Sunday, September 27, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Velestovo Cemetery
During my time at the language seminar in Ohrid, I went on a little trip to a village in the mountains above the lake called Velestovo. There were a few more new vacations homes than most villages, and an interesting gallery for a local artist, but aside from those things, it was typical of any other village I had been to. There was a public spigot for water in the center, and cobblestone streets leading off through the hills. Newer houses were built alongside mud-brick dwellings from who-knows-when. Goats were far more abundant than people.
There's also an interesting old church. What really caught my eye, however, was the cemetery surrounding the church. Orthodox Christian graves almost always have an actual picture of the deceased on the tombstone - those who died in the earlier part of the century have glazed porcelain pictures, while the more recently buried have photographs laser-etched onto the stone. It's a portrait gallery, and you can walk around looking at what the people looked like in life.
And what long lives they were. Aside from the occasional tragic under-30 death, these villagers had all lived for 70, 80, 90 years. There were even several who made it just past 100. Imagine - born in 1900, this person had lived in the Ottoman Empire, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, then Yugoslavia, and finally an independent Republic of Macedonia. . . and they never needed to leave Velestovo to do so. 100 years of carrying sacks of peppers and onions up the side of a mountain, of rakija and ajvar-making, of sheep-shearing and goat-milking. They seem like hard, hard lives at first - but how hard can a life be, when it lasts for most of a century?
Most of the Macedonian (as opposed to Albanian) villages in Macedonia are dying, in that there are no young people. The older generations remain, unable or unwilling to adapt to a new way of life, unwilling to leave their ancestral home. The younger generations, however, have no incentives to remain in the village. Near-subsistence farming and a social network of under 25 people are a tough sell these days. But the older generation - those 60 and 70 year old people - are still working. Go to a village in Macedonia, and you'll see ancient ment and women, still lugging 50 lb sacks of onions on their backs, chopping wood, slaughtering goats for a feast.
It's really amazing - after all, I have trouble imagining a good number of healthy 20-somethings, myself included, managing these activities. But these old villagers do. They just keep working until the end. And it sounds cliched, but they really do seem like relics from another time. It's not just that their lifestyles are so different, so integrated with the seasons, intertwined with the Old Church Calendar, with families and friends. I can understand that, at least in an academic sense.
But without fail, if you wander through a Macedonian village, there will be a shriveled old woman or man sitting on their steps, or under a tree. . . sitting. And if you say hello, they will respond with the warmest, most genuine "Good day, boy!" you could imagine. And maybe they'll invite you for coffee, or maybe you just continue wandering.
And that villager will continue to sit, slightly smiling, seeming wholly content - with what? Reflecting on life? Or are they simply content with their own contentedness? There's the gap that I just can't cross. Superficially, our lives are much more complicated, the village life 'simpler'. But that's really not true. Our lives are just more cluttered, not complicated. And the real complications of village life - the relationships, the legends, the church calendar, the best spot to find mushrooms, and how much ajvar to make for winter - just don't register with me anymore. I just can't understand them in any deep sense. It's too different.
So trying to figure out what's on that villager's mind as they sit, smiling, really is impossible. It's not just a matter of "I think of movies, they think of folk dances". I can't just translate my experience directly to theirs, unless I want a shallow, superficial understanding. Everything in their life, leading up to that thought underneath that tree at the age of 90, has been wholly strange to me.
It just leaves me at a total loss.
There's also an interesting old church. What really caught my eye, however, was the cemetery surrounding the church. Orthodox Christian graves almost always have an actual picture of the deceased on the tombstone - those who died in the earlier part of the century have glazed porcelain pictures, while the more recently buried have photographs laser-etched onto the stone. It's a portrait gallery, and you can walk around looking at what the people looked like in life.
And what long lives they were. Aside from the occasional tragic under-30 death, these villagers had all lived for 70, 80, 90 years. There were even several who made it just past 100. Imagine - born in 1900, this person had lived in the Ottoman Empire, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, then Yugoslavia, and finally an independent Republic of Macedonia. . . and they never needed to leave Velestovo to do so. 100 years of carrying sacks of peppers and onions up the side of a mountain, of rakija and ajvar-making, of sheep-shearing and goat-milking. They seem like hard, hard lives at first - but how hard can a life be, when it lasts for most of a century?
Most of the Macedonian (as opposed to Albanian) villages in Macedonia are dying, in that there are no young people. The older generations remain, unable or unwilling to adapt to a new way of life, unwilling to leave their ancestral home. The younger generations, however, have no incentives to remain in the village. Near-subsistence farming and a social network of under 25 people are a tough sell these days. But the older generation - those 60 and 70 year old people - are still working. Go to a village in Macedonia, and you'll see ancient ment and women, still lugging 50 lb sacks of onions on their backs, chopping wood, slaughtering goats for a feast.
It's really amazing - after all, I have trouble imagining a good number of healthy 20-somethings, myself included, managing these activities. But these old villagers do. They just keep working until the end. And it sounds cliched, but they really do seem like relics from another time. It's not just that their lifestyles are so different, so integrated with the seasons, intertwined with the Old Church Calendar, with families and friends. I can understand that, at least in an academic sense.
But without fail, if you wander through a Macedonian village, there will be a shriveled old woman or man sitting on their steps, or under a tree. . . sitting. And if you say hello, they will respond with the warmest, most genuine "Good day, boy!" you could imagine. And maybe they'll invite you for coffee, or maybe you just continue wandering.
And that villager will continue to sit, slightly smiling, seeming wholly content - with what? Reflecting on life? Or are they simply content with their own contentedness? There's the gap that I just can't cross. Superficially, our lives are much more complicated, the village life 'simpler'. But that's really not true. Our lives are just more cluttered, not complicated. And the real complications of village life - the relationships, the legends, the church calendar, the best spot to find mushrooms, and how much ajvar to make for winter - just don't register with me anymore. I just can't understand them in any deep sense. It's too different.
So trying to figure out what's on that villager's mind as they sit, smiling, really is impossible. It's not just a matter of "I think of movies, they think of folk dances". I can't just translate my experience directly to theirs, unless I want a shallow, superficial understanding. Everything in their life, leading up to that thought underneath that tree at the age of 90, has been wholly strange to me.
It just leaves me at a total loss.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Etc.
Yugoslav wheels near Trpejca, Ohrid
Beer on the beach at Kaneo, Ohrid
Up the canyon at Matka
Still water at Matka Canyon
Living abroad means . . .
that you end up washing your hair with conditioner and clothes with fabric softener for months on end, until someone corrects your error.
Looks can be deceiving.
Looks can be deceiving.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Our Ruins
I came across this, reading an article about the decline of rural Indiana at the Daily Yonder:
"In Europe you often come upon castle ruins as you travel. Half of a stone archway will rise out of a hillside, hinting at long-gone glory. In Greentown, I pass a sad old Victorian home covered in fading aluminum siding. Its porch and sidewalk are gone, but the two concrete steps still rest alone and useless in the middle of the yard, leading to and from nowhere. In America’s compressed historical cycles, these are our ancient ruins."
That about sums it up.
Also:
Vevay, Indiana was voted one of the 10 coolest small towns in America. It's been awhile since I've been around those parts, but . . . well.
"In Europe you often come upon castle ruins as you travel. Half of a stone archway will rise out of a hillside, hinting at long-gone glory. In Greentown, I pass a sad old Victorian home covered in fading aluminum siding. Its porch and sidewalk are gone, but the two concrete steps still rest alone and useless in the middle of the yard, leading to and from nowhere. In America’s compressed historical cycles, these are our ancient ruins."
That about sums it up.
Also:
Vevay, Indiana was voted one of the 10 coolest small towns in America. It's been awhile since I've been around those parts, but . . . well.
Kosovo Continued
It really seems odd that I was just in a country which, only a few short years ago, was a complete war zone. Over 250,000 refugees spilled into Macedonia during the conflict - and keep in mind that Macedonia's population hovers just around 2 million. United States and NATO soldiers (not to mention the thousands of Serb and Albanian soldiers and civilians) were killed, and were killing each other. Even today, Kosovo isn't really a functioning nation. It's under the administration of EULEX, the successor "program" of the previous NATO administration of the country.
There are still no-go areas for travelers in the country. While the country is around 90% ethnic Albanian, the rest are mostly Serbs, and they still both deny the legitimacy of the new government, and with funding from Serbia, run their own parallel court systems and police forces. The city of Mitrovica, divided between Albanians on one side of the river and Serbs on the other, is a constant flash-point. There were fresh riots there just days before I visited. The country has almost no economy to speak of, minus international aid and diaspora money. A quarter of the vehicles on the two-lane highway to Pristina were KFOR or NATO military trucks.
And when I describe it that way. . . riots, barbed wire, military personel, no-go areas, it's easy to think, "Why on earth would anyone go there?!" Only a very few of my Macedonian friends have crossed the border, just ten miles away. They were all very eager to hear what my trip was like, what Pristina was like, what the people were like, as if it were some exotic nation far away . . . when you can probably see Kosovo from the top of some of the apartment complexes here in Skopje.
It's funny, really, because my Macedonian friends act in exactly the same way as my American friends when I speak to them about Macedonia. Earthquakes? Albanian insurgencies? Corrupt governments, black markets, gypsies, villagers?! How do I function here?! It must be so strange, so different. . . When I explain the bewilderment of Americans about Macedonia to Macedonians, they really don't understand. It's just home. There are cafes, hotels, schools, friends, and all the makings of a normal, pleasant life. And for the most part, the same goes for Kosovo. Pristina has cafes, English-themed pubs, schools and universities. There are bus services, even to Mitrovica. It's amazing what people can accept, get used to, or deal with in life.
There were two very surreal, very creepy moments during my short trip. The first was near that hideous library. It sits in a huge field, overgrown with weeds, next to the refurbished University of Pristina. Far behind it, in the corner of the field, next to piles of dirt from some sort of construction, stood what once was a Serbian Orthodox Church. It was stripped of its roof, the empty doorways filled with barbed wire. It looked more ruinous than any actual 14th century ruin I've seen in Macedonia. There were military helicopters flying overhead. Yet near this war casualty of a church, in this overgrown field, were the fashionable students of Pristina, wandering in and out of the university, chatting, with those helicopters overhead. Life continues.
The second moment was on Bill Clinton Boulevard, with that giant smiling picture looking down. I had just commented to my friend that the Albanians in Pristina - mostly Muslim, presumably - dressed much less conservatively than those in Macedonia. Just as I said this, we stopped and noticed roughly 100 people on the sidewalk, three rows deep, facing a building. As we walked closer, we noticed that they were Muslims preparing to pray. This seemed odd, because the building wasn't a mosque. . . until we noticed the green-and-white banners and Arabic signs. Saudia Arabia has funded a lot of new mosques and Islamic centers in Albania and Kosovo, which spread their ultra-conservative type of Islam. This was one. . . sitting just under old Slick Willy's American smile.
Life goes on.
There are still no-go areas for travelers in the country. While the country is around 90% ethnic Albanian, the rest are mostly Serbs, and they still both deny the legitimacy of the new government, and with funding from Serbia, run their own parallel court systems and police forces. The city of Mitrovica, divided between Albanians on one side of the river and Serbs on the other, is a constant flash-point. There were fresh riots there just days before I visited. The country has almost no economy to speak of, minus international aid and diaspora money. A quarter of the vehicles on the two-lane highway to Pristina were KFOR or NATO military trucks.
And when I describe it that way. . . riots, barbed wire, military personel, no-go areas, it's easy to think, "Why on earth would anyone go there?!" Only a very few of my Macedonian friends have crossed the border, just ten miles away. They were all very eager to hear what my trip was like, what Pristina was like, what the people were like, as if it were some exotic nation far away . . . when you can probably see Kosovo from the top of some of the apartment complexes here in Skopje.
It's funny, really, because my Macedonian friends act in exactly the same way as my American friends when I speak to them about Macedonia. Earthquakes? Albanian insurgencies? Corrupt governments, black markets, gypsies, villagers?! How do I function here?! It must be so strange, so different. . . When I explain the bewilderment of Americans about Macedonia to Macedonians, they really don't understand. It's just home. There are cafes, hotels, schools, friends, and all the makings of a normal, pleasant life. And for the most part, the same goes for Kosovo. Pristina has cafes, English-themed pubs, schools and universities. There are bus services, even to Mitrovica. It's amazing what people can accept, get used to, or deal with in life.
There were two very surreal, very creepy moments during my short trip. The first was near that hideous library. It sits in a huge field, overgrown with weeds, next to the refurbished University of Pristina. Far behind it, in the corner of the field, next to piles of dirt from some sort of construction, stood what once was a Serbian Orthodox Church. It was stripped of its roof, the empty doorways filled with barbed wire. It looked more ruinous than any actual 14th century ruin I've seen in Macedonia. There were military helicopters flying overhead. Yet near this war casualty of a church, in this overgrown field, were the fashionable students of Pristina, wandering in and out of the university, chatting, with those helicopters overhead. Life continues.
The second moment was on Bill Clinton Boulevard, with that giant smiling picture looking down. I had just commented to my friend that the Albanians in Pristina - mostly Muslim, presumably - dressed much less conservatively than those in Macedonia. Just as I said this, we stopped and noticed roughly 100 people on the sidewalk, three rows deep, facing a building. As we walked closer, we noticed that they were Muslims preparing to pray. This seemed odd, because the building wasn't a mosque. . . until we noticed the green-and-white banners and Arabic signs. Saudia Arabia has funded a lot of new mosques and Islamic centers in Albania and Kosovo, which spread their ultra-conservative type of Islam. This was one. . . sitting just under old Slick Willy's American smile.
Life goes on.
Friday, September 11, 2009
A Day-Trip to Kosovo
Kosovo - one of the newest states in the world, which just recently declared full independence from Serbia - is only 20 miles away from Skopje. A bus ride to its capital city, Pristina, only takes 1 1/2 hours . . . depending on how many wagons or tractors one gets stuck behind. Yet, until today, I'd never taken the opportunity to make a visit.
I was only in Pristina for a few hours, but I was able to see the three major sites that I was interested in. . .
Bill Clinton Boulevard: He initiated the 90's NATO campaign against Milosevic and the Serbs, which eventually led to Kosovo's independence. I probably saw more American flags in Pristina than in the average Midwestern town.
The Newborn Obelisk: Unveiled when Kosovo declared independence. Awww. The graffiti is actually supposed to be there.
The BATTLE LIBRARY: Seriously, this is the city library. It looks like they took the usual ugly, blocky, concrete Yugoslav architecture and wrapped it in razor-wire. It's not actually called the Battle Library. . . because the other buildings are too afraid to fight it.
I was only in Pristina for a few hours, but I was able to see the three major sites that I was interested in. . .
Bill Clinton Boulevard: He initiated the 90's NATO campaign against Milosevic and the Serbs, which eventually led to Kosovo's independence. I probably saw more American flags in Pristina than in the average Midwestern town.
The Newborn Obelisk: Unveiled when Kosovo declared independence. Awww. The graffiti is actually supposed to be there.
The BATTLE LIBRARY: Seriously, this is the city library. It looks like they took the usual ugly, blocky, concrete Yugoslav architecture and wrapped it in razor-wire. It's not actually called the Battle Library. . . because the other buildings are too afraid to fight it.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Macedonian Dialects, Cont.
Another interesting dialect I've just learned of comes from the region around Prespa Lake, the slightly-less picturesque body of water that feeds into Ohrid Lake in the southwest of the country. There are a series of really well-off villages in the region, although aside from endless apple and plum orchards, there's very little economic activity.
The wealth of the villages comes from abroad, as people from the Prespa region are known to have always travelled abroad to find work - even back to the 17th and 18th centuries. In the twentieth century, most travel to Canada, Australia, and the US to work, leading to an interesting dialect. Rather than use basic Macedonian words, English is randomly inserted. The Macedonian verb for "I am calling on the phone" is "se javuvam". . . but in Prespa, one can overhear "se call-uvam". Interesting stuff.
Another interesting bit about the region is that the names of the villages are hilarious. I'm sure that at one point, these village names had a different meaning, but in modern-day Macedonian slang, you can travel from "Adultery-town" to "People who pee in their pants" to "Toothless People Village" to a place that can be colloquially translated as "F***ed".
The wealth of the villages comes from abroad, as people from the Prespa region are known to have always travelled abroad to find work - even back to the 17th and 18th centuries. In the twentieth century, most travel to Canada, Australia, and the US to work, leading to an interesting dialect. Rather than use basic Macedonian words, English is randomly inserted. The Macedonian verb for "I am calling on the phone" is "se javuvam". . . but in Prespa, one can overhear "se call-uvam". Interesting stuff.
Another interesting bit about the region is that the names of the villages are hilarious. I'm sure that at one point, these village names had a different meaning, but in modern-day Macedonian slang, you can travel from "Adultery-town" to "People who pee in their pants" to "Toothless People Village" to a place that can be colloquially translated as "F***ed".
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Winding down. . .
Before I begin, Justin has some interesting thoughts after taking a "break" from Macedonia for awhile.
I woke up this morning, like most mornings since my return from Ohrid, around 8 AM, to the racket of the construction directly behind my house. Yet another concrete, modern-looking apartment complex is being constructed where an early Yugoslav-style apartment building once stood. I've started to train myself to sleep through all that, and this morning there was little light and a cool breeze coming through my open window, and I was able to drop easily back into a deep sleep.
When I woke back up, the sky was still cloudy and a cool, moist breeze was still blowing. I felt disoriented for a moment, but then realized - this is what the fall feels like. The moisture of the air, the gray skies, the smell of roasting peppers - this is what it felt like when I first arrived. It's not actually autumn here just yet, of course. The entire year has been random and strange in terms of weather, and this is an odd cold-front that will surely be followed by more warm days.
But that cold breeze punched me right in the face. I'm leaving on October 22.
I had always planned to stay an entire year, to catch all the festivals and weather and holidays through the whole year, to stop in at my institute for the opening of the new semester. What I didn't expect was this overwhelming strangeness, this feeling of deja vu. "Here I am, back again where I started. . . "
It's more than just the smell of roasting peppers, though. Just as when I first arrived, I'm full of a nervous sort of energy. Then, I had a whole year of Macedonia before me, and no idea what would happen. Now, I'm excited for my homecoming, but still anxious - I have no idea what the future is going to hold for me now. Then, I would walk around the city, observant, trying to take everything in. . . and now, I'll savour it all before I go.
Odd feelings.
I woke up this morning, like most mornings since my return from Ohrid, around 8 AM, to the racket of the construction directly behind my house. Yet another concrete, modern-looking apartment complex is being constructed where an early Yugoslav-style apartment building once stood. I've started to train myself to sleep through all that, and this morning there was little light and a cool breeze coming through my open window, and I was able to drop easily back into a deep sleep.
When I woke back up, the sky was still cloudy and a cool, moist breeze was still blowing. I felt disoriented for a moment, but then realized - this is what the fall feels like. The moisture of the air, the gray skies, the smell of roasting peppers - this is what it felt like when I first arrived. It's not actually autumn here just yet, of course. The entire year has been random and strange in terms of weather, and this is an odd cold-front that will surely be followed by more warm days.
But that cold breeze punched me right in the face. I'm leaving on October 22.
I had always planned to stay an entire year, to catch all the festivals and weather and holidays through the whole year, to stop in at my institute for the opening of the new semester. What I didn't expect was this overwhelming strangeness, this feeling of deja vu. "Here I am, back again where I started. . . "
It's more than just the smell of roasting peppers, though. Just as when I first arrived, I'm full of a nervous sort of energy. Then, I had a whole year of Macedonia before me, and no idea what would happen. Now, I'm excited for my homecoming, but still anxious - I have no idea what the future is going to hold for me now. Then, I would walk around the city, observant, trying to take everything in. . . and now, I'll savour it all before I go.
Odd feelings.
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