2005

I woke up on the first morning of 2005 in Alison's bedroom in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. We had spent the day before at a hockey game, eating out, eating in, destroying baked goods, banging pots in the street with crazy neighbors, and generally causing a rukus.

Through the months of January and February I was living with my parents and working as a staff writer at the Dover Post. Every week I went to the city offices to copy down all of the deed transfers and the only redeeming factor in this was there was a really hot guy who worked there. That's motivation.

There was tons of snow and tons of cold all winter. Usually I had to pour water on my car door to unfreeze it in the morning, esp. Monday and Tuesday morning when I had to go in extra early. Kelli and I ate at Quiznos or Mama's every other day. Yum.

In March I lost my last grandmother. My grandfather lost his wife of over 60 years.

In April I had a goodbye party. It was weird as three phases of life met at once -- youth, college, and Dover Post era. The last time I drove was April 21. On April 22 my parents dropped me off at the Philadelphia Airport, which was the last time I saw my dad. In Chicago I met the only people I see now who speak English natively. On April 24 we left Chicago for Sofia.

The following week I learned a new alphabet and some Bulgarian food words. On April 31 I met my Bulgarian family and moved to Krichim.

I learned a new way of life. I lived in a household where I could not understand them, nor they understand me. I got really awesome at charades. I made a new family out of 4 other Americans and our teacher. Little by little, I learned a new language.

On May 16 I found out I'd be living in Straldja. On May 17 I met my counterpart Rosie, who has become my guardian. On May 18 she and her husband and friend drove me to Straldja, and I spent the night in my very first "own apartment." On May 19 I met some of my future students. On May 20 I went home to Krichim and for two days we celebrated my birthday with family and other volunteer friends from all over. Kuchek. Wine. A professionally-handmade cake by Atidje's brother.

Through June, the "six of us" spent long sunny days at the pool, meeting for coffee in the center, practicing our Bulgarian and planning our lessons over beers after language class. We went na gosti to eachothers families. We had adventures in Plovdiv.

By the time July came, I could understand my family and they could understand me.

On July 7 we said overly-teary goodbyes to our hostfamiles in the exact same spot where we had met them. That night the Krichim folks went on an odessy through Pazardjik looking for dooners.

On July 8 we went to Sofia to swear-in as Peace Corps volunteers and my director drove there to pick me up. She brought me to my apartment, and I was alone.

For two months I was alone. I saw other volunteers, went home to Krichim, but I was alone. Very much alone.

In September I became a teacher. I'm not a teacher...not educated as a teacher...But I became one. I learned lots of discipline Bulgarian. I learned discipline Bulgarian doesn't work.

I did traveling around Bulgaria. I learned how to keep house. I learned how to cook for myself, how to shop in small and limited shops, and how to find motivation to clean up a mess after a long day of work.

My mom and aunt came. I showed them My Bulgaria...and both got an education. I got a cat that is solely my responsibility.

I had one of the most thankful Thanksgivings of my life because I was with friends and was able to speak in my native tounge. And the best thing is we made it ourselves.

I had a really rough Christmas season...my first away from Delaware. My students became crazier. The weather became much colder. I had none of my Christmas traditions (except for the stocking my mother sent), but eventually came to love Bulgarian traditions. I spent the actual holiday in a Muslim home, but with Muslims that care so much they approximated as closely as possible a Bulgarian Christmas just for me.

I heard The Good News in Bulgarian, and understood it.

I am now a different girl from the one who woke up in Alison's bedroom twelve months ago.

creative discipline and laughing at students

Okay, so I will tell the more troubling story first because chronogically it happened first AND I feel like being chronological, PLUS it's just nice to leave a happy taste in a reader's mouth.

So, as you can see from my recent photos, it snowed for the first time in Straldja a few days ago. Sunday, to be exact. On Monday, the Monday before the big Christmas vacation, the kids were NUTSO. They usually are nuts, but the snow and pending vacation heightened the maddness to fever pitch. By fifth period the thin gloss that is discipline in Bulgarian schools had completely eroded, and it was all I could do to keep my ninth-graders (my most consistantly favorite class) inside of the classroom.

Anyway, some of the jerkoff boys in my eigth grade class escaped from music, went into the empty room next to mine, climbed out of the window onto the roof, and proceeded to make snowballs. They came running into my classroom and pelted my kids, my desk, my floor, and myself with snow. And I...was...hot... Oh no no no no no...I had had enough interruptions and problems and stupidity and I was not going to take this crap. So I followed them as they ran out of my room, realized where they had gone to get snow, and once they climbed back out to get more I closed the window, locked it, then locked the door to the classroom so none of their croanies could bust them out. The said croanies were in the hallway speechless, murmuring that "Miss Rebecca has locked them out of the building! She has locked them on the roof!" (Note: this window is the only window that opens on this part of the roof).

I returned to my class and they looked at me with wonder and disbelief. After a few minutes we heard the boys on the roof throwing a fit when they realized what I had done. At the end of the period I went and opened the door to the classroom to let their croanies bring them in again. They were shivering, wide-eyed and stunned into silence. By the looks on their faces, I shouldn't have problems with them for the rest of the week, if not forever.

So I must say that I would never have even THOUGHT of doing this in America, where there are things like liability. But in America there are also things like detention, ISS and suspension. Here, they lack anything. Literally, locking my students on the roof was the only way to prevent them from decorating my room with snow! They don't listen, and why should they really? They don't give a crap about grades, and that is the only leverage we teachers have. It's a crazy, crazy system.

But now for the funny story...Not to say that wasn't a funny one. Today I was in my decent fifth grade class (they are loud, but they generally learn) teaching them nationalities: people from Bulgarian and people from America are Americans, etc...I taught them "-an" and "-ish" and "-ese," and the oddball ones like French and Swiss...Then I asked them to guess some. They did well -- "Italian miss!" "Russian miss!" "Chinese miss!" Then I asked, "Kak ce kazvat horata ot Germania? (What are people from Germany called?) One girl, one darling little girl, announced loud and proud, "Germish!" (pronounced "jermish").

I could not hold back a jerk of laughter, and they all looked at me inquizzically. I could not explain to them what "germ" is in English as I do not know the word in Bulgarian, and I could not explain the concept of "ish" as being something to make the word an adjective, so the joke was lost. But it remained with me, and I will now rename a number of English nationalities:

Italish; Turkese; Englanese; Chinish; Mexicese; Swizterish; Canadian (that one's not funny, but the people sure are!); and my favorite -- Amerikese!

And I'm spent.

oooh, purty

This is the view from my little teacher cabinet on the fourth floor. Oh, the snow makes it so pretty. The mountains in the distance are the eastern-most peaks of the Balkan Mountains.

Too bad all this pretty snow gives my kids weapons to use INSIDE my classroom.

'twas the week before christmas...

One week from today is Christmas all around the world (well, except Russia...)

I figured going into the Peace Corps that Christmas would be the hardest time of the year for me away from home. I have never in my life spent the time from December 23 to 26 outside of Dover, and this year I am on the other side of the world...

To combat homesickness, I have made it a point to throw myself into the Christmas traditions of Bulgarians, the first thing being a concert put on yesterday by groups from several towns in the area. People got dressed up in Bulgarian national dress, sang national Christmas chants and danced high-energy holiday horos. This photo is of several of my fifth and sixth-grade girls who belong to a dance class in our town. Their horo, though I may be partial, was by far the best.

Anyway, today delightful suprise No. 2 occured...I woke up to a solid 6 inches of white on the ground and a steady downfall of more snow. I took a walk around town, nearly froze to death, took a photo of one of my students and his friend making a snow man and bought some milk for cookie-making.

Now I am holed up in my apartment baking and listening to Christmas music. Ahhh, this is the life.

two cents about bird flu

So, Bulgaria HAS to have avian flu within its borders...Every neighboring country has confirmed having the disease, and I can't imagine birds going, "Oh, there's the Bulgarian border...Let's steer clear of there."

We have been joking about it since September, but now the jokes have hit a new pitch. It used to be jokes among PCVs...Now it is a joke among my students. My unwordly, uninterested-in-world-events-besides-bad-music students.

Today a number of people were absent from my 6th grade class (side note: it made for an AWESOME 40 minutes) and when I asked where everyone was, one of the funnier boys made the twisted face that indicates death and said two little words: "Petitsa Grip!" (Literally translated: Bird Flu!) The rest of the kids laughed and started making coughing sounds and death faces of their own.

I had to laugh. And I did, a bit. It's fun to joke about potentially horrible things...It's all fun and games until it morphs into a human-to-human transmitted plauge and we PCVs are evacuated from the country, denied entry into the US (cause you know they ain't letting us in when we've spent the last 8 months in an infected land) and are sent for a season of "quarentine" in Guantanamo.

Some volunteers have interesing stories about the mass slaughter of birds in their towns (this weekend in Omurtag Tia's landlady told us they had just killed 50 turkeys and she ran out of room in her freezer so she's having to boil it in jars) and even in my little town of Straldja I have seen 4 dead birds over the past two months laying on the ground with no obvious cause of death. Needless to say, I will be careful in my consumption and usage of eggs here. And I'll watch myself around the bird, uh, droppings in the street....

But as I say, it makes a heck of a joke at the moment, one even my kids get. Let's just hope this thing stays with the birds......

My Bulgarian Essay: For PCVS

So I was at the "question asking" lesson in my Bulgarian book and I had to write an essay about questions I ask myself when I am in a bad mood. The last few weeks have been very taxing emotionally, so I was pretty prepared for the exercize. Fellow PCVs, I send this out into the world to find out if you are in my boat....I think some of you are......Oh, and I wrote it in English below. The Bulgarian is just for fun!

Какво стана? Защо плачаш? Защо не можеш да го забравиш?

Те не слушат никой. Различна ли си? Ако не искат да учат как можеш да научаш? Обаче искам да учат.

Дали са отегчени? Щяха ли да слушат ако правим нещо по-забавно? Но как можеш да правиш забавни неща ако не знаят нищо? Как? Нали това е въпроса?

Добре ли си? Свикваш ли със Стралджа? Харесва ли ти животът тук? Какво ли щеше да правиш ано беше в САЩ? Щеше ли да имаш по-добър живот? Не. Щях да бъда по-тъжена. Нима не исках да пъртувам и да опитвам друг живот? Нима не исках да стана по-силна? Да. Хайде!

Now in English:
What happened? Why are you crying? Why can't you forget about it?

They don't listen to anyone. Are you different? If they don't want to learn, how can you teach them? But, I want them to learn.

I wonder, are they bored? Would they listen if we did funner things? But how can you do fun things if they don't know anything? How? That's the question, right?

Are you okay? Are you used to Straldja? Do you like the life here? What would you be doing if you were in the States now? Would you have a better life? No. I'd be sadder. Didn't you want to travel and try another life? Didn't you want to become stronger? Yes. Well then, come on!

a blog of confusion

So I don't understand my 5b class...Take today for instance.

They came in the room screaming and cursing and carrying on in true 5b fashion. I wrangled them into their seats and told them in Bulgarian what we were going to do: I was going to spell out words for them to write in their notebooks. This was a practice in understanding the names of our letters because earlier in the day I realized my 8th graders could not do this...

For some inexplicable reason they all got out notebooks and looked more prepared than any group of students I have encountered since arriving in Bulgaria. I gave them the first letter and they looked at me silently and intensly, wrote the letter, and then looked up for the next letter and so on...All of the students did this. And I was shocked by the accuracy of some of the kids' work. Some of them who I thought had never retained anything actually seemed to know something! And they were just so INTENSLY listening...It was like I was spelling out a code that would save their lives. I almost got distracted by the efficiency of it.

But then halfway through the period some asshole kid threw a stotinki coin at the damn bell outside of my classroom (the one that NEVER rings when it ought to) and the demons took it as their cue to go nuts. "The bell rang," they told me. "We must go!" They packed up their things and began shouting to one another.

Meanwhile I was trying to communicate to them that the bell had not rung, it was just some kid throwing a coin AT the bell. But they were so loud I was inaudible (and for those that know me, I am ALWAYS audible). I had to hold the door closed with all my might to prevent them from leaving. They started fighting as usual, and since they had already packed up there wasn't NO WAY I was going to get them to unpack their books...For the second half of the period I was relegated to discipline duty, which in this class is like being a prison warden.

So I don't understand. What was it about THAT exercise that made them listen? It doesn't seem fun and different to me...We do listening stuff all the TIME and they just talk so loudly the kids who want to hear can't...I would love to know what would have happened had that outside disruption never taken place. See, that's another thing. Not only do we have to deal with crap inside the class, I am constantly having to deal with crap being imposed on me from the hallway! In America if a kid is in the hall without a pass he gets detention. Here, there is literally no set-up punishment...What an ass-backwards system.

In my opinion, which is not worth much and is strictly MY OPINION, this education system is very much in need of teeth for the teachers. The teachers need to be given proverbial whips and sticks to get the job done here...I think the lack of these things has made the educational system what it is today. They need to have class participation grades that count as test grades (when I suggested this, my director said students should only be graded on the quality of work they produce, not their behavior) god-awful detentions, suspensions, Saturday school, in-school-suspension, and any other possible punishment that might deter these little darlings from acting like assholes. The American system is not perfect by any means, but I do not remember any of my classes being like classes here...even when the teacher was a weakling and a moron. Sure people tried to cheat, but they were failed. Sure people talked out in class, but it was in whispers so as to avoid getting a detention (my students have full blown conversations like I am not even standing there and no amount of scolding from me helps this). Sure, there was even the occasional fight in school, but you better damn believe those kids were outta there as soon as they were pulled off of one another and later became the school gossip for eons to follow. Here kids can beat eachother until they are bleeding and they still roam the halls, and no one even thinks anything of it afterwards.

I do not understand how Bulgarian teachers stay in their jobs for so long. And for what it's worth, as much as I love Bulgaria and the people I know here, I would not send my child to a Bulgarian school for all the tea in freakin' China!

This is how we do...

SaturdayI got on an 8:30 a.m. bus to Omurtag, a city in the Balkan Mountains a two-hour bus ride directly north of Straldja. I was off to visit Tia, whom I had texted the day before to tell her I'd arrive around 10:50 -- information given to me by the lady I bought the tickets from.

I arrived at 10:15, much to my suprise, and decided to tell her I was early. I tried to call her. It said that "the subscriber could not be reached." I tried again and got the same message. I tried again and again until I figured something was wrong.

There was an internet club across the street, so I decided to go try and email her. But as it was Saturday morning, the club was closed and I was left to ponder my next move in the snow. I decided to text my friend Brian whom I was sure had Tia's real number.

He must have been asleep, cause he didn't reply until 11:15. Sure enough, I had a bum number. Which means she never got my message the day before...Hrm. So I called her and she came to get me.

We went back to her apartment, dropped off my stuff and then went over to her landlady's apartment to tell her Tia's boiler was broken, again. In true Bulgarian form, we were invited in, given a waffle candy bar and coffee, plus a jar of boiled turkey and a pair of knitted booties to keep our footsies warm that had been made by the family's baba (grandmother).

We stayed an hour and a half, then decided it was time to get lunch. We wandered from shop to shop gathering supplies for brownies, Christmas cookies and a spaghetti dinner.

When we returned to her apartment, the true staple of Peace Corps visiting began -- making something good to eat. I have had several inter-Peace Corps vists by now, and they all have involved lots of cooking and baking. I think this is because there is not much else to do, so we are all becoming Betty Crockers. Each volunteer has a speciality to pass on to guests or hosts, and we swap recipes like old women at Bingo halls.

Anyway, Tia and I had obtained some cookie cutters and sprinkles from an older volunteer in her town, so we found a vanilla cookie recipe online and went to it. We cooked enough for her landlady as a thank-you for the booties and her neighbor, who lent us a cooking pan. Once we were finished her landlady came by, took one puzzled look at the cookies, and asked us what they were. The sprinkles had thrown her off...What were they? She, apparently, had never seen a sprinkle before in her life. We chuckled because they must look inedible if you have never seen one, and she probably thought we were trying to poison her!

After that bit of amusement we watched a movie and fell asleep in her heated room. The next day we went to a cafe for some coffee and then I caught my bus home. I got here by 1 p.m. and FROZE in my apartment (a cold wind had set in, and I had not been home to run my heater through the night.) I turned it on to warm up the bricks even though I am not supposed to run it during the day...What could I do? My kitten was literally shivering! By the evening some heat was beginning to pump out, but it did not really warm up until today.

Hope all's well. And I hope my motivation to write comes back sometime soon...I am feeling a bit blocked or something.

The War of Apartment 31

My kitten and I are at war.

Little does she know, I will win.

We have disagreements about many things. I think my little Christmas tree looks great sitting on top of my television. She thinks it looks better in a heap on the floor next to the television. She had something against my elephant clock that was a gift from some friends in Krichim, so I will have to take that to Toschko tomorrow for some gluing. She thinks my food is her food, and I think her food is her food. My body has become a scratching post, an object to hunt, a jungle-gym and a bed (though I like the last part). My drying clothes have become pawns in our struggle -- she stares at me defiantly as she yanks a sock down with her claw. "That's right," she says to me, "I'm pulling this sock DOWN unless you get off your school-worn ass and make me stop."

But as I mentioned before, I will win. She hates punishment (i.e. flicking her with water or carrying her by the neck like her mama would), so hopefully it will eventually sink in...If it doesn't, I will be living with a being that has a teenage mentality and real claws...Interesno.