Treskavec Monastery

Allow me to explain.

Yesterday, we worked, starting around 9am, digging up earth that'd been put in the monastery's courtyard but over time came to disrupt the water flow. I pushed a wheelbarrow and shoveled (albeit not terribly well). We moved a massive doghouse belonging to Bruno, a Saint Bernard about as big as I am. We occasionally drank Turkish coffee and smoked. We ate at 1 and 6, no meat except for fish, with lots of bread. Night came, and we held a small service in the church at 8; I just listened to the Slavic language roll around the church's stone walls, praying silently my own way. I then strolled outside and looked down from the mountain at the villages below: clusters of lights gathered like phosphorescent algae in the dark. I ended the night hanging out in a room heated by a stove, listening to the soundtrack of a Macedonian movie called "Before the Rain" as one man painted an icon of Saint Michael the Archangel and two other men played chess.

This is a place of heartbreaking beauty. I walked almost three hours to get to the nearby town, Prilep, for internet access, and I'll walk back along the same mountain path... the same path I got lost on two days ago, earning a sunburn and numerous scratches from thorns. But I had so much fun, climbing to the peaks of the mountains to find the path again, more mountain goat than American, stopping occasionally at the natural springs with icons of the Virgin Mary and little Jesus.

I'm learning a little of the Macedonian language, and my hosts are perpetually amazed at this. They are good people, some of them artists, some just working here to help at the monastery. Kallist, the monk, is one of the most fascinating people I've ever met. I haven't talked with him at length; I just like watching him: his hand gestures, listening to his voice, seeing his facial expressions. He is a man of intense charisma. Dressed in the traditional black cap and robe of an Orthodox monk, complete with large beard and bushy eyebrows, if he were angry he'd be terrifying. But when he smiles, it's like the whole room lights up. He is a man of joy. And -- thanks to Macedonian hospitality -- he's practically forbid me from buying food for the monastery... although I'm debating respectfully disobeying and sneaking some kind of fresh fruit into the kitchen when no one is looking.

It's easy to forget the place is on a mountain. But take just one step outside the monastery walls, and the view opens up so big that the head can't take it all in. The rolling hills and spines of mountains stretch out in incredible perspective. It's also easy to forget the world is so big.

It will be hard to rejoin the tourist throngs. It will be hard to leave this insulated, isolated place of peace. But... not yet. I'll stay at least a few days more, perhaps another week. So we can all rest easy for a bit, even as I get callouses on my hands from a shovel, or a vicious sunburn from a mountain too close to the sun, even as I am humbled by a fiercely proud people who believe in modern miracles.

I love you all.