Life in Sveti Nikole (or Sweaty Nicole as Danny calls it) is really nice! Every morning I wake up and get ready for school. My host mom is absolutely wonderful and always has breakfast waiting for me. Sometimes it's an omelet, sometimes fried bread, sometimes bread and ajvar (a Macedonian red pepper spread), or a piroshka (fried meat pancake). Whatever it is, it's always delicious and I'm very grateful to her for cooking for me.
After Breakfast, I head to school for Macedonian language class. I am in a class with 5 other trainees and our language teacher always makes class really fun. Even though it's four hours, it goes by really quickly. The amount we are learning is incredible! Three weeks ago, we could barely introduce ourselves, now we are talking about our schedules, what we eat, our families, and we can give and ask for directions! We have tons of dialogues and games, our two favorites are charades and Pictionary. I'm still not as good at Macedonian as I want to be, but I know that languages take a lot of patience and I practice every day with my host family. I can communicate with them so much better now, but it is still hard to get across more complex concepts.
After school I go to the gym with a few of the other trainees. The gym is pretty small but it has free weights and two treadmills, which is pretty much all I need. There are also inexplicably a lot of children who sometimes use the gym to play tag. In front of the treadmills there is a TV that is always playing MTV dance music videos, which I absolutely love. The gym also has a ton of really fun posters that emphasize the importance of getting swole. I am currently training for the Skopje Half Marathon which is in May. I think it'll be good to have a fitness goal to help get me through the winter. After the half marathon, I would like to run the original Marathon in Athens. It'll be in November 2020, so I have a long time to train, which I desperately need.
After the gym I go home to eat lunch with my family. We always eat lunch around 3, and it is usually chicken and rice, or soup with meat, or other traditional Macedonian dishes. During lunch I chat with my family about my day and ask for their help with some of the homework. After lunch I usually go hang out in a cafe or in the park with other Peace Corps trainees. Once a week we play soccer, sometimes against each other, sometimes against local youth (they beat us pretty badly last time). We also recently had a ping pong tournament and I got out in the first round. There are a ton of really nice cafes in the center, and I really like being able to hang out there.
After hanging out, I head back home to be with my family. Dinner is really small here so we usually have crepes with nutella, doughnuts call kifli, or bread, cheese, and ajvar. While we eat we watch Turkish Soap Operas. Turkish Soap Operas are really divisive, people either love them or absolutely hate them. My host mom really likes them, so I've been getting into them as well! They are dubbed in Macedonian so it is great language practice (It was really great for my family vocab, I would always ask my host mom "is he her brother or boyfriend?"). The three we watch are called the "The Smell of Strawberries", "Without Breath", and "Daughters of Fasilet". I don't really know exactly what is happening in any of them, but so far my favorite is "without breath" because it's the most exciting. There are also a lot of Serbian TV shows that are really popular here. There is a Serbian version of the voice, but my host mom doesn't like it that much because she doesn't like the judges. My absolute favorite TV show here is a Serbian show called "Your Face Sounds Familiar". It's a competition show where performers have to draw musicians out of a hat and recreate one of their most famous performances. The gender of the musicians doesn't matter, so a lot of times the performers have to be in drag. I understand a lot more of this show because most of the songs are in English, and it's musicians I've heard of.
That's pretty much my life here in Sveti Nikole, but there are some really exciting developments coming soon! I start practicums this week, and I have been partnered with a Macedonian English teacher. This week I am just observing her class, but in a few weeks I will be teaching! First with a fellow Peace Corps Trainee, then on my own! It is a bit nerve-wracking but I'm excited to be in the classroom. Also next week my class will be having a Halloween party, and I will carve a butternut squash because I have not been able to find a pumpkin. Two fridays from now we have our overnight in Skopje, and I'm so excited to be able to explore the city more!
We will also know our permanent site placements in about 3 weeks so I am super nervous and excited for that. As always, I miss everyone at home so much (even more than I miss Starbucks), but I am finally settling in here and excited for all the things ahead. *These words are my own and do not represent the views of the Peace Corps or the United States Government.
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