December already!

I can't believe that it is already December. Time has flown by so quickly! There are now only two more weeks left before our group finishes training and becomes official Peace Corps volunteers! There is a big celebration, called "Swearing In" and it will be a big ceremony, including the American ambassador and the Macedonian president. There will be speeches and we will sing both the US National Anthem and the Macedonian one (which we are learning in our language classes, I like the song a lot). Our host families and counterparts are invited as well as current volunteers, so it'll be like Thanksgiving, maybe even bigger. The next day, on the 16th we will move to our sites. I just found out that Peace Corps has secured an apartment for me in Kochani. They said that it's "small, but cute". I'm very close to the city center and about a 10 minute walk from my school.

Winter is cold here. It snowed the week of Thanksgiving and it was beautiful to see it covering the mountains. There is no central heating in the houses here, in fact, the buildings are really like big ice boxes, they retain the cold very well. Often times our rooms are colder than the outside temperature. I have a little pocket thermometer which stays at a steady 40 degrees F (or I think 5 degrees C). We got our Peace Corps issued heaters a couple weeks ago, which is nice, but mine doesn't have a blower, so it takes awhile to heat up my bedroom. They are also going to be a pain to lug to our sites because they are heavy and bulky. People here normally keep the main living room warm by keeping a wood burning stove going, which also lends itself to all congregating in the same room for hours on end. It is nice for company and if you want to watch TV, but it is harder sometimes when I just want a little time to myself.

Last night one of the trainee's (Todd) host brother in our village apparently got engaged to a young woman from Veles. This was announced by a spontaneous celebration at 1 in the morning. Apparently the host brother and his buddies went around to their friend’s houses (including mine), rang the doorbell in the middle of the night and invited them over to his house to celebrate. I had heard people at the door, but ignored the noise and fell back asleep. Unfortunately that wasn’t an option for Todd. Suddenly the house was filled with music, dancing and a lot of strange people drinking alcohol and making merry, including shooting a shotgun off the front porch, just next to Todd’s bedroom. The party lasted until 5am! Todd stayed in his bedroom, trying to ignore the knocks on his door and invitations to join in the celebration. He got about an hour of sleep. I found out about it the next day, including that my host dad was present and was one of the individuals who shot the gun from the front porch! Apparently it is tradition at a wedding or at the reception to shoot a gun three times to signify a man marrying a woman. I find it amusing that in this culture and living in a village, that this kind of custom exists, having a spontaneous celebration in the middle of the night. This would never fly in the states. I can just imagine a friend showing up at the door, being gregarious and slightly tipsy, announcing their engagement at 1am. We would probably grumble a congratulations, remind them what time it was and tell them to come back tomorrow!