60 days out | Today's 10 Things

Update

We've now hit the 60 days mark -- I'll be at staging on September 21st! Location TBD. 

What is staging?

Staging is a couple to a few days that occurs right before departure to one's placement in the Peace Corps. From what I've seen for various cohorts before me, it seems to happen usually on the east coast. It's like the orientation before you go to your country and start your 10 weeks of Pre-Service Training (PST). 

Also, today I received an email with some more onboarding tasks to do! I have to admit, I was excited enough that while we were given up to 2 weeks to do them, I did them all today... some boxes to check, things to update, deciding if I wanted certain forms or not, press-release related stuff, financial-related stuff, etc... all the fun! But now it's done and we wait again, haha.

Countdown! Today's Ten Things

So as mentioned previously, I thought to make a point to post every ten days...with 10 things I'm excited about regarding my time in Macedonia or random facts people might find interesting.

1. I'm excited to go back to the Balkans! My first time to the region was visiting Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina in 2005. In 2009 I went back for about 2 months, studying & traveling in Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Croatia. It's time to see more!
2. I'm looking forward to a (mostly) new language: As I've mentioned, I've studied Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (BCS) in undergrad. While there are probably some super-duper linguistic explanations, I kind of liken the languages as BCS is to Macedonian what Spanish is to Portuguese. Similar in many ways, some grammatical stuff can almost seem pretty dang close, but definitely different.
3. Speaking of languages, Macedonia has a few! - Macedonian is the national language; I've shared examples of what that looks like in previous posts. There are also 6 national minority languages: Albanian, Turkish, Romani, Serbian, Bosnian, and Aromanian. In addition to BCS, I also studied some Turkish. I have music in Albanian and Romani -- both super cool languages, in my opinion! Aromanian (or Vlach) is a Romance language similar to Romanian -- the late Macedonian singer Toše Proeski (whose video I shared in my first post) was Aromanian. Last but certainly not least, the country also has Macedonian Sign Language.
4. History! I am a huge history nerd, so this is going to be super fun. I've become friends with some current PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers) in Macedonia, and seeing what people have explored is super interesting. Someone casually remarked they went for a hike near their site and saw some Roman ruins - just lying about. There's stuff that old and even older across such a small country - I look forward to seeing what I can!
5. New currency, new exchange rates: the Macedonian currency is called the denar (денар; pl. денари). I snagged a pic of an example of a 50 denar note below, which is the equivalent to almost $1 USD.
   
   
   
   
   
6. Macedonia is land-locked: While I'm super stoked to go, I'll be a bit sad to not be around water as much as I am here in Seattle. Macedonia is about the size of the Puget Sound region, but has no coastline.
7. ...but it does have some water: Despite no ocean, obviously, there are rivers and lakes in Macedonia. One of the most impressive is actually a UNESCO World Heritage Site! Lake Ohrid, in the country's southwestern corner, is also considered one of Europe's oldest and deepest lakes.
   
   
   
   
   
8. Regional travel: As mentioned, I've visited the Balkans before, albeit a number of years ago. Sarajevo was my first experience in the region in 2005, inspiring my study of BCS. My 2 months in Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia in 2009 was great, but I haven't been back since! I'm beyond excited to go back and visit places and people in Bosnia and Croatia, and explore some new spots! I'd love to see Kosovo, Greece, and Turkey in particular.
9. Fun fact time! Balkan dog breeds: I love dogs, and there are a few breeds from the Balkans. One of my favorites is called the Šarplaninec, or Yugoslavian Shepherd Dog. ("Š" is like a "sh" sound; "C" is like a "ts"). The breed gets its name from the Šar mountains that stretch along Kosovo, Macedonia, and Albania.
   
   
10. Fun Fact: Music: So far I've shared a few contemporary music videos, but Macedonia has a wide variety of musical styles and instruments. One of those traditional instruments is found across the Balkans, a variation on bagpipes. Гајда or gajda is popular in various traditional songs, as can be heard here.