Hi Everyone!

It's been again about a month since my last e-mail, and I have had another lifetime of experiences since then. After working at a summer camp in town for 2nd graders, my Bulgarian skills have improved because of the necessity to know commands like "repeat!" "sit down" "be quiet" and other ways to keep their attention. At the same time, I helped coach my first Bulgarian baseball game in excruciating noon heat, so I think my team will be eager to play again (but at a more reasonable time of day).

A few weeks after that I helped out at an international English camp in a city on the Black Sea, which was an exhausting great time. The students were very enthusiastic, and I gained experience teaching the oldest students. I got to know my collegues better and I know that I can count on them for Bulgarian questions and intercultural support.

I've seen a lot of Bulgaria in the past few days because from the Black Sea I went to the capital city where I had to have my yearly check-up. I miss the rolling hills and the mountains in the center and west, and there's still so much of this country that I want to get to know.

I'm establishing a good relationship with my next-door neighbor, whose husband is sick. She's always going back and forth to the hospital to visit him. It makes all of the little challenges that we go through seem much less serious when keeping health in perspective. I hope everyone back home is doing well and I think about you often.

The pictures above are from the camp that I worked at, and the activities are as follows:
Me with the director after the talent show, my students presenting about the greenhouse effect at the eco night, the Mr. and Miss Camp competition talent section where contestants had to dance on a piece of paper and fold it in half and dance again and again-a hilarious Romanian game, the make-up contest, and the sunrise on the Black Sea.

Write me back!
Thanks,
Emily

E Taka...

Hi all!
Sorry I haven't written again in oh, say over a month, but I just went
through the transition from training to site, so now I live on the
other side of Bulgaria in a medium town just waiting to get to know
people. My apartment is roomy (plenty of room for me, my landlady who
occasionally stays there, the mold in the kitchen and the couple of
cockroaches that live with us) in a great location-just across the
street from the police station! Other highlights are the picture of
Abba in my closet and the beautiful view of town (if you look just to
the left and right of the apartment next door).

Seriously though, I know that I will like it here. I've made friends
with the teachers at my school and I inherited some of the
contacts/friends of the previous volunteer. I will have to get his
baseball team up and running again, but so far so good. Many people
know me already because I was interviewed on the day of our swearing
in ceremony (speaking in Bulgarian-eek!) and it made the Bulgarian
national news. Everyone in my town perked up when they heard that I
was coming here.

Luckily before I left, I had the chance to visit a few more amazing
mountains on that side of the state and see the Rila Monastery, which
is the largest, most beautiful monastery in the country. I also
visited the waterfall in a nearby village where some volunteers were
staying and had time to learn to cook some important Bulgarian dishes
before leaving. When I tried to cook since coming here I've only
kinda burned things a little and managed to make some of the things my
baba made with much more experience and skill. I have begun tutoring
and I realized (although I tested above the required level) that my
Bulgarian could still use quite a bit of work. I will keep you posted
as more exciting things happen, but I wanted to let you know that I'm
alive and loving it.

Also, these are pictures of me with my host mom in the mountains and the Kukeri Festival, which is a pagan holiday that ancient
Bulgarians celebrated by wearing scary masks to bring good luck and
ward off the evil spirits that made people sick when the weather
changes. Then there's the very elaborate festival that the
kindergarten in my training site presented. It was so cute, and very
impressive. Finally, there's a picture from our horo dance group
(traditional Bulgarian dancing).

Please write me back!
Emily
These views do not reflect the views of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.

Wooden Spoons, Why Not?

This blog does not reflect the views of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.

Zdrasti! I feel like a lifetime has passed since coming to Bulgaria because of how much has been going on. I found out my permanent site after training and had a visit last week. I will be an English literature teacher ( I have a lot of reading to do) at a language school in a medium sized town in Bulgaria. I will miss the beautiful mountains of my training site and of course my host family, but it seems there will be no shortage of things to do in my future site. I will soon have an address for you to send mail to, and since my birthday is coming up in July (cough: hint: cough) you will be able to send packages at that point.

I alluded to my site being busy earlier, and I think this deserves some clarification. I will inherit a baseball team. No joke. The current volunteer taught the 8th grade students how to play baseball and they've been a traveling team under his coaching for the past two years. I have no special talent for baseball and I don't even know how baseball stats work, but I guess that's what Peace Corps is about-stretching yourself to try new things. P.S. Eric, Ryan, Craig, anybody who can give me advice, that would be great. I also have received a lot of interest from the girls in my classes to help them start a dance camp. It was cute and actually hilarious when one girl came up and asked me to teach her hip hop. I think I would have to learn first.

So we were gone for about a week traveling to the permanent sites and returned to our host families just in time for May 24 and high school graduation. May 24 is Bulgarian language and culture day, otherwise known as Cyril and Methodius Day, the creators of the Cyrillic/Bulgarian alphabet and language. Students had a parade and there were a lot of events for the graduates, such as a procession and a prom-like dance. It's also a tradition that the graduates drive through town counting 1,2,3, up to twelve and cheering. They've been doing that pretty much all week long. Tomorrow we will have a lesson in a nearby town, so I have to get ready for it.

Oh I almost forgot to tell you about my strangest day hiking in the countryside yet. Everything was great on the way up, but you know me, afraid of heights and all, so on the way down it was more tricky, there were a lot of dead leaves on the ground and we didn't really have a path, so I fell four times at the end where all the 50+ Bulgarians were waiting, laughing hysterically. Don't worry I didn't bruise more than my pride, but I did manage to rip a giant hole in the crotch of my jeans. After that we went to a village looking for cold water when a woman invited us into her home. She basically had a museum of a traditional Bulgarian home-complete with scary mannequin. I was feeling better and she was incredibly friendly when we left, especially when she gave me a set of wooden spoons because I said I was moving further away. We then got a ride to the bus stop in a horse-drawn cart. I love Bulgaria.

There, I've written a lot, complete with pictures of the Roman ruins behind my house (for Joni!) and I expect a snippet back. That's all I ask.

I wish you health, happiness, and luck
желая ви здраве щастие и късмет
Емили
Emily

Burzo, burzo Nyama Vreme! Hurry, hurry no time!

I believe I haven't written in a while, so I'll try to catch you up to speed. First of all, we got internet in my house! Very exciting, and I don't know if it takes away from the Peace Corps experience or not, but it will certainly help me keep in touch.

Second, there was Easter holiday in Bulgaria at the end of April. It was kind of strange because most Bulgarians aren't very religious, except maybe the older generations, yet many people celebrate Easter quite seriously. Part of the tradition is to go to church the night before Easter and circle the church three times with a candle and a priest. If it goes out, you will have bad luck/bad health/bad something. I went but didn't circle anything. It was very historic, almost mystical inside. The more important part of the holiday for most Bulgarians is the food. Bulgarians dye Easter eggs, like Americans do, and later on Easter morning they have competitions by knocking two eggs together. Whoever's egg isn't cracked wins. Almost all families eat Kozunak, which is a fluffy sweet bread that my Baba made at home. It was pretty amazing, and she made six loaves for five people (me, Baba, my host mom, and her son, Sasho, and daughter, Rali, who came home from Sofia for the vacation), so we were eating it like it was going out of style. It is also typical to eat lamb. I had previous enjoyed lamb, but this time it was more symbolic since they slaughtered the lamb in our yard on Easter. I don't eat meat anymore for various reasons.

So after Easter weekend, the citizens of Bulgarian had much of the week off, but we went back to lessons. I went hiking in this amazing park behind my house where Roman ruins still stand. Yup, in my backyard practically. It's kinda nuts. I also took a day trip to see other volunteers in a smaller site where I was able to have more of the Peace Corps experience, and I got to see a young calf, lots of sheep, chickens, rabbits, and of course the stray dogs that are everywhere. On my way back home, we stumbled upon a men's volleyball game that was mnogo (very) random and fun. The home team won and sent Sofia packing.

This week has been pretty busy with getting back to teaching and preparing for interviews. We had our site placement interviews this week, along with an oral language proficiency exam. It's hard to believe, but we are almost halfway through our training and will be moving to our permanent sites in a little over a month. Tonight was the 35th anniversary of the school where I'm training to teach, so there was a concert with a short film about the school and it's legacy, lots of musical acts (from Horo to techno) and mini-interviews with teachers on stage. Afterward, the teachers had a celebration at a local hotel. We had a great time, eating and dancing and eating and dancing. The teachers plotted to find me a boyfriend by Monday so that I could stay at their school. It's funny, but at the same time, not too uncommon to be set up once people find out that you are single. Even some of my American friends who have been here long enough start to try.

Tomorrow we will be having a cultural day with the Roma children in my town, so there's pickup basketball, football (soccer), and frisbee in store. On Sunday (weather permitting) I'm going to head out of the town for a day to help out at a friend's farm. It'll be a good way for me to stay occupied until we find out our placements on Monday. I'm also reading an interesting book called "Voices from the Gulag" about the concentration camps in Communist Bulgaria. It's interesting because it tells the story through accounts on all sides of the camp, prisoners, guards, doctors, and the director of the camps. It's also sad to see how the blame never really finds a home.

Okay, so now that I've written a small novel, write me back! Or I'll Fed-Ex stray dogs to you (we have plenty!)!!

Adventures

These views are my own and do not reflect the Peace Corps.

I knew that when I signed up for the Peace Corps I would try new things and learn more about myself as I struggled and adapted. I learned one very important thing about myself this weekend.

I should not be left alone in a kitchen, and especially not in a Bulgarian kitchen.

I am challenged in the cooking department. There, I admit it. This is not one of my strengths. I also made things worse by trying to prepare an American meal for my host family using Bulgarian ingredients and recipes that I’ve only “sort of” tried. It got to the point where my host mom put something back in the oven and I felt like I could never try it again. Not everything bombed, however. Aunt Claire, your recipe for deviled eggs is foolproof because it worked for me (aside from the fact that we have unnaturally large eggs in the U.S., which threw off the proportions a smidgen). However, my potato salad and lemon pepper chicken were disgusting, and the lack of baking chocolate turned my cake into toffee (not bad, but I’m glad I didn’t know how to tell them what I’d been trying to make for lack of a stronger vocabulary). I followed up the meal by nearly flooding the kitchen and calling it a day (since it took me about four hours to prepare the garbage that I served). My host mom and Baba were such troopers, though, I am incredibly lucky to have such supportive women living with me. They are also amazing cooks, so make some of it will brush off on me (fingers crossed).

Oh well, for the downs there are the ups. I’ve been able to use Skype (whohoo!) to communicate with my immediate family, so if anyone’s interested in getting it too, shoot me a message. I also had an amazing time last weekend hiking near the Struma River, where the day was long and temperate and there was no shortage of foliage, mountain views, and random animals to take pictures of (at one point we a boar following us). This week was busy with a prep class of teaching Bulgarian students and lots of Bulgarian lessons. This weekend we’ve done a tour of the city (all six of its museums), and I’ve had more time to interact with Bulgarians at Horo class (Bulgaria’s national dance: think Riverdance but slightly less intense). Once I get past introductions, I don’t have too much to say at this point but malko po malko (little by little) I’ll get there. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I didn’t know the Bulgarian alphabet two weeks ago.

Next week I teach my own class, yikes! 8^th grade English, wish me luck! Keep me posted on your whereabouts and wellbeing. Oh yeah, the pictures are from hiking and the tour around town. I particularly like the one where one of the hikers uses what looks like a machete to cut hard boiled eggs. That’s talent!

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!

Staging/Orientation

The views expressed in this blog do not represent the Peace Corps.

Also Staging went well in DC. I appreciate all of your supportive messages and will do my best to keep in touch. I had the opportunity to see my friends in the DC area yesterday and am becoming closer with the 38 others with which I'll be traveling. I'm learning a lot and keeping busy. I won't have internet access for the next couple of weeks and I have to condense my packing a bit before the international flight, so sorry if this is brief. I'm happy, healthy, and ready to start the adventure of a lifetime!

Also this is what it looks like here now. Yea for cherry blossoms.