I bet most of you are wondering why I have not been writing about school and just writing about all the festivals and events that I have been going to. The past 3 weeks have been the winter holiday, their Christmas break. The teachers have been coming to school some days, most of them (during the first week) were working on grades and report cards. While some teachers worked the other teachers that do not have to write out report cards just hang around and socialize. It is something new to me and I still really do not understand it, in the states if the teachers have to be in school they are preparing lesson and spending all of the time in their classrooms. Here the teachers spend the time in the teachers lounge talking about non-related school topics and drink coffee. This week I went to school on Monday and Friday for a few hours, sat and listened to the other teachers talk. Tuesday only the teachers from grades K-4th had to come in and since they did not have anything to work on I heard that a few were planning on not coming in. Same thing with Thursday, it was only for the teachers of grades 5-8th. Wednesday was a religious holiday, Vodici, and non of the teachers had to come in and the municipality, mayors office, was closed as well.
Vodici, (also know as the Epiphany) it celebrate the baptism of Jesus. People gather around a local body of water, I went to Ohrid Lake, a priest carries a blessed cross and after signing a few songs he throws it into the water. Local men dive into the water and try to retrieve the cross. The man who gets the cross is considered blessed and lucky for the rest of the year. I met a few other volunteers done at Ohrid because I want to see the events and Ohrid has the biggest celebration. There were 5 volunteers that decided that they were going to jump in the water too. They were not allowed to go try and get the cross because A they are not Macedonian and B you have to sign up and register in order to attempt to get the cross. I decided just to watch this year since seeing frost of the grass on the bus ride there turned me off to jumping into the lake in the middle of January. The dive started at 10am and there were tons of people hanging around the lake. At events in Macedonia they serve free alcohol, which is definitely a bonus, and in the winter it is hot rakia. Rakia is similar to brandy and it is made from grapes. They heat it up and add some sugar to it. There were stands all around the lake of people passing out hot rakia. I believe it is not just for the social atmosphere but also drinking it warms you up and it probably takes off some of the chill when you jump into the coooold lake. After the dive and the 5 volunteers had dried off we all went looking for a place to eat. All of the restaurants looked crowded. This was my 3 time in Ohrid and I had never seen it sooo crowded. They 14s said that it looks this way in the summer and that you have a hard time finding a place to sit. Point taken: plan for LOTS of crowds and people in the summer.
This is the closest that I got to the lake. There were vendors selling decorated bottles for you to put the "holy" lake water into. A few of us got them for keepsakes and decoration. I got a small one that has a picture of Ohrid Lake on it. Now it is in my apartment, full of holy water, to bring me luck this year. When I go to Vodici next year I will have to bring it and refill it to get another year of luck.
Here are some more pictures from Vodici:
The volunteers swimming back. They had a race between all of them to see who could make it to the boat first.
The cold troopers!!!!
Yesterday, I went to Kavadarci with a 7 other volunteers (5 were PC and the other 2 were European volunteers). Kavadarci is located in the wine region and is the home of the Tikves winery, the biggest winery in the Balkans. We had a tour of the winery and also a wine tasting: 6 different bottles of wine, 1 type of rakia, and a meat and cheese plate for 600 MKD about $12, not bad!!! We had a lot of fun talking about the different types of wines and acting like we knew what we were talking about, since non of us were real winos. But I did take some notes, our waiter had interesting things to say about each one and there were definitely a few that I really liked and will have to buy some bottles and bring them home.Oh did I mention that our tour and tasting started at 10am. Cant think of a better way to start the day!!!
The entrance to the winery. This is where our tour started.
This building is where they make the rakia. I believe that they cook it to help the grapes ferment more and to get a higher alcohol content.
These were some of the tanks where they are keeping the white wine from the grapes that they picked in the fall. This will be the 2010 wine that will come out next year.
During the tour we were taking down to the cellar. The barrels behind me are fulled with the new line of wines they are making that are mixed wines made by French wine makers.
This is our tour guy and waiter Alexander. The first glass that we got to taste was from the huge barrels outside the restaurant. They were filled with one of the classic red table wines that they make.
The restaurant is 2 stories. One the bottom level there is a large fire place and a nice bar, picture below, upstairs there is another bar and tables. That was were we have our tasting. The bottom floor was being set up for a large party of 100 people that were coming in after us.
When we picked the meat and cheese tasting we all assumed that they would put out big plates for the table to share...oooh no. Each person got their own plate: 3 types of cheese, 4 types of meat, and some nuts. They also gave us bread, delicious soft bread.
These were the wines that we tasted. We got them in the order from right to left. My favorites where the Limited Edition Chardonnay, the black bottle with the gold label, the Alexandra, the rosy next to it, and the rakia, the furthest on the left. The 2 bottles with the colorful labels are from the new collection of wines that they are making. Each bottle is a mix of two wines and they are made by the French wine makers. When our tasting was all over and the wine was all gone we left fully and happy volunteers.
Tomorrow school starts up again. I was able to sit down with 2 of the English teachers and start talking about what they want me to help with, but I need to sit down with the director of my school and ask him the same question since he was the one that wanted a volunteer. I will be nice to get back to a normal routine and back in the classrooms. I have my schedule set up so I got to grades K-6th and I can meet with each of the English teachers once a week so we can start planning together. I also am hoping to get working on an English teachers club/meeting. So once a month the English teachers that live around Resen can meet up, talk about strategies and have workshops to learn new ones.
I was going through my pictures and forgot that I had these. They are from the schools holiday Christmas lunch that we had at the end of December. So now you can put faces to the names of the English teachers that I will be working with.
Irena, my counterpart, me, Snesha, and Maria.
We went to one of the restaurants in Resen. This was actually my first time eating at one of the restaurants we have. I normally cook at home, but it was nice to have some authentic Macedonia food. These are some of the other teachers. The gentleman in the suit located on the right is the director of my school.
I will post next week and will have more pictures!!!
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