Yesterday, I left behind the hotel and the rest of the group to move to the home of my host family. A small ceremony was held at the hotel which included traditional music and dancing as we were introduced to our hosts. Goce, the son of Nadica and Sveto was there to greet me and together we took a cab to his home in the village of Romanovste.
No one in the family has a car but the taxi took us on the half hour drive and brought us up the small path right into the yard where Svetco and Nadica greeted my arrival. They are quite nice and I hope my Macedonian improves so I can get to know them.
After a short time for unpacking in my new room, I joined the family for our first meal together. Peppers, tomatoes, a traditional bean dish and some fish, all quite good. Of course we began with a toast with the drink of the country, Rakija (rakia). It is a very strong ouzo type drink and best taken in small amounts.
This is truly a village. My family is nearly entirely self-sufficient and rarely need to go to the store. One goat, three cows. one enormous pig with 11 new piglets, and a flock of chickens provide a lot of the food. Add an enormous garden, fruit and nut trees, a milling machine that grinds the flour for baking and there is the food I will be having while here.
Goce, his cousin Nicola and I took a walk around the village after eating last night. Goce speaks English quite well and provided a brief history of the area. It was like going back in time….except for the occasional Audi and VW that passed by. Three small convenience type stores, a post office, and some boys playing soccer were the highlights of our trip along with a couple of cemeteries...one for the Macedonians and one for the Albanians as this is a mixed village.
I now know that there is a dog or maybe two nearby that continues to bark the entire night and that the village roosters do their job in the early morning. My breakfast included some very strong coffee, warm milk and noodle soup.
This is going to be quite an interesting few months...all that I expected. There are 7 others somewhere here in this village with me and we will meet today to find out where each other is located.
No wireless internet like at the hotel but there is a café (using the term loosely) in town, and my host family's house has a wired internet connection as Goce is into facebook etc., just like young men in the USA.
I am due at our village classroom at 11AM this morning as it is Saturday and we are not having a "real" class until Monday at 9 AM.
This past Tuesday I got to participate in a traditional food preparation event…making Ivar. The making of Ivar, referred to jokingly by my language instructor as Macedonian Caviar, is a daylong work process and somewhat of a social event involving friends and family. It begins after the peppers and eggplants are harvested and involves several steps. Our group consisted of Svetco and Nadica, Nadica’s two sisters, one neighbor and me. The women go about the tasks effortlessly and the small talk is constant. One will be washing the large sacks of red peppers and one placing them on the surface of the low round stove. there they remain until the skin begins to blacken on all sides. From here they are put into big plastic buckets and then the hard part begins. Each pepper is peeled of the blackened parts of skin and then split by hand to remove all seeds, and there are plenty of them and the stems. These peeled, flat red peppers are now tossed into another container. The buckets of water used for rinsing the seeds and skins are periodically replenished by one of the women and another breaks small branches to feed the fire in the stove. During this process they seem to sense when it is time to change tasks. Without a word apparently knowing through experience when it is time for a rest or change by one or the other. My first experience was peeling and removing seeds for an hour or so and I then moved to a job which allowed for sitting at a much more comfortable height than the small stool I had been using. The new task was to run this very large pan of peppers through the hand grinder to be ground to a consistency resembling relish. After an hour and a half or so working on the continually replenished supply of peppers, and the smaller amount of eggplant, I was told “pauso”…take a break! From then on, maybe with the group sensing the change in the pace of the grinder arm turning, I then only occasionally relieved Svetco at his job, stirring the large pan as the ivar cooked down. With five hours behind me, I did go into the house at 6 PM or so , but they continued the process until well after 8PM. Two large pans like the one in the photo were then put up in jars..I don’t know how many... but I think we will have plenty of ivar while I am a guest for the next nine weeks.
