Dispatches from Macedonia
The last two days feel as though they have lasted a week's worth. Not because
I'm not enjoying myself, but because there's so much to take in, it feels as though two days is hardly enough bandwidth to fit it all.
I think that my sense of place has grown acute over the past few years. When I was younger, I never had the sensation of being fascinated by merely existing, moving, and inhabiting a particular place with its particular qualities. It never crossed my mind to stop and marvel at how beautiful
my hometown is, for example. There were far more important things to worry about. Tests, parties, interpersonal drama, stymied sex drive, etc.
It's not as though I don't still obsess over all of those, but now they have to timeshare with this strange sensation of revelry that possesses me. When I come home to
Chicago, I have to set aside time to simply amble through the city, in full receptive mode, absorbing without trying to deconstruct and reconstruct meaning out of every glance. And Chicago is wholy familiar to me. When I go somewhere foreign, like where I am now, it's all the more acute.
Macedonia is sublime. It is dirty, with garbage strewn everywhere, piling in heaps. There is poverty, with buildings often left unfinished and shacks of sheet metal and wood sitting at the outskirts of the towns and high, chronic unemployment. Things go slow, with no one in any particular hurry to do anything, whether you're paying them or not. I know many people who would find this place anything but beautiful. And I know that a lot of Macedonians would like nothing more than to be as rich as they think my country is. And despite all that should supposedly count against it, I can't fault it for anything. I'm utterly enamoured.
Which is more or less what always happens when I go abroad. I fall in love with the novelty of the experience. I'm the sort of person who is ravenous for the new and the unknown. I have almost no respect for traditions--at least not the ones that
I'm supposed to adhere to. And when it comes to countries, there's no love lost between me and my own. The cities and secret hideaways excepted (the suburbs very fucking forcefully included), I think
America is a miserable place. Nowhere is perfect, everywhere has its incessant annoyances and simmering tensions, but that does not oblige me to love every spot on the map equally. I don't like the country I come from. I stay here because it offers the best opportunity for what I want to do with my life. If I could say that I was a Madisonian, or a Chicagoan, or a
Midwesterner, rather than an American, I would.
Maybe if it wasn't my home, maybe if it was just a place I was visiting, whose language I was learning, I'd be enamoured with America too.
But as it stands, I like being elsewhere. I like being here. In this moment, I like it here. I haven't had time to learn the language enough to communicate with those who don't speak English, nor to let culture shock set in with the subtle anger in entails. I haven't really gotten to know any Macedonians. I haven't gone any farther than
Ohrid. But this is still an experience, as genuine as any other, and how I might feel in the future doesn't much matter to the present. I am enjoying this sense of place.
Yesterday, I went to a lecture I mostly didn't understand about
Macedonian linguistics. Breakfast was bread with butter, honey, cheese, and jam. After that, I went to class with a group of
Poles, Czechs, Americans, and a Finn. Class breaks always last longer than their supposed to, while we drink coffee and the teachers smoke and
pravat muabet, a sort of Balkan coffee klatch that can last for hours. I had Macedonian bean casserole and sausage for lunch, then did my homework. With no more responsibilities, I walked out the door of the conference center and down to the beach for a swim in
Lake Ohrid. The water is as clear as on a Carribean shoreline, though the soil is rocky rather than white sand. I swam, I laid in the sun, and then I got up to explore the village across from the conference center. It's called "Konjsko," or "Horseville."
The village is built on a hill, with a maze of streets winding back and forth to bring you to the top. The houses are built with stairways connecting them, old and precarious looking, but solid under foot. Sometimes stairways jut off into nowhere. Everywhere house has picnic benches and tables under sunshades where the men and women sit in swimsuits eating the midday meal, the largest. Although it only looks a few rows of houses deep from the shoreline, the village actually extends all the way to the summit, about a mile's walk, with dips and rises revealing new rows of houses stacked on top of one another the farther up you go. Nearest to the summit, the houses grew shoddier, and the farm animals grew greater in number. The roads were no longer paved, but still well-worn.
When I got back to the Kongresen Centar, I asked for my key from the secretary and she asked me if I'd gone swimming. I explained that I had and mentioned I'd walked through Konjsko and found it absolutely beautiful. She smiled and said that she lived in Konjsko and she was glad to hear that. Then she started to speak more quickly and I lost track of what she was saying. I wanted to talk more, to ask her questions, but I can't yet.
If how much I like the country now is any sign though, I think I will be able to in not too long.
Катастрофа!
Hiking through Horseville
Invited in for coffee
A short rundown that's not short