Laundry Day

 

A "Tragic Holiday"

Our last school year here has finally begun. We are finishing up our second week and starting it get back into the grove of things. This year I will be team teaching with my counterpart, a Bulgarian teacher. We are still working out the best way to separate the lessons, but I think that it will be helpful to her and to the students. Here are some pictures from my first day. The first day is a celebration.

We have lots of speeches and songs. Then the first graders come forward.

The School Director throws water on the ground and older students hold up a flower arch. Here are the first graders entering the school, they are always the first to enter the school.

It is a fun day. After the celebrations at school, I went out to lunch with some fellow teachers. They all called the the day a "Tragic Holiday"

What happened to summer?

Long time no wright!  Well it doesn't seem like long ago, we were welcoming the end of school and the beginning of our summer break.  It turns out that it is now the end of summer work and back to our more relaxed full time jobs.  Don't get me wrong, summer was a blast!  It was action packed from beginning to end, leaving me feeling like I've been beaten and left in an alley.  Sounds good doesn't it?  It all began with a harmless three week summer camp in Blagoevgrad (a beautiful town about two hours south of Sofia) at The American University in Bulgaria.  I remember summer camp as being sort of laid back or at the very least care free.  I now have a greater appreciation for teachers/counselors/administrators/anyoneelsors who have the responsibility of organizing and implementing a three week international English language extravaganza.

In fact, Alana has been busily writing a resource guide(novel) for other PCVs about organizing and surviving summer camps.  Despite the 14 hour days, the camp turned out to be a wonderful learning experience that I will never forget.  I am only gratefully that I had absolutely no idea of the immense commitment beforehand.

At the end of the camp, we returned to Razgrad for a brief four days before heading back to Sofia to pick up Beth's mother at the Airport.  Yeah guests!  We were truly happy to have people visit.  This was the beginning of our vacationing segment of the summer. WOOHOO!  Well I could go on with the wonderfulness of the rest of the time that we spent this summer . . . and I will.  Most of the time that we were in Bulgaria with Beth's mom, we spent in Razgrad, which was really nice since we hadn't been at home much for the past month.  It was nice to have another American around.  Interestingly enough, as a side point, I began to notice many more foreigners around Bulgaria, than I had before, when we didn't have people visiting.  After a refreshing few days at home, we headed for the Airport to fly out to ITALIA!  OH-a Roma, I-a love-a the Italia! FOOD-a! PASTA!

. . . Colosseum-a and lots of old stuff-a! . . .

This trip reaffirmed my love for Italy.  I have been to Rome and Florence before, but I appreciated different things this time around.  Actually, when we first arrived in Rome, I said that we could see the Forum in about 5 minutes.  Man was I wrong!  It really is an interesting place that deserves a good look.  I learned a whole lot more about the Forum this time around, special thanks to Rick Steves and my wife, Alana (a.k.a. Beth).  For pics of these places you can visit our Flickr page: www.flickr.com/photos/inbox.**

**at the time of this writing, we haven't uploaded any pictures of the trip to flickr.  Stay tuned!**

After Rome we headed to Florence for a day where we ate Gellato! among other things.  We also saw a bunch of Renaissance art.  For lunch we ended up in a small local restaurant which had extremely tasty pasta . . . mmm.  I have come to realize lately that traveling for me is all about the food!

On to Pisa.  It was great to see the leaning tower of Pisa again, this time without huge cables holding it up, it was only me! . . .

What I didn't get a picture of are the thousands of tourists standing next to me in various poses, essentially doing to same thing.

After Pisa, we headed to a new place for me, the "Cinque Terre", which means five lands.  Absolutely amazing!  The Cinque Terre is a series of five small villages in the cliffs and hills that meet the sea in the Italian Riviera.  The villages are connected both by train and a hiking trail.  The hiking trail was a lot of walking but far worth it.  The scenery . . .WOW!

This was a pretty adventurous stop actually.  We went to the Cinque Terre at the absolute hight of tourist season.  I mean we read in the tour guides to avoid going on weekends in
August.  Best part of it, we didn't have reservations for a place to stay.  We had called like every hotel and guest house listed anywhere! No rooms available!  We went anyway.  It was really a nice coincidence that  5 minutes after we got off the train in Vernazza (one of the towns), we noticed a sign posted at a wine shop, "Rooms Available".  We went in and there were two Americans working there.  One of them took us to show us the Room, which was actually at Luciano's place, the guy who owns the wine shop.  What was really weird is that she had been there all summer and was traveling back to the states out of Milan on the same day that Beth's mom was flying out of Milan.  So she made a great travel buddy for Carol, Beth's mom, on the way back as she planned the whole trip from Vernazza to Milan.  Apparently she was quite familiar with Milan and she showed Carol around the shopping hot spots as well. We stayed in Vernazza for two nights.  Our last night there, we ate at a great seafood restaurant by the marina where our older waiter claimed to have been in charge of a Carnival Cruise Line's restaurant.  I don't know if he was telling the truth, but he sure new how to humor tourists.  He left us with this quote "Life is-a beautiful-a, if you don't think-a too much-a!"

Anyhow, the next morning we left Carol to go to Milan from Vernazza as we traveled back to Rome to return to Bulgaria.  Despite Beth's excessive vomiting for 6 hours as a result of seafood poisoning, it was nice to have an extra day in Rome before we left Italy.

Back in Bulgaria!  We returned to Sofia where we had two days of medical appointments (Mid Service check-ups) before my parents flew in for a visit. . .

. . . to be continued, I'm tired of writing right now . . .

Summer is coming

Only FOUR more days of school!! That means 10 classes or 9.5 hours in class until it is official summer. YEA!!!

"What are your plans when you are finished?"

As soon as we came to Bulgaria people started asking us, “What are your plans when you are finished?” How are you suppose to answer that question when you have two years ahead of you? Some people knew what they would like to do, but I felt like I just need to live the best I could now and think about this question later.

Well, I guess the past two months have been later. John and I have been thinking about all of our known options. Until recently, three weeks ago, we thought that our best plan was to go back to school. John would go back for his MBA and I would go back for my teaching certificate. This is still an option and a good one at that, but I think we have figured out something that fits were we are in our lives and what we would like to do during our lives better. We have always talked about living aboard while working and John has been surprised how much he likes teaching, so we have figured out a way to combine this two things. Currently, we are looking into getting our TESOL certification in Thailand after we complete our service. Why Thailand? Thailand is the least expensive place in the world to complete the required month training in order to receive our certification. The certification is the same any place you can take the course. We have also wanted to visit Thailand, so why not live there for a month. Once we get our certification, we will go to Japan to get a teach job. We know two people who have contacts in Japan. So, as of now this is our plan. Go to Thailand get certified then go to Japan get a job. We plan to teach for a year there, but we may like it. Who knows.

Update

I have only seven more days of teaching. YEA! John has 15 more days. We both can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

In May, we went to a great teaching conversational English workshop in Sofia. The workshop was created so Peace Corps Bulgaria can help the Bulgarian government teach municipality workers English. They we need this skill to apply for grants and communicate with the EU. A trainer from SIT, School for International Training, was flown in to conduct the training. I think that all 40 of us there learned tons from the workshop. It was a great opportunity and I am very glad that we took advantage of the chance.

May is the month of holidays in Bulgaria. There are four different holidays; Labor Day (1^st), St. George’s Day (6^th), Culture and Language Day (24^th), and Education Day (25^th). Of course, we get school off on these days. It’s a great way break up the month and have some fun.

Coming up, we have mid-service training. It is crazy it think we have been here for so long and only have a year left. At our training we will meet the new volunteers still in training. Once John finishes school we are go, go, go until school starts in September. We have been invited and accepted a teaching position at an International Conversational Summer Camp. The camp is being run by the American University of Bulgaria. The camp will run from July 2 till July 22. We will have the kids in class three hours every morning and the help plan and implement afternoon and evening activities. There will be five other Peace Corps volunteers teaching at the camp. We are excited about the camp and really looking forward to it. August is full of travel and family. My Mom, Carol, is flying in on the 1^st. We will be visiting Bulgaria for about a week and then possibly traveling to Italy for a week. My Mom and I have never been to Italy, so it is bound to be a good time. John’s parents will be flying in on the 18^th. We will spend five days in Bulgaria and then off to Greece. We will spend six days in Athens and surrounding islands. We feel blessed to be able to visit so many new places. Once our guest leave, we will head back to school, but not before we start our baseball project.

We recently heard that we should get our grant money in July. We will work with the city the last week of July to get the field started and finished by the end of August. We may also have a press conference that week. Our plan is to start playing with the children in September. We should still have a few good months of weather.

Maybe, I will get a vacation when school starts, if not then in a year.

Tuesday, 2nd of March

I have 23 days left of teaching this school year. A fellow teacher told me my Bulgarian is improving and tat I speak very well. I think she was just trying to make me feel good.

The past two months

I know, I know, way too long in-between blogs.

So here is a summary of what we have been up to.

John, Jason, our site-mate, and I wrote a grant to help start baseball in your community. It has been approved and we are now waiting for funding. We had a meeting with Razgrad’s mayor, 2 vice mayors, and the director of regional sports in March. It was a great meeting. We explained the purpose of our project, how many kids are interested in baseball, and asked for the city’s support with the field. They all agreed to look for a suitable location and meet again next week. Our next meeting was only with the mayor. We all had coffee and he told us how great it was for us to start the baseball project and that the city was committed to help us any way they can. They had found a suitable site. It is an area were there is currently a soccer field and a large unused area next to it. The baseball field will be built next to the soccer field. The land is owned by a local company so prior to our second meeting the mayor had talked to the company’s board of directors and they had agreed to help in this project. Currently, we are waiting on the funding. After we receive the funding, the city will start work on building the field. Hopefully you can tell how excited we are. We have high hopes for this project. Thank you to all who have donated equipment. With 170 kids interested from only two schools, we will use everything donated.

The first week in April, my sister, Sara, and step dad, Richard, came to visit. We had a great time while they were here. Hopefully, they enjoyed themselves too. They brought us two huge bags of donated baseball equipment and a bag of goodies for us.

Last week we bought bikes. John was so excited. He feels that it is his freedom. We are not allowed to drive anything with a motor and John misses driving. I think his new bike has taken the edge off his desire to drive. He rides his bike to school everyday. I don’t, because my school is straight up a hill. Last weekend we decided to go on a bike ride to a local recreation area. We didn’t think is was that far away. We rode our bikes for 45 minutes and were still not there. Our legs were killing so we turned around. It took us only 15 minutes to get home. After we arrived home, we realized that the first half of the trip was all up hill. No wonder we were so tired.

Tonight we are getting on a bus to Istanbul. Easter is this Sunday, orthodox calendar, so we have a long weekend, no school until Wednesday. We will be in Istanbul on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and will leave on Tuesday night. I am really excited. Somehow I am getting to Asia. I can’t be that close and not go. I guess the city is in Europe and Asia so it should not be that hard. I will post pictures and stories when we get back.

I hope all of you had a good Easter last Sunday and have a great weekend.

The Sun

The last four days have been beautiful. The temperature is around 52F with lots of sun. I didn't realize how much I missed the SUN. Yesterday I sat on the couch with the window wide open and the sun shinning on me. I could have sat there forever. With such great weather, I have been able to wash all of our clothes, sheets, and towels. For those who don't know, we do not have a dryer. In the spring, summer, and fall we hang our laundry out on our back terrace, but in the winter we use a small indoor drying rack. It works ok, but we can only wash one maybe two small loads a week. Hopfully spring will be here soon.

Recent Travels

I saw that Alana posted a blog entry, but didn’t include anything about our recent travels! Well, we have had a whole lot of traveling recently, but not many pictures to prove it. Our most interesting recent trip, however, was to Pernik. Once every two years there is a celebration in Pernik, which is close to Sofia, called the International Masquerade Festival, also know as “The Kukeri Festival.” The most interesting part of this event is its traditional and not-so-traditional costumes, which are which – I have no idea. Originally these costumes were worn to scare away evil spirits. Now, it’s to attract tourists. Check out our recent pictures on Flickr!

If you want to know more about this event, follow the link to this news article. http://www.bulgariatravel.org/etis/news.php?aID=593

Time goes too fast for change to go so slow

We have both survived our first terms. YEA!!!!! One down and three to go. Looking back on the past 5 months, I am not sure what all I have accomplished. Everyone says change is slow; I sometimes have to keep telling myself that. There are times when I feel that no one wants to change or cares. I have found that you have to say what you think or want at least 5 times just to be heard and then another 5 to get them to do anything. Cultural differences . . . what can you do. Starting a new term means changing schedules. John’s classes have switched from the mornings to the afternoons and my classes have changed times. I now start at 7:30am three days a week. During the winter we moved our mattresses from the bedroom to the living room because of heating issues. Due to this and my schedule change, I have to be really quiet when I get ready to leave for school. Ahh, life.

Two weeks ago when I started writing this post I felt discouraged. I was not sure what we were doing here. I think it was because I could not pin point one thing and say, ‘look I did that.’ I like to see a finished product, create things. I decided it was time to get in gear and not let everything slip by. Since then we have started a project in America called “Bats and Books for Bulgaria”, started working on a project with my school to build an art gallery, and we are talking with the municipality about writing a grant to build a baseball field. Five days ago, I began knitting to see more immediate results from what I am doing with my time. I am trying to make a scarf. The first two times I started, I made it way to wide, about 18inches . . . that’s a blanket! I was just so excited to be knitting! Finally on the third try, I got it right. I am about half way done. I like knitting. It gives me something productive to do with all my free time and I can see instant the results and improvements.

We have also uploaded some new pictures on to flickr. There is a link to the right to see the pics.

Bats and Books for Bulgaria: On-going project

Bats and Books for Bulgaria

We are Peace Corps Volunteers, stationed in Razgrad, Bulgaria. Razgrad is a town of 30,000 people. We are both English teachers at local schools, volunteers at the town’s orphanage, and facilitate a weekly English club for community members. All of our students are very excited about learning English and about American culture. We feel that one of the best ways to keep them interested and learning more is to give them the resources to keep learning after we leave.

Our town has a very limited supply of English books. We are first requesting used books and magazines. We work with babies to adults, so any type of book would be used. The adults that we are working with read at a 9^th/10^th grade level.

We have discovered that there is a strong desire to learn about baseball. We think that baseball is a great game to teach teamwork, cooperation, and American culture. We currently have no baseball/softball equipment. We are asking for anything; gloves, bats, balls, bases, safety equipment and bags.

You can send books using Economy M-bags. M-bags can be used only for books, magazines, and sheet music. US postal offices will place the books in a bag for shipping at a reduced cost. You will need to send a minimum of 11lbs to use this method of shipping. You can send a maximum of 66lbs. It cost $11.55 for the first 11lbs and $1.05 for each additional pound or fraction of a pound.

We are asking our friends and family visiting us to bring over the donated baseball/softball equipment, as shipping and customs fees would be very expensive. John’s parents and my mom, Carol Holdren, are planning on visiting us this summer. My sister, Sara Gallaugher, will be coming over at the end of March.

The Freeze

OK. So, the winter freeze is here. The record cold air from Russia has hit Bulgaria. Yesterday the high was -15C, 3F. Today the high is -20C, -4F. These temperatures are without wind and we have discovered that our town in a wind tunnel . Winds are about 36 MPH. We have settled into our living room, where it is about 65F. Thank God for central heating. The good news about all of the cold is that we don’t have school today and tomorrow. There is a rumor that school has been canceled all week. Hmmm, I need to check into that.

New Computer!

Thanks to a great overseas insurance company and some help from family we now have a new laptop! We are both very excited.