A Bird Pooped on My Computer and then I Helped my Friend Make Wine

This week saw yet more changes to my teaching schedule. The three hours with 7th, 7th, and 8th that I have alone started this week. Most of the kids seem pretty good, and some of them are really talented. I need to work on making my lessons more strutured. Kids talk a lot when (1) they're bored because the lesson doesn't capture their attention (2) they don't understand what they're doing (3)they're excited.

On Friday, Maya and I organized another small event at school, this time something for the teachers. It was a seminar on the U.S. public education system. I and Maya make a power point presentation covering what we thought would be the most interesting to the teachers: the U.S. Dept. of Education, qualifications for teaching, matriculation, the way school days are structured for students and teachers, school funding and the way that schools are run. Two PCVs who live close by came to be speakers at the seminar and to answer questions. They had been teachers in the U.S before joining Peace Corps. The teachers who came, about 16, were very interested in what the two volunteers had to say--they talked a lot amongst themselves and asked a lot of questions. Maya and Paulie, another English teacher who came, translated the questions and answers. They were so tired at the end! They said the teachers had acted a lot like a class of noisy students--but I think it was for reason number three. I was hoping that the seminar would make the teachers want to talk and untilmately would make them think about the Bulgarian school system. Not in the sense that one is better than the other, but to see how a different country's system is organized. Louise, one of the volunteer speakers, said she thought that it was hard to juxtapose two educational systems because each is based on different ideas of what education is and how schools should delivering it. I agreed with her, and said that we really just wanted to stimulate discussion with the seminar. We plan to have another one sometime in October or early November about classroom management and the common kinds learning styles. I think it would also be great to get some of the teachers themselves to give talks about things that are important to them. Afterwards, I, Maya and the two volunteers went out for pizza.

When I got back to my apartment, I put my stuff down and went in to my bedroom. From the living room, at the other end of the hall, I heard a noise that sounded like flapping paper. I walked down the hall, into the living room, and saw a bird fly over the table to the closed balcony door, find the door closed, and fly in to the small kitchen. After a few seconds of total confusion and amazement, I opened the balcony door and in less than a minute the bird flew out and away. How did that happen? All my windows are closed. Maybe the landfamily came up to get something out of one of the two rooms in my apartment that they keep for storage? They could have left a window open--very weird. Then I thought: I hope it didn't poop on anything--how long has it been in here? The first thing I checked was my computer and right there on the screen were three small drops of bird crap. Of all the places.

After I cleaned the bird poop off my computer, I helped Paulie and her husband pick grapes, which they use to make wine. A lot of Bulgarians have gardens in their front and backyards where they grow an assortment of vegetables and fruit. Tomatos are common, so are cucumbers, plums, and grapes. A lot of Bulgarians make their own wine. Many houses in this town have wire or metal netting that they put up over their driveways and front yards for the grape vines. Paulie and her family have some land a few kilometers outside of town and that's where they grow their grapes.

We drove down a bumpy dirt road that needed to be mowed and stopped outside of a fence. Paulie's small vineyard was next to two other plots of grapes. There were several rows of vines, and only the last two were left to pick because Paulie's husband had come earlier in the week. She handed me clippers and a plastic crate for the grapes.









The land had belonged to Paulie's parents. She explained that the grape harvest this year wasn't very good becuase the weather had been rainy and it had been hard to spray the grapes. Still, their total harvest was something like 25-30 crates of grapes. I had seen them earlier at her house. Paulie's villa also had an apple tree, cherry trees, a few peach trees, and a tree growing something that looked like gigantic pears. After the grapes, we gathered apples that had fallen off the tree. It was too early to pick the others, Paulie said, but later in October she and her family would come back for them. She and her husband loaded me up with apples and grapes and with several of the giant pear things. Paule told me how to make compot--boiling fruit and sugar on the stove and then letting it cool. It's a lot like jam or fruit preserves and many families make compot and can it for the winter. She and her husband dropped me off at my apartment and then headed home. They said I was welcome to their villa any time.

A Good Friday

Today was the busiest day I've had as a Peace Corps Volunteer, and it feels good. I feel like I'm adjusting to actually being a volunteer and making decisions about what being in the Peace Corps means for me. In August, I was settling in, adjusting to life in my permanent site, the town where I'll be living for the next two years. Maya, my counterpart, organized a condensed day camp for about two hours in the mornings Mondays through Thursdays where we did English-language activities and went on walks with kids in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades. Maya and I also went on a few day trips to towns in the surrounding area so I could get to know the region. Maya is always very eager to share and to encourage others to explore. It's the end of the first almost full week of school (Wednesday was Bulgarian Independence Day, so there were no classes). My schedule still isn't quite complete and I'm working out my role in the classroom with the two English teachers with whom I'm team teaching.

This morning I taught a 6th grade class with one of my partner teachers. We reviewed the outline of the lesson just before class--a reading section and vocabulary. Once in class, my partner teacher let me be in control of the lesson, more or less. I work with this 6th grade class for two of their three hours of English instruction each week. I had the students take turns reading, which I think they liked, but the vocab section ended up being boring. I can't say I blame them--really, what is the difference between "rented rooms" and "bed and breakfast?"

So far the biggest challenge in the classroom is how to get students to pay attention to what I'm saying. I want them to see that I'm speaking in English to try to communicate with them, not to test them or confuse them. When kids don't understand what's going on or what's expected of them, they talk or act out. Sometimes I think my partner teachers see me as a tool to measure their students' progress, to measure how accurate the students are. But they're very open to any ideas that I might have for lessons, they said. Another challenge is that the kids aren't used to being taught English in English. In Bulgaria, it seems that the emphasis is on language as an academic subject, not on language as a tool for communication. The students are taught English in Bulgarian. One of my colleagues told me that she knew the grammar hands down, but in terms of speaking in English, she didn't feel very confident at all.

After class, I ran around with Maya and a few students setting up for an event that we organized for the EU-designated European Day of Languages, which is on the 26th of September each year. Nikola Vaptsarov usually observes this day. Maya and I organized a poetry reading in different languages--not all of them European. Students read two pieces in English, "Hope is the Thing with Feathers" by Dickenson, and a Native American legend about the origin of rainbows. There was also a Russian poem by Pushkin called "I Remember a Wonderful Moment." I read a Spanish poem by Neruda called "When I See the Sea Again." A student from 9th grade read "Allons Enfants de la Patrie." The students read very well. Maya and I had met with the two who read the English-language pieces a few days before to go over any words they couldn't pronounce. There's a lot of talent at this school--some of the students who read can talk very fluently in English.

I had made a power point to accompany the reading that had the text of each piece along with a Bulgarian translation. My idea came from an international poetry event that takes place at my college each year. Having a translation helped me to appreciate what the international students were saying as they read poetry or other works from their home countries. Unfortunately, there was a lot of light in the room where the reading took place making it hard to read the power point. This was really frustrating because some of the students would have gotten more out of the event if they could at least see what was being read.

After the reading, about 20-30 minutes, an 11th or 12th grade student who I recognized approached Maya and said that he was upset that he hadn't gotten a chance to read something. It made me really happy to see that some students actually were interested in these kinds of projects. Sometimes it's hard to gauge interest. We had organized this reading only about a week before the fact, so we chose students very fast--a few of the English teachers suggested students by name who they thought would be good readers.

I went home for lunch and to have a break before my next class--one of the two 60-minute blocks I have each week for the teacher's course. Only two students came to class and we reviewed the alphabet and went over transcriptions. Monday's class had seven students, which was a nice size. Next class everyone should have their textbook and we can start reading short dialogues and covering grammar.

After class, I caught a bus to Burgas to meet another volunteer. She and I are on the Anti-Trafficking in Persons and HIV Volunteer Committee, an interest group for volunteers who want to do projects in their communities related to A-TIP and HIV. Human trafficking is a problem in Bulgaria. Sometimes young people here follow dubious advertisements for jobs abroad and up laboring for next to nothing or for nothing with no means to get home. Sometimes they end up in forced prostitution with no means to get home. Bulgaria is also a transit country with persons coming through bound for other destinations in Europe.

The volunteer had finally managed to get a meeting with someone who worked for the Burgas branch of the Bulgarian National Anti-Trafficking Commission. We met up and then had to find the office, which she knew was in a big youth center in Burgas. The office itself was small, and seemed to have only one staff person. The walls had pictures of trafficked persons and awareness posters. We were looking for stories of Bulgarians who had been trafficked for an interactive game that the A-TIP/HIV Committee is making about trafficking. The staff person gave us the story of one person and some general information about trafficking in Bulgaria. She also asked us about October 18th, the European Day Against Trafficking in Human Beings, and whether we had any plans. In Burgas, she was putting together an education campaign and gave us posters and booklets with statistics.

It was nice to be involved in different types of work in a single day, although it made for a long one. Tomorrow I'm going hiking with two other volunteers in a nearby village.

September 15: The First Day of School

September 15th is the first day of school for students in grades one through twelve all across Bulgaria, although teachers begin work on September 1st. Here are some photos of the ceremonies that took place at Nicola Vaptsarov Comprehensive School, where I work. The principal spoke, horo dancers did their thing, and a choras of primary schoolers sang along with a tape of other primary schoolers singing. The ceremonies on the first day of school are important; a lot of parents and staff go and all students should be there. For the first grade class, it's a celebration of their joining the school community and a milestone in their lives. At Vaptsarov, the ceremonies lasted around an hour. After that, all the students went to their home rooms to meet with the Bulgarian equivalent of home room teachers and get their schedules for the first few days of school. There was really good cake in the teacher's lounge (I think it had rum in it) and all the teachers and the director went out for lunch downtown.

The school year schedule isn't finished by the 15th, so students are given a schedule for the first few days or possibly the first week while the school finalizes the schedule. To complete it is a long process that ends with a formal presentation of the schedule to representatives from the Ministry of Education. The representatives can tell the school to revise their schedule and present it again to the Ministry at a later date.

There are a lot of different kinds of schools here. A comprehensive school is grades 1-12 in one building. School kids can decide to attend a special type of high school after they finish primary school, which is technically grades 1-8. There are language high schools for English, Russian, French, Spanish and other languages--I think English and Russian are the most common. There are also technical schools, sports schools, art schools and private high schools. Some comprehensive schools offer special "tracks" for students, i.e. the opportunity for students to take a specialization in a particular area. My school is thinking of creating an English track.

One of the young students from the games and walks that Maya and I organized during August gave me the flowers--that was really nice. The last two pictures are some of my colleagues. The woman two to my left is another English teacher who also helps as a translator in the English course I'm teaching for the faculty. She suggested I teach transcriptions first--something I'm really not enjoying that much so far--they're hard! A transcription is a symbol that represents a sound used in English--like the "th" sound in the word "through." But I can see that it will help down the road.

The Church in Biala Slatina

The Biala Slatina church was built about 120 years ago. In America, that's old, but here, where many people are proud of Bulgaria's nearly 3000 year history, it's relatively new.

It was constructed around 1890. According to the current priest, it was raised with funding and labor from the people of the community. Before this church, townspeople worshiped at a small chapel. The records concerning this church were taken when Bulgaria became a Communist country, the current priest said.



The murals were renewed in 1937.





Churches are common in most towns in Bulgaria despite the long period of Communism. During pre-service training, we learned that the government organized a program of chasing people away from churches when they tried to attend services. Across the country, citizens were encouraged not to go to church or other houses of worship. Many observed religious holidays and events in private. During a Sunday service in Biala Slatina, people come and usually stand between the two columns on either side of the door. They may listen to a service or just light candles for friends and family members.


The Eastern Orthodox Church, also called the Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Catholic Church, traces its origins back to St. Paul and the beginning of Christianity. It is made of several self-governing bodies that are nationally and geographically different. These bodies are led by synods of bishops. Services in Eastern Orthodox Churches differ slightly from region to region and country to country as a result of local customs.

Biala Slatina in Pictures

I lived in Biala Statina for 10 of my 11 weeks of pre-service training. These are some shots of the downtown and the chitalishte (cultural center) during the May 24th celebration of the creation of the Bulgarian alphabet. The Cyrillic alphabet was first created in Bulgaria by two brothers, Cyril and Methodius. Almost every town in Bulgaria has a chitalishte where there are classes offered for the community, art shows, and other events. Horo is traditional Bulgarian dance, and there are horo dancers at every official event.

Going Na Gosti

My host family had never taken me Na Gosti before, but I had heard the term mentioned somewhere. I and the five others from my training group in Byala Slatina decided that it more or less translates to "going guesting," like visiting someone and hanging out, but for semi-professionals. Last Thursday, we visited two colleagues of Tsvetan's, my host brother, who lived two towns away in a small celo of about 700 people.

When I got home from class at about 5:30 that Thursday, going somewhere was the last thing I wanted to do. Language classes were intense, the room in the community center where we learn is incredibly stuffy, I didn't know my teaching schedule for the next week and a current volunteer was coming to observe me, my class had big national exam coming up and I had wanted to set up tutoring hours for them. How am I going to learn all this? I'll probably have to speak Bulgarian with my students. How can I make friends and "build local capacity" if I don't know my colors? Also that day, we had had a resilliancy training session with a Peace Corps staff person. Some of the signs of stress that he mentioned: less talking, wanting more alone time, sighing, are things are part of my normal behavior. Maybe I'm stressed a lot. I am sensitive, and sometimes prone to internalize every little thing.

I walked in the door and Yoshka, my host mom rused me to the table, fed me tarator (a cold, yogurt soup), lentil soup, and a kyufte (small meat patty), then we got in to Tsvetan's car and drove off. How far away is this place? How long will we be out? Good think I already planned my lesson for tomorrow...We drove throug the celo of Popitza and continued on. It was hot, but beautiful. There were fields and big treen on the sides of the road. We drove in the middle, where the yellow line would have been, and swerved to avoid pot holes and farmers in horse-drawn carts.

The town in which we arrived had old houses and a big, old church. The house that we stopped in front of was on the edge of a field. We walked through the gate and in to their back yard. It had a big, big garden growing tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, grapes, and other fruits and vegetables that I couldn't understand. The couple and their daugher showed me their animals. They had a lot like my host family--a cow, which they said would soon be slaughtered, chickens, a pig, sheep, rabbits and geese. I sat with the wife while the husband, Yoshka, and Tsvetan, went to dig up some beans. White bean soup is a common dish, and really good. We sat under a cherry tree, shooed away flys, and ate keks, an egg bunt cake that Yoshka had taught me how to make and other sugary things.

The little farm was beautiful, but I was thinking, another akward conversation is not what I want right now. But the woman was very nice and I was able to communicate more than I thought I could. I wasn't even too tired to try miming, or maybe the sugar had hit my bloodstream at that point. The more I could try to say and the more questions that I was asked, the better I felt. When the three came back from bean mining, there was home-made cirene, a white, soft cheese, and rakia. I couldn't always answer the new questions, and I spoke like a deaf four-year-old, but these people were so gracious. It's amazing to think that they didn't even know me, yet they still spoke to me and included me in the conversation. Their kids brought out some of the animals, and I held one of their rabbits and one of their doves.

By the time we left, I wasn't stressed at all. I'm not sure why. It could have been the rakia, or the animal thereapy, or maybe the change of scenery helped. How does a stressful stiuation make even more stressful become not stressful? In conclusion, if you're stressed, you should probably go na gosti.