A couple weeks ago, I decided I needed to buy a larger pocketbook. I went into one of the nearby stores in the "mall" in which my office is ensconced. Jelena has told me this is the oldest mall in Skopje and although other malls may rise and fall, this one has captured the affections of the people. She is not sure why. Maybe because it is old.
When I told the clerk I worked nearby, she immediately said- oh you are at the ABA office. I was quite amazed. She said, well she has been working there for 22 years. She asked me how long I would be here. I told her I lived here. I said I would be here 6 months. She said, well you don't live here then. I said, well I am not a tourist. She said, well you are not a tourist but you do not live here. I said well, I am something in between. She agreed. But she would not absolve me of the obligation to learn Macedonian- apparently, it applies even to people "in between." Jelena is learning Greek. She can read it fluently but does not usually know what it means.
If Chinese people do not believe Westerners can ever really learn Chinese, Macedonians do not believe ANYONE can ever learn Macedonian. They claim to have invented the Cyrillic alphabet. One of our local trainers, Deljo, said there is too much grammar. Every grammatical rule known to man is encompassed in Macedonian. On the other hand, Deljo believes English is ridiculously simple- Jelena agreed. Easier than French or Spanish. No one, therefore, is impressed at my awesome fluency in English. So what- everyone speaks it including small children and cats. When he was young, Deljo played the guitar- he, his future wife and their best friend and his wife traveled all through Roumania- very, very cheap but never never say the name, Ceseascu (sp?). He has also vacationed in Cuba. Jelena agrees with me that places with beautiful beaches should never be closed to vacationers. No one wants to learn Albanian. Deljo likes to walk 7 or 8 miles a day to keep in shape.
No one cares if you tell them in Macedonian that you are an American lawyer, even if you are actually telling them you are a male American lawyer when you are actually female. Everyone here can tell immediately if someone is Macedonian, Albanian or Roma. - except me. Everyone here can immediately tell I am American- except for me. If you ask people if they are Macedonian, sometimes they are but maybe they are Moldvanian/Albanian and have graduated from law school in Madison.
Everyone here watches Boston Legal- a show I have never seen. I have instructed everyone to watch My Cousin Vinnie. They have promised to do so. Most people have been keeping up with the Kardashians- it's on every night.
My cleaning lady, Anita, recommended by Beth, will start next week- $20 USD/week. She also cleans a house for a US embassy couple- they have her 3x a week. Beth says the husband is obsessed with cleanliness. Neither Beth nor I suffer this problem. Beth told me Anita is very particular about her cleaning supplies and will want to buy her own brands. Anita asked to see what I had. I showed her and she gasped. I explained, that not knowing Macedonian, I could only buy products that had a picture on them of what and how they should be used. Anita remained stonily unsympathetic. She will have to start from scratch with all new supplies. Sigh. And I don't have a broom. Sigh. Or rubber gloves. Sigh.
If you like your outfit, you can continue to wear it day after day. This is especially fortuitous since your washing machine can only wash up to 5 items at a time (and that's pushing it) and then you must wait for everything to dry on the rack. The washing machine takes 2 1/2 hours to complete a wash- so plan accordingly! I am afraid of the washing machine.
A week from last Sunday I was scheduled to have dinner with Beth but we spent the evening, instead, in the ER. I reached in my backpack to retrieve a broken glass jar and slashed my thumb- it would not stop bleeding. If you have a very large apartment, you have put your bandaids in a drawer somewhere especially counter-intuitive never to be found again. It would not have mattered - the bandaids would not be sufficient. If you are very clever, you think to wrap, wrap, wrap paper towels around your thumb then wind, very tightly, your nylon stocking around it and call Beth. While waiting to hear from Beth you can run around downtown Skopje looking for an open pharmacy- APTEKA- but there are none on Sunday. Nothing is open on Sunday. You can look on your map and try to find the city hospital but you won't find that either. Once Beth called, she looked on the US embassy site and came to get me in a cab to go to the city hospital, which turned out to be nearby. There is "Obamacare" here- city hospital needs no proof of insurance. They don't speak English but luckily we ran into a lawyer there from one of our trainings- he had just been in a car accident and so translated for us. He was cheerful that maybe he would get a continuance on his case the next day.
My travel nurse in the US had told me that health care in Macedonia is rated sub-standard and I was not to go to a hospital here- ever - for anything. I was really nervous that I would need stitches and die and then the travel nurse would say I told you so!! City hospital was sort of like one of those movies where people go to a "hospital" in Haiti or something. Someone was wandering around the hallway with a partially bandaged hand bleeding all over the floor. An "attendant" brandishing a really really dirty rag ran over and began wiping the blood to distribute it more evenly over the floor to simulate it having been cleaned up. Beth and I become quieter and quieter. We ascertained there were about 11 people in front of us- you get a number like in a bakery. Beth began calling people to see what other options there might be. We were told to go to a private hospital further away- Beth called them and they said sure, come on over.
Sistina- the private hospital demands $15 USD per visit and needs proof you have insurance. Showing them my ABA medical evacuation card was, however sufficient. This hospital/clinic is almost brand new- clean and quiet. A very nice ER doctor unwrapped my thumb - she congratulated me on my good job I had done in improvising- cleaned it up and rebandaged it- no stitches but it would need "compression." I was not allowed to leave until I swore I would return for a tetanus shot if I was not up to date after checking my US health records.
Several more visits to the clinic followed. I was assigned to Dr. Ivanovski- a surgeon and fluent in English. Dr. Ivanovski recleaned and rewrapped- he gave me his card and said to call him anytime- night, weekends if I needed to do so- if there was more bleeding. No US doctor has every given me his/her phone number!! He said to change the dressing on Sat. On Sat morning I took off the wrapping and bleeding started again. I pressed it against a towel- then regretted this- doesn't the towel have GERMS- (and it had been inside my washing machine!) then put on a regular bandaid and then the gauze bandage from Dr. Ivanovski.
It seemed the bleeding had stopped. One step forward, two steps backward or vice versa. I thought about this for awhile - I had deviated from Dr. Ivanovski's instructions but it did not seem to still be bleeding. So I decided not to call but to email Dr. Ivanovski. Dr. Ivanovski does not, however, respond to emails from people saying they have been bleeding and then are not bleeding. He does not encourage this type of dialogue. If you want Dr. Ivanovski's attention, you must call him and you better have something interesting. Dr. Ivanovski will not encourage my behavior- he and I don't see eye to eye on the horrors of bleeding/ rebleeding/ then not/ bleeding fingers.
If you are an American all bandaged up , everyone at Sistina knows your name. Don't try to wait in the wrong place, go in the wrong door or come early and skulk around. They will find you, catch you and bring you back. However, if you wear sunglasses and take them off, this confuses them. They have to hunt for you to make sure it really is you.
Dr. Ivanovski is now done with me. I am on my own- he does not want to see me back at the clinic and I am not to injure myself anymore. He did write down for me to get some antibiotic spray at the clinic pharmacy and gave me two more bandages - just for the day. My thumb needs oxygen and sunlight to grow and prosper.
At the pharmacy I showed the note for the spray and I asked for more bandages. The clerk said how many and I said ten. She burst out laughing. They may have tried to exterminate us but they sure appreciate being entertained by small, bandaged neurotic Jewish women. She said she only had nine in the pharmacy. She then looked at me very intensely and asked if I had any pain medication at home. I said I had advil but I was not in pain, I just needed bandages. She then stared at me a while longer- I guess waiting for me to demand valium, Vicodin and meth. Or because she thought this might help me. I stood my ground and got only my bandages, which of course, I have not needed and will not need. Ha, ha!
I will miss Sistina, the clerks, the coffee shop, Dr. Ivanovski, the pharmacist and all my friends there.
Whoever said humor does not translate is wrong. Jelena and Biljana found this story highly, highly entertaining.
Sistina has charcoal drawings of naked women in various poses as decorations on all its walls. My US HMO allows only pictures of dogs, flowers, foreign tourist sites or drawings by small children grateful for having their lives saved by Park Nicollet.
Jelena's opinion is that the doctors at City Hospital are just as competent as those at Sistina and maybe better. She thought that it could have been possible that Sistina might have referred me back to City Hospital. Hmmm. Beth wondered why the US embassy would list City hospital as an equal alternative to a private hospital She suspects there is different levels of information depending on whether a person is "inside" the embassy or, like us "outside." Hey- we are AMERICANS too!! Our US ambassador here graduated from U of Washington law school but has never practiced. The embassy is on top of a hill. First, you go through a security out-building. You have to be escorted in. No cell phones. You go through a metal detector. Underwire bras will set off the detector but the armed guards won't shoot you for this.
The embassy has identified border guards as the most corrupt segment of Macedonia. The newspapers add in procurement in contracts fraud. There is not too much computer fraud although there could be. That comes from the Bulgarians- they like to file false US tax claims. A former US big city police chief is here helping Macedonia police install software to search cellphones and computers and update their forensic labs. Ruzica, another of our local trainers, told me that there is a lot of smuggling of people across the borders. Although under the EU, there is freedom of movement, the EU does not want Roma from Macedonia leaving Macedonia and hanging out in Europe. So border guards are supposed to let people out but actually not supposed to let people out but they will for $$.
Yesterday, Jelena and I attended a Macedonian Bar Association meeting about sentencing guidelines that are soon to be adopted. The meeting was run by the prosecutors who solely wrote and recommended the guidelines- it seems judges are often reluctant to impose the highest possible sentences. The lawyers at the meeting were extremely angry that no lawyer, esp. no defense lawyer had been consulted about the guidelines that would be chosen and within the next month will be adopted by the Macedonian supreme court in private. No one from the court bothered to come to the meeting. Jelena agreed this was rude of them. Although the guidelines, theoretically, serve to insure more uniformity the three pages of mitigating and aggravating circumstances, as was obvious to everyone but the prosecutors, will defeat any such purpose. One lawyer spoke about the problems of who interprets the factors- what about patriotism as a mitigating factor. What if one judge thinks patriotism for Macedonian is mitigating but another likes patriotism for Albania or god forbid you have patriotism for Greece- wouldn't that actually be an aggravating factor? A veritable Gordian knot of law.
The very brightly neon cross atop Mount Vodno you can see from anywhere in the city at night is strangely comforting. Am I allowed to feel that way????
Someone else suggested that maybe patriotism was no longer even a mitigating factor. Everyone conceded that "defending one's honor" could not yet be left off the list of mitigating factors- Macedonia was not ready for that. Someone complained they had not found about about the meeting until that morning. The chief prosecutor said to hire an intern to check the website each morning. Another handy/dandy reform is that now that plea bargaining is allowed, your punishment will increase the further from arraignment you plead. As in China- it is good to confess- often and early! The prosecutors kept emphasizing that what was needed was RULES. The lawyers kept arguing that what was important was who got to make the rules and what was the content and purpose of the rules. The prosecutors are apparently Kantians-
Apparently the guidelines will be adopted as bylaws to the criminal code. No one was sure how that could be actually legal. Someone said many professors had proven that these guidelines would not be good. Someone else wondered when it was that a professor had ever wandered into a courtroom. Someone wanted to know where this idea for the guidelines came from- was it being IMPOSED by, let's say the EU?? The prosecutors said they thought it up just from their own research and reading but with some help from OSCE (organization for the security and cooperation of Europe). At which point the OSCE representative sitting next to me slunk down in her chair and began muttering in some Moldavian/Albanian/Macedonian language. I think it would be fun to have a reality show where Chinese lawyers and Macedonian lawyers are put in a room for a sentencing guidelines grudge match. It would give Samuel Beckett a run for his money.
Defense lawyers here complain a lot about not having a jury- having to get a verdict just from a judge. They feel they don't even have a fighting chance. I explained to them, that as an appellate lawyer, I go back in front of the same trial judge for hearings with my client who has ALREADY been convicted by a jury. So don't cry for me Macedonia. This usually cheers them up. No problem- I am full of international good will. I extend the hand of friendship from oppressed american PD's to all those others around the world.
I start my Macedonian language lessons next week. How do you say, I need a bandage? That will be peace of mind. My teacher wanted to get started right away. Of course, since it will be impossible to learn it anyway- we can't waste any time.
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