Welcome to Macedonia Part One
By Alex Lambevski
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Blogs are as varied as the people who write them. Read on, and be enlightened |
Knock knock. Someone's at your front door. A lady dressed in brightly coloured robes stands alone in front of your house. You open the door to discover that she has many treasures for sale. She leads you to her cart, where she has set up all of her belongings. Her struggling donkey begs you for food and water, but abruptly stops when the woman yells at it. You make your selection and gladly pay the lady. Feeling proud about your purchases, you head back into your home. When you make your way to the backyard, you realize all your ducks and chickens are gone, your vegetable garden ransacked and the rest of your picket fence tops have disappeared. You have just been swindled by Gypsies. Welcome to the life in the village.
Village life is not for everyone. The above story is a common one in villages all over Macedonia. These tips will help you fit right in with the village lifestyle.
Joining the Hunt
The first thing you must do if you want to hunt with the men of the village is increase your alcohol tolerance as much as possible. These guys are drinking moonshine like its Kool-Aid before the hunt, and if you can’t keep up, they’ll let you hear about it.
It’s important to remember, when mixing booze with hunting, to fight the inevitable lean when you’re firing. Be warned, if your tolerance has not been brought up to the proper standards, it will show when trekking through the forests and when driving the ATV. When the first animal is shot, the men take it back to the village to be spit roasted–and to have a couple more drinks, of course.
Stepping Up Your Tractor Game
In the city, everyone is worried about what kind of car they drive. They buy expensive sports cars or a jeep that looks like a helicopter inside. This means nothing in the village. All that matters there is what kind of tractor you have in the shed. Red, green, blue or yellow, it doesn’t matter. What does matter, however, is whether it’s a John Deere or not. If it's not a John Deere, the men in the village will not consider it a tractor, and are likely to laugh at you. In order to gain the respect of the villagers, you must parade around the village in your John Deere at least once a week. If you do not have a John Deere, don't even bother parading around the village. You are like a young girl running late, you're not ready yet.
Coop Control
Now, in Macedonia, many of the village elders spend time in their yard, keeping an eye on their chickens. These guys are old, and the good ones usually sit on their chair all day and make sure their chickens don't walk out through the open gate. Instead of getting up every time a chicken is headed out of the yard, they will shoot the ground in front of it with a slingshot. Chickens tend to have second thoughts about crossing the road when someone starts shooting rocks at them.
“Why not just close the gate?” you might be thinking. You see, the trick is to leave your gate open so other people's chickens wander into your yard. Chickens get loose in the village all the time; they always manage to escape their masters. Once they enter your yard, you have just inherited another chicken. Most chickens look the same and another villager will rarely accuse you of thievery.
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