Peace Corps Travels

That'll do Pig

21 Days, 21 Hours. At this moment that's how much time I have left in my service as a Peace Corps volunteer. It's been a humbling, discouraging, eye-opening, inspiring, thought-provoking, and reflective 26 months - and I think it always will be, even after I return home to the "real" world. Am I satisfied and happy that I served in the Peace Corps, or do I regret the isolation, sacrifices and economic loss of the past 2 years? Honestly, I have no idea right now. Maybe in 5 or 10 years I'll look back and realize that I had a positive life-affecting amazing experience, or I'll look back and see only wasted time and lost opportunities. Only time will tell. 

Enough of the maudlin rumination. I am extremely excited to be returning to AMERICA in 3 weeks. Images of food, coffee, college sports, freedom and hearing English dance through my dreams on a nightly basis. I've already conceded the fact that I'm going to binge my way through the holidays on every food and drink I can imagine. My impending repatriation also brings the anxiety and excitement of what's next for me career-wise. No one in Peace Corps warns you how hard it will be to job hunt from a country that most Americans have never heard of - I might as well be applying from Zamunda. Hopefully, I'll land something sooner than later, and wherever I land at least it'll be in America, the PC has definitely conditioned me to appreciate that. 

Finally, in the past month I took my final trip outside of Macedonia. On the trip I lost my good luck charm, my 3-legged Chilean pig, Pig. Pig was a gift from some good friends before I left, he was with me for this entire ride, and he brought good luck (or at least warded off severe bad luck) on all my journeys. It was sad, yet fitting, to lose him on my final excursion, so to Pig, and to my time here in Macedonia - "That'll do, Pig."

Can't wait to get home and see everyone!

Peace.

My group of Peace Corps volunteers who made it through the entire service, we lost a few for a variety of reasons, but 10 of these amazing people are extending their service (and 2 have found love in Macedonia and married!)

Strumica, Macedonia - In pictures

A photo album of my town (for 2 more months)

The Best Intentions

It was with the best intentions that I started this blog, but the thing about blogging is that you need content - new and interesting content. The thing about the Peace Corps, is that aside from the beginning and interspersed travels, it's usually the furthest thing from "new and interesting"...more like Groundhog Day in the middle of nowhere, without Rita, Larry or Punxsutawney Phil. Not that I'm saying it's bad, it's just not blog-worthy.

That said, the past 3 months since my last post have been pretty relaxing. I've had the typical tribulations - I broke my front tooth and have yet to get it fixed, but hey, it's Europe. My old iPhone died, that was severely traumatizing - but there have also been a few interesting moments. I've taken a few trips to Greece, these have been working trips with my municipal colleagues and they have been far off the beaten tourist paths. For all of Greece's troubles, it still has amazing natural beauty. I went to the Fourth of July picnic at the U.S. Embassy in Skopje. It was open to all Americans living in Macedonia, so it was quite interesting to meet the various characters. Unfortunately, we were not allowed inside the Embassy at all, and even more unfortunate, a storm rolled in and shut things down right quick ~2 hours early - but the grilled hamburger I enjoyed made the whole excursion worthwhile. Finally, about a week ago I visited the tallest continuous waterfall in Macedonia, the Smolare waterfall. The good and terrible thing about the Smolare waterfall is that it is in the BFE corner of Macedonia, meaning that very few people visit the waterfall, but it also means that it's near impossible to easily get to. "Luckily" for me, it's only ~17 miles from Strumica, so I got my happy (stupid) ass up at 6 am on a Saturday and set off running....

-The location of the Smolare Waterfall:

View Larger Map

-I paused in a village I was running through on the way there for some water and to check out this crazy wedding party that was going on ~7:30am (notice the local babas are checking out the scene too - you can't tell, but the people in the distance are dancing, drinking and blaring music):

-The waterfall - finally:

-Me and Smolare, with the slight shadow of shock and death after footin' it 17 miles under the August sun (I reached a good 5:00 shadow of death on the way back):

Looking ahead, the end of this odyssey is actually in sight. This coming week we (my group of PC volunteers) have our COS (Close of Service) conference, that is where we will find out our specific last day of service. PC stagers the dates so that there isn't one mad rush of all the volunteers leaving at once. My host community/work site is hoping for another volunteer to replace me, and I've promised that I'll stick around long enough to show them the ropes when they visit the site for the first time, so that should put my exit date sometime in mid-November.

So, between now and november I'll be wrapping up some projects here, taking one last trip to Germany in September, and trying to figure out what the hell I'll be doing when I set foot back on home soil.
That dilemma has been leading me to ponder, what's more stressful - preparing to leave for the Peace Corps or preparing to return from it?

School's Out

Graduation was this past weekend. It's a much bigger event here than in America and involves a weekend of celebrations. On Friday all the graduates congregated in the town center for a celebratory square dance:

Graduation also represented another milestone for me. It marked the unofficial start of summer, and my last remaining 5 months of service.
It's odd that only 5 months remain, in many ways it feels like I just got here and there's so much left I want to do - yet, I am ready to get back, and appreciate the hell out of the "little things" like never before.

One thing I got to do was take a train trip up to Budapest and Prague last month. It was a last-minute trip, but well worth it; Budapest was surprisingly modern and cosmopolitan, and Prague was surprisingly diverse (but, oh so many tourists). I did manage to sleep through a train transfer in the middle-of-nowhere Serbia at 2:00 am, but waking up at the wrong border is all part of the adventure...

Belgrade:

 Rock climbers practicing on the fortress walls:

 Skadarlija in the Belgrade bohemian quarter:

Far too early in Budapest

 Budapest, Buda Castle

 Prague

 Prague, Church of Our Lady before Týn

 Prague

 

Prague street bratwurst...

A Land of All Seasons

It's finally spring! Even though we've had an incredibly mild winter compared to last year, it's been very chilly and wet. Any ideas I may have entertained about living in the Northwest have sufficiently been squashed.

If it hasn't been obvious from my lack of updates (albeit a large part of that is laziness), things have picked up here in Strumica. Peace Corps wasn't joshin' when they told us to expect the second year to be a lot busier. Basically the first year is the "feeling-out year", for both the volunteer and the community; the second year (if you're still there) the volunteer has generally found their comfort zone and earned the respect or street cred of the community - and things really start crackin'.

Some of the projects we've been working on in my community are:

• I worked with a local NGO to fund-raise for a grant that enabled them to host numerous workshops in the surrounding villages. The villages educated the farmers (mainly women) on the dangers of pesticides, and how to properly handle and apply them. 

• My primary work site (the municipality of Strumica) applied for multiple EU/cross-border development grants last year. *Due to our proximity to both Greece and Bulgaria, the municipality of Strumica is eligible to work with 2 EU nations. We were awarded multiple project grants, and in January we moved into our new EU project office.

There have been other, smaller projects along the way that have filled in lots of gaps in my spare time, so much so that I can't believe I only have about 8 months left here.

Other than work, my life has become pretty staid and routine. I hope to change that soon though with a train trip through Budapest and Prague. Then it'll be summer time, and time for me to get busy with another project, figuring out what I'll be doing and where I'll be after Macedonia.....

Enjoy the spring y'all.

Where We Go Now

Why you're going I don't really know
But the angle of man is to go
If it didn't hurt like Hell
I'd tell you how hard I feel
To know that you know I care
But we were always okay to be okay
Until the day we were not
So do not know
Do not wait
Do not expect
Take your pain and be on your way
And I'll see you again
Up there someday

On January 12th, my best friend from home died. I was away when it happened, in Macedonia, where I still am. But I went home right away for his funeral, it didn't matter the cost or the inconvenience, he was my friend, a "friend" in the truest sense of the word. 

- Harry, I remember your dream job as a kid was to be a garbage man. You thought that hanging off the back of a dump truck every morning and interacting with all the people was as great and glamorous as it got. You did not become a garbage man, but you became a person of the people. A friend to everyone. 

We didn't really know each as young children, you went to the elementary schools on the other side of town, you went to the other Lutheran church - but before high school you moved into my neighborhood.

We didn't really like you.

You were new. You were alien. You were edgy and hung with a different crowd. Besides, we already had our neighborhood clique established.
But you were a persistent little shit. Despite our best efforts to ditch and dismiss you, you persevered. You never changed to fit in with us (just as you never changed to fit in with anyone), we just finally realized that we wanted to be friends with you. 

Throughout high school you remained the same, you were Harry. You were smart, popular, accomplished, insufferable. On the field and in the classroom you always overachieved, but in spite of that you were still credible and popular, because you never tried to suck up or brown nose to anyone or any authority figure - sure, you respected teachers and coaches, but you actually enjoyed playing the hardest and doing your best - and after school or practice, you were alway the first to say "that sucked, let's go get #$%*-faced" - you were genuine. More genuine than myself or anyone else.
After high school, when most of us went our separate ways off to college, you remained in Seguin at TLU. You, more than anyone, were my anchor back to Seguin. You wouldn't change. We could go for years without talking and within an hour back together it'd be like time hadn't passed at all.

Now that you're gone, I feel untethered. I feel as if I've lost my home. 

When I first got the news that you had taken your own life I wasn't sad. I was angry. I was selfish and pissed. How dare you, dammit. You have to be in my wedding, you have to meet my kids, we have to share holidays and be together when we're old. Damn you.
But now, now that three weeks have passed, I'm not angry anymore. Nor am I sad. I'm Okay. Okay knowing that your pain is over. Okay knowing how priceless life and friendship is. Okay knowing that if I get to the other side, all I'll have to do is say, "I'm Harry's friend", and I'll feel at home.

Lucky 2013

Happy New Year to all.  It's been a beautiful 2013 so far here in Strumica, mainly because there hasn't been any snow, yet.

Walking to work today through my town of ~40,000, that also happens to be the regional urban center, I couldn't help but think that in a year from now I'll be back in America where 40,000 barely qualifies as a suburb (the "suburbs" here are villages, never larger than 5,000).  The past 15 months have offered an interesting diametric view to life in America.  In America it's a fact of life that change is a constant and that immigrants are always arriving, in Macedonia change is slow and emigration is a dire fact of life.   Imagine America if one out of every ten people you grew up with were to leave the States, permanently.  That's close to reality in Macedonia, and it makes for slow change and tenuous economic prospects. 

In the day to day minutiae, I have moved to a new office for work, it’s great, it’s modern-ish, I’m in a cube…yes,  I joined the Peace Corps and moved halfway around the world to spend my days in a cubicle.  Maybe this is a sign that it’s time for me to move back to America.

But my new office does overlook this park (for real).

Have an epic 2013 everyone, after Dec. 21^st we’re all playing on house money anyways.