i am just ignorant or maybe i am a genius.

case and point. a few weeks ago in Ruse with my american friends, we were sitting in a confectionery and i was blowing bubbles in my blueberry milkshake, amazed that the surface wasn't breaking. the bubbles kept building and building. meanwhile my friends were trying to decipher the coasters, which had little aphorisms in bulgarian printed on them. "ask anna, she's a genius" one of them said, they all three looked over to me, and i looked up from a glass full of blue milk bubbles. "a real genius" someone added, sarcastically.

**disclaimer: i am not a genius. i am pretty good at bulgarian, though. i could speak in full sentences before i was 2, so goes the story. i just like talking. a lot.

am i just really dumb, or are people just really hard pressed to give me any credit? i definitely don't think like a bulgarian, i definitely have a lot more life to experience before i can say i know a little about anything. but the things i do know, i've learned well and have thought about at great length. unlike a good majority of the people in this village, i have a college degree. i have a piece of paper that says that i'm smart, or at least that i convinced someone that i knew what i was talking about. i recognize the complete exuberance and luxury that it is to have one of these degrees, but to tell the truth, i usually forget that i have one. my neighbors, my friends here, i've done a lot of different things with them. i've worked in fields with them, i've cooked with them, i've cleaned with them, i've prayed with them. i would never, have never assumed or asserted that they know less than me. i do not separate myself from them or divide us into levels of education, money, or status.
but they have not forgotten that i am a foreigner, they have not forsaken the fact that i don't know everyone's history, i don't know everything about the village inside out like they do. i hear it too often, that i just plain cannot know what i am talking about. maybe they are right. maybe it's just pride to think that i have a good grip on reality. maybe it's just naivete that i don't have personal and very deep vendettas against people here. maybe, it's just ignorance that i am open to everyone, to what they have to say, to what they have to share with me.
but of course, i don't think so. i am happy being how i am. if in the end it proves that i am in fact living in a great state of ignorance, i guess i'll have to admit that i am in fact living in one great state of bliss.