d-d-d-doodles

it's been forever, huh?

2011-07-05T04:34:00.002-04:00

proletttttt-ahhh!

2011-03-24T11:46:00.001-04:00

winter is long and hard, but oh the joys of spring in the village!

koko

2011-02-20T13:00:00.005-05:00

how do i phrase this? he wasn't my boyfriend. he isn't my boyfriend. we used to fight a lot, then we used to make up. i tried to teach him words like "cold" and "hot" in english, but i never held it against him that he couldn't remember them. i always tried to get him to help me light my woodstove. once there was a lamp that needed fixing, and his solution was to put a new light bulb in it and call it a day. sometimes he didn't answer my phone calls, sometimes we made each other more jealous than we knew was possible.

but once, he picked the tulips out of my garden and brought them to me. once he bought me beers on a saturday night. once we sat at his parents' house from mid-afternoon til after dinner, and his mom talked to me about whitney houston and lady gaga. once we woke up and it was 2011, and we realized the party from the night before had never finished.

once, he called me from a foreign country and the next day i had to check my phone to make sure it wasn't just a dream. right now, i miss him so much.

a summary

2011-01-27T07:14:00.003-05:00

i like steph's idea of giving a quick picture of what we find most striking in our homes, both domestic and abroad:

what i miss about america: ocean pines. the schwinds (neighbors). standing at bars. pop radio. big grocery stores. the car. california. laura. the sofa and watching tv. closets. democracy and feeling like my opinion is valuable. open discussions. creativity/ingenuity. mountain dew/7.11. parties with mia. stoplights. mobility.

what i like about bulgaria: fresh produce. clean air. simple fun. picnics. everything is cheap. varna. kay's house. train tickets/train cards. baby student smiles. ayshe. the forest. truly happy to see you na gostis (visits). feeling like i've worked hard. chalga and kuchek. the accordian playing. walks. sunflower fields. the trams in sofia. all the memories i've made inside bloc apartment buildings.

baben den

2011-01-24T13:25:00.002-05:00

january 21st is "grandmother's day" here, a holiday meant to celebrate midwifery and childbirth/children's health. we weren't able to celebrate with all the babas this year, but we did have a lot of fun roaming the center asking for handouts--men give large and small amounts of money to help feed the baby, who is crying, because he is hungry. i had a lot of company from my fifth graders, who we decided were all my adopted nieces/nephew sons/daughter wards and our little baby whom we named Alex. the kids were great sports, rubbing their bellies telling our passerby's, "WE'RE SO HUNGRY!" what a good baben den.

welcome to january

2011-01-05T10:21:00.000-05:00

koleda nablizhava

2010-12-17T00:59:00.002-05:00

i am nine time zones away from my sister, three from my grandmother, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends, and only 933 miles from my mom. my christmas tree is fake and only 12 inches tall; i've got two stockings hung without assignment or fillings.
BUT, i do have lights up in my window, and every night i've got a fire going in the fireplace.
christmas is where your heart is, so i guess folks, we are having an international christmas this year.

VESELA KOLEDA! MERRY CHRISTMAS!

brothers

2010-11-24T12:12:00.003-05:00

One of my favorite things to stumble upon in my time at school is who are brothers and sisters.
This might not seem like an extraordinary task, considering last names usually give it away from the get go, but keep in mind that in the Bulgarian and Turkish tradition, the first last name (which really ends up being the middle name, but for all intents and purposes is the last name) is taken from the father's name. So, I have students named, for instance, Sibel Gunay, Nerjan Gunay, and maybe a Fatme Gunay, and none of them are from the SAME Gunay. Don't even get me started on the last name "Ahmed". Furthermore, these names are sometimes Bulgarianized which consists of adding an "-ov" for boys and "-ova" for girls. Instead of say, Ayshe Sali you get Ayshe Salieva. Confusing.
They are even more confused/not cofused enough as to why my father's name is "Kathleen".

Today I found out that one of my best, cutest, sweetest little boys in fifth grade is the brother of one a clever, beautiful and mischievous little boy in third grade. It was almost as good as the day that I realized Ibryam from sixth (a very sweet child, but fairly slow), Onur from fifth (straight up looks like Howdy Doody!) and Suleyman from first (still does not speak Bulgarian to anyone and generally yells "ANNA! ANNA!" when he sees me) ARE ALL BROTHERS!
I need to start reading the school rosters a little better.

2010-11-13T11:58:00.002-05:00

i just called my mom's cell phone and got an answer in Arabic!

HAAAAAPPY HALLOWEEEEEN!

2010-10-28T07:26:00.004-04:00

Hey guys and gouls! HEL-O-VEEN, (here more popularly known as Jadilar Bayram) is in FULL SWING! Here's everyone carving pumpkins yesterday. I suspect the adults had even more fun than the kids!

check out this photobomb! Ibo makes me laugh so much!

one of the family

2010-10-26T06:37:00.002-04:00

for all who may be wondering, my mom arrived in Amman, Jordan yesterday to start her life as a Peace Corps Volunteer. after several (too many) hours of travel, a beer and a sausage in Frankfurt (two things she won't be seeing for a while) she finally arrived around 2:30 am and got to bed around the first call to prayer.
she sounds very pleased with her group and staff. orientation and training are very rigorous but if anyone can do it, it's my moms. adjusting to long sleeves in the heat, starting to learn arabic and acclimate herself to the culture, as well as make new friends will make her a very busy lady, but you can follow all of her adventures here and send your encouragement!

2010-10-14T06:46:00.002-04:00

playing red light, green light

the key to fire is air

2010-10-10T14:34:00.003-04:00

folks, it's october. i woke up this morning (no. afternoon.) to sunlight, which i hadn't seen in about three days. i'm talking about direct sunlight, cloudless and glorious. it roused me from my sunday sloth and lasted long enough make me feel cheated when it hid back behind some overcast clouds.
-where are you going? i ask him. sunny, sluntse in bulgarian or for the overachievers, gunesh in turkish.
-oh, you know, i'm kindof tired.
-you haven't been out in like a week, hang out for a bit!
-nahh, it's nice behind these clouds. i'll come back soon, when i'm ready. i just need some time away from you all right now.
and so i lit my stove, scraped together enough small branches and bits to coax them into igniting, threw a big log on top and opened the bottom tray, ensuring the airflow was strong enough to feed the fire, get it hot, get the log to catch. it's all about the air, i thought to myself.

this autumn, although severely colder than necessary, is still devastatingly romantic. my ipod can't seem to play anything but leonard cohen, and i just finished the novel prague by arthur phillips. the characters are all expat westerners living in a former communist central european country, a la boheme of recent generations. we are living this too, to whatever extent we allow ourselves.
last night as i found myself on the dance floor of the cafe, i couldn't shake a vision of an ocean liner cutting through the atlantic, headed west. my body was still dancing to foreign sounds, through slitted eyes everything turned sepia and glowed warm as if already a memory; a mental postcard filed into some "old world" folder in my brain, available to take out at will in years to come and wax nostalgic of those days, or these days. i'm not quite sure how to frame the occurrence of missing something while it is still happening.

2010-10-01T05:37:00.000-04:00

just riding the waves as they come.

i am just ignorant or maybe i am a genius.

2010-09-27T06:30:00.001-04:00

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.

2010-09-14T12:41:00.002-04:00

the sight of bridges and balloons makes calm canaries irritable
they caw and claw all afternoon
catenaries and dirigibles

when you're a joke. i'm a joke.

2010-09-10T12:41:00.002-04:00

i'm 23. people make fun of me on a very consistent basis. sometimes it's for things that i do that they think are funny, like the way i can't quite pronounce the vowels in turkish names correctly or the way i dress or ... i dunno. it seems like most of the time i get made fun of for doing absolutely nothing, just being present. i get mocked a lot. people say things either to me or about me in turkish, and i can only understand from the tone of their voices how absolutely flippant these things are. people constantly want my attention, just to engage me in exchanges where i am the butt of the joke, where everyone else at the table ends up laughing and i end up smiling dumbly because, you know, getting upset or offended just acknowledges that you know they are making fun of you.
after one particular exchange i was told to "disappear".
i don't remember getting bullied a lot in school, and i don't remember bullying anyone. i'm sure that within the dynamic of all of us growing up, there were times that we made fun of someone, got made fun of. we learned how it feels and how it makes others feel, we learned to guard our words, we learned to not associate with those people who were still meanly teasing everyone around them. we learned to respect each other.

what adds the insult to the injury here is that someone last night leaned over and asked me, "how do you deal with people always messing with you?" even outsiders can see it; i'm not a person here, or at least to my peers i'm not really a person. i'm something they pick up when they are bored, toss around, then leave somewhere forgotten until the next time they cross my path. even this kid understood that. how utterly embarrassing.
i told him that i just wanted to have friends, so i guessed that getting razzed was an okay exchange to at least have some company, and that i have found one very true and sweet friend amongst these other not so worthy people. i said i prefer it to staying home alone.
but really, it just makes me feel like the biggest piece of shit sometimes.

2010-09-09T08:31:00.000-04:00

happy september. happy ramazan bayram.

Have you ever met anyone this cool?

2010-08-25T04:30:00.001-04:00

The newest and proudest invitee to Peace Corps Jordan, to depart at the end of October:

MY MOM. THE RADDEST MOM YOU EVER MET.

She taught middle school special ed for twenty years, then went on to get certified to work with visually impaired students. Now she's off to learn Arabic and teach special needs children (and probably adults) motor skills like hand-eye coordination and coloring, and basic life skills like getting dressed in the morning. Did I mention that she's going to learn Arabic?
I am not aware of anyone cooler than this.
In case you need a visual:
I'm in the top lefthand corner. Mom is northwest of Saudi Arabia. LOOK HOW CLOSE THAT IS!!!

Congratulations, Mom. This is a new chapter in your life.

in America

2010-08-18T04:11:00.003-04:00

the obvious things are not the things that shock me so much. when i landed in london on the way out, the airport looked nice. big. clean. but that could be anywhere. bulgaria is still the dumps in a lot of places, but find the right restaurant in varna and you're straight back into 21st century. find the wrong gas station on Delmarva and you're somewhere around 1985. it's all perspective.
i was at one such gas station, the closest one to my american house, right on racetrack road, and i was dying to get to the beach. mom was letting me drive her car. all the pumps were full, and there was one car waiting. i saw a pump open up on the other end and i immediately started to jockey to get there fast, lest a new car enter the station and think it was theirs for the taking. in bulgaria i am so used to having to fight for everything. if you don't hold your place in line, be sure someone will step directly in front of you. i have spent extra 10s and 15 minutes in the grocery store because i was too timid to assert that i was in fact next to be served.
i pulled up next to the other car and rolled the window down. "do you want that pump?" i asked.
the man was white, middle aged, affluent looking. he smiled and said, "no problem. i'll wait for this one."
"i just didn't want to jump in front of you" i said. i always feel the need to give an explanation.
"it's no problem" he said again, as i wheeled over to the pump which was somehow, magically still unoccupied.
"you're so polite" my mom remarked.
i'm so american, i thought. "i've been getting cut in front of for 14 months." i replied. we both stepped out of the car; i ran inside to pay and she pumped. we were out of there and on to the beach in no time at all.

TЮTЮH

2010-08-10T05:43:00.002-04:00

tobacco.
the bike wheels jumped with uncertainty across the cobblestones that made up something resembling a road. i had seen it many times before turned into a lake, a mudslide of animal feces and dirt and fresh rain, but today is was dry and the sun was beating down hard. i turned when i saw the mosque and parked the bike next to a field of 8 women, dressed from head to toe in the scorching heat.
"is Gülten here?" i asked and i trudged forth between the high stalks. she turned around, familiar face with hair all hidden under a cotton kerchief. to her left one of my colleagues, Seyarey, smiled widely and said that she would hug me if she wasn't so dirty.
they showed me how to pick the leaves, starting at about eye level and working down; sticky things really. we stacked them in our hands and periodically handed them off to another woman, who slid the piles down large metal tongs which she would later thread to make bundles. i was going slower than everyone else, but everyone refrained how much they appreciated the help.

when we finished only about an hour later (i had come around 10:30 but they had been at is since 7) and we took a lunch break. i rode home to wash the dirt off my hands, which proved to be a trickier task than i expected. in a little while i returned, then my hair all wrapped in kerchief, and we started the next step of the day-- gathering the bundles, moving them from the field to the woman's garden. a donkey cart was soon enlisted to help, but there being no donkey, the woman (Ayshe), Gulten and I pushed the cart back and forth between destinations. other women were at work unstringing the bundles and hanging them out in small greenhouses to dry. everywhere you looked tobacco, in all varying stages; green, sticky, heavy, wet. hundreds of leaves on a line. another greenhouse down, more yellowed, dry but not ready, withered under the august sun. we spent the afternoon that way- my first day of true manual labor.

"15 days, again" Ayshe said. somehow throughout the day she had become one of my new favorite people in the world. this was her tobacco, this was her labor and her livelihood. such a sizable group of us had worked all day, and in fifteen days we would go back and do it again, gathering the higher leaves that today we left behind. at the end of the season she might collect 500 leva for the lot of it. that comes to around $260.

"say it in Turkish" someone suggested to me, and my mind searched for a moment.
"On-besh gün. Geljem." i said. "Fifteen days, I will come."
the ladies all laughed.

midservice elation; the coming months; anticipation

2010-07-13T15:46:00.003-04:00

you may laugh when you hear jesse ruffes declare "i'm bringing the pool to midservice", but know one thing: if there's anything that jr is going to joke about, it's NOT bringing an inflatable pool halfway across bulgaria to be filled in a hotel bathroom and enjoyed by 6 or more of his closest friends.

yes folks, the 25th group of volunteers serving in bulgaria has completed its midservice training, administered in vratsa, our original home away from home. we were asked to examine ourselves and our service and what the potential is for the coming year, and while putting on very professional and optimistic faces, i would venture to guess that most of us were churning inside. be it because we are americans or for some other facet of our personalities, we went through those two days trying to show our best and not really addressing the things that continue to challenge us every day. this is what is still challenging me:

flippant kids, friends, acquaintances
what to eat for dinner tonight
leaving the village for a time and then adjusting when coming back
a serious lack of bacon
caffeine intake and the serious deterioration of tooth enamel
feeling effective
communication with people my age, thus, the turkish language
fleas

2010-06-17T15:49:00.002-04:00

i sat at the table in the cafe listening to yet another conversation of which i understood three sentences. i tried to make my flight swiftly and painlessly but ended up having to talk to the same stupid boys who also ask stupid questions and make stupid statements implying that they're going to pay me a house visit later. i finally escaped my the clutches of my not so caring friend and made it to where the path to my house meets the road, and i promptly slipped on the wet grass and fell directly into the eight inch rut between the concrete and the end of the walkway. i managed a quick "fuck", then let a few tears out. just lay here, i thought. at least now you have a reason to cry.

as i finally made it to the safety of my house and turned the key in the darkness i thought, how long do i have to feel this utterly incompetent? and after two years of consistently feeling inadequate, will i be a better person for having survived?

goodbyes, hellos

2010-06-05T03:49:00.003-04:00

Back in the winter an essay contest was held amongst the PC Bulgaria volunteers. The topic was migration, which sent me reeling back to my days at American U, specifically sitting in the small Honors room of the International Studies building. I was enrolled in an undergrad/grad seminar on the same topic. The grad students each had really in-depth theories and concepts, and I was so intimidated that I felt as if most of it flew over the top of my head. One girl was obsessed with biogenics and the ability to quantify things like fingerprints and the configuration of irises. We spent a lot of time talking about remittances. We covered economic hardship, war and political exile, we talked a lot about Cuba. In January when I received that prompt-- Immigration as it relates to Bulgaria-- I flashed back to that class and thought, why didn't you listen better??

I could never get a good grip on International theory, because I was always looking for the human side of it. In college I had friends from Slovakia who worked in Ocean City in the summers; I had worked with a few Guatemalan men at a pizza shop in high school. They were my idea of immigration. So when it came time to formulate some thesis for this contest, I wrote about what I understood- the people who have come in and out of my life as a result of international migratory patterns.

The essay was written in February, and after a few cold nights of sitting at my computer and reading and re-reading, it was finished. I tried to tone down my personal, i.e. fraternizing experiences, but the truth was I was writing about the boys in my village, who have ebbed and flowed back and forth between here and Paris, leaving me in their wake. When I met each of them they had already worked in France for several years, making their personal context more French. When the days came for them to leave, I was sad, but I knew it had to be. It was normal for them; it made sense.

Recently there have been rumours of when they will be coming home, for the summer holiday, or for Ramazan Bayram (Eid el-Fitr) in August, and the village has been lowly buzzing in anticipation. But the other day I got news that I simply was not expecting. One of our recent high school graduates will be leaving any day now to go to Paris and start working.
When I heard I was surprised and immediately saddened. This kid is the one you see rolling around the streets, always in the cafe, always ready to dance or make you laugh. He is my village. Now his time has come, and he must leave us all behind and start a new life far away. His departure means much more to me than any of the other boys. He is a baby taking his first few steps out into this world, alone. He has no idea what awaits him, but he has no choice but to move forward, which inevitably means moving away.

In case you're interested, here is my essay. I won the contest, by the way.

andy, are you going to clean that up?

2010-05-24T20:18:00.002-04:00

THIS is what teaching feels like

what's in the sky?

2010-05-24T05:42:00.002-04:00

Yesterday we were on a walk around the center, just me and two friends, and their little cousin who is only 6 and is learning Bulgarian. One of my friends points up to the sky and asks in Turkish,
"What's up there?"
"Allah." the little one answers, very sure of herself.
My friend more specifically points to the only thing in the sky, the moon, and says again,
"What is that?"
"Allah! Allah!" the little girl asserts, showing her persistence and conviction.
"Ay." says my friend, the Turkish word for moon.
"Ahhh." says the little one. "Ay."
"Ee kak e na Bulgarski?" she asks, what is it called in Bulgarian?
The little girl pauses for a second or two, thinks well and finally answers, "Bog"

Because she had continued to ask "What is that, in the sky?", the little girl had defaulted to what she knew was up there -- Allah, Bog -- God. Oh yeah, and also the moon.

2010-05-11T13:03:00.003-04:00

it's official -- it's summer. i know because today i saw a first for the season-the man's capri pant. it was my colleague, and he was standing in the center. as i walked by i surveyed his outfit, and my eyes got quite a pleasant shock when i saw the denim of his trousers stop precisely 4 inches above the ankle. and then there were the mandals, more commonly known as man sandals.

it seems it was only yesterday i was shoveling snow and crying as my able bodied young male friends drove their cars by me and smiled (or even dared to laugh; curse their laziness!) and now with one nice day and the unveiling of many a bare arm and ankle, i am all at once reminded of Bulgarian Summer. today i got out my own pairs of shorts from their hiding place under my bed, and may have danced around the room when i put on my hotpants at they actually fit! a year ago, i was dying of heat exhaustion on a daily basis, covered in fleas, and gaining kilos by the minute thanks to the consistent chorus of my host mother and baba. YASH! YASH! EAT! EAT!
EAT ANOTHER DONUT!

so yeah, life really has come full circle. sometime in the next day or two a group of 80 million (but seriously, around 80) new volunteers will be landing in the Sofia airport just as scared and dumbfounded as i was a year ago. they will be transported to the same mountain resort to start their training, and by all the luck in the universe I will be there to regale them with stories of what to expect in training, in Bulgaria, and in their lives for the next two years. here's my first observation, piece of advice for them:

Bulgarian men seem to hate taking their shirts off. it gets HOT in BG, like clothes sticking to skin hot, but in general if a male here overheats he makes the effort to lift his shirt OVER his belly. just above the belly. sometimes if you are lucky, you make spot one who also lifts it over his chest, but not his head. SOMETIMES, if you have been extra good and the universe wants to reward you, you will see ONE ARM out of its sleeve while the shirt rests on the opposite shoulder. BUT VERY RARELY will you ever see a BG dude ACTUALLY TAKE THE ENTIRE SHIRT OFF.

Summer 2010.

Love, Love, Love

2010-05-09T05:58:00.002-04:00

VOTE! 2.0

2010-04-29T11:29:00.002-04:00

We've been busy here in the BG learning a little bit of American History whilst practicing our English, and in an effort to spice things up a bit, the kids from 8th grade have accepted a challenge:
Who can sing God Bless America better? I'm impartial, but luckily, you aren't! Watch both the classes, 8A and 8B, and leave a comment to vote for who you think gave the best performance! The winners have a prize in store for them!

Паралелите VIIIa и VIIIb са се съгласили да се състезават, за да види, които пяха по-добре американската песен God Bless America, която означава, Бог да благослови Америка. Виж видеото и пише коментар за да гласуваш за най-добрият клас.

*****If you've already voted, I've counted you! Thanks for you comments! If not, please write just your name and who you wish to vote for.

*****Ако вече гласувахте, благодаря. Преброих своя глас. Ако не сте гласували, моля пишете само името си и, за които желаете да гласувате .

2010-04-27T11:44:00.003-04:00

EGGS BENEDICT

2010-04-19T05:36:00.006-04:00

THIS IS THE THING THAT HAS BEEN MISSING FROM MY LIFE FOR 11 MONTHS.

I spent all of Saturday on an Eggs Benedict high, savored every bite, patted myself on the back, then laid down and day dreamed about HOW GOOD EB is.

How I poached the eggs:
I brought a big pot of water to boil, and added a few tablesoons of vinegar to help keep the egg together. Once it boiled, I turned the burner off and waited for it to slow to a simmer. I cracked an egg into a small teacup being sure not to break the yolk, and then slowly dipped the lip of the cup into the water and let the egg slide out. I took a spoon and gently gathered the egg together, and then put the lid on the pot and waited about 3 minutes. the yolk of the first egg was medium and the second was easy.

The Hollandaise:
Scaled down for one person, this sauce came together really quickly. Whisk one egg yolk with 1/3 Tbs lemon juice, and a pinch of salt pepper and cayenne if you have it. Put over medium heat and add about 30g of butter cut into chunks. Whisk constantly while butter melts, then cook to desired thickness and serve immediately. My version used less butter than the original recipe called for, but it was still the perfect consistency and really let the lemon flavor shine through.

I'm not going to lie -- it was super tricky to time everything right. I toasted the bread and fried the ham while waiting for the water to boil, then stuck them in the oven to stay warm while I moved onto the real cooking. I made sure the yolk/lemon mixture was ready and whisked before I put in the eggs to poach, and then after the lid was on them I put the sauce on. It came together more deliciously than I could have imagined!

i miss my mom, always

2010-04-13T08:01:00.004-04:00

before you hit the highway, you better stop for gas
there's a 50 in the ashtray in case you run short on cash
here's a map and here's a bible, if you ever lose your way
just one more thing before you leave--

don't forget to remember me.

yeah, i still feel like i'm where i'm supposed to be
but don't forget to remember me.

serendipity

2010-04-10T04:08:00.003-04:00

our spring break had been pretty sedate and calm, so when in bucharest we decided to try and liven things up. we picked a standard touristy irish pub, decided on having one drink and moving on if nothing developed.

flashforward an hour when we are surrounded by a british men's rugby team, their chaperones, and a long line of drinking songs. god bless europe.

discipline

2010-03-30T06:40:00.003-04:00

this is me wanting to give MAD PROPS to my school principal, who also happens to be my peace corps counterpart.

compared to most bulgarian schools ours is very, very tame. there are no problems with drugs, only 2 students smoke cigarettes, and the fights seem to dissipate as quickly as they form. but this doesn't mean that the kids don't need a little reminder of who's the boss every now and then. a select handful of students, mostly from higher grades, need a serious lesson in respect and responsibility, and today they got it.
my second period was with seventh grade, in which i have a terrible student who acts out at any chance he gets. this kid is my height, skinny but strong, and has a temper to rival any i've seen. today he just wouldn't sit down, wouldn't stop talking, wouldn't stop bothering other kids and bossing them around. i got more and more angry and frustrated, feeling that my options for punishment were very limited, because no matter what, i refuse to hit these children. as he walked behind me i asked for the umpteenth time "please, sit down", and i tried to catch him around the waist so as to direct him back towards his seat. it turns out my balance was off, and since he didn't go back to his seat but continued on his own path he ended up almost pulling me out of the chair, completely by accident, but also because he just WOULDN'T LISTEN to me.
i tried not to get upset or show my embarrassment, but i decided it was the last straw. i opened the grade book and gave him the lowest grade i could for the month. i said nothing, but pretty soon someone told him and his fuse was lit. he stood up and kicked his desk, hard, recoiled as if he was thinking of hitting me, then sat down and proceeded to cuss me out in turkish. i ignored him.
i made it out of class slightly frazzled, but continued on with the day. at the end of the next period, the boy's homeroom teacher had heard from the students what had happened. he was called into the teacher's room, given a good lecture and made to apologize to me. but the best part is what happened next, after fourth period, during our "long break".

the director gathered all the students outside, and then one by one called up these select brats who day after day disrespect us all and act out. she didn't insult anyone or use unnecessarily harsh words, but reiterated the severity of their poor behavior and disobedience. standing in front of the whole student body, they all were suddenly quiet. a boy from eighth grade, who gives me the most grief simply because he is spoiled and can't stay quiet for three consecutive minutes, was suddenly muted in the face of humiliation. it turns out he and another boy had made a female classmate cry. one of my seventh grade girls, who had skipped english class to go have "a meeting" (with her boyfriend) started crying while she was being yelled at. and after all the reprimanding, my director commanded them to sweep the schoolyard and for all the other students to watch them.

YES! i couldn't have been happier or more proud of the discipline in our school. other volunteers talk about their colleagues' lack of interest, but today i saw the exact opposite in mine. it was time to put her foot down, and that's exactly what the director did. anyone can give up on these kids, let them grow up to be disrespectful and disobedient, but it takes a lot of strength to correct them and punish them so as to teach them appropriate behavior. bulgarians tend to have a lackadaisical attitude towards problems, and a lot of them wait for someone else to come along and fix them. i have to say Bravo to Aysel, who today took on the responsibility of cultivating a better generation of kids. may she continue to kick little snotty kids' butts whenever they are in need of kicking (figuratively).

the forest and the trees

2010-03-28T04:36:00.006-04:00

"before you know it it will be summer, and then it will be fall, and then it will be winter all over again."

without being terribly cliche, i'm finding it hard to describe exactly how wonderful it is to continue to turn and live in this circle of seasons. we had our first village wedding this weekend, a precursor of what is to be the primary diversion for summer weekends, what was my favorite activity last summer, and what will continue to happen every summer into infinity and so on and so on.
life is turning its wheel, and we are living. work, play, vacations, weddings, naps, laundry, grocery shopping. life.

I got all dressed up on Friday night!

"...and the seasons they go round and round..." -joni mitchell, the circle game

it's a party in the U S A

2010-03-11T11:50:00.004-05:00

....SELF PROFESSED EMO GIRL TELLS HERSELF TO QUIT WHINING....

Spring is SUCKING so far. But only in the most dramatic way possible. About 11 days ago a few boys from the village went back to work in Paris, and I've been using this as an excuse to be MOPEY. I've been trying to articulate whatever sort of weird emotional attachment/crush/common interest that has been deleted since their departure, but every time it just doesn't seem worth it. And as I sat down at the computer yesterday to write about how sad I was, this arrived at my window.

HELLO! IT'S MY BIRTHDAY! QUIT the WATERWORKS!
So check out my loot from my big sis-- American Candy. My favorite and most missed item. Super cute reusable sandwich bags, sure to boggle the minds of every Bulgarian they cross. A rad little make-up bag/clutch. Perfect for my birthday outfit. Very adorable button headband. AND a movie with John Krasinksi. It's like she knew that with the absence of these boys, I'd have nothing to do this weekend. SHE IS RIGHT. ALSO, SHE IS BOMB. These are the raddest bday presents ever.

So I've just been listening to a lot of Passion Pit and MGMT and Carly Simon and trying to pump myself up for my birthday party. Mostly, I want to listen to this all night:

I don't think my village friends or American friends will have that, at all.

the Rites of Spring

2010-03-01T07:15:00.006-05:00

March 1 is a day that I have always sortof awaited with baited breath-- being narcissistic and impatient, this date signals basically one thing - countdown to my BIRTHDAY. I love being a March baby, because a March baby is on the cusp of both seasons. As I am ever reminded by my village, I was born under the sign of Pisces, which makes me creative and sensitive. I have never been one to commit to liking spring and as much as I despise the winter I understand its value-- the time between these two seasons is a transition, representing both the cold and contemplative and the new and fresh. I guess I feel I can relate to this semi-Bi-polarism?
Anyway....

Today in Bulgarian culture is BABA MARTA, or Grandmother March's Day. Baba Marta is the personification of spring, a temperamental woman who sends rain showers as well as sunshine. For luck, everyone has been passing out little red and white bracelets, pins and decorations and wishing each other health, happiness, love and luck for the rest of the year. I have been wished "a very nice boyfriend" several times (of course). Let me just say that this holiday is bomb. I bought some cute little ties in Silistra over the weekend and have been given the opportunity to act like a middle schooler by giving everyone a kind of "Best Friends for Life" bracelet without seeming completely cheesy. The Bulgarians are also eating up the fact that I knew about this holiday and was prepared for it. Please, guys, would I pass up a day to get give and get presents? No.

So, we will wear our martinitsa s until we first see a stork, who is the harbinger of spring, or so they say. When he returns from his winter migration and settles into his giant nest, we will remove the pins and tie the bracelets to any fruit bearing tree for good luck until next year. Chestita Baba Marta!!

FINS

2010-02-18T08:01:00.001-05:00

fins to the left, fins to the right.
she's the only bait in town.

post taina

2010-02-12T07:14:00.003-05:00

a good friend of mine always posts her fave postsecrets on her blog. this always prompts me to read them, and then reflect on the ones that stick out to her the most and the ones that hit me. this one is dead on, on point, exactly what i mean right now:

a response to snowpacolypse 2010

2010-02-08T07:27:00.004-05:00

this snow started about a month ago and has never gone away. about once a week it dumps more, freezes. it's dumping right now.

have you ever had snow enter your house upon its own will? i have.

there's half my trashcan, half of my fence.

my heating unit.

bulgarian winter beats american winter.

waiting

2010-02-01T05:08:00.002-05:00

for many summers i was a waitress. my first summer at the restaurant, i worked behind the ice cream counter, made milkshakes, sundaes, cones, sprinkles, filled bins of strawberry topping, tubs of riece's pieces, wiped down the counter, refilled drinks, stocked glasses and cups, heated apple pie in the microwave-- basically ran my butt back and forth from one end to the other.
then the next year i graduated to full time waiting. my domain was larger, and i ran myself between a maze of tables, customers, crying children, orders sitting under heat lamps, more drink refills, doggie bags, check please and the ever important question -- did they leave me (a good, or any) tip??? the night never seemed to expand past that. some nights were crazy; i cried, i fought with coworkers, i yelled at busboys. other nights were awesome- my tables were nice, we chatted, i got my ego stroked when i told people where i went to school and they replied "oh, i hear that's very goooood." still, no matter how good or how bad any one night in particular seemed, the final summary of what it was worth it came down to one thing - cash money, in hand, how much did i have?
don't get me wrong - summers were a blast. in fact, i live for summer. but, year after year, the novelty started to fade. the moment i noticed that i was refilling an iced tea for the 10,000th time, or when i finally learned how to tell the difference between diet and regular just by looking at them, or the idea that someone was really spicing up my day by ordering a root beer with cherry syrup in it, i realized something - i felt like my job had no meaning. no ultimate impact in the world, in the scheme of things. i was the provider of burgers and fries, a few jokes, a smile, and within 15 minutes of a customer leaving the restaurant he or she would forget me for the rest of his or her life. my work was unimportant.

so about a year ago i found out i was going into the peace corps- i was going to bulgaria to teach english. the inertia of my life changed. i was going to be a world traveler, learn a new language, meet new people, teach them things, make a mark in their lives, be everything that i thought i ought to be. i was going to be important. the world would surely change because of me.

now, i am one semester down and 8 months into this experience. i left school today feeling about as defeated as i usually do after spending all morning with 15 year olds. what did they learn today? i asked myself. how to spell patrick swayze. nothing. who knows what they learned. as i was thinking i passed the cafe where my friend works, a young girl around my age who six days a week serves beer and soft drinks and probably makes about 250 coffees every day. i flashed back momentarily to my waiting days. i remembered how unfulfilled i felt.
now i have a job that i wanted for a very long time, and it is the most difficult thing i have ever done in my life. there is no cash in hand to quantify how successful i am at it, there is no immediate gratification. a bright moment in the day is marred by several frustrations and the precise feeling that i was hunting for - feeling like my work was going to change the world - that feeling is nowhere to be found.

waiting tables is about anticipating what needs to be done and meeting that need as quickly as possible. the faster you go the better you are. the work becomes a dance, picking up things, dropping them off, at the right place at the right time. this job is essentially the same, except it's like i'm partially deaf and sometimes blindfolded. i'm still stumbling around. the best i can hope is that after a few summers, a few years, i'll finally get it. all i can say for now is, i'm still waiting.

high school flashbacks

2010-01-17T11:09:00.004-05:00

some things just happen unexpectedly!

....cause there's no cute boys at decatur.....

in which every flight you have ever considered is cancelled

2010-01-09T06:11:00.011-05:00

Bonny at Alexander Nevski Cathedral in Sofia

flashback to 2009 with me for a moment, folks.

It's December 19th and you're about to leave for a magical land called Bulgaria, but the most monsterous snowstorm of your LIFE hits the eastern seaboard of the United States and sends your travel plans into a tailspin including: cancelled flight. new flight from philadelphia instead of dc. missed connection in frankfort. all day in a german airport and then the realization that your NEW tickets are actually only for STAND-BY. a minor breakdown of nerves and faith in the world. a late night flight to sofia. a stay in a five star hotel with the most amazing breakfast buffet in all of Eastern Europe (the fact that there was bacon is something i'm not willing to let go) and then finally a flight to Varna, putting you exactly 3 days behind schedule. You have lost three days of your life to terminals and baggage claim and ticket counters and those stupid food carts they push through the aisle of the plane and always manage to ram into the arm of your seat just as you are falling asleep. All for a country the size of Pennsylvania, and a 22 year old named Anna O'Neill.

Once my mom and sister finally did arrive, our trip became sort of whirlwind and food centered, but not necessarily in a bad way. My family was able to meet all of my colleagues and experience a true Turkish/Bulgarian dinner party featuring lots of dancing. Needless to say my sister became the star of that night. Here she's having a dance off with one of the custodians, Nadie:
Christmas was a relaxed morning at home, lots of Nescafe 3for1 and Christmas morning food (read: bacon, cinnamon rolls). The O'Neill family collectively ate so much that day that at 2 am on December 26th all three of us woke up with sore stomachs. However- my mom had the audacity to go and LOSE 2lbs in spite of the constant eating that continued across the country.

Bons in my kitchen on Christmas, with cinnamon rolls.

Christmas dinner at my Directors house; "I didn't know what you liked so I made everything!"

We were able to see Veliko Tarnovo, Troyan and the monastery there, Teteven, the mountain between Troyan and Teteven (be warned), and Sofia. My mom, who is currently in the application process, got to see our Peace Corps office in Sofia and meet some of the staff.
Reguardless of losing three days to the inconvenience of modern travel, I'd say the trip was well worth it. My village family got to meet my real family, and both sides got a little glimpse of what my life is, now and before now. Bulgaria has taught me so much about the importance of family, and having them here made Christmas 2009 really special and really fun.

O'Neill ladies at the Tsaravets fortress in Veliko Tarnovo

Happy New Year (Честита Нова Година) to all of you and Желая ви успех, щастие, здраве и нови обувки!

Love in 2010,

Bonny and Gosho getting their dance on.

Christmas program: Esin, Damla, Nursel.

Toguy tells riddles and hands out presents.

And of course, a feeding frenzy ensued. Look at Nesrin!

Bonny's ultimate goal is to make a book of just cats from all over the world. She's well on her way to finishing it.

She can make people laugh anywhere she goes.

snow day

2009-12-17T13:46:00.004-05:00

my first official snow/ice day as a teacher, and i think i spent it well:

1 outing to razgrad with a family from the village

1 hour in the cafe and free drinks from a dyado

1 haircut, also free of charge (because now i should come back every month!)

40 minutes of intense piano practice in preparation for our Christmas Program (12.24.09!)

20 minutes trying to light the stove

2 episodes of the office

1 grilled kashkaval made ON the fire

1 overdue shower

and now it's 9 o'clock, it must be almost bed time.

leka--

this is what christmas means to me

2009-12-02T10:02:00.002-05:00

there's no place like home for the holidays: an homage to the Evans Family

2009-11-22T12:37:00.004-05:00

(A young Erin, flanked by little Anna and little Kyler, Evans Thanksgiving circa 1992. Photo courtesy of not pictured Tierney)

Home is where the heart is, is it not?

In four days it will be Thanksgiving, a wonderful and most importantly American holiday, and for the first time in my life, I will be without a single family member. I've been trying to explain the significance of this holiday to my community, and the best that I've gotten out is

"We eat, a lot. We get together with our families, think about what we are thankful for, and we eat turkey. We eat a lot of turkey, watch football, and then everyone falls asleep."

But, that's nowhere near the true meaning of Thanksgiving for me. Perhaps trying to pinpoint the emotional significance is about as trite as the ritual that comes about this time of year: droning off what we are Thankful for; things that have been said so many times that they lose their specialness, their value is depleted by their popularity, the words fall into a chasm of holidays past and of things that we so often take for granted.

The Evans do not sit in a circle and rattle off their Thanksgivings, maybe because we realize that often they are better left unsaid. Instead, we simply enjoy each other's company, we eat, we talk. A Thanksgiving comes to mind when we were blessed by the presence of my late Uncle Aug, my grandmother's brother, who regaled us with stories of our great-grandfather, growing up in Baltimore, feigned connections to the mafia, and even had the audacity to call my grandmother, the matriarch of the gathering, a spoiled brat, to her face.

Evans family holidays are when we all gather around many tables, because we are too big to fit at one, and everyone prays the Catholic grace before we eat, and we think about those members of the family who are no longer with us, and we make small talk and eat too much, we try to decide who will host Christmas, we sing Happy Birthday to my cousin Ryan, we take turns listening to Mom-mom while simultaneously trying to get attention from any family member under the age of 7-- currently, Reagan, Paige, and the newest addition, Francesco.

Evans family holidays are small opportunities to make up for all the time I haven't spent with my cousins that year: upon seeing Amy, only 9 months older than me, the goofy switch turns on and we are back to being 7 and 8 years old again, dressing up dogs in her basement. Erin, my Godmother, always finds the perfect balance between serious conversation and fart jokes. Kyler and Tierney are always up for some antics, including but not limited to last Christmas, when I made all of the cousins watch YouTube videos in Kyler's room and then formed the Great Alliance with Tierney. Thanksgiving is when it takes an hour to walk around the house and say hello everyone, and then another hour when it's time to leave, trying to say goodbye and give hugs and kisses and say, "Wull seeya at Christmas!"

To all the Evans-es who may read this, I love you all so much and will be so terribly sad to miss the chance to be with you this week. You have all been so supportive of me and your love has carried me through the past six months. My heart is full of memories like these, and for that I am as thankful as one person can be.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, and have a warm and blessed holiday!

2nd graders

2009-11-10T03:21:00.005-05:00

As a young, first year teacher keeping things under control in the classroom has been challenging, at best. I seem to have the most trouble with 2nd grade, who I see twice a week. I've tried songs, exercises, threats, stickers, candy, pretty much everything you can think of in order to get them to chill out, but still every day I leave the class feeling, well, defeated. That was, until I received these two letters, penned by two students in that class. They read (in BG but translated for your enjoyment):

"Gospozho (Mrs., with a masculine and/or diminutive ending), I love you very much and wish you health and happiness. From, Berko."

here's number two, from a little girl in the class.

When I opened it I honestly thought that she had just scribbled words and somehow written my name at the top, but after close inspection I was able to discern a few phrases:

"Mila Anna (Sweetie Anna), ...obicha mnogo ti krasivo... (someone) loves your beauty (?)...mnogo hubava kosa... very beautiful hair....nai-krasivo osho.... most beautiful eyes(?).... ti si mnogo krasiva... you are very beautiful. From Nevin"

How SWEET!

in general

2009-11-04T06:20:00.004-05:00

oh baby. last week the aunties from school installed my brand new stove, and since then we have been building a truly affectionate relationship. luckily i was quick on the learning curve and usually have no problem getting a fire started, so i have moved on to a more important lesson: how to never let the fire go out. it's warm and cozy in this one room, and so i, like most of the other people in the village, are settling in for the long winter with cords of stacked wood and a lot of television watching.

swine flu has reached us, finally, throwing the country into a weird psuedo-epidemic. regions are being shut down, meaning schools are closed for several days on end. every morning our director carefully counts the absences, and everyone seems to be bracing for it to hit our area next. some of the smarter kids are already picking up on this panic, feigning illness in order to get out of school and do, i don't know, what they please, i guess. is it really any fun to be free when everyone else is busy? anyway, here's a map of where svinski grip (H1N1) has hit so far:

we are in the northeastern quadrant and while our area is not highlighted, we are surrounded on THREE SIDES (Силистра, Шумен and Търговищe) with the dreaded sneezes. today a teacher remarked, "why do we have to be so healthy?" indeed. anyway, i broke open a care package this morning and offered the hand sanitizer my mom had sent me, explaining that every teacher in America has a legitimate supply of it anyway. THANKS MOM!

in other, less topical news, our chitalishte Ivan Vasov is submitting its proposal for 2010 and a budget request. as a paid member of the chitalishte, i attended the meeting, and it's a good thing i did since only 5 other people bothered to show. anyway, the plan includes more piano lessons, enlgish classes, movie nights and halloween/other holiday discotechs for the kiddies. they are once again asking for money for a very desperately needed renovation, but as we discussed the other night, chances of getting funding are slim to none.

happy november everyone! i hope that halloween was swell for all of you and that you are now preparing your bellies for the feast that is thanksgiving. keep the swine flu in check and talk to you soon!

happy halloween!

2009-10-24T11:54:00.004-04:00

well, it's almost the end of october, and the village has entered into a no-holds-barred lovely autumn. mornings are frigid, the kids have all adjusted themselves back into the routine of the school year, and coffee breaks have become necessary as opposed to simply social.

to me, and to many americans, autumn has a pretty specific culmination-- Halloween Night. while the actual holiday and origins have proven difficult to explain-- So then the kids go door to door and ask for candy. Why? I, don't really know-- the traditions that are dear to me translate very well. Here are some clips from pumpkin/watermelon carving yesterday, and there are more photos here. all the kids were really good at it, especially those who carved the featured watermelon, which fell and cracked and was then sewn back together with twine.

stay tuned for our Halloween Ball pictures- the dance is on next friday.

zele

2009-10-11T13:17:00.003-04:00

around 2pm today sevdye, resident food provider to yours truly, rolled up to my house and popped her hatch-back to gift me this beautiful, seriously 2.5 kilo monster of a cabbage, while exclaiming "it's sweet! it's sweet! it's from my garden".

fast-forward to 5:30pm and i stroll into her store, and she asks, "what did you make with the cabbage? manga? soup?"

i sortof pause and think for a minute, then reply, "i haven't made anything with it yet".

sevdye: "why?"

me: "well, i don't know what to make with it."

sevdye:"why, do you not have cabbage there (in the us)?"

me: "um, we do, i just never cooked it before"

sevdye: (laughs, incredulously)

it's less self-discovery, more self-explanation

2009-10-03T14:59:00.003-04:00

living alone and maintaining running dialogues in my head (because my head is a sanctuary of english language) means that i have become acutely aware of not only my emotions and physical state of being (normal), but also the top 5 lists of: most craved/most eaten foods, songs played internally and how often, and the personality traits/behavioral habits which i think are starting to define me.

songs:

blame it on the generation maybe but i've got some mental ipod thing going on, almost constantly. when i'm strolling the celo with the kiddies it's usually cindy lauper's girls just wanna have fun. when at home on non-busy afternoons it's either the rainbow connection sung by kermit the frog or these days by nico. and the other day in 5th grade as i gazed out the 2nd story window into our idyllic scenery, it was the luckiest by ben folds.

foods:

1. pre-cooked kebabches can be bought at the store and only take like 20 seconds in the microwave to make STEAMY AND DELICIOUS. meeeeeeat. it's usually what's for dinner.

2. 3for1 nescafe. like i need more caffeine. three times a day.

3. rice with kashkaval.

4. sunflower seeds: more of a habit than a food choice. sort of gives you something to do while waiting, walking, sitting, pretty much the top three activities of village life.

self-realizations:

i want to go everywhere and do everything and will make as many accommodations as possible to do so. ex: in college, i could be expected to show up to any party i was invited to, no matter the time overlap or distance challenges. i make it work like tim gunn.

i speak better bulgarian when i'm yelling at kids.

DON'T HIT AND RUN

2009-10-01T06:53:00.003-04:00

yesterday i was chilling bulgarian style in our center, literally standing in the middle of the road, talking to the mother of one of my students who lives only about 50 meters away from the chitalishte (read: in plain view of where we were standing). one of my most attentive kids was also there with me, "regulating" as i like to call it. as we slowly moved out of the way of an oncoming car we noticed a dyado rolling down this lady's street in a cart filled with corn.

then an amazing phenomenon happened:

although the horse cart could not have been going more than 25 mph, we seemed to watch in slow motion as both the horse and cart side swiped the very nice Audi that this lady has parked outside her house. i happen to know how much they love this car because only a few hours earlier i had seen the whole family washing it together. the lady exploded into a fit or rage and started chasing after the dyado, who DID NOT STOP until he realized he was being yelled at. as i watched the two argue with each other in turkish, the little girl with us threw her arms around me and said, "I'M SCARED!"

and then i started to laugh, and couldn't really stop laughing at what had just happened.

school started

2009-09-16T15:31:00.004-04:00

chestit pervi ucheven den!

wait, i can't do this.

i know i'm supposed to be reporting on how magical it is that all the little kiddies are in school now, screaming their heads off-- BUT

have you ever really considered the balkan peninsula? i mean really, really? let me give you a moment: THE BALKAN PENINSULA. IS A PLACE. THAT EXISTS.

as a high schooler a favorite and previously mentioned history teacher would ask us to name the countries on the peninsula and I always cheated and started at the south with Greece since I didn't know where the top of the darn thing actually was. here's a quick geo lesson:

the mountains at the top, they're the BALKAN mountains and if you want to learn some quick bulgarian language, here's a word: BALKAN. it means MOUNTAIN. eeeeeasy, huh? and now you can see, as i was never explicitly shown, the two bodies of water on either side, the adriatic sea which connects to the black sea on the eastern side via the mediterranean and aegean seas and finally through the bosporus and dardanelles straits, which have their own stories involving russia, turkey, warm water ports, and a whole 1,000 more years of history and blog posts. so there's us, chilling near asia, kindof, not technically although the EU won't let Turkey in. that's us, the END of EUROPE over here.

and not that i'm adopting any bulgarian nationalism or anything but just to let you know, the HIGHEST PEAK in the BALKANS belongs within our borders.

SO NOW YOU KNOW.

encouragement

2009-09-13T07:55:00.002-04:00

in an email from my chilean host mother:

"Espero tengas una agradable estadía en Bulgaria y aprovecha de vivir en esa paz de pueblo, que pocas veces en la vida la tendrás"

I hope you have a nice stay in Bulgaria and take advantage of living in the peace of the village, which few times in your life you will have.

It was just so eloquently put in Spanish, complete with my favorite verb - aprovechar - to take advantage. What a nice reminder.

zalata e gotova

2009-09-11T15:43:00.003-04:00

today a nice 16 year old young man joined me on the steps of the chitalishte as i waited in vain for my piano students to arrive. we chatted a little, we sat in awkward silence as he drank out of a glass coke bottle, he left to "play basketball" and returned 8 minutes later, not explaining why. finally i said "can you teach me bulgarian?" and he replied, "no, but i can teach you turkish".

he then taught me a phrase i have since forgotten, which meant "we're going".

after i repeated it three times he finally said (in bg) "haide- let's go then."

me: where?

him: to the gym. it's open.

me: who did you ask?

him: the aunties (the ladies who clean the school)

me: are you sure?

him: (turkish phrase meaning let's go)

so we stroll over to school, after he offers me his bike to ride, and i walk into the teachers room and ask for the keys and all the ladies look at me and say, "NE, directora kazva NE". my mind flashes back 5 days, 5 separate days in which i've heard that phrase. what happened is, they did in fact ask if they could play in the gym, but the answer was not yes.

recently (actually all summer) our school gym has been renovated by the ministry of natural disasters (not lying) and as of monday it was officially "finished". aforementioned child knocked on my window monday night in the middle of a rain storm to ask if we could play in it, and the next day we went only to be told "it's not ready, it needs to be cleaned." in my naievete, the boys asked me every single day since then, each time saying, "it's ready now". somewhere between the translation and my willingness to trust i never quite clarified if it was in fact ready, and on all of these days it was not. it was not until today that i realized how silly it was of me to let them drag me back and forth to this gym which they are dying to get into, and how much of a nice distraction it has been. if they ask tomorrow, i'll probably go again.

rainy days and mondays always get me down

2009-09-07T14:45:00.002-04:00

last night i rolled into the po-dunk train station around 8:45pm, waiting for my ride in the rain. it was my counterpart/boss' husband, and as i awkwardly got into his car (which i didn't recognize as she usually sends her son to pick me up) he looked at me and said "summer's over now". i'm not sure on what level he really meant it-- i assume he was referring to the cold and damp weather, but my mind quickly wandered to thoughts of school starting next week, no more quick trips to varna, no more laying on the beach and spending the afternoon in a cafe. as a summer person, these facts sadden me greatly.

the weather today turned very chilly and wet, which is not how i prefer my fall. chilly i can handle, but wet is another story. it rained all day and i holed up in my house as much as i could, taking respite from the storm and trying to mentally prepare myself for the next 9 months ahead. this morning, while still at school, two of my girls rolled in with down vests and a busted umbrella. i had meant to excuse them from our daily english lesson but had forgotten, and so since they had already walked to school we went into the classroom and they recounted their weekend to me. watching them from where i sat at the teacher's desk, i realized that soon the hallways would be filled, the desks would have more students with more stories and more excitement, and that soon i would become a fixture in their lives.

somehow i have been blessed with a very detailed and emotional memory, and the past few days in school have reminded me of the time i spent in my elementary school. i remember the fluorescent lighting, the orange/brown carpets, the name of every teach i had, the location of each classroom, the "media center" (why couldn't they just call it a library?) the place on the bookshelves where i started reading books with chapters. i remember all the teachers, they were all women, standing in the hallways, smiling, making sure we behaved and listening to our stories and always working hard and never showing any effort. and now that's me. or at least, it's supposed to be me.

part of me feels like the kids will see right through me, that they know i've never taught in a classroom and that i don't know the proper structure of a lesson plan or teaching theory and that i honestly do not understand the bulgarian education system. what if they find me out? not really left with a choice; i've just got to fake it until i make it. i just wonder if in 18 years some little girl will remember me, standing in the hall, the youngest teacher, the american girl who was only slightly out of place, a face in a memory of someone who was always smiling.

airplanes

2009-08-30T17:07:00.003-04:00

two stories on this topic:

1. i was 11, i think, the first time i took an airplane ride. it was to west virginia. had you asked the 11 year old me how frequent a habit this would become, i would have guessed infrequent at best. alas, sisters move to california, you decide to find yourself all over south america, the next thing you know you've spent more time on planes than you have in the bank or church or both combined, annually of course. you forget your life pre-plane.

but here, hardly anyone has been on a plane. the questions usually go like this: How did you get here? On a plane. Is it really scary? It's so high? No, it's not. You can't really see the ground. Are you really close to the sun? No. You're not...?

Are you really close to the sun? What a statement to knock me back to real-life. How can you describe being on a plane? You just really can't.

2. i had a favorite history teacher in high school whose intro to philosophy was positing that the earth was flat. no one could prove him wrong; no one had proof, until one day i started an argument with him about flight patterns from london to the united states. he insisted it flies over scotland, i demanded that this was due north and the path should be going west. he replied, "it has to do with the curvature....of the flat earth..." and quickly changed the subject.

babies,

2009-08-26T13:55:00.004-04:00

why do i love you?

as a former roommate recently told me, "I remember you saying sophomore year that you wanted your post-college life to include holding babies". i don't remember saying this, but i'm sure i did. i said so many ridiculous things living in that suite. and not just me. once in a fit of frustration katherine turned on oprah and started to paddle-ball, then looked directly at me and said "LOOK AT ME! I'M PADDLE-BALLING AND WALKING!" but, i digress.

seriously, since setting this goal about three years ago i've been more successful than i could have guessed (especially since i forgot it was a goal). here are some highlights:

i held this baby:

and this baby:

and i held this baby:

and this one:

i held this baby:

and this one:

i hate foodie blogs and how eating in is the new going out

2009-08-24T06:26:00.003-04:00

a lot of peeps have been asking,"anna, what's the food like there?" well, friends, i have two separate answers for you. one is pre-living alone, and one is post. had you asked me during my celo banitsa life i would have remarked on all of the following:

mekitzi: fresh doughnuts, most often found on sunday and most often made by hand by baba herself. if i was lucky enough to barge in on albin's sunday brunch, there were always fresh mekitzi with honey and wine to drink (!).
lamb: the sacrificial meat. for any important occaision, count on a nice helping of freshly slaughtered lamb and several days worth of meals to come featuring every organ you can think of in soups and out of them. one day baba insisted "yash! yash!" (eat, eat!) as she handed me cleaned intestines. they were actually tasty.
shopska salata/tarator: the first is simply tomato, cucumber, sometimes onion, oil, vinegar, salt, and homemade cirene on top. most often enjoyed with some rakia. tarator: cold yogurt soup with cucumber, garlic and dill. summer at its finest.
DUNERS: did partake of the best of these inventions in Byala Slatina. think gyro with french fries INSIDE.
mousaka: meat, potatoes, egg bake on top. only slightly improved my dislike of cassarole dishes. not bad though.

highly recommendable cuisine. but here we come to the part where i am forced out into the cold world alone and must somehow nourish myself. no more lamb, because i don't have lambs, no more mekitzi, because i never woke up early enough to learn how to make them. at first i was discouraged, but as if by divine intervention, babas in my new village started showing up at my
door with bags of produce: tomatoes, cucmbers, peppers, eggs, onions, garlic, watermelons. "zimi-si, yash!" (take it, eat!) harkening back to those years of the benediction during mass: take this, eat, this my body which has been given up for you....

suddenly the question wasn't what am i going to eat, it was what am i going to cook to use all this food? as ideas came to me so did the recipes (by the miracle of epicurious.com and the like), and meal after meal became more and more delicious, and day after day i became more and more proud of my cooking abilities.

YET, i have tried to avoid writing about it until now because i just despise those blogs all about cooking because: 1. you can't actually taste the food. 2. the food looks really good and when you make it it never tastes like the picture. 3. the blog is about all the mistakes the blogger made during baking, which only serves to worry me more about screwing up what i'm baking. 4. i hate to catalog what i've eaten because, if no one knows you ate the cookie then maybe you just really didn't eat it.

BUT, i cannot deprive you of description any longer. the following are all homemade and were constructed of almost entirely homegrown (free) things (which were given to me). and THEY WERE DELICIOUS.

stuffed peppers: keep for several days, easy peasy, and deliver a great protein/veggie 1-2 punch.
gazpacho/ good-spacho: what else can you make when you have 4 kilos of tomatoes? labor intensive but WORTH IT. with every batch i buy a fresh loaf of bread and eat to my heart's content.

Quiche: for the times your neighbor gives you 14 eggs. homemade crust, the only thing i bought for it was ham (even the cheese was homemade and given to me!!)

yo soy la hermanita

2009-08-20T03:58:00.004-04:00

two stories:
1. when we were little we had a coffee mug with a ceramic frog at the bottom; when you finished drinking it was sitting there like a little surprise. i remember the day that my mom got tired of trying to clean around the frog and threw the mug away. i protested. i'm pretty sure i even said "who cares if it's clean".
2. when i was living in orange county with my sister we went to color me mine in huntington beach and picked out things to paint for each other. not surprisingly, we both picked coffee mugs. i managed to get mine all the way to my village without injury, and now every morning i enjoy the western novelty known as early grey tea as i sip from it. here's the best part:

a portrait of our 44th, barack obama, waits for me at the bottom so that, in bonny's words, i don't forget who the president is.

the sunday night feature

2009-08-17T05:51:00.003-04:00

last night we transformed the chitalishte into our own little movie theatre. by the time the lights went out and the film started to roll (Air Bud 2. is. what. they. picked. ??!) the first several rows were filled with kids and popcorn (in bg, pookankee) was being passed. we laughed, we cried, they chatted through most of the movie, and, i couldn't help but be distracted by the 10 year old boys running around in the balcony. when the credits rolled and the lights came up i noticed several young people i've never met before, even a couple canoodling in the back. this was the most salient sign of success: teenagers making out in a darkened theatre. looks like i am starting to serve a purpose here after all.

but in all seriousness, next time i'm using my executive power on the movie choice.

and summer, and summer

2009-08-13T03:37:00.003-04:00

from the picnic last week

useful information for your everyday life

2009-08-11T14:22:00.003-04:00

i often have little random bursts of blog inspiration but it's never enough to actually make me go to the good old puter and write it down. here i will try to remember these little bursts and compile them in a way that is helpful to you:

...my toilet paper smells like not just paper... it's fruity... my toilet paper smells like peaches

...the internet has enabled me to do three important things today: unlock my phone that i brought from the states, catch the stupid mouse in the kitchen using only a trashcan, a tp roll and some of my precious jif pb, and interpret the lyrics to the decemberists' newest album "hazards of love"

...my landlord looks so much like angelica houston except she has a golden front tooth and is in full baba garb

....the toilet seriously just almost fell off the wall! and now the pipe is cracked and it's leaking! how important is this emergency? i'm going to say not that much. i will, however, type a constructive phrase into google translator and write it down so as to be able to express this event to my boss. instead of trying to say it i'll just hand her the piece of paper saying "my toilet is broken but it's only slowly dripping water"

....altan, why didn't you come to english class yesterday? "i had war". (me, hysterical) you had a war? "no, i had waaaaark"

....i leave the house to go to the chitalishte and here comes the lady from the store. she stops the car, gets out and pretty much herds me into the back of her cargo van-esque vehicle the way an ostrich might have been rounded up. she also summons my student gamze and she drives us to the mosque, where she sits me down and feeds me soup with fresh lamb in it and several glasses of soda. i've never been in a mosque before and i feel pretty unwordly and then pretty amused that my first time happens to be in bg with all the kids in the village eating lamb soup and messing with each other.

....we are in varna for the weekend and we somehow choose the club which has no ceiling and pretty much no dance floor. lucky for us we are the only ones who really want to dance and we promptly take over the dance space, until some burly looking dudes decide they like our idea and edge us out of our dancing spots so they can do weird half poses ala madonna's vogue video.

....making stuffed peppers, my kitchen smells like my grandmother's house...

...one of my banitsa friends calls me for our weekly chat and the conversation deteriorates into him not listening to me and passing around the phone to people i don't really know. at 7:30, he is drunk.

...

2009-08-10T07:51:00.001-04:00

ENJOY THIS PLEASE

a funny thing happened on the way to my permanent site...

2009-07-28T03:59:00.003-04:00

hey-o! so, i've made it all the way out here to northeastern bulgaria, left my host family behind in a trail of tears and banitsa (i'll get to that later) and am now the proud occupier of a quaint stand alone house with a huge garden, and am soon to be english language teacher.
on friday i officially became a volunteer in the united states peace corps. our ceremony was in vratsa, and i was accompanied by my host mother and brother in law, gencho, who knows that he is one of my favorite members of the family. it was already 90 degrees by 10:30 when the event started, and all sixty-some of us sat on stage of the municipal concert hall fanning ourselves with the programs and listening as the proceedings went on in english and bulgarian. emmy had smartly packed a pocket sized coleman fan, and every time applause started she would turn it on and try to cool off those around her.
while i couldn't help but feel like i was at graduation (somewhat bittersweet considering my choice to not walk at my own this past may), i also felt that this experience was distinctly different. we sat facing the audience, which was full of our staff and our host families, and when it came time to thank them we gave a standing ovation. the friendships we made there are indellible, i should hope, and i personally already have plans to make it back to my village for my first christmas here.
the speeches from our country director, the mayor, and the lady from the embassy were all great, but boy if we weren't blown out of the water by our fellow volunteers whom we'd elected to speak for us at the end. the first was surprisingly simplistic but wholly funny; his thesis played off of the common love of bulgarian homemade cheese that americans and bulgarians share. this kid's timing was perfect, and he even managed to work in some pretty briliant inside jokes that rippled through the crowd of volunteers so much so that he had to stop 30 seconds after the delivery because we were all laughing so hard. the second speech was slightly more serious, and struck a perfect balance between poignancy and eloquence and hope. when he was done speaking, we all looked around at each other without saying a word, letting his sink into our hearts and ruminate there.
after the ceremony people were milling about, running around, eating fingerfoods and catching trains, we all hurriedly said goodbye and promised to write and call and visit. that night back in my village i went na gosti to a neighbors and we chatted about nothing, about gossip, about my mother and the village where i'd be moving the next day. i had sat at that the table the first week i was there, my head hurting from not understanding a word, and then there i was again, full circle, laughing and joking as if i had always understood these women, their lives.
the next day i woke up with a sour stomach and a headache, a direct result of the actions of the night before, and i still had to pack in again what felt like 80 degrees by 730. each article of clothes was shoved into whatever bag was closest, i started to cry as i looked at the empty room. i went into the kitchen to get some water and i noticed the table cleared except for a snapshot of me and my american mother smiling on her birthday, on disply as if in memoriam. baba was sitting next to it crying. i sat with her until it was time to go, relunctantly accepting the last fatty, greasy and delicious banitchka that i will eat in a long time, and the hugs and kisses of a family i will never forget.
the bus ride to rasgrad would have been a nightmare if not for my fellow travel companion, kari. we laughed together through the front right axel of the bus having problems, relieving ourselves behind trees while we were stuck on the side of the road for 40 minutes, another 40 minute stop at a gas station, a change of busses (unscheduled), the weirest pitstop ever in velicko tarnovo, getting stopped by the police for 15 minutes (during which we see the busdrivers bringing the police officers two cold bottles of iced tea, and then they let us go) and finally arriving two hours later than expected.

now we are all settling into the life we will have for the next two years. there is no more directed bulgarian language, just self study, no one making me go hang out in the community, just my own conscience, and no one cooking for me anymore (or at least, not on a regular basis). i'm an adult now. jeez. wish me luck.

with love from the bg,

among other things, i don't like chalga

2009-07-20T00:45:00.003-04:00

i figure it's time for a pop culture update. bg is a pretty small country, so it makes sense that the variety of music that i've found on tv and on the radio is somewhat lacking. most of it is centered around a newer pop-folk sound called chalga, which uses some standard melodies of traditional bg songs, the sounds of reed instrments like clarinets and oboes, and mixes them with synthesized beats and a touch too much silicone for me. here is one song which i hear frequently: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHTRIf8CRCI
i'll be the first to admit that when i moved to chile i hated reggeaton and now i can't get enough of it, but i'm just not sure i'll get used to this. on rare occaisions my ears have been pleased to hear some older songs with a lot less techno and a lot more brass, which remind me of a scene in the film "everything is illuminated" in which the characters drive through the sunflower fields of ukraine and that style of music plays in the background. theres something more traditional about it, something a little bit more honest.
then there's every once in a while when my ears get a real treat: american pop music. just for posterity, whenever "jai ho" comes on the tv i make a point to turn it up in honor of drew rosensweig.

cherish your musical choices folks, not all of us are so lucky.

2009-07-10T01:59:00.002-04:00

the two week countdown begins. on the 24th of this month i'll be sworn in as an official peace corps volunteer and will head off to the northeast quadrant to start my new life as english teacher/ american cultural attache to bulgaria.
also, my sister just sent me a new pair of rainbow flipflops and i am besides myself with excitement. i still remember the first pair i ever had, when i was still in high school, and how before i had them i used to try to steal hers because they were so darn comfortable. yesterday another volunteer asked me if my sister liked me, and i just laughed and said pretty assertively, "SHE LOVES ME". and i love her, so much. thanks little baby bonny, thanks for making my life a little brighter each and every day.

since i've been gone

2009-07-01T00:54:00.002-04:00

today is july 1st, i'm posting from my school. i just finished skyping with mom, which happened in spite of the fact that i couldn't figure out the day difference, and asked her to skype me on wednesday. well, it's wednesday here but there it is still just tuesday. i guess i have two years to get used to that.
in the past few weeks a lot of things have happened; i found out my permanent site will be on the other side of bulgaria, a lot closer to the black sea but very far from sofia, from my host family, from all the things to which i am accustomed now. the village is mostly turkish bulgarians, which is something that i had not anticipated. the first night during my visit there i heard a muslim call to prayer for the first time. it was beautiful, and i was informed that it was being sung live, which is unusual. i felt sort of upset with myself for my ignorance of this part of the country, of this culture, but grateful at the same time to have the opportunity to learn more about this particular slice of the population.
the village is not so different than my own, except that by the end of this thing i will probably be speaking a bulgarian dialect that includes a lot of turkish words. here's the first one i learned: ana in turkish means mother.

once i returned i realized how much i had missed my little village, my baba and her facial expressions that i still can't decipher, my host father's jokes and my host mother's compassion. of the four volunteers in my current site, we were all pretty much placed at extremes within the country, as far as distance from each other goes. if bulgaria was pennsylvania, we were placed (by permanenet sites, i mean) in philadelphia, gettysburg, eerie and scranton (that's me, of course, my life references to The Office never end). i have to keep reminding myself of the relativity of it all; one can cross pennsylvania in less than a day.

there are so many small pleasures that i see every day that escape my usual summaries, but here are a few: we now have 27 baby birds. 13 are turkeys for sure, but the rest are too little for me to distinguish. they look like chicken biddies to me, but what do i know? i grew up driving next to chicken trucks and had friends with chicken houses, but still can't tell the difference at all. we are sponsoring a model school for english this week, and the barman at our local cafe hung up our large and brightly colored poster without a minute of hesitation. yesterday 24 students showed up to participate, we were blown away by their enthusiasm.
there's an election coming up, on the fifth, and all the political propaganda is entertaining and interesting. my family supports the gerb, a newer democratic party, and every time they're on the tv everyone gets quiet and listens attentively. i'm still looking up words on the screen in the dictionary, the one i looked up yesterday translated to "withdrawal", as in
"USA Withdrawals from Iraq". is this true? the whole world around me seems to have stopped spinning, the news trickles down slowly and i never really know what's going on back in the states.

all the best to you, and happy fourth of july.

my life as a gossip, or how i am destined to become a baba

2009-06-15T05:42:00.002-04:00

people talk in a small town, they say, and oh do they talk here. i guess i've always grown up being slightly ashamed of my affinity for gossip, though it has provided me with many good friends who also enjoy it. i suppose i just didn't expect that my finely honed skills of listening, observing, and then talking would be so useful in such a provincial setting, but it is. even without understanding everything, i get the jist of who people are talking about, and sometimes, even what they are doing and what everyone thinks about it. nothing escapes the gaze of the people in this town, or at least, the babas generally make sure that it doesn't go unnoticed. i love this sense of interconnectedness, but more honestly, i just love the gossip. in bulgarian it's "bloo bloo bloo" (blah blah blah), or, the sound that chickens make. amazing; even in bulgaria i'm still a biddy.

i can finally dance like a white girl

2009-06-06T06:15:00.002-04:00

you might be able to guess that even after a few weeks my communication skills are more than lacking. my most effective tactic has become repeating what the person says, and generally agreeing. sometimes this means that i end up on long field trips, often to places i don't know and with people i've never met. more than a week ago i thought i was going to bed but instead ended up a large family/friend gathering across the street at the chitalishte (community center). the daughter of a family had finished high school and now was her time to celebrate her accomplishment, semi- 1980's prom style.

the dj was a friend of my host sister from Vratsa and it didn't take long til i was up dancing the Horo with everyone in the room (a good thing that they covered this subject in the first days of traning). after the traditional music was turned off i thought i'd be off the hook, but oh no. some pop/electronica came on and once again was roused to dance. generally i try to look cool while dancing, slightly dissinterested maybe but definetly rhythmic and smooth. what a surprise, as i looked around i found that none of these attributes were expected of me! ladies and men were slowly bopping to the music, dancing as we might call it in the US, like white people. finally! i don't have to pretend to be a good dancer anymore.

pop beats from the streets,

a quick hi from vratsa!

2009-05-25T03:32:00.002-04:00

hello! so, i've been in bulgaria for almost one full week now. our group of 62 volunteers spent the last few days in a mountain retreat learning about what we would be doing for the next 27 months. yesterday i moved in with my host family near Vratsa, which is north of Sofia. i have a mother and father who when they are not at work, manage a rather full garden and several goats, sheep and chickens. i didn't see a rooster, but there was one who definitely woke me up at 5 am! i also have a baba (grandmother) who is 85 and insists that i am tired, cold, or hungry, or all three. my first cultural faux pas was to put my bags on the floor, which goes against very strong bulgarian superstition. they didn't kick me out, so i guess i'm going ok.

bulgaria is great so far! i miss everyone in the states!

pieces from the peace corps...

the countdown continues

2009-05-14T22:42:00.003-04:00

hi. this is anna, reporting from ocean city. it's sunny here, the weather has finally reached perfection. here are the things i did today to prepare for monday, the day i officially report to the peace corps:
1. got my check from work, went to the bank, changed in my change, signed up for internet banking
2. returned several items to several different stores to avoid leaving my mother with a bedroom full of crap
3. got the code to unlock my cellphone (after 20 minutes. did you know that if you hang up on at&t, they might just call you back? seriously)
4. had dinner with mom at ruby tuesday = mom time is the utmost importance
5. helped mom download skype. taught mom how to spell skype.

bonny is coming tomorrow, there is a family potluck on sunday... so much to do in so little time!