We woke up on Sunday to one of my favorite meals here: biscuits and milk. It’s basically crushed tea biscuits served with a little bit of sugar with warm milk poured over them. I used to eat it all the time. One of my many guilty pleasures. My poor host dad (who my host sisters said can’t even make coffee) was the only one home and made the gesture to make it for us, but I stopped him before he could. We bummed around the house for a bit and then went to Kocani to see Vilma and Mile one last time. They treated us to cake from Kritijan’s birthday, which was Saturday, and Robb and I chatted with them for about an hour. They are such hard workers and never really take a break or vacation because there’s no one to take care of the shop. They also offer certain types of teas and health foods that can’t be found anywhere else in the Balkans, so they have ads running in Serbia and get calls all the time about it. But, they never complain and are grateful for the fact that they have steady work and that they enjoy what they do. We said our goodbyes to them and instead of waking up Kristijan (who I found out later was out till 7 am for his birthday), we said we’d make sure to make it upto Winnepeg to see him.
It was then time for us to meet up with Emilija, Trajce and their daughter, Nina, and head up to Brana, which is an area up in the mountains about twenty minutes away from Kocani. On a good day, it makes a fantastic hike, but it was a little too hot for that, so we drove. To give a little personal history bout Brana, it was the first place I stayed at in Macedonia. As soon as our Peace Corps group touched down in Skopje, we hopped on a bus and went straight there and stayed for a week before meeting our host families. There’s a beautiful secluded hotel up there called Hotel Gradce (Little City), and it sits right in the mountains on an artificial lake. It was a great first impression of Macedonia and I took tons of pictures and went on some great hikes. It has since become a pretty popular spot where Kocani folk frequent and listen to live music while enjoying quality Macedonian food.
We made it up to Gradce to find it fairly busy, but we still found a table outside on the terrace and ordered some typical Macedonian skara and salads for everyone to share. Coincidentally, some friends of Emilija and Trajce came by and our party of 5 became a party of 11 (us, 2 more couples, each with one child). The food was fantastic and we were able to get down to the lake where Robb took some great pictures. Eventually, we had to go back as we wanted to spend the rest of the night with my host family. This time, though, we were actually able to pay a little, although that was offset by the fact that they gave us parting gifts. Of course, the goodbyes with Emilija and company were very sad, but now I’m even surer than before that we’ll see each other again.
We made it back home after unsuccessfully trying to burn our leftover denars on snacks for the trip. We then spent our last few hours just hanging and talking with the host fam and eating way too much for the last time. We had some great conversations and during those last hours ended up with the following the pack in our bags:
2 bags of Turkish coffee
1 bottle of perfume
1 jar of vegetable salad to go with the
1 L bottle of rakija for us
½ L bottle rakija for my dad
And the best and most touching…
Their last jar of ajvar
Ajvar is really the Macedonian food. It’s a spread consists of ground up roasted red peppers, eggplant, oil and salt. Every September, every Macedonian family buys hundreds of pounds of peppers, roasts them, grinds them and mixes everything in a huge pot to cook and later be jarred up and used throughout the entire year. It’s a huge 2-4 day undertaking which I’ve happily been a part of many times. The village smells of roasted peppers for weeks and it’s absolutely fantastic. The first thing I asked for when Robb and I arrived at my host parents’ house was ajvar and bread, and I’ve eaten it as often as possible while in Macedonia. My host family is well aware of my love for ajvar, and them giving me their last ajvar when I know they won’t have any more till September is truly overwhelming. Their hospitality has been well, well over what would be expected and the beautiful thing is that’s just how they roll. It’s their status quo.
After waiting for about an hour after when our taxi driver was supposed to come (Makedonska rabota), our time had come to go. My host parents and host sister, Ane, sent us off with lots of well wishes and requests to come back next year for Ane’s graduation. It was pretty sad, but as I said before, I’m even more convinced that we’ll see each other again, sooner rather than later.
