Coconut With Glasses, Gypsies, Pork Chop Sandwiches.

You might be wondering what my title is referring to. I still am trying to figure it out; the coconut part that is.

On Thursday the class and I decided to retire the football for a day and play on the younger playground. This one has swings and a slide, and apparently a coconut with glasses. Me. I was walking around the playground, that at this point was being shared with the 2nd graders, when James and Filipo came bolting up to me. James and Filipo are 2nd graders. They had no clue who I was and I didn't know who they were. Upon latching on to my legs, they screamed, "HOUSE!!!!" a little girl in pigtails bouncing walked away frowning. I looked down with a smile and replied, "House?!? Are you calling me fat? You two better think of something else to call me real quick." Filipo with a HUGE grin on his face shouted, COCONUT WITH GLASSES!!! Since I was wearing my glasses it was easy to figure out where the glasses came from. The Jury is still out on the coconut part.

James is an American student, I asked him where the Giant Peach was, he told me he ate it. For the record, he also said it was delicious. Filipo is from Italy, "Of course." and in a few short minutes this kid was by far one of my favorite people I have met thus far. He told me that he and his family had recently picked out a puppy. "What is your dog's name?" I asked in an over enthusiastic fashion, like he had just told me he won the lottery and I was asking for how much. Filipo told me in the most matter of fact, "why the heck would you have to ask me that question" type of way, "Sharko, of course." The kid even shrugged his shoulders with his answer. Duh, I guess I should have known. Having fun with Filipo I asked what Sharko meant. I'm really only familiar with what shark means, and maybe the added O changes the meaning... :) His answer cracked me up. "Shark means shark. Of course. The O is because of me. I picked the O. Its just like Filipo. There is an O at the end, of course." I told a friend this story over skype, her reply was changing our names to match Filipo's reasoning. Evano, Robino. Now you try, it will make you smile I promise.

Friday night I met up with my friend Dalibor for a drink before heading out to a club for even more drinks. We met with a friend of his, and the friends that she brought along. We didn't stay long. Just enough time to finish off my vodka on the rocks. This on the rocks thing is something I'm still getting used to. Either way, I was fine with leaving early. For some reason the strobe lights (or maybe the drinks prior to here) were really hard on me.

On our walk across the center we were met by two gypsies. --- I still feel bad about this story --- Gypsies are mostly Roma people that make a living by begging for their money or selling small trinkets from a cart. Essentially they are bums. Every gypsy that I had encountered would say something that I don't understand, and as I would pass by they would ask the person behind me the same thing. They are not violent, and don't harass people by getting in your face. For the most part. The two that Dalibor and I came up against that night were a rarity.

It was a woman somewhere in her 20s maybe 30s, and a boy that looked around 12. I didn't understand what they were saying, but I knew they wanted some money. I heard the word ten. But as Dalibor said, and I had been told by other people, "Just keep walking, don't talk to them, and they will leave you alone." These two were different. As we kept walking across the square the duo pulled on our arms to get our hand out of our pockets, zig zagged back in front of us to make us stop walking, and begged for money. At first I was not so worried but more ashamed I wasn't giving anything. As we kept walking, my guilt was beginning to turn to anxiety, then I was getting a little worried, then it was can we just get the hell out of here. This progression was fast. Twice I had brushed the 12 year olds hands off my jacket, telling him, "no, sorry, no." Meanwhile Dalibor was reasoning with the women, I wasn't sure what they were saying, but I didn't think I would really need to guess. The 10 year old noticed that an outside chest pocket on my jacket was unzipped and he managed to get a couple fingers in the pocket. I brushed his hand out of the pocket and off the jacket and told him to stop. "No. Sorry. I have nothing" were all the things I could say and obviously they weren't working. I remembered one of the administration telling me that one of his friends once acted with more aggression than apology when dealing with gypsies and that is worked out favorably for him. The thought crossed my mind, but really what would I do to a 12 year old or this lady. Finally as we reached the end of the center, in a walk that seemed to take forever, but really was probably no more than 2 minutes the two peeled off and went back into the center. - This is a rare thing to happen, after walking around Skopje almost every saturday and sunday this had never happened to me. Hopefully, and more likely than not, it won't happen again. -

As Dalibor and I grew more and more relieved about them leaving we began to relive last 2 minutes I asked Dalibor what he was saying to the lady. "Well, she wanted to spit on you if we didn't pay her." --Did that stun you? It did me too.-- I think I asked why me, he told me because I am a foreigner. I honestly don't know what I would have done if she would have spit on me. The whole encounter left me a little frazzled, and feeling incredibly guilty. I have been told numerous times to just walk away, don't pay, and even to be loud if I must tell a gypsy to leave me alone. I'm glad I didn't yell. I will carry a small bill or two with me next time I go out.

Saturday morning rolled around, and it was my favorite day of the week. MARKETday! I now go there with a purpose, a list, and a smart amount of money. I know what I want, how much I want of it, and how much it reasonably costs. This is getting to be easy. The guy that laughs at me wasn't at the butcher shop. I still got some tasty meat patties.
I stopped by a dessert shop on my way home, there were all sorts of small candies in the front window so I decided to see what they were and how much they cost. The store worker spoke English, so this encounter was easy. I told him I wanted to try a variety of the deserts. I found out that 8 pieces cost 100 denar or $1.20 USD. I paid less than you pay for a snickers bar for 8 decadent candies. Ok, I don't know if all 8 are good yet, I'm trying to hold off on eating them all at once. I think I have 4 left after a day and a half... Not bad.

I decided on my way home from the gym that I didn't really want to cook so I stopped at the restaurant around the corner from my house. I walked in, the place was empty, but there was a bartender so I knew I would be able to get some sort of nourishment. I quickly asked myself vodka, gin or brandy? The bartender, lets call him Bart, didn't know any English. He, like the guy from the butcher shop, found me to be funny and laughed at my gesturing for a menu. The menu (I don't know why I even looked) was not in English either. Realizing that I might just be ordering a Vodka on the rocks at this fine establishment, Bart opens this sliding wooden window and beckons into the kitchen. Seconds later Master Chef Bobby Flay pokes his head out the window and tells/asks me, "You want to eat?" We take a few minutes to figure out what I want to eat, he/we decided pork on the grill and a shopkso salad -cucumber tomato and white cheese- I order a glass of wine, sit down with a book, and know two things about dinner: I will be eating pork, shopsko salad, and drinking a mini bottle of wine. The wine was good, the salad was basic but tasty, the grill, I'll order different next time. Don't get me wrong, it was good, but really it was a thin pork chop (tasty nonetheless) served with french fries and buns on the side. I ordered a burger yesterday at a burger stand so I knew what the bun and fries, I mean "chips" were meant for. I was (like the burger yesterday) supposed to layer my dinner like so: bottom bun, pork chop, ketchup, fries, more ketchup, top bun. Enjoy. I decided to forgo the bun and the ketchup, and eat it like a pork chop. Like I said, it was good. Next time I'll have something a little more exciting.

Ok, that's it. I need to do some research for school tomorrow. I'm teaching more English this week, things are going good in that department. I have to teach what demonstrative, reflexive and intensive pronouns are tomorrow... that should be interesting.

Oh yeah, I have wanted to post pictures all while I keep talking about places I go, and things I am seeing, but a problem occured.. A mix between me being an idiot and leaving my camera behind, and the USPS being even bigger idiots (no offense to anyone working/or that knows anyone that works for the USPS) my camera is ...lost... I should expect it's delivery tomorrow or 6 months from last week. : ) I am going to ask the photography teacher at the school if I can borrow a camera. We'll see how it goes. Then maybe I will be able to share some of these things with you.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/01/19/travel/20100120-balkans-slideshow_index.html

attached is a link that takes you to a NYT article that features the Balkan Burger. These are much like what I ate the yesterday, except I got mine from a small restaurant on the street, and these you see in this slide show are from nice restaurants in NYC. Oh and mine was stuffed with fries and layers of ketchup. SO good.

Ciao!

Evan