Hiking Marathon

Two weekends ago we joined another Peace Corps couple, Dan and Jillian, on a 27 mile hike from one town in eastern Macedonia to another. The day began with a 4:00 am taxi ride from their town of Kriva Palanka to the town of Probishtip. After a tour of 800 year old Lesnovo Monastery where both Jillian and I had to put on skirts and Conor pants due to the presence of a monk, we set out. This 3rd annual marathon hike is organized by the Kriva Palanka hiking club and we accompanied 30 members ranging in age from 17 to mid-60s.

The views were amazing and as Dan puts it, "We passed through no less than half a dozen terrains and I think several microclimates on our journey, including a boggy marsh, a beautiful meadow, some loose boulders and for about 500 meters, a desert." During the first third of our trek we had to cross a river - not particularly deep, but with a rocky, uneven bottom. Up to this point two small dogs from Lesnovo Monastery had joined us and wanted to continue, and as we reached the other side of the river we heard much whining and splashing as the littlest jumped in. He got swept downstream and over a small waterfall, and instead of swimming to the side he relentlessly tried climbing back up the falls. He was pulled out by a fellow hiker and sat there drying off and resting from his laborious swim. We continued on our way, assuming the two pups had gone home until the other one showed up as we were eating lunch. After ten more kilometers it was obvious he intended to complete the hike with us. Near the end as we commented on his determination, the leader of the hiking club answered back, "Oh him? He comes along every year and then he walks home."

At the peak of our hike

We arrived at Osogovski Monastery in Kriva Palanka around 8:00 pm just as the sun was fading, and finished off our day with dinner and beer. It felt nice to finally put up our feet. While resting though we couldn't help but think of Jim (Conor's dad) who's on his own journey on the Santiago de Compostela trail in Spain, hiking nearly 500 miles in four weeks.

Osogovski Monastery in Kriva Palanka

Tearce Student Council

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdHjOnh636c

Kacey has started a Student Council for seventh and eighth graders at her school in Tearce, Macedonia. Working with one of the English teachers (there are five at her school) they brought together a multi-ethnic group of Albanian, Macedonian, and Turkish students. At the first meeting they explained to the students the point of the club was to have the student leaders identify areas or aspects of their own school that they wanted to see improved or changed, that it was up to the students to figure out what to do, and it was up to them to figure out how to involve the other students in the school.

Walking them through this process, the students immediately identified trash (an endemic problem throughout Macedonia) as the biggest problem at their school. The school grounds, both inside and outside the school, are covered in trash (as is the entire village). The students decided they wanted to cleanup the mess. Importantly, they also came to the decision on their own that they needed to educate all the students at the school why they should not litter and instead use garbage bins in order to address the root cause of the problem.

The students decided they needed to meet with the school Director (principal) and solicit her help. Kacey and the other teacher arranged a meeting between the students and the director. The director was very receptive and listened as the students asked for garbage bags, trash cans for inside and outside the school, gloves, and the opportunity to teach all the classes. The director agreed and asked how the students would feel about collecting 20 denars from each student (40-50 cents). The students thought it was a great idea and a way to show the other kids that they were the cause of the problem and they had an invested stake, both in the problem, and the solution.

Next, a meeting with an NGO was set-up and the students presented their proposal and plan to address the trash problem. They are still waiting to see if the NGO will help fund their project. Currently they are working to organize a school-wide cleanup and education.

Kacey put together this video and it was presented at a town clean-up day organized by the municipality. The municipality was inspired by the students effort, and the video was screened to a packed gym of a few hundred people.

As a little background, Tearce is halfway between Tetovo and the Kosovo border - 7 miles each direction. During the conflict in 2001 it was a center of violence and all the Macedonians fled to Skopje. The group Kacey has brought together is made of up kids from three ethnic backgrounds. Although most of these kids have attended the same school their entire lives they have had little or no interaction; for some kids it is their first real interaction with peers the same age, from the same school. The school is run with ethnic classes, meaning Albanian kids have class with only Albanian kids, Macedonian with only Macedonian, and Turkish with only Turkish. Not wanting language to be a barrier to any student, Kacey and the other teacher decided the Student Council would operate in any language. They manage meetings with a lot of translation and patience, but the students have been incredibly receptive, many attempting to speak a language other than their own in order to help make their peers feel welcome. In the video the kids are each speaking their own language, Macedonian, Albanian, and Turkish, and two speak in English. Thus, the video has four languages.

enjoy!

Long Live Marx - and $4.50

Day of the International Solidarity of Workers, or Labour Day, is still celebrated May 1st here in Macedonia. It remains a national holiday and people flock to the hills and mountains for "picnics." A teacher Kacey works with invited us to join him and a group of friends for a picnic in a tiny village on the side of a mountain. What he didn't tell us was that we would be leaving Tetovo at 8:30 am. With little time wasted we began drinking Rakija (Kacey's favorite) promptly at 9:00. It rained all day, but the picnic area, which is at a centuries old church, was covered. The view was spectacular (when it was clear); we could see much of the Polog valley with the views stretching far south of Tetovo and North into Kosovo. The day was filled with eating (five different salads, pork, chicken), drinking (Rakija, Skopsko beer), and lots of singing (1991 soft rock classics intermixed with Macedonian folk songs) accompanied by the guitar.

At the green, or open air market Saturday we bought 25 pounds of Potatoes, 2.2 pounds of tomatoes, 2.2. pounds of cucumbers, one cabbage, one head of lettuce, 1 pound of onions, half a pound of peppers (and one complimentary lemon because we spoke Albanian) -- all for about the equivalent of $4.50.