May 7, 2011

Today is May 7, and I'm posting entries for the last couple of weeks. I'm really excited about starting Week 7. On Friday of this week I will find out where I'm going to be for the next two years.

The LPI (language practice interview) went fine yesterday. I don't speak as well as the others in my group (who are all young with absorbent brains), but I speak it enough to communicate.

Thanks for reading! ~ Joan

Saturday, April 16, 2011

I really need to get out with my camera and just start filming. My descriptions are not adequate.  I just saw another horse-drawn cart and was just as amazed as the first time I saw one here. They are very common; I’ve had to step into the street to walk around them because one was parked on the sidewalk – horse, cart and all. Sometimes the cart is pulled by a donkey, and I’m not just talking any donkey…these donkeys are the oldest, scroungiest, shaggiest, most pathetic looking donkeys I’ve ever seen. Not that I’ve seen many donkeys in my life, but the ones I’ve seen didn’t look like this. One of my goals is to find out what they’re hauling in those carts. So far, if I’ve gotten close enough to see, there wasn’t anything in there.

I really enjoy seeing the sheep grazing – anywhere there’s grass. This afternoon I walked home from the Internet café. (I’m using the term loosely here. The connection actually comes from the closed library across the street from the café.) As I approached the gate to my host’s home and mine, I looked up to see a lady across the street waving at me. She held a staff (well, it turned out to be a long stick), and she was amongst several sheep and lambs and was far enough away that it took a moment to realize it was Nikolinka, my host mother!

Apparently it doesn’t matter whose sheep (or horse or cow for that matter) graze where. When I first got here, someone else was grazing their sheep on that land, and Ivan’s sheep were grazing the grass around the outside of the fence surrounding their yard. Well, it’s not a yard; the entire yard is garden except for a little patch between our houses. (I’m starting to wonder when the sheep will get turned loose there. It certainly needs to be “mowed.”)

Chickens are everywhere, and I have to wonder how they keep track of them. Maybe I mentioned there’s an old lady who sits on a bench outside her house down the street from us and tends her chickens with a long stick, but she’s the only one I’ve seen do that. Ivan and Nikolina seem to keep theirs inside the pen out back, but I’m not so sure they don’t get let out, too.

The Bulgarians celebrate “name days” here. Today was the celebration of Lazar-somebody (a saint or a historical figure, not my language trainer of the same name). Two young girls came by the house this morning carrying baskets of eggs. Nikolinka called me outside to listen to them sing a beautiful song perfectly. I’m not sure if they were celebrating because it’s their name day or because it’s the start of the Easter celebration with Palm Sunday tomorrow. When they got done singing Nikolinka put a few coins in their baskets.

Later I went to meet Amy (one of the other TELF’s) at the “internet café” and did she ever have a cultural experience! Her host mother dressed her up in the traditional Bulgarian garb that was over 100 years old to go around and collect money and eggs in a basket. She tried to get Amy to sing but that’s where Amy drew the line.  The pictures she had of herself were hilarious but very dear at the same time. One of our assignments was to read about traditional Bulgarian holidays, and we found out that this is barely the beginning of the Easter traditions. We are definitely in for some celebrating and eye-opening experiences.

Nikolinka and most younger (than me) people dress quite stylishly, especially the English teacher at our school who is just a doll and dresses to the nines. But the babas (grandmothers) are another story. One of Peace Corps’ core expectations is to integrate into the culture and community, but I will draw the line at wearing a babushka with a man’s old drab sweater, who knows what underneath, a frumpy skirt down past the knees, argyle socks and feet stuffed into scuff houseslippers that have seen a way better day. I haven’t decided for sure; this might be worn just to tend the garden or livestock, but I’ve also seen them walking down the street like that. Of course, I’m stretching it a bit…they don’t all wear babushkas, and the socks aren’t always argyle.

Sunday, April 17, 2011 Palm Sunday

I walked to church with Nikolinka and a neighbor this morning. We left the house around 9:30 and dawdled over to the neighbor’s and waited while she got ready, then dawdled up to the magazine (mini market) to get another friend, but she wasn’t there. We found out the bazaar was going on and walked over there. Nikolinka and the neighbor bought flowers while I stood there wondering what time church starts because it seemed to me we were going to be late. They each bought a potted flower then we walked back to the magazine and gave the flowers to the friend who was now there. She got out a box of chocolates and passed them around. It turned out it was her “name day” – a day to celebrate the saint one is named after.  The four of us then headed for the church.

The church is in a part of Borovan that I hadn’t been to yet but pretty much looks like the rest of the village. We met several people obviously leaving the church on our way, so I assumed there were two services. Boy, was I wrong. There was no service.

We walked into this church that’s a little smaller than Old Stone Church in Rock Falls and stopped right away at a window similar to one you would see to buy tickets at an old movie theater. Nikolinka took some money out of my billfold and listed my family members to which I replied, “Da,” (yes). We bought candles thin as birthday candles but about ten inches long and pale yellow.  She gave me a handful, and we walked in to this incredible sight – a huge candelabra in the middle of the church filled with those candles and all glowing. There were no seats and no pastor/father/priest as far as I could tell. We were there to follow a ritual the Bulgarians have been doing for centuries. The church itself though small was magnificent. I had read and seen pictures of the icons they have in the Bulgarian churches, but to see them in that little church was just awe-inspiring.

I need to learn more Bulgarian and go back to learn the history of the paintings. We lit our candles and added them to the candelabra one by one. I don’t know what the others were saying as they lit theirs, but I asked for blessings for each of my family members in Bulgarian…and had just enough for everyone. Dear Nikolinka.

Sunday, April 24, 2011 Easter

After I’m back in the states and reliving this experience, I hope I believe it actually happened because I’m having a hard time believing it right now.

We started celebrating Easter on Friday by having a government holiday which means no school and people are supposed to take a day of rest for “Black Friday” – our Good Friday. The holiday continues through Monday.  We had a language lesson planned for in the morning, so I thought this would be a good time to catch up on laundry. I did my hand-washing (which I’ve been instructed on how to do), and hung it on the line. That was a big faux pas.  The Bulgarians take their day of rest literally, and now everyone knew I worked because it was hanging on the porch for everyone to see.  But Nikolinka was very gracious about it, and said, “Nyama problema!” (no problem). After all, I’m just an American and I don’t understand the Bulgarski ways yet, she seemed to sympathize.

Saturday morning Nikolinka colored the eggs she had boiled the night before. She used store-bought Easter Egg dye like we have in the states, but she dabbed different colors of powdered dye on the egg afterward so they looked tye-dyed. Later she rubbed them with vegetable oil to make them shine. The first one she dyed was red – a very important tradition. The red one is then saved for the entire year. (!) I think it’s for good luck, but I’m not sure.

After the egg-dying we ate breakfast which was the banitsa Nikolinka and a neighbor made the day before. This was not like the banitsa we made before with the phylo (sp?) dough. Nikolinka made her own dough this time from scratch by dumping a whole lot of flour into a pan (not measuring) and mixing it with four eggs and, for flavoring, half a bottle or so of lemon-flavored soda pop. She mixed the dough really well, adding more and more flour, then she beat the hell out of it. She kneaded and kneaded then divided it into four parts. She picked up each part and slammed it on the table over and over, kneaded it some more, then she let it rest, I assume to let it rise. After the dough’s pocheefka (rest), she used what looked like about three feet of a broom handle to roll out each piece (rather than a rolling pin which would not have been long enough). After getting the dough as thin as possible with the rolling pin, she picked it up on her fists and treated it like pizza dough to get it even thinner and wider. Then she laid it out on a sheet which was laid out on a sheet of plastic on their bed (which is in the living room right next to the kitchen), and she proceeded to stretch and pull the dough even more to get it even thinner and wider. When she was satisfied it was thin and wide enough – she never did tear holes in it like I would have expected – she smeared it with a lot – and I mean a lot – of vegetable oil. She went through the same procedure with a second ball of dough laying it on top of the first and ending with a sprinkling of sirene (goat cheese similar to feta). Then the magic happened. She picked up the sheet very slowly and carefully and let the dough roll over on itself to form a really long roll which she and her preatle (friend), one on each end, pulled and stretched very carefully to make even longer and thinner. They sliced the rolls into pinwheels and placed them in a pan, just so, to bake. They looked and smelled so yummy while they were baking. Then Nikolinka made a syrup of sugar and water to pour over the cooled banitsa. The syrup was very thin and very sweet and didn’t completely destroy the banitsa, but I had to wonder how it would have tasted without the syrup. All that work…sigh.

After zakooska (breakfast), Ivan and Nikolinka took another neighbor and me on a drive to visit two historic monasteries west of here. I’m not sure if the word monastery is right, though, because the buildings seemed more like churches to me but were, never the less, awe-inspiring sights. The first was small and set up in the mountains of the Stara Planina. We got there on a road with lots of switch-backs that eventually looked out over a valley that no picture can justify. I tried.  The church itself was rather small but very picturesque sitting there with the valley off in the distance behind it and the mountain in front.

Next we visited the Klisursky Monastery which was really crowded with lots of tourists or maybe pilgrims making their annual trek to pay homage to their name sake. This church, too, was set up in the mountains, remote and beautiful.

Sunday, May 01, 2011

Today Amy took all six of us trainees on a walk to a spot that looks out over Borovan. The steeple in the picture is the church I attended on Palm Sunday mentioned and pictured earlier.

On our way back through town, the music of the town celebration lured us to peek in and see what it was all about. We were not only invited in but seated and served rakia and soda immediately. The others joined the people dancing the Horo. At the end of the dance, a woman got on stage and announced that the volunteers from Korpus Na Mira were there and gave us a round of applause after which we were swarmed by people grabbing our hands and inviting us to start the Horo. We had learned it at the end of our first week of training, so we kind of knew what we were doing, but I wasn’t prepared to have a Bulgarian flag thrust in my hand to dance with! That is not me in the picture, but it shows how big the flags were and how proud the Bulgarians are of their country.  Joe in the blue shirt and Mikey in the black t-shirt are two of the trainees in our Borovan group. This was a very fun way to integrate and to spend a Sunday afternoon!

It’s hard to believe we are starting our sixth week tomorrow. Friday is our first language “test” but the trainers are saying it’s not really a test; they just try to find out how much Bulgarian you can speak. It seems like I’m making mighty slow progress, but I get a little more all the time. I will keep plugging away at it. In two more weeks we will learn our permanent site placements. That is very exciting for me!

One of my former students asked how Bulgarian schools are different from American schools. That’s a great question, and I want to put some thought into it. I promise I will work on it this week.