Another Day...

So it is still dark when I wake up from a comfortable, rakiya-aided sleep (my Bulgarian lessons tend to turn into "na gostis" from which I cannot leave without a glass or two of Bulgaria's national drink.)

The various animals around my bloc have been particularly loud the past few mornings...I vaugely wonder if they are protesting the slow onslaught of winter. This, however, is helpful as it will not let me fall back to sleep in the hour it will take for my hot water boiler to produce enough for a shower.

(I will admit that as the week wears on, it becomes more and more difficult to find my way to the bathroom and click the dial until the heater catches...Maybe I ought to get to bed earlier.)

With task one of the day completed, I find my way to the kitchen to accomplish task two: the procreation of breakfast. But today, WHAT?! No yougurt?! Oh no! No musli! What has happened to the world?

Spoko Becca, I tell myself. (Yes, I speak Bulgarian to myself now.) Take a chill pill. You can buy something to eat at school for like 40 stotinki. Contrary to your initial reaction, a morning without musli is not the end of civilization.

So right, no breakfast yet. Shower first, then go to school early and buy something there. And so I do. Leaving the cafe, some kid I do not know from Adam wanders up to me and, in the most perfect English I have heard out of a child at that school short of my top-level tutorees (who are 18 and this kid is like 15), "Hey Rebecca. Are you going on our trip with us next weekend?"

I no longer notice when strangers call me by name or when they string together random English words by way of greeting. I am, however, still taken aback when someone speaks actual English to me, so I cannot even find it within myself to speak English with this kid. In Bulgarian, I tell him no, I cannot come as my mother and aunt will arrive that weekend.

In English he says, "Oh, okay." In Bulgarian I say, "Maybe next time. I do want to come sometime. Where will you go next?" In English he says, "Oh, probably somewhere around Sofia." And he trots off with friends, thus ending our aquaintence.

And up I climb, up the four flights to my classroom. But, what's this? My classroom is locked. But my classroom is never locked! I didn't know there WAS a lock. Who has the key? I scurry into the supply closet to ask some of the other teachers where the key is. They answer with exaggerated shrugs and pouted bottom lips accompatied by nods (which means "No" here) and tisks of the tounge. It is the Bulgarian equivalent of an entire roomful of highly educated individuals saying, "I dunno..." in the low, sing-songy tones of various stupid cartoon characters.

Okay then. Suppose we'll have classes in the room nextdoor, if no one kicks me out of it.

So the start of today has totally thrown off any perception of reality I have created for myself here (which, though weak, was at least something.) To further confuse my personal cosmos, the "Demons Spat From the Depths of Hell Class" (aka 5b) is silent and attentive, and my "Thank God For These Kids Class" (aka 6a) has learned the phrase, "Eat my shit motherfucker," and is using it generously. (My solution: stare at them and ask them to repeat it as if I have no idea what they are saying, throwing in the occassional "Kazhi na Angliski!" -- Say it in English! -- until they transform the accent so much in trying to get me to understand that they are now saying, "It me shite mudderfooder.")

But, by 11:30 my teaching for the day is over and I take a bus to Yambol, where I meet up with a friend I met in Krichim who is in my neck of the woods performing an organic farm inspection. Together with the farmer, we drive to a random field south of the town, wander around taking pictures, then make our way back to the steel factory where the farmer works during the week. They are currently filling and order for chewing-gum sales racks, and we are given the full tour of the works and a detailed description of the process involved.

Then there is lots of paperwork, and Sudku (my friend) drives me back to my apartment in Straldja on his way to the beach. Sudku, a face I associate with Krichim, is sitting outside of my apartment. Two of my lives -- my current and my most recent former -- have collided for the first time...With this as the preview, I can only imagine what it will be like next week when I see my MOTHER and my aunt sitting in that exact spot...

Phew. Back in the hovel of my apartment, where the oddities of today cannot reach me. Cosmos of Rebecca Grudzina, calm yourselves.

*Though I am sometimes prone to exaggeration, I hereby swear that all stories related on this blog are true, without exaggeration. Yes, my life has truly become this random. Fitting, eh?*