Photos, Photos, and More Photos

This blog is quite random and loaded with photos. Enjoy!

The amazing remote-control car track in Vratsa when we were at our hub. Some kids were having a great time.

Our roses and Boriana's bike.

Johnny following Veneta.

Veneta working in the grapes.

Yordan Milking.

This girl is rapping for the alphabet day celebration. She was very good.

Here's the rainbow I saw.

Margarita's Puppies

Here's a playground in a larger town near us.

Pansies.

My PST (pre-service training) group. Megan, Nikki, Me, and Kristin

The neighbor's sheep coming home.

The view from my window (I'm on the second story).

This is Mitko. He's a budding scientist. He's kind of a brother figure.

Me in the garden.
The cat next door.
Johnny chewing on a chicken bone.

What I believe is a hummingbird moth.

Our hen and her chicks.

Dimitar milking a cow.
Our cows.
The chicks.

Baba Veneta in the chicken's area with the two dogs (Tinka and Johnny).

Our Bee Houses.

Part of the Band from the celebration of the Cyrillic alphabet.

The grandparents who live on the same land as us (Boriana and Dimitar).

The beautiful garden of vegetables and fruits.

The bees love this type of flower.

The clematis.

Our two pigs. pig = prace

Just for Calder and Quinn, Hello!

Have you got a rubber?

The photos below are in no apparent order. I could not see what I was uploading until it was already on the screen. Thanks for visiting. Miss you all at home!

Beautiful orientation week!

The photo goes with one below. It is yet another song to celebrate the Cyrillic alphabet which was created by two Bulgarian men.

One of the bees at our house on yet another beautiful flower.

This is one of the many beautiful roses at our house!

Margarita's black cat.

Here are a group of students singing to celebrate the creation of the Cyrillic alphabet. This holiday took place on Monday. There was a celebration in the morning at the school and in the afternoon in the town square.

Here's my favorite cow.

Yummy dessert at our "formal" dinner during orientation week.

Here is my with my baba Veneta (on the left) and her friend, Margarita. We are holding the chicks Margarita gave us.
The photo above is from our Orientation when we first arrived in Bulgaria. Beautiful. No?

Well, that was the title of my first whole English lesson in the 2nd grade. The class I was in had 16 students (a rubber is an eraser in British English in case you’re still wondering). I’ve only spent time in one city thus far but so far the school is quite different. The school I am at is 1-8. Students are only mandated to attend school until the age of 16 here in Bulgaria. Every year 7th graders take a test to determine what path they may take in furthering their studies which happens this week. When children start school at age 6 (in 1st grade), each student is randomly assigned to a class. Depending on the town size there may only be one class for each grade. There is one class teacher who is responsible for this group of students involving attendance, discipline, and logistical information. This class stays together throughout each year of school. Also, absences are counted per individual class rather than by day (each student is allotted a certain number per year). Students tend to stay in the same room and teachers change throughout the day. One great thing I have noticed is that since there is at least a 10 minute break between each class (and it tends to be a free for all) the students are able to get out extra energy and focus easier during class. Also, the students at the school I am at sit in 2 person desks; therefore, they are automatically with a partner. Teachers also only come to school during the hours they need to teach. They do most all of their lesson planning, grading, and other things at home. Please let me know if you have any specific questions about school and I will try and answer them. I’m sure I’ll be able to sometime within the next 2 years!

This week I was able to visit a neighbor with my Bulgarian grandma (who is wonderful). It was great. We sat outside near the enormous garden (beautiful bleeding hearts nearby) and had strawberries, cookies, and soda. The woman (and her husband) had a nice house, garden, 2 cats, sheep, pigeons, chickens, a dog, and puppies (4 of them)! The woman was very sweet. We took home 3 chicks her chicken had to add to our 12, making our chicks up to 15!

Some interesting information about Bulgaria thus far:
If you have an indoor toilet (which I do), you throw the toilet paper in a garbage nearby. Also, you ALWAYS remove your shoes outside of the house. Socks or slippers are worn inside to keep it clean. You never know what is on your shoes with so many animals around town. The dogs at my house are given table scraps and random extra food. I have a friend who is a cow. She now recognizes me and lets me pet her (she licked me the other day). One of our cows should have her baby in about 5 days! The clothes dryer is a clothes line (this time of year at least). The weather reminds me of Minnesota. Rakia is a strong alcohol which is said to keep you healthy, many men drink it. Many people smoke cigarettes, including in the teacher’s lounge. There are community donkeys in my city. To further explain, several people may share in the caring of a donkey so they are all able to use it. Old scraps of fabric and clothing is used in our garden to help the grapevines climb and attach the tomatoes to wooden stakes. Bulgaria knows how to reuse! Fruit is a common dessert item and most everything is fresh! One of the most common meal items at my house is a salad of chopped tomatoes, cucumber, sometimes onions, sometimes radishes, parsley, dill, a bit of salt, and some vinegar. It is delicious. There are very strong traditions and holidays are meant to be celebrated. It is a beautiful place.

Dad, I got your note. Thanks.

Please send any questions you have my way and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Mission for the next few weeks:
Study Bulgarian. Learn to knit. Take a hike outside of town.

Loving Bulgaria

I am loving my PST (pre-service training) thus far in Northwestern Bulgaria. My host family couldn't be better. They consist of my grandma (Veneta), another set of grandpartents, a set of parents, and their son. They are caring, considerate, patient, and are quite relaxed. Veneta has already given me some traditional Bulgarian socks, a dress, and a handkerchief (I love them all). I am extremely happy. The 10 cows are milked each morning and evening around 7 and the garden is well-kept. One of the cows is going to have a baby soon! The garden is huge, we have tons of flowers, carrots, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, pumpkins, strawberries, grapes, lettuce, parsley, dill, turnips, and apples. We also have 5 hives of bees for honey. For animals we have cows, pigs, and chickens (who just had chicks). The list goes on and on. Everything is very fresh and feels very naturals. We eat a salad of tomato, cucumber, radish, onion, dill, and parsley quite often. I have also had fried potatoes, ham, meatballs, soup, bread, banista (philo with white cheese like feta, eggs, and butter), a fried bread thing you dip in honey which is great, and much more!

Many of my neighbors have stopped by to chat. I do not remember all of their names. I have taken a lot of photos though do not have the time on the internet to put them up here yet. I also have some videos ready when I have time to upload them. My time is very full here so I'm going to shoot for blogging once a week.

Bulgarian is difficult but I'm confident in the program, my language trainer, and my lovely group. I'm excited to get into the classroom more. I was in an eighth grade English class (11 students) for a bit last week and will be in 2nd this week to do a lesson. I'll be reading and studying a lot!

A few notes for people. Things that remind me of you:

Matt- There are hummingbird moths that live in our flowers (I think that's what they're called)
Krista P - We have bees!
Krista R - You'd love how wonderful my family is!
Elyn - I wear your turtle every day.
Amanda - I love your journal!
Sarah - We have a turkey that lives by us that reminds me of you hunting.
Mom and Kathy - You might just like the red wine.
Dad - They drink some pretty strong liquor here.
Aunt Christi - They were studying your socks
Quinn - I was given a beautiful dress I think you would love.
Brodie - I'm waving at most everyone.
Rebecca - I'm going to learn how to knit

Oh, and I saw a hedgehog the other night which was quite amazing. Loving it here and missing everyone at home!

My New Family

My host family is made up of 2 grandmothers, 1 grandfather, a mother, a father, and a son. They have a large house and garden. It is very beautiful. We eat wonderful fresh food straight from outside. They also have bees who make delicious honey. It has been great being here. We start our lessons with my Bulgarian teacher Radi in 2 days. I only know a little bit of Bulgarian so I need to learn a lot more. We will also have technical training in teaching English so we can be successful when we are placed after PST. So far I am having a wonderful time. I will blog when I have more time.

Orientation

Today is our last full day of orientation activities up in the Rila Mountains. We have learned a great deal of information and began quite a bit of Bulgarian. I'm working on it but it has some difficult sounds so I'll be glad when we have class every and I have lots of practice. I was impressed with some of the volunteers' Bulgarian who visited last night (who have only been here a year). Therefore, I'm hoping for the best! We have our "official" dinner tonight which will most likely include some dancing. We learned 2 dances and they are quite fun.

We get to meet our host family tomorrow! And most likely be fed a great deal of food. I will be living in a small town for our PST (Pre-service Training). It is a village of about 2,100 people and we'll see what it's like. I won't know when the next time I will blog will be. Have a great week!

Photos

I just came up to my room after our official dinner and dancing. It was great dancing some traditional Bulgarian dances and hanging out with the other trainees. A long but fun night!

The photo is of me in front of the hotel we were at for our orientation. Very nice! I promise to upload more photos later on! The connection simply isn't great to upload at the moment, took me forever just to get this one. I also have video of the traditional dancing we were able to watch tonight after dinner. It was wonderful.

Made It!

I'm finally settled in Bulgaria! We are at a hotel in the mountains which is quite beautiful. I'm hoping to get a bit of time during the day tomorrow to go out and get some photos of the beautiful scenery. I am staying with another girl in a double room until Sunday when we take another bus ride to Vratsa. There are about 85 of us, quite a large group! Peace Corps Volunteers here will be Teaching English as a Foreign Language, Youth Development, and Community Development. I will be teaching English to Primary students.

It's 8 hours ahead of Minnesota here in Bulgaria; therefore, it is currently almost 10:00 pm. (And, I'm ready to go to bed.) My Tuesday and Wednesday converged into one and I'm lacking sleep quite a bit. I didn't sleep much on the planes or the bus ride here. It is going to be a busy week of learning new things and getting ready to move in with my host family on Sunday! Hello to everyone back home and I'll try to update this as much seems reasonable.

Leaving

I can hardly believe I leave tomorrow morning. It has gone by so fast. My Bulgarian isn't great but it's coming along and I'm excited to finally get to Sofia! I've been checking out other people's blogs and looking at photos and it looks like a beautiful place to spend a few years.

I am very thankful to all of the people who came to the going away party yesterday (and those who called or send cards). It was wonderful to see all of you and spend some time together. I will miss you, leaving is bittersweet. My bags are packed, we'll see if they're under 50 lbs once I get to the airport. According to our scale they are right at (I may have to even take some thing out. However after packing, repacking, and packing some more I don't know what else to leave behind. We are leaving Fairmont at 3 am in order to get to the airport in time for my 7 am flight. It will be a long day but hopefully I can take a quick nap on the plane. Philadelphia, here I come!