We were welcomed to Macedonia today by two different cultural groups--one of a traditional Macedonian dance group, and the other was an Albanian one. They were kids and teenagers who did their traditional dances in traditional garb. It was very adorable and really interesting to see the contrast between the two cultures.
Dancers in traditional Macedonian costume.
Dancers in traditional Albanian costume.
After that Burt Putney--Deputy Chief of Missions at the US embassy in country--came to speak with us about what they are doing within the region. He spoke very eloquently and it was fascinating to hear about his opinions on issues and tensions within the region. We all really enjoyed hearing him and getting a little history lesson as well.
Burt Putney
Here are some of the interesting facts that I wrote down during his speech:
-Greece is the main reason that Macedonia isn’t part of the EU. They’ve been a candidate since 2005(?), yet Greece claims the name “Macedonia” as their own. They would like the country to change to something like “The Republic of Upper Macedonia”, yet the Macedonians feel like they would lose part of their identities in changing their name. A compromise of “The Upper Republic of Macedonia” has been proposed, thus keeping the “Republic of Macedonia” part together, yet Greece refuses to compromise and won’t accept that.
-Bulgaria is the closest language to Macedonian. So close, in fact, that many Bulgarians say that there’s no such thing as Macedonian, and that it’s just another dialect of Bulgarian.
-Serbia won’t recognize the Macedonian church, and claim it’s just a part of their own church.
-A LOT of ethnic tensions between ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Albanians. The conflicts that we heard about seem to be parallels between the tensions in the US between Mexicans and Americans, and Blacks and Whites.
-There is a lot of control of the media by the government, and the US embassy is seeing a backslide of democracy. There is also a lot of government pressure placed on citizens and businesses to vote a certain way, and if they don’t, those businesses tend to receive more fines, visits from inspectors, and find it harder to apply for permits.
-The overall feeling in the country by residents and citizens is pretty grim. Many young Macedonians are leaving their villages for bigger cities, especially abroad in Europe, the US, and Canada. Once they leave, they often bring their families with them and the money being sent into the country from those working abroad is decreasing.
That being said, while I talked about this being a nice country (and it is) and even though the country looks European and modern from the outside, there is a lot of strife and inefficiencies in how things are run. This is also a very conservative country, thus change is slow to take hold. Peace Corps is here for a reason and we all want to do our part in these next few years to help out our communities in whatever small way we can.
For Anne Fox: a map of Macedonia...because she was snarky.
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