Ajvar Making 101

The days are starting to get shorter and colder, which means that winter is right around the corner.  Time to start pulling out the long underwear and finish any last minute canning that needs to be done to survive the winter.  A few weeks ago, I went with Irena's family to their summer house to help them make their ajvar.  Ajvar is a spread made out of red peppers that Macedonians eat with bread and cheese. Its a traditional dish that they tend to eat in the Fall and Winter.

Now what I am about to share with you is the famous recipe for making ajvar.  This is TOP SECRET!!!  So do not share this recipe with any big American distribution companies.  It is a family recipe.

 First you start with peppers.  Lots and lots of peppers.  Irena's dad bought 33kg = 66lbs of peppers.

And they all had to be washed.

 That was my job. I also had to make sure that there were no bruises or cuts on the peppers and that they are not soft.  You want to make sure that the peppers are hard so they will roast nicely.
Afterward, they are nicely bathed  and then they are off to roasting.

  You have to keep rotating the peppers until they start to soften up and the skins get charred.

Irena's brother was in charge of roasting the peppers on the big stove.  It is a very tiring and hot job, but he would not let anyone else do it haha.

Irena roasting peppers on the little stove.  She came up with her own system, kind of like an assembly line, the peppers would start on the top and work their way to the bottom.

Irena's sister-in-law was in charge of prepping the garlic. She loves garlic and decided that 3 heads would probably be enough; when in fact, we only ended up using one head.

And of course the "boss" aka Irena's dad is hard at work.  Last year he did the whole process by himself, it took him 2 days.  So this year he said it felt strange having everyone else doing the work and not having anything to do.

The end result.
Once the peppers are roasted and you let them steam a little bit in a covered pot; then it is time for the messy job.....

de-skinning and de-seeding all the peppers.  This is the most tiring part and it takes quite a long time.  After I struggled with my first pepper, Irena and I worked together.  I would take off the skin and she would take out the seeds.  Taking out the seeds is the hardest part, because you have to make sure that none of the seeds stay on/in the pepper and your hands get all wet from the steam and the pepper juices.  I think it took us (myself, Irena and her sister-in-law)  about 3 hours to de-skin and de-seed all of the peppers.

Working hard.

Then we took a meat grinder and ground up all of the peppers. Once the pan was full we took it over to the big pot on the stove.  Where it cooked for the next 2 hours.

The peppers need to cook like this for about 2 hours or until all of the liquid has evaporated and the peppers stay parted (like parting the red sea).  For this part ,someone has to be stirring continuously because you have to make sure the peppers do not stick to the bottom of the pan.

I was allowed to help stir for a little bit, but then Irena did all of the stirring. After the peppers get to the right consistancy, where they start to separate, then it is time to add the oil.  You have to heat up the oil before you add it to the peppers. It cannot be room temp/straight out of the bottle.  You keep stirring and stirring until it is all worked in and you can't see a layer of oil on the top (they call it frying the peppers).

Every family makes their ajvar differently.  Some stop here (peppers and oil are the basic) and others, like Irena's family, add other things.  They add vinegar, sugar, salt, minced garlic, and parsley.  I had never had garlic in my ajvar ;and now I will never eat it without garlic.  I think that the garlic and the parsley make it even  more delicious.  After everything is fully combined, then it is time to put it in the jars. 

Irena's dad had put the jars and lids in the oven to get them hot.  You cannot add hot ajvar into room temp jars. Making the jars hot helps to seal them, which is why it lasts all winter.

Irena's dad made a little "bed" for the jars to help slow down the cooling process.  This also helps it last longer.  After 9 hours, from start to finish, we made 15 jars of ajvar.  It was a long day but well worth it.

This is how Macedonian's eat their ajvar, on a piece of bread with some cirenje (white cheese, kind of like a feta) on top.  Totally worth the 9 hours of work and something I can't wait to try and recreate back home.

The Wonders of a Good Book

As you all know, we have been working on an English Resource Room/Library at my school.  Well I am pleased to say that it is finally finished and up and running. YAY!!!  For the past two weeks kids have been coming before and after school to return and get books in English to read.  At the beginning our shelves looked full, but now are slowly getting smaller and smaller, which is a good thing because that means that the kids are enjoying the books and keep wanting to read more.

Just as a reminder....this is the before shot.

And....................................

This is the after shot!!!  Carpet on the floor, new desks and chairs for the kids to come sit and read, books on the shelves, and we made bulletin boards out of the old windows.

 The other side.  Here is the working area for the teachers and where the students come when they want to take a book out.  The cabinet is where the teachers can hold their English resource materials.  I can't forget Maria's, one of the English teachers, beautiful hand work on the walls.

More of Maria's handy work with posters.

 Boban, was our first student to come and check out a book.

 Irena checking some of the girls out.  We had each student that wanted to use the library take home a "contract" and read it over with their parents.  They had to provide some information (name, grade, email, etc).  We had some rules about what would happen if they returned a book late, damaged or lost one along with general library rules.  The kids had to have their parents sign it and they too had to sign it and once they returned the form they could start getting books. As of yesterday we had around 100 students turn in forms and more are coming!!

 Some of the 6th grade girls after school looking up words in the English-Macedonian dictionaries.

You can now always find someone reading!!!  It has been a nice sight seeing the students come and getting books; and then when they return them saying it was "good" and how they can't wait to get another.  I have also enjoyed seeing the kids reading the books during their free time or after they finished an assignment in English class.  The kids reading for pleasure; something that I had not seen before. The library will always be a work in progress; but as the years go on, I know it will be something that these kids will always enjoy having.

Wine Making 101

It is getting to be that time of year where everyone is preparing foods for the winter. They are picking/buying their peppers and starting to make avjar; pickling veggies, making russian salad; picking grapes, and making wine.  Irena's dad one day had the idea that he wanted to make wine this year.  Irena said that the last time her family made wine was 10 years ago, so I saw it as a little treat for me. When I heard what he wanted to do I jumped at the chance to help. Irena laughed and said "of course you can help us drink the wine" but when I corrected her and said "no, can I help make it?" she was surprised. Every time I ask if I can help do something that I think is "cultural" I get the look (you must be nuts) because what I see as fun and interesting they see as a chore and hard work. Irena's family now understands my "strange" American ways of wanting to "do things" and they were nice enough to teach me how its done.

 Irena's dad went out and bought 150kg of grapes, which is around 300lbs. In the past, they use to squish the  grapes in a large trash can with a stick and their hands. Doing it that way would have taken them around 5 hours to squish all those grapes. (No, they do not do it the "I Love Lucy" way)  Irena's dad borrowed a machine from a friend that looks like a big meat grinder and it squishes the grapes for you.

My job was to take the grapes out of the cartons, fill a smaller bucket about half way full and then dump the grapes into the machine.

 There they go!!!
Then Irena's dad was in charge of working the machine. He was turning the crank; and if necessary, push the grapes down so they all get squished.

I was surprised to find out that you use every bit of the grape to make wine. I had always thought that all you need was the juice and was expecting a machine to separate the juice from the skin, seed, and steams.  But no, everything goes into the machine, gets all squished and then everything is used to make wine.

They had a bucket below to catch the squished grapes.

A close-up shot of the grapes. You can see the juice, the seeds, the skins, and the steams.
Then it was Irena's job to come over and get the bucket and then empty it in the big barrel.

They had a funnel on top so it would not splash and get grape juice everywhere.  It took the three of us a little over 1.5 hours to go through 300lbs of grapes and to fill up the barrel.

You don't want the barrel all the way filled up because when it starts to ferment it will bubble and you need to leave some space.  For the next 10 days, it will be juice or "sok", as they call it.  Then after about 2 weeks, it will start to ferment and get sour.  I was surprised to hear that you do not have to add anything to it to turn it into wine. It does it all buy itself. Then in about a month it will turn into wine. After that, they will have to seal the barrel air-tight so that the fermenting process stops and it stays wine.  When they did the math they figured that the 300lbs of grapes, not sure how much it cost but it was relatively cheap, will make around 70L of wine, averaging at around 50 cents a liter, and then afterwards if they decide to make rakija, brandy, out of the leftovers it will make around 10L, about 25 cents a liter (pretty cheap for alcohol right?). This is a Macedonian "skill" that might stay with me when I return home!!!

My First BIG Fat Macedonian Wedding

On Sunday I attended my first wedding in Macedonia. It was the wedding of the computer teacher at my school, Vesna. She married the son of one of the 3rd grade teachers, Jovan.  They met in high school and dated for 10 years.  Looong relationships are very typical in Macedonia. Casual dating is not common here; neither is divorce.  Once you decide that you are "in a serious relationship" with someone, it typically ends in marriage, even if that is years down the line.

There are many components to the wedding making it an all day event.  First, it starts wthl celebrating in the home. The groom's friends and family go to the bride's house to "bring her to her new home" (normally after the wedding the bride goes to live in the same house as the groom's family).  There is some traditional ceremonies and celebrations that happen in the bride's house; and then everyone goes to the groom's house. Traditional ceremonies and celebrations there are the same. I am sorry to say that I do not know what they are because I only attended the reception. After celebrating at the groom's house, it's off to the church.  There they have a religious ceremony consisting of putting crowns on the bride's and groom's head.  After the church ceremony, they head to the municipality (town hall) to sign the paper officially making them husband and wife.  After all that there still is the reception.

The reception is probably the biggest part of the wedding and when I say big, I mean BIG.  Over 650 people (yes, you are reading that number correctly) attended this reception.  This couple attended alot of weddings and are well known in the town; so, of course, they had to invite alot of people to their wedding.  The totally being over 650.  Irena, Maria, and I met up with some of the other teachers outside of the big reception hall in Resen.  I learned that the bride and groom stand at the entrance and take a picture with everyone that comes in.  Here is our group shot.

The photography company prints out the pictures and puts them in a card along with the couple's wedding photo and sells them during the reception so everyone has a souvenir to remember the wedding.

After we congratulated the bride and groom and took our photo, we then congratulated the parents of the couple who were all standing inside the hall.  I was told that the saying that the parents of the married couple tell the guests literally translated is "on your head" but means they wish good fortune and happiness for us. There were two tables for our school.  All of the older people sat at one and then it was Irena, Maria, and I left at the other until....the lively group of teachers showed up.

Part of our table.  Susan, who teaches at one of the village schools, me, Irena, Maria, Vesna, who teaches 5th grade and Lile, who teaches 2nd. The other teachers at the table included Petze, the very enthusiastic music teacher (he was behind the camera), and Betti, 3rd grade, and some of their spouses.
I had heard about Macedonian weddings and prepared myself before going, took a nap, and ate dinner because you might get dinner until midnight.  But I was surprised that as soon as we sat down the waiters brought over the salads.

After about an hour, when all the guests had arrived, the bride and groom made their entrance and had their first dance. The Macedonians have adapted some of our western customs into their weddings/ceremonies, this being one of them.  The rest of the evening was full of traditional Macedonian dancing (oro) and surprisingly a few modern songs as well ("Rollin on a river" and the tequila song).  I was told today at school that the teachers were surprised and impressed by my Macedonian dancing skills. Over the past year it has improved and I now know a few other dances.

Dinner was traditional.  You get a hamburger patty or a chicken breast, and they also served something that looked like a roast with veggies, potatoes, and rice. Along with all the soda, water, wine, and beer that you want. Later the waiters brought out the cake. Also a traditional cake that has layers of cake (with nuts) and layers of custard and frosting. After some more dancing, the bride and groom and their parents toasted with champagne and then it was time for the bride to cut the wedding cake.  Yes we ate cake twice.

The wedding cake was located at the front of the room.  It was a bunch of round cakes that were decorated with flowers.  All of the young people, those not married, come up and the bride cuts a piece for them all. This represents passing the good fortune of marriage along.  Then another western custom, the throwing of the bouquet.  A gentleman caught it and started to run off with it. Then he remembered that he was already married; so he turned around and handed it to his best friend, a female who is not married. I got home around 1:30 am and had to be a school at 8 am the next day.  When I arrived at school, Irena and Maria both looked tired but I was surprisingly peppy, but the lack of sleep hit me by the time I got home.  All in all it was a wonderful wedding; and now I can say that I have attended a BIG Fat Macedonian Wedding!!!

Independence Day- 20 years for Macedonia and 1 year for me

Yesterday, September 8th, Macedonia celebrated its 20th year of independence.  There was a huge celebration in the center of Skopje and everyone was invited, and over one hundred thousand people attended.  Municipalities from all the cities offered free transportation to anyone that wanted to attend.  So, of course, Irena, Maria, and Maria's boyfriend Vasko, and I took full advantage.  The 4 buses and 1 combi (van) left Resen around noon and we arrived in Skopje around 4 pm.  It was my first time being on a bus that went straight to Skopje, not making stops in each city on the way up. But still it would be not a bus ride in Macedonia with out the pauzas, aka coffee and smoking breaks.  Normally we just stop once, but for some reason this time we stopped twice. When we arrived in the center, Irena and I met up with another volunteer, Austin, and his counterpart, Tode.  After recovering from the bus ride with a quick bite and a beer we made our way back to the center.  The first event was a parade.  There was a path roped off for the political figures and other participants to make their way through the crowd to the main stage.  Unfortunately, because of all the people, this was how Irena and I had to watch the parade....

Tode, who is very tall, was video taping it. So Irena and I stood underneath him and watched the parade on his little video camera.  After the parade, there were some performances on the main stage and then the prime minister gave his 7 points speech which took over an hour and a half.  We were all waiting for the 2 big events: a famous singer that was "rumored" to drop down from a helicopter and land on top of the new and large Alexander the Great statue with a dress made out of 350 meters of silk, and the grande revealing of the Alexander the Great statue and fountain.

The singer did perform in a 350 meter silk dress, but sadly she did not drop from a helicopter. She was raised above the crowd on a lift instead.

And then finally, there was a water show around the new fountain.

 During the grande finale.

Alexander in his full glory.  The first time I saw it I had to laugh because the statue is not proportionally correct.  First, Alexander and the horse are about the same size; and second, you have this huge man on his huge horse holding this little tiny sword.  But all in all it is still a very impressive statue.

There were also other statues reveled since Skopje is going through a "face-lift" which is suppose to be finished in 2014.  Besides adding statues, they are also building 3 new museums.  The museum of history also had their grande opening that evening.

From what I could see on the big TV screens in the center, it is very pretty both inside and out; and I can't wait to go and see inside.

The evening ended with a BANG.....literally.

Beautiful fireworks filled the sky over the Vardar River to celebrate Macedonia's 20th birthday.  Then it was back to the buses around 11 pm; and we finally arrived back in Resen around 2:30am.  (Luckily they did not stop at all on the way home. Everyone was exhausted and slept the whole way back.)

Celebrating Macedonia's 20th birthday was a wonderful way to end my first year of service.  On Sunday, the new group of Peace Corps volunteers, the MAK 16s, will be arriving.  It is strange to think that a year ago today I was in Philly about to begin this new adventure.  And now year later, I am living happily in a beautiful town, working at a wonderful school, meet amazing people that are now my friends, and about to start my second year which I know will be full of wonderful experiences and adventures.  

The End of Summer and the Beginning of a New School Year

The summer is finally winding down, but sadly the temperatures have been rising.  For the past few weeks I have been relaxing and enjoying doing nothing, with my fan going full blast, before school starts and the new volunteers arrive. I did not do any big international trips this summer, trying to save up my days to do some nice trips next year.  I did go to Stenje, a little village around the Prespa Lake, for a few days with Irena. Her family has a summer house there and we spent the days on the beach and the evenings on the porch.  It was a nice getaway.  It was very similar to a vacation with my family. We woke up and went from pj's to swim suits, stayed on the beach till lunch time, came back for a little break, and then went back to the beach until the sun went down.  In the evenings, we would sit on the porch. Listen to some music, snoop on the neighbors (people watching is a very popular pastime in Macedonia), and read. It was very quiet and relaxing.

 The beach. The beaches around Prespa are where you can find sandy beaches. The ones around Ohrid are very rocky.  There were not many people there; but it was still interesting to find that people from other countries like to come and spend their vacation here also.

 Irena's family's summer home. We spent alot of time on the top porch because from there you have a nice view and you can look out onto the lake.

View from the porch. I took this right after it had rained. You can see a rainbow above the yellow house.

School starts on Thursday. Every year school always starts on September 1st; it does not matter what day of the week it is. Last week and this week Irena, Maria and I have been working on getting the Resource Room ready.  Our goal is to have it ready to open on the 5th since the first 2 days of school are probably going to be a bit crazy. The kids are all excited to be back and sadly the teachers do not even have their schedules yet. So those first 2 days will be spent still getting everything in order.  We painted the walls a nice light creamy white color and then painted the bookcases and the windows brown.  Maria, who is a very talented artist, even painted some pictures on the walls.

 Maria painting the walls.

 Irena painting the bookcases.

 Working on the tree house. This will be behind the desk, which will house the computer and printer.

 The finish product. Isn't it amazing? It only took her 2 days and she did it all free hand.

 There was some water damage by the floor boards so Maria had the idea to add some more images to help cover it up.

After Week 1.  Its getting there.

Since then we have added a rug, some tables and chairs, and have been working on organizing the books.  A company from the states, Darrin Book Aide, will send a box of donated books to volunteers and international schools in need.  Irena and I both requested a box, not knowing the other one had done so, so in the end we received 2 boxes filled with picture books, young adult chapter books, classics, and even textbooks.

You will just have to check back next week to see the finished product!!!