So what’s the deal – is banana bread really bread?
November 1, 2010
The sun sets a little earlier outside the apartment - those leaves may still be on the trees but don't be fooled. It's winter.
It has indeed snowed somewhere in this country, but Yambol will probably be one of the last cities to see it. We got some freezing rain last week, but that’s the worst so far. Still, the picture above is misleading – the view today is of gray, cloudy skies, with a light smoke billowing from every roof, and the smell of home-stoves in the air. Yep. It’s winter in Bulgaria. Again. It happens every year, from what they tell me. And as the cold really sets in, we’ve reverted to cooking giant pans of comfort food – pound cake, brownies, and banana bread. Which prompted an interesting question – is banana bread really bread or just a cake with a funny name? Could you really make banana bread french toast out of it?
Audrey prepares to apply some cream cheese to these, yes, home-made bagels. Here's to Vanessa and her endurance - these things took hours to make, but were all the more worth it.
Luckily or unluckily, we’ve been so thoroughly busy with work here that I haven’t had time to do the proper amount of canning to get ready for winter. Last summer I had little to do before school started, and managed to make enough jam to last us through to this summer, as well as tomato sauce, pickles, and green tomato relish. This year I banged out a few hot sauces, a few jams (fig, cherry, cornel-cherries, peach&rum), two different kinds of pickles and 3 measly jars of tomato sauce. That’s not gonna last long. I suppose I technically have the time, but the level of exhaustion at the end of the day is not conducive to proper winter preparation.
Back to school, kids. Again.
But what am I so busy with, you ask? Well, first things first, school started again this september. My dear 12th graders from last year have moved on to Sofia, Plovdiv, Veliko Tarnovo, England, Scotland, Denmark, Holland and elsewhere. This year I have a whole new batch of 12th graders and 8th graders, with a few of my optional classes (10th and 11th grades) continuing. I’ve got me some wicked serious 11th graders who, after a full day of classes, actually want to dig into some really serious business for 2 classes before they’ve even had a chance to eat a proper lunch. We’ve been exploring Aristotle’s rhetorical appeals to reason in a bunch of different contexts, and it’s been really fascinating so far. My 12th graders have been giving me a run for my money thus far, but it’s all good fun. I’m generally much more comfortable at school in the classroom as well as with the other teachers. I found that hanging out in the smoking room, despite the fact that I don’t smoke nor plan to, has been strangely vital to my integration in the teacher’s lounge.
Fishing with the top brass on a school staff trip in september - Maya, the vice-director with the pole in her hand, fishing for the first time in her life, caught the most fish out of all of us that afternoon. Two little babies, but fish nonetheless.
This year, after finishing classes at 3 pm, I rush the 30 min walk back into the center, try and eat something on the way (sadly a lot of döner sandwiches, which is less than unhealthy and twice as brick-in-the-stomach-y), and off to the municipality to get as much work dones as possible before 5. At some point last year, while toying with the idea of having a technical training for fellow volunteers on minority education, the project snowballed into a conference/seminar on best practices in minority education that will be taking place on November 18th and 19th. I’ve got reps from 10 Bulgarian organizations that work in minority integration, mostly working with Roma, and they’ll be presenting to teachers from Yambol and the surrounding villages, as well as some volunteers and their counterparts. It’s been a great process so far, as I’ve gotten to know a lot of great people in both the Yambol municipality (Yambol proper) and the Tundzha municipality (the surrounding villages), as well as writing and funding a project. As the conference itself grows near, so does the stress and anxiousness, but I suppose that’s to be expected. Wish me luck.
If you ever wanted to know how one harvests your wife's boss' walnut tree, it involves hitting a walnut tree with long, heavy, poles, as well as jumping up and down on the branches. Good fun.
Overall, the change in feeling here after a year and a half is astounding. Our bulgarian is perfectly adequate for any situation, and any project that we want to put together, we know who to go to and more or less what to do. We run into people in town all the time, actually have friends, and the general level of challenge has gone down. Or up, really – it’s changed from “how do I ask for a roll of toilet paper from behind the counter” to “how do I run a conference in Yambol?” As you can imagine, it’s not a bad feeling at all. Before we ever left for the peace corps, we knew there would be some crazy challenges involved that would change us in significant ways, and that we couldn’t possibly predict exactly what that challenge would be. I even remember that as the departure date approached, I had a giant black hole in my mind as to what our life here was going to be like – I just knew that every prediction I would make would most likely be wrong. I’m ecstatic, however, that those challenges that we couldn’t predict and the effects they’ve had on us are real and run deep. It’s become clear that coming here has been one of the best choices we’ve ever made. The real question is what’s next – but I’ll keep that to myself.
One of those every-day kind of views for me: the teacher's room from my corner couch seat, as my colleagues dig into some grub to celebrate a mid-day double retirement party of sorts
Speaking of grand life changes: the other day two of our colleagues entered into retirement, Christina of Biology fame and Galya of Administrative excellence. As for any other celebration around here, be it a birthday, birth of a grandson, graduation of a child, name day or otherwise, the retirees brought in snacks for all of the colleagues. The above picture is the result. I can tell you that the loss of these two colleagues is sad, as they’re truly beloved by the whole school, and always in a good mood. But what struck me more was something else. Ever since we arrived here, we’ve been told multiple times how hard life is as a pensioner here, and how dreadfully low the pensions are. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but to think how many of the current retirees worked their whole lives towards the socialist ideal, and then are left to live off of so little in a struggling economy is, well, a bummer. I can see how they’d get pissed off at how “bread used to cost 10 cents.” But never before had I thought of the transition into pensionerdom. How at a certain age, exactly what it is I’ve forgotten, a teacher has to leave their job and (already too-low) salary for an even lower pension, and not much to do. I’ve usually gotten this vision of retirement as a “you made it!” mark, where one finally gets to relax after a long life’s work. It seems like more of a sad punishment here. There’ll be no tooting around in Florida golf carts. It’ll be $100-150 a month, plus whatever other work you might be able to find. That and Christina tragically lost her husband at the end of the last school year. I guess it’s not quite as depressing as I’m making it sound, but it’s also not quite as celebratory as it really should be. So here’s to Christina and Galya – you’re sorely missed already.
Yep - even I can fish. Kind of.
But enough talking about other people – let’s talk about how I’m somehow the center of my own weird little universe. And I say this because of two coincidences involving me and geography. I won’t delve too far into details but it goes like this: 5 years ago I studied abroad for 6 months in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil. It was the first time I lived outside the US and the first time I lived in a big city, and even though my portuguese has sadly suffered under the weight of Bulgarian in my brain, it’s still one of the more formative parts of my life. Well, yesterday, the first female was elected president of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff. She’s taking over for Lula, whose party was entrenched in scandal while I was living in Salvador (though he was still reelected after I left). Now, some of you may be thinking – gee, that doesn’t sound like a very Brazilian name, Rouseff… And that would be because she’s half-Bulgarian. Technically, here name here would be Dilma Ruseva, but the gender-specific surnames get lost in the diaspora. Her father was from Gabrovo, and settled in Brazil after a stint in France. Maybe she’ll come soon for a visit?
Obligatory picture of Sasho. Notice plastic folder full of receipts for peace corps data collection purposes. Sasho occasionally tries to steal our receipts out of there, which can certainly only lead to bad "my cat ate my peace corps allowance info" jokes.
So that coincidence down, it turns out that the Vice President of Vietnam, Nguyen Thi Doan, was educated in a Bulgarian university. My dear grandmother, who came from south Vietnam and was not educated in a Bulgarian university, was named Nguyen Thi Trung. I wonder if this Nguyen Thi Doan is a cousin? Seems unlikely, as 50% of the country is named Nguyen, but you never know, seeing as we don’t really know any of our cousins there. Anyways, there used to be many Vietnamese living in Bulgaria under a guest worker program during the days of communism. I’ve heard all too many off color jokes about eating stray dogs and cats, but otherwise people here have good memories and things to say about the Vietnamese they knew. There are few left here, though there is one Filipina woman living in Yambol, teaching english at the math school. That and we have two chinese neighbors, making us the most asian floor in town. And thus ends my little rant about me and my center of my universe.
Luba and Pesho - our new cat's original momma and poppa
Well, those of you who know us and/or read Nessa’s blog probably know that we lost our female kitten Gambi to a tragic fall in September. I’m not gonna dwell on it too much beyond saying that it was awful. We decided to get a new kitten to keep Sasho company, and a few weeks later brought home young Vasko (da Gama) – just before it started to get really cold. He was given to us by a former colleague, Luba, whose husband is a sculptor – the picture above was from our visit to their abode in a nearby village.
After hours of mischief, Vasko finally calms down enough to stop annoying the crap out of his older brother and sleep. This picture was only slightly posed.
And so resumed the joys and hassles of kittendom. Gambi is very sorely missed, and Vasko certainly can’t replace her, but it’s been pretty fun around here once we finally got rid of all his fleas. Vasko is kind of a terror, constantly attacking both us and Sasho and even occasionally trying to get some milk out of his poor older brother (that doesn’t go over well), but as you can see, he eventually calms down enough to actually be really cute. Looking back at my pictures over the last month, they’re almost all moments in which they’ve snuggled up with each other and I’ve run off the find the camera. We’re such dorks about these cats it’s ridiculous.
Another obligatory kitty photo
And so ends another exciting installment of Broekman in Bulgaria. I can’t promise the next one will come any quicker, but I promise it’s not laziness as much as exhaustion that keeps me from writing them more often. This post took me about 3 hours to write, which is pretty depressing when I look back over what little I’ve actually written given that amount of time. What’s maybe more depressing is how I usually include a disclaimer and/or self-loathing comment about the startling lack of posts in this blog in probably every single post I’ve written. But that’s just life I suppose. To conclude, I’ll leave you with a darling shot of Nessa in front of a Romanian-built Bulgarian train engine.
I'll gladly accept caption suggestions
ciao!
