Celebrations

Good news! My organisation received funding for a big project that we're really excited about. We got $7,000! Unfortunately, we asked for a little over $9,000 and have to make some big cuts in the activities we want to do. The project is one of the very first assignments they gave me to work on when I came here. The director of the agency (Nelly) wrote the grant in Bulgarian, and a coworker, Sonya, translated it into English. I edited. This was about a 30 page grant that took me quite a long time to edit because I really just didn't understand what they wanted to say and exactly what the activities were. But, I had to work fast-pace because the deadline didn't leave much time. After a couple of weeks of trying to edit and talking at length with Sonya and Nelly, two days before the project was due, I finally had a huge breakthrough and understood everything they wanted to do in the project. I made a bunch of last minute fairly large changes to make the grant clear to the reader, and off it went. And we got the money! Yeaaaaah! So we're celebrating in the office with some rakia and chocolates and working on cutting back the budget. (I think I may have some work to do when they make decisions about what to cut and get to the English part of things).

Anyway, I had a really wonderful Christmas and New Years, and I wanted to tell you all about it. Leading up to Christmas, I had made presents for my coworkers, wrapped them in newspaper, and laid them under the tree in our office. I made them wait to open them, though, until our last day together. It was interesting, because I guess Bulgarians don't usually make people wait for their gifts. Sonya didn't like having to wait for hers, it was pretty funny. Anyway, everyone finally opened them on Friday, and they really liked them. (The gifts were a framed picture for each of them). Then they surprised me with a gift for me, a beautiful silver necklace and a matching bracelet. It was wonderful! Then Sonya gave me a gift and said I had to wait till Christmas to open it... she was getting me back good!

I spent Christmas with my family in Kraynitsi and it was really nice to see them after two months away. I was able to understand a lot more and talk a lot more, which was super. On the 23rd, I helped Danche, my mom, cook for the big day. The big day in Bulgaria, though, is Christmas Eve, not Christmas Day. On Christmas Eve you spend the day at home with your family and enjoy everyone's company. And you don't eat meat. My father, Stoicho, didn't like that part of the holidays, but I sure did. Danche and I made some absolutely incredible Bulgarian dishes, including sarmi, peppers stuffed with rice, baklava, banitsa, and tons more. (you can see the spread, or what was left after dinner in the first picture.) It was sooo good. We also made luck pitka. Pitka is a bread, and before we put it in the oven, we put buttons, a coin, and a toothpick in different places and marked where we put them by crunching the dough over the places. Each of the things we put inside represented a different kind of luck. Before we started dinner, Stoicho and Danche broke the whole loaf way over their heads. Then Stoicho gave a piece first to Christ and then to everyone around the table. We all pulled out our luck to see what we would have luck for in the new year. I had the toothpick, so I'll have luck with my "house" or apartment. My sister, Thereza, got the coin so she'll have luck with money. I think Christ got luck with the garage (I'm not exactly sure how that will be useful to him, but maybe he appreciates it.)

Anyway, on Christmas day I gave my family the present I had made for them. The first thing out of Stoicho and Danche's mouths when I said I had a present for them was "why?" It was funny, but I guess in Bulgaria children don't get gifts for their parents, only parents for the children. But, being American, I had bought a photo album for my family and filled it with pictures of us, which they really liked.

Then, late Christmas evening, all of the volunteers who lived in Kraynitsi during training went na gosti at another volunteer's house. It was a lot of fun, and we all received some homemade slippers from the host mother of that house.

For New Year's, I went na gosti with Nelly. I really love her and her family, and I had a really good time with them. At about 10:00 we went to the town square for a chalga concert (that's popular Bulgarian music). We all wore ribbons supporting the nurses in Lybia (as you can see in the picture of Nelly's family), and we danced and had a good time. Around 11:30, the songs ended and we had a little celebration about entering the European Union, the president talked on TV, we counted down, and then the party started. We drank champaign that Nelly and her husband had brought, watched some fireworks, and then the traditional Bulgarian music started and everyone danced the horo. It was so amazing to see so many people holding hands and dancing together! It was a lot of fun. We left a couple hours early, though, around 1:30. Nelly's youngest son got tired at this point, so we looked for a taxi, and luckily found one and went home.