Beginnings

On December 1st we officially opened the fitness center in Gyovren! I really had no idea who would come or how things would go. The opening had been advertised for 3pm and by 2:30 there was a mob of kids surrounding the entrance to the cultural center. Ryan (who came to help out with preparations and to keep me sane) counted 30 waiting by the door. I left him to keep them from rioting until we were ready to start. Finally we let the kids into the room, followed by a more standoffish crowd of adults. Last but not least the mayor, school director, and Ramadan came to make speeches and to cut the ribbon to make it all official. Altogether we squeezed over 50 people into the room! A group of girls demonstrated a Pilates workout and I explained the functions of the exercise bike and elliptical machine. Afterwards we treated everyone to fruit salad, cheese, crackers, and drinks in the café across the hall.
Since the opening, the gym has steadily drawn participants. To date we have had 104 visits to the room by 33 people. The most consistent of these is a group of 5 women who gather in the evenings on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. In addition to using the fitness equipment and free weights, we do pilates, zumba, and aerobic workouts together. It has been extremely encouraging and fun to see people excited about their health. Kids have also started using the room during the day when Ramadan can take care of the library and I can supervise in the gym. It’s nice to see kids being active since during the winter they often spend their free time in front of the TV or a computer. During the Christmas break when I was traveling, I gave the keys to a young woman who lives nearby so that the room could continue to be in use.
I am asked nearly every day by young guys about when we will have a bench press, arm machine, and heavier weights for them to use. I am confident that once we have equipment that allows guys to use the room, the interest will increase significantly. The Peace Corps Partnership Project is still on-line for donations. We currently need about $1,900 to complete the budget for this project. I’m very happy with how the things are starting out in the fitness room. I’m encouraged that women are comfortable with using the room and that we have set a precedent that the gym is not just for men.

For Christmas this year my brother Kelty and my sister-in-law Destiny came to visit me in Bulgaria! Thank you, Mom and Pop, for the wonderful Christmas gift of family! Before Christmas we traveled to Veliko Turnovo, the old capital of Bulgaria which is famous for the Tsarevets Fortress that overlooks the city. We spent our first evening exploring the old town in the dark and ended up at a bar that was playing Charlie Chaplin as the lone prospector in “The Gold Rush.” So great! Unfortunately a snowstorm hit the next morning and that made hiking around the castle a little treacherous! For Christmas we came back to Gyovren and were joined by five other Peace Corps friends. My landlady helped out with the cooking and we had a relaxed, white Christmas, complete with a tree, white elephant gifts, and lots of games (poop smoothie, king’s cup, gin rummy, snowball fights, etc.).

The Monday after Christmas Kelty, Destiny, Ryan, and I set off for Skopje. It was a long day of travel—we left the village at 7:30am and didn’t arrive in Skopje until 9:30pm. During our day in the capital, Destiny and Kelty made a trek up to the Millennium Cross that sits high above the city. Ryan and I spent our time wandering through the city, looking for Turkish tea, but always getting served the British version! Skopje’s cultural icons are mostly new or still under construction. In the main square they recently erected a statue celebrating Alexander the Great on rearing steed. Nearby a new archeological museum encircled by Roman columns is under construction as is a “triumphal arch” marking the pedestrian zone. We went to a history museum which was in the process of moving exhibits to the new location and whose employees weren’t very attentive to their sole visitors of the day. One older curator noticed us and turned on the lights so we could see the displays. A couple areas were very modern with English translations, but most were a confusing mix of maps, charts, pictures, and text with no English at all. Frustrated by my inability to interpret what I was seeing, I found the curator who had turned on the lights for us and asked him to start from the beginning. And he did, in precise and careful English: the scope of Macedonian culture and language, Ottoman rule, the world wars, Yugoslavia under Tito, and becoming an independent nation in 1991. He described how Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece all consider Macedonia to be their territory and, perhaps more importantly, cultural property. He talked about the conflicts with the Albanian minority and the economic struggles that were exacerbated by the Kosovo conflict in 1999. And then we talked about his hopes for his daughter who is currently in secondary school. Another interesting aspect of Skopje for me was the large number of mosques and women wearing conservative head coverings, especially in the older part of town. Turkish is widely spoken (among other languages such as Albanian and Bosnian) and in certain neighborhoods signs and advertisements are bi-lingual. Our wanderings eventually led us into a mosque courtyard where we dialogued with one of the caretakers about the relationship between Muslims and Christians in the city (he speaking Macedonian, we Bulgarian—the languages are close enough that we could understand each other).
After a quick visit to Blagoevgrad and Rila monastery, the four of us boarded a night train for Turkey. Oh the night train! It originates in Bucharest and takes almost a full 24 hours to reach Istanbul. In the past it was possible to buy tickets in Bulgaria, but communication somehow stopped between the Turkish train company and the Bulgarian cashiers who no longer have access to information about what seats are available. So, they can sell tickets, but they cannot guarantee a seat on the train and they can’t sell any reservations for sleeper cars. Oh, and tickets are not fully refundable! And, by the way, you have to buy an advance ticket from a cashier in order to purchase a sleeper car spot once on the train. What an ingenious process! Ryan and I decided to divide and conquer. He waited in the cold for the train (which arrived over 2 hours late) and I waited at the ticket stand. Once he talked to a conductor to find out if there were seats, then I would buy the tickets and hurry to the train. To make a long story short, there were seats so we bought tickets, but there were no beds available in the sleeper cars. So, we shivered on bench seats until midnight when another train brings additional sleeper cars and we got a spot. Then, at 2:30am, we reached the Turkish-Bulgarian border. We thought the worst was over when a flashlight was waved in our faces and the Bulgarian authorities checked our passports. We were sadly mistaken. 20 minutes later a conductor woke us and told us to put our shoes on—we were leaving the train for passport control. It is hard for me to explain the discomfort of waiting in a line that stretches outside the building at 3am in temperatures well below freezing. We waited our turn in this line only to find out that we were supposed to buy our visas first. Another outside line! Then back to the first line for the stamp! Back on the train where we had 10 minutes to fall back asleep before being woken up by flashlights again for one more check. All of this was just a foggy memory as I watched the sun rise over Istanbul’s urban sprawl.
Istanbul was enchanting. Because of the short amount of time we had there, I chose to tour experientially—lots of walking, eating borek, manti, lahmajun, and fish sandwiches, playing backgammon, drinking tea, smoking nargile, taking ferries, rubbing shoulders with the crowds at the grand bazaar, and even getting a Turkish bath at a hammam.

I’m back in Gyovren now, getting back to a regular routine. It’s been a very snowy, cold winter so far. When I got home from work on Monday, the temperature in my house was at exactly 32 degrees Fahrenheit! Fortunately my wood stove heats up my bedroom pretty quickly.