Another video to add to yesterday's post

This video was meant to go with the last post but I couldn't get it to upload last time. Here it is:

Also, I have to share a story:

Today was a great day for multiple reasons but most of all, the father of one of my students stopped me during one of my breaks to chat. Turns out he speaks pretty decent English so we could chat pretty well. He told me that his son loves coming to English because of me! It was a great compliment as he said his son did not like English at his last school and really enjoys having me. This is a kid who isn't even in the top half of the English class and consistently receives failing grades. I was so happy to hear it since teaching English is the main reason I'm here in Bulgaria! I hope you're all having a great day and week!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

It's less than a week until Christmas and there is snow on the ground. I have heard from colleagues that Sliven doesn't generally get much snow but we at least have enough to make things a bit prettier for the time being. There are also decorations for the Christmas everywhere. All the restaurants, stores, and schools have things looking good for the holidays. We have a four day school week and then I will be headed to northwest Bulgaria to spend the holidays with my host family from training. I'm excited to see them and have a traditional Bulgarian Christmas. Another volunteer is also coming with my to my host family's house and then we will both visit with the other families we met during training. Plus, on Tuesday we are playing games and doing crafts with kids we know from training. It will be great to see them all again as well. Now, I just have to talk to my neighbor to see if she can check in on my cats while I'm away.

I wanted to post another entry to my blog today to show you some of the videos from a Christmas program I watched last week. On Thursday there was a collaborative Christmas concert between a Kindergarten, Special Needs Center for adults, and our 12th graders. Here are some videos from the day:

I wanted to post one more video but I couldn't get it to upload. I'll try to post it in the next post. 

Me and 2 of the other teachers in the teacher's room.

Practicing for the performance:

Two girls sang:

Two of the 12th graders in traditional attire:

One of the 12th graders with one of the women from the center next door:

Two men from the center and one of our 12th grade boys:

Two women performing a traditional dance:

12th grade girls:

Two of the 12th grade boys dancing and carrying on of the Kindergarten girls:

Traditional dancing:

Our school is having their concerts this week so I'll make sure to take videos and photos to blog on them later on. I hope you all had a great Sunday and have a great week!

Peace, love, and literacy.

Seven Months

I've now been in Bulgaria, away from Minnesota, for seven months. It's crazy to think about. I've never been away from my family, friends, and the actual state of Minnesota for this long. I definitely miss things everyday though I also appreciate the ability to be living here in Bulgaria. Thanks to the Peace Corps I have been able to:

- meet some amazing people
- become friends with wonderful people
- live with a Bulgarian family during training (who I will visit for Christmas)
- attempt to learn a new language, though I must say Bulgarian is hard
- teach English in a 1-12 Bulgarian school
- live in a block style apartment building
- try to understand the Bulgarian education system
- learn more about what I think is important within education systems
- learn more about myself
- learn about traditions and cultures here in Bulgaria
- communicate with classrooms and people back home about my experiences
- know that I can live away from the USA and still enjoy my life (thank goodness for skype when I've had a bad day)
- eat foods I never thought I would have
-and so much more

There are only 2 weeks left of school before Christmas and I'm excited. I will be visiting my host family for Christmas and then spending time with other volunteers for New Years. I'll be glad to have a break and finally spend some time with my Bulgarian family. I haven't seen them since the end of July and I'm looking forward to having a traditional Bulgarian Christmas and be somewhere there is snow. Though it's finally cold here in Sliven, we have tons of wind and no snow. It snowed Saturday but it didn't stick and the wind just blew it around.

If I don't post again beforehand, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Is it really December?

I can hardly believe I've been out of Minnesota for over 200 days and living in Sliven for over 4 months. I know it's been a few weeks since my last post but there have been quite a few "firsts".

For instance, this is the first year I have ever worked on Thanksgiving. It actually worked out well since Thursday is the day I have all four of my groups of students. For the 12th graders (and 11th graders) I did a lesson on Thanksgiving and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I talked about what Americans do on Thanksgiving and then we watched part of the parade and talked about it. It was a good day and some of the students actually talked. With my 5th and 6th grade classes I had a reading typed up about Thanksgiving that we read and translated. Then I asked the students what they were thankful for and after they knew and wrote it down on a leaf and were able to add their leaves to the tree I had put up in the classroom. The activity went well and I think most of the kids enjoyed themselves. On Thursday I also handed out small coloring sheets and the students were to complete them for Friday. On Friday we put them all up and the students voted on the best one. The winner won a quarter and a candy. Here are a few photos from the day:

The fifth graders working on their leaves:

I just loved this leaf. It was written by one of the most advanced sixth grade boys:

Colorings:

Another first came the night of Thanksgiving when the teachers from my teacher English class asked me out for beer and food at a nearby restaurant. They found out it was a holiday for me and they were like "why are we in class? we need to go out and celebrate". It was a great time because I was able to use my Bulgarian and they were able to try out their English in a relaxed setting. This was honestly the first time I have been invited out to hang out with a group of colleagues and I have actually enjoyed myself. Other than that I have only ever spend time one-on-one with a colleague. The night got even better because I was able to skype with family back home for a few hours while they were all together for Thanksgiving. I miss you and think of you often!

Some of you are even part of my classroom display:

This was also the first Thanksgiving I have not eaten dinner with my family but with friends. I was fortunate enough to be part of a great group of volunteers and celebrate Thanksgiving dinner with them in a nearby village. We spent all day Saturday with kids at the boarding school in town. By boarding school I do not mean a private school but a school where kids stay there and they are there because of a crime they committed or for bad discipline at their old school. Boys and girls aged 11-17 live there. Our dinner was fantastic, my contribution was a creamy pumpkin soup which I greatly enjoyed (made from a MN mix my mom sent in a package and spiced up with local vegetables and spices).

Here are a few photos from that day:

Woo hoo, it's Thanksgiving!

Meeting for a drink:

Food!

 A great game I learned to play at the Boarding school (rules follow):

One of the boys at the boarding school:

Reading about Thanksgiving:

The game again:

Me and one of the boys from the boarding school:

For the game I learned, it is a two person game where two people (x) stand on either side of a line and hold right hands (this means they are facing opposite directions). The object is for one of the people to lose their balance and step outside the lines in front and behind them. Each player can only use their right hand to force the other person off balance. It's extremely fun! Here is a layout of the game:

__________________________I_______________________

      I

(x)                  I            (x)

___________________________I________________________

      I

And for the final "firsts", I went to IST in Plovdiv. That's In-service training for all of you. My counterpart and I presented about team teaching (first), I stayed in a beautiful hotel (first), watched the new Harry Potter (first), had hummus at an Arabic restaurant (I love hummus and this was the first time in Bulgaria), and are you ready for this...........................I took a hot bath while drinking a Dr. Pepper and watching Dexter! Amazing night. Anyway, I'll leave you with a few IST photos and please feel free to comment on my blog and ask me any questions about Bulgaria!

The hotel was decorated beautifully:

And it had great mosaics all over the place:

Oh, and I have another cat, the new one is Tumnina and the one I had is Popitsa. They're great.

Peace, love, literacy, and reckless curiosity. 

Beautiful Bulgaria

Today was my first lesson teaching English to some of my colleagues at school. Seven teachers came today and there should be about five for tomorrow's lesson. I am teaching at two different times on different days to accommodate the schedules of the other teachers. I will have English for teachers every Wednesday at 1:15 and every Thursday at 5:00 for the rest of the year or at least until the end of the semester when there may be slight changes. Things went well, we went over a simple conversation and numbers today. The group is quite mixed on their knowledge as some know everything we went over today and others have never learned English. It was good though.

The main reason I wanted to blog today is that I met with two high school students for English purposes after the teacher's group. It was nice to meet with them and we had a decent conversation. One of the girls told me a story that I greatly enjoyed. She said that when God was making the world it was almost complete however Bulgaria wasn't finished. Since he had no materials left, he took a piece of heaven and brought it down to Earth. Thus, Bulgaria is one of the most beautiful places on Earth (if not the most). I felt this extremely fitting due to the environment of Bulgaria. There are multiple beautiful mountain ranges, access to the Black Sea, rivers, lakes, amazing caves, alongside plants and animals. It is a spectacular place to spend two years. I just can't wait to visit as much of Bulgaria as I can. I don't really feel the need to visit other countries at the moment as there is enough for me to see and learn about here.

Have a wonderful week! Peace, love, literacy, and reckless curiosity.

Friends becoming Family

This weekend I traveled to Sofia via bus (it is four hours one way) to be with some of the other Peace Core volunteers. It was a great weekend and I had a great time getting to know some of the volunteers I haven’t been able to spend time with thus far. It’s hard to find time to get together sometimes so when the opportunity arose, I was glad to make the trip. Plus, I was able to have some amazing food. I had some sushi and get this, a veggie patty FOOTLONG from SUBWAY! Yes, there is Subway in Bulgaria and it is amazing!

The other Peace Corps volunteers here in Bulgaria, along with my host family, really are getting to be like true family. They are the people I am able to depend on when I’m frustrated, want to chat, or want to relax and have fun. I love being with the other volunteers as it is essentially a no stress environment compared to teaching every day with kids chatting all hour and the occasional fight. Yes, I broke up my first official fight last Friday between a 5^th grade boy and a 5^th grade girl. No blood, but they were both crying. Hanging out with other volunteers allows for actual conversation that is not about if I’m married, why I’m not, when I plan to have children, how many siblings I have, where I come from, and every other little thing about my life. Don’t get me wrong, I am happy to make small talk with people here in Bulgaria but it is frustrating that I can’t go much deeper into the conversation due to a lack of language. Therefore, I’m happy to be around other Americans or fluent English speakers and talk about other things.

What’s been happening in school? We’ve just been working from the curriculum and I continue to do spelling quizzes with the kids. They are getting better, it’s simply happening very slowly. I start my English class with the teachers this week which should be a good time. We are starting out with greetings, numbers, and introductions as I’m not sure how much all of them know. However, a lot of them do know a few words in English and they all want to be there so that is a plus. I have also started meeting with two 7^th graders on Mondays to work on their English, mainly spoken English. They are more advanced students for their grade and sought me out to spend time working with them. We found a time that works and are meeting on Mondays. It should be fun to meet with them as it is essentially tutoring for 45 minutes (that’s a class hour) once a week.

What else? Fall has been gorgeous here. The smell of freshly fallen leaves is strong and it has been fairly warm. We have had the occasional extremely windy or rainy day but overall it’s been good. It’s also made me miss Minnesota all the more. It’s so strange that I have been in Bulgaria for 6 months. Yes, it was 6 months on November 12^th. Though the days or weeks may seem to drag at times, the months seem to fly by. I miss you all at home and think of you often! Have a great week.

Can you find the K?

The gorgeous train ride from last weekend to the city of Pazardzhik.

One last thing, I promise this is the last thing for today. I received a package from family with some great music in it and simply cannot stop listening to The Wailin’ Jennys. My favorite song so far, Beautiful Dawn. 

Halloween

Happy Halloween to everyone back in the U.S.A. It's not a holiday that is highly celebrated here in Bulgaria, though I have read about events in Sofia (the capital). Plus, any community with a Peace Corps Volunteer tends to get some sort of Halloween festivity, lesson, or presentation.

Thursday of last week both of the 5th grade classes had listened to and read an article about rats and were each given a rat cut-out to decorate for Friday. For the 6th graders, we read an article on bats and they were each given a bat cut-out. On Friday everyone voted on their favorite rat or bat and the top 2 students were the first to pick out something from the array of Halloween goodies (thanks to the previous volunteer who lived in Sliven and my parents).

Friday, October 29th I celebrated Halloween through games with my students in 5A, 5V, and 6A. We played Halloween BINGO, made toilet paper mummies, and played Pictionary with Halloween themed words. The kids seemed to really enjoy playing BINGO so I'll have to keep that in mind for future classroom activities. The 12th graders read an article earlier in the week and answered questions related to the holiday. Every kid received candy (some quite a bit by winning several times) and it was a good day.

BINGO with 6th grade:

Mummies with 6A:

6A bats:

5th grade rats:

5th grade mummies:

Yum, candy:

More rats:

Some of the fifth graders making each other into mummies:

 Then on Friday afternoon I left for Veliko Tarnovo to celebrate Halloween with other volunteers. We had a great weekend seeing parts of the city, hanging out, and celebrating Halloween! I arrived back in Sliven on Sunday afternoon and have been having a great Monday of relaxation (it's a holiday).

Veliko Tarnovo:

Sign for a lawyer:

Feeding the birds at the bus station:

Peace, Love, and Literacy.