Greg in the News

SO recently the local newspaper did a feature on none other than yours truly. The following is a translation of the article in its entirety (and no I didn't just make up the translation). The article is pretty positive I think, if not a bit random. But hey, I'm glad that they think I'm newsworthy haha...


Gregory Herb: Now Veliki Preslav is like my home

Greg Herb is the volunteer from the Peace Corps in Veliki Preslav since last October. Greg is from the State of Florida. He has been in Bulgaria since July of 2008 and now can speak Bulgarian very well.

In school he studied Psychology and Child Develoment at a university in the States. His mother is a teacher, and his grandfather is a college professor. Maybe from there he got his interest in education and working with children. He says that his interest is working with at-risk children - orphans, minorities, the Roma people ("gypsies"). In Bulgaria there is an opportunity to work with these children he says. Because of this, a part of his work in Preslav is at the local Home for Children. He helps with math, English, and reading. There is competition in sports, and participation in art. They learn life skills which are very important for them in his opinion. He works in small groups of about 5-10 children. He tries to get every child to participate in at least one group every week. In his opinion, the children are not very aware of of the dangers of the use of narcotics, of human trafficking, of prevention of HIV/AIDS, of alcohol and nicotine addictions.

"The orphanages in America are different from the local kinds," describes Greg. "The children are placed in smaller houses and more volunteers work with them. The children are placed with foster parents more, and they are more comparable to these SOS Villages in Bulgaria. In America, only children who do not have parents or who have parents but that absolutely cannot care for them can stay in orphanages. There are many organizations that work with these children and make many things possible for them, such as finding a new home, because this is very important for them" says Greg.

Other than the orphanage, he works also with the children at the preschool. He teaches them how to begin to speak words, to know the different colors, and different skills such as washing hands for example.

"Now Preslav is like my home. I have many friends here," says Gregory. He says that sometimes it is hard to be far from home but that his loved ones know that his work is here, and that they support him.

One of the many skills of Greg is cooking. He cooks alone in his apartment, and cooks soups, moussaka, and other Bulgarian cuisine. "Here there are great fresh vegetables. In America, there are more preservatives and less fresh food," says the volunteer. On the topic of Bulgarian television, Greg says he follows "Survivor" and "Dancing Stars" but does not like the soap operas.

For Christmas, the American plans to meet in the mountains with his other colleagues. He hopes there will be snow, so that there will be a good holiday feeling...

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I'm not sure why they put in the part about me cooking and watching Bulgarian TV. I think it's because Bulgarians are not accustomed to seeing people my age living by themselves, much less supporting themselves alone. Anyway, that's the impression people have of me here apparently...

In the same newspaper, a project that I am helping with is described, and I will get to that in the next blog post...

Practical...

It’s been a little while since my last post, which I feel kind of bad about since much has happened in between then and now, and especially since I left the last post with a kind of negative note. I figured I’d get back into the swing of things by showing a bit of what I’ve been doing in my work to provide a kind of contrast to the rote memorization/copy method that I think is doing damage here.

A girl doing chetichki (Note that the characters in the bottom right corner of the book are NOT actually letters)

As I’ve said before, I have a number of groups focused on developing basic skills for the children at the orphanage. I focus most on math and literacy (a fact recently covered in the local newspaper, but I will get to that another time). In these groups I have tried to provide a different method of learning from which the kids are normally exposed. In this way, my goal has been to get illiterate kids up to speed as quickly as possible so that they don’t fall further behind in their classes. In a couple of my groups, this has meant starting by teaching the alphabet to children who are as far as 5th grade. I have since moved on with these kids to associate sounds with letters, and to string these sounds into words. That most basic of reading groups is now able to understand somewhat complicated words, and we are currently working on constructing our own words.

The key here, rather than to have the kids write letters over and over again, to have the children make associations with the letters and how they fit into the grand scheme of things. Copying the alphabet may create amazing penmanship, but it does little to show the children how to use those letters practically. Likewise, memorizing the alphabet and being able to recite it upon command (while a vital skill) does little to show how those letters can be arranged in different ways to create words.


With my special needs kids, I have been emphasizing the sounds of the letters as well, and in some instances the kids can begin picking up on words that start with the same sounds. It’s not much right now but it’s a start, especially considering that their conversational skills are still not their strong point…


Recently I have noticed that a tutor has been reinforcing the sounds of the letters rather than having the kids copy the letters over and over, and is giving many of the kids one on one attention. While this may seem pretty basic to those of us who were lucky enough to have gone through a child-focused educational system, this has been a breath of fresh air for me here. It shows that there is at least a desire to have the kids learn how to practically apply the lessons they learn rather than just have it make it look like they can.



I have heard from some coworkers that there are now some after-school groups for reading and other basic topics that are open for the kids. This blew my mind when I first heard it. I was so excited to see that the kids are being given attention in smaller groups like they need and deserve. I was even more excited to see that the teachers are actually willing to spend the extra time with the kids (something that I have rarely seen in my year and a half here). Education is not simply a 9-5 profession but a desire and a need to ensure the success of the next generation. This isn't a scientific observation, but I'm willing to wager that the success of a class is directly proportional to the amount of support given by its teachers and care providers. I know that there is a huge potential here amongst the kids in Bulgaria that's just now starting to be tapped. It's exciting to me that the child care professionals in this country are realizing this. And I’m so glad I can be a part (however small) of that ever-important realization…

Until next time…

follow-up...

This is an article from today's Novinite (national Bulgarian news) that I thought tied in very well with my last blog post.

50% of Bulgaria High School Graduates Said to Be ‘Illiterate’

Some 50% of Bulgarian high school graduates are illiterate in the sense that they don’t know basic spelling and grammar rules.

This is according to Evelina Gecheva, a manager of “Akademika”, a Bulgarian online education portal.

Gecheva bases her claims on information from professors grading university entrance exams, and other sources. In her words, it is unclear how many of the young people in Bulgaria are illiterate since there are no formal criteria for “literacy”. She believes this collapse in Bulgarian education would require the aid of the state and the whole society to be overcome.

In the fall of 2009, Akademika started an initiative entitled “Be Literate”. As part of it, a number of university and high school experts have made it clear the high school programs in Bulgarian language and literature must be restructured, and new Bulgarian language textbooks need to drafted as they are filled with foreign and incomprehensible words.

http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=110264

Chetichki

This blog post has taken me about a year to gather into anything worth writing, mostly because I’ve been trying to understand the reasoning behind it for approximately that long. I’m still not too sure I understand it fully, and this post might come off as sounding very critical and/or negative. However, I feel like it’s something very important – maybe one of the most important aspects of the education system here in Bulgaria – and I think it says a lot about my work here.

When I arrived here in Preslav, I had no idea what I would be doing and only a vague sense of who I would be working with. I had some ideas, but didn’t really know how to implement them. In fact, I spent a good part of my first 6 months just feeling out the situation here and trying to understand what was happening around me. I had started some groups, mostly revolving around English, since that’s all I could really do at the time, and a math group. I had some art and sports going as well. However, there was something odd happening and I couldn’t really put my finger on it. Most of my kids were way behind in classes, yet could pretend like they were working perfectly. They would fill pages and pages of notebooks with homework that didn’t mean anything. A typical homework help session would involve me walking around the room as several children copied words from a textbook, or pretended to write notes, roughly looking like this: “alguprRDH dahduDHNNn. ..dhgaBBkd, LHDabfnk.” As you might imagine, this was somewhat alarming to me.

But it wasn’t the fact that they weren’t writing anything meaningful that was alarming to me. It wasn’t the fact that they didn’t know how to read, and it wasn’t the fact that the children didn’t know anything was wrong. Only now do I realize what was causing the sick feeling in my stomach. The supervisors, the tutors, the teachers… all of the child care workers were actively encouraging it. I slowly realized the system was not to teach children how to write, just how to make it look like they were writing.

I would ask the children what it was they were writing, and some would shrug their shoulders, some kids pointed to a random word in the textbook, and some would just flat out lie and say they were writing something that wasn’t even remotely related to anything. One child had filled a page up with nothing but his name, beautifully written in perfect cursive script, all the instances of which blurred together and connecting as if it were one long, flowing penmanship exercise.

And now I know that basically, it was.

This year, I have a somewhat deeper understanding of the situation, since I have observed the youngest kids start first grade at the beginning of the year, and have been tracking what they are up to. What I found just flat out astounded me. I had known for some time that the children here don’t learn how to read or write until they reach first grade. It had been frustrating to me to be told that I couldn’t teach the kids at the preschool some basic reading skills because of “the system” in place (I have since gone ahead and done it anyway). It wouldn’t have been as big a deal if I didn’t know the method.

In the first grade, starting about the 3rd week or so, the children start a process called “Chetichki,” roughly translated to “little readings” or something of the sort. Chetichki consist of different patterns of lines and circles, mostly meaningless, that the children are to copy over and over again until they have perfectly recreated the original pattern. The theory behind this method is to prepare the children to learn how to write actual letters and to write in nice cursive script almost immediately. I have 6 first graders that I work with in the orphanage, and all of them spent most of their homework time painstakingly copying these chetichki. If one was wrong or out of place, they would have to start over and do the pattern again. Mostly, the patterns looked very little like letters. Why the children don't skip this altogether and start by learning how to write the actual letters has just recently become clear to me. The system has been created based on appearance instead of substance.

Eventually, the children do start learning the letters of the Cyrillic alphabet. However, the method stays the same. The children are assigned pages and pages of perfect Cyrillic writing, and in the end they have something that you could hang on a wall, but nothing that has actually gotten into their minds. No development has taken place, just copying. When I ask the children what letter they have written, or what sound it makes, they mostly cannot give the correct answer.

There is a huge illiteracy problem in the orphanage. I have spent the better part of my time there teaching several children how to read their own language. In the beginning I discarded all pretentions of teaching little kids English, or catching them up in literature, or even helping as a tutor. Mostly, I have been teaching the very basics of reading and math. And what is amazing to me is that in almost every circumstance, every kid in these groups has been able to write perfectly. If this was a penmanship competition, I’m sure that one of my kids would take first place. Unfortunately it isn’t, and having perfect handwriting doesn’t mean anything if you can’t understand what it says. It seems that the best way to become literate through this system is to either pick it up the very first time before the teacher moves on to the next lesson or to have constant parental reinforcement outside of school to supplement the lessons. Often, the children at the orphanage are not afforded either opportunity. The children who do actually learn how to write are discouraged from doing so freely and creatively because they might make a mistake. Great work might be rejected because it doesn't look good.

Yet this method is perfect for the schools here. It allows them to grant very high grades to children for little work or little absorption. It allows schools to keep the same number of children in each grade so that they are granted the same amount of funding. It’s why there are 5th graders who can’t read the word “Az” (me), or who can’t identify the letter H (Cyrillic n). It’s why kids can copy pages of math tables and not be able to count to 5 properly. It’s why the achievement gap in Bulgaria is as huge as it is. Because in many instances the objective is to make it look like the kids are achieving rather than actually making sure they are.

Overall, during my time here I have realized that the real challenges in this country lie in where its leaders have placed its priorities. There’s no lack of resources, but they are going to the wrong places. There’s no lack of teaching methods, it’s that the methods aren’t working. The children leave school with the appearance of a vast library of knowledge, but no practical way to apply it. There is no shortage of teachers, but there is a shortage of passion to teach. It’s why when I ask my kids what they dream of being when they grow up, nobody says the President of Bulgaria. Almost everyone answers a taxi driver or a waitress.

It sounds dumb, but everything starts in the beginning. If the priority is to teach and have the children absorb and develop, the child will be successful. Literacy and passion for learning emerge and flourish at a young age. If the priority is to make it look like the child is working - the emphasis on appearance rather than achievement - the system has failed before it even gets off the ground.

Until next time…

Svinski Grip!

In case you haven't heard, the whole world is ducking under cover from the swine flu. Schools everywhere are closing, and people all over are, in general, losing their minds. In Bulgaria, as always, things are the same but different. Schools everywhere are closing, people are freaking out, but instead of complaining about the lack of vaccines (or whether vaccines should be administered, don't even get me started), people here deal with it in a bit of a different way. Almost everyone I know has holed themselves up in their house or little cement block room, refusing to come out until the threat has passed. The usual way the flu (or "grip" in Bulgarian... awesome) is dealt with is a good dose of isolation and by hurling jokes at it. In fact one tv station just called it "pianski grip" (drunken flu). That'll get 'em!

Meanwhile, the sheer numbers of people coming down with flu is staggering. The ministry of health has declared several regions within the amount needed to declare an epidemic. The others are under a "wide circulation of the virus" (and God knows what that means). As a result, many schools (including the ones in Preslav) have been shut down, including the preschool I work at, under the amazing title of "swine flu vacation." These closures are due to a rule that states schools have to close if 30% of the students don't show up. In addition, hospitals are turning away cases because they can't handle them all. At the orphanage, special rules have been put in place: can't have large gatherings of kids in one space, children should be confined to their rooms, staff is recommended to wear paper masks. This has put a little bit of a dent in the range of activities that I can do there, but we're still hanging in there. Tomorrow we'll be rebooting the life skills classes for the older kids, and since the kids can't do much else, we should actually have a good turnout (gotta look on the bright side).

Speaking of the bright side (and getting away from the grip), Halloween this year was a huuuge success... well at least in comparison to last year's, which involved bobbing for apples and costume wearing, neither of which quite went as planned. This year, the kids learned to say the phrase trick or treat in exchange for candy, and instead of costumes we did scary faces and masks. What came after was the true success though I think. After coming in possession of quite a few toothbrushes and toothpaste, I thought a bit of an educational activity could be thrown in there. The kids learned the proper way to brush their teeth, when and how, and they were actually into it! This was fantastic since the hygeine situation at the dom is for the most part appalling. It was one of those moments that made me feel really happy about what I'm doing right now. The kids are even saving the brushes!

Another high spot was the annual Halloween party in Veliko Turnovo. I went as Flo Rida, the much celebrated rapper from my much celebrated home state. I even had my own bling made from cardboard and tinfoil, which didn't quite come across, but still... Other highlights included the entire Ghostbusters squad, David the Gnome, and the cast of Mad Men. Needless to say it was a memorable time, and, to make things better, allowed many of us to avoid the grip explosion in our towns (not a big deal in Turnovo).

For now, I'll be doing what many others are doing - hiding out when I can, and trying to avoid coming down with this ridiculous virus. On the plus side, in my recollection I have never had the flu before, and I'm not planning on getting it now...

Until next time...

Rock n Roll Ain't Noise Pollution

SO I was hanging out at a cafe the other day with a Bulgarian friend, who just happens to be the awesome guitarist in the Chernoriztsite - a local rock band. He likes to practice speaking English whenever he can, and we somehow got on the topic of how he actually learned English. The story was one of the coolest things I have ever heard...

Back in the days of Communism, listening to heavy metal was forbidden. Music had to be from within the country and approved by the government. Most Western rock (including metal) was not on the list. However there was an underground system of passing around Western music, and cassettes containing hard rock songs were the choice of the times in the 80s. However, if you got caught listening to them, the consequences were not good. Understandably, lyrics were not readily available, and almost nobody spoke English. So groups of people would get together and listen to the songs over and over again and imitate the sounds of the words in the songs. He went on to say that listening to the songs now, they were horribly off base, but back then it was as if they had found the Holy Grail.

Eventually, through context and other sources, words started getting translated. For example, one of the popular bands someone found out that Venom (the name of one of the bands) meant "vitrova" or poison. Then a cassette came out featuring songs from the band Poison, and they asked each other "what is the difference between this Venom and Poison?" (they are the same word in Bulgarian). Eventually they gathered that venom comes from an animal, and posion comes from somewhere else. He went on to say that heavy metal was responsible for the basis of his (very good) English abilities, and that he went on to attend an all-English speaking university. Aside from his spot in the rock band, he works in the local government and is currently creating an NGO to help local underserved farmers gain access to grants, small business loans, and other resources.

And who said rock and roll isn't good for anything?

In other news, I am now officially the only American in Preslav. My amazing sitemate of a year left yesterday (as her 2 years of service are officially up), and is off to the States for a short spell before turning around and signing up for another stint in the Peace Corps. Her ultimate goal is to serve in every continent... What a life! As for me, I've made enough friends here in town to keep occupied through the year, which will be great especially through the winter. It's already a lot colder than it was last year... Still it's going to be a much different place with her gone and I wish her the best of luck wherever she ends up next.

(This is the point at which all the other volunteers laugh because I have now become a regular volunteer without a sitemate. Yes... most other vols have been putting up with this for a year now haha)

Until next time...

Madara Rider

Located about 15 minutes away from Preslav is one of Bulgaria’s most iconic symbols, and consequently one of the country’s most important sites. Standing high above the small, unassuming village of Madara is the Madara Horseman – a relief in the cliffs dating back to around the year 700. The sculpture includes rider mounted atop a horse, spearing a lion below and followed by a dog, apparently symbolic of victory. If the fact that creating something like this back then wasn’t hard enough, the entire thing is located about 50 feet off of the ground on a sheer rock face.



Of course, it’s not as if some guy back in the day saw a cliff and thought it would be a good idea to carve a sculpture into it. The entire area is said to have a certain spiritual energy – so much so that one of the founding fathers of Bulgaria, Han Asperux, built a fortress here to tap into the mystical forces held within. You can climb up from the site of the rider to the top of the mountain using a huge path of stairs winding through rocks on the side of the mountain. Nearby Pliska, Bulgaria’s first capital, was purposely built within close proximity to this place in order to both protect the mountain, and for the mountain to supply the capital with strength.


When you explore the nearby caves, it’s easy to see how the ancient Bulgarians thought this was a special place. There is a set of ruins located under a giant half dome in the side of the mountain. Overlooking this site is a giant rock about 100 feet tall, delicately held up by a collection of smaller rocks underneath. A small chapel was then built into those rocks, making for a beautiful little cave sanctuary.


While I was there, a small group of religious pilgrims from elsewhere in Bulgaria was worshipping at the chapel, still tapping into the “spiritual vibrations” that the rocks gave off, just as the first Bulgarians did. I had a fascinating (if somewhat odd) conversation with one of the pilgrims, who told me that if I stood a certain way while touching the rocks, my third eye would be opened. They also told me that Madara was one of 4 places in Bulgaria with special magical powers (the other being Belogradchik, the Trigrad Gorge, and a place in the southeast that I wasn’t familiar with). Unfortunately, I didn’t really sense that myself, but everyone else seemed really into it.


Taken as a whole, the area was a great day trip. With so much to see and experience in such a small area, it’s understandable to see that the whole place was inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. This year the village is celebrating 30 years of having the Horseman on this distinguished list. Even more impressive, in my opinion, is the fact that the place is relatively untouched and uncrowded.

The Rider is also celebrated as the “Global Symbol of Bulgaria.” I know this because a giant sign at the entrance to the site proclaimed it as such. But it is indeed a powerful symbol and a great source of national pride. The image is inscribed on the reverse of most of the stotinki (coins) here. Recently, the Bulgarian people also voted to have the Horseman inscribed on their own Euro coins when they switch over from the lev in the coming years.


This shows that the site is still as important in the minds of the people here as it was so long ago. And with a good reason… The day spent there was one of my most fulfilling in all my travels around Bulgaria.

Until next time…

Halftime

Last week the B24s had our Mid-Service Conference, marking the halfway point of our service as volunteers in country. We’ve been in country for a bit longer than that (actually 3 months longer), but we’ve been at site for a whole year now. We celebrated the milestone in true Peace Corps fashion… going to a conference filled with service-related games, discussions about sustainability, and countless post-it notes. It was actually helpful to refocus my goals and to get some new ideas for the coming second year, and especially nice to hang out with the rest of my group, some of whom I haven’t seen in a while.

Before that, I survived my first ever experience with Bulgarian dentistry, having had a cleaning in Sofia. We as volunteers get to go to one of the best people around (as evidenced by the cards and pictures of ambassadors and other politicians lining the walls). After a thorough polishing with what seemed to be a sandblaster (the dentist made me wear protective goggles and close my eyes), my teeth have never felt cleaner. On top of that, no cavities! And on that note, I don’t have TB either! Woohoo! On the other end of MSC (after all the sessions), I got to go to Plovdiv (one of my favorite places in Bulgaria) to hang out with some good friends, see a movie, and just have a good time.

Now that I’ve been here a year, that means renewing all the documents required to stay here for another year. Last year’s process to obtain a lichna karta (Bulgarian ID card) was a huge, bureaucratic process that involved multiple trips over the police station in Shumen and the filling out of several forms. One would think that renewing it would be a much easier process, since all the paperwork is all on file. Instead, in true Bulgarian fashion, this time around it’s actually proving to be harder, with a whole mess of new paperwork to be filled out and signed by people all around town. I’m already up to two trips to Shumen and getting turned back around for various reasons… We’ll see if I can finally decipher this whole process.

The halfway point also means that fall is in full swing, just as it was when I got to site last year. I have to say, this time of year is my favorite of all – being not too hot or too cold. Good sweater weather. All the grapes are ripening and being plucked from over the sidewalks in town. Everyone’s getting in their last bit of work before the cold hits, creating a sense of liveliness around town that is a great thing to see around here. The kids are all getting in their last kicks outside, which has meant hiking or taking walks together and setting up speakers outside the orphanage and dancing. It seems everyone wants to enjoy the fall before holing up inside for a few months.

All in all it’s a strange feeling sitting here at the halfway point, looking forward at another year here in town and looking back at all the things that have happened this past year… How much has changed for me personally, and the successes achieved at the orphanage. Things here don’t seem so strange or scary to me anymore, and things that I considered major challenges to me last year I now embrace and invite. I feel that even if I left here tomorrow I’ll never be the same person I was before I stepped onto that plane to DC over a year ago, and this town will never be the same place it was before I stepped off the late bus for the first time almost exactly a year ago. And I have to say, that’s a great feeling to have.

Until next time…

Got a Big Ego...

Yesterday I went over to Shumen to tackle something I’ve wanted to do ever since I got to this area. Now, going to Shumen is something I do all the time, being the major hub city near me. I feel like I’ve done much of what the city has to offer, including walking the long pedestrian stretch, visiting the Tombul Mosque (biggest mosque in the Balkans), eating at both Chinese food restaurants and all duner stands, and hitting up the Kaufland countless times. However, there’s one thing I’ve never done in the year I’ve been here… until now.

Standing high above the city is one of the most ridiculous, Communistastic, gigantic monuments in existence. This hulking amalgamation of concrete is the Creators of the Bulgarian State Monument, also known as the Monument to 1300 Years of Bulgaria. As both names suggest, the monument honors the founders of Bulgaria by commemorating a big milestone in the country’s history. Pretty innocent enough until you get to this fun little nugget of info: The monument is the only one in the world to depict the entire history of a country... something so pretentious, so over the top that it actually becomes awesome.


They accomplish this feat by putting together several different factors. Firstly, there is a huge set of stairs leading up to the monument itself from the center of town. There are (supposedly) 1300 stairs in all leading up the mountain, one for each year of Bulgaria’s history. I didn’t take the time to count each individual stair, but I think it’s safe to say that the figure is at least close to that mark…

This picture was taken close to halfway up...

When you reach the top of the stairs, you are greeted by some of the most bizarre sculptures I have ever seen. Many of the volunteers affectionately refer to them as “the Transformers.” These robotic-looking piles of concrete set into the bigger hunk of concrete are supposed to be representations of some of Bulgaria’s greatest heroes. The dream team is all there: Tsar Simeon (king of Preslav), Omurtag, Isperix… powerfully staring down at all visitors with all the force of a lego man (the tough one with the frown). Another wall is completely covered in mosaics depicting great moments in Bulgarian history, such as important battles, people building famous landmarks… there’s probably a few hammer-and-sickles and something about the Turks in there as well.


The entire monument is crowned with a gigantic concrete lion, the symbol of Bulgaria, watching over the city and (of course) guarding the entire country. From this spot, on a clear day, one can theoretically see 3 very important Bulgarian places: Pliska (first capital of Bulgaria), Veliki Preslav (second capital), and Madara (home to one of Bulgaria’s most iconic symbols, the rock relief of the Madara horseman – a UNESCO world heritage site and depicted on all Bulgarian coins). The site of the monument is also significant in that, according to legend, the first king of Bulgaria climbed to the spot, looked around at the valley below and declared for the first time that this land would be Bulgaria. I don’t know if there’s any way to verify that legend, but it does actually make for some pretty powerful views at the top.

So that’s another vital Bulgarian experience off my list of things to do in this country. It’s also the cause of my extreme soreness today, but I think it was all worth it, if not for the entertainment value alone.

Until next time…

9/9/09

My landlord came over yesterday to collect this month's rent. Pretty standard routine, until he wrote down the date on the receipt: 9/9/09. He looked down at the page for a second and started laughing. As I awkwardly stood there, money in hand, trying to figure out what was going on, he attempted to tell me.

September 9th, apparently, was at one point the National Day of the Communist Party. This was a day on which every town in Bulgaria had a big festival celebrating the Party and its accomplishments and contributions to the nation, very much like a makeshift national holiday. The date was significant in that September 9th was the day a group of Communists won (or took control of) the Parliament for the first time, marking the biggest change in the country's history since Bulgaria was released from the Ottoman Empire. The last time this was celebrated was 20 years ago to the day.

My landlord went on to tell me how there was a big parade through Preslav, with a lot of flag waving and music. I expected him to start extolling the virtues of "the communism," something I've grown accustomed to hearing from the older generation here. However, his assessment was a bit different. He continued by saying it was a very impressive event, but also a sort of facade. A happy day only for people who were in the Party. The rest were just sort of obliged to play along. The day was sort of indicative of communism as a whole - some were, of course, more equal than others. Sure everyone got the same paycheck every month, but party members were entitled to a whole range of different benefits: bigger houses, better vacations, access to higher education etc.

He went on to say that, yes, there were a lot of good things back then - a lot of good memories, work for everyone, a stronger sense of national pride - but he doesn't know exactly which is better. He likes the fact that people can say things without fear of being punished for it, but doesn't like the lack of respect for people this brings. Like so many other Bulgarians, he likes that people don't have to be supervised 24/7, but at the same time doesn't like the lack of discipline this has created. He loves the fact we can travel anywhere in the world and the fact that there are international brands and actual diversity in the markets. However, he went on to say that even the people who are better off financially in Bulgaria still don't have much money to spend on luxuries like that. "Ima Criza" (There is a crisis) after all...

He told me a story about how there was no real incentive to work back in the days of the Party. How, since everyone got the same amount of money, people would just show up to their jobs and sit around for a while. The only motivation was basically bribery... The doctor would put a stethoscope to your chest and say "oh you're fine" until you whipped out a bottle of whiskey for the guy, after which he would pull out the required paperwork from a desk, claiming he had previously forgotten about them, and perform the proper check-up. He told me about the vast underground economy that existed, probably as a result.

He told me all this with a wistful smile, almost as if he missed it. After a short pause, he took my money, gave me my rent receipt, and shook my hand. "Those days are over now" he told me, and walked away.

Hail to the Party of Lenin, our (not so) eternal vanguard.

Until next time...

Brasov and Transylvania

SO we get out of Buchurest in the morning so we wouldn’t lose a lot of time traveling. The train trip itself was beautiful, passing through the Carpathian mountains as we made our way into Transylvania. The scene was exactly what might come to mind when you think “Transylvania.” Little wooden villages nestled in between gigantic, dark, craggy mountains. It seemed Sinaia was the most like this, and it’s understandable to think of how the medieval residents of these areas could have imagined legends such as Dracula and the like.

Brasov itself is located in between those same mountains and a smaller hill on the edge of a broad valley. The whole place has more of a German kind of feel than a Eastern European one, as the old town (where we stayed) is located inside an old walled city complete with a gigantic Gothic cathedral, tiny cobbled streets lined with old buildings, and tons of spires and clock towers scattered around. A lot of the town has been pedestrianized and most of the roads are lined with cafes and restaurants, some of them leading into historic basements or bordering some building that looks like it should be in Fantasy Land.




The second day we took a day trip out to see some of the castles in the surrounding area. First was Bran Castle, which (legend has it) was Dracula’s castle. Unfortunately Dracula is a fictional story and the historical society of Bran has plenty of disclaimers around that this was not, in fact, Dracula’s castle. That hasn’t stopped countless people from trying to cash in on the connection. The beautiful castle guarding a pass between the regions of Transylvania and Wallachia is completely surrounded, not by a moat, but by hundreds of t-shirt stands and souvenir shops, mostly Dracula themed. There was Dracula’s bakery, Dracula’s 3D (5D?) movie experience, and even Dracula’s money exchange. The whole thing took quite a bit away from the experience of walking around in and exploring a very real and interesting castle in the mountains.

Bran Castle without all the crap cluttering it up (I didn't take this)

Much better, in my opinion, was the second castle we went to – Rasnov. Located roughly halfway between Brasov and Bran, Rasnov was a much more stereotypically eastern European town, and the gray weather made it even moreso. The Citadel of Rasnov sits at the edge of a gigantic cliff overlooking the town. Despite the giant sign right in front of it, the castle is much less touristic, very imposing, and gives a good feel of an actual medieval town. After a good climb by foot up to the castle, it’s another climb to the top of the place, where you can see the entire town and valley below. We stayed up there for a bit, watching storm clouds roll in over the mountains towards the bigger town of Brasov (another very Transylvania moment), until we had to walk back down in the rain. Good thing there are some cafes around in the town as well…

On our last day in Brasov we went up the mountain directly bordering the town, awesomely named Mt. Tampa. Tampa is topped by a “Hollywood-style” sign, to which you can walk and from which you can enjoy a good view of the town below, which we did. It’s pretty spectacular…

Looking up at Mt. Tampa from the center

And looking down at Brasov from Mt. Tampa (I didn't take this)

All in all Brasov really impressed me, and it’s definitely a place to which I wouldn’t mind returning, as well as the incredible mountains around town. Sighisoara was also a beautiful place on our trip. But for now it’s back to work – back to the orphanage and Yasli, and I think I have some good ideas for both this coming school year (Starting Sept. 15). We’ll see what happens…

Until next time…

Bucharest

We arrived in Bucharest in the afternoon of our second day, but we started walking around just before evening, just in time to see the city light up, simultaneously hiding its ugly concrete blocks, and highlighting it’s beautiful (if extremely over the top) Gothic architecture. It has a very cool Gotham vibe to it, very nice but you know there’s something shady going on at all times. It’s as if you're having a good time, but in the back of your mind you know that, at this very moment, somewhere a politician is being corrupted or some art is being heisted.



The centerpiece of the city is the ridiculous Palace of Parliament, the second largest building in the world (after the Pentagon). It’s monstrous, pretentious, and ugly as hell, but still fascinating. Nicholas Ceausescu, Romania’s Communist ruler for so many years, spent all the country’s money and razed an entire historical quarter of the town to build it. The building is still apparently 10% unfinished. Leading up to the palace is a huge center filled with fountains and lined with restaurants and giant obnoxious flashing advertisements. It felt very much like a more spread out Times Square. It’s a cool place with a lot to do and see, but knowing what they did to the city to create it kind of takes away a bit of the fun.


Much nicer (and more to scale), was the city’s old town area, which still seemed somewhat new actually. It’s an area of old cobblestone streets that the city is currently restoring. Lined with cafes, bars, and restaurants, the area is close to a university and has very much of a student kind of feeling to it. It’s easy to get lost in the tiny back alleys in there, but also really fun to explore and stumble upon a hidden square with a gigantic, beautiful building just kind of sitting there as if it was nothing at all. While walking around in there, we also stumbled upon an active movie set and met the director in between takes. Apparently Romania is becoming a big place for filmmaking, not only because it is cheap and relatively well connected but also because the places in it are like ready-made sets. Everything in the town seems like it was made to be filmed or photographed.


Right near our hostel was this interesting little monument:


It’s not really on a main square or near interesting things, but it is a site of huge importance. This is the spot at which the public captured the Communist dictator and executed him. On the spot, they’ve built something vaguely resembling an olive on a toothpick (kind of a weird way to commemorate it), but it’s a cool place nonetheless. The area sums up Bucharest in one little block. The streets around it contain architecture from the 1800s, the time of Communism, and modern times. It’s a place of huge significance, but dwarfed by its completely out of scale surroundings, and memorialized by something so ugly and confusing you can’t help but feel amazed.

However, once you peel back the layers, something really special lies underneath this place to which I'm sure I'll return.

Balchik Beach Days

About a week after the Archaeology Camp I helped supervise the kids’ annual trip to the beach. This year we went to the town of Balchik, a town located underneath a shelf of cliffs near the town in which I saw the Rockfest a couple of months ago. The town itself is beautiful, being the location of a vast system of botanical gardens. Back in the 1800s, this region was owned by Romania, and Balchik was the summer home of the queen. She built the botanical gardens and castle there as a way to reconnect with nature and to develop her own spirituality. After Bulgaria gained control of the area, they preserved it and turned it into a sort of national park.

Throughout the gardens, religious symbolism abounds, especially in the grand centerpiece of the gardens – a perfectly kept tree-lined stream, and leading over one of the cliffs into a waterfall that leads into the sea. In fact, a major theme around the gardens is the flow of water, symbolizing the passage of time and our journey through life, not to mention its life giving properties. The garden was also home to a giant collection of cactii from around the world, a winery, and a ton of great examples of Bulgarian revival architecture. When viewed together there was a great feeling of being somewhere in the Mediterranean, perhaps on a small Greek island in the Aegean Sea...




The kids spent each morning on the tiny beach in Balchik (more a set of stairs leading into the water due to the rocky coastline, though at low tide there was a small strip of sand). They were given free access to their monthly stipend every day, which they promptly spent on ice cream, corn, chips, temporary tattoos, and a whole host of other things, within the first couple of days (they stayed for 10 days). This is actually pretty common for many of the younger kids at the orphanage. The children receive 30 leva every month. As soon as the money hits their pockets, they head out on a spending rampage, often spending most of the cash within a day on anything they can find and afford. Sometimes, the kids will fill a grocery basket with as much stuff as possible, and then have the store clerk remove anything they can’t afford. The theory behind this behavior is that anything not consumed within a day will be stolen from them.

Anyway, I think my time in Balchik was really energizing and gave me a good opportunity to hang out with the kids and also to get to know the staff a bit better. The kids had a blast swimming in the sea, exploring town, and playing games (not to mention being away from town for a bit). The botanical gardens has made my list of favorite places in Bulgaria (even if the road up to it is cluttered in useless souvenir stands). The place is so well preserved and well kept, and the beach area reminded me a bit of Bayshore Boulevard back in Tampa – a long stretch of sidewalk along a picturesque bay. The beach was lined with pleasant, little cafes and restaurants, and there was just an overall laid back vibe around the town that is hard to find on the Black Sea. I hope to make it back there sometime.



Balchik also served as a convenient starting point for my trip to Romania with friends, my first time out of the country, and my longest period of vacation yet (a week). More on that later.

Until next time...

Arch Camp!

Last week, another volunteer and I coordinated a camp involving kids from each of our orphanages. The plan was to have 10 kids from her orphanage in Dren, and 10 from mine here in Preslav staying together in the Preslav orphanage and doing archaeologically themed activities at the ruins and museum in town. With the help of about 7 other awesome volunteers, we spent the week going to the museum, playing lots of games, and exploring the area. It was about a half a year in the making and underwent countless last minute revisions due to schedule conflicts and general confusion, but we finally pulled it together.

The days leading up to the camp involved a lot of running around and coordinating different organizations to help out with the activities we had planned. At the same time, the camp was being changed from 5 days to 7 days to 4 days, back to 7 days, and then to 5 days again, before we finally settled on 4 days of activities and then a sort of free day. This system worked out pretty well, not only because the kids from Dren would be able to get back easier, but because it would allow us to plan fuller days of activities.


Day 1: Museum Day and the Scavenger Hunt – We got all the kids together for the first time outside of the orphanage and played some games like the human knot and duck-duck-goose. We then walked up to the museum where we got a talk from one of the archeologists in residence there, as well as a tour of all the exhibits (including one housed in a vault behind a foot thick metal door). After looking around a bit, we started the day’s main activity, the museum scavenger hunt, in which the kids were to look through the exhibits for certain things and the team with the highest amount of points wins. The kids got really into it, and we actually went over our planned allotted time. The museum actually asked to have copies of the scavenger hunt for future visitors, so I would say it was an all around success. While we were sitting around counting points at the end, everyone was kind of bummed that nobody found one of the clues on the list – a pony. Just as everyone was almost done counting, guess what pulls up… that’s right a pony and mother horse pulling a cart together. Everyone went crazy, and it was the perfect cap to a hugely successful activity. After that, the kids had a picnic in the park and we spent the rest of the day playing sports and doing arts and crafts and things with the other kids.


Day 2: Ruins and the dig site – We walked to the ruins of the citadel of Preslav just outside of town where there was a huge team of archaeologists digging for artifacts. The archaeology major in our group (the volunteer who coordinated the camp with me) was freaking out because of the haphazard digging methods at the site. One of the methods was to throw a whole bunch of dirt from the site into a pile and run a metal detector over it. Another involved chipping away fragile wall-looking areas with a pick axe. Good job, guys… Anyway, the kids were able to ask the archaeologists questions, and we even got the head professor to come out and talk to the kids about what was going on at the site. From there we walked up to another section of ruins where they actually let people climb up into a reconstructed area of the old fortress. The kids really got a kick out of that and played around for a bit. We then reached the last part of the ruins, the golden church of Tsar Simeon, where we rested for a bit and played some good old American football.


Day 3: The hike to Patleyna…. Sort of – We had planned to have everyone in the camp come hiking with us up to Patleyna (which I wrote about in a previous entry). However, several of the older children and the 2 supervisors refused to come with us because they thought it was too long. So we left without them. Apparently the activity the orphanage people thought up for them was to clean the building, so the people who went on the hike were pretty happy. The kids seemed to really enjoy the old 10th century monastery up there, and we even got to poke around at the newer monastery, where we found a bit of old Communist propaganda (“The party of Lenin is our vanguard!”). The kids that came with us also had a great time at the miniature zoo they have up there which featured doves and peacocks. I think some of the kids were actually kind of scared of the peacock since they hadn’t really seen anything like it before. Tired after a couple of hours walking round-trip, we finished out the day with some group games, baseball and volleyball. Baseball was especially interesting, as the kids were really getting into the home-run derby setup we started. After a couple hours of playing, the man who runs the stadium comes in shouting at us and telling us we have to leave. Confused, since we were being very good, and the kids were having a great time, we asked him why we had to leave. His answer was that we were making holes in the ground with the bats. Bewildered, we decided not to argue and left…


Day 4: Capture the flag and Time Capsule – We started off the day by going up to the stadium to play some relay games. We played a game featuring spoons and ping pong balls (which they weren’t that into) and did the dizzy-bat relay (which they were into, but we ended a bit prematurely as a lot of kids were falling all over the place). We then went to the park and introduced capture the flag, a game that the kids had never heard of before. They really enjoyed it, and the kids were actually filling their roles on the team quite well (i.e. prison guards acting like actual prison guards). It seemed that the game had reached a standstill, when one of the teams tried for a huge push and ended up getting a lot of their team captured, allowing the other to go in and take the flag pretty easily after about 10 minutes. I think this game was one of the most successful things we did and definitely one of the highlights. The kids from my orphanage are already asking when we’re going to play it again. During the afternoon, we made a time capsule, in which the kids wrote down their favorite memories from the camp and what they envision for themselves 20 years in the future. We then took pictures in front of the monument in the center of town, effectively putting a cap on the main portion of the camp.

Most of the volunteers left on Friday morning, but the supervisors took all the kids out to the fortress in Shumen to continue the archaeology theme. I saw the kids from the other place as they were leaving and may had made new friends and didn’t want to leave. So all in all, after all the hard work and stress, the camp was pretty successful, and we’re planning on doing something similar again next year. The supervisor from Dren actually invited our kids out there for next year, so we’ll see what we can get together. I know I learned a lot about how to run a successful camp, what works, and what fails miserably. I think that next time we’ll skew for a bit of a younger group as well. All in all, it was a great time, and while I’m glad it’s over, I’m also glad we were able to put together a successful camp (without many resources) that created new friendships for the kids and gave them some great experiences.

Until next time…


PS... Andrea took these pictures. My camera is once again out of commission... Thanks~

Nessebur

Nessebur is a town caught in between two conflicting paths of development.

On one hand, Nessebur is a beautiful museum town – an ancient city built by Romans on an island in the Black Sea. UNESCO declared the old town on the island a World Heritage Site, or a masterpiece of human accomplishment vital to the history and cultural fabric of Bulgaria.


Connected to the mainland by a small strip of sand and a road, Nessebur seems like it would have been the ideal location in which to place a town, taking into consideration its natural strategic advantages. Due to its great natural defensive capabilities, the town is home to several amazingly well preserved churches (some dating back to the 10th century), as well as a good amount of Bulgarian revival architecture from the 1800s.



On the other hand, Nessebur is a big and gaudy beach town sharing the same strip of sand as Sunny Beach (at times blending into, or being absorbed by, its neighbor). The road into the old town is lined with water parks and casinos, and the distinction between historical areas and modern development is becoming increasingly ambiguous. Indeed, scattered amongst the ruins of Roman fortifications and the historical buildings are located giant neon signs advertising English breakfasts. The old cobblestone streets are now lined with tacky souvenir stands selling everything from shock-factor t-shirts to plastic beach toys.


At some points it’s somewhat difficult to tell what heritage exactly UNESCO is preserving here. The buildings are being preserved, but the meaning is left behind, the actual culture being lost in the shuffle. At the same time, it’s hard to tell if one thing is possible without the other – if the authentic structures would still be in tact without the support from the artificial. It is often the same case for any place of historical or cultural significance. And so, just like any other place one has to dig to find a bit of true meaning of the place and to capture at least a piece of the character that made it so great to begin with.

Just like the rest of Bulgaria, it will be the beautiful things that I choose to bring with me, not the junk that is currently covering it up.

Until next time...

Sunny Beach

I’m sitting on a queen sized bed in a room on the top floor of a hotel in what is easily one of the most Western, upscale places in Bulgaria, and all I can think about is that the cable TV in the room doesn’t work.

Sunny Beach has a strange effect on people.

Looking out of my balcony, I see a stretch of miles of pure white sand and luxury hotels. This is a scene more likely found in Florida or California – a small strip of America cut away, airlifted, and tossed down haphazardly at the edge of Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast. The streets are clean, the buildings are all new (and actually completed). Sunny Beach offers, at first glance, a vision of Bulgaria’s potential as a tourist destination.


Scratch a bit beneath the surface, and you can come to find small bits of the Bulgaria I’ve come to love. Directly below the balcony, hidden away from the main road and in the middle of two swimming pools was a garden in which an old baba was picking tomatoes, just as she probably has in that same spot her whole life. Yet soon, this place too will be uprooted and the land subdivided and cleared for another hotel – its ground floor serving English breakfasts to German tourists.

During my visit to Sunny Beach, I felt (for the first time) like a visitor to the country in which I now live. I felt it was a place in which Bulgaria was being pushed out, hidden away, and erased, the only useful thing salvaged being the obligatory Shopska Salad on every menu. Sunny Beach felt to me like a bus stop to which tourists flock for cheap booze and (relatively) more lenient laws. It felt like the Cancun of Europe. The Daytona of the Balkans. I’m reminded of a Monty Python sketch from the Meaning of Life in which a waiter asks a couple of American tourists, “Have you ever wondered just why you’re here?” Their response is that of the stereotypical tourist: “Well we went to Miami last year, and Philadelphia the year before that, and this seemed like a nice enough place to go.” A trip to Sunny Beach is just that – another place to go without having to confront the bigger issues present around it.

It occurred to me as I watched the hordes of people milling around the center that Sunny Beach is really just one spot of debauchery on the beach that exploits the country’s status as a developing nation – a place that provides the perfect combination of lax laws and lower prices. Just like its Mexican counterpart (Cancun) Sunny Beach doesn’t try to entice visitors inland (or if they do, on packaged tours) or encourage them to contribute in any way to the local population.

For example, just a couple of kilometers away from Sunny Beach are some typical Bulgarian villages, just scraping to get by, its youth inevitably leaving for the promise that a job in Sunny Beach provides. By bypassing the country’s challenges on their beeline trek to the beach, the people who come here also miss out on the real Bulgaria. Sure, they don’t have to see the poverty, or confront the corruption. The biggest problem they face is which novelty t-shirt to buy at the souvenir store. But the downside is that they don’t get to see anything uniquely Bulgarian. Worse, they don’t even support the country to which they have come, their money going instead to English and German developers who skip town during the low season, leaving the locals scrounging for cash during the brutal winter.

Driving down here from Preslav, we must have passed through 20 little villages. We passed through winding mountain roads that opened up into fields of sunflowers. We stopped at a lake lined with beautiful rock formations. Our driver pointed out to us the house in which her grandmother was born. The two hour drive to Sunny Beach held more character and liveliness than the entire two day stay in Sunny Beach itself. The change in scenery alone was enough to make a person forget all about life in the rest of Bulgaria.

I hope I never do.

Village Hopping, Part 2

Kirkovo to Osmar

The village of Kirkovo, only 2 kilometers distant from Preslav is separated from town by another vast sunflower field and very little else, giving the impression that the field actually serves to somehow both connect and separate the two places. If it weren’t for this field, I am sure that the towns would run together. In fact residents of Preslav refer to the village as “kvartal Kirkovo,” suggesting that they regard Kirkovo as a part of Preslav, despite the fact that they have little in common (other than the apparent proximity).


It’s a quiet little place with little of interest, save for an exceptionally picturesque church in the center. I sat by for a bit, just enjoying watching the laid back life in the village, disturbed only by the occasional clatter of donkey hooves or a tractor revving its engine somewhere in the distance. It was easy to appreciate the seemingly total change of pace evident in a town that lies so close to my own before heading on to tackle the greater part of my journey that day, which would eventually top 20 kilometers (or roughly half a marathon).

5 kilometers later, past another wide sunflower field and a small patch of forest that opened into a valley filled with wildflowers, I reached the train tracks that mark the boundary of the village of Kochovo. I had passed through Kochovo several times, as it lies on the bus route between Shumen and Veliki Preslav, but I had never really given any thought to the place while passing through. Walking slowly in the streets of the village I was able to notice many things I had never seen before – notably the center, which lies outside of the main bus route but contains a nice clock tower and monuments to fallen soldiers of past wars.

The most striking characteristic of Kochovo to me, however, was the complete lack of activity. Often when I go to a village there are people milling around getting things done, but during my time in Kochovo, I saw almost no people. Stopping in a small shop off the center for water, I asked the shopkeeper if there was a café or restaurant in town. The surprising response was that she didn’t know. I was alarmed by the response because it is a small and pretty compact town, but I later realized that this is the case in many places in a country such as Bulgaria, in which the small towns are getting smaller every day. This leaves the people who stay behind saddled with more work and fewer options to think about much else.

Not having found a place to get something to eat, I pressed on 5 more kilometers to the village of Osmar, which despite being similar in size to Kochovo seemed infinitely more alive. I ate a short lunch of Shopska Salat and kyuftes at the one restaurant in town in the center before heading away from town, following a sign I noticed that pointed the way to “Rock Monasteries,” something I never knew existed in this area. 3 kilometers into the hills outside of the village (Shumen lies on the other side of the same hills), I reached a sheer rock face. At the top of the cliffs were some holes leading into the mountain, and these were only accessible by a wooden ladder. Climbing the ladder into the holes revealed a complex of tiny rooms in the rocks, carved several meters into the mountain, and containing everything a religious hermit could ever need to live his life in peace. A small altar, candle stands, several icons, and places set aside for meditation were scattered around in the cave.

However, the real treasure was found by looking out from the monastery, revealing an amazing panorama over the hills onto the valley beyond. From this point I could see not only Osmar, but also Preslav, Kirkovo and the sunflower fields, all ringed by a chain of mountains in the distance. It is understandable that people would have sought this place out for meditation and reflection, and I couldn’t help but feeling relaxed myself during my time up there, looking down at the world, and having uncovered my own hidden treasure in the hills.

Village Hopping, Part 1

Patleyna and the Sunflower Fields

These beautiful and long summer days have left me with the itch to get outdoors and just enjoy the warm weather and the great scenery around my town. The past few weekends, I’ve been able to get out of town and do some exploring in the many villages that comprise the Preslav municipality and that lie within walking distance.

One of the great things about the villages in Bulgaria is that, even though they lie within mere kilometers of each other, each offers something unique. When I first arrived here, I was amazed at the sense of isolation apparent in villages that are seemingly so close. In America, these places might be considered suburbs of another bigger city. Here, the villages enjoy a certain independence from each other and all have their own identity and traditions, completely separated from nearby towns, even though they are often within easy walking distance from each other.

My first such excursion was to nearby Patleyna, a place in the hills outside of Preslav, actually visible from many spots here in town. After a short 5 kilometer walk past the familiar ruins and up into the hills, I was greeted by a quirky inn and an old man tending to his horses in a nearby stable, somewhat confused as to what I was doing there. The quietness was incredible, and even separated by a mere 5 kilometers from my town, the difference was noticeable – the air a bit cooler, the area covered by more greenery, the pace of life a bit slower.

After walking around a bit, I would a set of stairs leading up into the forest and somewhat overgrown by nearby trees and decided to investigate. After a couple of minutes of climbing, I came upon the ruins of an old monastery from the 10th century, incredibly more intact than the bigger and more famous ruins in Preslav. Apparently it was at this monastery that one of the national treasures of Bulgaria was found – the ceramic icon of St. Theodore, currently housed in the national museum in Sofia.

Walking further up the hill, the stairs led to an old abandoned building (a more recent monastery, built in the last century but now apparently closed) with an amazing view of the valley below and of Veliki Preslav.

Having seen a significant amount, I turned back for the day, taking a different road back into town and taking the opportunity to pass by vast stretches of sunflower fields. The past month, the countryside of Bulgaria has blossomed with entire fields all across the nation erupting into a vibrant yellow. I had seen pictures of Bulgaria’s sunflowers, being one of the things that the country uses to promote tourism, and seen in several books (including the language book I purchased before coming out here), but passing by these endless landscapes is an entirely different experience.

There are small patches nestled in between hills and mixed in with different crops, creating little picturesque farms in little unexpected places. There are vast valleys blanketed with sunflowers as far as the eye can see, stretching on and on, hill over rolling hill, until the hills blend together in the distance, creating the impression that the entire expanse is composed of just one giant hill, impossibly covered in zigzagging patterns from top to bottom. I could sit for hours just enjoying the view and just walking by offers a peaceful feeling unparalleled so far in this country.