Christmas in Bulgaria

So, I was walking home with Sonya, and we stopped to buy some bread. And inside the grocery store, I saw something strange to me, and I was going to just pass by, but I asked Sonya what it was and she said it was khavla! So, here's a picture of it, but it's really hard to describe what it's like. Its consistency reminds me of fudge almost, maybe a little more crumbly. When I first put a piece in my mouth, it reminds me of hazelnuts, and a little bit of chocolate. It's a sweet desert, and I like it. Sonya mentioned about a tradition they have with this food during a special holiday, Proshka (I don't really know much about this holiday yet. I'll let you know more about it when I know more). Apparently, they take white khavla and cut it into pieces, maybe large fudge size pieces. Then they tie a string onto each piece and hang them from the ceiling. Then somehow they get all the pieces swinging and the children try to catch the pieces with their mouths. It'll be a lot of fun seeing this in action. Bulgarians celebrate a lot of holidays, and each town has their own town holiday. And each holiday has it's own interesting traditions, and I'm looking forward to experiencing them all.

So, it's Christmas time here, as it is there, and the town is getting all decorated for the season. It's already dark by the time I leave work, and as I walk through the center to my home, I love looking at all the lights hung up on the trees and on the municipale building and everywhere. I've also noticed that new stores are being put up in little temporary shelters and tents. They're filled with all kinds of things; toys, clothes, food, fake Christmas trees and decorations, and everything.

My impression so far, is that Bulgarians celebrate Christmas very similarly to Americans. Most of the differences are subtle. Like in America, most Bulgarians buy trees, real or fake, and decorate them. However, I think the presents beneath the tree are fewer than most Americans. The stores in Bulgaria are generally all really small, like the size of little boutique stores. Even the big grocery store isn't much bigger than a boutique store. And even though there are more stores specially set up for Christmas, Bulgarians just don't buy as much as Americans, probably because they don't have the funds that we do. So I want to say Christmas is less comercialised here because of that. But on the other hand, I've not met many very religious Bulgarians, and I haven't seen any manger scenes or anything. So I don't get the feeling that it's a very religious holiday for them either. I think it's really just a time to celebrate and be with family, which is something I really enjoy. I'm really looking forward to visiting my host family in Kraynitsi for Christmas. The volunteer who lived with them before I did, Alison, will be there too, and lots of volunteers who lived in Kraynitsi will go back to be with their families. It should be a good time.

The Christmas characters that Bulgarians know are a little different than our traditional Rudolph, Frosty, and Jack Frost. They have a Santa, who they call Grandfather Christmas, and he has help from the traditional elves to make toys and reindeer fly his sleigh. Then they have a person whose name translates as Snow White, but she's not the Disney movie Snow White. She's Grandfather Christmas' neice. She's really pretty, dresses all in white, and I think she helps Santa pass out presents. In addition to Snow White, they have Grandmother Winter, who is not Grandfather Christmas' wife. I'm not sure who she is, but I think she helps give gifts to children too. I should mention at this point that my understanding of traditional Bulgarian Christmas characters is gathered from performing a Christmas play with the youth volunteers for the children at the orphanages. I didn't quite understand everything in the play, but I tried to ask a lot of questions. The volunteers wanted me to be in this play too, but they wanted me to speak English... I think because they thought it would be easier for me. It was fun, and the kids at the orphanage really seemed to enjoy it. Pictures from it can be seen above with Grandfather Christmas and Snow White featured in one.

The thing that I miss the most about Christmas in America is the Christmas music. They just don't play it much here. The only Christmas songs I've heard on the radio is the one that goes "Last Christmas I gave you my heart and the very next day you gave it away" and a Bulgarian song whose meaning I don't really know. But I have a Christmas music collection on my computer, and I listen to that all the time when I come home.

Well, that's all I know about Christmas so far. Next year Maybe I'll have some more information when I understand things better. In the meantime, I hope this Christmas is very merry for all of you, and have a happy New Year too!

Clarifications

I shared my blog with some Bulgarian friends, and after reading it, one of them corrected me about some comments I made in a previous post. So I wanted to make sure that I clarified some things based on her comments. Going na gosti (or on a visit to someone's house) is an important Bulgarian tradition that I particularly enjoy. And when going na gosti, it is important to bring something as a gift. It can be a plant, or a watermelon, a picture, sweets from the store, or something that you baked, or just about anything. My friends and I in Kraynitsi always brought wine and rakia because it was easily available and that's what we liked to drink. So it's not like people expect you to bring rakia every time and get drunk on it or anything. Far from that, it's just a time to enjoy the company of good friends. So in case any of you were misled by the way I described things earlier, hopefully this clarifies things. It's good to have Bulgarians read what I write to make sure that I understand things correctly. And I think it's interesting and humorous for them to see an outsiders take on things. One of my Bulgarian friends said that she thought my blog was really funny, and I'm glad she thought so. It's also interesting to have Bulgarians read my blog because I don't generally write correct English, I write like I talk. When I talk with Bulgarians in English I usually have to think pretty hard about what would be the correct way of saying something without using any strange idioims or anything. It's been interesting learning a new language as well as talking with people who are at different levels of learning English. And soon I'll be teaching English to my coworkers. This is going to be interesting. I'll keep you posted on how that progresses. Anyway, the pictures I posted here are all from a visit to the zoo I went on with some kids from an orphanage. I work with Ecomission, a non-governmental organization (NGO) that basically does all kinds of philanthropic work. They generally focus on doing environmental things and working with youth. They write a ton of grant proprosals to get funding for all kinds of projects that they come up with. They have a whole lot of really great project ideas, and they've already done a lot of really great projects. Right now we're in the middle of a project working with an orphanage to provide opportunities to youth there to learn more about the environment. There's like five different topics; water, animals, fire, and two others, I don't remember what. The kids watch a film on each one and have a discussion about it. Then they go on a trip somewhere representing each topic. The pictures here are at the zoo and go with the animal topic. Ecomission also has a bunch of youth volunteers from ages 15 to 24 or so. They help out a lot with implementing the projects that Ecomission gets funds for, and they're a bunch of really great people. They went to the zoo with us too, and we had a good time. It was a really beautiful fall day that day. I'm always amazed at how beautiful Bulgaria is. I know some of this information about my work may be a repeat, but after talking with my family, I'm not sure I described it well, so here's another way of describing it, perhaps another clarification. Anyway, that's all for now. Until next post!

Good Times with Food and Wine and Belot

So, usually I make a couple of big meals, like a casseral or something, on the weekends and that will last me for the whole week. Unfortunately, I tried to improvise with one of the recipes by substituting mixed vegetables like carrots, corn, and peas for leafy green vegetables, and the result was disastrous. I had to throw it away. So last night I ran out of the other casserol that I had made, and tonight I had to do something. I don't really have time to cook when I get home, and I'm usually so tired. But I had a thing of milk that I didn't know what to do with, and then I had the ingenious idea of buying some cereal! It was so great. So I went to the store knowing that Bulgarians don't really eat cereal but hoping that I live in a big enough town that they sell some in the stores. (I tend to find things that my coworkers don't even realize is available in Lovech, like peanut butter and cream cheese. When I went on the field trip with Sonya and her second grade class, I had made myself a PBJ for lunch but nobody knew what peantut butter was. And all the other kids had sandwiches with things that we don't have in America. It was so wierd.) Anyway, I lucked out and the store near me did sell some cereal. So my options were corn flakes, honey-nut cheerios, or several brands of cocoa puffs. Honey nut cheerios it was, and it was great. I ate my cheerios while listening to American music from my computer and it was so nice. I mean, I really love Bulgaria a lot - the people are awesome, the land is beautiful, and the culture is so rich - but sometimes it's just so nice to have an "American fix." And tonight, cereal and music was just right. It would have been better if it had been General Mills cheerios (this brand was Nestly), but that's just not available here. If any of you are thinking of sending me anything, some cheerios, kix, rice chex, or rice krispies would be awesome. Anyway ,these pictures are all of the trainees that I was with during pre-service training (pst). Those were good, good times. One picture is of me doing two things that I found I really, really like in Bulgaria: drinking wine and playing belot, a Bulgarian card game. Another picture is of two other volunteers, Ryan and Tracy, and I in the backseat of our language trainer, Daniel's, car. She had a tiny car, and it was a tight fit, but we made it work on several occasions. We tried not to have Ryan in the back, though, cause he just didn't fit easily. And the other picture is of us eating the dinner of traditional Bulgarian dishes that we made together for one of our assignments. It was a little crazy making it, but it ended up tasting really good, and then we drank wine and played belot afterward. Good times.

Getting Used to the Cold

So, I had a pretty interesting weekend last weekend. It all started on Thursday night when I realized that the radiator in my bedroom wasn't working and I was freezing. I figured the next night I would sleep in my living room where I have another radiator until I could get this one fixed. Well, then I had a pretty good day going on an excursion to a nearby monastery and some museums with Sonya, a coworker (the one in red in the picture), and her second grade class. It was really cold and snowy, but I had a good time learning about Bulgarian culture. I'm really glad Sonya speaks English because, well because she's a pretty awesome person, but also because she told me some really interesting stories from Bulgarian legends that were depicted in the wood sculptures. Anyway, we had a good time going together, and I told her about my radiator that doesn't work. Well, when I got home that evening I discovered that my other radiator didn't work either and my boiler wasn't working. So no heat and no hot water. It was a crazy cold night. The next morning, Nelly, another coworker (the one in the picture on the left), and her family took me to Pleven, a bigger city with bigger, less expensive stores. Nelly's husband, Mitko, was really great and helped me figure out what the problem was with my heat and water. Apparently, I had both heaters going, the water boiler, and my oven at the same time and you're not supposed to do that in Bulgaria. Ooops! So my fuses blew and I bought some new ones while we were out. I also considered getting a space heater, but decided not to since Peace Corps says we can't have one. Instead, I bought a new, small, portable radiator, and it's awesome. It works better than either of the radiators I have, and is not as likely to blow a fuse because it's new. So now I have heat and hot water and know to use only one or maybe two things at a time between the radiator, water boiler, and oven. And I also know to only use the heat at night and unplug it during the day because it's more expensive during the day. Things are different in Bulgaria, and I think it's going to be a cold winter. But you can get used to anything, right?

My Family

We spent a lot of time as a family outside working to prepare food for winter. Danche is working with peppers, and Tereza is working with tomatoes. We made tomatoe sauce and another tomatoe food for winter that I really like called lutinitsa. In this picture, Stoicho is drinking rakia, a very popular alcohol in Bulgaria, with our family parrot, Andy. This parrot was a great conversation piece in our family. He talks a lot, and one of his favorite things to whistle is the theme song to one of the soccer teams in Bulgaria, Sesika. However, most people in this region like another team, Levski, so it makes watching soccer between these teams interesting. Andy's had many death threats.

Finally, Pictures

Below is my Bulgarian family and the woman on the left is my language trainer, Daniela. She's awesome, and so's my family. My host father is Stoicho, mother is Danche, and sister is Tereza. I have another sister who's married and has a ten month old baby, but they live in another village and weren't with us this night. The other volunteers in my group and I treated our families out to dinner in the only restaurant in the town a couple days before we left. And this is it. We had a good time. We spent a few hours there, talking, drinking wine, and dancing the Horo, a traditional Bulgarian dance of which there are several kinds. In the picture on the right we're dancing the easiest one. For all Horos, everyone holds hands and dances the same steps in a really long line (usually this is done at weddings and big celebrations with hundreds of people in the line). I only know how to do one horo, but I hope to learn more during my years here. The steps get really complicated, but my coworkers assure me that they can teach me. I just need some opportunities to practice.

My First Day, My First Place

So, yesterday was the swearing-in ceremony, and now I'm officially a volunteer. The ceremony was nice, and there was a reception afterward too. It all seemed really short and then we were off to our permanent sights. I think I was the first volunteer to leave because my counterpart was waiting for me really early at the PC office. It was really exciting to see her and then to see the rest of my coworkers when I got to my apartment in Lovetch. They had prepared dinner at my apartment and we ate and talked and they introduced me to my neighbors and helped me figure out how everything in my apartment worked. It was really nice and then they left.

First thing I noticed when they left was that I had nothing in the apartment. So I went down to the shop below my building and bought some toilet paper, dish soap, and water. When I got back to the apartment I realized that I needed breakfast for tomorrow, so I went back and bought some bread and butter and yogurt. My host parents had given me a lot of home-made jelly, so I didn't need to buy that. My family also gave me some thyme, and they wanted to give me a bottle of rakia (Bulgarian alcohol) and some cakes (a Bulgarian snack), but I convinced them I didn't have enough room. It reminded me of my own mother (Love you mom!!). I was actually really surprised at how easily I was able to fit everything into my luggage, especially since PC gave us so much extra stuff - text books, medical kit, etc. I probably could have fit that bottle of rakia if I had tried. But that's ok because my counterparts provided me with one when I got to my apartment anyway. Rakia is a big thing here. If you need to buy a gift for someone, you usually can't go wrong with buying them a bottle of rakia. Anyway, after I put the food away, I decided that I wanted to clean the kitchen because it's so filthy. So, I went to the store a third time and bought some cleaning supplies. The store lady must have thought I was crazy coming so often. I had thought about explaining to her why, but each time there were lots of other people (which is weird for Bulgaria - at least I think so) and I didn't want to make them wait while I tried to blunder my way through a short conversation. So I just made my third purchase and then spent three hours cleaning with the music blasting. The kitchen is about half done now, but because I had been up so late last night hanging out for the last time with my volunteer friends, I was tired and stopped and went to bed. So that was my day yesterday; my first day as a volunteer in Lovetch. Today was my first day at work and involved a lot of filling out paperwork for the apartment and Bulgarian id and so on. Not very interesting, so that's it for now.

Sophia, birthdays, and painting

So, now that I have this up, it sort of feels like my journal. I've been keeping a journal since I've been here and it's almost all used up. Mom, you could send another one (I have a bunch in my bookshelf in the closet) if you want to. Anyway, I write in my journal every day, so I might start doing that here (maybe not quite every day).

So, we painted the school fence yesterday, and it was amazing. I think about 50 people showed up to help paint, and in a community of 1500, that's a lot. We had a lot of kids, and they were all laughing and having a good time. So, the project we had been working on for the last two months was a huge success, and that feels really good.

On Wednesday, my Kraynitsi group went to Sophia to visit the PC office there and to explore the capital. We had a lot of fun shopping and shopping, and eating. We ate at a restaraunt that served the best food I've had in Bulgaria. It was grilled chicken with a special sauce on top of lettuce (which I haven't had since coming to bulgaria) and mushrooms and warm pita bread. It actually didn't taste Bulgarian at all, but it was oh so good.

Sophia reminded me so much of Boston because it was a real city with lots and lots of buildings and people packed close together, lots of public transportation (subways, buses, trams, trolleys, and taxis) lots fo cars, stores, and restaurants with ethnic foods like Lebanese and Indian and stuff. And it even had a mall! The mall didn't have any benches to sit on placed throughout it, but it was big and American enough.

While in Sophia I bought my host mother a candle for her birthday. She absolutely loved it when I gave it to her and she thaked me in the Bulgarian way with a kiss to each cheek. I really feel like a part of the family now, and it's hard to leave them now, especially when I'm starting to be able to hold real conversations with them. But I'm coming back for Christmas and so is the volunteer who lived with them last time. That'll be a lot of fun, adn the other trainees in Kraynitsi will come back to their families for Christmas too.

Last night we celebrated my language trainer's birthday too. In Bulgaria, people buy a box of chocolates and give the people they know (coworkers and friends) a chocolate for their birthday. Daniela went through three boxes yesterday. We had a good time last night eating, talking, and playing belot. I left early, though (12:30), because I was tired. I feel like such an old lady sometimes, but I was up at 8:30 this morning and left everyone a text message asking if they were awake yet.

Cooking in Bulgaria

Well, I had hoped to get some pictures up today, but the guy working at the internet club doesn't know how to hook up internet to my computer and I don't know where the internet cable is. Oh well. I'll get them up sometime.

Things are moving really quickly now for us PC trainees in Bulgaria. In another two weeks I'll be moving to Lovetch where I'll be for the next two years. I'm so excited and nervous! It's a lot like I felt when I was in America waiting to come here. But right now I'm still in Kraynitsi and things are as usual. We're having language lessons and finishing up our project to paint the fence around the school with youth and community members. We were supposed to paint on Saturday, but it rained, so we're going to do it Thursday, Friday and Saturday instead.

Things have been pretty stressful here as we get to the end of pre-service training. We've had so much to do in such little time, and on top of it all I got sick last week. I also got pretty homesick this weekend, and I cried for the first time on Saturday. It was bound to happen sometime. I fell asleep listening to the music on my computer, and when I woke up I felt so much better. I didn't feel so sick and I wasn't as exhausted as I'd been for a while. I had so much energy and the whole day before me that I decided to make my family dinner.

My host mother, Danche, was really excited about this because she had been wanting me to make some American food since I got here. I decided to make stroganoff, and Danche wanted to watch me cook it so she would be able to make it too. Every step I took, Danche had suggestions to make it better. She decided to boil the meat instead of frying it, and when I added the spices, she added a lot more (Bulgarians generally like things REALLY salty so she added more of that as well as other things too). Then she didn't unerstand why I had put it in the oven. It was supposed to be in there for two hours, but an hour and a half in she decided she'd rather finish it on the stove top. When I started to add the flour she asked why, but I didn't know the word for "thicken" to tell her it was to thicken the gravy. She reluctantly allowed me to add some. Just before we were about to serve it, I added some yogurt (which is a lot like sour cream here) and she was pretty dissapointed about that. She said that I should have let people add it themselves to their own portions. Oh well... now I know. It was so funny, and I was laughing so much at each step of the process. My host mother's a great cook, so I deffered to her on most things. And I did make the kitchen pretty smokey because Danche had turned it on and I figured she knew what setting would keep the oven at a reasonable temperature. Instead, it was turned to the highest setting, so after that I monitored the temperature better.

Cooking in Bulgaria is definately quite different in Bulgaria. Most Bulgarain women know how to make many of the same dishes, but they are made quite differently from home to home. And the stove is sort of different too. Some people have wood burning stoves which they use not only to cook but to keep the house warm during the winter. My group in Kraynitsi cooked on a wood burning stove for our community skills assignment, and that was quite an adventure too.

So I'll end this by saying that I'm feeling much better now, and I'm enjoying myself again. I am sad about moving and leaving my friends and Bulgarian family because I've gotten pretty close to them. But at the same time, there are a lot of opportunities and things to look forward to in Lovetch. My coworkers were pretty amazing when I visited them, so it's comforting to know that they will be there when I move.

Visiting Anna

So, I'm totally coppying another PC friend and doing this. I can't wait to get some pictures up, hopefully soon. I have a ton, and I think they're the best way I have right now of giving you guys an idea of what it's like to be here. I had my first feelings of homesickness this weekend, and I thought about all of you in America a lot. But I'm really enjoying myself here too, so it's all good.

This last week I went with three other trainees to visit a current PCV, Anna, in Varbitsa. We had a lot of fun just hanging out and doing a lot of nothing. It rained one day, so we had a party inside and listened to American music, ate food that we choose and made for ourselves, played chess, read American magazines (Newsweek), and talked a lot. It felt a lot like college, and it was nice to have a break from Bulgarian suff.

It was the town's holiday, so we did go see a concert and some fireworks and we saw the fair being set up, but we didn't actually go to it. We met three Bulgarian teenage girls who were friends with Anna and spent some time with them. We gave an English language lesson to one of them, and later we went na gosti at one of their houses. We made baked ziti, garlic bread, and brownies and brought some ice cream. Each of them made different kinds of bread too, so we had a ton of bread. But it was all good and we laughed a lot and had a good time. The girls interviewed each of us with a 40 question questinaire that Anna translated for us and we wrote the answers down. Anna's going to translate our answers - she's great.

After about 11 hours of traveling (we left Varbitsa at 7:30 am and got back to Kraynitsi at about 6:00) my host family was waiting for me to have a na gosti. I love na gosti, and it was great to have such a warm reception. It's also exciting because each time we do it I'm able to understand more and contribute more to the conversation. Then the trainees in Kraynitsi and I went out to the cafe and hung out for a while. It was a really busy place because it's about the only place to hang out in a small town like Kraynitsi, and we saw and talked to some people we know.

Anyway, I could go on forever, but perhaps that's enough for one blog.