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~

The (New) Old Ball Game

It was after my second outing to the beautiful city of Vratsa that I experienced baseball in Bulgaria for the first time.

In the thick of the election campaign for the Bulgarian Parliament, some volunteers and I had a free night in Vratsa, with which we took the rare opportunity to eat some delicious Chinese food. After that, we happened upon an outdoor concert being thrown by GERB (The Bulgarian Party for European Integration) including all the finalists of this year’s Music Idol (the Bulgarian equivalent of American Idol). It is fascinating for me to witness the many political parties in Bulgaria (it is said that there are hundreds) fight for votes using any means necessary. GERB’s campaign was particularly blatant in its vote-fishing, using its resources and star power to throw extravagant concerts, between whose acts politicians came out and yelled things such as, “Like what you hear? Vote GERB!” There are billboards around everywhere with not so subtle reminders. “Remember who built the new children’s complex for you?” says one... “Vote for us.” Still another, for ATAKA, simply reads, “The people love him,” and showing the party’s leader accepting a kiss on the hand from an old baba.

Anyway, the next day I headed out to the tiny village of Dren to help out another volunteer teach kids baseball at her orphanage for a couple of days. We started right away on the first afternoon, pitching and catching, and the kids picked it up really quickly. Even after several hours, the kids were clamoring for more. The next day we introduced batting and even attempted to play a little game. The kids seemed to do great and had a good time. Our final game got rained out, but I think the weekend was a success and a good foundation on which to build a team. Besides, it was a good excuse to cook up some Mexican food – a very rare treat, as it is extremely difficult to find in Bulgaria.

The camp also gave me an opportunity to try out some methods for teaching baseball at my own orphanage here in Preslav. Similarly, we started out just pitching and catching (even though we don’t have many gloves). Once again, the kids picked it up almost immediately, and they even started practicing catching fly balls by bouncing balls off the high concrete walls of the gigantic block building.

We’ve started batting, and progress has been a bit slower on that, but there are already a couple of superstars in the making who continually get hits. Currently, the kids aren’t quite getting the concept of a catcher, but we’re getting there. At the end of the day, the kids don’t want to stop playing, and that’s a great feeling. My sitemate is getting in on the action as well, so it’s a good time for all in town. We were even in the regional newspaper, as baseball is apparently a significantly novel activity for the locals. We constantly get curious passers-by wondering what the heck is going on and asking questions.

Hopefully at some point we can get a full team together and working soon so we can get in on the amazing volunteer league, in which kids from several towns in this region play, all coached by Peace Corps members. However, for now the kids are still just working on the basics, little by little. Many of the kids are still waiting and trying eagerly for their first hit…

Until next time...

Volleyball Death Match

This weekend I went out to Turgovishte, a town pretty close to me, to go help a volunteer from another group with a fundraising project she has going. The idea was to have a Volunteer vs. Bulgarians volleyball match. Sounded fun, and in the end it actually was a lot of fun. However (just as many seemingly normal things here in BG turn out) the whole deal was an adventure.

I got into town at about 2pm and met the other players from the volunteer team. We were going to get together to play a bit and practice before the match. After buying possibly the greatest prize of all time (a plastic sword) to give to the winners of the match, we eventually made our way to the school where the game was going to go down.

As we waited for the doors to become unlocked, we watched a boys vs. girls dodgeball game going on outside the school. The girls were vicious, and the boys resorted to cheating (i.e. not leaving when they got hit, bringing in 2 people when they caught the balls). I have to say, between that game, and the little boy climbing nearby buildings, the time before the game was pretty entertaining.


Finally we get inside and start hitting the ball around, and get a quick practice game together. Only one person on the team had ever played on a volleyball team before, and the rest of us hadn’t played in a while, if at all. However, for not having any experience, we came together to field some sort of semi-respectable, rag tag team as the opposing team of Bulgarians walked into the gym.

After giving our strongest “USA!” cheer in a huddle we yielded the court so that they could get some practice in. This is when it became apparent that we were going to die. Previously unbeknownst to us, the team has recently won the regional championship. As we sat there watching as the other team practiced serving some of the hardest, most Olympic worthy serves I had ever seen, I got visions of the most mismatched events in sports history It was like the 1992 Basketball Dream Team against the scrubs of the rest of the world. The 0-14 1976 Buccaneers vs. the Steel Curtain…

A good crowd showed up, and the game got underway. We got our butts handed to us, unsurprisingly, but we actually got some good volleys in, and didn’t go scoreless which was nice. I sparked up a conversation with one of the Bulgarian players in between games, and he said, "So, I thought Americans were really good at volleyball,” referring to the dominating performance of the US team at this year’s Olympics. As I laughed to myself, I told him it depended on the region, and that beach volleyball is usually the version played (in Florida at least). Volleyball is serious business here in Bulgaria, and is very much a “man’s game.” Whereas in schools in America, girls usually play volleyball while the boys play basketball, it is interestingly exactly the opposite here.

Anyway, after a couple of games in which we Americans lost by huge lopsided margins, we mixed up the teams and played some mixed games, which yielded the most fun times of the tournament, and made up in part for the loss of confidence I had in my athletic skills. All in all it was an awesome time, and a huge success. The event brought in more money than was expected, and everyone had fun, despite the stinging red marks on our forearms…

Until next time…

Bulgarski Futbol

So I don't get to watch my favorite teams every Saturday and Sunday. So I'm missing the Rays' first trip to the World Series. So what? I'm in Bulgaria where soccer (futbol) is king.

This weekend I made it out to a game played between my town's team, FK Preslav (FK = Futbol Klub) and a big city somewhat close to me, Dobrich. Dobrich is a city with over 100,000 people, and Preslav has probably somewhere around 9000. Despite this size disparity, the teams are somehow in the same division.

I didn't think our odds were too great coming in, but I had my mind set on finally getting out and watching some sports. Even though it was a cold and rainy day, I'm glad I did. It was a fun game to watch with a lot of slipping and sliding around the field. However, this made the play a bit sloppy and a lot of fouls were called for both teams throughout the match (one guy even pushed a ref). The game remained scoreless until the last 15 minutes of the game, when Preslav scored. They were able to hang on to the victory despite some close calls for the 1-0 upset win.

Preslav's jersey is navy blue with red trim, and Dobrich is in Packers colors (yellow and green). It was therefore very easy for me to join the rest of the crowd in rooting against them.

Lining up the shot for the game's only goal

I guess home field advantage paid off… Our crowd was fierce, and the other team just couldn’t handle the pressure…

In Bulgarian soccer there are 3 tiers - A group (the premier/professional league), B group (the winner of B group gets to move up into A, and the worst in A group gets demoted to B), and V group (the winner of V group gets to move into B group, etc.). Preslav is in V group...

The biggest rivalry in the country is FK Levski vs. CSKA (both play in Sofia in different stadiums), and dang it is intense. It seems everyone in the country is at a 50/50 split as to which team they support, and they might as well be the only two teams in the league. Levski has won the Bulgarian championship (called the Bulgarian Cup) something like 26 times, and CSKA has won it around 20 or so. The team that has won it the 3rd most only has 6…

All in all Bulgarian soccer hasn’t been too competitive with the rest of the world or even with Europe. Their one success (which is still talked about by people here) was in the 1994 World Cup, when Bulgaria stunned everyone and placed 4th. FK Levski is the only team to have made it to the group stage of the UEFA Champion’s League. Unfortunately their group conisted of legendary teams like Chelsea and Barcelona and they got blown out in all 6 of their group games.

There is however, one shining light for the Bulgarians – Dimitar Berbatov. He’s the captain of the Bulgarian national team, and plays (and starts!) as a forward/striker for none other than the world famous Manchester United. He's also played for Tottenham Hotspur, Bayer Leverkusen, and CSKA Sofia. Needless to say the Bulgarians are really proud of him, and he has risen to national hero status. This guy’s face is everywhere, and he’s on the news and sports highlight reels pretty much every night, even if he didn’t do anything remarkable.

Maybe someday in the far future, FK Preslav will move up through the ranks to reach Bulgarian Super Cup glory, or play in the Champions League, but for now the people of Preslav and I are just happy to have something to watch on Saturdays.

Until next time...