Peaces of Paige : April Happenings

Well April came and went and it was an extremely busy month for me. The month was full of ups and downs and exciting adventures.

I thought that I would find more time to blog but it there is always something getting in the way. In this post I am going to try and recap some of the things that happened. Of course it was busy with both Easters but there was also more exciting events that happened.

One of my favorite April memories is my trip to Matka, which is a canyon on the outskirts of Skopje. At the last minute I decided to go. Two fellow volunteers had planned the trip and invited me along. We caught the bus and headed to the canyon. I met some fellow Americans on the bus that were spending 2 years backpacking through Europe.

When we arrived at the canyon, we weren't sure if we were at the right place. There was no hotel or restaurant in site, only a steep hill and the side of a mountain. We continued walking for about 20 minutes, up the hill, around many bends on a cobblestone path with the exposed canyon on our right and the river on our left. We finally saw the hotel and were welcomed with cool fresh air. I think it was about 10 degrees cooler there.

One of the monasteries at Matka where Orthodox sisters live

It was absolutely stunning and I really felt like I was on vacation, in an oasis away from all of my worries. We hiked half of the trail (it's pretty long) but didn't hike the whole thing. I guess this just means I will have to go back again! I discovered that the weekend before there was a kayak race in the river! It was so beautiful running in the canyon (no slacking on my marathon training!)

care of some kayaking?

There was the Regional Spelling Bee in Veles (my old training community). This is the largest project run by Peace Corps in Macedonia and many volunteers help coordinate and plan for this event. There are local bees throughout all of Macedonia and in 8 towns there are regional bees. Five students from each grade level from regional bee get to move onto the final bee in Skopje on May 10. Sadly none of the students from my school made it to the final.

Then there was IST (In-Service Technical Training). This was a much anticipated event because it had been 5 months (I still can’t believe it had been that long) since I saw some of my fellow volunteers at the Swearing-In Ceremony back in November. We spent the week in cultural, medical and TEFL specific sessions. Our training manager had recently been to the USA for a training and asked what we wanted her to bring back to share. I suggested cookie butter and my jaw dropped when I went out during the coffee break and there were 2 jars of Trader Joes cookie butter, with biscuits for spreading, reeses cups and cookies & cream eggs. Everyone was so excited for these special treats.

Ping Pong during IST

We stayed at a beautiful hotel with a sauna and pool. I actually got to swim some laps! My favorite part was catching up with fellow volunteers who I don’t get to see often. The vibe was so different from our HUB days back during training. HUB days are when we would all come together for a day of training in the capital every week. Now we were all waist deep in projects and adapting to our communities. We had so many stories and experiences to share, both positive and negative. It was a week full of many emotions but my favorite were all the laughs we shared.

On Friday night after the training, a group of us went out to dinner at an Arabian restaurant to celebrate my birthday and 2 other volunteers’ birthdays. We ended the night with dessert at an American bakery.

yum!

The next day we got up early to hike up Vodno mountain. At the top of this mountain is the Millennium Cross, which can be seen throughout all of Skopje. We decided to take the bus half way up the mountain. At this point on the mountain, you can ride the cable cars to the top but we wanted to hike to the top. We decided to take a path up the mountain instead of the main road and it was more like a cliff. I was very sore when we got to the top, after battling thorn bushes, rocks all along the way and then the incline. The view made everything worth it. We didn’t take the same path down but it was still a pretty steep path down the mountain.

My girl Susie, I am beyond impressed she hiked up the cliff

The hiking crew

Some random things that happened in April:

-Found an awesome smoothie place in Skopje with raw cookies made from died fruits and nuts

-Made homemade Mac & Cheese for the first time with Velveeta that my mom sent me from America and it was heavenly

-Received an amazing care package from Holland which had peanut butter AND cookie butter and another one from my friend’s mother (I have the most amazing people supporting me)