Meeting, Greeting and Teaching

On Monday, I received notice from my realtor that they had been reminded by Biljana that I needed to register with the police. The landlord, Mr. Dusha and Ana- an asst from the realty agency met me at my apt and we walked over to the local police station. Ana said the police were upset that I had been in the country for over 24 hours without registering. She tried to explain to them that I had been in a hotel, and I told her, I assumed as in other countries that the hotel would have registered me but the police seemed upset that I had not brought some sort of document from the hotel. After quite a long discussion between Ana and the police I was allowed to register. While there, what could be some undercover officers seemed to bring in a juvenile and took him to a back room where I thought maybe I heard some shouting.

Monday through Thursday, myself, Beth ,who I am replacing, Barb- a law professor from the US, here just for the trainings, and Jelena did a training for Macedonian criminal defense lawyers and law faculty in legal writing and trial advocacy. They wrote a short suppression of evidence memo and did some mock suppression hearings. We had some excellent lunches with Macedonian salads, shish kabob ,cheeses, olives and desserts.

Tuesday evening we went to the residence of the head of the USAID mission- Jim and  Coca. They had previously been posted in Afghanistan, Guatemala and Indonesia, among other places. In Guatemala, the peace corp volunteers were allowed to stay with them for R & R and use the pool because they would not typically even have running water in their villages but Skopja is not considered a hardship posting so they are not allowed to stay at the residence if visiting the city. Jim and Coca have two large dogs- a bassett hound and Labrador. We had a dinner of Macedonian specialtiess including a delicious home-baked bread, roasted red pepper dip (IVAR), cheeses, stuffed pastries and local wines. They had just gotten back from a weekend at a ski resort in  Bulgaria.

Wednesday evening, we went to a reception at the American embassy. The American ambassador to Macedonia is a graduate of Univ of Washington law school. I met many of the people I will be working with including the head of the Macedonian Bar Association, the resident legal advisor, program directors for the  European Union's rule of law program, etc. One of the deputy advisors, from Milwaukee, had lived for awhile in the Longfellow neighborhood in Minneapolis. He had just gotten back from vacationing in Barcelona.

After our training ended on Thurs., myself, Beth, Barbara and Jelena walked over to the Old City (what is left from the 1963 earthquake and a more Moslem/Albanian area to share some wine and cheese/dates/figs/prunes. Skopje produces some very nice local wines. Jelena said she would be climbing Mt. Vodno this weekend. Some Skopjians climb every morning. Climbing above the pollution and gray skies is a popular activity.

Of course people came by our table to beg. Mostly people just ignore them until they finally leave- although this can take awhile. A dog came by to beg and stood next to me for awhile but then he left too. On the way home, a mother and baby and her two elementary school children were sitting on the ground outside of a pizza parlor. In Macedonian, the older boy asked Jelena for some food. Because he was asking for food - not money- Jelena went in and bought him some pizza.

It was in the high 50's today but Jelena said it can be very cold in winter and lots of pollution form all the wood burning. Beth explained that when it snows, the problem is that the snow and ice will not be cleared and everyone will fall and hurt themselves on the uneven pavements where they can't see the ice. An average salary might be about $450 US a month. 

 

wine and cheese in the old city

 

old city restaurant

 

view of the fort