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May. 6th, 2010 01:53 pmThere's nothing more difficult, IMO, than communicating on the phone in a foreign language. I'd braved the obstacle some time ago, as far as calling a taxi was concerned, but today I called Slavica -- currently at Irene's flat -- and told her to please go down to my place and close the balcony door, because there's an epic thunderstorm coming on. Yes, I'm really glad I've been studying so hard, because now I'm reaping the benefits.
I'll have another day off tomorrow. Long weekends are addicitive, I can tell you. Boss will be on holiday for almost 2 weeks (from 10 till 20 May), and things might become a tad stressful, so getting a bit of rest beforehand is certainly a good thing.
I only hope things won't become stressful in a bad way -- the political situation isn't exactly encouraging. Last week there was a shootout between the police and, well that's the question, who were they? Ministry of Interior keeps claiming that it was all about common criminals hiding behind the identity of a group of political activists, but considering the bad interethnic climate right now, that seems hardly credible.
In 2001, when Macedonia was on the brink of a civil war, the so-called NLA (National Liberation Army, of Albanian origin) was fighting the regular army. The Albanian acronym for NLA is UCK, and the weapons cache the police discovered -- confiscating the weapons had been the goal of the police operation, but the people guarding them opened fire -- had lots of UCK-labelled containers. Plastic explosive, mortars, anti-aircraft, mines, automatic weapons -- you name it. Ammunition, too, of course. Now, everybody knows that there's a lot of illegal weapons in this country, but such a large arsenal *is* a reason for worry, especially at a time like this. So the common-criminal theory doesn't really hold.
Of course the government, esp. the Prime Minister, keep ignoring the rising frustration and fury of the Albanians. Not enough with that, they even continue to provoke. Planning a mad project like "Skopje 2014", which will cost hundreds of millions of Euros, would be bad enough, given the catastrophic state of their budget. Planning it without consulting the Albanians but using tax money that is also theirs would be even worse, but still tolerable. Planning to fill the city centre with statues of Macedonian heroes and not dedicating at least one monument to a hero of Albanian origin, and then offering them 3 statues with bad grace, isn't good either. But putting up the first two statues of Goce Delcev and Dame Gruev, saluting the Vodno cross and with the horses' rear ends looking towards the Albanian part of the city, is very bad taste indeed. And so the needling continues, and one day it's going to be too much, and then...
Well, let's just hope that greed will triumph. There's no point in hoping that common sense might get the upper hand. But losing the chance to become a member of the EU, which means a very large amount of money, just might do the trick. Or so we all hope.
I'll have another day off tomorrow. Long weekends are addicitive, I can tell you. Boss will be on holiday for almost 2 weeks (from 10 till 20 May), and things might become a tad stressful, so getting a bit of rest beforehand is certainly a good thing.
I only hope things won't become stressful in a bad way -- the political situation isn't exactly encouraging. Last week there was a shootout between the police and, well that's the question, who were they? Ministry of Interior keeps claiming that it was all about common criminals hiding behind the identity of a group of political activists, but considering the bad interethnic climate right now, that seems hardly credible.
In 2001, when Macedonia was on the brink of a civil war, the so-called NLA (National Liberation Army, of Albanian origin) was fighting the regular army. The Albanian acronym for NLA is UCK, and the weapons cache the police discovered -- confiscating the weapons had been the goal of the police operation, but the people guarding them opened fire -- had lots of UCK-labelled containers. Plastic explosive, mortars, anti-aircraft, mines, automatic weapons -- you name it. Ammunition, too, of course. Now, everybody knows that there's a lot of illegal weapons in this country, but such a large arsenal *is* a reason for worry, especially at a time like this. So the common-criminal theory doesn't really hold.
Of course the government, esp. the Prime Minister, keep ignoring the rising frustration and fury of the Albanians. Not enough with that, they even continue to provoke. Planning a mad project like "Skopje 2014", which will cost hundreds of millions of Euros, would be bad enough, given the catastrophic state of their budget. Planning it without consulting the Albanians but using tax money that is also theirs would be even worse, but still tolerable. Planning to fill the city centre with statues of Macedonian heroes and not dedicating at least one monument to a hero of Albanian origin, and then offering them 3 statues with bad grace, isn't good either. But putting up the first two statues of Goce Delcev and Dame Gruev, saluting the Vodno cross and with the horses' rear ends looking towards the Albanian part of the city, is very bad taste indeed. And so the needling continues, and one day it's going to be too much, and then...
Well, let's just hope that greed will triumph. There's no point in hoping that common sense might get the upper hand. But losing the chance to become a member of the EU, which means a very large amount of money, just might do the trick. Or so we all hope.
