. Along with the flaying, the peppers are also deseeded (I'm not even gonna go there). This is supposedly the hardest and most tiring part of the whole process because it takes a certain level of finesse. Maybe if I can manage to crash one of these ajvar making parties one day I'll be able to find out what all of the fuss is about.

The next part sounds pretty awesome. You get to beat the shnot (caught myself again) out of the peppers to grind them up. You probably shouldn't go all Floyd Mayweather on them though (by the way, congrats on the win yesterday...47-0). After they are nice and, um, ground, the next phase is to move the peppers to a pot on some sort of stove type location depending on what's available so that the peppers can cook for about the length of a soccer match. I know what you're thinking. That it sounds like just the perfect length, right? The only issue is that this pepper mash needs to be stirred the whole time it's on there cooking so that nothing sticks to the pan. So don't scurry off to the couch and pop open a beer just yet.

Once the pepper mix starts to separate, you're ready to move on to the next step which is adding the oil. You continue stirring until the oil and the peppers become one. Oil is a pretty common ingredient here. The oil of choice is sunflower oil. Other types are available but pricier, and why hurt your wallet when you can hurt health?

From this point, you can call it good and throw the ajvar into jars so that you can enjoy it throughout the winter (if you can resist eating it at every meal). Or if you'd like, you can throw in other ingredients like salt, vinegar, garlic, parsley, Oreos, etc. (OK, so maybe nobody has ever put Oreos in their ajvar (I think that's mostly because they just aren't available here), but I think it's gonna catch on. Just give the people some time to get used to the idea).

The next step is eating the ajvar of course. It's mainly eaten as a spread on bread with some cheese (think feta). It makes a great breakfast or midnight snack.

On a disappointing note, the English word that my host mom knows is...drum roll please...ajvar. Nah, I'm just playin'. That wouldn't be cool of me to withhold you all from a real English word. But as far as I know ajvar is the same in Macedonian and English so if you want to get technical then you could put that on the list. And I bet most of you didn't know that word until now. This lady doesn't even speak English and she knows words that you don't. Embarrassing. The actual English word that my host mom knows is:

joking

Now I never thought it was important to learn this word in Macedonian and I'm still not sure that it is because I just assume everyone knows that everything I say is a joke. I'm probably serious about 3% of the time, and that is almost exclusively when I'm talking to animals. And let's face it, nobody is gonna take a person serious if they catch them having a heated debate about Kantian ethics with their livestock. Especially since the animal probably doesn't even understand English. So I figure even if I wanted to be, I wouldn't be taken seriously the rest of the time.

This on the other hand is not a joke. It is something that should be regarded and looked into with the utmost seriousness. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure my entire family is conspiring to make me learn Macedonian. They are always using words that I don't know. Now I know that happens to all the volunteers here, but this is a little bit different. Let me explain. In this scheme run by the whole family (including the grandma who lives in the house next door), they start using a word that I don't know all of the time, and this will go on for a week or two and then it kinda just drops out of use. I'm convinced that once they figure out that I know the new word, they have a family meeting and choose a new word to pound into my brain. Last week the word was напорно (naporno - difficult), but it seems now as if they're moving on to веднаш (vednash - immediately). I'll keep you updated on how this plays out.

I think at this point I've written enough for one post. That was until I just found out this exciting piece of information. My host mom is making donuts! OK, now I'm done.

Stay classy world.

Let Freedom Ring

I could probably write a book about all of the summer shenanigans that have been going on just in the last few weeks (we're talking Dr. Seuss length here. I know, impressive, right? I could try to make it rhyme too, but probably not as well as the doc. he's untouchable in that department). But I'm not gonna do that. And I didn't want to get into this, but I won't even write about it in this blog because documents have been signed and hands have been shook. Basically what it comes down to is that stuff happened that you may never hear about and that I may never "remember." I'm never gonna tell you, so just drop it. We're getting nowhere with this.

So, this 4th of July was an interesting one, wasn't it? My goals were to eat a bunch of hamburgers and hot dogs, drink a bunch of beer, and watch some fireworks. I ended up not celebrating it how I thought I was gonna be celebrating it so I only managed to achieve one of those goals. I'll leave which one that was up to your imagination. Even though I didn't accomplish most of my goals, I can't complain about how it turned out. I'm sure a lot of things happened that weekend that will never happen again. At least until the next 4th of July.

When I first heard of what kind of celebrations were going on in Macedonia, I thought I was gonna be going to the American Embassy in Skopje to party hard with the ambassador and eat a lot of hamburgers. I ended up deciding not to go there because I heard that there was gonna be a pretty legit party that the American Corner in Tetovo was throwing where I'd still be able to accomplish all of my goals. That ended up falling through though (because people here would rather have riots instead of parades on the 4th), so instead I got stuck hanging out with a bunch of volunteers for the weekend in a village outside of Tetovo. We didn't have any fireworks to watch or shoot off, so we had to create our own noise makers.

Speaking of noise, did you hear the crowds at the NBA Finals (okay, I'll admit, that's a bad transition, but that's what happens when successive paragraphs are written a month apart)? With the outcome of the NBA Finals looming in the back of everyone's mind (maybe not anymore since it ended like a month ago. can you tell that this wasn't written recently?), I know what you're all thinking. How do I say swish in Macedonian? And I have the answer:

                без коски (bez koski) - without bones (literal translation), swish (basketball translation)

Also while we're on the subject of sports, go Germany! At least the World Cup was a little more recent than the NBA Finals.

It took a while but my computer must have finally figured out that I'm in Europe because for some reason it wants me to start using British English. It doesn't matter what program I'm on; They all want me to use British spelling. At first I thought I was just losing my ability to spell in English when the words showed up as being misspelled, but I finally caught on to the trick my computer was playing on me when words like "center" (is there even another way to spell center? I'm gonna have to spend some time thinking about that one) and "flavor" and "practicing" had a red line under them time and time again. I also may have double-checked the spelling on Google just to be sure, but all that did was prove that I'm not getting more stupider (there it goes again underlining a word. I don’t even know what a blue underline means). Whatever, I'm giving up on this.

I was recently inspired to add a new section to my blog posts. It's going to be called English words that my host mom knows. My expectation for this section is that I will be awestruck by the amount of English words that my host mom actually knows. I haven't been sitting down and teaching her English, but I think she likes to learn new words just to rub it in my face that now she's learning new words more quickly than I am. OK, that might not be true, but it also might not be false. I guess this section of my blog will help me to figure that out. I don't know what I'm saying anymore. This first entry is gonna be a double whammy because my host mom busted out a nice line that you would have expected to come right out of the pages of a Dr. Seuss book (granted it was only 2 words long, but that's pretty impressive) So, the first words that you will learn about my host mom knowing are:

                crazy & lazy

She didn't throw the "and" in there with them, so it was more like "crazy lazy." And I think when she said crazy she pointed to herself and when she said lazy she pointed to me. Even if I'm imagining that part, there was definitely a pause in between the words so I'm pretty sure she wasn't talking about me for both of them. But either way, now I have to learn how to say lazy in Macedonian. I can't be having my host mom show me up by knowing how to say words in English that I can't say in Macedonian. Plus, if she starts talking about me in Macedonian, then I'll actually know what she's telling other people.

Here's a picture of me with my host parents way back in the day

I think you're gonna appreciate this next part Sir Nicholas. Wait for it. The cats are back again. Sometimes when they cry out at night I think it's the wail of a toothless baba (Macedonian for grandma. I guess that's a bonus word of the blog. I'm not gonna show you how to write it in Macedonian though, but I will say that it looks pretty much the same as how it's written in English). That's how weird it sounds. Where I live, we have a female cat, Boni, and one of the male cats in the neighborhood has been bold enough to jump up on the porch and come running into the house chasing her until he gets her cornered. I guess because his owner is welcome in the house, he figures that he has an open invite as well. Of course his owner doesn't come in here and start cornering us, so I don't know who he learned his manners from. Anyway, this cat definitely wants more than to just play this weird version of tag with her, but he usually gets knocked upside the head and shooed out of the house before anything more can happen. I guess we'll find out soon enough if he ever got his paws on her.

That's not all that's been going on with the cats though. Boni has taken a real liking to me. So much so that when I'm lounging around on the couch, she likes to jump up next to me and try to get me to pet her. That's true love right there if I've ever seen it. After she finishes with those preliminaries, she curls up in a ball or sprawls out next to me and takes a nap. Cuddling with the cat has become one of my favorite times of the day. It's funny watching her because she puts her paws over her eyes which I can only assume is to keep the light from messing with her important REM sleep. I was going to include an adorable picture of Boni taking a nap with me, but I didn't see her today and I probably shouldn't wait any longer to put this up. Otherwise it'll be another week before I get around to doing it. If I remember, I'll throw one up on the next post. Just don't hold your breath.

Well, that's all she wrote.

Stay classy world.