I love living here...but...
I love getting on our rickety, squeaky elevator and making a new friend every day. Some speak English but with others we just mime a greeting and a smile. Rarely do residents NOT engage in a friendly way.
Today I met a retiree from Slovenia whose mother was from Skopje, so he decided to retire here. Perfect English, unusual for his/my generation. Yesterday I met was a little old lady and I mimed that I would be happy to take the trash bag she ws holding out to the "dumpsters"(see below) but she smiled and insisted that she do it herself. Stephen, of course, is embarrased when I constantly strike up converations with complete strangers, in the elevator, on the street, in the park, at the grocery store. I guess that is why I am a journalist and he isn't.
Speaking ofStephen, he left yesterday for 6 weeks at home. His plan was to leave next week but the death of his aunt/godmother (whose husband also died while we were here) propelled him to change his plans and head home for the funeral today. Today is also his mother's 90th birthday but sadly she will be burying her last remaining sibling today. Life is particularly cruel at times.
But mostly, life is good here. The walk to work, surrounded by still snow-capped peaks, the beautiful Vardar River and now, the giant city Park in full bloom.
Monday was April Fool's Day and here it is more like Halloween for kids. Everywhere we walked we saw kids dressed up. I wanted to take photos but didn't want to look like a creep (or further embarrass Stephen, so I snuck a few from a distance.
Kids playing hide and seek in the maze.
Even the teenagers got into the act. This crew was raising money for the Red Cross...the first overtly charitable act I have seen or heard about here.
Corruption great and small drives any initiative forward, or stymies it. Case in point. In 2014 the nationalist government went on this wild spending spree, (see statues from previous blog post). They gave a Neo-classical facelift to most of the modern or brutalist government buildings.
Then, they started building two new buildings on the university campus: a data science building that is next to my office and an athletic faciltiy. Butcorruption, incompetence or both kicked in and prevented the building from being completed. The contractor allegedly went bankrupt and nothing has changed in TEN years. But finally, finally, earlier this week, the dean of the data science college and a whole bunch of students actually protested in front of the government building and demanded the the job get done. Stay tuned! I hope I live to see the day when this place functions and thrives.
RE: Dumpsters: I cant tell if this is a brilliant idea or not. But rather than above ground dumpsters, the city has underground dumpsters covered with something akin to a hood for a barbecue. You walk out of your building and put your trash in one of the three bins (I initially thought there were three different bins for recycling purposes, but there does not seem to be any rhyme or reason what goes in which bin). Then once ever few days a trash collection truck comes and magically elelvates the underground dumpsters and tosses everything in the truck.
It won't be the same without Stephen here. He has been the IT specialist, travel agent, navigagor, chief cook and grocery shopper, and an all around wealth of information about everything around us. I will really need to up my game to contiune to enjoy this place as much as I have so far.
Thankfully, in the next six weeks some friends are coming to visit and I'm going to Berlin to meet another group (the "girls" I studied junior-year-abroad in London with have been travelling somewhere together almost every year since 1978. Let's hope the "Traveling Sisters" keep it up for another 46 (!!!) years!
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