Gray Areas: November 25, 2012

Gray is what November has become as winter rushes toward us.  Fog, fog, and more fog.  It's gray when it rains and it's gray when it doesn't.

Night temperatures now hover around freezing so the fountain under Alexander the Great and his horse  is silent and gray.  There will be no more colored lights, choreographed water, or music from it until spring.

All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray..... California dreaming on such a winter's day (California Dreaming by The Mamas and The Papas).

Our pursuit to stay in Macedonia legally is now in a gray, limbo status.  In early November the US Embassy sent a letter to Macedonia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) to announce our arrival and state that we were under the Rule of Law agreement cloak.  About a week later we heard in an email from the US Embassy that MFA did not currently have the ability to make the ID cards.  Due to their recent change of office buildings, the machine wasn't operating.  We were informed that MFA will not furnish us with a temporary "Get-Out-of-Macedonia-Free" note while we wait for the production of our ID cards.

This illegal status is uncomfortable for me.  Recently, I was taking a photograph for an online class where the assignment was "Justice" and the color red.  The word "justice" is hard to come by here.  In Macedonian, justice is (правда) pravda.  But, I found a line of graffiti that included "Justice" written in Latin letters.  While I was taking the photograph, which took some time to work out as it included me as a self portrait, the woman who lives in the apartment came out and began asking me questions that I couldn't understand.  Eventually, she said, "politcia," a word I could understand.  While I wasn't doing anything illegal, it seemed like with my precarious status, it would be a good time to leave.  

 Too Many Cops Too Little Justice

While confined to Macedonia, we continue to explore.  One Saturday, which was not gray, our plan was to visit the archaeological site of Skupi.  Skupi is located near the village of Bardovci which has become more like a suburb of Skopje.  Once there, we found the archaeological site closed on weekends.  But, perhaps more interesting, was the very busy cabbage market next door.  These cabbages are from Bardovci village.  Full wagons of cabbages are pulled in by tractor and empty wagons pulled out to be returned full.  One of the merchants told us that Bardovci cabbages are the best for eating and especially for pickling to store for the winter.  The season is October and November, and these cabbages are huge and heavy.  One of the sellers gave us a cabbage which we carried all the way back to the city center; it was very heavy.  There were also sturdy, waist-high leeks which stand in picket-fence-like rows.  These are also purchased in bulk and replanted by the buyer to preserve them through the winter.

 Bardovci cabbages in red Yugo

November has also been a month of social activities: Marine Ball, Macedonia Philharmonic concerts, Cinedays European Film Festival, art openings, IWA, a Roma Festival.  I'm not sure what that says about us that we can be so busy but still chafe under this "house arrest" of being unable to leave Macedonia without fear of expulsion.  

Friday night I had a dream that two men grabbed me and shoved me into a car.  I hope that's not a sign of what's to come.  

Despite that bad omen, we've made a decision to travel and take our chances.  Tonight after Dan's class finishes, we are flying to Istanbul for 4 nights.  We will take a copy of our one-sided letter from the US Embassy to MFA in hopes that if we are questioned, the letter will be accepted as our "Get-Out-of-Macedonia-Free" note. 

We've laid in extra cat food provisions--just in case.

Summer in the City: June 17, 2012

Last weekend Dan began teaching his Friday, Saturday, and Sunday training classes.  These weekend courses will run until mid-July.  He's on his second weekend now and has already figured out that working 7 days a week is grueling for him and boring for me.

Last weekend while Dan worked I accepted an invitation to go to Greece with our friend Angel.  Angel is a travel agent and he was delivering 12 clients and picking up 35 clients to/from a resort area of the first "finger."  Even though it meant 6 hours down by bus and 6 hours back by bus, I went because I wanted to see the area and I was bored.  Angel promised me lunch on the beach, but alas that was not to be.  He was occupied with travel agent duties during the entire 2 hours at the resort.  I sat on the beach under an umbrella with my legs exposed to the sun and then I walked to the center to grab a lunch before the return 6-hour bus ride.  No matter how bored I am I will never do that again.

Olivera was able to get a certificate proving she owns the apartment that we rent from her, so on Wednesday, Olivera and Dan went again to a Notary to have our rental agreement notarized.  They had success.  On Thursday, Dan and his Macedonian lawyer, Ivan, went to the Ministry of Interior.  The employee looked at them like she didn't know why they were there.  Dan said Ivan and the woman at the Ministry had an argument in Macedonian and then Dan and Ivan left.  This is not a good sign.  Next week, Dan and his lawyer will go to the Bureau of Labor for something regarding his work permit.  We remain illegal residents of Macedonia.

Kali, who is normally a very good eater (hence the diet) and always hungry (because she is on a diet), began leaving some of the Royal Canin wet food untouched in her dish this week.  During the week she was lethargic and also had some diarrhea and vomiting.  Friday morning she refused to eat any Royal Canin.  Fortunately, I had a Friskies packet of food courtesy of Olivera.  I put the Friskies in her dish and she ate it all.

I searched the internet to see if there were any new reports of tainted pet food and I found a site (consumeraffairs.com) listing May and June complaints originating in the USA and Canada about Royal Canin food.  The pets all had the same symptoms as Kali.  Some pet owners reported that once the food was changed, the symptoms disappeared, but some said the animal was so damaged that it had to be put down.  I contacted the Royal Canin distributor in Macedonia and their vet wrote me that my cat was old and all cats have digestive issues.  She said it wasn't their pet food that was causing the issues.  I realize that all the complaints so far are anecdotal, but now I have no confidence in Royal Canin's products and Kali is getting Whiskas and Friskies packets of wet food.  I returned all the Royal Canin to the pet supply store where it had been purchased.  Kali has returned to her old self--fortunately.

Last Saturday I went to a charity bazaar on the pedestrian street.  I bought 10 raffle tickets for about $20 from which I won 3 prizes.  1.  I won 1 ticket to the performance of the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra here in Skopje.  2.  I won two vouchers at a "Salt Medical Clinic."  Olivera and I went yesterday to find out what a "salt room" is.  After sitting 45 minutes in a room covered with salt (walls, ceiling, floor) and breathing salt, we are still puzzled.  The "salt room" literature broadly states that it is good for respiratory system problems.  Anyway, it was a nice escape from the outside heat.  3.  And, best of all, I won a cell phone.  It is a Samsung S3770.  I'm not completely sure what it can do as all the written literature is in Macedonian, but it is definitely a step up from my other phone.

This week we had our last IWA meeting until September.  Many of the members leave Macedonia for the summer.  Next Monday will be the last "official" Monday hike for the same reason.  Fortunately, there seem to be a lot of events going on in Skopje.  On Wednesday night, Turkish Folk Dancers from the Kirklareli Province in the Marmara Region of Turkey performed in Ploshtad Makedonija.

Last week, there were still clouds and rain, this week the clouds have disappeared and it has been hot.  Most days it reaches a high temperature in the 30s (91-93F).  By the end of next week the forecast is for 36C (about 97F).  The coolest place to be during the day is next to the fountain under the Alexander the Great statue or on my little balcony sipping homemade mint-lemonade.  Cheers!

Cairo-4 Mosques: May 1, 2012

Today, found me back at the Citadel visiting the Muhammed Ali Mosque with Rana and her friend Shawza (a young prosecutor).  Rana invited us to join a tour of four mosques organized through Facebook.  A huge group of Egyptians assembled for this tour.  It's rare to see Egyptians touring their monuments.  At each mosque, there was an in depth, scholarly lecture about Egypt's history and the architecture.  The lecture was in Arabic, but there was one young woman, Ayat, who translated for me, a Brit named Alex, and Dan when he joined us. I learned that the crescent and star, both 6 and 8 points, were merely geometric shapes when they were first employed in Islamic architecture.

During the lecture, a maintenance man began cleaning the glass globes on the hundreds of lights in the Muhammed Ali Mosque.  

The Mosque of al-Nasir Muhammad, Mamluk architecture, near the Muhammed Ali Mosque in the Citadel was our second stop on the tour.  The lecturer pointed out that the decoration around the top walls mirrors the void space and the void space connects the sky to the mosque kind of like a puzzle piece.  The multi-leveled arches were built to vent heat from the inside spaces.

Next we took the Saladin Inside Passageway down the hill to the Sultan Hassan Mosque for another tour and lecture.

The dome of the entryway to Sultan Hassan Mosque.

The call to prayer inside the Sultan Hassan Mosque with the open courtyard and fountain in the background.

This man sang a shortened call to prayer inside the tomb room of the Sultan Hassan Mosque.  He also sang the Koranic inscriptions surrounding the ceiling of this room.  He had a beautiful voice.

We lingered in the space for quite awhile.  It is another lovely serene space.  It was a mosque and a school of the four philosophies of Islam.  Sultan Hassan had this mosque/madrassa built during a time of famine.  The structure is immense and it was built that way to make people feel insignificant in it's presence.  Sultan Hassan planned on having his tomb inside the tomb room, but when the third minaret was built it collapsed on an orphanage killing several children.  The Sultan wasn't able to calm his subjects (with the famine and the deaths and the hugely extravagant structure), and he was killed by them about 30 days later.  The whereabouts of his body is still unknown.

Our last stop was the Mosque of Al Rifai right next door to the Sultan Hassan Mosque.  This is the day that Sufi Sultan Al Rifai was born and a big celebration of his birthday was beginning.  There was lots of chanting and wailing at his tomb.  The surrounding wooden lattice screen smells of fragrances because his followers rub scented oils into the wood.

There are several tombs inside this structure.  King Farouk and the Shah of Iran are both buried here.

Central Dome in the Mosque of Al Rifai

Me and Dan with Rana

Back outside on the street, many of the pilgrims were waiting in tents for the evening celebration of Sufi Al Rifai's birthday to begin.  There was even a small children's carnival being assembled.

After the tour, we walked back toward the Citadel and met Gamal at his shop.  We were joined by Zizi and their other son, Mohanad, who brought Egyptian pizza to share with us for dinner.  Dan helped Mohanad practice English by drilling him in his normal prosecutorial style.  

Gamal showed us some of his new creations.  He draws the scene and someone who works for him does the actual applique and stitching.  Many of his best pieces are sold in a shop in Coptic Cairo.

With tourism dollars limited, his family has had to be innovative in finding work.  Zizi and Basel are washing towels for a gym.  Every day Basel picks up a load of dirty towels and delivers his load of freshly laundered towels.  This is the reason for the car.  The towels are washed in a machine in their home and hung out to dry on their balcony.  Once dry, the towels are neatly folded and placed in a plastic wrapper.  While this would not have been work they would have sought pre-revolution, they are not too proud to do a job that brings in badly needed income.  

We said goodbye again to our friends, and went back to the hotel to pack.