Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Autumn Activities


I haven’t been writing my usual, lengthy blog posts.  Life has been busy for me in Bulgaria.  Instead of writing, I have become more dependent on photos for journaling my life here.
Here’s a quick overview of the past month.  Each year, September 15 is the first day of school.  Since the 15th was a Saturday this year, school began on the 17th.  Children, teachers, parents and administrators gathered in the school yard to celebrate the beginning of the year.  Then parents were invited into their children’s classrooms.  That was over a month ago and the rhythm of the school year is in full swing now.  An interesting note is that children have the same teacher from 1st grade through 4th grade.

A project I assisted with is helping write a grant proposal in English and submitting it to several organizations which offer funding opportunities.  The Woman’s Club – Djula, wants to create a women’s resource center in the village where women can improve their job skills (office organization, math, computer) and life skills (first aid, nutrition, etc.).  This is an energetic group of women with lots of ideas for projects.  The biggest challenge is to find funding to implement their ideas and creating sustainability once a project has begun.

At the end of September there was a newly developed “Carving Festival” celebrating the traditions of farming and gardening as well as the more creative side of design - art by carving veggies and fruit .  Our village created an historical exhibit with photos, artifacts and text about the history of its gardeners.  The reputation for excellence and skill spread throughout Eastern Europe.  At different times, master gardeners from here went to other countries to teach their gardening skills.  Almost every household has at least one garden where food is grown, harvested, and preserved for the cold winter months.  It’s life here – many people do not have money to purchase canned goods or frozen foods from grocery stores.  They are dependent on their gardens for their survival. 

For this festival I made my first movie.  Katya took photos and clips from planting seedlings to picking gorgeous, ripe veggies.  I produced a movie from these and added music and subtitles and it played in an endless loop in the exhibition hall.  I enjoyed the process while learning along the way as well as the end result.  It requires a lot of patience with repetition and a lot of time for the process.

This past Saturday I visited a local plant where fresh vegetables and fruit are delivered, prepared and frozen to be distributed for sale throughout Bulgaria and other European countries. They were coring red peppers by hand, roasting then peeling, then placing on trays to freeze.  Others were busy blanching broccoli and cauliflower in preparation of freezing.  I have never seen such huge heads of broccoli and cauliflower (see photo).

After a full weekend of Carving Festival activities, I went to Sofia for 5 days.  The first two days were for a celebration of the Peace Corps presence and work in Bulgaria over the past 21 years.  Americans and Bulgarians remembered the work together, the projects and the relationships built.  We had a social event at the US Ambassadors residence (Marci Ries arrived to begin her new job, just a few days earlier).   The next day there were speeches, dancing, singing and memories shared in a beautiful Officer’s Club auditorium in Sofia. 

The last two days of the week I attended a Warden training where we reviewed safety procedures in case of emergencies.  The Peace Corps leadership and staff in Bulgaria is very, very organized.  Their attention to detail and care of us volunteers is commendable.  The most interesting part of the training was the day we went to a NATO training center to experience an earthquake simulator so we could practice where to “duck and cover.”  We were also hidden amongst debris of a fallen building where search and rescue had to locate us and extract us.  In a flood related exercise, we made a human levee-building chain putting sandbag upon sandbag to create a barrier for flood waters.  Finally we were voluntarily marooned on one of three flood locations – the roof of a submerged house; a house that wasn’t submerged, but totally surrounded by water, a partially submerged car - and were again rescued by emergency  crews.   I love this kind of experiential learning!  It creates a solid memory to pull up if such a situation arises.

After a full week of activities I returned home for some serious rest….because I had a hitchhiking virus which accompanied me home.  I had diarrhea for 8 days.  At first I thought it was something I ate, but it took too long to resolve.  My energy was depleted and I did sleep a lot.  Unfortunately, a week later I did eat some bad food and it demonstrated that indeed if it is food poisoning, after only 24 hours of digestive distress, things got better.  Saturday was better, but had the first sniffles which has developed into an autumn cold.  Yesterday I rode my bike to the train station at 7:00am and mostly slept on the train to Sofia.  When I arrived at the hostel and I took a nap before heading out for a bowl of soup.  Monday morning I had an appointment with a doctor and a renowned orthopedic surgeon who has spent over 20 years perfecting his knowledge and skill.  I had an ultrasound of my shoulder girdle muscles and tendons because about 8 weeks ago , while stretching normally, something got “tweaked” and my arm hurts in certain positions.  I gave it some time to see if it would heal on its own, but after several weeks, I thought I’d better find out what’s going on so I can prevent any further damage.  Thankfully it’s not serious and can most likely be helped through physical therapy.  So my next challenge is to find a local physical therapist and arrange my schedule so I can go 10 days in a row.  I’m enjoying the Bulgarian countryside and awesome autumn colors as my train meanders towards home.

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