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!28 October 2010
HAAAAAPPY HALLOWEEEEEN!
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!
26 October 2010
one of the family
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!
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!
14 October 2010
10 October 2010
the key to fire is air
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.
-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.
01 October 2010
27 September 2010
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.
**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.
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