Thanksgiving, Balkan style

Last Thursday, we had the day off for Albanian Alphabet Day (yes, that is apparently a real holiday), which, luckily, coincided with Thanksgiving. I decided to host a traditional Albanian Alphabet Day/Thanksgiving feast in my apartment. Here is the festive table:

R. and I, being the resident Americans, were responsible for most of the food. We made roast vegetables, pumpkin pie, apple pie, mashed potatoes, and I cooked a turkey! J. was in charge of stuffing and did a very good job, although, as usual, there wasn't enough. Here are some pictures of the food:

The round pie is pumpkin, while the other two are apple. There don't seem to be any round pie tins in all of Skopje, so we were forced to improvise and use square baking dishes. Square pie tastes just as good as round pie.

All in all, it was a very successful Thanksgiving. It was the first for my Irish colleagues, and I think it gave them a good impression of the holiday. After all, what's not to love about spending the day eating delicious food until you feel like you're ready to burst? The only thing missing was the football!

Where I work

As I've mentioned before, I work in a university in Tetovo, which is about 45 minutes from Skopje. There doesn't seem to be much going on in the town, but it's surrounded by mountains, which are very pretty. Also, whoever designed the university really went in for bright colors, as you can see from the pictures. The buildings come in 3 colors: white, blue, and yellow. The colors mean different things, but I can't remember right now what each stands for.

Here's another picture:

In this one, you can see the mountains in the background. It was a little cloudy that day, so they're not as impressive as they usually look. Also, if you look closely, you can see two of my colleagues, J. and B.

New post

I just realized it's been over two weeks since my last post. I seem to have mislaid the cord the attaches my camera to my computer so I've been unable to download pictures, which has put a damper on me posting. Anyway, I have now borrowed a cord from the lovely R., so I'm back in business!

Trash and Spitting

One thing I'm finding hard to get used to here is the amount of litter on the streets. I've lived in places that had litter before, but nothing like this. People just throw their trash anywhere. A few weeks ago, in one of my classes, a student took his gum out of his mouth and threw it out of an open classroom window. Of course, I yelled at him, but he didn't seem phased. "At least I didn't put it under my desk" was his defense.
The other thing that bothers me is people spitting on the street. Sometimes I'll be walking and there will be an old man, or even a not so old man, and suddenly I'll hear the unmistakeable sound of someone coughing up phlegm from the back of their throat, after which it is deposited on the sidewalk. It never fails to gross me out.
But then, sometimes I think, who am I to judge? I shouldn't come here and impose my conceptions of what is and isn't polite behavior on a culture that isn't mine and that I don't have enough experience with to fully understand.
I found this article addressing the same topic:
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=42670

What do you think? Am I being a cultural imperialist?

Never a dull moment

Today began like any other day. I arrived to work early because of a meeting and then taught my first class at 12. After my first class, I returned to my office, which was all abuzz with the news that some kind of conflict was taking place in Tetovo and the surrounding areas, which is near where I work. We weren't sure exactly what was going on or what we should do, so we decided to teach our next classes as normal.
About half an hour into the class, a student came in with an announcement. He told us that other instructors were allowing students to leave early, as there was some fear that the roads would soon be blocked off. Of course, I let my class go early and then joined my fellow foreign colleagues to try to make our way back to Skopje. We were able to get a ride and made it back without any problems. But as we were on the road back, we did notice several military trucks and jeeps going in the opposite direction, towards Tetovo.
Apparently, what happened is that some fugitives from Kosovo were being chased by the police in the area and there was a shootout which killed 7 people. Here's a link to an article about what happened:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/11/07/europe/EU-GEN-Macedonia-Fugitives.php