I have pictures!

Here are some pictures of my kindergarteners, the Valentine's dance competition that I helped judge and the snowfall. On February 13th one of the amazing volunteers in Razgrad, Abeth, organized a dance competition at her school including: modern, kiyuchek, ruchenitsa, biala rosa (horo) and break. The kids had numbers on their backs and every participant went on stage to dance, from goofy first grader to knee-high boots wearing twelfth grader. And the best part of being a judge is declaring an immediate dance-off. "You. You. Kiychek. 3 minutes. Wow me."

 

Smeeli eating breakfast.

 

It's hard to get Dobi's natural smile because whenever I take out the camera this is his go-to expression.

 

Princess and Prince.

 

The princesses posing.

 

Dancing the kiyuchek.

 

Crowning the princess.

 

 

My gate- see how high the snow is!

 

The outhouse in the back of my house. How many of you can say you have an outhouse?

 

My snowman!

 

Mariana and Zhivko working at the store.

 

Dobi pelting me with snowballs.

 

 

 

My neighbor Baba Nikolina.

You Talk Like the Movies.

"How did you get to Bulgaria from America? Car, train…?"
"Um, by plane."
"What?! That's scary."

What I wanted to say was, "By dolphin."

Many Bulgarians, especially the young people in the villages cannot grasp the magnitude of the country that is the United States. Some questions I receive:
"Does it snow in America?"
"Is America big?"
"Do you have beans in America?"
"Where does Arnold Schwarzenegger live?"
"How big is Virginia?"
-"As big as Bulgaria."
-"Wait…WHAT!"
"Do you have parents?"
"Do you like Arnold Schwarzenegger?"
"Do you have bananas in America?"
"Who is that actor governor?"

Usually a day doesn't go by when someone doesn't have a question for me and I'm always ready for a little cross-cultural exchange. People are always excited to hear that I have a family. "You have a brother! You have parents! You have grandparents!" They seem to think that I'm an orphan girl dropped in Bulgaria whom they must immediately adopt and feed.

My parents sent me a fluffy, singing, dancing dog for Christmas that I brought to the kindergarten for the kids to enjoy. Every visitor that came was introduced to the dog and forced to watch it sing and dance to "Shout". "It's from America." Oooo, wow, America.

One really awkward question that I get a lot is, "Which do you like better, Bulgaria or America?" I always respond, "I love both!" But it doesn't stop there. Yesterday I was asked which was better "Bulgarian honey or American honey?"
"Which is better, Bulgarian food or American food?"
"Which is better, Bulgarian music or American music?"
"Who are better looking, Bulgarian men or American men?"

Through music, TV shows and the news people create a perception of America. I've heard many comments about America:
-That all Americans are fat. Really fat.
-We all carry around pistols and shoot turkeys for Thanksgiving.
-There are black people there.
-Everyone is rich there.
-We don't know how to light fires.
-All Americans eat hamburgers and can't get enough of them.
-Cowboys are really really cool.

The best thing I've heard was told to me three times, twice by Bulgarians and once by a Norwegian Brit in a hostel. They heard me speak and said, "Wow, you talk like the movies!" Since most of the movies they see are American then my English sounds familiar to them. One person told me that "American English sounds so beautiful." Then they added, "British English sounds weird." Hehehe. I've never heard that before, but I'll take it. I think it might be because Americans are loud and we speak with a lot of emotion, so our language sounds like it has life to it. Also the Brits, the Germans, the Italians, and so on have languages with more rhythm compared to the intoned Slavic tongue.

Obama is lemon?

Wednesday was the Day of Babas and here in my village we had a celebration in our chitalishte. I went while the kindergarteners were napping and found the place warm from the stove and the folk music loudly playing. Some people were up and dancing the horo while everyone else sat at tables filled with food they brought and homemade wine. I sat at a table with five babas who would yell at me to eat more salami. "Yash!" they'd say as I meekly grabbed another piece of meat, "Mmmm, fkoosno." Then a diado came and sat next to me, resting his battered accordion on his lap. He started to play, the notes filling the room with music, and the five babas began to sing. They sung old folk songs of love, youth and loss. They all sounded similar to me, all with a somber melody. The diado tried a more upbeat song but he didn't know it all and only one baba knew the words. I just listened, amazed that people with so many missing teeth could sing so well.

Barack Obama has been big news around here, of course. I went into town to watch the Inauguration with four other volunteers. We all enjoyed the historic, and long-awaited for, moment. In Bulgaria when you are celebrating something you say chestite, or 'congratulations'. It works for all occasions. Chestite Birthday! Chestite New Year! Chestite New Haircut! Chestite New Axe! When you are celebrating something or you recently purchased something nice for yourself, it is tradition to share your new fortune by passing out sweets to your friends. So we all had bought chocolate candies and passed them out at work, celebrating the inauguration.

I was at my colleague's house watching the news with her husband and they were talking about the Obama Inauguration. He has very limited English but he's always excited about practicing it on me. We joke him endlessly because one time when he wanted to say that he likes banitsa, he ended up saying, "I like to be banitsa." At one point in the broadcast he looks at me and hesitatingly says, "Obama is lemon?" and he raises his hands. "Ummmm, what?" I respond. "Obama is lemon?" he says again. He raises his left hand and shakes it, "Lemon?" "Ohhhhh, yeah, Obama writes with his left hand. LEFT. It's LEFT."

So I bought an axe yesterday and walked all over Razgrad with it resting on my shoulder. I felt like a much, much smaller and weaker version of Paul Bunyan. I run into a Bulgarian friend on the streets and he grabs my axe to inspect it. "How much did this cost?," he asks. "There should be some metal here. This wood will wear down. I know where you can buy a better axe." I take it to my colleague's apartment and her husband inspects it. "It's strong," he says. "But you should put some metal at the top of this handle. How much did this cost?" As I'm walking to the bus I pass by an elderly couple sitting on a bench. The old man looks at me and says, "An axe?" Yes, I reply. "How much did it cost?" I take it out for him to look at. "Yeah, there should definitely be some metal here. I know where you can get a better axe." Then he says some things I can't understand and I laugh when he laughs. On the bus I run into a friend from my village and she says, "An axe? How much did that cost?" Oh the joys of a new axe.

By the way, it cost 20 Bulgarian leva.

Bulgaria at the Holidays

So, I've been busy celebrating the many holidays (St. Nikolai Day, Christmas, New Year's, Yordanov Day, Ivanov Day, and everything else you can think of…did I mention Christmas?) Although I'm not a fan of resolutions, I've decided to do some this year.
I pledge to... ('promise' was too strong of a word)
…update this blog regularly since apparently people who care about me read it to make sure I'm still alive
…dance more often
That's all I've got so far.

Before I start my official post I've got some things to write about. First off, my camera is broken but I can post pictures taken from my cell phone. That means I have to limit what I can capture since I must meet two conditions: there must be natural light and both subject and my hand must be very steady (and you try keeping kindergarteners still for more than 2 seconds). Also, yesterday Russia (or Ukraine, depending on who you're talking to) cut off Europe's supply of natural gas. Because Bulgaria doesn't have much reserves it means that people are living without central heating and it means we can't bake any more bread (no bread!!). Today the kids only had 15 minutes of each class every hour and tomorrow they may not go back. Luckily for us in the village everything is heated with gas stoves.

---official post begins now, everything above this line is completely worthless information---

CHRISTMAS

 

Snow!

 

The Christmas tree in Razgrad with an unused mosque in the background.

We had a Christmas party for the kids in the village. The kindergarteners and I had been preparing songs, dances and poems. Everyone gathered in the chitalishte, cultural center, and the teachers (incl. me) were given beautiful flowers. My favorite part was when Diado Koleda (Santa Claus) came for a visit. Santa was different from what I remembered though. He was very skinny, had a raspy smoker's voice, talked loudly and often, and reminded me of Christo from the village…hmmm, makes you wonder. He passed out gifts and each kid had a prepared poem to say. Then the five older girls had a special Christmas dance prepared which was done to a rap song and had them shedding the top layers of their clothing. It was a crowd pleaser.

 

 

Medinki, Christmas cookies made with honey.

Then I went to Razgrad, the "city", to spend Christmas Eve and day with my colleague and her family. We had a traditional Bulgarian meal on Christmas Eve which has 7, 9, 11 or 13 dishes on the table (or else it's unlucky). The meal is vegetarian and consists of bean soup, dried fruit from the garden, bread, homemade pickled vegetables and homemade wine. They leave the food on the table over night to keep the spirits pleased.

 

I thought it was strange there wasn't that magical Christmas feeling as we went to bed. I woke up before the kids and walked out to find…an empty tree. New Year's Eve and Name Days are bigger here than Christmas. Besides a visit to the Orthodox church to light a candle, the day passed like any other. Then at night we sat down to a meal with the neighbors. We had steak, shish kebabs, potatoes, pitka (traditional sweet bread) and afterwards we had my homemade pumpkin pie.

 

A typical Bulgarian Christmas tree.

 

Lighting candles in the church.

NEW YEARS
New Year's Eve Bulgarians have big celebrations with their families. They eat a lot of traditional food, they drink lots of homemade rakia and they light a lot of explosives. There is a tradition of baking pitka and placing a coin in the dough. It's believed that the person who finds the coin will be wealthy in the new year. Once the clock struck midnight the winter sky was filled with huge fireworks exploding from all corners of the city. People were holding the fireworks, lighting them and then throwing them into the air from their apartment balconies. They certainly start the new year fearless. And boy must fireworks be cheap because there were a lot.

After that we walked to the center where the Christmas tree was. Music was playing and people were dancing and drinking. Soon the mayor came out and said some well wishes. Then I saw one of the best fireworks shows I've ever seen. They were lit so close to us that the explosions seemed to fill the entire sky above us. We craned our necks to watch the lights and literally be showered with fireworks debris…it was magical. After the show, a band came out and played Bulgarian folk songs and we all grabbed hands and started dancing the horo around the square. We left once we felt frostbite set it.

 

Yes, that close.

 

Horo in the square.

There is a tradition on New Year's Day in Bulgaria where the children make a special decorated stick, a soorvachka, and they pat the backs of the adults, saying a blessing for the New Year. Two boys came to my colleague's house and they blessed us on the back, which is believed to make our wishes come true and make the new year productive and fertile. In return, those blessed give the boys a gift of apples, nuts and a coin.

P.S. I know the pictures aren't showing up, something is wrong with the program (or maybe it's my 90s era internet connection). Slowly I will try and re-post them but until this program starts working I won't be posting any new pictures.

Travel: Bulgarian Style

I was able to celebrate Thanksgiving with 18 other volunteers and one Englishman. I traveled across the country to Yablanitsa, a place known for its Bulgarian sweets. This little adventure began in Razgrad where I was supposed to catch a bus for a nearby city. I went up to the counter and asked, "Do I buy the tickets for Shumen on the bus?" She looked at me and responded, "What bus?" I desperately pointed at the large timetable nailed to the wall, "It says there's a bus at 6:30!" That was my first mistake.

I called my colleague, desperate and stranded, and her brother-in-law agreed to drive me the 45 minutes to Shumen. When I arrived and met my friend, we had time to catch a drink. That was my second mistake. We realized we were running late so we grabbed our bags and ran through the streets of Shumen to be four minutes late for our train.

Luckily, we caught the next one an hour later. I had worn a t-shirt under my coat in preparation for the sauna-like train cars. That was my third mistake. We found an empty cabin and settled in for our overnight ride. We waited for the heat to kick in but it never did. All plans of sleeping went out the window, as we sat there for five hours shivering and attempting to look out the frosted window.

Once we left the train we still had a bus to catch to Yablanitsa. We bought our tickets, found seats and tried to close our eyes before the sun would start to peak over the horizon. It's not easy to sleep on a bus that plays 80s pop-rock but we set our alarms to 7:30 when, according to the timetable, the bus was supposed to arrive in Yablanitsa. Some time around 7am we stopped in a town and I remember remarking on how pretty the Christmas lights were. The bus drove on and about ten minutes later the woman who took our tickets turns around and says, "Weren't you supposed to get off at Yablanitsa?" That was my fourth mistake.

So the bus driver pulled over on the side of the highway and opened the compartments below so we could get our bags. He points down the road and says, "Go straight and follow the signs." So there we were, walking on the side of a Bulgarian highway, with the sun just rising and the ground freshly slick from a recent sleeting. We walked a ways, with me falling once quite hard on the ice, but finally made it to Thanksgiving. As people arrived everyone had their own stories of wrong timetables, missed buses and walking on the highway.

It was worth it though, everybody brought food and we even had a 9 lb turkey and stuffing. Tobias had streamed NFL on his laptop and Neil brought his football. And finally, after much preparation, we were ready to eat after Angelo's moving speech, "I'm in Bulgaria, dammit!", and Billy's heartwarming toast to our new PC family.

Returning home wasn't nearly as difficult, except for the 10 leva fine I got in Sofia for not punching my bus ticket the right way: "There are supposed to be three holes, not two!"

 

Mr. America

 

 

Shannon, the Birthday girl.

 

Snuggling and football always go together.

 

 

Billy posing in front of the delicious turkey he prepared.

 

Angelo's speech.

 

The Thanksgiving spread.

 

The dessert table.

 

 

That's some cheap vino Kasey has.