Elate da Izrisuvame!

“Come and paint with us!”

Peace Corps Bulgaria wanted something sustainable, and we gave it to them… What could be more sustainable than a giant picture on a once-blank wall that shows how patriotic your town is? About 20-ish kids showed up, as well as 10 adults, to clean up their town and create a lasting expression of peace. At least that’s what I like to think of it as… Really, we had a fun day in the town center, did some painting, and gave away a soccer ball for picking up trash around the town center. It all just seemed to work together well.

Before: During:
After Day 1:

We had a bit of scare while we were touching up a few parts of the mural the day after. It started to rain overnight, and when we got to Bulgarian class everyone had the same look on their faces – a look that obviously said, “Are we sure the paint is waterproof?” Luckily the mural made it through the night, but we’re going to cover it with waterproof sealant just in case.

By the way, I was also on Bulgarian television for the first time, since the regional news came out to cover our project for whatever reason. I did an interview… in Bulgarian. The constant onslaught of language lessons every day is paying off I guess!

The mural reads “Welcome to Kraynitsi” (Dobre Doshli b Kraynitisi) and is written against an outline of Bulgaria filled in with the colors of the Bulgarian flag – white, green, and red. On the side is one of the symbols of Bulgaria, pink roses, and at the bottom is displayed the emblem of the European Union, of which Bulgaria is now a part. Just under the lettering, and contained within the borders of Bulgaria (and in its correct region, I must add) is displayed the coat of arms of Kraynitsi, in which is a traditionally dressed figure holding an apple and a flower. I'll add the picture of the emblem later.

Other volunteers from our area came out and gave their help and support as well. Thanks guys!

Now begins the final stages of our training for service here in Bulgaria. Swearing-in is just under 3 weeks away. Somewhere in between now and then we’ll make another trip to Sofia to check out some of the sites, as well as the Peace Corps office and US Embassy. After that, we only have another week until we are officially sworn in as Peace Corps volunteers. Then it’s on to Preslav… and into the bitter Bulgarian winter, which seems to have already begun, coming out of nowhere. Seriously, I think the average temperature in my bedroom during this past week has been somewhere in the 40s… Great!

Until next time…

Thoughts Fom the Top of the World

Every day I feel more and more like a Peace Corps advertisement: “Life is calling… How far will you go?” Last weekend I hiked into the mountains up to about 10,000 feet to see the Seven Rila Lakes, which I can say with confidence is hands down one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. It takes a good 3 hours to get up to the lakes, and once there, another 2-3 hours to get to them all, including an hour hike almost straight up from the 5th lake to the top of the mountain where the last 2 are hidden, but it’s definitely worth it. Any questions as to why I’ve come this far were wiped away as I looked down at Bulgaria… Then a hailstorm came and we pretty much slid the rest of the way down the mountain in huge piles of mud.



Am I living my life? I like to think so.

From that point, at which I’m pretty sure was the highest elevation I’ve ever stood, I couldn’t help but feeling small. I also couldn’t believe how far I’ve already come in such a short time. It’s hard to believe that just 2 months ago I stepped off the plane into this crazy adventure, where now so many weird things seem completely normal to me. I’m trying to imagine what kind of warped reality I will be living in after 2 years, or how many things I’ll be missing in the States. But I can’t quite wrap my mind around that yet… Maybe I will have finally integrated into this Bulgarian life. Maybe the lack of oxygen was just getting to me…

One thing I’m not missing is the ridiculous amount of politicking that is going on this election year. Pretty much my only lifeline to American news is internet sources, and right now they’re jammed with worthless personal crap about the candidates. It’s everywhere, including places where I thought were safe havens (like my email inbox). I know that election years are usually crazy, but this year seems to be on a different level. I don’t know if it’s that the stakes are so high or if the media is just more prevalent than ever. Whatever it is, I’m glad I’m not in the thick of it right now…

Thankfully I can escape the constant bombardment by simply focusing on my work here. I taught my first class ever this week – an hour long English lesson about parts of the body, concluding with a pseudo dance party (Do a dance move using your… arms!). This weekend marks the beginning of the most important events of our pre-service training. We will be painting our mural on the town’s chitalishte on Sunday, and then we’ll be presenting our cultural topic on Friday (our group will be talking about Bulgarian superstitions).

Until next time.

PS: I’ve posted more pictures from the hike on my facebook page. I hope I can get more up on here, but in the meantime, if you have a facebook account (which I think everyone should have haha), you can check them out there…

Into the Mix

It’s a long 7 hours to and from Veliki Preslav.

Driving along the little highways in Bulgaria gave me a lot of time to think (especially since I didn’t bring anything to read. Good move, me!)… I think mostly about the little things in the now, but every once in a while I get some good ideas about future plans. This was one of those times. I guess the need to fill in the awkward silences in between my 3-year-old-level Bulgarian and my counterpart’s lack of English provides a good medium for plan-making. I have so many things floating around in my head right now it’s ridiculous…

My primary assignment will be to work in the local orphanage (Dom za Detsa – literally “home for children”), coordinating activities for the kids and teaching life skills for integration into the community. As secondary assignments, I’ll be working in a kindergarten and also holding English classes for adults in the town. This is perfect for me, not only because it means I’ll have a pretty stable workload over my two years here, but also because my primary interest and experience is with at-risk children. And believe me, these children are definitely at-risk. Hopefully I can get some of the local fathers in town involved as well in my second assignment, as that assignment not only involves the small kids but also their families.

I’m walking into a bit of a delicate situation here, as I’m replacing another volunteer whose service has ended. Luckily I was able to talk to said volunteer and discuss some things she’s done over the past couple of years. Admittedly, I have a different approach to working with children from her. This isn’t a bad thing, and I think that the ideas I’m mulling over right now can actually work out and can provide a big payoff for the kids in the area of life skills. I guess we’ll see in time…

As for my site itself, I couldn’t be happier. Preslav is a small city (a “gradche” as the residents there affectionately… or diminutively… refer to it) and was at one time the capital of Bulgaria. It once rivaled Constantinople as the most powerful city in the known world. Now it is a small, underserved, and all but forgotten town near the regional center of Shumen, having only ruins and a museum near the town to remind the world of its former status. That aside, the town itself is beautiful, with several cafes and restaurants, a weekly farmer’s market, a huge park, a nice central courtyard area with a gigantic statue of the former king of Bulgaria, and some nice old churches. There is another volunteer – a COD from the previous group - located in my town who is awesome and with whom I think I’ll get along really well. There are also a lot of other volunteers in my area (including 4 from my group – the B24s), so it will be nice to have all of them around in case things get hairy.


But for now I’m trying to concentrate on the near future… more specifically my group’s current project. We’re doing a mural painting on the wall of the local chitalishte (community center), which will involve the help of kids and community members. We’re also going to be coordinating some activities to happen while people are waiting to paint the mural, and might also hold a trash pickup in the town center. By the end of this week I will have also taught my first class ever – an hour long English lesson to Bulgarian children -and will have developed a 3 month action plan to implement when I get to my site. It will definitely be hard to stay focused on the present as all these ideas swim in my head, and as I plan for projects to come.

It’s hard to believe that as I’m having the time of my life here I’ll be missing football season (“real football” haha) for the first time. Luckily we have in the BG are keeping the spirit alive with a fantasy football league. It’s not quite the same but it’s better than nothing. I expect all of you with access to a TV on Saturdays and Sundays to keep me updated. Hopefully I’ll find a place that is sympathetic to the needs of American football fans. In the meantime, Bulgarian soccer will have to hold me over. More on that whole situation later…

Until next time… Go Noles, Go Bucs…

Moment of Truth

Man... September is here already?

Today I found out where I'm spending the next two years of my life and what exactly I'll be doing in this crazy country. I'm headed to the town of VELIKI PRESLAV, where I will be working at both an orphanage and a preschool. Look out BG...

I'll send more info once I get it. This week will be spent scoping out my future site and getting to know more about what I'll be doing.

Wish me luck!

Where the Gold At?

Last night, my host family and I went on a night-hike of sorts. We only ventured just outside the village, but from there I could see every star and the outline of the mountains against the navy blue sky. The nearby town of Sapareva Banya is barely visible during the day, but at this hour (and with all its lights on) the town shimmered like campfire coals strewn across the hillside. It’s one of those sights to which a picture could never do justice and for which words only scratch the surface. I have a lot of those little moments here, and every time it just proves to me that I’m exactly where I want to be right now.

I hope you like the pictures of the Rila Monastery and the surrounding mountains. That was another unforgettable experience, and I hope everyone gets to see it at some point.

Today I’m back in Dupnitsa for a meeting on how to write grants, with which we will carry out a community project in town. Our group in the village where I’m staying had a meeting with the mayor, director of the school, and some local families about possible projects. We decided on a mural on a prominent public building. We’re still tossing around ideas of what to actually paint, but I think that’s the topic of another meeting with the locals. We’re hoping for a lot of youth involvement so they can really band together and have something they can look at and be proud of creating. I think we’re aiming to get the director of the local Chitalishte (Bulgarian community center – every village, town, and city here, no matter how small, has one) involved as well…

Some people have asked me about how Bulgaria has been affected by the Georgia (“Gruzia” here in the BG) situation. I guess the answer to that would be “not very.” It doesn’t really seem to be on the radar over here, despite the apparent geographic closeness and the involvement of former overlord Russia. It’s on Bulgarian news every once in a while, but nobody seems to be talking about it. However, Peace Corps does have a post over there that has been successfully evacuated – which was pretty big news within the PC. Bulgaria’s gold medal in women’s rowing (woohoo!) is currently bigger news…

In other Bulgarian Olympic news, the total final medal count (I think) stands at 5: 1 gold, 1 silver, and 3 bronze. They were supposed to medal in some other events, but apparently choked – which the locals are pretty unhappy about. Jordan Jovchev (gymnast: rings - pretty much at national hero status here) missed a required element and so got a bad score. Volleyball is huge here, and the USA absolutely blew them out, which at first I felt kind of bad about, but then rubbed it in later. On top of that, the entire weightlifting team (one of BG’s specialties) was disqualified for steroid use… oh well. At least it was a fun experience to help my host family cheer on Bulgaria’s teams, and my host family helped cheer on the USA in the few games that I got to watch. I think this might be the only time in my life I will ever watch the following events as intently as I did: volleyball, rifle shooting, ribbon dancing, handball, and several others that I wouldn’t usually care about. I did get to watch the finals of men’s basketball though, which was pretty awesome.

Until next time…

Rilski Monastir Pics

Enjoy!

Rila Planina

So I have been running nonstop for the past 2 weeks... sorry I haven't been able to provide a lot of substance. I'm glad everyone liked the pictures. If you have a facebook account you can check out some others I have uploaded (it's easier there than on here).

Work has been constant. I'm learning more about myself and my own capabilities and limitations than I ever have before... which is definitely a good thing. My Bulgarian is getting much better, and I can catch a few more phrases every day. This week we have a meeting with some community bigwigs, such as the mayor and the principal of the school. We'll be discussing possible community projects to implement during our three month stay in the town.

We also got to go on a trip to the nearby city of Kyustendil to talk to some volunteers about their service. I've really narrowed my focus of what I want to do and where I want to work, but it's up to the program staff at this point. I have my final site placement interview in a couple of days, and I'll find out where I'll be spending the next two years in a couple of weeks. I'm really drawn to work with at-risk kids in either a school or orphanage setting, but I'll know in 2 weeks time...

In other news, I was privileged enough to spend this weekend camping in a tent (palatka) in the Rila Mountains, with my host family. This place is amazingly beautiful. Think the Smoky Mountains, but on a bit of smaller scale. We camped in a clearing right on the Iliyna River, and cooked spicy kyufte and mixed shopska salat for our meals...

From there, we hiked to the Rila Monastery twice. It was about a 4 mile hike there, but it was worth every step. The monastery is Bulgaria's most important cultural site, and was founded and built by Ivan Rilski (the monastery's namesake) about 1000 years ago. The church is contained within a 4 story fortress, complete with a tower and guardhouses, and became a powerful fiefdom in the Middle Ages. The church in the fortress is immaculate, and remarkably well preserved. The entire building is painted inside and out with amazingly detailed frescoes depicting heaven, hell, and the saints important to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. Believe me when I say that every inch of the building is either painted or gilded, and this makes for an incredibly awe-inspiring experience. Buried inside the monastery is Boris III, who I think introduced Christianity to Bulgaria.

I'll try to put some pictures from the monastery up very soon. It has to be seen to believed...

Until next time...

Pictures!

Hey everyone! Here are the pics I said I would put up... these were taken over the past couple of weeks, and they are from my village and from some hikes I have taken around the village. They are thumbnails so you can make them bigger by clicking on them.... Enjoy!


Zherman river

Waterfall in Ovchartsi

The goats come home at 7:30 every evening

Shopska Salat

at my host family house

The street I live on

The school in town

The village in the evening

birthday at the kindergarten

street in the village

view from the mountains
view from my bedroom window

from my house

around town

the training center


More coming later!

Zdravete ot Bulgaria

Hello from Bulgaria! There is so much to tell about, but I have so little time. I am in the town of Dupnitsa right now registering with the police so I can live here for an extended amount of time. I am living in a small nearby town in the southwestern region of the country. I can't put up pictures right now but for now just trust me when I say that this place is extremely beautiful.

Our first week in the country was spent at a nice hotel in the Rila Mountains. They took care not to throw us right into the action, giving us some simple language and culture lessons before moving in with our host families. We B-24s are a pretty awesome group, I must say...

I wake up every morning to see the sun rising over the Rila mountains, right near my village. My host family, an older couple, are extremely nice, and even though I can't speak any Bulgarian, and they don't speak any English, we seem to get along pretty well. I've been learning a lot of vocab from them as we take long walks around in the meadows outside the village. The word we say the most is "Spokoino" - "Relax... there is time."

My house has a very nice garden where my hosts grow fresh tomatoes, potatoes, cucmbers, onions, peppers, and apples. They have 3 cats, a dog, and about 7-8 hens. People in America like paying extra money for organic vegetables. Here, we make salad every night with vegetables picked just minutes before from out in the back yard.

The best food I've had here so far has to be the Shopska Salat - a simple salad made with tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, red peppers, parsley, and sirene cheese (sort of like feta), mixed together. No dressing necessary - the secret to Shopka's taste is the freshness, picked literally miutes before being put on the plate.

Anyway, I have to head out now, as we are about to head out of Dupnitsa and head back to the village. I promise to put up pictures as soon as possible!

Until next time...

Buzzwords and Acronyms

Well I made it.. sort of.

I'm in Washington D.C. for Staging, a sort of general weekend-long orientation session filled with icebreaker games and policy discussions. We speak about things like synergy and sustainability from the 15th floor conference room of our Arlington hotel. I've been making it though like I usually do... that is, with a healthy dose of sarcasm and a lack of taking myself seriously.

I have been meeting a lot of people, however, and the constant togetherness has been helping us get to know each other in a relatively short period of time. From what I can gather, it's a great group with a lot of fun and interesting people coming from all around the country, so I'm pretty excited about the next couple of years. I'm the only Floridian by the way...

Tonight a group of us walked around the National Mall for a bit after our sessions were over. I've been here in DC so many times, but this was a bit different. We got to see all the great monuments just after sunset, when the fading evening light hits the marble and granite just right, inspiring a sense of awe in anyone who happens to be standing there. Standing in the center of the WW2 Memorial at sunset was a memory I'll bring with me Bulgaria and cherish as a reminder of home. I feel like they send us away to Bulgaria from here for a reason...

Tomorrow is more meetings, more policy, more "getting to know you" activities, more of everything. It's grueling and tiring and overal pretty boring, but every meeting is one step closer to Bulgaria.

Random fact of the day: The Military Marching Band has a bigger budget than the Peace Corps. Now you know...

Until next time...

My Life in Two Bags

Well that settles it... 5 hours before I am scheduled to leave to enter the Peace Corps, I have finally finished packing. I have two bags, both packed to the gills with anything I thought I might need and might find difficult to buy in Bulgaria. I still feel that I can get rid of a few extra things, but the less money I can spend over there the better (I'm probably not going to have that much money...). The larger of my bags, according to a crappy bathroom scale in this house, weighs about 75 pounds, and that was after I took some stuff (that I deemed unnecessary) out. The smaller bag, which is also a backpack, clocks in at around 20 or so pounds. Am I under the Peace Corps mandated 100 lbs limit? Will I be assessed an extra fee before boarding the plane? Did I grossly overpack? I guess I'll find out very soon.

I'm flying out of LAX Airport at 7:30am PT. After "4 hours and 2 minutes" I'll land in Chicago. After a short layover (and if everything goes according to schedule), I'll be flying from there and arriving in Washington D.C. at 5:46 ET.

Being that I officially live on the West Coast now, the Peace Corps that it would apparently be easier if I flew into D.C. a day earlier, since staging begins at 2:00 on Friday. So I get to stay an extra night at the hotel, compliments of the government. Thanks! I'm sure that this extra night will go to waste, as I may promptly fall asleep after arriving in my room after a day of traveling.

On top of that, I don't think I can go to sleep tonight. The feeling of anticipation is too strong.

Until next time...

A Small Scare

Hey all. Just got my computer back up and running after a small setback. Turns out that my anti-virus software really freaked out and shut down my wireless connection. This in turn corrupted my drive somehow, and I had to ghost my hard drive... Meaning I wiped it clean, and lost all my files, pictures, music etc. that were on here. Luckily, I had most of the info on my external hard drive from when I transferred all my files from my old computer to the laptop. Sweet! So all in all, not a big setback, but kind of a pain because I have to set everything up again. At least it happened before I left the country!

Anyway, I just got back from a great trip up the coast with my mom. It was kind of a final American road trip before I have to really get cracking on preparing for service. We went from here in L.A. up the coast, stopping in several towns along the way, to San Francisco. The first night we stayed in this little fishing town called Morro Bay. Great little town. We had planned to do some hiking in the mountains along the coast, but there had recently been some fires and so they shut down most of the trails. It was still a great drive, however, with very unique scenery - very different feel from the East coast shores... San Fran was of course great, and we spent a day just walking around the city (we found it was pretty difficult haha). I was surprised to see that the city really is that picturesque and beautiful. There's not much else I can say about it. It's just one of those places that one has to experience themselves.

Tomorrow, after a hike to the top of Hollywood Hill, I'll start really getting down to finalizing my preparations for service in Bulgaria. I have more forms to fill out, last minute odds and ends to pack, things to print out, gifts to buy for the host family in BG... a lot to do, and ever dwindling time... Less than a week to go!

Until next time...

Two Weeks...

In exactly two weeks from today I'll be flying out of LAX to Washington D.C. to start my Peace Corps service and life in Bulgaria. It sounds weird to say that, and I'm sure it will become stranger as the day inches closer and closer... Weird, but in a good and exciting way. My anticipation grows as each day passes.

As for right now, I'm still just trying to relax and enjoy this time off. In the comng weeks, other than preparing for service, I have some fun stuff planned. This weeked, I'm going to spend some time at the beach here in LA, and then go on a road trip up the coast to Monterey. I plan on spending some time at the Getty Museum here in LA and hiking in the awesome mountains around this city. I might hit up Disneyland at some point as well haha.

The move went really smoothly, and pretty much everything is in the house here and organized now, save for maybe two boxes, which will porbably get taken care of today. This place looks really good, I must say. Glad I could do something productive during my month here rather than just sit around haha.

Two weeks and counting.

Until next time...

This Old Town

Hello from Tampa International Airport...

Today officially marks my last day in Tampa. I believe it also marks the first day of my new life's journey. I've been thinking about this transition for the past couple of days as I moved the last bits of furniture from my mom's old house to be transported via Portable On Demand Storage to LA. Now that it's here, I think I'm finally ready to leave it behind. I took a long walk on Bayshore last night, and while sitting on a bench overlooking downtown across the Bay I said my goodbyes to the town I have lived in and loved for all of my 22 years. It was funny, because every time I would think of a bad memory that occurred within these city limits, several positive ones would flow into my mind... All the good times. It was a great way to tie up my experience here.


On a side note, today before mom and I came to the airport, I had what I believe will be my last real Cuban meal in quite a while at La Teresita. It was delicious, and brought all those good memories back up to the surface.

Anyway, I'm ready to move on, but 'll always love this town, and I couldn't imagine growing up anywhere else. Even though I'll miss a lot of things about living here, like having access to Bayshore (one of the best walks anywhere in my opinion), and the way the thunderstorms here can somehow be so violent and beautiful at the same time, I know I have a great adventure lying ahead of me. Goodbye Tampa.

Until next time...

Another Part of the Process

Today my Staging Kit (pretty much instructions for orientation) came in the mail. Good thing too, since the big move begins tomorrow.

Inside the envelope was (surprise, surprise)... more paperwork! There's assorted forms scattered around in there, a book for me, one for my family, and instructions about how to get plane tickets to the staging location. We'll be staging in Arlington. Also, the date seems to have moved back. I was going to be starting on the 18th of July, but now the official date is the 25th, so that's a little extra time here in the States. Nice? Sure!

Anyway, things are really starting to speed up now. This whole deal is getting more and more real every day. I'm leaving for LA in ten days, then it will be almost exactly a month til I head overseas to Bulgaria. It's crazy to even think about. Crazy, but really exciting.

The next ten days will be spent working harder than I have so far this summer. Moving is something that I'm really used to, and I love the exercise. However, I'm not going to be able to study Bulgarian at all during the move. And all this paperwork has to be filled out sometime. I'm sure things will work themselves out.

Speaking of studying Bulgarian, I can count now... and greet people, and some other random things. Making slow progress, but it's a start. Woohoo!

Until next time... which might not be for a while haha.