A blog of spokoistvie

(A blog of relaxation)
Things are back to normal in Bulgaria...Well, as normal as they get here. The intense cold has loosened its grip, school is back in session, and I have again lost motivation to cook much beyond a boiled egg and PBJ sandwich. Oh wait, tonight I am making some noodles which I plan to shred some kashkaval over...Yummmm.

Anyway, eating aside, I spent my mini-vacation thusly (can that be an adverb?...): HIBERNATING. That's right, I stayed in my apartment from Monday afternoon to Thursday morning leaving only for a few hours Tuesday for my Bulgarian lesson. It was everything I thought it could be. I watched DVDs, glanced through Bulgarian work (which is not something I end up doing usually), played with the kitten, and generally enjoyed a more spokoino existance.

On Thursday, when the wind decided to stop gusting at 80 mph, I decided to end my hibernation with a trip to Yambol (which basically means eating pizza and existing in a more commercially-driven place.) My big purchase: a huge bag of kitty litter. Now that's exciting.

Friday morning I took the 3:45 a.m. bus to Sofia (yes, I am that crazy) and tried to keep warm all day by buying books (well, the bookSTORES were warm...) and stopping every hour or so for coffee or food. In the afternoon I headed up to the Peace Corps office to make sure it was still there and had a fun chat with my volunteer "sister" Vassi (the second volunteer to live with my host family). Ah, English. How I love thee.

Once the evening came around I took a cab to a residential part of Sofia to visit Monica Farling, a girl from Dover who is now working as a missionary in Sofia. Her apartment, in all honesty, is like a little America, complete with things like a CLOTHES DRYER, a DISHWASHER, the miracles of CENTRAL HOT WATER and CENTRAL HEATING, a BATHTUB with a SHOWER CURTAIN and even a guest bed that includes a MATTRESS and BOXSRPINGS and a HEADBOARD and DOWN PILLOWS. Ahhh.

We went out with Ivcho, a friend of my Aunt Kay's who spends his summers in the states. He took us to get some pizza then to see "Munich" in the biggest movie complex EVER. It put anything I've ever seen in the states to shame. We got home at 1:30 a.m., so you can imagine how exhausted I was (remember, I caught the 3:45 a.m. bus!)

Saturday I got to spend an hour and some change in a car! Ivcho drove me to Etropole, a town near Sofia which is the home to Lucia Chan -- a volunteer friend. We celebrated Chinese New Years with a few other volunteers, which basically included lots of food, lots of comedy DVDs, and the formation of a new kind of joke -- the "Dr. Robert Joke." (For those not-in-the-know, he is a Bulgarian doctor on the PC staff who is kind but somewhat straightlaced and we enjoy trying to confuse him with jokes or make him blush...)

Anywhoo...On Sunday I make the cross-country trek home way exhausted and way poorer...I feel a month on the poverty plan coming on. By now the weather has warmed up to close to 0 C, so life is back on track. I have this week in school, then next week I have yet ANOTHER week away at a PC conference/training thing in Stara Zagora. Sweeeet.

Britney and Hitler?...Really?!

Your Inner Blood Type is Type A

You seem cool and collected, though a bit shy.You are highly driven and a perfectionist, but that's a side you keep to yourself.Creative and artistic, you are a very unique person who doesn't quite fit in.People accept you more than you realize, seeing you as trustworthy and loyal. You are most compatible with: A and AB Famous Type A's: Britney Spears and Hilter

What's" Your Inner Blood Type?

A Big "Thank You" to Russia

Thanks to the giant to the north, I have a week off from school...

How, you might ask? Well, a hideously cold weather system developed in Siberia and made it's way south to good 'ole Bulgaria. It's -18 C in the sunshine....There is tornadic-like wind....I can see my breath in my kitchen and bathroom. All around cool.

So apparently it's considered unacceptable for Bulgarian students to study when there is a few centimeters of ice on the insides of windows in the school...Go figure. Yesterday we taught, and the school was basically just a block for the wind as there was no major temperature difference between the outside and the inside. After school the mayor told our director to cancel classes for the rest of the week.

This is, in fact, the second week I have gotten off due to cold. The week of Thanksgiving it got really cold and we were still waiting for new parts for the furnace (which, ironically, were coming from Russia too!) so they canceled classes from Tuesday on. In a country where they don't even celebrate Thanksgiving, I got a weeklong vacation! It was pretty sweet.

Anyway, apart from the cold, there is no news from the Balkans. Later today I will have my Bulgarian lesson so I will bring some laundry with me to do at Rosie's. This weekend I plan to head west to the Sofia area to celebrate Chinese New Years with some other volunteers. Should be amusing...With lots of food and English speaking. I get to ride from Sofia to a town about an hour-and-a-half west of it in a car, so that will be super-exciting. Aww, it's all about the small pleasures here.

Haide...Time to buy supplies for brownies and sugar cookies. Let's hope I don't blow away. Later.

hair color, my brilliance, and other disjointed musings

So yesterday in Sliven I was looking for some shampoo to keep my new haircolor (almost black) bright and healthy, and some salesgirl came up to me and began talking me into this German stuff. She asked if my hair was in fact dyed, and when I said yes she cooed (literally) and said, "You're so fashionable! Dark hair, blue eyes."

For those of you who know me, it is very clear why I could not suppress a chuckle. I don't think ever in my entire life anyone has ever considered me stylish. Smart, yes. Blunt and sarcastic, yes. Weird, of course. But stylish? Really?!

Never, that is, until Bulgaria. Since coming here, I have often been complemented on my "style" (which is based solely on the comfort-factor). Several people have commented on my hair, including students and the elderly male teachers I work with. The senior girls I tutor said my green jacket was "cutting edge" (my green jacket that my mom bought for me last year and looks like something out of JCrew which has been worn to the point needing a patch on the elbow). Two of my fifth grade girls tell me I'm pretty whenever I wear green. Little boys notice when I am carrying a new backpack or purse and compliment me on them. It's just so....wierd.

So, that's all I have to offer on that subject. Next up: my brilliance.

I had to give my eigth graders a test on Thursday, and I was, quite frankly, too lazy to make multiple versions of the test. Cheating is a time-honored tradition in Bulgaria, so I figured that this test would be a kind-of handout.

But as I was passing out the exams, a brilliant idea hit me. I have four girls and one boy in that class who know anything, and the rest kind of just suck up air. So what did I do? I made all 5 of the better students sit in a cluster at the front of the class, and had everyone else sit in the back, far from anyone who knew any answers.

The result was an effortless, honest test. The five better kids cheated, but it was with eachother so the test became an equal, joint effort. The worse kids cheated amongst themselves, but since none of them know anything their efforts were wasted. I graded the tests today, and sure enough, the kids who know nothing have no answers written down, and the kids who know something got decent grades. The best part? There was no extra effort on my part! Brilliance? or laziness?....It's a fine line, no?

On to topic three, which will probably be the last for tonight as I have run out of steam...It is called "Oddities of Becca's Life." The first is that one of my fifth grade boys seems to be harboring some sort of morbid fascination with me. He lives in the other entrance of my building, and he continually threatens to come visit me to see my cat. He spends most of the class period trying to get me to answer random questions about myself. Personal stuff. Last week I caught him writing my name over and over again on my desk with some chalk (he was at my desk because it was the only place I could put him where he would SHUT UP). One time I walked into a sixth grade class and he was sitting there. It took me a moment to realize he was in the wrong class, and I asked him what he was doing. He said he wanted to stay in the class, so I told him he could if he was quiet. And sure enough, he didn't make a peep the whole period...He just sat there, listening intently. Weird.

Now, don't be scared for me about this kid. He's harmless. He's also just a little bit creepy, in an amusing way.....

Oddity number two: I have befriended an elderly widow. She lives below me, and a few weeks ago she came up to my apartment and told me to come visit her. Since that first visit she has come to kidnap me once more, and she took me to her brother and sister-in-law's house for her name day. I can tell she is a bit of a gossip and a busy-body and she is kinda old, but she talks to me, feeds me, and listens to me butcher Bulgarian. At this point in my life, that is all I ask of a friend. Maybe tomorrow I will teach her how to make brownies!

And I'm spent. More later.

an assignment they LIKED!

So there was this assignment in my 8th grade textbook where they had to translate a joke from Bulgarian to English. Here is one some of my top girls managed (though I have refined it and added some Becca-flavor). Did you know they have dumb blonde jokes in Bulgarian? (Only the Bulgarian strain usually includes farm animals).

A blonde decides she is sick of being called dumb and dyes her hair brown. Soon after she is walking down the road when she encounters a shepherd taking his flock to pasture. She asks the shepherd, "Oooh, I love sheep! If I can guess the number of sheep in your flock, may I keep a sheep?" The shepherd replies, "Yes. If you guess the number of sheep in my flock, I will give you a sheep."

The former blonde looks at the flock and says, "You have 23 sheep in your flock." The shepherd says, "Correct! Choose your sheep!" The former blonde picks up an animal and starts to walk away.

The shepherd hollars back to her, "Hey, if I correctly guess the actual color of your hair, will you give me my dog back?!"

A Hilariously Bulgarian Photo

So this photo was taken by my host cousin Vildane shortly before departing for New Years in Razlog. Pictured are my volunteer friend Maegen, our Bulgarian-Turkish friend Suktu, and myself.

I only include this photo because it is so typically-Bulgarian: a group of people slightly off center, facing the camera, posed on a couch, barely smiling, cigarette smoke swirling around everything...Ahhh, Bulgaria.

the new year's becca survived

So there I was...in Razlog (Meggi's town) with her and my two host cousins, Villi and Gulchie.

We had heard Razlog has, um, *unique* New Year's celebrations, so we were excited to witness them. We knew there'd be Kukeri, which are men dressed in the hair of goats who dance and scare away evil spirits. Sounds cool, no?

Shortly after I wrote the Dec. 31 entry on this very blog, one of Meggi's Bulgarian friends, Katya, came to have some dinner. That roast beef was the last thing I experienced that bore any resemblance to the rest of my life...

About fifteen minutes before midnight we headed towards the town center with a bottle of cheap Bulgarian champagne and a few plastic cups. When we arrived the center was more or less dead, but soon floods of people started arriving.

The floods of people brought with them firecrackers...Some were like Roman Candles, some were just torches of fire, and others did nothing but scurry around, explode, and burn your ankles. They burned your ankles because people were throwing them INTO the crowd...The police stood by with beers in their hands.

As midnight neared, the popping and exploding and burning increased. Villi and Gulchie began fighting over the bottle of champagne while trying to open it, thus spilling it all over the ground. As soon as midnight struck a firecracker of some sort whizzed between Meggi and I, and we both kinda flipped out (dude, I felt the heat and pinch of it on my ear!) So we promptly abandoned the arguing teenagers and Katya, who was dancing around and singing in the midst of the explosions, and hightailed it into a nearby cafe. There we stood, behind glass, until the girls found us and drew us out to toast the New Year.

The champagne I toasted 2006 with had a piece of firecracker in it and smelled of sulfur. I toasted it under a tree, fearing for the safety of my limbs, watching drunken Bulgarians horo around little white explosions and discarded champagne bottles.

Shortly after that we returned home to recover from what will go down in Becca's Book of Life as the most terrifying stroke-of-midnight in my 23 years.

The next day, however, was amazing in a non-scary way. At around 10 we all wandered into the town center again, and it should be noted a thin layer of sulfur still hung in the air mixed with woodsmoke and typical Razlog fog.

For the next several hours, each neighborhood (or Mahala) in the town showed off men and boys in Kukeri outfits, other folks in traditional Bulgarian and Macedonian dress (Razlog is close to the border), and still others in outfits we Americans associate with Halloween. Young men dressed like old Babas (grandmothers), and some did a startling good job of it. The center walkway was blocked off, so long lines of people horo-ed behind those dressed up. (May it be noted that I joined two different lines to dance...) There were drums, guidas (like Bulgarian bagpipes), tractors made-up like floats, and all kinds of partying.

In all of the madness, I enjoyed the Kukeri the most. They wear these huge bells in their costumes and throw their arms and legs around to make them ring. It looks like these huge men (and small boys) in these goat-hair bodysuits are having seizures while walking down the street. One group had at least 20 Kukeri dancing down the street in unison, and the sound of the bells was deafening. Totally cool, man.

The party moved to the individual neighborhoods around 3 p.m. and we went to Katya's for some homemade sausage and rice. After that we went home to contemplate what we had just witnessed...

So, I am out of steam. Just know that it was really cool, and I wish I could post some of my video clips as they encapsulate the scene much better than photos...

a new year's teaser

Wanna find out what the heck this is? Check back here in the next few days for the complete "New Years in Razlog" story....It's a hoot!