My first impressions of Prilep

Ciao! I'm Roberto Cascio, I'm 28 years old and I will be involved in an EVS program in Prilep for the next three months.

I graduated in Philosophy at the University of Palermo and one day I hope to be a teacher, because I really like working with children and young people. Maybe my dream will come true, sooner or later!

Since I have arrived in Prilep at the beginning of October, I was amazed by the beauty of this place: surrounded by stunning mountains, Prilep is a very nice town, with a centre where you can find a lot of interesting monuments that show the old and the new history of Prilep. The clock tower, the old bazaar and the destroyed mosque describe a town where through the years lived different ethnics. This caused problematic situations in the past, but now it seems to be overcame.

I had the opportunity to see different events and monuments and I would like to share them with you, from my particular point of view.

For example, there is a manifestation for the 11th October, in order to celebrate the revolution against Nazism and Fascism, that occurred in 1941 and started in Prilep. It was extremely interesting, showing the proud of Macedonian people and their determination to remember that important moment of history. If you are interested in history you should visit the small 11th October Museum, where collections of weapons, photos and military tools are exposed in two flats; possibly you will have some difficulties due to the banners written only in Macedonian, but it is still worth going there.

On Sunday morning, when almost nobody is in the centre, I joined the liturgy in one of the wonderful churches of Prilep. The atmosphere is the following: most of the time people chant and, even if you don't understand a single word, you can catch the holiness of the moments and discover how this community finds itself and stays bonded to its traditions.

The most difficult thing for a foreigner is obviously the language. Sometimes it is not enough to say ''Zdravo'', ''Piva'', ''Kade Toalet?'' and this could bring you some issues, especially because not everybody speaks English. So often in restaurants or pubs you are involved in a decrypt operations from the Cyrillic alphabet and, this sometimes works, but sometimes you just take one random stuff from the menu. However, Macedonian people will help you, so you shouldn’t worry too much about it.

In conclusion, I really hope to have great time here in Prilep, and learn more and more about the Macedonian culture. Чао!