Your Woman in Skopje

Letters from Macedonia, 1995-1999

DIANNA M. PORTER was born and raised in Butte, Montana. She has worked for decades in the field of agingin research, education and training, direct services, public policy, and advocacy. In Macedonia, from fall of 1995 through 1999, she was under contract with the U.S. Agency for International Development to provide technical assistance to the government of Macedonia on social security and private pension reform. There, she welcomed rich opportunitiesto visit crossroads of ancient cultures and countries throughout the region, observe elections and other events in the life of a very young democracy, participate in social traditions of ethnic communities, and of course dance the oro. Then, events in Kosovo pushed hundreds of thousands of refugees across borders and a reluctant little country into the worlds attention. . . .