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It is about ONE YEAR since I arrived in Macedonia. And while it feels like I exercised more resistance to my immediate environment and made more cultural and social missteps in the last year than ever before, I surrendered to this Peace Corps Macedonia service in September. It is starting to feel quite homey. (како дома)

As one of my favorite authors, Eckhart Tolle writes, “Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.” I feel like my anthem for this month is to remember to live in AWE! Now that more makes sense to me, it is easy to grow weary about or emphasize what I may never adapt to, never understand, or never learn to appreciate. It is easy to focus on what I don't have time to attempt or finish. HOWEVER, amidst my on-going and new projects, I want to welcome what is peculiar and what evokes my curiosity in the present moment. 

AND SO, I give you, a month of images of what I LOVE here. (Not necessarily a top 10, 20, or 30, but certainly a tribute to what helps me live in the present here.) 

Baba Canka, my neighbor, is just one of MANY Baba's (grannies) in my life. Baba Siova is my Home Baba, my Baba of Baba's, however, this phenomena of older women inviting me to coffee, telling me their mini-life story, is just too precious. One day, a few fellow volunteers and I were in a park waiting for a bus. This Baba with the CUTEST giggle invited us over for coffee, a typical custom here. We couldn't go because we had to leave for the bus, but it is this level of curiosity, generosity, and hospitality that makes Babas a super score in Macedonia.

I really like the balance of working in the Primary and High School this year. While I love my high schoolers, who will be featured later in these entries, the Primary School students in my Creative English Camp this summer gave me lots of laughs and a new confidence to teach with the active methods I have employed for years.

Also, I introduced them to Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham! We did a Reader's Theater of this book, which was totally new to them, and it was a blast. Yes, the story is as funny to me as it was when I was four, and yes it was as funny to nine- and ten-year-olds as it is to four-year-olds.

New routines, new habits, a new outlook! I started hiking on Sunday mornings with a friend from Oro (traditional dance, also to be featured later) and Yoga. We speak in Macedonian about life, like therapy, like enlightenment. Afterwards I go to the market (на пазар) and meet up with a vendor who befriended the volunteer in my community before me. Again, we talk about life, cultural exchange, being a better person through choice and self-study. It is a rich Sunday morning routine. This is a picture of a hike to the windmills behind Bogdanci. Breathtaking and humbling. 

 My host mom is my rock here. She listens. She advises. She cooks, cleans, and cares. She is a tough cookie with a soft inside. Magdalena, my mom (мајка ми) laughs heartily.

Of course we need a discussion of GLOW and the amazing young, female leaders I am meeting as a mentor and counselor to GLOW Camp and Clubs. Seeing the Macedonian female youth plan and implement meetings, play and connect socially, and work to express themselves in English (maybe their second, third, or fourth language) gives me hope for the future of the world, even beyond Macedonia!

This anniversary marks a year of things I have given up in combination with things I have gained. Again, quoting Eckhart Tolle, “You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are,” I am reminded to BE and not to DO so much as a means of BEING. This life long lesson patiently nudges me, even when I kick and scream and beg for former examples of my self definition based on DOING. Yet, I see and feel the growth from the void of activities, and I welcome the blessing of open time to discover the essence underneath the "business," or better yet busy-ness.