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.
