I met a Bulgarian woman who lives in Sofia on my last visit. She was introduced to me while I was still in Sedona (via email)....someone I know who knows someone who knows someone..... (thank you Patsy!) This visit I stayed with her. She's dog-sitting for a gorgeous Hungarian Visla (Vishla?). They were wonderful hosts and I enjoyed my stay with them very much!
I thought my visit to the dentist on Friday was going to be a quick one, but it turned out to be over 2 hours and kind of difficult. He removed the temporary filling, and shaped the tooth in preparation for the crown. He also worked on slightly trimming other teeth to even out my bite to a more natural closing of my jaws. He says that because my teeth (and bite) are uneven and certain teeth might feel the impact of closing my jaws together, it can lead to clenching and grinding - which I do a fair amount of. Now my "bite" is even and all upper and lower teeth have equal touching - more balanced than before. One more appointment for putting a crown in place and I should be done. I was pretty exhausted Friday night - from the stress of the dental work and an extra early morning so I could walk 1 3/4 miles to the train station to catch the 7:45 am train to Sofia.
Saturday was the Bulgarian English Spelling Bee at the National level. The twenty 4th - 7th graders were well prepared and bright. The competition went on for over 2 hours. What I found interesting was that by the time they reached the end of the list of words the kids had studied, there were 6 contestants left standing - all boys!! They had to spell words that were not on the study list. Mistakes and eliminations sped up compared to the "studied" words - until there were 2 left. The last 2 standing did an outstanding job spelling! The winner (from Ruse) won a Kindle, while all the contestants received an mp3 player, a flash drive and a book to read in English! Some of the words on the study list included - acquaintance, necessary, miscellaneous, once, wrong, collaborate, erroneous, encouragement, voyage, etc. In Bulgarian, words usually have only letters which are pronounced and only rare double letters. If you see a letter in a Bulgarian word you say it. So in English words, silent letters can be tricky for spellers. Also vowels and vowel pairs are difficult. Bulgarian vowels usually only have one pronunciation and English has many - cat, bar, cake, caught, paw. To make matters more confusing there are some letters that are identical to our alphabet but pronounced differently (see below - 1st english; 2nd Bulgarian)
- e = ee / long a
- a = long a / only short a
- H = aich / n
- x = ex / h
Also challenging are words that sound alike but are spelled differently - steel, steal / wait, weight, etc. Kids do o.k. if they ask for the definition, but sometimes they are too excited or nervous and forget.
And during one intermission, we had a Bulgarian Spelling Bee for the Peace Corps volunteers. There were 9 of us -- I thought I would be the first one out, but I was the third out. I was nervous and the word they gave me was Bulgarian for flower (цвете) but I could only think of flowers (цветя) - and it totally befuddled me. It was funny - easy word, easy out. The last two young men standing were excellent and they had to call it a tie because they didn't lose!
Sunday afternoon it was about a 5 1/2 hour journey home - 4 1/2 on buses, one hour waiting.
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