Sara's Disappearance Part 3: Istanbul

Immediately following Camp GLOW, I hopped on a bus from Tetovo to Istanbul for my first out of country vacation. The bus was long (12 hours), but the time actually flew by quite quickly as I was so exhausted from two weeks of little sleep that I slept most of the way. Istanbul is a gorgeous place and 5 days wasn't nearly enough time there. I feel the best way to showcase the trip is through photos. Here are a select few- more are on Facebook.

Phil was a great bus buddy!

There was an ice cream man who liked to play tricks on his customers.

On our first day we stumbled across a big graffiti festival in Taksim Square.

Artists were hard at work creating their masterpieces.

The Topkapi Palace

Inside the Topkapi Palace

The circumcision room at the Topkapi Palace (it had nice decorations)

At the Topkapi Palace looking out over the city.

The Cisterns- the most beautiful part of Istanbul.

The pictures can't even begin to capture the beauty of this place.

Hagia Sophia

Inside the Hagia Sophia

Showing some St Peter Halloween Fun Run and Walk pride

Upper level of the Hagia Sophia

Blue Mosque

Inside the Blue Mosque

View of Istanbul from the ferry

Ferry ride over to the Asian side

We climbed up a big hill and had a gorgeous view of the city.

Like most things in this city, the photos can't quite capture how beautiful it really was.

Inside courtyard of another mosque

Inside a mosque

On our last full day we had drinks under the bridge, which gave us even more beautiful views.

Part 2 of Sara's Disappearance: Camp GLOW

Following YMLP, I went straight to the other leadership camp PCVs help put on for the youth of Macedonia- Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World). As the name says, this is a leadership camp for high school girls from around the country. Like YMLP, this camp brings together youth from the many ethnic groups within the country to learn new skills, improve their English, and realize that they aren't that different from other girls, no matter what ethnic group they are a part of.

Camp GLOW has a large staff made up of PCVs and HCNs. There were close to 40 of us there to help make the 80 girls' week at camp the best week of their lives.

Staff waiting for the girls to arrive

Just days before, I had been told that my co-counselor would not be able to make it to camp, so I had no idea what I was in store for. However, after showing up at camp, I met my new co-counselor, Shqiponja, who was notified she was selected as a counselor that day! Shqiponja was a camper two years ago, a CIT (Counselor in Training) last year, and this year was my co-counselor.

Shqiponja and I were the leaders of Group F

Shqiponja and I had 10 girls from 14-17 from all over Macedonia. They were a fabulous group of girls- I know other counselors might argue, but they were the best! As a counselor, I was with the girls almost 24/7 (although because of the wonderfulness of Wilson School, we had our own room so we had a little break at night! I will admit, I was a little nervous before the girls came and the first day with them just as they were themselves, but by the end of the week, we were a happy little family.

The first day, we, as a group, had to come up with a team name, chant, and flag. My girls chose to be the Crazy Squirrels and designed a pretty awesome flag.

Designing our flag and writing our chant the first night.

The Crazy Squirrels and their flag

They also wrote a chant based off of a popular song (Sexy and You Know It by LMFAO). It went like this....

Open up your eyes, this is what you'll see

Crazy Squirrels are here, look how crazy we can be

We got something on our minds and we aren't afraid to show it, show it, show it

We are crazy and we know it, know it, know it

Nibble, nibble, nibble, nibble, nibble, YEAH!

During the week, the girls attended 8 hours of class a day, however the classes were all structured to be fun and not like school. They learned about project design, the environment, women's health, arts and crafts including tye dye and friendship bracelet making (which lead to lots of friendship bracelets by the end of the week), recreational and health activities like yoga, zumba, and ultimate Frisbee, stress management, and career choices and resumes. There were also fun electives each night including Chinese, Minute to Win It (I did it for the third time in 2 weeks!), Project Runway, School of Rock, Acting, and Karaoke. The busy week also included a team Field Day, an afternoon with the Red Cross learning some basic first aid and CPR, and a masquerade dance party. It all came to a close Friday night with group performances and a candlelight closing ceremony where each of the girls said something about camp, whether it was a memory, a thank you, or an idea of how they will take what they learned back to their hometowns (let me say, it takes a long time for 120 girls to share something about camp and lots of tears were shed and bugs burned with the candles (my girls got a little bored)). After Friday's closing ceremonies, we had one last community time with just our groups before packing, sleeping, and an early start in the morning for breakfast and good-byes.

American Line Dancing with Jori elective

Project Runway elective

For Field Day each group had to dress up like an animal- my group was, need-less-to-say, squirrels

The three tribal chiefs of Field Day.

I was Chief Minn-E-Sota

One Field Day activity was the Balloon Train

Team Building at its finest! Just how many girls can you fit onto 1/4 of a yoga mat?

The recyclable dress Michelle and Shqiponja made for me for Project Runway made a come back on Disco dance night.

Lori, Anna, Enid, and myself enjoying Disco dance night despite being very hot and sweaty.

Candlelight closing ceremonies

Almost all the way around the circle

Crazy Squirrels group picture the last morning.

Figured we may as well take a crazy picture too!

Camp GLOW 2012

YMLP Summer Camp 2012

It is hard to capture in writing what all has gone on in the past month. Even the best writing would never be able to completely capture just how amazing and wonderful my month away from site has been. It started with a group of the most motivated high school boys in the country at the Young Men's Leadership Camp Summer Camp.

The 2012 YMLP Camp flag the boys created with one of the guys from YMCA Kent

For one week 45 boys from all over the country, 13 PCVs, and a handful of HCNs gathered in Tajmiste at a gorgeous mountain house to practice English, learn about the Environment, Social Inclusion, Project Design, Media, and Health, break down ethnic stereotypes, and enjoy some good ole' American style camping (complete with American smores). Words can't even describe how phenomenal these boys are. Sometimes at site it is easy to get discouraged by the lack of excitement in learning English or the lack of support on potential projects. However, being around these boys renewed some of that lost hope. They all came because they want to break down ethnic stereotypes in the country, improve their English skills, and learn how to be leaders in their hometowns. That they did. They broke down the stereotypes they had and made friends with boys from all ethnic groups within the country, something many adults in this country aren't able to do.

Campers and Staff

Almost all of the Staff

I was the PCV environmental facilitator at camp, so I got to know all of the boys during my environmental classes with them. We talked about trash and how long it takes for different items to decay, water quality and even tested the quality of the local water in Tajmiste, and learned how to identify different plants in the area and which animals are edible (even had one boy decide on the spot to pop a grasshopper into his mount). The boys also learned about climate change and carbon footprints, however I was not with them that day. I, instead, helped out the health class learn about sexual health so they could get the American perspective and the female perspective. I was a little nervous this day because teaching sex ed to groups of teenage boys isn't quite what I signed up for, however, it went really well. The boys were very respectful and curious as sexual health isn't something that is really discussed in this country so for some of these boys it was the first time they were talked to about these issues and the first time they were able to get information outside of the internet and YouTube (it was amazing the number of boys who said they got their information from YouTube and Wikipedia). The classes started with a competition for who could yell "penis" and "vagina" the loudest to get the boys comfortable hearing and saying these words without laughing and ended with a demonstration of how to correctly put a condom on a cucumber. One should never underestimate just how loud boys can yell and just how gross lubricated cucumbers are! The boys asked great questions and were very appreciative of having someone take the time to give them some accurate information about an important, but somewhat taboo, subject here.

In addition to teaching classes, I also was the human soap dispenser for the week, which was quite a fun job as it gave me a chance to talk to all the boys three times a day before meals.

The boys waiting in line to wash their hands before meals

Who knew being a soap dispenser could be this much fun!

The boys also got to partake in some fun electives including, Minute to Win It, fencing, egg drop, Turkish language, and many more.

I helped with the fencing class and was killed in the opening because my cap gun ran out of caps and Phil knew how to fence and I didn't.

Cupstacking was one of the Minute to Win It events

During the Olympics the boys had to melt a frozen t-shirt

 The last night of camp, the owner of the mountain house, Boshko, had a special event planned for all of us. There was a presentation by Boshko where he gave all of the staff and coordinators a special tavche gravche dish and a warm thank you for the work we did with the kids. Then there was local Macedonian music, including one of the campers pulling out his drumming skills as he is one of the best Romani drummers in the country and lots of Oro dancing. It was the perfect way to spend the last night of camp.

Camp ended on the 4th of July, so after sending the kids on their merry way home, doing some cleaning of the campsite, and some napping and showering (some had not showered in 10 days while on a "vision quest") we celebrated the 4th quite well. There weren't any fireworks, but we had a lovely bonfire and American smores and I enjoyed one last night in Tajmiste before heading off to the next adventure of the summer.

Thoughts of the Day

Watching a British show called "Living With the Amish" I discovered the Amish in the US have a more sophisticated way of washing clothes than I do.

The critter in my woodburning stove is still there. My solution, just make sure the openings are tightly shut.

Pizza Palma in Delchevo still has the best pastramalija I have had in country, despite what the people of Shtip say.

After battling through the great Balkan freeze, we are now in the midst of a great Balkan heatwave with warnings that there is so much more to come. Hooray for global warming.....not.

Packing for a month away from site is quite the challenge.

After making brownies from scratch the other night, I will never go back to the boxed ones.

If you ever want to make friends with children in your neighbourhood, request for decks of Uno cards to be sent from America. The children come back everyday asking to play.

Life is a Whirlwind

Ok, so it has been quite some time since I have updated, mostly because life has been so busy. Since my last post school has ended, language IST+ happened, I hosted an Uno party, and I now have a new special creature living in my wood burning stove.

As far as the special creature, there isn't much to say other than there is something that has taken up residence in my now not used wood burning stove. Many have suggested I smoke it out, but that would require me to have kindling to start a fire, so not much luck there. My neighbours would really look at me crazy if I explained to them that I want to start a fire in my house now.

The last day of school was June 8th. I had the opportunity to teach my last two days at school with the 4th graders. It was tough, but the kids managed to play vocabulary word B-I-N-G-O for prizes two days in a row. Tough job, but they were up to the challenge!

Today I hosted an Uno Party for some of the neighbour kids. The other day I taught two little girls how to play it. We played for four hours and they demanded more, so today, we had an Uno party. I had five of the neighbour kids over ranging from 8-years-old to 16-years-old. I served them some fresh oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and we played for another almost 3 hours with one game lasting about an hour! When the girls left today, they informed me that they would be at my house every day for the rest of the summer playing. Unfortunately for the kids, I am headed off on my month long summer camp venture soon, so they wont get to play for quite some time.

Finally, Language IST+ happened. I call it IST+ because IST was down in Struga, which is quite a way from my house and requires several days of travel on either end, so it ends up being quite the adventure. I headed out on my journey and stopped first in Shtip where I had a lovely time with one of the volunteers who lives there. Then I headed down to Shannon's village on the shores of Lake Ohrid. It was beautiful, as always. From there, we went across the lake to our hotel for IST just outside of Struga. It was a week full of fun, sun, and language. Most of the classes were created with fun in mind. I took a class on Macedonian slang, woman's talk, newspapers, man's talk, na kafe (where we learned to read our fortunes from Turkish coffee grounds), and an introductory course in Albanian.

One of the no-so-fun classes I took- Macedonian demonstrative prounouns

There was plenty of time outside of classes to catch up with the other volunteers in my group, go swimming (a few of us went swimming at night and despite the very cold water and the water snakes, it was a lot of fun), and celebrate Shannon's birthday in quite a fun way (Julie, in all of her energy and personality, made friends with the waiters early on so we convinced them to make Shannon a cake, turn off the electricity in the dining room, and walk out with the cake, lit tiki torches, and Kenzie on guitar while we all sang Happy Birthday). At IST we also had to do language presentations in groups and the Lozovo crew (minus 2) created Episode 17 of "Нема Мир во Лозово". It was filmed on my camera and hopefully I will get it posted soon. The presentations were a competition and the winning group (Probishtip -Dan, + other Dan) did an absolutely outstanding job reenacting and translating several movie scenes including rewriting the lyrics to Summer Love from Grease. Mad props to them for their hard work- we all were left speechless!

The epic love scene in "Нема Мир во Лозово"

Andres taught Shannon and I how to skip rocks

After IST, I spent a night with the Lozovo crew near Ohrid to continue celebrating Shannon's birthday. Because, once again, I was sick on my birthday- a yearly tradition, I was able to share the funfetti cake mix my mom had sent for my birthday with lots of good friends (a much better use).

Shannon and Julie were the expert decorators. The middle cupcakes spell out Shannon's name and then the other letters are the first initial of everyone who was there.

And then one more night in Shannon's. While there, Shannon and I hiked to one of the coves she knows of on Lake Ohrid and spent the afternoon getting a little sunburned (despite lots of sunscreen), swimming, talking, and witnessing a man doing something that he really should have kept private (but hey, its a story for sure)! We also got to see some gorgeous sunsets, something Shannon sees on a regular basis (kinda jealous).

In just a few days I will be headed off to be the Environmental facilitator for the Young Mens Leadership Project summer camp followed immediately to Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) to be a counselor and soon a trip to Istanbul, maybe Varna, and another summer camp for my kids. I feel like the summer is already gone before it has really started! Before I know it, it will be September and my parents will be here.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Teacher: Macedonia, Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, Albania- what are these?
Student: Коњи? (Horses?)

Teacher (pointing to the Leaning Tower of Pisa): This is the Leaning Tower of _________?
Student: Mona Lisa!

Student: Whores riding a bike.
Teacher: What?! Oh, I think you mean who's.
Student: Yeah, whores riding a bike.

Sara: Number 17
(student runs to the front of the room while the other kids are yelling "no")
Teacher: What number are you?
Student: седум (7)
Teacher: Sara said 17 and you are number 7.
Student: Јас сум блиску. (The Macedonian equivalent to "close enough")