k o m c Magazine c n v e i s d o n i a
Christmas Edition
Content 1.Christmas in Macedonia Sara Gorgieva 2.Impressions from youth excange in Turkey Nade Zhevairovska 3.Democracy and Human Rights for youth Vladimir Gjorgjievski 4.Youth excange in Gaziantep-Turkey Toni Dimovski 5. Human Rights Youth Exchange in Gaziantep Nebojsa Dimitrovski
Christmas in Macedonia Most Christians in Macedonia belong to the Orthodox Church and so Christmas is celebrated on January 7th (Orthodox Church use the 'Julian' Calendar for their festivals). Christmas celebrations really start on 5th January which is called 'Kolede'. On this day people, especially children, like to go carols singing around their neighbors. They are given fruits, nuts and coins. When the singing has finished people gather around big bonfires. They are sometimes held in parks where hundreds of people can go to see them. Others like smaller events where the local community comes together. Lots of traditional food is eaten. At the end of the night a special Christmas bread which has a coin baked in it is passed around. Everyone takes a piece and if you find the coin you’ll get luck for the next year (and you might also have to host the bonfire the next year!).
On Christmas Eve (6th January) people look forward to the special Christmas meal that will be eaten in the evening. The meal is called 'posna' and traditionally contains no dairy, meat or animal products. Dishes might include nuts, fresh and dried fruits, baked cod or trout, bread, kidney bean soup, potato salad, Ajvar (red-pepper dip), Sarma (cabbage leaves stuffed with rice and spices) and pickled vegetables. Coin bread or Christmas Cake with a coin in it is eaten at the end of the meal.
Christmas Eve is also when the traditional oak yule log, called a 'badnik', is brought into the house and is lit (the Christmas Eve meal is also sometimes called 'badnik dinner'). Houses are also often decorated with oak branches and Christmas Trees are popular. There's sometimes straw either on the floor or under the tablecloth. On Christmas Day (7th January) most Christians go to a Church service and then come home to eat a large Christmas feast! There’s the traditional Christmas Day greeting “Hristos se rodi” or “Христос се роди!” (Christ is born) to which you reply “Navistina se rodi” (He truly is born!).
In Macedonian Happy/Merry Christmas is 'Sreken Božik' (Среќен Божик). The big Christmas Day meal might include different roasted meats, cheese pies, salads and lots of bread, cakes and sweets. Christmas celebrations often last for another three days after Christmas Day.
Impressionsfrom fromyouth youthexchange exchangeinin Impressions Gaziantep,Turkey Turkey Gaziantep, After the youth exchange in Poland (you can read my impressions from there in the November’s issue of the magazine) which was amazing, we had a lot of fun and I have wonderful memories from there and I was still feeling the excitement, the energy, the rush in my blood and the feeling that I can conquer the world if I put my mind to it so I wanted to prolong all those feelings and I saw the call for participants for the youth exchange in Gaziantep, Turkey and the topic was “Democracy and Human rights� and I was like this could be a great chance to do exactly that and besides I already had some experience in this topic from 2 training courses and 1 youth exchange that were connected to the core of this one so I applied and the president of Association Pavel Satev put me as a leader of the Macedonian team. Before going I was a bit more nervous and stressed since this time I had more obligations and responsibilities compared to the times when I was participant but I think I raised into the occasion and completed and organized everything well and even before we went to Turkey the organizer of the
exchange complemented me for the great work before coming there. So the 20 November came and the 7 of us meet at the airport in Skopje and even we had chance to get to know each other better since our flight was delayed because of the fog, but luckily the fog disappeared and we embarked on our flight from Turkish Airlines to Istanbul and then to Gaziantep. We arrived there at night and the organizer was waiting for us with a van that took us to the 4 stars hotel Buyuk Velic, then we split into rooms and had our first traditional and delicious Turkish dinner. In the morning we met with the other participants that were coming from Italy, Croatia, Romania, Lithuania and of course Turkey and the exchange officially started with a name game and the next days were filled with energizers, workshops, discussions, simulations, role plays, watching movies connected with human rights and democracy, team work activities and some of my favorite activities were discussing some court decisions from Turkey, sharing our countries situations and problems regarding to minorities and majorities and our own experiences, creating a solutions for their problems, electing a mayor for Gaziantep where we worked on a campaign and the Macedonian candidate won thanks to his Macedonian team of course (although officially there were equal votes
for 2 of them, but one of the people that voted admitted after that he put one more paper inside the box, so our candidate is the moral winner). We also had a lot of organized trips to the museums, zoo, city center, bazaar, castle, university and my personal favorite Rumkale where we first took a boat from where we enjoyed in the breathtaking views of the nature, the fortress of Rumkale, the old Halfeti town who is currently submerged under the rising waters of the Birecik Dam, then mosque of Halfeti and the new Halfeti relocated above the rising waters of the Birecik Dam with houses trickling down a hillside above the Euphrates river and walked on the longest and scariest bridge that I’ve seen in my life and one interesting fact is that the Turkish tv series Karagul (Black Rose) is filmed in Halfeti and as the sun was setting we finished the boat tour with a party on the deck where we were listening and dancing on a Turkish music On the other nights we had intercultural evenings where we tasted traditional food and drinks from all the countries, we learned some of their customs, traditions, words, songs and dances. For our Macedonian night we brought ajvar, smoki, different kinds of sweets and of course a lot of alcohol such as Rakija, white wine, red wine and different types of beers.
We showed the others the videos from Macedonia Timeless and they were mesmerized by its beauty, we read some interesting facts about our country and had quiz where the ones who got the right answers received magnets that we brought with us and then we danced and sang a traditional song called “Makedonsko devojce” and after we showed them a faster and more fun dance called “Pajdusko oro”.
After the official part of the intercultural nights came the unofficial one which we sometimes used it for parties in our working room where we sang and danced until the morning or going in the night club that was in the hotel, playing cards or simply sitting in one of the rooms and talk, joke, laugh and have fun. I would have never guessed that 15 days can just pass so fast but they did and I’m so glad that I was part of this youth exchange where I met a wonderful people, learned a lot of new things about human rights and democracy, broaden my horizons, experienced and lived in a different environment and culture, tasted a lot of the traditional and delicious, a bit too spicy and hot for me at least, Turkish food like lahmacun, pilav, doner, kofte, gozleme our favorite flatbread and the famous Turkish delight baklava with pistachios which Gaziantep is known for and then of course we had a lot of Turkish tea and Turkish coffee.
At the end I’m truly grateful for all the effort and everything else the organizer and whole his team did for us, for the wonderful activities and excursions they prepared for us and for the new friends thanks to them I had a chance to meet and hang out. After landing in Skopje and resting for almost a week, usually I need a day or two to get back to normal, but this time I was drained and without an ounce of energy in me but I guess that’s good since I used every bit of it in Turkey to create an amazing memories that I will have with me for the rest of my life.
Democracy and Human Rights for youth There were two reasons why I decided to go on this Youth Exchange. First was the topic, which is especially interesting and important in my country. And the second is that I always enjoy to be with people from different places, cultures, religions and nations. Plus the city of Gaziantep was interesting for me to explore it, since is a city with big culture and its geographic place makes it especially interesting for me, cos it’s just 70 km’s from Syria and I wanted to learn more about this complex war situation. During our time there we were analyzing the situations about the Human Rights in all the countries from where the participants were coming, but we were especially focused on Turkey. I could see that Turkey has a lot to do in order to improve the situation with practicing the Human Rights, especially very obvious was the inequality between the man and women which puts the man in to the privileged position. Finally now I understand why and how the war in Syria happened, especially the role of Turkey in it.
We also had many excursions around the city where we visited many museums, so that helped us to learn about their tradition and culture. During the intercultural nights we were learning about the other countries (Croatia, Lithuania, Italy, Romania, Turkey) and we had a chance to try their traditional food and hear their traditional music. I am happy that I met so many interesting and clever people and this 2 weeks will have a special place in my heart.
Youth exchange in Gaziantep, Turkey This seminar, which is first for me, left me very deep impressions. In Gaziantep, I was able to meet people from Italy, Lithuania, Romania, Croatia, Turkey. Also, I met Nade, Aleksandra, Sara and Keti, members of the Macedonian delegation. This seminar was dealing with the human rights and democracy. Through the activities of this seminar, I met different cultures and I discovered many new things about the human rights and the democracy in the other countries. One of my favorite activities during the seminar was the "energizer." Also, a very interesting activity was the election for a mayor of Gaziantep, where part of the elective process was my friend, Vlade. The intercultural evenings were also an interesting activity, where the participants of each country were presenting the landmarks of their country through presentations, traditional dances and dishes. Through the organized walks, I was able to meet the culture and the cultural landmarks of Gaziantep.
My favorite one was the walk along the river bank of the river Euphrates in the area Mesopotamia, where the first civilizations were created. The moment I will never forget is the football match during our visit of the State University in Gaziantep. We were told that we were supposed to participate in a football match, so that we managed to create a team, contained of four boys and three girls. We were given the necessary equipment. When we got out on the playground, we could hear a powerful applause by 150 people. There were professional cheerleaders, as well. Unfortunately, we lost the match-the final result was 7:5 for our opponents. After the match, we found out that four girls from the opposite team were members of the Female Football Representation of Turkey.
Human Rights Youth Exchange in Gaziantep It was 2 weeks seminar in one of the most traditional and historical cities in Turkey – Gaziantep. Macedonian group from Pavel Shatev was well prepared and ready for this seminar. It was lovely experience because we were having the opportunity to meet people (also participants) from: Croatia, Italy, Romania, Turkey and Lithuania. Learning process was good and effective because we were having workshops and debate about actual problems concerning Human Rights in our countries and also globally. Regarding to the learning process we also worked on a project “How to make Gaziantep better if we were Majors of the city”. In this case we prepared as a political party who care about society, citizens and life of everyone in the city. We were not having a lot of knowledge about the city, but our creativity thrives us to make good projects. After making this project we got invitation from the Director of the state university in Gaziantep (one of the biggest and well respected university in Turkey).
We were honored to be part of this university for one day. It was fun being part of other university and playing sports together with our colleagues. I was truly positively surprised from the hospitality of the organizing NGO in Turkey. Speaking about traveling in Gaziantep we had the chance to visit many places to Gaziantep. We went to Zoo, museums, Rumkale, Bazar, City center etc. Traveling abroad is nothing if you don’t taste traditional food, in this case we had luck to be in Syrian neighborhood which provide us to taste Syrian and Turkish traditional cuisine. I strongly recommend youth exchange as a way to learn and travel to every young and ambitious person in Macedonia.
The magazine was created in cooperation with EVS volunteers in Association Pavel Satev- Kocani and eWorld Community Association Pavel Satev- Kocani Karl Marks 64 2300 Kocani
December 2015
Editors Sara Gorgieva Filip Vojnovski http://organizationpavelsatev.blogspot.com/ pavelsatev.org.mk