Don't Worry About It

It is not that cold here but every day is gray and damp. It is discombobulating to walk around each day and see nothing American- no KFC, Subway, McDonalds, Starbucks - stores that are mostly everywhere in the world. The cars are different too. Lots of people have Opels, which are not sold in the U.S. They are no "brand name" clothes. Just lots of odd vinyl-type pocketbooks.

Jelena had her hair professionally straightened last night. She wanted to "look different." Biljana thinks she may be getting sick- her throat bothers her so she will take lots of antibiotics- very easy here since they are sold over the counter.

Today we had lunch with some Embassy staff that are also lawyers and doing rule of law type work. Philip, who is Macedonian, is sad about the lack of forethought and proportion that did not go into designing all the new "statues" populating the main square although everyone agreed that way it was before - just a large slab of empty concrete was not so nice. The square is now a little like a very grayish, not so fun Disneyland of fakey random monuments and statutes. People would like to see something colorful and maybe something alive and growing- like a tree. I would vote to fix the pavements, sidewalks and manhole covers- Coca-mentioned in an earlier blog actually fell into a manhole- it flipped when she stepped on it. Only her head was sticking out but luckily her husband noticed she was gone and found her.

According to Philip, most of the population lives in rural areas and have only about a 7th grade education. Thus, the government easily diverts people from real problems onto the never-ending fights about whether the name of the country should be changed so the Greeks won't oppose EU membership for Macedonia. Philip does not see much hope for jury trials since in a country of 2 million, it would be impossible, he believes, to find 12 people who don't know each other and the defendant, prosecutor and judge. He is, however, very impressed with the American jury system- he feels it must be very hard to convince 12 people of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Yesterday we met with some representatives of the Young Lawyers Association. They are monitoring the courts for discrimination and litigating some cases in the European Court of Human Rights. They said there are many cases where Roma people want to leave Macedonia- and under the EU laws- they have the right to freedom of movement but the Macedonian police will not allow them out of the country. The reason for this is that the rest of Europe is quite upset about Roma people coming into their countries and if Macedonia lets them out, the EU may be less likely to grant Macedonia EU membership.

Whenever I ask Jelena a question, she says several times- don't worry about it, don't worry about it. I jokingly told her I worry about everything. She then must have realized that I could not tell whether I was bothering her or just being appropriately supervisorial so she told me that this is just a saying in Macedonian- it really just means something like ok. OK- don't worry about it!