Let this be a lesson...

In Russia, if you disagree with the people in charge you are either shot in your elevator or poisioned with radiation.

Therefore, it is not entirely my fault that in my Russian blood runs a strong sense of authority and even stronger vengence when that authority is crossed.

Thankfully, my Anglo-genetics have tempered this vengance and made it slower...My lines are not easy to cross. It has not, however, mullified the effect of the vegance when my inner Rusnak rears his ugly head.

My seventh graders have crossed the line. They BARRELLED across it actually...with their GSMs in class and MP3 players and incessant talking and asnine question-asking before I can finish explaining something, then asking me forty more times to explain what they missed while asking me the asnine questions. I can't explain things for the volume of "MISS! MISS!"es I get yelled at me. Kids get up and wander around the classroom, peruse the books, steal other kids' backpacks which starts another chorus of "MISS! MISS!," they cheat constantly and without shame or discretion. I feel like I walk into a snake pit every time I let them come in the room.

So today they were doing an extra credit assignment for the test we are taking tomorrow. I told them no cheating. They started wandering around the room looking at eachother's notebooks. I told them the next person who stood would get a 2 (an F), so they started to shout across the classroom. I told them the next person who shouted would get a 2. They started to throw bits of paper with the answers on them. They asked me how to do the exercises (even though the instructions are in Bulgarian and there is always an example) 40 times, and kept hollering "MISS! MISS" and mobbing me at my desk as I wrote the 2s for standing up and shouting.

And I flipped. The Rusnak turned himself on.

I screamed at them to get away from me, to sit down, to shut up and to read the instructions. I told them they had done it, and I was going to give each and every kid a different test tomorrow so they couldn't cheat even if they tried. I told them I would take their tests if I saw then looking at another test. They said I couldn't do that, and I said, "Watch me." A few of the most b*&%$# girls rolled their eyes and said they'd skip tomorrow (and in Bulgarian that means you can't give them a grade), so I told them that I would grade the Extra Credit like a test and put THAT on their grade report (I had already seen theirs and there was not one correct answer.) They just sat, stunned.

But I tell you, this Rusnak vengence is a very productive emotion. I will sit here and make separate tests of each of the 19 monsters if it takes me until classtime tomorrow to do it. The Rusnak will only be assuaged when I can see each of their faces when they realize that for the first time in their little lives, they will not be able to cheat their way through.

Of all the cultural differences I have overcome in my time here, the blatant cheating is something I will never, ever be able to condone. Maybe it is my innate Americaness that tells me you must succeed on your own merit (or at LEAST be called out and publicly humiliated when you cheat and therefore feel a great sense of shame and ruin, which is totally not true in Bulgaria), but it is what has made our country good. It is why we work.

As much as I would like to think I am embarking on this test to serve as a valuable tool to these uneducated Bulgarian kiddos, I fear I am mostly doing it to see the look on their faces when they realize they will be judged on their own merit, and will be found wanting.

Savior, like a shepherd lead us

On the first day of school this year, a fellow teacher and I met on the path and walked the rest of the way together. We ended up having to cut a huge herd of sheep on their way out to pasture, and as we did it a huge smile lit up her face. When I asked her why she seemed so happy, she told me that it was good luck to cut through a herd of sheep, and since it was the first day of school, she believed it symbolized a good year for both of us.

For a while, I was inclined to succumb to this superstition. Compared to last year, this year has sailed by on gold-tinted wings. Apart from the loss of my best Bulgarian friend, this year I feel more competent in the classroom and can see some results.

But now I am loosing faith in the idea…I have cut a herd of sheep twice a day for the past week, and have not discerned any marked improvement in my luck. Perhaps it is all being packed away and saved in my kharma bank for something really amazingly wonderful, who knows. All’s I know is that I want it to happen soon…It’s tough tromping through the stink and fecal matter that is a Bulgarian herd of sheep without seeing results.

However, the sheep-watching has inspired some reflections on modern Christianity. Bear with me through this awkward transition.

As most westerners know, the symbol of the shepherd has often been used in Christianity to illustrate Jesus Christ. The parallels are quite beautiful…Both protect gentle creatures from danger. Both lead lesser beings to places of sustenance and goodness. Both are solitary and diligent. Both love their creatures, and both depend on them to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, maintain the health and balance of God’s kingdom, and provide company.

But the shepherds I have seen in Bulgaria are not this type of shepherd. Perhaps they do protect their sheep from danger, but they also smack them with sticks and curse at them in a language the sheep do not understand and cannot respond to. Perhaps they do lead the sheep out to pasture, but the pastures are very often polluted with garbage that other shepherds have left behind. Perhaps they do care for the sheep, but it is only because the sheep are their source of money and power.

I cannot picture Jesus using sticks to keep his people in line. I cannot seem him yelling and cursing at us when we’ve strayed from the path. And I certainly do not think Jesus saw mankind as a source to gain power.

But it seems to me that Christian fundamentalists in recent years have taken to this second image of the shepherd. The only differences are their sticks are laws to ban things they see as vices and sins, their curses are abuses and intolerances thrown at non-Christians, and the power they seek is in the halls of congress. Theirs is the “force them into the right path” shepherding rather than the “lead them to the right path” shepherding.

As far as I am aware, Jesus never lost patience with someone who questioned him in a logical manner. Jesus never told anyone they were less Christian because they questioned their faith. And Jesus certainly never used laws and force to keep his followers from straying. He lead by example.

But look at the example in the fundamentalist church. How many scandals are there—sexual, financial and social? How many acts of violence have been committed against those considered “sinners?” How many “religious” men have sought political, secular power (something Jesus neither wanted nor advocated) so that they can create laws (a secular, forceful kind of guidance) to push their own ideas and belief structures? It’s plain to see why average parishioners are confused…If in fact their leaders are leading by example, they are leading people to a very un-Christian place.

I hope against hope that one day they will return to the truly Christian, Jesus-inspired philosophy of shepherding.

Nothin' like a feast of boiled lamb

On Friday morning, I got a phone call from the deputy mayor. He wanted to know if I'd like to accompany the municipality employees to the smallest of Straldja's villages for the community's holiday. Since I never turn down an invite to "the celo," I agreed and woke up early Saturday to meet them.

The day was perfect...One of those beautiful November days with a slightly warm sun, a low crisp breeze and not a cloud in the sky. We drove past all the dying fields and the mounds of overturned earth until we reached the far edges of our obshtina (municipality) and turned right. In the groove between two rolling hills lay a community of about 40 homes, a church and a shop.

The median age of people in Bulgarian villages is 60, and this one had a population of about 100 people. Most were kerchiefed old women or their husbands, whose skin had turned to leather after years of working in the fields. There were about two younger families, with kids who most likely use the village as a playgroud (I know I would have).

So the holiday went off as expected...There was a folk singer, old people dancing hours of horo, and the boiling of a freshly-slaughtered lamb. There was a dedication in the church where I got soaked by a bunch of holy water-drenched branches the priest was flinging around. And all the while, my camera was snapping away. (If I can manage to upload my video clips to YouTube, I'll link them here...This might be too high tech for me).

Around 2 in the afternoon I was tired of trying to discern country Bulgarian dialects and opted to return to town with the deputy mayor. There I hibernated until, well, tonight.