Nova Godina

It is officially 2011.  It’s a strange feeling.  A year ago today I was partying in Spokane with Danielle and her man, and hiding with my other single friend in the spare room because we didn’t want to deal with all the schmoopy ridiculous couple-y kissy crap when the clock struck midnight.  This year, I’m on the other side of the planet, wishing I was able to kiss my future husband when the ball dropped.  Ah, the irony. 

New Year’s here in Macedonia is the most largely celebrated holiday of the year, even more so than Christmas.  There was a fireworks display worthy of our Independence Day, barbeque, rakija and wine flowing like water, Turkish belly dancers, singing, dancing, lights, and incredibly cold weather.  I enjoyed the cultural experience until the reckless use of fireworks by the local children caused me to fear for the safety of my eyeballs.  So I retired to my cozy little apartment to Skype with my loves and tell them how awesome 2011 is already, and in 8 hours they would see for themselves.  Or just to be warm and watch movies and try to figure out how I felt about spending New Years in another country without anyone that I would typically spend it with.  I also have a somewhat strange feeling about this year, like I can’t get a good read on the kind of year its going to be.  I’m going to be doing a lot of traveling with work, which will be amazing.  I’m going to be working with my group of girls for the art class as well as for GLOW, which I’m ridiculously excited about.  But I have this odd feeling deep down that something not-so-great/really weird is going to happen this year.  I don’t know why.  I definitely don’t want to start out the year on that note… maybe its because I’m sitting here by myself (by choice) in a foreign country on new years and I’m slightly homesick and its influencing my perceptions.  A year is what you declare it to be I feel, so I would like to declare that this year is going to be even better than the last, as all the years have been so far.  But right now, I really want to be at home with my loves.  Tomorrow, I’m sure I’ll feel better… so maybe I should just go to bed. 

Happy New Year, may your 2011 be even better than your 2010 :)

Peace and love,

EM

Christmas in Macedonia

So my first Christmas ever away from home was not near as sad as I expected it to be.  Of course I was sad because I missed my loves and family at home, but I ended up spending Christmas Eve as well as Christmas with some pretty wonderful people who made some very delicious food, and we even went to an art exhibition on Christmas Eve to add to the goodness. 

Going to Strumica on Christmas Day was quite the adventure, as our cab from the bus station took us to the wrong neighborhood on the opposite end of town.  En route, he stopped and yelled out his window to a passer by asking where to take the Americans.  Once we got to where he thought we should go, even though we told him exactly where we actually needed to go and even had it written down for him, it was quickly apparent that it wasn’t where we were supposed to be.  He and another man hanging out in the street tried to usher us into the home that they thought we should go into, and we said ‘no, not here’… all of this going on in Macedonian… at one point I thought I heard English in the distance and had some hope, but it was only an olfactory illusion.  The cab driver said that he would figure it out and sped off down the mud road.  We stood there laughing and trying to call our friends where we were supposed to be, but they didn’t answer.  A few minutes later, we see our cab hurtling back towards us through the mud… in reverse.  He pulls up (or down, I suppose being as he had just rocketed at least a mile in reverse) and he had somehow found Jim, another volunteer who actually lives in the home that the man dropped us off at. It all becomes clear! We were so happy to see him.  So we hopped back in the car, and proceeded to our actual destination about 20 minutes in the other direction. 

Christmas Day and Night was a foodie’s delight for sure.  Great company, great food, a couple gallons of eggnog that was inhaled by all but me within about an hour, and bottles and bottles of rakija, mulled wine, and some amazing desserts that I pretended not to be insulin resistant for, just because its Christmas :) Our cheeks hurt from laughing so much, and no one wanted to go to bed because the conversations were too hilarious and wonderful.  I have some pictures, but most of them are on others’ cameras so I will share when I can.

On Monday, I got to go to Mavrovo for a meeting regarding the development of a grant that we’re working on.  I was expecting a deserted mountain cabin, but instead was presented with a beautiful ski mountain and lodging, and somehow I ended up with the suite at the top of the hotel.  Joy! The food was good, the scenery was amazing, even though there was a ton of fog.  The hotel staff was fabulously kind, the guard dogs were super cute, and my Jacuzzi tub was wonderful, though not as hot as I was hoping :)  Once I had the ipod going and was in the water, I hit the button to start jets run by an engine that was apparently obtained from an old airplane.  I just turned the ipod up louder and closed my eyes… after a few minutes it sounded like a second airplane was joining the first and I stopped the jets only to realize the noise was coming from the toilet.  In this moment I was very glad I knew how to fix a toilet, as calling the front desk while in a towel standing outside my bubbly Jacuzzi while yelling over the sound screaming from the toilet did not seem like a very appealing scenario. 

Lidija and I also went to explore the other hotel and further up the mountain, which ended up actually being where the ski lift started.  It was really beautiful with no people there, just sparkling snow and some leftover ski tracks from the day.  One of my favorite sounds in the world is the crunching of snow under your feet on a silent night.  It was also especially beautiful because there is almost zero traffic up there.  The snow is left to its beauty on every branch, bush and rooftop.  It is not stained brown by exhaust or mud… it was so pristine and sharp, it looked like the Original Artist had spent hours perfecting the placement of every flake and creating lines so visually thin and perfect, the contrast against the wood was incredible in its detail and amount.  There was a very old church that was built before the lake got to be as high as it is, and now the roof is caved in and it looks like its floating in the water.  It was so beautiful… see pictures (of this and all Christmas adventures so far): http://picasaweb.google.com/enger.emily

I still have New Years and the Macedonian Christmas (Jan. 5-7) to celebrate, so more to come!

Love,

Em

Holy Amazingness, Batman

As the work day was coming to an end on Friday, my counterpart received a phone call from the European Union. It was just the three of us plus the mayor hanging out in the office chatting about the New Year’s events (I got to design the posters!) and practicing English/Macedonian with each other.  All of a sudden there was yelling, bouncing, cheering, smiling and incredible amounts of high-fives.  The mayor and I were both slightly confused at first, but it turns out the EU was calling to tell our department that they had been awarded a ridiculously large grant towards our aim of sustainable tourism development.  It is similar to the grant that we are working on currently, but on a much larger scale as far as the number of involved participants in all the partner towns.  So in a matter of about 20 minutes, my 2011 went from somewhat busy and exciting to this:

January – Chernomelj, Slovenia

February – Week of Wine, Negotino

March – Greece (for Women’s Day)

May – Mirnovino Del Lecce, Italy

July – Camp GLOW! and Campulung + Bucharest, Romania
August -- Dve Mogili, Bulgaria

September – Negotino Fair

October – Popovo, Bulgaria

All due to the amazingness of my site placement and colleagues and their incredible hard work.  How does this life keep happening to me? Its beyond words at this point, I feel like I have exhausted my vocabulary when it comes to trying to express the amount of gratitude and humility I feel for the path that my life has taken.  I never in a million years dreamed that this is the kind of Peace Corps experience I would be having, nor did I expect to be doing this type of work in so many beautiful places.  I know this kind of schedule is going to make this two years fly by, but I’m going to make every possible effort to savor every single minute of it.  I only hope that I can provide for this project as much as I’m going to be getting in return, and I promised my department that I would be the greatest volunteer that they had ever seen, as they were dancing and pouring Rakija like water into all of our mugs.  They claimed that I was the luck that brought the grant, and I strongly contested that I was the one receiving the luck, they earned this through their research and efforts. 

On another wonderful note, my secondary project is moving forward, as I have met a lovely young artist who is currently helping me recruit the girls for the artistic expression class supplemented by the Chill n’ Spill journal from Art with Heart that I’m going to teach every week starting in January, though probably February now with the Slovenia trip.  I’ve been wanting to teach this class for a very long time and have been crafting ideas and curriculum since I got to Macedonia, and now it is slowly coming to fruition.  I’m incredibly excited about this and looking forward to giving a group of young girls another outlet in their adolescent lives, as well as being in a position to foster their creativity and expression on a weekly basis.  They are excited to also use this as a chance to give back to their community, by holding an exhibition at the end of the class and donating the proceeds from their artworks to a local charity of their choosing.  If all goes as dreamed, I will be able to ‘teach teachers’ as well so that the class is sustainable and can continue to make an impact after I leave Macedonia.  Hooray for ART!!!

I know I’ve written in the past about happiness and joy increasing exponentially as life moves forward… and how I can’t believe the amazing things that continue to happen and the incredible amount of love, beauty and joy that has bestowed itself upon my being… but seriously, sometimes I feel like my face is going to break from smiling and the constant ball of emotion in my throat is going to set my head on fire.  I keep waiting for somebody to show up at my door and tell me I just won a free teleportation device.  Oh snap, it couldn’t get any better than that…

It’s going to be an incredible year.

To the Eternal Light,

EM

Mail

Here is my new address for the next two years!

Emily Enger
Str. Marshal Tito 146/5
1440 Negotino, Macedonia

Cards, letters, pictures, love notes, etc. are AWESOME and make me feel like I am still loved back home :) Packages are a slightly different story, and can be quite the expensive stressful cluster* to send and/or receive.  I have everything I need here, so please don't bother! Stick with the love notes ;)

Love,
EM

Snow In Negotino!

So I have a serious problem with future-think.  My entire life, I’ve had a plan. Never a detailed plan, but at least the outline of the next step.  I’ve had the next thing on the checklist of life and worked on it in the background while I was accomplishing whatever it was that I was at the moment.  Move out of Libby, intern, work, finish college, volunteer, finish grad school, study/work abroad, work some more, join the Peace Corps, etc.  Now that I’m in the Peace Corps, I’m thinking about my friends and family greeting me at the airport when I get back to the states, my best friend’s wedding, my wedding, where we’re going to live when I get back to the states, where I want to work and who I want to work for or whether I want to work for myself, whether I’m going to start on a second masters degree right away or not, etc.  What I SHOULD be thinking about is continuing to learn more Macedonian, putting together the art curriculum for my secondary project, what other projects I can be working on at work, and focusing on being in the Peace Corps, as this is what I have wanted for so many years.  It has nothing to do with my desire to be here, I most definitely want to be here and I am beyond thrilled to be involved already with as much as I am here.  And this definitely doesn’t mean that I want to go home sooner than planned.  My brain is just constantly running a million miles an hour and I have a hard time controlling it when I’m not in a situation where I can put myself into a meditative state.  So it ends up trying to hammer 3 years forward without my actual permission.  I’m not sure what it is.  I’ve always been a planner because I’m an organizational freakshow, but at the same time I’m not the kind of person that needs to stick to any kind of life plan to feel secure or comforted or anything like that.  Everything happens for a reason, and I embrace the spontaneity of life and the beauty it brings in unexpected ways, watching it unfold and being able to reflect on the entire process of connections as we grow older.  I think having a clear and strong picture in my mind pushes my dreams to manifest, though in the way that they are supposed to rather than in the way I think they might.  Perhaps that is the interest for me, to see how the path actually ends up looking to get to the end goal that I envision.  I’m hoping that by writing this down that it will help me to focus on the here and now more than the ‘next thing’.

Also, I’m making a very strong effort to stop decimating my fingernails.  I’ve always hated fingernails; I think they are a pain in the ass. I think it’s pointless to paint them or get fake ones. It’s not functional or practical and it is high maintenance.  But I go to the other extreme and rip them off whenever they show the slightest bit of length.  My Gram would not approve, and she always has nicely taken care of nails and doesn’t feel the need to paint them or do anything ridiculously vain to them.  Now that she is so shaky, I would trim and file them for her whenever I was home.  So my effort is for her, because I know she would think it was lady-like that I stop ripping my fingernails off like they are some enemy of mine.  I miss her terribly and I think seeing nice fingernails on myself would make me feel like I’m not so far away from her.  Random I know.  But it makes me feel better. And I also think by publicly verbalizing this it will hold me accountable and I may actually be able to do it. 

*Note: Between the time I wrote the beginning of this blog and the when I was able to access internet in order to post it, I plotted the beginning outline and intention for the art class as well as did a full review of all the Macedonian I have learned in the past three + months.  I feel much better, and am currently back in the moment.  I’m beyond excited to begin my secondary project, and very excited about the cross-border tourism project that we’re working on at my site as well.  Not to mention that I haven’t ripped off a single fingernail.  Woohoo!

My internet at my apartment still isn’t hooked up, and it’s starting to stress me out a bit.  If I can’t talk to my friends and family by Christmas Eve I’m going to lose my mind.  El Capitan continues to entertain… recently he has taken to conducting his own version of the Indy 500 around the apartment, sometimes using my actual head as a springboard when I am still in bed in the morning. It’s pleasant. He also enjoys hanging out in the kitchen staring at me making sad half-mewing noises while I cook food or make noise like I could potentially be making food, even going so far as to put his little paws up on the cupboard doors and beg like a dog trapped in a tiny cat’s body.  Meanwhile, his food bowl is heaping, though I don’t blame him for craving some variety in his life.  You may think it’s odd that I talk about this lovely little creature all the time now, but you should see how much I actually talk TO him, as though he is going to talk back.  I live by myself in a country where people don’t understand much of what I say anyway, so I suppose it seems normal to me at this point.  Did I mention that he likes to suck on his own arm? My landlords love him too luckily, just one more factor of their awesomeness.  In fact, the wife came to my apartment the other night and whirled in with two massive plates of food and a giant cube of chocolate cake, grabbed me and kissed my cheek with amazing gusto and whirled right out the door again.  A few nights before that, the husband hauled my washing machine up the stairs to my third floor apartment on his back with a friend balancing it from behind. Seriously. I heart them. 

Apparently a cold front came into the Balkans, and the last couple days have been ridiculously colder than previous weeks.  I have busted out the Smartwool again and the wonderful investment that is my Northface down coat.  This weekend Austin and I went exploring and found the train station and the monastery. He took beautiful pictures, and I made friends with the monastery’s dog.  It was blue-skied and sunny, but the wind was so cold that I was slurring for lack of feeling in my nose and lips.  I would consider getting a ski mask but people already look at us like we’re strange anyway so I don’t think I need to compound the issue. 

Another thing… I’ve had more and more people in the last couple of years tell me that I should write a book.  I think about this often, and would really love to, but I think that those people have more confidence in my writing than I do.  I just write what I think (with a bit -sometimes a lot- of censorship of course), and would have no idea how to organize any of my thoughts into something that would appear to be succinct and readable.  There is a ridiculous amount of thought and philosophy swimming in my brain at all moments of the day, and so much that I would love to tell whoever reads it about how they can maximize their potential and contribute positively to humanity in order to make the world a better place but I wouldn’t even know where to begin as far as a book goes.  So this is me, putting that thought out there in hopes for your thoughts back.  Because this blog is mostly focused on my traveling and now Peace Corps, I don’t know if it is a good representation of what a book would say if I were to take on that task, but knowing me at whatever level that you do, would you be interested in reading it? What could you see it being about or like?  What would you like to see it being about or like? Any other ideas? If you don’t want to post comments on here, send them to my Facebook or my email address at enger.emily@gmail.com.  I’m really interested in hearing more thoughts on this. Thank you in advance :)

p.s. There is snow in Negotino! I was so excited this morning… 

Peace and love,

EM

Holiday!

Wednesday was St. Clement of Ohrid Day, which meant that none of us worked.  My fabulously awesome landlords brought me a washing machine.  I had no idea how much having this piece of wonderful machinery would make me feel at home and how much more comfortable I would feel in my apartment.  I don’t even care that I have to string my clothes all over my living room.  I love it.  Earlier on Wednesday, four of us volunteers got up and went on a hike into the mysterious hills and vineyards of Negotino.   

See pictures here!: http://picasaweb.google.com/enger.emily    

It was pretty rad… at first we had no idea where we were going and were just wandering around in the fog and mud.  Then three men appeared to us in the mist.  Lo and behold, it was 2 of my colleagues from the Municipality and a friend of theirs who happened to be hiking as well, who told us to join them! Joy! We had guides, who also happened to have pockets full of fruit, chocolate, hilarity and random English colloquialisms as they led our party of 7 up the highest hill in Negotino for what turned out to be about a 5 hour hike.  When we got to the top, you could see the main highway from all of Europe to Greece, all of Negotino as well as the surrounding villages, and all of that surrounded by vineyards as far as the eye could see.  There was still quite a bit of fog when we reached the top, but you could still see everything and the sun was warming our faces as we snacked on apples, mandarins, granola bars and chocolate.  My Keens were caked in mud as well as my pants halfway to my knees, and Adji asked if I had another pair of pants for tomorrow, physically and verbally thanking God when I said yes. 

Thursday we were back at work, and I got to decorate the little Christmas tree for our office! I was so excited! I heart Christmas if you didn’t know.  As soon as I get internet at my house and can download a functioning DVD player I am having an Elf (the greatest Christmas movie of all time) watching-laugh your ass off-eat food-type marathon if anyone wants to join me. 

I’m also currently reading a little book I found in the Peace Corps library called Learning to Dance Inside… a small memoir by a former monk on meditation.  Only most books on meditation try to teach you technique, and this one only talks about the goal of meditation on the premise that knowing the goal and understanding what the intention is will get you there on its own… being as different techniques work for everyone.  It is quite fabulous, and provides the best explanation that I have found so far regarding the internal, spiritual and mental feeling that comes with progressing on the path towards self-awareness, enlightenment and full contemplation.  Check it out, I bet it will help bring you at least a piece of inner peace :)

Love,

EM