Things about Macedonia: Random Thoughts Looking Back

These thoughts are written down – many of them while still in Macedonia and some upon my return to the US in mid January, 2009. I write these mostly in fun, mostly so I would not have to trust them to memory. Being just thoughts, there is no end. Just the last observation.

Fulbright experience
I had a great Fulbright experience – met people that I will remember for the rest of my life. Good decent hard working honest people. Too bad their economic life is so not full of hope. I wish them well.

Macedonia
The nations neighboring this country – Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece in particular have problems with Macedonian for different reasons – but one underlying theme is that this is a “made-up” country. They claim the language is just Bulgarian, the Serbs have problems with religion and the politics surrounding the diplomatic recognition of Kosovo, and the Greeks with the name. On top of that there are the ethnic Albanians who are not likely to ever call themselves “Macedonian” despite the fact they live in Macedonia. Many still talk of separating from Macedonia Others say it is just that – talk.

In traveling to most major cities in Macedonia, the downtrodden feeling one gets in Tetova is not felt in other places like Stip, Bitola or Skopje. Most of these other places are rather well kept and pleasant. Not so in Tetova. Garbage is everywhere, grass is not cut, plastic bags and bottles fill the one stream that runs through the heart of the city, no public transport, no movies or art galleries. The Tetova Cultural Center is run down with crumbling grey stucco and sidewalks, no signage, broken or missing tiles in the foyer and not even any lights to warm the place up when you go to an event. I ask why and some say it is bad local political leadership and others say it is wanton disregard for Tetova due to the politics of dislike of ethnic Albanians – the single largest ethnic group in Tetova. Others also suggest that the town has grown faster that it can keep up with as thousands of university students now flock to attend here. Who knows – probably all are true to some extent.

The obstacles to progress to Macedonia’s progress are formidable. I think that I will not see much of it in my lifetime but I wish them luck.

The Mountains
The snow in the mountains, which first appeared briefly in early October was permanent in the higher elevations by early December. It began to creep down to the lower elevations as temperatures dropped. Quite beautiful. This town of Tetova, probably now close to 100,000 people, has the physical potential to become an Aspen or Vail given its proximity to some really nice mountains. I say potential because this is a poor place, with dismal old gray and brown buildings, crumbling concrete monuments and public buildings and public spaces that are artifacts of the absence among the population of a sense of civic pride, involvement and responsibility. Oh yes, NO STREET SIGNS!

Mavrovo – the ski center and a nice man
A colleague in the economics faculty was really hospitable and called me to see if I would like to visit Mavrovo, a small village with a ski area about 60 km from my house. Of course I said yes and so we spent an entire day in some very interesting and beautiful places. He was most generous with his time and hospitality. His name is Afrim Alili (soon-to-be PhD in economics) and he is a nice man. He took me to a restaurant in the mountains – off the main road – for a meal of goats’ milk yogurt and corn meal. Don’t remember what it is called but while quite good, there was no way to eat all that had been served.

The Bread
I love the breads here. Not that there is anything really special about them. I mean they don’t have nuts or raisins or goat cheeses in them. It is just that they are crusty, full of flavor and no preservatives. While this helps make them good, you have to eat them within a day or throw them out. Not a problem, because a huge loaf costs 50-75 cents.

The Transition – Not easy
It really is not that bad when you deal with Tetova as a place in transition. It is struggling to make things work and the struggle is daunting especially given that the political leadership is without technical skills needed. It is probably because it is comprised of people who are more accustomed to using politics and parties to get things done as opposed to scientific management, technical analysis and professional staff, formal budgets and leadership. When transition came, the only people here with any kind of management or leadership experience were the old party and command system leaders. They and their families survived by what the Czech patriot Vaclav Havel called ”living the lie”. You towed the party line but got things done through private deals, favors and barter of state goods for private goods and favors for you and your family. So, no wonder that when transition and market economies burst on the scene, this way of doing business was all they new and the only leaders ready by experience where leaders schooled in the old way of doing things. .


Life and Transport and Adventure
One of the compelling reasons to come to a place like Tetova is that the experiences one accumulates here are much more interesting than those one might have in other countries of Western Europe. Just a few personal examples:

Taxis driving in reverse – story 1. Like the time I was taking a taxi to Skopje the capitol city. As we got on the freeway that joins Tetova with Skopje, about a mile up the road, I heard this loud thud first on the roof and then the trunk. Startled me for sure. Taxi driver stopped, put the cab in reverse and proceeded to back down in the opposite direction of traffic which whizzed by us at 100 km/hr.
Turns out his taxi sign, which had been suctioned on the roof, gave up its suction, let lose and fell to the highway floor. Of course the driver had to go back and retrieve it. Made sense to me to – so why not risk our lives for it?

Taxis driving in reverse story 2. Another cab ride to the capitol, or the story of probably one of the worst cab drivers I ever had. First off, we took the freeway from Tetova to Skopje and really there are only two exits off this freeway - the first exit being the one to Skopje. This driver proceeded to miss it, realized it about a kilometer up the road and, of course, backs all the way back on the freeway to the exit. Once on the road to Skopje, it got more interesting. This driver literally stopped every two blocks to ask passers-by if we were on the right road to Skopje. Each one of course said “samopravo” - yes - stay straight ahead. Over and over, with each stop, we heard the same word “samopravo”. Probably 10 times in 20 blocks. Yet, the driver continued until he got so nervous, he invited one of the passers-by to join us in the cab so he could be in the car giving us directions. And later I learned he over charged me some $10.

The bus! I really did try to use public transport like the bus from Skopje back to Tetova. Most of the time it never came when promised and the typical late departure notice was never part of the deal. No such thing as a late departure – just no departure. You ended up just waiting for another bus altogether. Of course no one would ever come to the gate to let you know your bus had been cancelled (cancelled is a kind word, it is more like it just disappeared.) After you wait for so long, you go back to the ticket window where someone tells you –“oh, yes that bus is not going. Here, give me your ticket we I’ll write you a new one for the next bus”. After a couple of these experiences I stopped trying to take the bus home from Skopje.

You really have to have a sense of humor about public transportation here. It reminds me of some of the experiences with the bus system in Slovakia in the 90’s. You get on a scheduled bus and somewhere along the line you find the yourself and the bus off in some small village dropping off or picking up a relative of the driver. Of course the bus never gets to its destination on time.

Probably the travel story I like the best is about the public bus trip I had back from Skopje to Tetova. Of note for this trip is that the bus actually left the station and more astounding it was close to being on time. So here we are, a full bus load of people – me included - traveling down the freeway at around 100 km/hour. I was seated in the first row, immediately behind the driver. I noticed two men in the pit area to the right of the driver. I thought nothing of it. But then one man stands up and positions himself next to the driver. The driver then stands and while he holds one hand on the wheel and one foot on the gas, the other man proceeds to slide underneath him to take over the wheel slides into the seat underneath the driver while the driver deftly moves to the right and gives up the gas pedal to the new guy. All this happened smoothly and with nary pause in the bus performance all while the bus careened down the road at full speed with 50 passengers on board. I’d like to see Greyhound bus drivers try that one! It was a thing of beauty and precision. I got the distinct impression they had done this before -- many times.

The kombi – a must-have experience
They have these vans – they look like delivery vans - but with seats for about 9-10 people. All of them are privately operated and run mainly between Tetova and major population areas nearby. Skopje is the target of most operations as is Pristina in Kosovo because a large number of students attend one or the other universities here and they commute. The best part of the Kombi is price. A cab ride to Skopje for example would normally cost about 1200 Denars or about $30. A kombi costs only 120 Denars about $3.00. As you can imagine, the transport of choice for most of the residents is the Kombi. Unlike the buses, when they are there they are reliable.

A challenge for the foreigner is knowing what all these vans are doing at the major intersections, where they are going (no signs of course) and what happens when you get there. Advice – go up to a van driver, ask in a questioning tone “Skopje?” and if he says yes, just get on. You can pay then or when you get off. However, be prepared for sitting in this sealed compartment with cigarette smokers.

On one trip, a family of three got on and sat in the bench seat in front of me. Husband close to the window, a 6 or 7 year old girl child in the middle and the mother, who looked about 60 years old (but who was probably only about 35) – long, dark heavy woolen coat, babushka over her head worn so as to cover most of her cheeks and hair and sunken, malnourished-looking facial features. There she sat when all of a sudden she whips out a pack of cigarettes, searches in her coat pocket for a lighter and with a flame about a foot long lights up and produces a puff of smoke so big that the entire van is immediately filled with a choking while cloud. She continued to smoke her cigarette with a vengeance and it was gone in matter of minutes. No one thought anything of it – except me.

Ah, the power grid!
The power went out for 12 hours one day. I walked home from the university that day - about 1.5 kilometers - and noticed shopkeepers in their shops sitting there in the dark as if nothing was wrong. As Bob Dylan wrote in “Talking World War III Blues”,
to them “it was a normal day”.

Next morning still no power but now it was accompanied by no water in my apartment. Interesting because I really thought nothing of it. I concluded that I was starting to get the hang of living in the Balkans.

Tetova as Lewis Mumford’s city
The streets are filled with people, walking! And the sidewalk coffee shops, lots of them are also filled with groups of 2 – 4 people talking over small cups of coffee – Expresso or Makiado (like Latte). I like this. Most small towns in America (like Wilkes-Barre) would die for this kind of raw vibrant energy. I have not been here that long and still with this kind of place with people milling about, I frequently have chance meetings with people who know me. Sometimes I stop where I am off to and sit and have a coffee or brandy with them. What fun!

Where do all these Mercedes and BMWs come from?
You can’t help but notice here the contrast that is represented by the Mercedes and BMW’s sharing the roads with horse drawn carts loaded with cabbage. Have no idea where the money comes from for these Mercedes and BMWs.

Are these building coming or going?
There are still many gray and brown concrete structures here constructed with mass- produced, grey or brown depressingly-the-same concrete slabs. And, at the same time there are new buildings, most of them still made from concrete but now with color!

There are hundreds of buildings at various stages of construction. Many have gotten to past the stage of having the load bearing pillars and poured concrete floors and are further along with outer and inner walls. Some even have windows but no one living in them because, I guess, the insides are not completed. My overall guess is that many builders here build until they run out of money. They walk away for a while until they can save up more and then return to the project. When there are buildings that are actually being worked on, the work crews rarely are larger than 4 or 5 men.

What building codes?
Got to be careful walking around here. Apparently building codes do not cover steps and stairs and handrails or materials for stairs. Many stairs and business entryways are covered with really attractive marble or some similar polished stone or ceramic – but these surfaces are slippery as all get out and you really do have to walk carefully.

Also, door jambs can be at times about three inches higher than the sidewalk and above the floor in the shops. I found myself tripping over these entryways all the time. Even in my flat, I had such raised jambs in the entryways to both bathrooms. Can’t figure out why, but at least in my apartment I managed to save my toes by rolling up throw rungs and placing then at each doorway to create a kind of warning track that a three inch step is coming up.

These steps also can appear in the middle of a sidewalk. Out of nowhere in the middle of a flat stretch, you can run into a step – literally. And, in front of many a shop, storekeepers will dress up the entry way by putting down those marble entryways I mentioned earlier, But they put them on top of the concrete sidewalk so even if you are not going into the shop - because it juts out into the sidewalk - if you are not careful it too can jump up and grab your toes causing a rather awkward balance-saving stumble forward.

On one stretch of sidewalk between the university and my flat there are OPEN manholes. If one were walking down that stretch at night?


THE END