It's definitely autumn - on it's way to winter. Daytime highs have been around 40 lately and night time lows below freezing. This weekend I got a chance to get out walking - I go in the afternoons now, not early in the morning. Today the sounds I heard as I walked in the hills above town were numerous chain saws cutting firewood in the village blended in with the usual cacophony of dogs barking. I can see that I'm going to have to challenge myself to stay active outdoors during the chilly days of winter! I have posted a few new photos.
However my kitchen is cozy and warm. I am now using the kitchen table as my desk. The computer cable just reaches, but I have to move the table closer to the fridge which makes for acrobatics whenever I want anything out of it. I have a big radiator (33" long) which does a good job of heating up my kitchen and bedroom - there is no door between the two rooms. I do not heat the second bedroom and it stays around 40 degrees. Needless to say I don't spend my time in there. In the villages here, there is no central heat - you just heat one or two rooms and close the others off. I remember my grandparents doing that in their house when I was little.
Two of the libraries where I work have small rooms and wood stoves to keep them warm. The third library is a large room with only one wood stove. Luckily my desk is near the stove but I'm still wearing more layers of warm clothes and I've started heating water for tea on the stove to keep my core warm.
Last week was a little out of the ordinary. Peace Corps held an In-Service Training for all of us volunteers who arrived earlier this year. It was great to see everyone I haven't seen in a while - for most that is last June. There was useful information and ideas for our different areas of service. Questions were asked and answered. And there was lots of sharing about our journeys over the past 5 months. Everyone has concerns about the pace of learning the language. It's important to me because no one I work with in the villages can speak English well. Some people have the opposite challenge - everyone they work with speaks English, so there is little opportunity to learn and practice Bulgarian.
We were in a town called Kazanluk which is the "Rose Capitol" of Bulgaria. Not this time of year, of course. There was great food (I had broccoli for the first time here), delightful camaraderie with other volunteers as well as PC staff. It was nice to travel 3 hours to a different part of Bulgaria - not too far away, but different. And hearing other peoples stories and situations, made me appreciate the people I am with in my 3 villages even more than I already do. I'm thankful for their kindness, patience and support. So many people have been so generous with me - sharing food out of their gardens, and now out of their cellars; inviting me to visit; inviting me on organized day or weekend trips; giving me a ride to the train station at 7:00am; and now with winter - knitting me warm booties to wear on my cold tile floors. Everyone is patient with my Bulgarian and appreciates my efforts at learning it. I fell very blessed and look forward to deepening these relationships over time.
Someone recently sent me a delightfully long email recently telling me about her life as a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco. I liked her comment about blogs being "one way conversations." This is pretty much my experience and while I enjoy sharing my experiences here in Bulgaria with everyone who reads my blog (I know there are quite a few of you - thank you!), I have to remember that I'm predominantly doing it for myself as journal of my life here. But feel free to comment on anything of interest to you, or email mail me about something interesting in your life. I've been in Bulgaria a full 8 months now. Lives move on.....change or don't change.......just know even though my weeks are busy here, I do think about my friends and family and I always appreciate updates from you. And yes, I have been meeting new friends but remember Girl Scouts? Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.
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