Highlights

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We've been a little quiet on the blog recently because things have been pretty quiet for us these last few weeks. Work slowed down a lot for both of us around the holidays. While the students were on holiday, Jarred only had to go in a few days, usually just for coffee or a holiday celebration. I've done a little work from home, from the home of my counterpart, and one meeting out of town. Otherwise, we have spent a lot of time at home reading, listening to music, knitting, and watching movies. There have been a few highlights.

Faculty Christmas party

Faculty New Year party

My counterpart and I at the Municipality of Strumica for a meeting

We celebrated Macedonian Christmas with out hosts. We had a traditional Christmas Eve dinner. One tradition is to bake a loaf of bread with a coin inside. Everyone pulls from the bread and whoever gets the piece with the coin is said to have good luck for the year. Jarred got the coin at our dinner.

Macedonian Christmas Eve dinner

Jarred and I spent Saturday at my counterpart's home. I did a little work helping her create some documents for the grant we're working on in English. Jarred made American pancakes. Here, they have палачинки, which are like crepes with jam or creme, but they don't have pancakes. My counterpart has tried American pancakes once before when a PCV from a few years ago made them, and she has been asking us to make them for her family. They were all surprised at how simple they are to make.

палачинки

Pancakes

Monday was the Macedonian Orthodox holiday Водици, or Epiphany. Here is a little description of the holiday from Wikipedia:

On this day the priest throws a wooden cross into the water, to symbolize the baptism of Christ. Men jump into the cold water to retrieve the cross, and whoever retrieves it is believed to be blessed during the whole year.

 Jarred and I joined others from Delcevo in gathering around the Bregalnica River to watch the ceremony. The priests led a procession from the church to the bridge. They blessed the water, and threw the cross. A small group of men waded out into the shallow water to retrieve it. The whole event was short, but tons of people turned out to watch.

Yesterday was the first day back to school for the students. Jarred went to work, but many of the teachers were on strike. Not being from here, the true reason for the strike is still unclear. The teachers attended school but sat in the teacher's lounge all day instead of teaching their classes. Not all teachers at the school were on strike and participation in the strike varied from town to town across Macedonia. The strike only lasted one day. Today things were back to normal.

-Andreya