With the inevitable passing of the holiday known as Christmas, comes the inevitable holiday known as New Year’s. Now, here in Macedonia, New Year’s is an interesting thing. Like in the US, it is celebrated by pretty much everyone. There are all types of people who dress up, all kinds of little activities and photo ops on the street for kids, and all types of decorations. There’s even a mystical person who symbolizes the holiday.
In the US, we would call these decorations Christmas decorations, and this person, Santa Claus.
All up and down the streets for the past few weeks there have been tree-shaped lights hanging from streetlamps, icicle lights stretched across and over the roadways, their white light ‘falling’ down their length over and over again, Christmas lights strung over the walking paths in town, and a big, impressive tree put up right in the middle of Center, across the way from the House of Culture.
Along the main road little huts have been built, made to look like log cabins, little pieces of holiday decoration inside, men dressed in Santa Claus suits hanging out front, ringing bells, trying to attract kids and their parents over to take a quick, posed picture, then pay a nice little sum for the opportunity.
Advertisements for Coca-Cola, and other food and drink have been hung, showing Santa Claus, and snow, and other cheery, holiday things.
All wishing everyone a very…Happy New Year.
Yep, here in Macedonia, everything we consider as part of the ‘traditional’ Christmas season is actually for New Year’s. Christmas here is in January, and is a purely religious holiday. New Year’s makes up for that.
Santa Claus here is also not called Santa Claus, but rather Дедо Мраз, or Grandfather Frost. Why? I have no idea.
Ironically, and somewhat amusingly, my host family in Sveti Nikole used to refer to him as “Merry Christmas” in English. They would say, “Merry Christmas ке дојде за Нова Година!” Translation – Merry Christmas will come for New Year’s!
It always made me smile.
As with Christmas, it is also a Peace Corps tradition that volunteers get together to celebrate. This year was no exception. On the 31st, I hopped on the bus up to Stip where I met up with Jennica and Meghan. We then hopped on another bus and made our way down to Prilep, where a number of volunteers are posted, including a few from our group.
While it is always exciting to go to Skopje to get to eat some real American-style Chinese food, this trip was almost just as exciting. You see, Prilep has another genre of restaurant that is ALMOST as important – Thai.
The story is that one of the owners of the restaurant met the other on a cruise…one happened to be Thai, and one happened to be Macedonian, from Prilep. They got married and decided to come back to Prilep, where, thankfully, they opened this great, cultural experience known as Bangkok Oriental.
Once we arrived in Prilep, and were all settled in at the place we’d be staying, we made our way to another PCVs apartment to see people, chat, and pass the little bit of time before our reservation at the Thai place. About 20 of us were there. It was actually pretty nice; it was the first time in a while that I had seen many of the people there, and it was good to catch up.
At the appointed hour, we filed into numerous taxis, made our way over to the Thai place, and found our seats, and got ready to eat – and eat a lot.
Unlike Strumica, Prilep is a big city. It’s probably in the top five by size in the country. Ironically, driving into Prilep from Stip actually felt a lot more isolated than coming into Strumica, but that probably had a lot to do with the terrain. The bus drove through multiple mountains, sometimes right along the edges of small cliffs, along small, somewhat torn-up roads, and through a lot of countryside. It was a beautiful ride, and at times the mountains were so close in on each side that it seemed we were passing through a tunnel.
When you finally come around the curve, and can see Prilep below, you have no doubt that that is where the final destination is. Lots of lights, and it looks huge.
Which it was. The taxi ride was a good 10-15 minutes, and to walk to the restaurant would have taken an hour, easily.
Inside, even more of our fellow PCVs were already sitting, along with some spring rolls waiting patiently to be devoured on the table. Four of us, out of seven, from Sveti were there, and it actually felt normal to have us all together. It did feel like we were missing people, but it was good to see those that were there.
Although some had pre-ordered their meals, many of us had not, or wanted to add things, and it became so hectic that one of the MAK18s, Chris, actually took on the roll of waiter, taking orders, bringing out dishes, and bringing out food from the kitchen. The place was relatively small inside, and we took up about 60% of it. I’m not sure they were ready for us!
But it was good! I really enjoyed the meal, especially the vegetable tempura (or, as they spell it, tempoora), and the overall atmosphere was great.
After dinner, we piled back in taxis and made our way to one of the volunteer’s apartments to actually ring in the New Year. I will admit, for an introvert like me, there were a LOT of people at this apartment. Maybe too many. But luckily, one of the MAK20’s twin sisters was there and she and I just kind of people watched and chatted.
Overall, it was a pretty chill night, and I was glad it was.
Of course, little did I know, the night was not yet over.
The на гости. It’s a Macedonian tradition. It’s pronounced ‘nah goh-stee’. Google Translate says it means ‘visiting’. But that is way to simple to get at the heart of what it really is.
When you na gosti, you don’t just visit, you VISIT. You get tea, or coffee, you get sweets, or, in this case, offered some weird loaf of a combination of various bush meats, you get soda, or juice, and most importantly, you get rakija. Na gosti’s aren’t always announced – sometimes people just show up; some houses keep a supply of sweets on hand just in case, sort of like you’re supposed to keep three days of water on hand, just in case.
Technically, it’s not even a noun, but we PCVs use it as such. Our LCFs in training made fun of us for it – but somehow it works. Sometimes they’re actually fun, but sometimes not. Often in training someone would come in dead tired, when you ask why, “I had to na gosti last night.” These na gostis can be quite tiring, especially when you consider that half of the time you have no idea who you are visiting, and no idea what they’re saying.
They also can last HOURS. Literally.
So when, after we got back to Sabrina’s place, and her host family came up at 2am telling us to come down for a na gosti, what are you going to do but shrug, and go downstairs???
I will say, her family was really cool, and the na gosti was enjoyable. I just couldn’t handle being awake that long (I mean, at my age???), so around 3am I had to give up and climb back up the stairs and crash. Everyone else, pretty much, was still down there.
No idea for how long.
As I said, it was enjoyable, but the last thing I expected was to na gosti at 2am in the morning of New Year’s Day. It’s good to know that Peace Corps can still surprise you.
The next day (or, more accurately, later the same day) we all just hung out watching movies and relaxing before heading out for dinner.
Where did we go? Well, surprisingly, back to the Thai place!!!
I liked my food this time even better than the night before.
On Saturday, I made my way back to site. As an example of how small the country really is, and how easy it is to run into people randomly, on the bus back to Stip I ran into another volunteer – Rebekah who definitely helped to pass the time.
When getting on the bus to Strumica from Stip, I ran into Melissa getting off, and Cameron onboard.
That ride was pretty cool. We both started talking to a girl who had been in the US for a couple weeks every year for the last five years and spoke impeccable English. It was a pretty good ride, and a pretty good end to a pretty good trip.
So, to end it, I’ll just say: Merry Christmas wishes you a Happy New Year!!
Doing It Twice 