So as already mentioned in my "Posh Corps" post, I definitely lucked out with Montenegro - at least so far. As for my host family, I got pretty lucky there, too - although all of us seem to have scored as no one has had any real complaints to date.
I'm living with a retired couple - Zhivorad (Zhika) and Lyilina (Leela). He is a retired Orthodox priest (!) and she is a retired banker. Zhika makes his own wine, which is great, and Leela is a good cook - altho the cuisine here in general is VERY light on the spices side. Like most Montenegrins, they LOVE meat, but luckily they don't eat it on Wednesdays and Fridays so I get a break then. Here's a pic:
I'll talk more about the religious conflicts here later (in the Balkans?? can you believe it??), but, I guess somewhat understandably, as a Serb and as a retired Orthodox priest, Zhika has some, er, rather "uncharitable" views on Muslims. I made the mistake of mentioning I was glad to be living in a household that eats bacon and he used that to get a dig in on the "crazy" Muslims (5 of the 7 of us live with Muslim families). But they're both good people.
A couple weeks ago he asked me the dreaded, "What religion are you?" question, but I was relieved they seemed to take it okay when I said none and I quickly followed up with a story about how difficult it was (confession: it wasn't that difficult) when I was young and would go with my Grandma - who was 7th Day Adventist - to church on Saturdays while my friends were out playing, and then THEY would be in church when I was ready to play on Sundays. They had heard of 7th Day Adventists, but didn't have anything to say about them one way or the other.
This past Saturday at dinner he told me it was a day of remembrance for their loved ones who have passed. In addition to the usual prayer before dinner, he lit a candle and also some incense and chanted and sang before we sat own to eat.
My very first night with them, their daughter was down from Podorica to help with settling in and translating (she speaks excellent English, they speak none). They asked what I had been doing before Peace Corps, so I explained what an Intensive Therapeutic Foster Parent was, started talking about Roy, and proceeded to cry a bit missing the little monster. This caused the daughter to cry a little in sympathy, and when she translated, Leela teared up a bit while Zhika put his hand on his heart and said I was a good Christian. Probably the first time I've been called that! :)
Since then, we use google translate as I struggle to pick up the language, and it works pretty well on the whole, although there was a fun moment some weeks ago when Leela chattered away at my phone, hit a button that switched it to another language by mistake and when she handed it to me, the English translation read simply, "I'll kill you." It took me awhile to stop laughing while they looked confused before I was able to explain what happened. Huge laughs from Leela over that! :)
They both like me, have told the daughter (who came for dinner last Sunday) they are fond of me, etc. They adored their first volunteer, Bonnie, from year before last, but last year they were stuck with, in Leela's words, "a fat policeman" who was a bust and didn't complete his service. I think they were "surprised" that a police officer could not handle Peace Corps. Me, not so much. Lol.
As I think I mentioned, our house is barely a 10 minute walk from the beach, I have a sea-facing balcony overflowing with a large purple bougainvillea, and their driveway has a trellis overhang covered in grapes, along with a few mandarin trees next to the driveway, flowers, and pepper plants.
We are in a collection of small villages that are in the Bar metropolitan area. Bar is the 5th largest city in Montenegro, with just under 20,000 people, and about double that in the metropolitan area. While all of us are within a couple of miles of the school where we do training, we're techincally spread among 4 different villages. Mine is a more or less straight shot down the mountain from the school, and a 30 minute walk home. I don't walk TO school, because, as mentioned, it's up the mountain from me. Steep. I need to try to figure out the difference in elevation.
The streets are very narrow and very twisty and riding in the van to school each morning is just this side of a thrill ride with blind turns and frequent stops/manuevering if/when two cars approach in opposite directions and need to squeeze by each other. We're all amazed that we have not seen - let alone been in - any accidents. Reverse jinx! EDIT: Literally the morning after I typed this first draft, as we were headed to school, some dumbass came down the mountain on a blind curve in the middle of the road and our driver had to swerve to the right where - LUCKILY - there was a rare bit of a shoulder on the side of the road. Had we been less than 100 yards further up the road, we would have careened off the side of the mountain and tumbled down a sheer cliff. Fun times!
No comments:
Post a Comment