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…

Back in Action and the Great Customs Runaround

Hey everyone!

It’s been a while since my last real update due to some unexpected computer problems. Basically the screen would just randomly start going blank, forcing a restart. Eventually, when I turned it on one time about 2 months ago, I was greeted with a screen full of white lines rather than the friendly Windows logo. After a couple of minutes of trying to figure out what was going on, the computer started randomly turning on and off and on by itself. It was at this point that I know this wasn’t going to be a simple process.

That can't be good...

Luckily the machine is still under warranty, but the service is only available in the States. So my laptop was packed up and entrusted to the Bulgarian postal service under the disguise of a package of Bibles being delivered to a church… the church of my mom’s house. (I still declared the computer on the customs form, but drew crosses all over the box).

Eventually it got there and a technician basically gutted the whole thing, replacing the motherboard, video card and a cooling fan. So yes, basically the problem was pretty major after all, but completely fixable. The process of picking it up when it got back here to Bulgaria, however, was not quite as easy… I got the usual notice in my mailbox alerting me that a package arrived. However, when I arrived at the post office, I was informed that I would have to pick it up in Shumen (the regional center) where it was being held in a customs office. Note to anyone sending anything to Bulgaria: Never declare that something you send has commercial value. The following process will ensue:

I arrived at the customs office in Shumen, where I was informed that I would have to pay a customs fee. Pretty standard procedure I thought, but then Bulgaria stepped in and wiped that thought right away. It wasn’t as simple as handing the customs officer the tax and him giving me the package. Instead, I had to go to a third party who would process the customs form, because strangely, the customs office doesn’t do it. After sitting for an hour in an office with another gentleman who processed the forms while talking to himself about bureaucracy and to me about Russia (“No people, no problems” he told me, a quote he attributed to Stalin), I took the form back down to the customs officers, who told me that I would now have to pay the customs fee. I should have been more surprised when they told me the customs office doesn’t accept money from people. Instead, I had to go to the bank, where they would take the money and wire a notice back to the customs office that the fee had been paid. But not just any bank… there’s apparently one bank in the whole city that can do this. It’s on the complete other side of town. I took a cab to this bank on the edge of town, where I was greeted by a friendly clerk who processed the fee. The bank’s motto was hilariously “Blizo do Vas!” ironically translated to “Close to you!” I laughed to myself the entire 10 minute cab ride back to the customs office, where the officers told me that everything was in order. I expected to receive my package, but was then informed that the package was not there, but back at the post office. On my way back to the post office (4 hours after I first arrived at customs), I wondered what exactly the customs officers do - they don’t process the customs forms, take the money, or handle the packages – other than make a simple exchange ridiculously difficult.

Anyway, the computer is back in my care, good as new, and I’m back on the grid (at least for the time being) just in time for some pretty exciting business. I’ve also had some pretty amazing experiences while the computer was out hurtling around the world. I’ll be getting around to posting about each of these, and hopefully including some nice photos and video (I have about 450 photos from the past couple months). I’ve seen ancient cave paintings and rock formations, trained some new volunteers, taught kids America’s pastime, hiked around in endless sunflower fields, and been rocked like a hurricane. So enjoy!

Until next time…