Staging/Orientation Fun

Again this blog does not reflect any of the views of the Peace Corps organization, purely my own.

We just finished up orientation/staging at a small mountain lodge with an amazing view. After some late night ping pong with the locals at the hotel and lots of late night cramming, we survived. We had an intense week of learning the policy ropes, studying some of the cultural differences between Bulgaria and the U.S., and briefly taking in some language lessons (Bulgarski is definitely more challenging than the romance languages for an English speaker, so this will be quite a trip).

I’m getting a little ahead of myself. The trip from D.C. to Bulgaria itself was quite a trip. We flew Lufthansa, so everything was in German with English translation. This isn’t the first time my 1001 Deutsche Klasse came in handy though, just wait and see. After 7 ½ or 8 hours when we landed in Frankfurt, they were experiencing some inclement weather. We had expected to go from sunny sixty degree DC to sunny sixty degree Sofia, Bulgaria. Surprise, less than 30 degree, snowy Frankfurt! If they didn’t have the best service and show Juno on the flight, I might have been disappointed with Lufthansa for taking us there.

You might be wondering about the pictures I’ve posted. Well, they are photos of the celebration that we enjoyed on Thursday night. We saw a dance troupe dance the Horo, which is a traditional Bulgarian dance that people do at weddings, family events, and in their homes. Although most people don’t dress that way; those are traditional costumes. Everyone got up and tried it later, and some of us tried the more challenging ones. Later over ping pong, I met one of the Bulgarian girls who worked at the hotel bar and found out that she worked at the Wisconsin Dells for a summer before returning to Bulgaria. Small world, eh?

Anywho, so after the more sheltered experience of learning Bulgarian amongst Americans, we went to our training site where we met our host families. My host mother is Emilia. Her sister in law that lives upstairs is also Emilia. Yup, there’s three of us with (almost the same name). Since Emilia and her brother Rumen, who helped pick me up from the training site, don’t speak any English, we relied on gestures and my very little Bulgarian to entertain ourselves on the ride. Oh yeah, and that 1001 German helped also since Rumen spoke about as much German as I did.

Not being able to express oneself can be frustrating and at times scary. Like the first night when I locked myself in my room on accident and Emilia told me instructions on the other side to help me get out. Only they were in Bulgaria. It was confusing, but I think it makes for a good metaphor. A lack of a way to communicate can make you feel trapped (and for the clumsy ones among us, literally may keep you that way). Luckily for us, we can get by more and more each day, and there will be many, many hours of classes to help us prepare.
I miss everyone very much, and I hope everything is going well!