My Bulgarian Journey: I got my computer!

For almost a month now I've been having problems with my computer. What it boils down to is I should have bought a new one before I came however no worries anymore as I'm currently typing on my new computer! I picked it up when I was in Sofia last Friday. Thanks to everyone at home and in the Peace Corps who helped with the process. It's interesting dealing with computer issues here as needing a computer was not the first thing that came mind when I accepted my invitation to Peace Corps Bulgaria. However, here in Bulgaria my need for a computer is fairly great. Some of the reasons having a computer is a need here are that emails are the main form of communication between the Peace Corps and myself, the internet is a great way to find resources for teaching English as a foreign language, emails/skype/blogging are great ways to keep in touch with people at home, and my computer is my main form of news and entertainment.

What's been happening in the last week? Well, school started for teachers on September 1st. The day started at 8:00 AM with meeting colleagues. Most everyone seems great and I'm excited to get to know them better as my Bulgarian improves. I'm also hoping to observe some of the other staff teach their classes because even if I can't understand everything, I can observe. At 9:00 AM (or around then) there was a teachers meeting with all the staff. The Director (Principal) spoke about many things, I definitely could not follow everything. Basically she went through many bullet points and said who each class teacher would be (home room) and announced who was on different committees and so forth. After the meeting, which was a little over an hour, each "specialty" (languages, music, primary, etc.) met with the Director to find out what classes they would be teaching. it was interesting because since the teachers at my school teach by the hour, they were all adding up their hours to see their workload. My school actually doesn't have a 9th grade this year due to a lack of attendance. Also, many of the teachers don't have as many hours hours as they could due to lack of kids. All of that said, it looks like I will be teaching the following per week of English Instructional hours:

2 hours 12th class

3 hours 6th class

3 hours 5th A class

3 hours 5th B class

1 hour 1st A class

1 hour 1st B class

2 hours Intermediate extra-curricular

2 hours Beginner extra-curricular

1 hour English for Teachers

All of this adds up to 18 instructional hours of English per week which is the amount Peace Corps expects us to teach (most of these hours are team teaching hours). I'm also going to help out once a month or once every 2 months with several clubs. I will also be planning several holiday parties to educate students about American holidays and traditions. First up will be Halloween! Other than the 1st day of school my counterpart and I met the 2nd to plan more and we will be back at school at 8:00 September 7th to continue planning. September 6th is a national holiday here - Unification Day. Kids start school September 15th.

September 3rd would have been another school day however I traveled to Sofia to attend the quarterly AIDS/ATIP (Anti-trafficking in Persons) meeting. It was an informative meeting and I'm excited to implement some of the activities here in Sliven. As a PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) I will be working on the education/prevention side of ATIP. I don't quite know what this will look like yet but will have a better idea once I know my community better. After the Sofia meeting I took a train to visit another volunteer for the night. We had dinner and hung out at her adorable apartment (I need to do some renovations to my place). Then on Saturday I took the train back into Sofia and a bus back to Sliven. I even had a Dr. Pepper at the Sofia Bus Station, yum.

Today I'm just hanging out at my apartment. I went grocery shopping earlier for a few things and I should clean but that might happen tomorrow. Tomorrow is Unification Day here in Bulgaria so there is no work just like there isn't any work on Labor Day in the U.S.A.