July 6

July 6, 2011

Last Friday I went to a Salsa class with the daughter of a teacher from my school. She cut my hair and seems to want to be my friend so she can practice speaking English. I thought it was nice of her to invite me, so I said I would like to go along and watch. Well, there was no watching. I practiced the steps along with the rest of the dancers and loved it! One of our Peace Corps’ goals is to integrate into our communities. I decided I was integrating because the instructions were in Bulgarian (with a very cute English-speaking Bulgarian translating) and with Bulgarians. Who cares if the dance is from a different hemisphere? And after the Salsa class, we stayed for Zumba! Very fun! (If you’re interested, they were offering classes at NIACC last winter.)

My Fourth of July was interesting. I tried to tell my landlady that I was going to cook for her since it was a U.S. holiday. She said she was cooking chicken. I thought well, that’s better than hot dogs, which I wasn’t sure I could get except for the really big ones they have here, so I said, “Wonderful! I will bring potato salad and baked beans,” not really knowing for sure if I could find the ingredients I needed for either one. I set off for one of the many magazines they have here (very small stores), and said hello to most people I met along the way, but one gentleman grabbed my hand and startled me until I realized that he was wishing me a “happy 4^th of July” in Bulgarian and just wanted to shake my hand.

After visiting at least three stores and a sidewalk seller, I had everything except celery and sweet pickles and decided to try what I think they’re calling a white pepper in place of the celery. The beans were going to need a couple of hours to cook because I had to make them from a jar of white beans with ketchup and brown sugar. I thought both turned out pretty well. I let the beans bake and took my potato salad down to the landlady’s and set it on the table with… tomato and cucumber salad, fried squash and peppers, and half a chicken with a small mountain of fried potatoes. I didn’t bother to go back for the baked beans.

Before we sat down, Vania poured us each a glass of rakia which was dark, unlike the rakia I’ve had before which was clear. She said this was to celebrate my holiday, so how could I resist? To my surprise and delight, it was good – not like the nasty stuff you could clean hospitals with. This was her “special” rakia made with walnuts from her yard and the honey from her father’s bees. After a couple of glasses each, I tried her food and loved it. She tried my potato salad and I’m pretty sure she didn’t love it. Oh, well. Guess I might as well stop trying to cook for Bulgarians as I’m 0 for 3 now. So I ate potato salad and beans for three days.

I thought I was going to get to continue celebrating the 4^th by going to a folk dance class with a friend of the hairdresser’s, which would have rounded out the holiday weekend very nicely, but my presence was requested at a meeting at the church to plan for the summer day camp which started yesterday. My plan for today was to play Animal Bingo with the kids. Who knew Bingo could be so popular? I had made up the cards for my students in Borovan and only had ten cards, so not many could play at a time, and they were lining up, begging me to play until I had to force some to leave and let others play. Two solid hours we played.

Tomorrow we are going on an “excursia” to a bath house in Hissarya about 60 km northwest of here. It should be an interesting time with two busloads of kids, especially if people who go there really do bathe “bez drayhe” as my landlady said (without clothes).

I hope you are all having a wonderful summer. I love hearing from my family and friends and getting news from home, so please feel free to drop a line, even if it’s just to say hi.

Peace and love, Joan