A Chronicle of my Changing Times.

Near Wild Heaven

My sitemate and wonderful Jen had a post last week that truly explains life here in Bulgaria as a Peace Corps Volunteer.  Especially after this past weekend at the beach, I can vouch for just about everything she says.  Highs and lows - experienced in the extreems.  It happened to me less than a week ago pulled into such a sharp focus by the fact that I'm sharing all of this with my own small island of friends.  It's different than in the America where you have unlimited people and resources.  Here you truly rely on those other volunteers around you.  I highly recommend reading it - Jen puts its better than I.  Plus, the post title is the same as the name of the venerable James' Blog.  You really can't go wrong with REM.

In other news - I believe I've finally found my Bulgarian Tutor.  Like everything else here in Bulgaria, it's not as simple as finding someone who's willing to teach you.  Instead, my friend Stan recommended the best English tutor in town to me.  Many students who plan on attending college in the states use her with great success.  But aparently she doesn't get on very well with my director or the teachers in my school.  My understanding is that almost all teachers supplement their income via tutoring sessions with students - but Lyd (my future tutor) is the best and in highest demand.  This has led to a lot of bitter feelings.  That's the simple explaination, not the one that she and Stan gave me over a period of 30 minutes.  There's a lot of corruption here in Bulgaria - and I guess that tutoring is not immune to this.

The problem arises with my ignorance of this yesterday.  I explained to my Director that I'd found a tutor.  She was less than thrilled that is was Lyd and mentioned twice that I should consider one of the English tutors in the school.  I told her I'd think about it, and asked her to do so as well.  Being diplomatic as always I expressed a desire to have her advice in this matter.  Now I just need to find a way to weasle my way out of having to have a co-worker be my teacher.  I've always wanted that seperation.  If I should not get on very well with the tutor I want the ability to fire them without causing difficulties with a fellow colleague.  Plus I'd like to create multiple avenues to meet new people and not have my life wrapped up in school life.

So we'll see how things go.  I'm off now to a going away party for Claire, the French volunteer who went with us to Sozopol last weekend.  Actually, technically she and Carol allowed the rest of us to tag along with them.  I think it's important for me to be there.  Maybe someone can give me sage advice on how to get out of this sticky mess.

Posted by: mjmarble at August 25, 2005 20:38 | link | comments (4)

Life's a Beach...

I promise that I will eventually have work to do, but for the rest of this month my vacation continues.  This past weekend I spent with friends in a smaller seaside town called Sozopol.  There is a campsite about 3 kilometers outside the town with its own beach and thanks to a friend here in Haskovo we had tents and such in order to stay there.

 

The weekend actually began on Thursday evening when Ethan came down from Dimitrovgrad and Erin came over from Plovdiv.  Carol, her Bulgarian boyfriend Plummen, and Claire (a French volunteer here) came over for a potluck dinner consisting in large part of lasagna made by Barbara.  We also had a music exchange before heading out to KDK together for some pool and finally to Exclusive (aka “X” – the best disco in town) for Retro Night.

 

By the time we got home and packed it was pushing 4 am, and we had to be up at 6 in order to catch our bus at 7.  Not surprisingly, if you know us, Erin and I spent the entire 5 hour ride to the beach talking.  We always seem to find ourselves on buses together, exhausted beyond belief and talking rather than sleeping. (Pictured from the left - Barbara, Claire, me, Carol, Ethan & Erin).

 

Once at the campsite, we pitched out tents and immediately hit the beach – a nice one in some respects, but exceedingly littered and dirty.  After spending the afternoon there we had dinner at the restaurant/café at the campsite before playing cards.  Rummy has become the game of choice, although I think we’re starting to tire of it.  We capped off the first night by building a fire on the beach and staring up at the cloudless sky filled with stars and a full moon.  The water was perfectly calm and there was little wind.  It was the best night there and a memory I’ll hold onto for years to come.

 

The next day after Claire and Carol joined us (they had to be in Haskovo Friday to work – imagine that!) we spent more time at the beach before heading into Sozopol to see the town and find a bathroom without Turkish toilets (which I contend are a medieval torture device).  I took a great shot of the sunset over the harbor towards our campsite.

 

Unfortunately, I ended up being in a bad mood Saturday evening and due to a good deal of lack of communication the evening ended up being a rather horrible one for me.  I did find out a bit about my friends through it, however.  So hopefully it wasn’t a complete waste of an evening.  I’m still working on repairing one friendship – but hopefully we can sort things out soon.

 

I had considered leaving Sunday morning, but after an altercation with one friend and receiving advice from another I decided to stick around for another day.  I’m glad that I did.  The day turned out to be beautiful and we spent time in Sozopol again at a café there on the beach playing cards and generally soaking up life.  After returning to the campsite we hit our beach again.  The water was rough and tide high which made for a solid hour of body surfing fun for me.  I always have been a bit of a water baby, as my parents call it.

 

The evening was finished by receiving a facial massage from Claire and listening to an American we’d met named Nancy (pictured with Ethan) play Bulgarian folk tunes on her flute.  As storm clouds rolled past over the sea we watched the sun set and the stars come out.  Oh, and this was all done on the beach whilst listening to the waves crash on the shore.  It was, quite simply, the best ending to the weekend I could imagine.

 

One final note, I seem to meet PCV’s I know everywhere I go – be it in Sophia, Plovdiv, Razgrad, and even in Sozopol.  It’s always fun to run into people you know who aren’t in the group with whom you’re traveling.  In Sozopol, it was a guy named Gokan who was there with his girlfriend Lany (pictured).  As it turns out, he’d been there the same time we had, but stayed in the town instead of camping.  It was good to chat with him since he ended up riding the bus back to Haskovo with us.

Posted by: mjmarble at August 24, 2005 23:54 | link | comments (1)

The New Greg

When I found out that I was coming to Haskovo I was excited by two things.  First, there were other volunteers here which I figured would make my transition a lot easier.  OF course that’s happened and I’m enormously grateful to Carol and Jen for being here, showing me the ropes, and doing all the little things like translating my washing machine or going with me to the internet office when it went down last week.  I joke with Carol that I owe her a dinner for each time she helps me out (we’re up to 3 or 4 on top of one already paid) but honestly I owe her much more.

The second thing I was excited about was that my school didn’t have a previous volunteer, or at least that’s what the description of my job said.  What it actually meant was that there was no volunteer in my site this past year.  Apparently there was a volunteer named Greg who served his two years here and liked it so much that he decided to pursue graduate school in Sophia.  Carol knew him and liked him.  So did a number of former students of my high school who I’ve run into at KDK.  Their take was that his classes were boring, but he was a good guy.  The other thing they remembered about him was that he always was complaining about the roach problem in his (now my) apartment.  In all fairness, he had a viable complaint.  I’m considering getting a cat simply to fight back.

The only people who seemed to be indifferent to him were the other teachers at the school.  The common comment when he’s mentioned is that he was uncommunicative.  It seems like he was a bit of a bookworm and didn’t spend much time with his collegues, choosing to spend more time reading and with other Bulgarians.  The tone whenever discussing him is rather negative, although their words are rather neutral.  Maybe that’s why they didn’t have a volunteer during this past year…

All I know is that my hopes of coming in without any expectations have been dashed.  He did work for the school on the language lab and it’s known there that I can apply for grants to continue the work.  People at my school have already mentioned that as a possibility.

When I go out in Haskovo I’m often introduced as “The New Greg” to anyone who is or has been remotely associated with my high school.  Whilst on one end this makes explaining why I’m here much easier, it does also bother me a bit.  Greg had his own strengths and weaknesses and I have mine.  I want to be my own person here and succeed or fail on my own merit, not based upon expectations that have nothing to do with my service.

The good news is that to the lowest two classes I’ll be teaching, I’m not “The New Greg.”  They never knew him.  So I can work with them without any preconceived notions of what an American teacher would do.  Hopefully I’ll be spending most of my time with them so I will have a bit of my own independent success.

I’m going camping and to the beach this weekend with some friends.  In Bulgaria everyone, and I do mean everyone, goes to the beach during the summer.  So I’m calling this cultural adaptation and integration with my surroundings.  I promise to take pictures to share…

Posted by: mjmarble at August 18, 2005 09:12 | link | comments (1)

Working for a Living

Volunteers arrive in Bulgaria twice a year.  The first group is COD (community/organizational development) & Youth Development who arrive every August (the new group arrives in less than a week).  They work with municipalities and non-governmental organizations most often attempting to obtain money for projects.  Their job is not easy, the begin work the Monday following swearing in.  One of the problems they run into include not having a solid grasp on the language at the beginning of their service, thus it’s difficult to even communicate with their coworkers.  Most organizations take it easy on volunteers the first few months – this leads to extreme boredom.  Also, the timing of COD volunteers arrival means that they get to their permanent sites around late October and only have the joy of the Bulgarian winter ahead of them.  Basically, COD/YD volunteers have a decent argument for having a rough go of it.

The second group of volunteers are TEFL, (Teach English as a Foreign Language), which is what I am.  We arrive in April, have swearing in around beginning of July and many head to sites without any real work ahead of them for the first two months of their service.  Of course some immediately have work, such as my good friend Erin.  She’s already teaching 3 hours every day, tutoring another three hours and has another side project where US companies donate clothes to the Roma children in her village so that they can attend school in the fall.  But most of us have little or no work, few contacts in our site and a prohibition on travel out of site for the first three months of our service.

I’ve managed to fair better that most of the other volunteers in my group.  I’ve been successful in my goal of meeting at least one Bulgarian a day.  I’ve developed a rather busy social life which definitely has its benefits.  But I feel like I should be doing more work related activities instead of having an extended holiday here in the Bulgarian summer of love.  I sought out the local youth center with the idea of trying to help with whatever programs or projects available but discovered that the only thing going on there was either travel to conferences out of Bulgaria or creating a project on my own – which sounded like it involved more permanent participation than I was willing to offer.

So without any type of work at my school until September I’ve begun to seek out other opportunities.  For instance, I will travel to Sophia on Monday to attend a meeting on a play writing competition for the next year.  And this past week, I’ve spent visiting some friends in Razgrad, (John and Beth – pictured here with me and another PCV Jason who lives in Razgrad at the Italian Restaurant), a city in the northern part of the country.

Whilst assisting them in teaching a couple English Classes and working with their weekly English club, I’ve also enjoyed the time here immensely.  Razgrad has a phenomenal Italian restaurant which compares to just about any in America – no small feat.  We’ve also spent time walking around taking photographs of the city.  There’s a zoo here, albeit a sad one, but it has two lions.  Let me tell you, you haven’t lived until you been snarled at by a lion only to have it immediately turn around and piss at you.  We traveled to a small town just outside of Razgrad today and fumbled around a site of a Byzantine city – basically trapsed around a overgrown field scraping free areas of ground for bits of pottery.  Of course, there’s been movies and games of Euchere as well.  Basically good times aplenty. 

But tomorrow I head back to Haskovo and to the reality of little, if no work until the beginning of next month.  Monday the next group of COD volunteers land in Sophia and I’m no longer the newbie.  I know they’ll face many different challenges then I’ve faced this summer of fun.  Hopefully they’ll manage overcome these better then I have mine these last two months.

Posted by: mjmarble at August 12, 2005 21:31 | link | comments (2)

Frustration

Ever type something up only to lose it?  Isn't it one of the most frustrating things?  An hour of typing gone in an instant - of course whilst I tried to save it to prevent this very thing from happening.  I'll try to recontruct it tomorrow at some point if I don't chuck my laptop first.  In the interim, enjoy this picture I took in the mountains a few months ago.

Posted by: mjmarble at August 03, 2005 00:36 | link | comments