WORK- IT'S WHAT WE DO!

Hi, this is Allan.

Kathy and I often get asked what it is, exactly, that we do?  It is a harder question than I thought to answer because our work changes, sometimes by the day.  Also, it is impossible to separate our work from our life here, so here is an attempt to give you an idea of what we do here in Gevgelija, Macedonia.  As for me:

I have been assigned to the Apollonia Foundation, a small but powerful 4-person NGO in Gevgelija.  This NGO was established by the owner of the Apollonia Hotel (and a casino), 10 years ago with the purpose of giving back to the community.   I work with my director, a project manager, and 2 part-time associates.  Apollonia focuses on 4 project areas; children with special needs, envionmental awareness for kids, promoting culture/art/literature and music, and encouraging volunteerism.  They also work in other areas such as refugee support, training, improvements in civil society and education.  Quite a lot for a small group.  To give you an idea how good they are, in 2016-2017 the foundation was successful in obtaining over $500,000 in grants to create a brand new special needs center, they also won grants as partners in providing project management services to other NGOs, improving a local park, including science in its environmental curriculum, and setting up a training center.  This, in one year.  I help where I can with my own grants, some longer-term planning and goal-setting, teacher training, design work for parks and civic structures, English language help and lots of bad jokes.  I work M-F in an office at the hotel with my co-workers, and 1 day each weekend with kids.  It is fun and I do lots of stuff I never thought I'd be doing.  The Peace Corps is good at taking people and tossing them into work that is completely different, often with success.

So, here I am on my way to work last January.  It snowed which is uncommon here.  My work is about a 5 minute walk from our door.  In the background is the city library and a half block behind that is our house.

Here is Miki one of the kids in our environmental program.  He is a happy kid

Pretty much always happy

I worked with Boise State University and CH2M HILL, Boise on new designs for 2 new parks in town.  One design is for a splash park - a new concept here.  We used a camera drone to take aerial footage for the BSU Engineering student design teams to work off of.  This collaboration was a new concept here for the Peace Corps as well and has worked out super great.  CH did some auto cad drawing work pro bono, BSU is using the design work as senior projects.

As part of our environmetal awareness, we learn about animals.  Here we are trying to ID a hawk.

I work on small design projects to suggest different ways to do stuff.  Here is a hand-sketch of a trash can that would be made using recycled pipe from a plastic pipe company here in town.

For the environmental outings, we pretty much always do a trash clean-up.  There is unlimited trash here.  

There are also unlimited excellent vegetables grown everywhere.  Here are spring cabbages.  Everything is local.   Macedonia has been doing farm-to-table long before it became trendy.  It works fine, but when veggies are in season, they come in torrents, and are dirt cheap.  Then, that one disappears to be replaced by the next veggie.  No storage, no trucking, just veggie torrents.

All is not just sweetness and veggies.  The Balkans have had a difficult history with many wars of their own, and other wars brought to them courtesy of others.  The memories are still prevalent, and so is other evidence.  There are still machine gun bunkers from WWI and II around the town and in some areas there are trenches.  More poignant, here is a German WWII helmet mounted on top of an old machine gun that is now used as a fence post.  Don't see this stuff back in Boise.  Kathy and I walk all over the place and see stuff like this.  History is cutomized here, everyone has their own version.   History is still a part of every-day life.  

I also get to talk at length with my Director over coffee.  The coffee here is excellent, and some of the waiters are artistic with it as well.  Here is the hotel logo.  My Director (Atse) has a lot of interesting ideas on improvements, I can't keep up, but try and take as many as I can and create a process to make them reality.  A process is also a bit of a new concept, but there is no shortage of things to work on here.  I really enjoy my work and collaboration with my project folks, PC staff and the support I get from the US, including many of you!  Come visit, see it for yourself and enjoy our beautiful coffee.  The tomato season torrent is about to begin, and it is awesome!
Al

 

Country Rhodes! (Well, country Greece, actually)

Hi, this is Allan.  We want to tell all you guys to get thee to Rhodes, if thee can!  It is a fine place, full of history, great sights, tourists, and terrific food.  What more could anyone want, except maybe fewer tourists?

But then - we are tourists too and here is our story.

Kathy and I just took a short trip to the island of Rhodes.  This is a large Greek island, in the Aegean sea a few miles off the coast of Turkey.  It has, like nearly all the islands in this area, been ruled by Ionians, Greeks, Romans, Persians, Byzantine Romans, a bunch of Knights, Turks again, then Greeks, then Turks, then Italians and most recently Greeks!  And, I left out a bunch of others.  Really it is ruled mostly by tourists, but bless 'em and who can blame 'em!?  Much of the current historic appeal relates to medieval construction of the Knights of St John, a group of free-lance (get it?) Church-sacntioned knights looking for a nice place to live and itching for a fight.  They, and knights from many other countries financed the construction of a large walled city, a large fortress palace, many coastal castles, and apparently many T-shirt shops.  They got their wish for fights with mostly the Turks, but also tussled with the Barberry pirates who provided a revenue stream by looting their ships after the pirates had looted merchant cargo.  The Turks, after a couple epic tries finally prevailed in taking Rhodes the mid-1500s.  It was fun while it lasted and the knights relocated to Malta and the cycle continued.  For those that could care less about history, here is what you can see when you visit.

Kathy in one of the old city squares, city walls in the background.  All squares have fountains probably built to collect Euros.   Quite beautiful really.  This square was closest to the B&B we stayed at and we went there every day.  Me for the bakery, Kathy to visit with some of the shop owners we talked to.

The walls and larger buildings had crests on them.  Here are Spain, the Knights of St John, France, and England.  

This is the Street of Knights, named due to the many meeting and living halls they built on this street.  People that spoke the same language of the represented country could stay there, and knightly business was conducted as well.  All the usual suspects are represented, but Spain and France really seemed to have cornered a lot of real estate based on the crests on the walls.   

Street of Knights.  Just behind the arch is an old church from the 14th C.

Of course, the coolest house in town belonged to the Grand Master.  And with a name like that, why not?  It is a fortified palace within the fortified city.  Here is the front door.

 Outside of the city walls is the new city, stuff built after the 1600's.  Here a light house built on an earlier harbor guard tower.  The round structures are old wind mills which  are along the coast and in many locations inland.  Wind power is still used in rural locations for pumping water.

A view from a gate in old city to one of the harbours.  

Everything was fortified which is why it took the Turks 2 huge tries to conquer the city.  Here is a part of the harbor defense, now just a picturesque backdrop to fishing boats.  

There are still several mosques in the old city, in use.  One interesting thing was that after the Turkish conquest, many churches were left alone which was part of a negotiated surrender.  After switching hands back, mosques still present.  

Old City at night.

 We took a drive all around the island.  We hiked up to a ruined cliff castle, Feraklos.  Great view from the old walls.  Kind of dicey getting up as the old road and path are gone too.

We stopped in Lindos on the SE side.  Everyone said to stop at this town and they were right.  It was Easter Day, and we stopped at an old church on the way in.  It was closed, but it had the best spot for an eternal rest.

Lindos.  White buildings, brown terrain, blue water.  Greece, right?!  This town has significant buildings still there that are ancient Greek, Byzantine, and somewhat more modern.

Best yet, it had a great cafe, great views, and great food.  Just in time for hungry tourists.  

Two hungry tourists.  Obligatory selfie.  Sorry!

On top of the hill above Lindos is an old Greek temple.  It was later fortified to protect the 3 harbors this town has.

On the N side of the island, the sea is rougher, but just as blue.  This is a pebble beach with rounded stones of remarkable colors.  These were and still are used for mosaics.  We hauled back stones as proof.

We stopped at another castle after seeing it from a stop at a roadside fruit and honey stand.  It is called Monolithos for good reason.  It is a ruined castle on a monolith.  Here is church from the 12th century on the rock.

Here is the ruined castle.  Had to hike up to it.  It was not taken, but eventually abandoned.   This was one of our favorite spots.

See why it was never taken?

 A handsome 15th C church along the way.  And, again, Lindos.  Our lunch at the cafe, and a view inside the main church in town.  This image is from the internet - no picture taking allowed which was strictly enforced by an angry Baba.  We have seen a lot of Orthodox churches, but this 14th C gem was amazing due to its murals, stone mosaic floors and some terrifying paintings or what Hell looked like in the Middle Ages.  Definitely no Michelin stars for that place and Hell looked to have poor customer service, too!

So - just our perspective of Rhodes.  We enjoyed the heck out of the visit, and visiting with everyone that would take a few moments to talk.  Still so much more to see and do.  Maybe next visit . . . 

Al