The PC Staff all told us that training was intense, and intense is a strong word, so maybe that isn’t the right word, but it is definitely something! And I feel like a wimp because I know that I took on like three times this load in college, but things are harder here because everything is different. I can’t go home at the end of the day and just be with people who really know who I am-because there is no one here who does. And I can barely communicate to the majority of the people here to tell them about me. So when there is a “busy” day, sometimes it seems much more draining than a “very busy” day in the States. That all sounds pretty bad-like every day here is just sucking the life out of me or something-but its really just all so new.
But the busy days are balanced with lots of fun stuff that I could never do in the States. Like last weekend I hiked up to the Seven Lakes in the Rila Mountains. It was the most beautiful site I’ve ever seen! The hike was a bit treacherous, and the weather changed like every 5 minutes from bright and sunny to cloudy and raining, but at the end, standing at the top of the mountain and overlooking all of the lakes, I knew it was worth it! It was amazing and beautiful, or krasiv as the Bulgarians say.
I also got my site assignment a couple of weeks ago and spent a few days at the site! I will be living in a small village in the Rhodope Mountains in southern Bulgaria for the next two years! About 700 people live in the village, everyone is Turkish Bulgarian and there is a very large Muslim population. I’m a little confused about the exact origins of the people because with all the history and the different minority groups here, the people could be from different places. For example: they could be one group of people who are Bulgarian Muslims. Or they could be from one minority group called Roma, but speak Turkish as their mother tongue. Or they could be part of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria. Yeah. I’ll find out. All I know is that every single person in the village, and in most of the villages around, speak both Bulgarian and Turkish fluently. And they expect me to start learning some Turkish after about 6 months, when they say I will be “fluent” in Bulgarian-right.
For my job, I am assigned to work with the mayor’s office, but I will probably be working more with the cultural center, kindergarten and the school. I will be teaching a lot of English and, even though it is a small village, there are actually many cultural activities going on in the town, (such as traditional horo dancing, latin dancing (!), and theater plays) all driven by two of my colleagues, so I will be helping with those. I’ll also be doing a fair amount of translating, finding funding resources for the mayor’s projects, and maybe working on some tourism development. So a little bit of everything.
The town truly is built into the mountain and driving around the Rhodopes is probably the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life-every turn is your last! But the area is incredibly beautiful and there are many other villages and a few bigger towns not far away. And there are actually quite a few volunteers around me-at least 4 within an hour or so and 2 about twenty minutes away.
Other things…this past weekend we spent a day with the Roma. Roma are a minority group that is different in many respects from traditional Bulgarians-they even have their own language-and there are many efforts within the PC and other organizations to work on integrating the two cultures. The Roma have a completely different lifestyle from Bulgarians and there are prejudices on both sides against the other. Many PC volunteers work at Roma NGOs, and, in general, all of us will have contact with them and should understand their way of life.
I also helped my family harvest potatoes for the winter. I actually volunteered for it because I really wanted to help them out in the garden, but after three hours of digging in the potato trenches with dirt under my finger nails and bags and bags of potatoes, I realized just how easy it is to drive to the store and buy food in America. But I wouldn’t have given up that experience because it was awesome and afterwards I could tell that they respected and like me a little bit more. And these people do that much work for all of their vegetables. They stock up for the winter and they don’t want store-bought crap, they want what was fresh from their garden because it tastes so much better. I don’t know how I’m ever going to go back to buying fruit and vegetables in the store.
My family has another potato garden on the other side of town that still needs harvesting…
