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.
