Alex in Bulgaria

Lots of travel to Darjeeling and Varanasi

2007-11-23T01:28:00.000-08:00

I have been through some of the most travel-intensinve times in my life. I left the orphanage on Thursday the 15th at 6 pm, drove 3 hours to the train station, took a 32-hour train trip to Kolkata, then a 14-hour bus ride to Siliguri, then a 3 hour bus to Darjeeling. Coming out of Darjeeling, I took a 3-hour bus to Siliguri, then a 14 hour bus to Patna, then a 5 hour train ride to Varanasi. That made my week's total travel time about 75 hours, not including waiting time. I will never do that willingly again.

Darjeeling, however, was definitely worth it. Set upon a ridge amidst lush green valleys, this old British hill-station is famous for its teas. It is one of the first places the British secretly imported tea to break the monopolies the Chinese and Dutch had upon the tea trade. Some of the original tea plantations still operate independantly and give demonstrations on how to make proper, high-quality tea and how to properly brew a cup or a pot. The most astounding part of Darjeeling, however, is the view. On three sides of the city, valleys drop thousands of feet down from the roads, and extend into true hill-country on the east and west sides. To the north, the land extends into the Himilayas, and dominating the view is a cluster of peaks containing Khangchendzonga, the third highest peak in the world. Clouds hang in the sky mid-way up the mountains and their shadows slide slowly across the villages in the hills below. Sitting at 7,000 + feet in Darjeeling, the crisp, thin air gives backpackers a giddiness that intensifies feelings so that many people just sit and stare at the views. There was a great coffe shop with mochas for 40 rupees (about $1), and I was sound as a pound. Mostly, I drank tea and read books.

Right now, I am in Varanasi, a holy and grimey city. I just got into a bit of a scuffle, which could've easily turned into a fight. I took a picture of the Ganges near one of the funeral Ghats and some people accused me of taking a picture of dying people. I hadn't been of course, and anyway I was pointed the opposite direction. I showed them that I intended no offense

and they asked me to come and help an old woman, to say sorry. Trying to be gracious, I assented, but then they wanted money. I told them no, and then they started to follow me, saying it was what I owed. I told them that I didn't take a picture of the funeral pyres, but they didn't listen and said it didn't matter. Then one guy started to say that he would make truble for me; that was when I got mad and said he better leave me alone. He grabbed me and I pushed him off. Another American saw this and came over, told me that I shouldn't give them anything. He turned and told the instigators that there would be trouble and they would be IN trouble if they didn't leave me alone.

He said they did the same thing to him yesterday and when a policeman walked up, they ran off. There were 6 or so of them, and I was lucky the guy came over. I am rather apathetic about the city on the whole, but I'm glad to have seen it. The ghats are mostly old and decrepit, the river is brown and smelly. Alas, I did not see a dolphin.

There was a bombing yesterday in the city, but it was on the other side and I didn't even know about it until it was on the news. So, I am fine everyone. Going to Agra tonight, then Jaipur. Home all's well and that everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Abroad....

2007-11-09T05:48:00.000-08:00

I have been traveling.

Much of it has been great, some of it frustrating, and all of it has been more expensive than I thought.

I am half way through the trip and still not too sick. In Turkey, I visited Cappadocia, Olympos, Fetiye, Ephesis, Selcuk, Pergamum, Yzmir and Istanbul. All were amazing, but I think my favorite was Pergamum. What a breathtaking Acropolis it has! It is set far above the city, and I am confident that if it were to still have many of the friezes that were taken abroad, it would rank among the world's wonders.

Africa was a bit different than I had thought. it took money to take all of the taxis around (for security reasons), organized tours and accomodations. I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro and made it to the top, though my guide was pushy and annoying. Safari was great, and I saw nearly all of the African savannah game animals in my time on the Masai Mara, and at Lake Nakuru and Lake Naivasha.

I am in New Delhi right now, eating the best food I have in years. I walked around the Red Fort today, and went to the Gandhi Museum and to his funeral pyre, which is in the middle of beautiful parks. I have walked all around old Delhi, which is a warren of alleys and rickshaw streets, lined with shops and sales stands. It is still very eastern here, and retains a far different atmosphere than the western world. Tomorrow I go to Chennai for a week, where I will be working/helping out in an orphanage that was partially funded by my home church.

Done....now on to visas and travel

2007-10-04T03:05:00.000-07:00

I have officially completed service in Bulgaria. What a journey it has been. I am writing from my favorite hostel in Sofia, where I am staying until my visa to India is approved. Perhaps it will be ready today, perhaps tomorrow. I have been here for a couple of days and have slowly given away clothes and trinkets so that my luggage is lighter. I am having trouble parting with some books and warm clothes, but I certainly have too much right now.

I feel a bit empty and lost, because I am constantly saying good-bye and cannot actually leave until the visa is ready. I need to get going and keep busy so that I don't slip into the depression of boredom. My airline tickets are ready, I am adequately vaccinated and I have purchased my anti-malarial medication. I have to find places to stay in Turkey and network with friends in Kenya and India, but otherwise I'm ready. My travel route is loosely as follows:

Turkey
Dubai
Nairobi/Kenya
Tanzania
Kenya
Delhi/India
Malaysia
Taiwan
San Francisco, and home

Dates are flexible and I'm keeping my options open on general travel and duration within each country. I'm out of time on the computer, so I'll write later about other aspects of my journey, and I will finally tell about Pompeii and the Vatican. Take care, all.

Running out of time.

2007-09-18T06:52:00.000-07:00

The end of my time here is coming faster than I'd expected. Doubts and worries swim through my mind rather than the sense of accomplishment I'd hoped for. I feel like I'm leaving friends behind and turning my back on a world in which I've spent so much effort to create mutual understanding. I keep telling myself that I have only been here for two years, and that when I leave, pretty much everything will continue here as it has for 7,000 years without my help. The personal impression I made is light, and will (by design) fade quickly. The impact of what I've worked with, however, will hopefully (I like to think that likely) continue. If all of this happens, our mission and designs are successful.

The evening outside is touched by the soft twilight and benches throughout the park sag with the weight of reclining pensioners. The culture of Stara Zagora is modernizing, but I hope that the relaxed atmosphere of early evenings, which Bulgarians commonly admire about this city, remains. I will certainly miss that aspect of life in Stara Zagora. Reading at cafe's has helped drastically increase my pagecount and is one of daily pleasures.

My current apartment has never really felt like home. Although I have lived there for 9 months, I have disliked it from the beginning. Leaving is like packing up a campsite. Neighbors weren't interested in much interaction and I was not able to join or create a sense of community there. I will always think of home here as the apartment near the brewery on Genberal Stoletov Street, with the smells of stewed grains and the pine trees of the hills, the views of the Thracian Plains, and friendly neighbors like Baba Netka, Slavov and Lena. I left home months ago.

Paperwork, paying final bills and saying goodbye take up most of my time these days. I am trying to sell a few of my things, but think I'll end up giving most of it away. OK, my counterpart is shoo-ing me away from the computer for coffee.

Bike riding, Naples.

2007-09-04T05:14:00.001-07:00

My bike was worn-out and broken when I bought it about a year ago. I rode it with difficulty around town, but I never took it very far because it was dangerous to ride over rugged ground or at speeds above, say, 15 Km/hr. Thus, when I had it repaired and upgraded to my self-imposed riding specifications, it opened up new possibilities for me with regard to fitness and entertainment and added a personal transport option. Due to work, I missed the bus to the Children's Parliament summer camp. I decided that I would bike there, and I expected a bit of adventure along the way. I got it.

I took the train to Tulovo, saving me the peddle over the Sredna Gora, and began the journey to Kalofer Panitsite. I had miscalculated both distance and elevation gain (or, rather, I had disregarded them), the side-roads were in worse shape than I had expected and riding with a 18-Kg backpack was harder on the butt than I had anticipated. My worst oversight, however, was traffic. Since the sideroads were too poor to bike safely, I rode along the highway. Of course I wore the Peace Corps helmet (as required by the program), but lorries and autos blew by at terrible speed, rendering the safety features of the helmet rather useless. I rode on a Friday which meant that Sofia-bound natives of areas around Kazanluk, Sliven and the Rose valley, who were eager to begin partying in the city, tested spedometer and RPM needles in the rarely visited high-end reaches of their instuments. Trucks and cars passed within inches of my left hand, blowing me forcefully to the right in their wakes. I disembarked the train in Tulovo at about 5:15 PM and arrived at the camp in Panitsite at 10PM, having covered 67 Kilometers and gained 200 meters of elevation. I was sore and hungry, but happy.

I have been off-road biking quite a bit recently and had my first accident in a long time. I was coming down a particularily rocky area and knew that I fould fall, so I jumped off of the bike, rolled, and emerged unscathed. My bike, however, suffered several damages. The rear brake handle snapped and chunks were taken out of the right handle and the seat. It was exciting and I'm amazed that the experience came without injury. Knowing how to fall and roll with the problems is valuble, kids. Problem is, I need to fix my bike again. Darn-it.

And so, the next installment of my Italian adventure (I had no idea that it would come in Serial form): Naples en-route to Pompeii.

Pompeii is about 3 1/2 hours from Rome by train, with a transfer in Naples. When I arrived in Naples, I had some layover time, so I explored the bazaars. Naples has a distinctly dangerous feel. It is more modern than Rome and has a more visible lower class. It's bazaars are bustling with quiet deals between bargain-waders and energetic, smiling 'merchants'. In this Bazaar, among these loud, obnoxious throngs, I was scammed for the first time.

My beloved camera stopped working just before my trip to Italy. I had been looking for a replacement, but all of the models I saw were either insufficient for my needs and standards or too expensive. Pompeii was one of the most anticipated destinations my lifelong travels, and I sorely wanted to photograph it. This desire, with the greed that nearly always leads people willingly into scams, along with my disabled eyesight (my glasses had been broken by a careless hostel-mate the night before) and my personal carelessness, enabled the incident to progress.

Cameras were shoved at me right and left. A laptop computer with a dual-core processor was offered for 150 Euros, a camcorder for 100 Euros. I really only needed a digital camera. I saw a camera that was exactly what I wanted in a small shop; I figured this would be a bit more legitimate than buying something off of the street. I let the salesman pester me a bit, feigned disinterest in the camera but let him show me its features. I took pictures with it, looked at the SD card, made sure the battery was new-ish, and bargained down to 30 Euros. I bought it.

When i was walking away from the shop, a bag fell over behind me and some people started yelling and gesturing wildly at me. I thought I'd knocked it over with my bulky backpack because nobody else was near me. Random items from inside the bag littered the ground so I gathered them back into the bag they had fallen from and gave it to the person who was yelling. I picked up the package that I'd set down and went on my way. What had happened was somebody had thrown the bag at my backpack to make it seem like I'd knocked something over. When I went back to pick the stuff up I'd needed both hands to work, so I put the bag I was carrying down. A man with a bag identical to the one containing my newly-purchased camera, to the way it was tied, came up behind me, and switched it with mine. My concentration was on clean-up, so I didn't notice. Almost immediately, I realized something was wrong. I thought I'd been targeted, but hadn't realized a switch had taken place. I carefully left, watching my back and keeping a thumb on my wallet in my front pocket. I checked my camera box two minutes later and found only bottled water inside. I told a nearby policeman who simply shrugged and said, "This is Napoli."

Thirty Euros poorer and with a poor opinion of Naples, I continued to Pompeii.

Next: Pompeii and the Vatican.

Summer Camp and the End of SPA

2007-08-20T04:54:00.000-07:00

Summer camp in my part of Bulgaria is generally less structured than what is experienced in the US. Directors schelule activities and meals rather loosely, yet it works most of the time. The flexibility gives the kids more choice in participation and responsibility for the camp's dynamics. The downside of this quality is that it polarizes the group into very active and very inactive cliques. If there is a popular group with a bad influence, the counselors/supervisors have to watch them more closely and focus their attention on those individuals to keep them busy and out of mischief. Fortunately, giving those individuals and even their groups (cliques) more responsibility often facillitates their need for attention in a positive way.

At the camp I helped out with last week, this was a vital scrap of managerial knowledge, as it rained heavily and continuously for 4 days. The children were stuck in their small, concrete bungalows with little to do. Thanks to the elder campers, who provided music, games, dance lessons and showed great leadership, I still have hair - and most of it is still dusty blond/light brown. I never want to show another card trick, however. The camp was nice, and the food was Bulgarian - style camp food. That means lots of yoghurt dishes, sausages and meats, tomatoes, tea and the occasional chicken. Simple but decent. I lost weight last year, but this year, the campers brought me their leftovers. I over-ate. Not good when cooped up in concrete bungalows. Just sits there instead of being used by day-long activities like football (soccer), basketball and volleyball. We did get out the last 2 days and took long hikes to the eco-trail near Kalofer and Panitsite, the hydro-geologic phenomenon of bowl-like cavities in the sandstone bed of the creek above town.

I worked late in the week, opting to finish 2 days of work and taking my own transportation to the Camp rather than accompanying the children on their bus. Friday the 3rd, after finishing work at 4, I took the train to Tulovo with my pack and my bike, determined to bike the rest of the way. I hadn't realized that I needed to take supplies that made my bag reach 30 lbs, that the way to Panitsite way nearly completely uphill, that the roads were in such poor condition that I had to take the highway, and that my route was 67 Km. I made it into camp at about 10PM, with very sweaty clothes and an aching rear end. Still, I made it and I am proud of that fact. I would not do it again. The trucks and cars rushing past at about 100+ Km/hr came within inches and their wake blows bike riders off the road.

On our hike to Panitsite, I experienced an infuriating example of a bad situation turned near-disaster due to an unwillingness to admit error. On a hike with 50 children, aged 7 to 20 and elder women with bad knees, we were running late. The sky looked ominous and both the children and camp staff were complaining of pain and fatigue. I had helped lead the group down from the ridge on a leaf-covered, hidden trail. We had lost the trail a couple of times, but marked it so we would know the way back. I am an experienced hiker and trail leader, having backpacked all my life and gone through many outdoor leadership programs. One of the rules of hiking, especially in such a large and diversified group, is that when you are in any sort of trouble or hurry you stick to what you know and can be sure of. The doctor of the group, who was being pushed to get back, took a wrong trail. I was one of the few people who noticed; I drew him aside (to help him save face) and carefully and privately pointed out that we were not on the same path. At first he argued, then said it was a shorter trail (aka-shortcut). I just nodded and took my place at the back, helping the stragglers. After a climb up several steep inclines and a twisted ankle in thick leaf-cover, people began complaining whole-heartedly. I kept my mouth shut, though we were going a far longer route than we had come. We lost the trail several times and had to trek through some wet and slippery areas, but eventually came out on a trail we knew and got back to camp. The worst part is that the Dr. put the more frail/inexperienced of our group at risk, simply due to the fact that going back the 100 meters to the marked trail would show that he had led the group into a wrong turn. Pride cometh before the fall.

The last week was filled with project proposal review and funding decision. It was tiring and difficult, but good and fruitful in the end. This was the last quarterly meeting for my committee and the final committee meeting for me in Bulgaria; huzzah! My responsibilities change from here on out into transition, travel preparation to leave, training activities and a bit of hosting. I'll depart Stara Zagora on Sept. 30 and Buglaria on Oct. 2.

Coming up... Pompeii and bike crashes.

Lost Journey...

2007-07-27T04:35:00.000-07:00

I neglected to write yesterday about one of the most powerful trips I have ever taken. I had to use vacation days or lose them, so I took an unplaned trip to Rome, Naples and Pompeii.

My trip started out with reservation problems in Rome. I am low on cash, so I opted to rebook at the least expensive hostel I could find. The hostel was central, relatively clean, and had no curfew. I went immediately to get food for a picnic and took the subway to Circus Maximus. When I reached the street, I gazed in awe at the ancient stadium, now a bare valley with a mound where the median of the stadium used to be. This small field between the Palatine and Aventine hills was the no-man's land in the mythical conflict between Romulus and Remus that established the ancient city and its earliest administration. The day was sunny and warm with a light breeze. After lunch, I walked to the nearby Piazza de Rocca and fell asleep in the cool grass under a pine tree. I awoke after an hour to a classical concert nearby, listened for awhile, and then walked to the Isola Tiberina and strolled, thinking, along the Tiber. I decided to wait for the next day to tour Rome. I would simply enjoy my books (Collapse, by Jared Diamond and Travels by Michael Chricton) and experience Rome. I looked at the cobblestone streets, the businesses, the schools and the alleys. I went to an internet cafe to do some work and then went to dinner. After dinner, I went to the Giovanni cathedral and read in a cafe, enjoying espresso and ginger cookies.

How expensive Rome is! But the food is so good, I had to enjoy a fine dinner. I am a decent cook, but they use such fresh and good spices in the bistro I went to that I couldn't come close to reproducing the auromas and flavors in their pasta sauce. Their bread was good too, and I ate as if I hadn't eaten for days. I think that is the best thing about Italian food: spice and freshness. The wine was full of flavor and had a good aftertaste. I couldn't afford to go go out for most of my trip, but I was determined to try good Italian cuisine at least one night. Man, was it worth it!

The second day I walked all around ancient Rome, starting in the Forum. The arches, pillars, frescoes, mosaics, and foundations all once used to be part of the largest and most important city in the western world, and I marvelled at the pieces of history and culture that remain. I read and ate lunch amongst the ruins, sitting on foundations that supported city baths and palaces. I climbed the Palatine hill and walked passages once reserved for the most powerful and influential people in Ancient Roman history. The view was spactacular and the day partly cloudy. The strong Italian sun was again tempered by the clouds and the breeze which rustled the leaves and pine needles of the trees in the gardens. The museum atop the hill displays artifacts from the prehistoric Urnfield culture found beneath the forum to late Imperial Rome. The foundations and support holes for huts were found on the Aventine side of the hill, dated to the 8th century BC. The museum pushes the theory that this was the site of Romulus' city and the first Roman kingdom. It is nice to think about, anyway.

I entered the Colosseum in the early afternoon and took hours studying and absorbing the architecture, scale, and complexity of the building. How impressive it is! I'm glad it was voted one of the 7 modern wonders (though I don't really support that contest or idea). It is such a beautiful, powerful building its presence is inspiring. I have seen it is pictures and on television all my life, but seeing it in person was a fully different experience. If it were built in the United States today, in the same scale, it would be impressive. With the artistry and detail, and considering the common scale of other man-made structures, it must have been other-worldly. The gallery inside the Colosseum had an exhibit of Eros artwork from the ancient world. I had a good time hearing American tourists realize what they were looking at in some of the mosaics/pottery on disply. "Oh my goodness, would you look at that! Do you know what that is!?" "That is disgusting!" "They were perverted!" "Let's go kids. Let's see the Forum. Who wants Ice Cream?" It was hilarious to see people's reactions to the explicit artwork.

I am off to a children's summer camp right now. I will retun to Stara Zagora in about a week, where I'll continue this story and write about recent experiences. Have a good week everyone!

Times Flies by...

2007-07-26T04:05:00.000-07:00

It has been nearly two years since I arrived in Bulgaria for the first time. I am having a hard time contemplating departing for life elsewhere, and I'm beginning to prepare myself for the transition. The last 2 months have been packed with activity and responsibility. I have been running around establishing networks for kids and the Roma community, working in Plovdiv as a day camp counselor for an under-privilaged community, helping edit and subtitle a children's film, I directed a group discussion/powerpoint lecture on Geology and Geomorphology in Bulgaria, I briefly met President Bush on his visit to Sofia, attended a conference for departing volunteers in Bulgaria, met and spent time with my Parents and friends visiting me in Bulgaria, and so much more.

I have hit, however, a lull in my work brought on by the extremely high temperatures in Stara Zagora (up to a humid 107 F in the last week). Nobody wants to work or even be outside/in places without air conditioning. Many people have headed to the beach or the pools around the city. My air-conditioning does not work, so I take cold showers. I have indeed kept up running, though a few days ago in 100+ heat, I hit a wall and my legs refused to keep going. I knew I had to keep walking, so I walked the mile or so back to the river and shade to cool off gradually.

Due to the heat, I have found an lost a passion in the past 2 weeks - watermellon. I have bought three and consumed them in rapid succession. I find that it is best to chill them for a day in the refrigerator before cracking and eating them. I suppose I have eaten about 9 Kg or so of watermellon (the mellons are about 5Kg, sweet, and crisp-perfect), and I am taking a break. I'm returning for the meantime to fruit juice and tea (iced tea). I found a place that serves chilled coffee with iced cream floating on top, which might become my pep drink of choice.

I am beginning to plan my way home, figuring out a route and determining the costs. I may need to live lightly on the road, though there are things that I will not skimp on. I have my shots and stocking up on meds. I need to buy a mosquito net and some good boots before I go. Hope everyone is well. Margaret is finishing up her CA Bar exam today, and deserves everyone's congratulations. She has worked so long and hard through law school, it is time for a break before work. She'll come to visit Bulgaria in late August, and I'm looking forward to seeing her.

The end of Egypt and Bulgaria

2007-05-28T06:02:00.000-07:00

Having run about Cairo, we met a friend's college pals. The expat community is chummy in Cairo, and they welcome travelers with a relaxed interest and antique charm. My friend Nevine took us out and around and we visited a beautiful restaurant on the nile. The next day, we visitedthe Pyramids, Sphinx, Step Pyramids in Sappho and Memphis. The nile valley is much like the Egypt Museum. Hyrogliphs and statues are everywhere. Papyrus and papyrus painting institutes are also everywhere. The nile floodplain is a lush tongue of land sitting between rocky, desert ridges. Sand literally pours down to the edge of plantations and forms a night/day stark/lush boundaryline. Date palms line the edge of fields and (away from sitting water and canals) the air carries the warm, slightly sweet aroma of subtropical agricultre.

The pyramids are astounding. I saw them from a distance at first, as they slowly emerged in the landscape through the smog. In one of my favorite old movies, a depressed and lost character says, "Ive seen the pyramids and the other wonders of the world. They aren't so wonderful." His wise uncle replies, "Then you haven't really seen them." Before leaving Bulgaria, I had been afraid that my recent apathy towards antiquity (which is completely out of character for me) would poison any enthusiasm I had for the wonderous sites I would see. I've kept this odd numbness secret for awhile because friends and family would know that it is a symptom of discontent and perhaps depression. I can understand where the character could catch this sort of touristic blindness and I was afraid that it was happening to me. Petra might have overwhelmed my historical senses, but the pyramids reanimated my intense love of history and archaeology. These have been mysterious wonders for nearly all of written history, and it struck me that I was about to join the legions of travelers that, through centuries, have made the same journey. The enormity of the Great Pyramid and its neighbors makes one forget that they were man-made. Seeing grown men scamper up its blocks like puppies on stairs reminded me how small each of us is in the shadow of history.

While wandering through the pyramids, a sandstorm hit Giza. Although it was mild, the conditions were difficlut to bear. Dust got into everything. If the eyes were at all opened, even but a crack, dust stung them incessantly. Tears turned to mud at each end of the eye and breathing, though through cloth, tasted like dust. Describing the conditins do them little justice; I do not want to ever experience a major sandstorm.

I entered a pyramid at Sappho. The heiroglyphs were nearly perfectly preserved, and still showed the individual scratches of their authors. On one wall, one passage was repeated ad nauseum throughout the inscription. The sarcophagus was still there, opened and eerily empty. Heiroglyphics decorated its inside, which was big enough to lie down in (about 6 feet long and 2 1/2 feet wide). The tombs in Sappho are intricately carved and painted. Many aspects of life and personal character along the nile are depicted, from special ritual to daily life, war to sex, slave to god. I hadn't heard how extensive they are. That night, from Cairo, we left on a train to Aswan. More on that later.

I have been very busy in Bulgaria. When I returned to Bulgaria, I had my work cut out for me. Reports and project proposals had already started coming into my email for peer review and advice, and my own project entered its implementation period. Over the first week after I returned to Bulgaria, I was up late nearly every night working on something and up early for a meeting or deadline. I went to sofia to see a friend off at the airport and deliver the second edition of my Bulgarian folklore books to eager customers.

Egypt

2007-05-04T05:23:00.000-07:00

Having arrived in Sharm-El-Sheik, we checked into a hotel (Hostel for me and Trevor) and walked through the spotless and artifical lamp-lit streets. The famous resort is like a dimented mixture of Las Vegas and Disneyland, with waterfronts. Many of the beaches are privately owned by the adjacent resort-hotels like Movenpick, Hilton and Radisson. After dinner at a Lebanese restaurant (where rolls were baked in an oven next to the tables and served piping hot, seconds from the oven) we prepared for a hike up Mt. Sinai.

Mt. Sinai, where Moses was supposed to have received the 10 commandments from God, is in the middle of the Sinai peninsula, surrounded by little more than desert, camels, Bedouin and a steady stream of tourists. We arrived at the base about 1 AM and began the cold, slow trek to the summit. Just after St. Katherine's Monastary, our guide told us to be quiet in order to keep from disturbing the camels. Throughout the valley, camels were visible in the moonlight. There were so many that their silhouettes appeared as far as the eye could see. We were later told that there were approximately 300 resting there every night. Along the way, Bedouins sold trinkets, camel rides and food at the trailside or in scattered stone huts. After 3 1/2 hours of hiking, we reached the summit. Dawn broke over far ridges and bathed the surrounding mountains in a soft, gentle blanket of light. The landscape of Sinai is some of the most rugged, parched terrain that I have ever seen, however, in that auroral glow, it seemed rather welcoming.

We visited St. Katherine's Monastary after our descent from the peak and visited what was presented to us as the burning bush. The bush, as the legend goes, has been flowering since it burned before Moses. The monastary was built around the holy ground and has been expanded and rebuilt since then. There is a mosque in the monastary as well as a church. Most of the existing buildings at the monastary are several centuries old at least. The monastary sits in the base of a stark valley and contains a garden of palms and vegetables.

After returning to Sharm, I went with Trevor to check in to a reed hut at Shark's Bay, a cove community east of Sharm. After check-in, we rested on benches and sunbathed. We ordered a beer (rare and expensive in the middle east) and walked carefully out on the coral reef. Multi-colored fish and other marine animals darted to and fro in the shallows beneath the waves and curiously peeked out from small caves and tunnels. After awhile, we met in town and had coffee and a good dinner (shwarma and shisha). The next day we gathered in Sharm to relax and wander the bazaars. It was our last day on the sea and we wanted to soak it in. I headed off alone into the city and had a dinner of spicy salad and flaky flatbread. After a night plagued by mosquitoes, we departed for our flight into Cairo and a day at the famous Egypt Museum.

The Egypt Museum in cairo is perhaps the most packed archaeological museum I have ever visited. It is also the most disorganized and cluttered academic institution I have ever seen. Artifacts are placed everywhere and are often unlabeled. Packed artifacts are labeled and placed in the middle of its hallways on the lower level and some that are in the middle of study or preservation serve as benches for the tired egyptian student. Currently, a world-class building for the new museum is under construction in Giza, near the Great Pyramids. The Tutankhamen exhibit was at home and I was able to gaze at the rich sarchophagi and the famous burial mask. I had seen so many pictures of the mask and I was so framiliar with the outside that I looked up into the mask from below. The flaws in metalwork and hammer strikes are still visible on the inside of the mask. The cobra on the top of the mask has a body that extends back to the occipital region, winding back and forth all the way. The museum was filled with artifacts dating through the Pharaonic times to Roman rule. Curiously, I did not see exhibits of artifacts from mideival or more recent Egyptian history. Nobody ever seems to think about the major role the land played in the crusades, the Nepoleanic or more recent World Wars.

Next entry....Egypt to Nubian territory, long bus rides and my recent Bulgarian adventures.

So much in 1 month...

2007-04-19T04:17:00.000-07:00

I realize that I've been remiss in my writing duties. For that I apologize. In the last month, I have been quite a busy dude. I have: written project grants, traveled, planted trees, been in the paper and on TV, given a grammatically flimsy interview, been to sushi, bartered, gambled, eaten Indian food, had dysentery, drunk non-alcaholic beer, rock climbed, dune-jumped, dived, been in a sandstorm, had grants rejected, sat in a sarcophagus beneath a pyramid, sat in front of royalty on a plane, had a grant approved, been hit by a car twice, grown tomato plants, eaten rice and so much more! Where do I begin to write? (ok, relax mom. The car tapped me the first time in the Stara Zagora bazaar, and I just went on eating my falafel sandwich without more than an annoyed glance at the driver. The second time, I hopped over the hood and finished crossing the street. That was in Cairo where it seems like the Taxi drivers aim for pedestrians.)

My multi-national adventure started out with a morning flight to Amman, Jordan from Sofia. We flew within sight of Stara Zagora and I was just able to make out my neighborhood from the plane. The photo, however, did not come out. On the second leg (Istanbul to Amman), I sat in the front of the aircraft amongst a group of Swedish diplomats. Near the end of the flight, I learned that Princess Victoria was one of the attractive and friendly young ladies sitting behind me. None of my friends believed me, as the VIP entourage departed by the time they disembarked from their aft seating on the plane. We headed to Petra, which is an astoundingly historic place. Today, it is probably best known for its appearance in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade as the site of the Holy Grail. Only one of its hundreds of sites is shown in that movie. Petra was inhabited by Nabateans, Macedonians, Romans and others through history. Temples, tombs, sacrafice sites, sculptures and more were everywhere in the rocky valleys throughout the region. I was there for 2 days, but could have easily stayed a week to explore the extremities of the area. I could see Aaron's tomb on a far mountain top, but did not have the time to hike there.

After Petra, we camped in the deserts of Wadi Rum in southern Jordan. Sweeping vistas, towering rock formations, oases, neolithic carvings and Bedouin tents dot the valleys of this region. Most of the desert scenes of Lawrence of Arabia were filmed there. We went to Lawrence's spring and the ruins of the house he stayed in when in the area. From this valley his allied army attacked and captured Aqaba, which is where we headed next. Aqaba is a Jordanian city that has not yet been filled with foreign tourists. Although it has been a vital trading port for millenia and still has spice and clothing bazaars standing on the same plots as their ancient predecessors, the city does not have a public museum. People had come from Amman and all of Jordan to the beach there to enjoy the holiday weekend. From the hotel window, we had a view of the end of the gulf, over the last stretches of Jordan, the intensely developed Israeli coast, and then the cliffs and dry mountains of Egypt. A strong military presence in the city accompanied the entourage of Angela Merkel, who was on a diplomatic visit to the King's residence on the Aqaba waterfront.

From Aqaba, my friends and I took the ferry to Neweba, Egypt. Out the windows, Saudi Arabia crawled by on our left and Egypt on our right. The ferry was supposed to have been the fast ferry, but we waited on the boat far longer than than the 2-hour transit. Our whole trip took more than 4 hours. Upon reaching Egypt, we learned quickly about the cultural difficulties of traveling. We continuously had to haggle for EVERYTHING including transportation. First, we made a deal with a driver who reneged after we went to the ATMs and missed the last bus to Sharm-al-Sheik. We had to re-haggle and eventually settled on a price for drop-off at our hotel. He tried to collect passengers to other destinations along the way (who they had tried to use beforehand as a bargaining tool) but we didn't let them. When we arrived in Sharm, the driver dropped us off kilometers away from our hotel and told us that it was just a few blocks away. I was furious and took charge of the group's payment. We tyold him that since he broke the deal, we would only pay him for part of the journey. He knew he'd lied to us and, seeing three angry, imposing men, accepted.

More on the trip to come in the next post.

Fast food, Festivals, Friends and Fastidious Felines

2007-03-15T03:49:00.000-07:00

Fast food means toasters, duners, or pizza in Bulgaria. My preference has cycled through all three choices while I have lived in the BG. Toasters are patty or cutlet - filled buns crushed and toasted in a sandwich grill. They come with fried onions, lettuce, yoghurt sauce and salad and are the healthier choice. Pizza is a little bit different than the American style by-the-slice variety. Although it is still sold by the slice, Bulgarians are conservative with their pizza sauce, but top their slices (which often include pickles and corn) with a thick layer of mayonnaise and/or ketchup. Duners are the third option, (in Stara Zagora, the most delicious in my opinion) and are the most varied in quality. There are good Duner stands and bad ones; the secret, it seems, is in the sauce. A good garlic sauce and well-crisped meat makes a good duner.

Laundry is a chore over here. That Bulgarians wear the same clothes for multiple days is not surprising considering the work it takes to hand-wash clothes. I have about 9 pairs of underwear, which means that I have to do at least 1 load of laundry a week to keep abreast of the daily demand. When sheets, shirts, jeans and jackets also need washing, the laundry becomes a desperate struggle. Laundermats are not popular, and machines are expensive for Bulgarians. Thus, when a friend kindly offers his/her machine to use, I am grateful. My current problem is drying the clothes. I used to live on the on a nice, breezy hillside with a large, airy balcony. My new apartment is in the stagnant downtown next to the industrial district. If I leave my windows closed, drying laundry takes ages and mold quickly introduces itself across my walls. If I open my windows, soot settles on the whites. Quite a catch-22.

In happier news, I went to Kukeri in Shiroka Luka a couple of weeks ago. Kukeri, some readers might remember, is a fesival of noise to chase bad spirits away in order to properly usher in the fertility of spring. I stayed with a friend about 10 km away in Stoikite and hiked down the mountain to the festival in the morning. What a beautiful country Bulgaria is in the middle of the Rhodolpe Mountains! It was a crisp, sunny morning with the babbling river rushing swiftly next to the road and songbirds calling. I met the Minister of Smolyan District and the Mayor of Shiroka Luka before the festival and enjoyed the festivities with many friends from all over Bulgaria. Although there are other Kukeri festivals in Bulgaria, the festival in Shiroka Luka is famous for its folk music, creative and authentic costumes and of course locally made Rakiya. If I return to Bulgaria later in life to attend a cultural festival again, I will come for Kukeri.

While a friend is in Sofia, I am caring for her cat. Bulgarian domestic cats are wilder than most in America. While American cats are scared if they are feral, Bulgarian cats can be vicious. Of course, I am generalizing. Costa is often a sweet cat, but he will turn on you and attack without warning. He also makes noises that I have not heard from any domesticated cat. I fed him this morning and he rubbed up against me, purring. when I petted him, he was receptive and happy, but then suddenly attacked my hand with an unexpected ferocity and hissed. Scary. From such a little creature, too...

Inside Jokes

2007-02-17T06:04:00.000-08:00

Here are quotes from inside jokes between family or friends over the years. See if you can pick out the jokes/good times that we've shared. Some are in my distant past, and some are in my distant recent. Remember, these are inside jokes, but you might still find the quotes amusing.

"Ok, I'm going over there to hide and you come and find me, ok?"

"I don't know man, she has a Chewie thing going on."

"Louder! bigger!" "Ahe blough mai nouse ein your gen-e-rahl dahe-rection!" "Bigger, BIGGER!" "Yough dou naught fraighten us, yough Ainglish Piegh-doghs!...."

"What would Superman do?"

"I can't go. I have two finals to study for, a paper to write, my country's 500th anneversary to plan, my wife to murder, and Guilder to frame for it. I'm swamped."

"I give them 3 months." (6months later) "I give them 3 months" (1yr after) "I give them...I don't know! and I don't get it!"

"There's nothing you can't cure with white-monkey juice. Go climb a tree."

"No, no! It's pronounced Goo-mie Bears, right?"

"What have I gotta do that I can't spare 15 minutes?"

"What is that?" "Shhhhhh! It's the secret popsicle- and lolliepop-stick burial grounds." "But it's right out in the open." "Well it's still a secret."

"Shut-up Cas. Would you please shut-up?!"

"Shut-up Koubi. Would you please shut-up?!"

"My toenail is severed on three sides" "you're an a**hole!"

"It's a hot night and I'm doing push-ups in nothing but a tool-belt. And I'm drinking Budweiser."

"I'm lonely and my pockets hurt."

"Hope all's well! Heading to the sea and will vomit in a cafe for you!"

"Anna gets around."

"One divided by three is.....Zero!"

"So, after seeing you across the conference table last friday, I have come to several conclusions: 1. You're cheerful, even during meetings. 2. You don't make wandering eye contact very well in said meetings. 3. Or you were avoiding it. 4. The dudes are right."

"I, too, went slumming once."

"I see you have braces. I, too, have braces."

"Haro!"

"Where did you get that cut on your forehead?" "Don't you remember? You threw me across the room last night."

"I would take the high road, but it's too high."

"Mr. Ingrao, you're a genius. Or you don't care about your car-seat. Anything else here for us to pick?"

"It's a non-issue." "What's a non-issue? We have to talk about it and that means it IS an issue." "Whatever, I'm declaring it a non-issue. I can do that."

"If it gets too expensive to feed them, kill and eat the rabbits."

"Did you guys just hootie-hoo that girl?" "HOOTIE-HOO!!!"

"This is the best movie ever. I love this movie, sooo much. (10 mins later) yeah, I don't like this part either. (and 10 mins after) no, you have to look past this at the whole picture. (and 10 more mins) yeah, this movie sucks."

"GUS. Okay, that's perfect. Who's G?" "Well, you know, she should be." "Why?" "well...because of the string, the spot, all that."

"Well, I trust that the KDR radar will take me safely home tonight."

Coming soon: The thrills of fast-food, Bulgarian style

What am I doing?

2007-02-07T12:15:00.000-08:00

My current interests: Working out, Mere Christianity, LOST, Viennese coffee, making fun of site-mates.

Working out:

I have not been running much. When I ran in the cold, I got sick. Consequently, I have decided to keep my runs short (1-2 miles) and spend time in the gymn. I joined a fitness hall that is adequately equipped, cheap, and close to home. Most of the clientelle is younger, but they keep away from me and let me just work out. Once or twice, they have obviously tried to show-off or intimidate, but I ignore their efforts to get and keep my attention. One young man started to punch a bag as I walked by, but he was hitting it with vigor and at angles. His wrists weren't straight, and I told him that if he hits the bag that way, sooner or later he would break them. He was surprised I spoke Bulgarian and asked about me. No problems after that. I lift weights and run 3 or 4 days a week.

Mere Christianity:

Mere Christianity is a pithy, dense book. It has so much meaning and has had such an effect on me that I have taken months to read it. CS Lewis makes so many important points that I cannot ignore, he so plainly and logically discusses what christianity means to him and many thoughtful christians, and it is so important to me as a christian to be careful in my reading, that I have trouble reading too much of it at any one time. Consequently, I read little of the book at any time and think about it frequently and persistently. I will finish it soon, and pass it on. Thanks, Greg, for passing it to me.

LOST:

The television series LOST has become one of my obsessions. I was not interested in the show until last November, when I inherited copies of the first 9 episodes of the second season. I had ignored it, even when friends had raved about the quality of the show. When I was bored one evening and had no other new material, I popped the DVD in and began to watch. It grew on me, and by the 6th or 7th episode, I was hooked. Recently, I borrowed the entire first season from a friend. It cleared up a few points for me, but I'm less taken now with the plot or the characters. It wasn't really necessary to see, though I am glad to have seen it. Not many people seem to really like the characters I do, nor dislike certain characters as much as I do. After having seen the first season, I think the whole group would have killed each other off. The plotholes are more apparent to me. In any case, I'm still looking forward to seeing the rest of the second season. It's a good, safe escape and the scenery is beautiful.

Other stuff:

I have Viennese coffee almost every day at my favorite cafe, and the few minutes of alone-time has almost become ritualistic. My closest friends in Bulgaria have begun to make fun of each other, but in a friendly, comfortable way (most of the time, anyway). Am I the butt of any jokes? Of course I am. More on that later.

Putting on the gloves....

2007-02-01T02:04:00.000-08:00

The chill has arrived. In the last 2 days, the temperature has dropped an average of 12 degrees celsius, freezing puddles and covering trees with thin coats of frost. I awoke last night to the sound of my chattering teeth, so I piled more covers on and turned on the heater (a momentous occasion). The apartment was warmer than ever this morning. I couldn't fall back to sleep. I looked out the window at the cloudy, moonlit sky and watched the moonbeams shift quickly with the racing gaps in the cloudcover. Winds must have been terribly strong, as the entire sky moved with amazing speed.

For a year, I have been trying to work on a recycling/garbage collection system in my city. I have had small meetings and conversations, I have been welcomed by some and maligned by others. All of that was done in the name of health, modernization and progress. My efforts have now officialy been snubbed. The city has placed recycling bins in a few places, but has not emptied them in weeks. They fill with garbage, which is to be expected without an information campaign or at least a bit of advertizing. It's a bit discouraging, but there's hope brewing: some of the youth and children in the community understand the need for recycling and environmental care and are interested in learning about recycling and its social effects. Slowly (little-for-little in Bulgarian), the community might become waste-conscious and change.

In the coming weeks, work will take me back to Plovdiv, Topolovgrad, Varna and other Bulgarian regions I love. I'll be teaching and leading discussions on geology, project design and amnagement, among other things. Gonna be busy. Ciao!

The Grass is Greener

2007-01-15T05:01:00.000-08:00

It has been warm here, and snow has not yet made an appearance in the New Year in Stara Zagora. Snow improves the appearances of the city, and people here have expressed their dissapointment at a winter so far without snow. Skiing in Bulgaria is not going to be great this year. I, myself, feel a bit deprived of a winter wonderland. If it were snowing now, however, the general sentiment would be that the weather is bad and the cause of illness throughout the city.

I took a friend hiking yesterday in the hills behind our lovely city, and we covered perhaps 10 miles of sunny, snow-free terrain. Dogs, cows, goats and squirrels ran about outside and birds chirped from the woods. I can't help but wonder whether the other shoe will drop soon and we will be hit with an impenetrable front of wind and ice. We'll see.

Last week, I visited Stara Zagora Federal Prison, where I sat in on a group therapy meeting of inmates who had a history of narcotics abuse. They were shy, but warmed and gained confidence as the meeting progressed. At the end of the meeting, they asked me exactly what drugs I've tried. I did not want to distance them with a 'none' answer, and I didn't want to invent an inaccurate response, so I tried to slide by with a vague answer about living in Berkeley, which is known for its drug culture, going to school at UC Berkeley and having friends who have been addicts. They were not thrown and repeated the question. I told them that I could understand their experiences, and they were better satisfied. They opened up a bit and shared some interesting anecdotes. The men in this group have been through rough times. More about the group in later dispatches.

Good tomatoes are gone. The mandarin orange season is drawing to a close as well. This is the time of year that canned goods become important due to a lack of produce. Though Stara Zagora has produce year-round, the quality drops and the price climbs. We'll be out of it in 2 months.

Out of the Frying Pan....

2007-01-12T03:23:00.000-08:00

I am in Bulgaria once again after a whirlwind visit to my homeland, the San Francisco Bay Area. I'd forgotten how much I love that place. It was great to see family and friends and to get some long-awaited business done. Some thing I was prepared for, others I did not expect. When I return at the end of this year, I will be looking for a car again - that I expected. The cleanliness of everything - that I expected, but it still surprised me. The absolute waste that pervades US culture - that surprised me, though I have always seen it. How can people throw so much away? How can people spend so much money on simple entertainment? How can real estate be so expensive, even in comparison to average wages?

I am recovering from illness. I developed infections in my sinuses and throat when I got back and have been bed-ridden for awhile. I found mold creeping through the paint in my apartment and I also have bathroom odors from other floors. Quite a nice welcome back to Bulgarian life. This week, I've met good friends for dinner and pow-wowed with my counterparts about good prospects for projects, so life and business here seems to be taking off well again despite the little problems.

Stara Zagora is slowly getting cold, though it is not nearly in the low temperatures it posted last year. The city continues to elude snowfalls and the sun makes almost daily appearances. I have not gone back to my good old cafe "Amadeus" for my Viennese Coffee, but I might this afternoon. That's it for now from this side. Take care and may all who read this have a lucky weekend!

Home for the Holidays

2006-12-18T01:25:00.000-08:00

It has been quite a busy month since my last post. I've been up to my neck in work, moving, cleaning and socializing. Some more of my friends have left for greener pastures in work and life, and my social circles have changed a bit. My new apartment is small but decent. I've put a fair amount of elbow-grease and work into making it homey. Little paint here and there, little linoleum over the concrete, little bit of cleaner and plaster, and it has been transformed into my new digs.

The weather has not cooled as much as I expected. By this time last year it snowed several times and was in the negatives until March. Thick fog invaded the city for a week earlier this month. Walking through the streets was eerie, especially as the concrete blocks emerge from the fog here and there, dripping condensation like in James Bond films. Speaking of 007, I walked to the train station one night to catch a midnight train to Varna. Passing through the park reminded me of the statue garden level in the original 007/James Bond Nintendo game. Angular, communist-era concrete statues emerged right and left from the fog as I made my way, my footsteps speaking in muffled echoes in the dense, quiet night. I walked by a man who was standing with his hands in his pockets looking like a covert contact; that was the guy who would get the knife in the back before 007 would be captured.

I've been working with several development projects in Stara Zagora and advise on others throughout Bulgaria. It is heartening to see how people are happily working to improve their communities and provide opportunity to their neighbors, especially children. One of the projects was an improvement for an archaeological museum and simply requested a media set of a camera/scanner/computer for database purposes. Simple low-cost requests like these can help preserve or even save artifacts from destruction by overhandling or poor storage, though until now funds were unavailable in a developing country like Bulgaria.

I joined friends in Vratsa on November 24th for Thanksgiving. We all pitched in and made a terrific dinner. Our group included a mix of Bulgarians and Americans. One of my friends there, Bojan, is an artist/potter from whom I bought most of my Christmas gifts this year. He was trained in Sweden and is quite skilled. I am a bit concerned about transpoting them back to the USA; we'll see if I can get most it back undamaged. With that said, I will visit the homeland for two weeks and return to Bulgarland on the 4th of January. I'm sure I'll miss her.

Changes

2006-11-16T03:59:00.000-08:00

We enter the winter again at this time of year. The autumn is now cold and grey. Today is sunny, but the wind carries a gnawing chill and heavier clothing is required to keep from shivering. It snowed while I was in Greece, but hasn't since. Leaves are in the midst of falling; the wind blows them in low cyclones across the park and around the main street. Everthing about the the parks at this time of year reminds me of Yuri and Lara walking in the center of Yuriatin in Doctor Zhivago. The city statues, architecture, fur clothing, hard faces, the color of leaves, varying strength of the wind, rosy cheeks and they way people walk all make me think of that movie and that scene. Although this climate is much more temperate, pieces of the Soviet-era style and culture remain alive and/or evident here in Bulgaria.

Though there were serious problems with government and society in the Soviet sphere at that time and though people living under the systems suffered in many ways, I respect some principles of that ideology: common effort, value of intellect, repect for courage, thrift, respect for culture and society. Living in the aftermath of that system of government, however, I see major pitfalls to the ideology, too: seeming efficiency at the expense of originality, quantity at the expense of quality, less attention paid to detail, poor vertical management, little attention given to individuality and resistance to change. Bulgaria seems to be pulling away from the stagnant influence of life under that system, but (as many Bulgarians tell me) Bulgaria needs time and more independant political development to realize its potential as a nation.

Most of the work I'm doing now concerns the development of local NGOs. In one project, I am helping establish a 24-hour hotline for troubled and at-risk youth. I'm cooperating with a youth psychologist who has established a volunteer committee of 4 certified psychologists to be on-call 24-hours a day. A central, toll-free number will dispatch to 4 available GSMs, each manned by the on-call psychologists. We will also create announcements and informational stickers about the hotline and post them throughout the city of Stara Zagora.

On the anneversary of my apartment troubles, I have new ones. I have to move suddenly - my landlord needed to sell the apartment and I have a few days to pack up and vacate. The only problem is cost of the new place and neighborhood. Fortunately, I have people helping me and leads on new places. I may not get what I want, but at least I have a support network to help me through the transition. We'll see what happens.

I'm settling down into small runs in the aftermath of the marathon. My big toe (which was literally capped and ringed by a huge blister) has healed nicely, though my second toe on the right foot has a very colorful nail. No more running-related aches and pains, and my shoes are also fine (they didn't fall apart as I thought they might). I want to keep running but the light has faded by the time I get home and my new digs might be in a bad part of town. I'll find a way to stay fit, regardless.

Well, off to look at the last few apartments before I have to make a final decision. Ciao i priaten den vsichki!

The Athens Classic Marathon

2006-11-09T03:06:00.000-08:00

The Marathon was a unique experience in my life. The unity of my passions in history, fitness, charity, literature, photography, travel and comeraderie (and laziness, too) have rarely if ever been matched by this event. My final, official time was 3 hours, 59 minutes and 45 seconds. Not bad for a first marathon; I beat 4 hours!

I thought about a lot along the course: the parched Mediterranean hills between Marathon and Athens, Phidippidus and why the heck didn't he just ride a horse, my friends running with me (for a few kilometers, literally; I ran with my pal Greg for 3 or 4 Km), the Bulgarian Scouts we were running for, my training, lines from the Iliad, Thucidites, Plutarch and others, about when to snap pictures and more. I brought a disposable camera along with me for the entire couse and have some serviceable snapshots. People around the finish line who cheered me through the marble Pan-Olympic Stadium laughed as I pulled up my camera for the finish-line photo.

I had a very good first half-marathon, finishing 21.1 Km in 1:48:12 or so, about a 3:35 marathon pace. At Km 27 or 28, my muscles uncontrollably cramped in dangerously painful and sudden ways. I promised that I wouldn't let myself push to injury, so I began a stretching-walking-running routine for the remainder of the race. The frustrating part was that from 30.5 K to the end of the race was fully downhill or flat. I wasn't very tired, but if I ran too hard or far, my legs would cramp so intensely that I could not bend them without stopping to walk. I did some unwise things during the race: I drank powerade and ate GU gel in addition to drinking water. All of my training was performed without either methods of electrolyte replacement, and I suspect that my body was simply unused to the extra nutrients. Well, that last 12 Km was just about the hardest running I've ever done.

When I crossed the finish line, all of the pain and effort, the training and anticipation, the days of emotion, the joy of completing such a trek hurt and broke through my chest. I saw my pal Thomas, who finished the race just ahead of me, and wanted to cry (but I was dehydrated and am a big man, hardy har). We walked a bit, then sat and drank water in near silence together. We soon found others in our group and cheered our remaining team-mates as they neared the finish line. I am still amazed at the sincere and universal support the greeks gave runners along the length of the course. People would stand cheering with their children, "Bravo, bravo! Gud Djob! Bravo!" old or young, sometimes in chairs at the side of the road. It gave me energy to see and hear them giving such sincere support.

What an experience.

Marathon, Rain and Sicknes

2006-10-08T07:11:00.000-07:00

It is raining now in Stara Zagora and in most of central/southern Bulgaria. Grey weather has finally come, and with it a forgotten chill. After a hot summer this change is not entirely unwelcome, though it is a harbinger of the piercing cold that is likely this winter. I sat in bed this morning (because of an infirmity I shall reveal shortly) and listened to the patter of drops on the tin flashing around my neighbor's windows. No more birds wheeling about or bats at night, but no more bugs either.

On friday, while I returned to Stara Zagora from my conference in the mountains, I grabbed a bite in Sofia. I felt a bit car-sick in the bus (or bus-sick, rather) but thought nothing of it as I'd travelled for 5 hours. I went to a friend's house for dinner, but couldn't eat it. One would think that hamburgers would simply disappear down my gullet, so obviously something was wrong. I made as graceful an exit as I could, but another friend was stuck in Stara Z and had to stay at my place. Too bad for her - I had just about the worst food poisoning I have ever experienced. I couldn't stop being sick all night and the next day. Though I was camped out on my kitchen bed, I'm sure she was privy to noises from everything I was going through just down the hallway. I guess whatever had insulted my gastro-intestinal tract had done a very thorough job, because my body expelled everything it possibly could. It is Sunday night and I feel far better, though I have the lingering effects of sickness in my system. No more Sofia fast food for me, thank you.

Those who might be interested in donating/sponsoring the Scouts through my Marathoning, please read the clip I've attached from my colleage's email. It explains a bit how to do so. I'll send out an email as well in the next week.

For those of you who have been following the funding struggle thing.
We now have somewhere to put the money! Scouting Europe will accept
the funds through their web portal... now all we have to do is
convince people they want to give support.

As for the tax receipts http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc506.html they
are just as deductible as what PC offers. You should read the linked
tax law (this is my serious face :| ), so you understand. Basically
it doesn't matter unless you itemize your deductions.

As for where to go and how to do it? well here is some preliminary
information, we will redraft the letter that was uploaded earlier.

By credit card, donors can pay on:
http://www.scout.org/donate/
Select "Scouting in the European Scout Region",
Select the currency "EUR, USD, ..",
and mention "World Scout Jamboree 2007, support to Bulgaria and the
name of the donor"

Making sure this information gets out will be up to us, so post on
your blogs or put them in your mass emails...

Thanks for reading everyone, and remember to always flush!

Friends leaving, Marathon nears, eating tomatoes.

2006-10-01T07:55:00.000-07:00

It has been almost a year of service. Many of my American friends here have begun to go back to the United States and readjust. Some are travelling, some are starting school, and some are out of money. These are really good people and I will miss seeing them here. That is life in foreign service/international volunteerism. People come and go quickly all the time. The positive side of this phenomenon is that some very strong friendships form through common problems and experiences. The negative side is that they are transitory, those involved moving to many different places continuously. Living through a year of this has made me write more because I'm afraid of forgetting important events, moments and people in the quagmire.

The Marathon is coming up. I'm not ready yet. I ran a 12-mile run today and felt strong, though I have blisters from running so far, daily. I'll buy new shoes soon so that they'll be broken in by November 5th, The Day of the Marathon. The group I'll be running for/with has started a sponsorship fund. We will give all donations to the Bulgarian Scouts to send a group of 10 scouts to the World Jamboree/100th annevarsary of Scouting in the UK next summer. This should be a magnificent moment in the children's lives, as they have not left Bulgaria before. They are good kids. Some of my friends work with them frequently (weekly or so). I'll include details on how to donate/sponsor in my next blog entry.

Winter is coming. It has started to get cold and the rain comes every afternoon. Tomatoes will soon be scarce, so I am savoring them while I can. I'm fortunate enough to be in a community where fresh produce is available year-round, but it will be expensive and poor quality starting in about 2 months. Walking through the city, one can smell stewing of all sorts and compote-preserves production. Peppers roasted on one corner, figs stewed on the next. Sometines, bonfires roar against the concrete wall of a block apartment with meat or peppers drying a short ways away. I have some that I didn't finish from last winter. Lots of neighbors gave the poor American a jar or two to sustain him. They're generally quite delicious, though I've opened one or two jars that have not matched my tastes.

I bought a jar of Blueberry preserves last fall in Bochkovo, near the monastary, that were absolutely delicious. I can't find anything like them anywhere in the city. I might have to go back that way simply for that product. Well, I'm off but I'll write more soon. Ciao Vsichko!

Monopoly, Donkey Races, a Healthy Dude and Vitosha

2006-09-13T07:50:00.000-07:00

I played Monopoly a few weeks ago with Bulgarian friends. The game was illegal during the communist era before 1991. It was considered to be a filthy capitalist propaganda toy, so it was popular to counterfeit by rebellious teens. The set we played with was completely copied by hand (the British version) in painstaking detail. The money, which counted in the 100s of bills, was hand-made from light cardboard. The set is a testament to the allure of the forbidden. I was thrilled to play on that vintage piece of history.

The bulgarians began the game better than me, as I kept landing on the Income tax and Jail spaces. When it came to trading and purchasing real estate from opponents, my experience and tough capitalist sense for business came through. I bought up the St. Charles Place - New York Ave. side of the board so that they couldn't avoid paying out to me nearly every trip around and put as much of my money as was safe into real estate for those spaces. I also out-bid one of my opponents, paying $2000 for Ventnor so that she could not claim a Monopoly. I eventually won, thanks to my childhood experience playing against my cutthroat sisters. Monopoly is one of the few mediums in which my capitalist greed comes out. Thanks, Uncle Ken, for teaching me to play (I still remember that long night in Martinez and eating too many cookies).

On September 2nd, Gurkovo (a village in the Rose Valley north of Stara Zagora) held its annual donkey races. I went with a group of friends and rooted for two American Peace Corps Volunteers (also friends of mine) participating in the competitions. They were lent a donkey and its cart, which we decorated with a strange fusion of hippie and cowboy memorabalia. We transformed the cart into a Conestoga wagon with a tie-dyed canopy and adorned it with signs for donkey rights. The participants occasionally smacked their donkeys pretty hard to make them go faster, a circumstance that we all felt warranted some good, old-fashioned American peaceful protest. The participating volunteers wore cowboy hats with tie-dyed shirts and bandanas. The donkey was draped with a super-freaky, hippie-style sheet. The Bulgarians seemed to love it.

The competitions included a cart-race, a bare-back donkey race, a donkey pull (like a tractor pull but with donkeys and carts - this was my favorite event), a donkey football (aka. soccer) match and a donkey beauty competition. The MCs also named a King and Queen donkey of Bulgaria. What a great day.

At the end of the day, my friends and I went to a nearby river to camp. I built a campfire and we cooked dinner on the fire, had some wine, sang, talked, joked, wrestled, roasted marshmallows which are nearly non-existent in Bulgaria, and slept under the stars. We were even visited by coyotes (called "Chakali" here) throughout the night. It was back to work on Monday.

I went to Sofia last week for all of my medical checkups. It looks like I have a filling or two that need to be repaired, which I'm very happy to have done. My dentist here is Swedish/Bulgarian, and is just nuts. He is also a terrific dentist. When I looked at a postcard from Stockholm on his wall after a checkup and identified Gamla Stan, he erupted in joy and a flurry of questions. We talked about Stockholm for too long, cutting into the beginning of his next appointment. What a jovial and friendly man. I'll be back for the filling repairs in late September.

I had some routine TB tests and blood tests which I had to wait for results on, so I stayed the weekend in Sofia and went hiking on Vitosha, the 2,500-meter mountain just south of the city. It is beautiful and clean, with views accross the plains to the Balkan, Rila and Rhodolpi Mountains. The villages that sit on the mountain slopes have outdoor cafes and small markets with friendly people. On the way back down the mountain, an old man lay accross the trail. I helped him to his feet with my friend Sarah and asked what was wrong. His name was Philip. He said that he had been in the hospital and was sick with a cyst in his neck. He threw away some empty plastic bottles he had been carrying, saying that he would buy more. Generally, I see these filled with wine and/or Rakiya. He had been drinking and was VERY drunk. We asked for some help from some passing hikers, who finally called an ambulance and had him taken back to Sofia.

The other hikers walked with us down to the next village and invited us to sit for lunch. We ordered a round of Buffalo yoghurt with honey, which was delicious. We talked about mountain teas and honey, youghurts, places to go in Bulgaria, and drunk old men on Vitosha (there seem to be plenty) who are nearly always jolly, as Philip was. When we parted company in downtown Sofia, I realized that we had spent a terrific afternoon and evening together but had not even exchanged names.

On monday, after I found out that I'm a fit, healthy and strapping young man, I headed back to the beautiful city that I now call home. I came to Stara Zagora for the first time a year ago today. I have learned so much about the city, I've met and made so many friends here and there is so much to do that I wonder at what my life has been for this last ride around the sun. I also think about my friends and family back in the States, and I feel a bit of guilt for not being there, knowing about your lives for that time. Just know that you are in my heart and thoughts, and I miss you.

Summer Camp

2006-08-30T05:30:00.000-07:00

I spent the last 10 days on the staff of a summer camp for the Children's Parliament of Stara Zagora. I have been to a number of summer camps over the years in the United States, but was surprised by the Bulgarian style of summer camp. The campers here were very well behaved, though there were some cases of "Mamba" in some of the rooms at night. "Mamba" is when a stealthy camper applies toothpaste to a victim's nose in his or her sleep. The 50 campers ranged from 7 to 19 years old. The younger kids gave their extra food to older kids and the older kids helped the younger ones with washing clothes, keeping rooms clean, etc.

The last night of camp, I stayed up with the older campers to have a bonfire (starting around 2AM). They didn't want to go to sleep, but the director finally came out and told everyone to go to bed. I got to sleep after 4, but was up, packed and eating breakfast by 8:30. I'm still pretty tired from that after a couple of days. Probably the most impressive group activity of the camp was a 8-hour, 15 mile hike up to Rai, the tallest waterfall in Bulgaria. The entire group participated, and the children were surprisingly well behaved. There were very few complaints from the group.

Well, I am pretty tired and not writing especially well, so I'll provide more detail later. Good night, everyone!

Apartment, Birthdays, Pie and Rakiya

2006-08-13T05:14:00.000-07:00

After a long day of work and a long walk uphill, I arrived home on Tuesday to a hallful of shouting Bulgarians. I thought, "Geez, somebody riled them up" as I fumbled with my keys. At my door, I heard spraying water and my hair stood on end. I quickly opened my door and the shouting people, who had just seen me, were already there. "Where have you been?!" "What did you leave on in there?" and "The stupid American has flooded the place" were some of the things I heard. I rushed in, saying, "I didn't leave anything on, a pipe must be broken," in my best Bulgarian. The incoming pipe to my boiler (waterheater) had burst and the water shot into the hallway, flooding my kitchen, hall and storage closet. In the corner of the kitchen, the water was over 2 inches deep. I turned off my water and let the neighbors see what had happened. When they saw that it wasn't my fault, the started laughing and patted me on the back. We called my landlord, who rushed over to help me dry my things out and clean up. Rust, lime and sand from the pipelines had been thrown all over, but we cleaned everything up pretty well. In the end, only my cookbook and some Bulgarian homework was damaged. The line was repaired the next morning. No problems now. My bulgarian nieghbors are more friendly now, and they casually wave instead of stare. Big step, I'll tell ya.

The last few days, I've spent test-driving my baking again. My friends Jessie and Larry each had a birthday this last weekend, so we celebrated with a party. I made the desserts. One of the terrific things about Stara Zagora is that seasonal fruits are cheap. I bought peaches for cobbler and Raspberries for pie. The Peaches were 80 stotinki (50 cents) /Kg, and the Raspberries were 3leva ($2)/Kg. I bought a kilogram of Raspberries. Yeah, wow. The Raspberry pie was a great success (about12-in in diameter and 2 inches deep) and the cobbler was delicious. I also brought my host-father's homemade Rakiya, which the group happily drank. Larry made terrific chili and Jessie made the cornbread, which was also great. Everybody was happy, which is important on birthdays.

In other Alex news, I was just granted the title of "Pharaoh" for the first time in my life, and I saw junebugs mating this morning. I'll be off in the mountains next week for the Stara Zagora Children's Parliament summer camp, so I may be out of touch for a bit. I miss all of my friends and Family. Take care, all!

The weekend

2006-07-30T09:09:00.000-07:00

Friday night was lonely. After having had friends and my sister about me for so long, I was alone. It began with a run, though I was a bit sick from some food poisoning in the morning/afternoon. Rain fell in buckets from a blue-grey sky that had been clear just hours before. I took care of my site-mate's cat (Costantine - Costa) and headed home after 10. Down the street from my apartment, I found the body of the kitten I have been feeding for weeks. It was drenched from the rain, but when I put a plastic bag around it to carry it from the street I felt that it was still warm. Although the kitten had been one of the many strays in the area, it was solitary and precious and friendly towards me. I took care of it Saturday.

I met some friends on Saturday for coffee, met a local youth leader to talk about ideas for activities, projects, and his plans in education. Afterwards, I ran, climbed a hillside, studied a bit of Bulgarian, and went to see about Costa. I stayed at his apartment while my laundry finished, and watched Edward Scissorhands. Years ago, I committed a cinematic sin - I passed judgement on this Tim Burton film after having seen only a small portion of it. My sister Victoria told me since that it is a beautiful movie, but I believed it to be silly because of the few odd scenes I'd watched. How wrong I was! Tim Burton's movies are mythic and wonderous. One should never watch them except in their entirety. What a hauntingly curious tale, explaining something so simple - snow! This is how I want to tell stories.

During the night, I had a terrible dream that a friend was in trouble. Something sinister had come, siezed my friend and carried him/her towards certain peril. I tried to save my friend, pushing through forgotten obstacles and rushing to their aide. I was frantic, trying to power my way towards the unknown evil, breaking my arm in the process. I remember arriving somewhere to find everything tranquil and settled. My friend was in no danger after all, and found my anxiety amusing. I woke up shaking, still feeling the anxiety. I rarely experience such intense emotion in dreams. It was unsettling. After awhile, I went back to sleep.

Today, I woke up late to a phonecall. I ran several miles before I finished my laundry and met my landlady in town to pay rent and talk. I worked or re-writing my project for local Kindergartens and Schools, and looked after Costa. Tomorrow, I will go to the local District government and see if my request for community contribution to the project was or will be approved. I have asked for about 900 Leva ($600). Off to cook supper and then sleep.

Victoria, Steve, Istanbul

2006-07-28T07:31:00.000-07:00

I was blessed these last weeks with visits from my sisterVictoria and my good friend Steve. Victoria came on Saturday the 15th and stayed until the 26th. She is pretty darn pregnant, and brave to have made this trip. I'm so glad, however, that she came. She's the first of my family to visit me, and can tell everyone else about my life here. She's observant, perceptive and smart, and I'm sure that she saw aspects of my personality, life here and Bulgaria that I have not. It was just good to have her here, too. Although I had to work a lot, she was gracious enough not to schedule her time around my duties so that I could see her and spend time with her. I took her to a couple of Bulgarian dinners with friends (Na gostis) where she pleasantly sat through hours of my poor translating. I had to go back to Camp GLOW to help with an ecology lesson on Wednesday the 19th. I was able to meet Victoria Veliko Tarnovo and get her into a nice pension before heading back to Stara Zagora. She also visited Kazanluk, Plovdiv, Sofia and Stara Zagora.

We met my friend Steve in Istanbul on Saturday the 22nd. Istanbul is a beautiful city, full of zealous shopkeeps and friendly cityfolk. We stayed at the Side Pension, a short walk from both the Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque; a tarrace on the roof had views of each. We took a cruise up the Bosphoros (cow-crossing in homage of Io) to the strongholds protecting the entrance to the Black Sea. The rich villas and maritime nature of both the European and Asian coasts of the strait reminded me of Sausolito/Tiburon. The architecture, waterside cafes and thick presence of yachts are similar. We were lucky with weather, which was slightly cloudy, which brought down the temperature yet shed no rain.

It was great to see Steve. He is a smart, relaxed guy and was a joy to talk to. Victoria had a great time with him, too. He's the first of my fraternity brothers to visit me, and helped me remember some of the joys of college friendship. Although neither of us is too nostalgic (and don't want to really become so) we were happy to see each other and talk a bit about the past. He just finished a PhD in cryptology at MIT and will soon begin work at a great internet company in the west bay. I haven't forgotten how great a guy he is, but I didn't realize how good it would be to see him. I'm so glad he was able to visit.

We came back to Bulgaria by night train on Monday morning, spent the morning in Stara Zagora, and arrived in Sofia on Monday night. After walking around Sofia for awhile, Victoria went back to Hostel Mostel while Steve and I went to 'the Candle Bar' for a drink. I don't know the real name of the place, but it is the small, hidden bar that I wrote about before. On Tuesday, we went to Rila Monastary, which is beautiful but far away from Sofia. Both Victoria and Steve left on Wednesday.

I was sad to part with both my sister and my friend. It's in times like this that I get a bit homesick. I don't miss the USA much, but I miss my friends and family. A warm greeting to all from me, still here in Bulgaria.

Lots of Travel and Mousquito Bites

2006-07-08T11:56:00.000-07:00

I'm back in Stara Zagora after Outward Bound leadership/Instructor Training in Maliovitza (Rila Mountains) and work in Varbitsa with kids. It will be good to step back in my own door and water my parched Tomato plant, not to mention clean my auromatic clothes. I bought new running shoes and some Teva-like sandals to replace the discolored and foul-smelling shoes I had in the wet mountains.

It was good to re-discover the lessons in leadership that I've studied throughout my life but haven't thought about in so long. My Outward Bound team was comprised of 9 people, full of different kinds of experience and style, who worked together well and shared generously. We played games and practiced blindfolded partner-leading (hard to explain) to build trust in the early sessions. We went on an expedition to the peak of Maliovitsa (~8,500 ft) and learned/practiced orienteering. In the last days, we rock-climbed and learned to set up ropes courses. I re-learned how to climb trees. How refreshing the whole experience was!

After that, it was off to Varbitsa, a small village in eastern-central Bulgaria to work at a children's day camp. I taught basic martial arts to the kids (Basically, how to make a fist, protect your face and head, maintain balance, and take small steps to move. Plus easy punches and kicks to maintain attention). The kids invited me on a walk into their mountains which are the eastern foothills of the Old Mountains (Balkans). Playing football with the kids, I skinned my knee up pretty badly. It started as a small problem but soon began to gush blood. The nurse insisted on treating it herself, so I was relegated to patient status (and I hate that). I took really good care of it and tried to keep it from the kids' view, but they really wanted to see my treatment. Se la vie. I have to go, but more later.

Runnin' Around With Kids.

2006-06-14T06:06:00.000-07:00

Last week, a Peace Corps Volunteer statined in Plovdiv supervised a day camp for about 50 children at a primary school in the Mahala (Roma Neighborhood) of the city. She invited me to participate and help run the camp. The children were shy on the first day, but enthusiastically opened up and interacted with all of the teachers and volunteers. They listened, behaved well (for the most part), and participated in each activity. They were so energetic, it was difficult to pay attention to every child who wanted to talk or hold hands or share a hug. We played Sharks and minnows, capture the flag, partner tag (aka hook tag), Basketball (with steel-welded hoops about 4 ft. high), football (soccer), and other games. The kids enjoyed tie-dying, ornament painting, and other crafts. On wednesday, we took the kids to a field where we met JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) volunteers who taught then baseball.

Many of the children had never experienced a day camp or such directed positive attention from adults. Their burst of enthusiasm every morning when we entered their schoolyard was touching. In the US, I worked at day camps where children were often bored or uninterested in many activities. What a contrast.

The other camp I'm helping organize (Camp GLOW) is dangerously low in funding. This is a different camp, serving an older, more diverse crowd. The campers are girls who have the experience and resources to excel in their communities as leaders. The organizing committee had to find a new venue for the camp, increasing the costs per capita. Please, if there is a way to contribute even $10 (or indeed anything), it would help us immensely. Again, visit http://www.campglowbg.org to donate (tax deductible).

On a lighter note, the Festival of Roses took place in Kazanluk, the capital of the Valley of the Roses in early June. Italian opera singers, local pop artists, Russian, Macedonian and Bulgarian folk dancers, and others performed on a communal stage. Low-flying aircraft dropped rose oil and petals along the main street while residents cheerfully watched local and international groups parade down the main street. The local rose oil is known throughout the world and is used in some of the most famous perfumes (Calvin Kline, Chanel, Chantel, etc.).

I will attend Outward Bound counselor training in two weeks, to become a certified instructor. I'm looking forward to the week in the mountains and the change in work. I miss everyone back home, and am planning a short trip home later this year. Ciao, all.

Rough Weekend, but Fun and Productive

2006-05-23T00:46:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, I cleaned the apartment, went to a graduation, and saw a friend off home. Saturday morning, I got up and went to catch a bus to Veliko Turnovo at 5AM. In VT, I went to a meeting of volunteers working for Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World). It is a camp didicated to women's rights and education, teaching girls who will be instrumental in Bulgaria's development in the future. Because girls' groups are generally given fewer resources in this country, activities and organizations like this one are important to addressing educating girls about women's issues.

Actually, the camp is a bit under-funded. If anybody can donate any sum, it would be instrumental in making the camp a success. If you cannot donate, please tell friends who might be able to give a bit (Tax-deductible: see website) to the camp. Here is the contact address (in english):

http://www.campglowbg.org Please at least pass on the link.

After the meeting, I caught a bus to Sofia and met a Mormon missionary that I'd first met in Plovdiv some months ago. She was on her way home with her parents, who were finishing a trip around the world. They are very nice, caring and intelligent people. I had a terrific time talking to them. I arrived in Sofia and finally got to sleep at about 11PM.

On Sunday, I met Peace Corps Volunteers for an annual Softball Game with JICA (the international volunteer corps of Japan). We all had a terrific time (we lost 4-3). I made a fielding error but had some good hits. Our team played well for people who'd been away from baseball for a long time. The Embassy team played like softball pros. They must practice. Ambassador Beyrle had a couple of good hits/plays. Afterwards, I ran into a friend from high school and sat for a drink in the city center next to the Dramatic Theatre. It was really good to see him.

As I came back to Stara Zagora, the bus I was riding on lost a wheel. I helped the driver retrieve it from the fields (those wheels are REALLY heavy) but we had to wait for almost 3 hours for a replacement bus to arrive. When I finally got home, I was dirty, hot, dehydrated and tired. I tried to do some work, but it was too much. My friend Courtney called and asked to crash, so I gladly went home to clean and nap. She came in and I put her up in the kitchen. We crashed after talking a bit.

Thus closed my rather eventful weekend. I'm glad to be back at work. Tomorrow is Kyril and Methodi Day, a holiday celebrating the Cyrilic Alphabet. The Children's Parliament is marching in the parade, and I think I'll be marching with them.

Ciao, da postle! (See you later!)

Back from the Dead.....

2006-05-05T01:04:00.000-07:00

Well, I know it has been quite a while since my last post. For that, I'm sorry.

So much has happened in the last month, it is difficult to organize my thoughts into a coherent chronology. Foreign service time is commonly acknowledged to be relative at best. So are the experiences that fill the time.

I threw a birthday party for a friend at my apartment in Stara Zagora a few weeks ago. It was intended to be for a small group, but I love all of my comerades (drugaryoo na Bulgarski) too much not invite them. There were several problems that ensued. My apartment is basically two rooms: a living/bedroom and a kitchen. The weather in Stara Zagora has been volatile as well. Consequently, my heater was turned on the day before the party. The heater (because it is a thermal cinder-block heater) did not cool down before the party. It might have been OK if there had only been the 4 intended people at the party, but in the end about 13 came bringing with them their bulk and body heat. Thus, the twin problems of space and room temperature made it a very close party. Which wasn't necessarily bad....

I wanted to make it a memorable night, with so many of my close friends visiting my home for the first time. I decided to make a delicious dinner. For appetizers I served two kinds of olives, bruschetta, nuts, brie and crackers and fruit. They were well-received, though the brie didn't last. The entree was lasagne served with home-made garlic bread and salad (my friend Jessie brought a delicious salad). For dessert, I served a irthday cake. The cake was filled with a orange/peach sauce that didn't gel properly but which tasted pretty good; the frosting had a strange texture secause powdered sugar is not very fine over here. I also served a dark chocolate fondue with strawberries, apples, banannas and peach (which disappeared immediately). I was told that it was a good dinner.

Last weekend, I took my first international trip since I arrived in Bulgaria. I went to Athens and the Island of Aegina with Susan and Julia. It rained periodically in our first two days in Athens, but the weather didn't diminish the beauty and deep meaning of the city. I walked around in awe as I studied the building I've read about in so many books and seen in so many pictures and films. What does it mean to 'see' a wonder of the world? The Acropolis, Agora and other ruins are magnificent to see; not just because of their size, history or beauty. They are made of stone and continue to stand, though their creators have long since returned to dust. 2,500 years ago, when they were newly built, they must have commanded a certain awe from pilgrims. I kept thinking of a quote from Gladiator when the slaves first see the colosseum, "I did not know that men could build such things."

Aegina is a retreat from the smell and noise of Athens. The island is still a tourist destination, though it is visited by locals as much as foreigners. It is a bucolic pearl sitting in the blue gulf of Corinth. From the temple of Aphaia on a high ridge on the eastern side of the island, one can gaze westward agross the gulf to Salamis, where the combined Greek navy defeated a Persian fleet in one of the most decisive naval battles in the Hellenic world. Eastward, the view of the costline and the Aegean sea hearkens images of triremes and the homecoming of ancient heroes. The air is sweet on Aegina, perfumed by orchards of olive and pistachio trees and mixed with salty sea mist. Pistachios from the island (for which Aegina is known for among the Greeks) are strong but nearly dissolve on the tongue. I wish I'd bought more of them.

Spring has come.

2006-03-31T01:35:00.000-08:00

The weather has warmed to a gentle mediterranean spring. Stara Zagora is blooming. People have peeled from their bulky winter clothing and are donning darker sunglasses. Yesterday, I awoke to an amazingly clear view from my window. I could see over the city and across the Thracian Plains to the distant Rhodolpies, some 60-80 kilometers away. Trees have sprouted blossoms of all colors. The municipality has planted flowers throughout the city parks. People's moods have lightened with the weather; it seems as though the entire city has taken one deep, common, healthy breath together that ended in a smile.

Some of my friends in Stara Zagora are traveling throughout the Balkans right now. Destinations include Belgrade, Serejevo, Croatian coastal towns and other places. I'll get out myself at the end of the month to Athens. For now, however, Bulgaria is as pleasant a land as anywhere.

Nikolaevo and Margaret

2006-03-23T03:04:00.000-08:00

Margaret is visiting this week during her spring break! What a joy to finally spend time with her after all of this time!

And now, to conclude the Nikolaevo races....
As you may remember, the racers galluped towards the finish line and the crowd went wild. Three were out in front, but their relative positions were difficult to determine. The racer in the center gradually fell behind the two on the sides. I tried to get a picture of the finish, but I misjudged the speed of the horses. A cheer rose from the crowd as the winner sped past far sooner than I'd thought he would. He raised his arms in triumph and the other contestants whipped their horses in disappointment. He received his awards from the mayor in a brief ceremony, after which the men informally raced several times. On the last race, a horse tripped, stumbled and almost fell by the side of the road. He regained his footing and sped off to follow the other horses, already disappearing into the distance and the mist. The spectators moved en masse back into the town, the crowd slowly dissolving along the main road.

Margaret arrived last Wednesday. I had intended to meet her at the airport at about 1:45, but her connections were confounded by American Airlines and she was delayed until about 8:30 that night. I was already at the airport when she finally contacted me, so I simply took the bus into Sofia and enjoyed the city for a while before meeting her at 8:30. The airline had also lost her baggage, so we had to wait in Sofia another day. We met some of my friends for lunch and dinner the next day, and Margaret seemed to enjoy strolling around the city in the meantime. On Saturday and Sunday, we visited my host-family in Septemvri and went to Plovdiv. On Monday, we went to Bochkovo Monastery and hiked in the mountains behind Bochkovo to a secluded church and shrine to Mary. There was still snow on the ground back in the valleys and springs almost leapt from holes in the canyon walls.

The Nikolaevo Horseraces

2006-03-13T07:10:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, I went to a small village called Nikolaevo to watch traditional horse races. Participants rode from a nearby village bareback on their horses to a finish line outside of town. My pal Greg and I clearly stood out from the other bystanders, who were Roma and Turkish. The purse was 100 leva and a one-month supply of horsefeed. That is several weeks salary for the participants.

The day was cloudy with intermittened showers. Approximately 250 people showed up to watch the race, from a town of about 2000. They waited eagerly for an hour or so while the contestants rode off one-by-one to the starting line 5km away in the next village. We waited in the wind and rain, eagerly searching for the horses in the distance. The horses appeared several kilometers down the road and the onlookers went nuts.

Must work now. I will revise this in the next few days with the end of the story....

Skiing, Volleyball and Kukeri

2006-03-07T03:59:00.000-08:00

After a conference for Project Design Management last Monday and Tuesday, I traveled to Stoykite, a small village in the Rhodolpi Mountains near Smolyan. I spent time with other volunteers discussing work, life and goals. We visited an orphanage/home for at-risk youth in Stoykite and spent time with the children there. We talked with them, played volleyball (my team went 2-2 I think), and skied. The children have a small slope in town to ski on. On Friday, I put on skis for the first time in 10 years. I embarassed myself, but the kids loved it.

On Saturday, we all headed to Pamporovo for a full day of skiing. It was a beautiful day, and the snow was perfect. Pamporovo has world-class slopes, though they were packed all day. I got my ski legs back and was taking all of the runs pretty well by quitting time. I only fell once, when a kid cut in front of me on a red run and I had to avoid him. I was going too fast anyway for my skill level. What can I say? "I feel a need....the need for speed!" Those kids are amazingly good at skiing, and jump all over the runs with grace and agility. And it's great to see them having such a good time, happy to share it with foreigners like myself.

On Sunday, I hiked with some friends down to the town of Shiroka Luka for Kukeri, a spring festival to scare away evil spirits for the planting season. My friend Dave posted a message on the board about a month ago for the same festival in Pernik. Shiroka Luka's is supposedly the oldest Kukeri, and the village is small enough to really experience it in a small community setting. The men of the town dress up in hairy costumes with tall hats, huge cow bells called hlopki, they wear various masks, they carry wooden swords, paint their faces and dance around in the streets. The bells raise a clamor that can be heard echoing through the vally for kilometers. The noise is meant to scare evil spirits from the valleys. The festival has specific roles for some of the participants: a bride and groom lead the main procession through the streets, a bear and bear keeper follow in the middle of the procession, and representatives from nearby places. There were groups in the festival that represented England, Ireland, Russia, the EU and other countries. When I asked some of the locals why they dressed in traditional clothing for other countries, they said, "We chase away evil spirits for everyone. We're celebrating for good luck in the next year for everyone, not just for us here!"

Stay tuned for more, and pictures from the festival.

Rilas, Schizophrenic Weather and Clothes

2006-02-23T00:35:00.000-08:00

The weather here in central Bulgaria has been erratic. After a cold snap in early February when it didn't snow, it warmed for a few days and felt like spring was here. Snow fell again a few days later in large flakes and stuck for a while, turning into the slush that gets everywhere. Last weekend, it warmed up considerably and has stayed that way through this morning. This is the first day in a while that I've left my scarves at home. I tried to do laundry during the cold snap in a desperate moment, but the clothes froze on my clothesline and in my kitchen. I used the heater daily to thaw and dry the chosen outfit for the following day.

Speaking of clothing and weather, I bought snowclothes last week for my then-imminent trip to the Rila mountains, knowing that jeans and sweaters just wouldn't cut it. The items I bought would have been 3 to 4 times as expensive in the United States. At first I thought they were counterfeit. I registered my North Face jacket with its proper serial number, though. They worked perfectly in the snow, too. I would guess that since they have small defects (the stitching in the pocket was incomplete - but it's fixed now! Thanks for teaching me, mom!), this may be where minorly defective products are sent to be sold.

Which brings me to the trek up to Seven Lakes in the Rila Mountains. I went with three friends, two of whom have snowshoed before and are quite good. One is an instructor for Outward Bound. We left from Sofia and traveled by bus through Dubnitsa and Spalna Bania before taking a Taxi up the mountain to the staging area. The Taxi was cheap - approximately $9 total, with tip, for 4 people, a 13-mile drive with an elevation gain of maybe 2,000 feet. We geared up and hiked to the Hija over the course of about 2 hours. The climb was at least a couple of thousand feet, some of the hiking through loose snow and powder. Our trail was mostly groomed, though. While at the Hija, we shared food, beer, stories and had a generally great time together. On our second day there, we hiked up to the lakes on the ridge and enjoyed the crisp, amazingly white and beautiful scenery. I have never been snowshoeing before except in Yosemite, when and where I didn't really need the snowshoes. This trip would have been impossible without them.

We used plastic tarps for sledding. On my last run, I was determined to break my speed record from earlier in the day. I was going so fast, I could feel my back getting warm from the friction. At the bottom of the slope, I hit a small indentation in the snow fairly hard. It hurt, a lot. I bit my tongue, chipped the crest of my lower left canine and bruised my butt pretty badly. Serves me right, I suppose: pride cometh before the fall (or the indentation of packed snow in this case). The entire trip was profound. The exercise, beauty, friendship and education I experienced in these few days I shall not forget.

Project Development and Bankiya

2006-01-30T05:18:00.000-08:00

In the past several weeks I have been trying to get a clear idea of the types of projects that the Children's Parliament is hoping for and/or willing to execute. The Association for Health and Morality in Stara Zagora, another NGO I'm working with, is slowly developing programming that might become sustainable without foreign assistence. The Children's Parliament is on course to do so as well, especially with the active and enthusiastic core of individuals (both youth and adult) that the group maintains. One important part of their developing programming is international outreach. We are learning together how to access the European Union / European Comission funding that supports such efforts throughout Europe, with the intention of hosting and attending exchanges. They are also interested in similar exchange programs with American institutions, though American programs are commonly more expensive and require greater efforts in planning and language-learning.

I attended a training conference in Bankiya last week that focused on NGO/NPO development in Bulgaria. Some of the interesting lectures involved grant writing for the European Union/European Commision funding programs, youth education in leadership and teambuilding, teaching English as a foreign language and encouraging networking and cooperation in the NGO and private sector. All of the lectures were informative and helped me understand how I can direct my service here to become more efficient and helpful. I still don't really know how best to include friends and family back home besides writing and maintaining contact.

The trip to Bankiya was also social, and reunited many friends. I went to dinner nightly with Peace Corps Volunteers and talked about service. Knowing that the difficulties and frustrations I have faced daily happen to others makes service in foreign lands less frustrating and stressful, especially when I can laugh at those problems with my friends, uninhibited by language or social barriers. We decided as a group to run the Marathon/Athens marathon in November, and use it as a fundraiser for the Scouts of Bulgaria. We hope to raise enough money to send a group of Bulgarian Scouts to the World Jamboree and 100th anneversary of Scouting next year in England. (Scouting Bulgaria includes both boys and girls) My training program for the Marathon begins at the beginning of March, though I am exercising now in anticipation of the 8-month training.

I traveled alone on Saturday to Sofia, where I wandered the streets ducking in and out of bookshops, fruit and nut bazaars, Kafes and churches before heading to Chirpan. I stayed in Chirpan with my friend Trevor on Saturday. We ate dinner and went to the discoteka with Mitch (from Gurkovo) and Melody (also Chirpan), and danced until 4 in the morning. Once in a while, it's good and fun. I arrived home yesterday and slept until work today.

That's life here in Bulgaria right now. Tune in next time to hear about the weather, comatose flies, laundry freezing on the line and mountain climbing. Ciao, do postle!

Birds and Representatives

2006-01-11T13:21:00.000-08:00

One of my closest friends over here works for Green Balkans (Zeleni Balkani), an environmental NGO with offices in Stara Zagora. I attend their volunteer meetings every Tuesday evening. I was invited on Sunday to help feed their birds at their bird rehabilitation facility, the only one in Bulgaria. Let me reassure everyone that I was very careful to keep clean, I wore gloves for everything, and I took multivitamins and vitamin C before and after the experience to bolster my immune system. No avian flu for me, thank you!

The rehab facility sustains over 50 birds that include buzzards, hawks, harriers, owls, pelicans, storks, gulls, a plover, eagles, herons and more. Most of the birds are injured wild birds, but some have been injured so badly that they are unable to return to the wild. Perhaps the most impressive bird at the facility is a very wild griffon vulture that has a wingspan of 8-9 feet. When passing his meat through the chain-link fence, he aggressively snapped through the wires and dragged the chunks through with a primeval vigor. The pelicans we fed ate several pounds of fish each, and went after the buckets with comical enthusiasm. It was fascinating to feed and watch the birds eat in such close proximity. And yes, several days later I feel fine.

On Monday, I traveled to the Embassy in Sofia to attend a short reception for a delegation from the House Agricultural Committee. I had a short conversation with Rep. Goodlatte of Virginia about agriculture and ground pollution/water contamination in Bulgaria. One of my friends had a good conversation with her home congresswoman, Rep. Herseth of South Dakota, about children's programs. I had wanted to talk more about Peace Corps programs and activities in Bulgaria, but it seems that it was not on the delegation's agenda. After pinballing through the reception, the delegation departed for a briefing. It was an enlightening experience.

A friend's work:

2006-01-05T07:26:00.000-08:00

Part of my job in this land is helping fellow volunteers on their projects. Sometimes that includes helping publicize their projects. One of my site-mates here in the great city of Stara Zagora works with a home for the disabled. I've met the ladies involved in the project and they are all very sweet and lively (they were with me). Their wares are hand-crafted, high quality, and authentic Bulgarian. Indeed they are somewhat trendy and some of the items are guaranteed to draw the attention of American men. If you're looking to support a worthy cause and/or sport Bulgarian style, this is your ticket! And you'll get into Heaven, too. What a deal; you can't go wrong!

WWW.handknitcrafts.com (Dudes out there, check it out!)

The following is a message from Larry, the super-Volunteer of whom I spoke:

For the past year I’ve been working with a group of disabled women living in the Home for the Handicapped in Stara Zagora (a city in central Bulgaria). The women are craft knitters and, as a part of a SPA Project (SPA = Small Project Assistance; this is a grant through the Peace Corps), we have created a web site to sell their products online.

Each woman’s short biography is posted along with our catalog of offered products. Our intent is to personalize the buying experience as much as possible. Upon receipt of an order, the customer will receive a confirmation letter (email) telling them which woman will knit their product and when it will be shipped. The customer can ask for modifications to the product and can correspond with the knitter by email. We accept all major credit cards.

Shipping to America is FREE via BulPost and we have an overnight service available, at the customer’s expense, with lower rates than DHL, UPS or FedEx.

Our web address is:

WWW.handknitcrafts.com

Regards,
Larry Gemmell
Community and Organizational Development,
Peace Corps Volunteer
Stara Zagora
lhgemmell@mac.com

The New Year

2006-01-02T06:13:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to everyone, or "Chestito v Nova Goudina!"

I chose to stay in Stara Zagora to celebrate the New Year with my fabulous site mates. To mark the occasion, I decided to cook Indian food for the entire group. It has become very important to me to share life with my friends here. Larry, Jessie, Matt, Jennifer and I met in the early evening at Larry's apartment near the city center. I had spent time preparing potatoes, dressings, and chopping vegetables at may apartment to bring to Larry's to cook (so that the food would be fresh and hot when served). I made a sweet/spicy tomato chili mustard sauce (which worked well), chicken spiced rice (which worked), breaded chicken curry (which was pretty good), mint/green pepper/coriander sauce (which was too tart, but good on the rice), potatoes and yoghurt, and a coconut laurel steak (which didn't work - I forgot the laurel leaves), and my plans for Naan bread didn't work - I ran out of time. Still, I'm proud of the dinner, and my friends seemed happy.

The celebrations at midnight lasted for over an hour and included local neighborhood fireworks displays, gunshots, a municipality show from the Obshtinata (City hall) and sparklers from Larry's balcony. It was a very pleasant evening. Most of the rest of the time, the five of us played card games and Yahtzee, talked, drank wine and a little rakiya and danced. I'm truly thankful to have such friends.

On that note, I want to thank friends and family for all of the messages, emails, gifts, and general love and support that has come my way from the States. I should never feel alone with such a community of good, caring folk. As I continue work over here, I want everyone to realize that you, my friends and family, are an important part of this experience. I share what I can with pictures, American foods like Beef or Turkey Jerkey (which they LOVE), wheat crackers and cheese spread, cookies, and more. They mostly want to hear about you, so I share the tapestry of experiences, jobs, problems, and life that I have known through you. Don't worry, I keep these mostly general, anonymous and anecdotal, and discreet. For many of the children I work with, it seems that hearing about how similar people and lives are across the world is empowering. It may help them understand that they are part a very human global community and feel closer to its resources.

Ciao, all. I hope that in 2006 you will continue to learn, find meaning and purpose, be healthy and cheerful, love and be loved, and live a good life.

Between the Holidays

2005-12-29T07:16:00.000-08:00

For Christmas, I went back to my host family's place in Septemvri. They were generous and hospitable, and I felt at home. Indeed, I already forgot some of the niceties of smaller town life: seeing framiliar people everywhere, the gentle friendliness of people at the cafe, the small-town excitement of the weekly bazaar. On Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights we had or went to Nagosti - an informal dinner visit. It was too much for me, and I had far too much food. Remember, in Bulgaria, they eat all night. Nagosti might start at 6:00 PM and last until midnight or later, eating little bits the whole time. Normally it might be fine, but everybody loves to feed 'the American' it seems, and it feels insulting to refuse.

But I complain too much. The food was terrific and the company doubly so. I was able to speak more Bulgarian, which delighted some of the extended host Family. I recognized that accents in Septemvri are different than the accents in Stara Zagora. Or, maybe that is just an excuse for my lack of understanding. On that note, I am renewing my efforts at studying the language. The Bulgarians say I have a good accent (which means I am learning to mumble well) but I need a larger vocabulary. I've made cards and have perhaps 1,000 to study; the nuber grows daily. Deep down, I just wish speaking would simply come to me.

The snow covers the ground in Septemvri. When I came back to Stara Zagora, I found it had melted here in my absence. The temperature has climbed back to tennis-shoe levels, and the sores on my feet from the new boots are healing. Work is on hold until the New Year because the kids are out of school, the parliament is closed, and my other boss is in Sofia until then. So, I'm off to explore the city parks now and enjoy the evening before I cook dinner. Ciao, everyone.

Conferences and Fun in Sofia

2005-12-20T00:59:00.000-08:00

Last week I attended a conference in Sofia focusing on the development of social enterprise in Bulgaria. The idea of community oriented business is rather new to Bulgarians. Bularians generally seem to be a bit confused about why business should part with any profit, but this conference showed that the business community in Bulgaria is open-minded and has a social conscience. Sponsers were Counterpart International, USAID and Partners-Bulgaria. The programming was very well run, the materials were clearly and effectively presented and the attending enterprises were impressive in scope and product quality. I met representatives of a honey cooperative that sells honey from communities throughout the country and is based in Stara Zagora. There were craft and foodstuff, cloth and cobbler enterprises, even a nursery (for plants). The networking that the conference encouraged established some strong new relationships. I may return to Sofia periodically to visit some of the new contacts I made there.

On a social note, I visited Sofia last weekend to meet a friend's family who came to visit. I explored the city really for the first time. It is a great city for Bulgarians, really. Tourists are there, but they have not yet changed the rhythm or face of the city. It is not a beautiful city like Stockholm or Prague, and it is not wildly historic like London or Paris, but it is honestly itself. Cafes are found on almost every block and the restaurants are generally good and cheap. The cathedrals are orthadox-style, and the Alexander Nevsky cathedral outside the center is impressive. A russian bazaar outside the cathedral has antiques from the eastern-block, Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany. I got the number off of a U-boat cigarette case and will research the boat (I didn't buy it, but may get one later if it looks genuine). I went to an interesting bar with friends the last night there. There are no signs to this place, and you have to go down an alley to get there. You need to go into a toolshed-like enclosure and knock on a locked door to get in. After maybe two minutes, they let you in to a barn-like room with lofted seating. The whole place is lit only with candles. The only way, really, to get to this place is to be taken there by someone who knows it. Apparently it is where the communist party started in Bulgaria.

It has begun to snow in Bulgaria. It started while I was in Sofia, and by the time I left a couple of feet blanketed the city. Ctara Zagora has a temperate climate for Bulgaria, but it has snowed for the last week, and the nice, light powder has turned to ice. I bought snowboots just in time. Although it is below freezing, the real use of the boots is to keep me from slipping (which I've only done once). It was perhaps -6 deg. Celsius last night, which is really cold for me. I'm getting used to it. I have warm-enough clothes but I will buy a new, waterproof jacket for myself for christmas. For Christmas, I'll go back to Septemvri and visit my host family. On that note, Merry Christmas everyone. I already miss my friends and Family and I will be thinking about all of you with great fondness during the Holidays.

Weeks of Work

2005-12-08T01:22:00.000-08:00

My time has been full. I've been involved in various projects and a tapestry of activity. I have met with local community groups and leaders and have laid the foundation of what I hope will be a harmonious experience in Stara Zagora. The mayor remains rather aloof, but he dashes here and there to so many events and meetings, his time might just be too full to pay too much attention to the American. The waste management of the city could use some work, and I'm trying to use my resources to get modern programs started here.

Last week at the Russian Language School, I gave a lecture on the spread of HIV/AIDS and the importance of prevention to an assembly of about 75 teens. The lecture was given in English and broken Bulgarian. Luckily, my Translator showed up and and I could give a more comprehensive presentation. It went very well and I was asked to come back to lecture on prostitution and human trafficking. I'm preparing the lecture now and will prent it next week. The children were attentive and interested at the last lecture, and they ask relevant, important questions. I hope that will be the case next week as well. My English classes continue, and I am now including English Christmas songs in the curriculum. They say the music is a little bit strange, but when they translate the words, they enjoy the songs.

Last thursday I accompanied local officials and inspectors on a tour of orphanages in the Balkan Mountains. Some are well kept and well managed. The children are generally confident, lively and friendly at these places. The visit felt like coming to a home, and the children would welcome the visitors. Bear in mind the children are raised in these orphanages, often for many years; it should feel 'lived in' and comfortable.

We visited a home for metally disturbed children without families, however, and it was shockingly bad. It was raining and there was water on every floor, rivulets of water ran down the stairwell. It was cold inside, and the odor that lingered throughout the building was heavy with mold and mildew. I didn't go in the bathrooms because there was water on the floor 2 inches deep. When we went into the director's office and sat on his couch, one of the women I was with pulled out a 2 1/2 foot stick from beneath the cushions. I suspected (and was later told) that it was used to whip the problem boys.

One boy was ushered into the office and interviewed. He did not look anybody directly in the eye and he hung his head, choking back shivers throughout the interview. When asked, he said he liked it there and didn't need anything. He said he liked to play outside and throw rocks. The lawyer who was with us led the director out of the room after which we repeated the questions. The boy gave the same answers anyway. When the director came back in, we gave the boy a bag of presents to share with the rest of the children, but the director took the bag from the boy (who didn't resist at all) and said that the goodies would be shared at dinner. I have a picture of the boy's terrified face.

When we visited the dormitory room, there were no switches, the windows did not open, there were no light bulbs and the linoleum was so old that there were pieces of it broken off and friable mastic everywhere. We looked in the closets and the kids had nothing. An extra sweater or jacket, two extra pairs of socks and underwear and maybe an item or two, like a toy car or army man. That's it. When we left, the boy who had been interviewed said, "I want to come with you now." He was willing to come along, away with us (strangers) with nothing but the clothes on his back and no place to go. It was one of the most achingly pathetic things I have ever seen. I later found out that he had come from Stara Zagora.

Into the Thick of It

2005-11-30T02:01:00.000-08:00

Working with government has its advantages and pitfalls. While a small city like Stara Zagora is an ideal place to get to know municipal and federal officials, it is also large enough with enough work to avoid an annoying American with an agenda. Perhaps the language barrier makes a meeting more ominous than usual.

I have been very busy for the last long while, but I've earned a break tomorrow during which I will elaborate on the past few weeks and the quagmire into which I've knowingly jumped. As for now, I'm bus-lagged (20,000 times worse than jet-lagged) and looking forward to a night's rest.

On a quick note, I met a socially-conscious honey merchant from Stara Zagora on this trip to Sofia. I expect to meet him this week to talk about operations, bee-product sales, how his business (like a kind of NGO ) contributes to the community, and how I can become involved. Some of my buddies in other places have communities that produce honey but don't have markets. And I can bee-keep again! Copascetic!

The Wonderful City of Stara Zagora

2005-11-15T01:24:00.000-08:00

In the ages between the last post and this one, I have undergone a multitude of transformations and trials. Though the city is beautiful, the countryside surrounding it is picturesque, and the residents generally friendly, I have dealt with work problems, unacceptable accommodations, the bureaucracy of obtaining legal documentation, unforseen costs, and more. My tenuous grasp of the native language has been shaken by accent and dialect, but as I speak more, I understand more. It is always a bit of a struggle, anyway.

The good news is that this city is alive and the residents smart and amiable. Although my work is largely with children, I am trying to begin projects that branch to others in the community (albeit with spotty success). Yesterday, I attended a local Red Cross food donation drive. I had intended to bring youth to help, but none showed up. I am teaching three english classes every friday. Although I wanted to divide the students by ability, scheduling conflicts have made that impossible. Each of the classes has students of mixed ability, so the curriculum is difficult to organize. Students are happy to help each other, which helps me out a great deal.

I have another interesting story to share. I went hiking in the nearby Sredna Gora mountains and I was several miles away, by myself in the hills. I kept passing horse-drawn carts full of wood, and guilty looking Roma eying me warily. I felt odd, but kept walking. I figured out that it is probably illegal to chop the trees, and these people wanted to remain anonymous. When I came into view of people loading a cart, they pancked immediately and abandoned their horse and cart. Their horse bagan to walk away, it went over the hillside, the cart started to teeter on the brink, and looked like it would pull the horse down. I went and brought it back from danger, trying to explain aloud that I wansn't Bulgarian and I was afraid for the horse. When I looked back, there were men with axes who spoke in tense voices I couldn't understand. They were obvoiusly threatening and angry, one holding his axe on his shoulder and ready to swing it. They said something about police, and I said I was on an excursion in the hills, not a policeman. I realized that I was wearing my green sweater, which looks like police or army issue. I asked them to relax, mentally preparing to run down the hill. I asked them to relax, told them again that I am a foreigner and don't know why they're mad. One came and reached for my shoulder, but I backed away, not wanting to be held. I showed them my water bottle, pointed to my tennis shoes, and said I didn't want a problem, I didn't care what they were doing. After a while, they seemed to relax, and asked me if I am Greek or Turk. I told them I'm not from anywhere nearby, but am in Bulgaria for a short time. They said I must be British, and some of them warmed to me more. I told them I have a meeting with friends and had to go soon. I made my way from them, knowing I'd dodged a bullet. So no more hiking in the hills behind my apartment, especially alone.

As I settle into life in this city, I'm sure the other problems I have, which are too complex and numerous to share for the time-being, will relax. While I keep learning and living in this land, there will always be some, I know. Ciao for now!

Rumor and history.

2005-10-22T01:37:00.000-07:00

As I understand more Bulgarian, I am able to talk to townspeople more casually and learn more about Bulgaria. Some of what I learn is only rumor, but everything I hear tells me something about people, history, politics and the country. The history is fascinating, especially the freshness of recent Bulgarian history in townspeoples' memory. I spoke to shop owners and the post office clerks in town and learned about what was common under communism. Generally, people acknowledge that there were good and bad characteristics of the culture. Plenty of food was available, though variety was limited and different foods were commonly rashioned. Everyone had a job to do, but movement between careers was frowned upon and often prohibited. Now, unemployment is widespread and is a large problem in Bulgaria and the culture is unused to job competition. The fact that they cannot earn their keep infuriates some Bulgarians. Many people believe that education was better under communism, but the truth of that may vary by region.

Fear of the government and personal mistrust of politicians is still common. While that may seem universal throughout the world, the emotional flavor of political dissention is different in Bulgaria than in the US. I was told about people who disappeared from the city during communism, some of whom were sent to work elsewhere with no notice, some of whom have not since been heard from. Former communitst officials have been pointed out to me. When talking about these people, there is sometimes a plapable hatred in the discussion. These subjects seems to creep into the conversation when talking about government and politicians. Though this does not happen anymore, of course, but the fact that it comes up unsolicited says something. The novelty of voting seems to have worn off as well, and the idea that to vote is a citizen's duty is not commonly taught.

On another note, my cousin was just married in Sacromento. It really hurts to know that I was not there. Some things about home shock me in a way, just because I don't truly realize that I'm missing them or really what I'm missing. When I hear about them it's like I'm slowly regarding a tapestry whose images dance together into a pattern in my head. Details unite and gel into an idea of framiliar people and things like family, friends, places, buildings, smells and views. Perhaps because I miss home (everything that means), the experience is more vivid than usual.

Seven Lakes

2005-10-20T05:18:00.000-07:00

This last weekend, many in my small community of volunteers chose to hike together to the seven lakes in the Rila Mountains. We hired an old guide who was supposed to know the area well. Our hike took us from a base altitude of perhaps 4,300 feet up to a hija (lodge or mountain hut) at 6,000 feet. From there, we hiked to the lakes which sit near surrounding peaks up to perhaps 7,500 feet.

Snow began to fall while the group rested in a hija half-way up the climb. As the light blizzard thickened, our guide announced that he was lost. Visibility was perhaps 50 feet and some of those in our party began to worry. They didn't think that my snow-angels were very funny as the guide searched ahead for a trail. I, myself, was just annoyed that the guide didn't bring a topo map and was drinking the whole way up. Shortly thereafter we began to hike through the white-out, mostly because people were getting pretty cold. Thermometers on the hand-held GPSs registered a bit below freezing. Suddenly, the outline of the hija broke throught the wind. No problem.

This is Andy and April having a fabulous time hiking in the snow before it really started coming down. --->

Inside the hija, the group played games (chess, cards, etc) and drank tea. A couple of us went outside again for a short-lived snowball fight. It was actually pretty darn hot in the hija. The next morning, the guide took us up to the lakes. We couldn't really see them at first (it was foggy again) but it soon cleared a bit and we had a nice view of the lower lakes. The guide got lost again for about 10 minutes, and some of us were pretty annoyed because he was obviously a bit drunk or hung-over. After a while, we were underway again and made it back to the hija without further incident. The seven lakes area was beautiful, and I look forward to visiting again when the weather is better.

Last night I went to dinner at my host-aunt's house in Vetren, a city close to Septemvri. I'll soon move into my own place in Stara Zagora and begin work there. I'll miss the family here. They have been supportive, patient, understanding, and most importantly, my closest friends here. They gave me a hand-knit, 100% wool sweater (the wool is from the family sheep) last night. I'll treasure the many types of warmth it will give me. I can look around my room and get that warmth when I see an art piece from a 2-yr old, a plastic pint-glass with friendly wishes written all over, a paper with terrific and inspiring quotes, an antler, pictures, my diary, and other gifts from friends and family. Thank you everyone for such generous support.

Slowly changing....

2005-10-10T11:44:00.000-07:00

I notice myself slowly changing. Some of the aspects of Bulgarian life that seemed odd or foreign when I arrived in Bulgaria are now normal. My sensitivities have changed. I fall asleep to growling, fighting dogs without rushing to the window to see the fight. I step between cowpies in the street with disinterested dexterity and without revulsion. Places that seemed dirty and decrepid do not seem so anymore. I know now that inside the plain, concrete blok apartment buildings are decorative and pleasant homes where dwell warm, caring people.

My Bulgarian is coming along. I had thought that the most difficult part of the language would be learning the alphabet and pronunciation. With the simple phoenetics of the language, however, it has turned out to be quite easy. I am dogged by word gender and irregular conjugations, however, and as always with me, vocabulary. I sometimes unconsciously substitute german or latin words for their Bulgarian counterparts. I am speaking in complete sentances, though, and I understand more than I try to say.

I have seen things here that do not widely occur or would not happen in my native land. I have seen men hitting women and children openly in the street without rebuke or shame and people drinking out of muddy rivers with factories upstream. People burn their garbage in the street in front of their house and include plastics and bottles. Stray dogs, cats and other animals are widespread, especially in small towns and are truly wild. While I have enjoyed a certain anonymity in my university and city life, everywhere I go I am watched. Eyes are always on my back because I am visibly different. I know this and I am aware of this. Sometimes, I come home to my host mother and she knows exactly where I've been and what I had to eat or drink not 10 minutes before.

Life is still adjustment and adaptation. I am wary of milk and I miss the vast quantities of it I used to drink. And, of course, I miss the availability of Old Spice High Endurance Deodorant, Original Scent. I can't find it over here and my supply is almost out. I shall have to do with what the indigenous peoples use. Such is my sacrafice. Ciao!

Food and In the Mountains...

2005-10-02T02:11:00.000-07:00

I spent the last week practicing Bulgarian, traveling and learning about grants and programming in Bulgaria. I was in Pazardjik and then visited volunteers in Smolyan and Madan smack dab in the southern range of the Rodolpi Mountains. The scenery was fantastic, with craggy peaks poking above forested valleys of pine and fir. The trip was a three and 1/2-hour bus ride from Plovdiv. The small group I traveled with visited an orphanage and spent time with the children housed there, visited a Kino (Cinema) run by children in Madan, and learned about the Chitalishte (Youth/Rec Centers) in each city. The intelligence and spirit of the children was striking - they have great potential.

While in Madan, I was treated to a Rodolpi Family Dinner - a special southern type of Nagosti (informal dinner party). The dinner included Banitza which is a wrapped pastry filled with Cirene (like a feta cheese), Potato and onion cassarole, rice stuffed peppers, spice cake, fruit compote to drink, and of course Rakia (traditional grape brandy). The family who hosted this great feast for six guests lived in a 2-room blok apartment. The hospitality of this country and culture is nothing short of amazing. For people who have so little to give to someone who has so much already, and do so to a stranger with no expectation of recompense is utterly selfless. This practice is common to the culture and makes it rich.

Food in Bulgaria is far better than I expected. Fruit and Vegetables are nearly always fresh, picked within days of consumption. There are no preservatives in most food, so it spoils easily. Cosequently, everything must be fresh. The food tastes generally healthier than what I was used to from supermarkets and even restaurants in the United States, especially the vegetables. My host family has a garden from which they have picked tomatoes for my favorite dishes here Domati Salad or Shopska Salad (tomatoes, onions, peppers, salt, garlic and white cheese). It is true they use too much salt for most American tastes and they eat bread like there's no tomorrow, but the simple dishes are simply "good," and they make you feel clean.

Back in Septemvri

2005-09-16T07:39:00.000-07:00

I've been kept quite busy here in Bulgaria for the past week.

On Friday the 9th, I visited an orphanage in Bratsigovo. Younger children are roomed in dormitories of approximately 7-10 children, and teens are accomodated in rooms with one roomate. The staff provided banitza (pastry filled with salty cheese) and soda for their guests, served by the friendly children. I was immediately surprised how homey the building was, how friendly and cheerful the children were, and how lovingly they regarded the director and orphanage staff. When I separated from the group, a boy perhaps 7 years old asked if I wanted to be shown to reception. I said yes and he grabbed my hand. I spoke to him in Bulgarian, asking how he was, and he said, "very well" and smiled at me. When we got to the reception room, he called me 'botko' (Big Brother). All of the children were similarly charming.

On Saturday and Sunday I was in Plovdiv to learn about EU accession, programmes, and funding. It was a friend's birthday, so we celebrated it there.

On Monday and Tuesday, I was in Pazardjik learning about banking, programming, life in Bulgaria, and my permanent placement for the next 2 years. I will be centered in Stara Zagora (CTAPA ZAГOPA), working on programs in the local municipality and surrounding area involving youth organizations, health matters including AIDS/HIV prevention, ecologic and archaeologic study and preservation, and other tasks.

On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I was introduced to Stara Zagora municipal leadership, the local youth parliament, and the city's wide range of resources. Earlier today (Friday), I attended a clinical psychology conference on the positive influence of art therapy in treatment of schizophrenia. The conference was held at a mental hospital in Radnevo, approximately 35 miles from Ctara Zagora. Very interesting.

I will move to Stara Zagora on the 27th of October.

Septemvri

2005-09-07T09:17:00.000-07:00

This is a nice town. The population has hovered around 9,000 for nearly a century. I live in a soviet-era concrete apartment that is ugly like a pitted, stained sidewalk on the outside and clean as a hospital on the inside. Cows are driven by wy window in the morning on the way to grazing, and I fall asleep each night to a Bulgarian chorus of fighting dogs and flies hitting my window screen.

Horse-drawn carts are common along the main street, Boulevard Bulgaria, and in front of the apartment block. I go running along the fields outside town and along the railroad tracks (far from the rails, never fear Mom). I sprint in a small futbol field near my apartment where shepherds and farmers graze their sheep and horses. The horses don't mind me, but the sheep run away when I sprint towards them, return when I sprint away, then run when I sprint towards them, return..... and it amuses me.

Septemvri has it's problems, too. So many cattle, horses, sheep, dogs, cats, people...means that the streets have a fecal problem. Also, a fifty-foot section of the sidewalk has been under construction for months. Since I have ben in Septemvri (3 weeks), about 15 feet has been completed. I walk by the lounging workers every day on my way to and from school. On the whole, however, a nice place.

2005-09-02T08:28:00.000-07:00

Still alive and doing well in Bulgaria!

I'm ending my third week in Bulgaria. I've now been to a cultural festival where we barbequed and I was fed Rikia, a wedding where I was fed a lot of food and Rikia, and many NaGosti's (informal dinner parties) where I have been fed a lot of Rikia. I drink the Rikia very slowly, but it is part of the culture here, and an integral part of the experience. Last night, my group of PC Volunteers had an American NaGosti, and the low-fat rice and vegetable dished we cooked were a welcome break from the usual high-fat Bulgarian Cuisine.

I had a discussion about Bulgarian history with a family friend (host-family) a few nights ago. He told me that Bulgarians like to avoid warfare when possible and have often submitted to foreign rule to avoid armed conflict and to be able to simply live in peace. However, they insist on certain liberties for everday life. An example he used was the attitude of Bulgarians towards native Jewish communities before and during World War II. The Bulgarians were able to avoid a haulocost by claiming the Jewish population as native Bulgarians and exempt from Nazi extermination. The mixture of pride and disgust Bulgarians harbor about their history is interesting.

2005-08-25T08:34:00.000-07:00

Here is what many of you have been hounding me to do for a while....The greatest American-man-in-Septemvri, Bulgaria-with-brown-hair-and-last-name-that-begins-with-a-P (or П here)- blog! Here you might find humor, insights into my mind, accounts of the amazing (for example see previous listed aspect), snapshots of the humble but lovely lovely Bulgarian circumstance, ferocious rants, precious appreciations and life away from the United States.

While I am living in a European Country, it is not terribly wealthy or modern. Be forewarned that content of this site may alter the reader's perceptions of justice, the World, Europe and the EU, the United States and our duty to other People. On the other hand, it may not be, in any way, profound.

Welcome.