Are You Gonna Go My Way

Thai food in Sarajevo! Yum-bo! It was delicious, albeit not so authentic. This dish seemed to resemble tandoori chicken with Thai seasonings. Regardless, you can see how happy I am to have this deliciously ethnic cuisine.

I am sitting in the office this Monday wondering why it went from Summer to Winter in a matter of a day or two. It all started last week and now, it is pretty darn chilly. It is in the 10s here, which is around 45 Fahrenheit. I am sure you don't want to read about the Skopje weather so I will move on.

There was Pivo Land in Skopje this weekend, the first ever beer festival in the City. Pivo Land is not to be confused with Pivo Fest, which is in the city of Prilep. I went on Friday and Saturday evenings and froze. The reason I went both nights is because I went with 2 different groups of friends. Nora was here on Friday and so I went with her Habitat for Humanity group to experience Pivo Land. Saturday night, I went with Dominika and her husband, after we went to the basketball game. Macedonia qualified for the European Championships in basketball on Saturday night and it was a fun game, all and all. Dominika laughed at my cheering for Macedonia and I was, once again, one of the more fervent supporters in our section. It is fun to react to whatever is going on down on the court. I am not particularly into basketball, but I enjoy the entertainment. Both nights, I met up with the guy I am seeing here and my friends seemed to like him so this is good.

In other news, I cooked delicious lentils with sausage so I can finally have my friends over for dinner since I know what to prepare for them. More excitement.

Finally, we finished our brainstorming session on women's economic rights and the next steps we would like to take. My colleagues and I remain despondent about the new government program for stimulating the birthrate but we know if we sponsor research surrounding this issue, in connection with women's economic rights, the chance of the government remaining one of our implementing partners and maintaining a positive relationship with them is slim. Oh the dilemmas...I have more information on the birthrate stimulation program. Basically, as a woman, if you have 4 children, you qualify for a full pension of the average wage from the government at retirement age. You get a certain percentage of pension for 3 kids, 2 kids, etc. It is targeted to municipalities with low birthrates, which also happen to Macedonian ethnicity majority. I am not sure if the woman's marital status or the paternity of the father matters in terms of receiving said pension benefits. Regardless, this seems to fly in the face of gender equality legislation and to be somewhat xenophobic. The only thing that gives me hope is the study in conducted in the US finding that welfare benefits/cash assistance does not influence reproductive decisions. However, there are serious attitude differences between the countries in terms of what the government is expected to provide its citizens. Maybe Big Nikki's birthrate enhancement program will flop. I think my secret crush on Big Nikki is waning. I can tolerate differences in opinion, but there is a limit and a line must be drawn. Maybe I'll move on to Lenny Kravitz for secret crush material. The only problem with that is it is highly unlikely that I will be 6 feet away from Lenny in a cafe.