Into the NIght

Greetings from Golden, CO. I am in one of my favorite coffee shops, catching up on emails, chatting with friends and beginning my applications for jobs in DC. I am applying to be a Fellow and they want to know my region. So here's my question. Right now, my permanent address is in Colorado, but I am moving to the DC area. What address do I use? They do everything regionally so I am thinking I just say my new DC address (even though I don't know what it is). I feel like I would have a better chance as a candidate from Colorado, but I want to be honest.

My transition back to the States has been an adventure. I feel like I have so many people to connect with and honestly thought I would have more time to work on my applications to various jobs. We'll see how the rest of the week goes. My days and evenings are full of visits. While it is wonderful to catch up, it is exhausting! I am also experiencing some open-mouth-insert-foot moments. My senses are on overload, even though my surroundings are very familiar.

I wish you a happy new year and I will post more often, I promise!

Simply Being Loved

Let me tell you about my last 24 hours in Skopje. I had to get dressed in a full suit because we were hosting the discussion on CEDAW. I get to work, then leave for the hotel with Boban where our discussion will take place. We get everything set up and then the participants start to arrive. I am the registration person, which is great, minus my command of Macedonian. At the mid-way point, I ask Asya if I can go since my translation is going in and out and I need to finish packing. No problem, I go home pack and decide to run the dishwasher because I do not have enough time to wash all the dishes. My dishwasher proceeds to CATCH ON FIRE! Scary!!! We couldn't get to the fire to put it out without ripping the entire sink unit away from the wall. There was no fire extinguisher, either in my apartment or in the hallway. Eventually, I get the fire out with the help of Vlatko and Igor. Igor called the fire brigade and they would not come because they needed me to call them. Igor explained that I was fighting the fire and only spoke English, but apparently, they still needed to speak to me. I called the fire brigade myself and they could not understand English. In the end, we did not need the fire brigade, but my goodness, it was so stressful and scary. I had to argue with my landlady and Vlatko a bit about getting some of my rent deposit back and receiving it in Euros as opposed to denars, then off to dinner with my colleagues.

We had a fantastic dinner with my colleagues, although I think Igor and I were still in shock. Igor and I stayed at Dominika and Daniele's flat because I had already moved out of mine. We then woke up at 3 in the morning to take get ready and had the car service pick us up to take us to the airport. The driver was so nice - he dropped Igor off at his place for free on the way back from the airport. The driver even hung out for a long time in the airport so Igor and I could be together while we waited for my flight to board. Eventually, I said a tearful goodbye to Igor and waited for the doors to go through immigration and security to open. Imagine my fantastic panic when the screen said "Final Boarding" for my fight, yet I could not get to the place where my plane was. I was assured my plane would wait for me with the Air Bulgaria guy telling me, "this is the Balkans. Your plane will wait for you." Yeah, but I only have an hour in Sofia and Bulgarians are not known for their customer service skills. In the end, I made all four of my flights and was happy to see Nona in her little red car, picking me up in Philly. I cried a bit on the flight between Paris and Chicago. I really did not get to ease out of Macedonia the way I had hoped. I am doing well here in Philly, but am still feeling overwhelmed. It is a process. The journey continues!

Step by Step

I am back in America and currently in Philly. While it is good to be back in my home country, I am sad I left Macedonia. I am still processing my experiences in Macedonia and missing all the wonderful people I met. Currently, I am hoping to get some much needed rest and trying to be calm about my next steps. I will go to Colorado soon, then to Chicago for a few days after the New Year, then on to DC. It is strange to think I will be living out of my suitcases for the next couple months. One of my friends offered to let me stay at her place in DC while I look for a job. I am hoping that I will find a great position quickly and am able to establish myself in America's capital city. I am nervous, yet excited. I am good at building relationships, not so good at being competitive. I enjoy meeting people from all walks of life and am hoping this is an asset. Here's to the next steps!

I will try to update you more frequently as I am able to reflect on my time. In the mean time, here is a toast to the Republic of Macedonia and all the generosity and hospitality offered to me!

Rhymes and Reasons

My love of Air_Bulgaria continues. As it turns out, I did not realize that putting my name on a waiting list for leaving on December 12th would mean that if a seat opened up, my tickets on the 15th would be canceled. So, imagine my surprise when I went to the office to say to take my name off the waiting list, I'll just leave the 15th and they tell me "oh those tickets on the 15th are canceled, you're leaving on the 12th". In all fairness, it was actually United who did the canceling, according to the agent here. Whatever. It is 2 days difference and now I can fly to Sofia as opposed to bus riding it. No more Balkan bus rides, for the time being. No woman sitting next to me, taking her teeth out and smoking! How I will miss these experiences...And in other bonus news, since the Air_Bulgaria guy here knows me, he said he'll check my bags through to Philly, even if they are over the 23 kilogram limit, within reason of course. That relieves me. Unfortunately, I don't have the last weekend here to buy souvenirs, wrap things up and just chill. I am now in a mad dash. Thankfully, everyone is very understanding of my situation is supportive. So, I will spend my 30th birthday in Philly, not Skopje. I won't be packing, I won't be crying because I am leaving...somehow I have to just get to 3:30 AM Friday morning when my car service picks me up to take me to Alexander the Great Airport in Skopje. Yes folks, 3:30 AM. I will take a grand total of 4 airplanes to get back to Philly! I didn't take that many to get to Africa! I don't have time to reflect on my time right now as I am in the process of preparing the materials for our CEDAW meeting on Thursday. Stapling, stuffing folders...let the joy commence!!

I Was Meant for the Stage

In my final weeks, I decided that we need an office rule where we address each other as "esteemed colleague" before addressing the other person. My supervisor likes my rule. I came up with it because of some of the protocols we are forced to deal with in our line of work. I am all about showing respect for people, especially individuals who excel and are well respected in their fields. But insisting on titles seems silly to me. Sure, I worked hard for my Masters, but I don't insist that all correspondence to me include my title after my name. In case you wish to give me a hard time about this, the correct letters are MSSP. I call people by their titles, like Dr., Congressman, Congresswoman, and even have the southern habit of calling people Ms. before their first name if they are my mentor (I have a couple mentors). It is just interesting to see how some people worry about these things more than others. I worked for a law firm during my college years and the attorneys signed everything, "very truly yours". Puleese. Nobody's fooled, especially opposing counsel. All this being said, courtesy and politeness are very important to have things run smoothly. I have noticed the general lack of ability to conduct meetings and hearings here leads to lots of frustrated and bored individuals. Parliamentary procedure is difficult to learn if you have never been exposed to it so I understand. Things will get better though!

Apologize

It has been waaaaaaay too long since my last update, but I have reasons. Please forgive me and read on. Upon assessing my financial and future job situation, plus the headache that is Air_Bulgaria and talking to my supervisor, I decided my best option for returning to the States was keeping my ticket in mid-December. I will be flying into Philly, staying until the 19th, then flying to Colorado, then returning to DC sometime after the first of the year. This decision has been one of the most difficult decisions of my life. This experience in Macedonia has been exciting, challenging, exhilarating and just plain different!

My Thanksgiving was spent having girls night with Dominika, Asya and Mattia (Dominika's 1 year old son - he liked being with the ladies). It was perfect and relaxing. No turkey and traditional food, but the spirit of the holiday was there - being thankful for what we have.

Today, I wrote a speech to discuss the CEDAW (Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women) Concluding Comments for Macedonia 3 years later - where we have been and challenges ahead. I will give you a little background so if you don't want to click the link, you have an idea what CEDAW does; however, I encourage you to read the actual link to the Concluding Comments - it isn't very long, just so you can see what I am working with. Basically, the Committee evaluates where a country is and where it needs to improve when it comes to gender equality. It looks not just at mandates, i.e. legislation and legal codes, but also implementation of mandates. I like the Concluding Comments format, which is basically here's what you did well, here's where you need to improve. So the Comments do not just focus on the negative, which is easy, but also looks at accomplishments. Granted, I have only looked at Macedonia's Comments, but this is my impression. As I noted a couple months ago, you won't find Concluding Comments with regard to the US because the US does not feel it needs to participate. It signed the treaty, but failed to ratify it so, basically, you have the Angora reporting, but not the self-anointed leader of the free world. By not ratifying the treaty, the US is not bound by its obligations, hence no reporting. What's wrong with this picture? So I am channeling my inner Obama and trying to write an inspirational speech of where we've been and where we are going...how we, as citizens, civil society, government entities and the international community can build on the current mandates and projects to achieve the goal of gender equality. We'll see how destroyed my draft gets, but it was a fun exercise none the less. If the person I wrote the speech for can channel their inner Obama (which I am convinced this individual does not have), we could maybe inspire some leadership in this department. Some people have charisma; others do not. I am not sure my level of charisma, but I think I have a bit...I just need to keep practicing writing speeches. I give good speeches, in my humble opinion, but writing them for others is a different issue because you have to write it for their delivery style. In this case, the delivery style is reading verbatim off a page, much different from my own. My dream is to one day not even need my note cards, which I barely look at.