Vasko gives Pepa his kitty kisses, as per request.

Well this time, I shall not.   No, I shall ask that we all confirm our suspicions that I shant become a regular blogger, but simply one that posts in large intervals and run-on sentences. One of the more complex issues that arises with these great intervals, of course, is how to fit in everything that’s happened into something of reasonable length and interest.  So today, I’d like to put the past x months in perspective with a suprisingly frequent theme:  coffee.

Goats givin me the stinkeye in a brief visit to Zheravna, in the Slivenski Balkan end of the Stara Planina

Now, that are many ways one can approach the subject of coffee and Bulgaria.  There’s that of coffee culture – compare a 32 oz. Dunkin donuts coffee chugged in the car on the way to work and finished at the desk to the espresso slowly sipped in the main square (while the sun is shining, that is).  In winter, it’s more of a slowly sipped espresso inside a painfully smoky cafe; but the basic effect of the hour to two hour long coffee should be well understood.

Pictures of donkey-carts just never get old - again in Zheravna

I could continue along with my obsession of Turkish coffee; talk about coffee’s origins in Ethiopia and Yemen and about how the first coffee shops in the world were in started Istanbul.  But no.  I’d like to talk about coffee and development.  Now, you have to keep in mind that there is no coffee grown in Bulgaria (nor in Turkey), so I’m not taking about growing practices, starbucks or fair trade anything.  This is all going to be a little abstract, but it should make sense in the end.

The smoker's room in the teacher's lounge - vitally, also the location of the coffee machine

Today’s exploration of coffee and development in Bulgaria begins in the place that my work here also begins:  the teacher’s lounge.  One of the most important parts of any teacher’s lounge in BG is, of course, the coffee machine.  But this is no drip coffee – oh no – this is a coffee automat that, as Americans, we’re more used to seeing at stops on the merritt parkway; but 3 times as large, and with instructions usually in Italian, French or English.

The coffee machine...

Therefore, like any good American boy, I was intrigued to find a very old drip coffee machine upstairs in the english office at school.  After much wondering aloud by colleagues whether it still works and reminiscences of the machine’s past glory, I decided to implant the machine into the teacher’s lounge; from there, it’s become my own little experiment in volunteer impact and development. OK – what?  It’s just a damned coffee machine.  Come on, Nat.  Get over yourself.

My new little coffee setup.

Well, stick with me here.  Let’s analyze this.  Here we are, some random, energetic Americans dropped into a foreign country with the vague dream of making a lasting impact.  Coming in with fresh eyes, we see worlds of problems, wonders that the local (jaded) population now sometimes takes for granted, and occasionally, solutions.  Of course, it isn’t always that simple a process.  It is this process of identifying an issue, proposing a project, and trying to implement it as a volunteer living in Bulgaria.  From here on in, I’ll hope you’ll bear with me that the pictures are mostly unrelated to the narrative, however.

The kukeri festival, Kukerlandia, returns to Yambol for 2011. Photo fun ensues.

So we have issue number one in this case:  the coffee from Mr. Automat just kind of sucks, it’s too small to satisfy, and it costs between 30 and 50 stotinki a pop (20-35 cents or so).  The teachers don’t necessarily disagree.  However, any given society has millions of problems, and just because we sit around complaining about coffee, minority integration or health care, that doesn’t mean we’re going to personally do anything about it.  Most of us have plenty on our plate already.

The lost children of Kukerlandia

I, however, decided to take action.  I brought down the drip machine, cleaned out the carafe, bought the coffee, the filters, the creamer, the sugar.  We moved some things around and set the little guy up.  The english teachers told me how they used to have a small collection pot for everyone who drank from the machine 15 or so years ago, something like 15 stotinki per coffee.  The first pot was made.  It was offerred to those who had a free period at the time.  It was praised for being “Nat’s delicious coffee” and “so much better than that stupid machine;” despite the fact that it’s not my drip maker nor the first time they’ve drank drip coffee.  I was, however, happy to hear that they found it to be “not as weak as I thought American coffee was.”  After months of being told we drink coffee, that felt about right.

The kukeri procession

I won a few converts.  We briefly set up a more informal system of a few teachers rotating the responsibility of bringing in the coffee.  I always had immediate takers upon the offer of fresh-made coffee; though few would take without being offered.  And yet, my envisioned full-fledged takeover from that italian menace simply didn’t come to light.  So what had I done wrong? I had assessed the materials available and found the cheapest option, using locally sourced equipment that colleagues even had experience with.  The overall cost of making our own coffee is, in fact, cheaper than the big machine.  The product is even generally considered superior to the automat, as measured by the responses.

The drum

Yet the idea was not locally grown – it had been imported by the American.  There was no ownership of the idea among my colleagues, and my daily coffee making remained my daily coffee making.  Eventually the other teachers stopped bringing in coffee grounds of their own, and while people still drink the extra I make daily when offered, we haven’t yet managed to implement a system whereby everyone takes full ownership over this experience.

The look

So this is where we hit both a culture and systemic barrier.  I can’t bring myself personally to set out a jar and charge people for coffee.  I’d prefer to simply have a rotating duty of bringing in grounds, sugar and creamer; but that’s just not the way things work here.  When the water cooler runs low on water, there is a teacher responsible for collecting a lev from every colleague and ordering the new bottles.  She also happens to be our teacher’s union rep, but you get the idea of the system/bureaucracy involved.  Now, bureaucracy is a top complaint to most people in this world, American or otherwise; but trying to make your way through a foreign bureaucracy, and a post-communist transitional bureaucracy to boot – that we’d love to do without. But we can’t.  We’re not here to change a whole system; to imagine as such would be ridiculous.  No, we need to establish the seeds that can grow within the systems that already exist.  If I were truly serious about pushing through this coffee machine on a sustainable level, it would have to be through such a system that the teachers have described to me.  There would be a point person responsible for collecting money, or a money jar, and later that person would acquire the necessary resources for our little coffee venture.

The bagpipe!

So we arrive at another issue: who would that be?  Well it shouldn’t be me for a number of reasons, but a top one being a lack of sustainability.  If I’m the point person handling all the organization in this little project, when I walk away, the project will simply die.  The coffee machine will move back upstairs.  What we need is a transfer of skills; locating local leadership with whom to implement any given idea so as to ensure its sustainability after we’ve returned to the land of drip coffee.

Painting the town red in our friend Anna's little Turkish village up north

This person is not best found by the school director simply choosing someone to be in charge of said project, however.  It needs to be someone who sees the issue as of enough personal importance that they can take the time out of the rest of their work schedule to implement this alongside you, and then continue it in your absence.  This is no easy task.  At my school at least, many of my difficulties in finding this person don’t come from laziness; but instead from our teachers being already overloaded with their normal job, extracurricular competitions the kids take part in, mountains of paperwork and documentation, family life, and finally the human desire to have a life of one’s own.  I may be here for 2 years rushing to make some kind of change, but I can’t say I had the same desire to change New York when I was living there.  It was more of a: go to work, make enough money, develop myself as a musician and develop my freelance career, and otherwise try and enjoy my life.  Your average Bulgarian is trying to do the same, which in itself is a little more difficult here.

Village liiiiiife! Chickeeeeeeens!

Now, these issues are pretty minute when it comes to coffee making, and with a little effort it probably could happen.  But on any given larger idea, they’re vital questions and much more complex.  I think I’ve identified some of the key issues so far: identifying problems with reachable solutions, especially on the monetary front, finding solid and dedicated leadership, and finally, implementing a system that will be sustainable in the volunteer’s absence.  I haven’t done all of these things so far with my filter coffee venture.  I had just about given up on my dream. But there’s a twist.  They upped the price on the italian coffee machine by 10 stotinki per coffee. We thought they were fixing the machine again, but no.  That which was 40 stotinki – oh, it’s 50 now.

The Pirin Ensemble in Yambol - Kukerlandia

We now have a catalyst.  My half-hearted jokes about boycotting the machine have been met with some legitimate calls for going in on a newer, used drip coffee machine.  The problem has become just biting enough to generate local ownership of the issue and its solution.  There have even been discussions of what form the coffee-payment system will take.  Perhaps it will really take off; someone will walk in first period and make the first pot of coffee.  The person to finish that pot – makes the next one.  It all seems so simple; and yet the simplest of systems that we may be used to is dependent on a series of smaller moments and players.  On a grander scale than coffee machines, I see our place as volunteers as finding that which we can massage into something slightly better, all within the current system and in partnership with our host community leaders.

New recruits at the Roma school, "Dr. Petar Beron"

OK, so what if we were no longer rambling about coffee?  My project between the language school and the Roma/Turkish school, for example?  Well, the same basic issues are there.  Every Bulgarian and foreigner here is aware of the minority integration issues, though the solutions to them are highly disputed, and said solutions are frequently argued to not even exist.  We’ve managed to set up a reasonable system of identifying interested BG students to participate in the project, and I usually meet them after school and we split a cab.  I communicate with my colleague at the Roma school about class times and exactly which classes we’ll visit.  Contact with the lang school students happens generally through facebook (that’s right, the same one that helped overthrow Hosni Mubarak).  The project is very warmly welcomed in the Roma school, and the right students and classes have been picked to maintain interest among all students involved.  I’m happy to say that we’ve been getting local TV coverage recently, as well.

A recent visit to Primary School "Dr. Petar Beron"

And yet we arrive at the biggest issue so far:  It was my idea, and I’m currently the leader of the project.  My colleague at the Roma school, Asya, doesn’t have the time to be going to other schools and finding volunteers.  My language school colleagues are supportive of the idea, but don’t find it personally important enough to help lead such a thing.  Once I leave, barring finding a local 3rd party to take over, the project will most likely just end.  The search for said 3rd party continues, of course, but maybe not every project gets to last forever.

Me, Asya, and some of our presenters at the conference "Да, Можем - Best Practices in Multi-Ethnic Education"

A slightly more successful project Asya and I put together towards that end was our conference-seminar “Yes, We Can – Best Practices in Multi-Ethnic Education.”  I’m still embarrassed about the title, but I had to put something on the grant application and never put the time into thinking of something better.  Through this conference, we managed to bring together 110 local teachers, school directors, municipality workers and leaders of various national Roma organizations.  Over 2 days of lectures and workshops led primarily by the representatives of these Roma organizations with my help, we succeeded in creating a forum on the subject that I was later told barely exists.  Teachers, directors and presenters alike all made requests that this not be the last seminar of its kind.

The 2nd day of the conference.

Will it happen again?  Was it fully sustainable?  Yes and no.  A few key community leaders and myself learned how to put together such a conference and its overall usefulness. It was put together in partnership with various local leaders from the municipalities as well as my colleague Asya from the Roma school, who has put together a similar seminar at her school with her PCV counterpart, Audrey, though on a more local scale and utilizing PCVs as lectors.  For our conference, however, those who would be most useful to have been the leaders, the Regional Educational Inspectorate (the superintendent’s office, basically), were sadly only so much a part of the process.  But, hindsight’s 20/20, as they say.  In this case, I managed to find great, dedicated leaders to implement it, but maybe not the best placed leaders to pull off seminars on the same level in the future.  Only time will tell.

Our spelling Bee participants

On yet another note, however, I am proud to say that today some of my students participated in Bulgaria’s first English Language Spelling Bee, a project that was put together by two fabulous PCVs and has reached a huge scale: countrywide over 1,000 Bulgarian students will participate.  The project has had great support from the ministry of education, as well as local teachers, and godwilling will be picked up and continued in future years.  Sometimes it is that little idea that can turn into something huge and incredibly successful.  All of my congrats to the organizers and their great work.

How does one even get into this position?

Let’s allow that to conclude my rambling for now.  I’ll include a few final notes: for those who are curious, while we’re now reaching the end of our 27 months, we’re considering extending for another year.  I’ll keep y’all updated as that becomes more real.  I gave a speech the other day in Sofia at the opening of the Peace Corps Bulgaria 20 year anniversary photo-exhibit, which got less press than I’d hoped but you can see a video here. If you want to a copy of it in english, shoot me a message.  In other news, it’s almost spring here.  Almost.  I did see a flock of storks this weekend from the bus, which around here technically means it’s here; but as a born and bred New Englander, I don’t believe in spring before late April.

From our New Year's visit to Dubai and Musandam. May it be this warm soon, wherever you may be.

For more pictures from Kukerlandia, click here.  For more from Dubai, click here.

Wait - what?

That is all.  Good day.

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!

Last one in is a rotten яйце - young Turks escaping the extreme heat in the Bosphorus, Istanbul.

It’s slightly cold today.  Therefore, at some point this afternoon, as I was lazing around the house awaiting the new school year to slap me in the face with a few textbooks, I had a brief image of winter.  Sitting in the apartment, huddled under thick blankets and in one of a few hoodies we brought with us, deciding which hot beverage to cook up next (maté? black tea? coffee? hot chocolate? rakia?).  Thankfully, it didn’t frighten me too much, but I’m sure it’ll be a different story once faced with the reality of buying another 35 meters of weatherstripping for these windows of ours.  Instead, questions abound about our year ahead, and the ever impending year after pound the brain.

Not here, Muffy - The old mineral baths, Sofia

And so we come to this point.  It’s the end of summer, school begins in a week, and I haven’t updated this blog for ages.  In this next scroll of photos and text, I hope to do the best I can to update all my ever-faithful readers (a group which more and more is becoming comprised of my students, current and former) in the comings and goings of life in Bulgaria.

Dyado Denyo, a.k.a Кюфтето - kyufteto, "the meatball," enlightens us all with his homemade rakia, homemade sirene, and homemade wisdom, as Matt listens on in astute silence.

Somewhere in the middle of the summer, all of us B25s got a taste of our own PC mortality, as the guard was changed and our dear B23s went home.  Now, spread out across the great US of A, searching for jobs and meaning from the past 2 years of their life, I can wish them only the best and say that they are well missed, and my special best (that’s right) goes out to the Matts, of Sliven and Shivachevo fame, having been our only regional friends for the past year or so.  As happy as we are with our new neighbors in the B26s, Sliven pizza nights will never be the same.

The Matts and the grandpa hats on our final Sliven pizza night

It’s a bizarre process, the one that turns us into the “senior” volunteers after only a year of being here, and then shoots us out the other end (which isn’t to say that we’re forced, considering that the opportunity to extend is always there).  I’m not exactly sure what my objectives were walking into this whole thing, and if they’ll be fully met by the time I walk out, but we’ve hit the halfway point in our tour here, and it’s time to figure out how to walk out that door gracefully and with desired accomplishments, well, accomplished.  This is a hectic time for us, to be certain, but more in trying to stamp out a schedule for the year ahead and beyond than in a specific to-do list.  Days and nights are being spent researching master’s programs worldwide and otherwise pondering the unrelenting question “what do I want to do with my life?”  I know you’ve all been there, and some of you are probably there right now – it’s a funny game, and it definitely leaves the head spinning.  One can only try and revel in the excitement of possibility.  But enough of my crap attempts at philosophy.  I’m annoying myself with my own verbosity.

And so they arrive - the parents' visit to Bulgaria!

Moving on to facts and details – shortly after school ended, my dear parents arrived in Bulgaria and took a whirlwind tour.  I can’t tell you the amazement Nessa and I felt riding around in a rented car, being able to stop where we wanted, when we wanted, not having to call every bus station to make sure the bus we want really exists (it often doesn’t), and complete control over temperature within the vehicle.  It may sound cliché, but I never quite realized just how much of a luxury a car really is.  Which isn’t to say there aren’t real advantages to riding everywhere on buses and trains – trains especially can be a lot of fun (except when it’s 104 degrees out and you’re in a compartment with windows that don’t open).  But still, you see where I’m coming from.

Mom modeling the Rila Monastery (in profile) for us

So we did the tourist thing.  Sofia, The Rila monastery, Veliko Tarnovo, Koprivshtitsa, Sozopol, Yambol, Zheravna – as much as one car can in 10 days.  I have to give them credit for having more energy than Nessa or I to hit all these spots – at least, far more than I expected they would.  That and plenty of na gostis whilst in Yambol, listening to Vanessa and I do our best to translate and converse at the same time.  Obviously, one can’t overstate how nice it is to have the family come to visit.  I’ll let some photos speak for themselves.

Dad, in full photojournalist gear, in front of the Tsarevets fortress in Veliko Tarnovo

The evening mist settles on the mountains above the Rila monastery

The Rila Monastery itself

Even presidential guards gotta have their ice cream - Sofia

Sasho Loves Love - and he knows family when he smells 'em

And one visitor turned into the next…

Peter Lemiszki finally makes it to the land of his slavic cousins (Ukrainian though his name may be), and sees the splendor of their creations: the blok apartments of Sofia.

Just kidding – In Peter’s time in Bulgaria, he saw a lot more and really loved his time here, so don’t you worry.  But we did, for some reason, find ourselves compelled to visit the blok neighborhoods in Sofia, just to know.  It was as exciting as it looks.

Peter and Nessa show off their best fisticuff skills in Veliko Tarnovo. Jesse is clearly impressed and frightened for his safety amongst such champions of street fighting.

So in a matter of a few weeks, Wayland MA and New York City represented themselves well here in Bulgaria.  That is, my parents grew up in NYC and eventually made their way to Wayland, and Peter did just the opposite – as did I, come to think of it.  Peter was happy to report that his favorite part of the visit was meeting my dear students on an impromptu walk up Borovets hill, after which we got some coffee on top of the Yambol mall.  That’s right – Peter came all the way to Bulgaria just to hang out at the mall.

Everybody but Peter clearly laughing at something hilarious that I said. Cuz I'm just that funny. Actually, most likely is that they were giggling awkwardly about Denislav taking pictures of us nonstop (props to Denislav for taking pictures, as I forgot my camera that day)

No comment.

And after he’d seen a small piece of Bulgaria, it was off to the closest thing to New York City we’ve got around here: Istanbul.

Kind of like soho...

It’s always fun travelling in big cities with other people who are/have lived in NYC, in that you can play the “which NYC neighborhood is this?” game wherever you go.  On my first visit to Istanbul, I probably called 30 different neighborhoods the Soho of Istanbul.  Which is silly.  This time, we made it to the Elmwood, Queens (Üsküdar), the Bay Ridge, Brooklyn (also Üsküdar – perhaps), the South Bronx (Balat and Ayvansaray), the Hamptons (Büyükada, the princes islands), Williamsburg (Galata), The Upper East Side (Nişantaşı), oh and Crown Heights (Fatih) – although the hasidic capital of NYC doesn’t compare in the same way to the conservative religious heart of Istanbul.  We couldn’t figure out a good comparison for Istiklal Avenue.

Gettin our grand bazaar action on - well, an action shot nearby, anyway

Gotta say, still proud of myself for figuring out how to say "excuse me, can you take a picture of us" in Turkish, on the spot. Üsküdar - on the Asian side of the city.

Alright, maybe the NYC comparisons are ridiculous and don’t quite work out – Istanbul is one of the more unique cities I’ve ever seen.  Currently, every plan for the future I make includes living in Istanbul for 1 year as a necessity.  The only question is how, and when.

The golden horn (the waterway, an extension of the bosphorus) as seen from the hostel roof

Kaymak - fresh buffalo milk clotted cream with honey and bread. This was such a good breakfast, that we came back to the same place almost every morning.

Oh Kepkep - you honestly made me look like a backstreet boy.

Among the many goals we had set in our visit, one included getting a Turkish haircut.  I find barbers to be quite the experience, the world round.  Mostly because it rarely matters what you want them to do – they just smile, nod, and cut your hair however they want.  At one point, my barber in Brooklyn, Yusef, managed to shave off most of my moustache but left the rest of the beard.  After I left the shop, I realized that I looked either like an Imam or Amish, or both.  Upon asking him to “fix” it, I was told that I was incorrect, and that I looked “very handsome,” in his thick Palestinian accent.  So I went for it, and have decided to trust barbers, in their infinite wisdom, ever since.  In our wanderings through Fatih, the conservative and religious stronghold of the old city, we happened to stumble upon this little kuaför (a turkish spelling of coiffeur, a.k.a barber), and Kepkep did his handiwork.  This included a full facewash and fingers in my ears that I hadn’t expected.  I must admit, my face felt mighty clean.  My Turkish language skills got a run for their money as we attempted to make smalltalk.  I got most of my points across, but couldn’t understand his answers for the life of me (“hiç bir şey anlamadım” – I don’t understand a single thing).  Overall, a great experience.

The blue mosque

Yep - I totally got caught trying to sneak a pic of these guys playing backgammon on the banks of the Bosphorus. I love me some backgammon.

Fishing on the Bosphorus - Kabataş

Well, these pictures could go on forever, but instead I’m gonna direct you here, for the rest.  There should be plenty of pics in there tagged “Istanbul” from my first visit there, as well.  Let’s move on, I’m sure you all have better stuff to do than read this crap.

Hangin' out on the black sea talkin' bout culture - Multi-Ethnic Camp "Заедно Напред" - Forward Together. Angel shows off the scene.

After riding the overnight train back from Istanbul, I had the pleasure to rush immediately to a multi-ethnic camp on the black sea, called “Forward Together.”  The basic idea, though scaled down this year, was to bring together the different ethnic groups that live in Bulgaria and learn a little bit about each other, via presentations, skits, games, and just hangin’ out on the beach together.  This year only Bulgarians, Turks and Roma were represented due to budget constraints, although in past years there has also been participation by Armenians and Jews.  Well, I did my best to represent the glories of Jewry (I learned to play and sing Hava Nagila, anyways).

The basics of the camp - group work mixing the different ethnic groups, followed by presentations and games n such - fellow PCV Matt Piscatelli presiding.

I’m not gonna go too deep into the specifics of the camp itself, but suffice to say I was truly enthused by the results.  We hung out for 7 days in a bunch of bungalows, a 5 minute walk from the beach, legitimately building understanding.  On my last night there (I had to leave a day early), each ethnic group presented a skit about their culture, which was a real blast.  Matt and I put on a skit about Americans that involved watermelon seed spitting and watermelon carving by the audience.  I realized I suck at watermelon seed spitting, but that’s besides the point.  The best part about the camp, however, is that it was originally a Peace Corps Volunteer’s project 10 years ago, and has since been taken over by a few Bulgarian Roma, with current PCVs merely assisting at the camp and helping find funding.  Truly inspiring stuff.

Little kids pretending to ride ATVs are always cute

From there, it was on to scout camp.

8 days living in a field in the extreme heat - but at least we built this kickass shade machine, as modeled by Tsetso

Yeah, that pretty much says it all.  8 days in a field in the middle of the forest on the Shumen plateau, living in tents, cooking on fires, fun with axes and twine and knives and kids of all ages – doing the scout thing, which, well, I never did as a kid.  Out of the whole experience, I gotta say that I was most proud of the shade machine that we built by the 3rd or 4th day, under which we had meetings, took naps in the afternoon, and even slept under at night sometimes.  The reality of the matter was that no one knew we’d be in the middle of a field, so we didn’t bring a tarp of any sort, and thus we were the only ones who (out of necessity) built shade out of natural materials.  This also made us the coolest camp around.

Starting fires for a cooking activity leads to...

...Delicious meatballs with sauce - a Broekman/Rabid Squirrels (that's actually the name of their troupe) collabo. We got 2.5 points out of 2 for taste.

There was all yer other standard stuff – hanging out around fires, sing alongs, stomach bugs, daytime activities that we rarely participated in (besides the cooking one above), all the good stuff.  We even had special guests.

Proud to introduce the newest American members of the Yambol community - Sean and Audrey. Featuring unfortunately small hat.

Yes, that’s right, we now have 2 new PC volunteers in Yambol of B26 fame, the esteemed Sean and Audrey.  They arrived in late July and came along on our scouting adventure, just as we had begun our service last year with the scouts.  They were a huge hit with the campers, especially with their American football skills (and American football), which was a source of immediate interest.  Now that the school year has begun, Audrey is taken up full time in OU Petar Beron (the second school I’d been working in, and where we applied for a volunteer), and Sean is working as part of the Youth Development program with multiple organizations in town.

Sean does his best to touch the mighty hand of Khan Asparuh - the first Bulgarian king

One of the more exciting points of the camp was a walk from base camp to the “1300 years of the Bulgarian state” monument, built in 1981 to commemorate, well, guess.  The above picture is actually inside the monument and is a small part of it – in fact, if I understood correctly, it’s either the largest monument in Europe, or simply the highest up.  I don’t know, something like that.  But it’s pretty wicked, and awesome to see Bulgarian history in giant cubist representations.

I hope I'm not getting this wrong... I'm pretty sure this is Tsar Boris, but I can't exactly remember. It could be Tsar Asen. Anyway, you can see how scouty I ended up, what with the ascot and the hat and all. Pretty hilarious.

After the camp, I facilitated a “TEFL Training Academy” in Blagoevgrad, on the other end of the country, in which we had a week of model school for the new education volunteers and seminars and such.  It was a good time, but I took no pictures.  From there it was off to visit our buddy Dan in the Rhodope mountains, as part of a project known as “кино на село” (cinema in the village).  Basically, a PCV comes with a projector (funded by a former PCV’s project), and using a local sound system, you show a movie.

The Turkish Coffee experiment continues unabated

Two cezves and two değirmens (turkish coffee pot and grinder, respectively) later, the attempt at the perfect cup of Turkish coffee continues its nonstop fascination.  What I have learned since the last post involving turkish coffee:  First, the smaller the cezve the better.  When we were in Veliko Tarnovo recently, we had the joy of trying Turkish Coffee made on sand – literally with the cezve sitting in hot sand, so that the heat comes from all sides evenly and slowly.  Each individual coffee was prepared in its own cezve, so as to get the perfect каймак (kaymak – foam) for each coffee.  Note that the word for foam is the same as the Bulgarian word for cream, and the Turkish word for clotted buffalo cream from the picture above.  I’ve finally got my каймак down pat by grinding the coffee by hand to its absolute finest.  This also makes for a very thick, delicious coffee.  My final issue, however, is getting the right kind of beans.  You just can’t rush perfection.  It’s been 3 years in the works now, but at least I’m getting somewhere.  Vanessa mostly thinks my coffee obsession is ridiculous (though delicious), but she lets me run with it, and occasionally enables my habit by convincing me to buy the occasional handmade cezve.  The shame is that you can only drink so much coffee in one day.

And so, this blog draws to an awkward, unexciting conclusion, and as our Bulgarian language teacher arrives this afternoon, I will leave you with a few final wishes.  May your cats not attack your toes while you sleep, may your students refrain from derogatory racial epithets in your presence, may your projects find funding, may your bagels be layered with lox (and cream cheese, of course), may your coffee be rich, and may you have a glorious new school year.

All the best to all the rest

Alexandrina with her 4 fourth graders of the day - GPChE and MG invade OU PB

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Bulgarian school related acronyms, let me explain.  Since before the time I stepped foot in this, the eastern corner of what is commonly reffered to as “The Balkans,” I had vague dreams of some sort of project like this coming about.  And through a long string of small successes, I have finally achieved the following:  GPChE (Gimnazia s Profil na Chuzhdi Ezitsi, aka Foreign Language High School, my school) and the MG (Matematicheska Gimnazia, the Math School from which I stole one of Vanessa’s students) politely invade OU PB – the primary school (1st-8th grade) Petar Beron, a de facto segregated Turkish/Roma school here in Yambol. 2 times in as many weeks, I have brought a total of 6 students (in different arrangements) to assistant teach in our english classes at Petar Beron, in what I have been referring to as “Bulgaricorps.”

Mrs. Eneva (Asya) watches as Joanna, our MG guest, works her magic on family trees in the 6a class

We had our first day 2 weeks ago, and just finished our second today.  The day consists of 2 classes, first in the 6a class, and following in the 4a class.  So far, the kids we work with are all Turkish speakers (I hope to start working with the Romanes speakers as well), and by splitting them up into smaller groups and working with our esteemed 10th and 11th grade role models, so far everyone has walked away ecstatic.  Including, of course, myself.

Mehmet hams it up for the camera in the 4a class.

I know I’ve mentioned this ages ago on this blog and or in person, and it seems like I’ve been talking about it for lifetimes.  In the back of my mind I imagine myself as a person who spouts out lots of interesting ideas that I never manage to complete.  This was one of those ideas that I was very scared would never come to fruition, but so far it has, and in a very good way.  The 2nd week, upon returning minus 2 of our former language school students, the kids were pleading to know “where’s brother Mitko?” “Where’s Lucy?  If she doesn’t come back next time I’m never talking again.”  My newly minted assistant english teachers as well, at the end of each session, walked away with giant smiles and an addiction to 4th graders (so cute) that may never die.

It's always time for Kyuchek - Nelli makes the kids sing for her. They didn't need much convincing.

The end of our 4a class today included our 4th graders excitedly teaching my language school kids basic Turkish (benim adım bay Broekman, memnun oldum, ben 26 yaşında, sağ ol…), and Nelli’s impromptu song and dance party.  It’s important to note that for a Bulgarian, Turkish is remembered as the language of the oppressor – usually these kids are told not to speak Turkish in class.  For a Bulgarian to learn a few words of Turkish with a smile on their face means a lot to these kids, and a lot in general.  One class when I was asked “Gospodine, do you speak Turkish?,” and I replied “Ami, çok az Türkçe konuşabiliyorum” (I mean, I speak a little bit of Turkish), the class erupted in joy.  It’s a matter of vindication and respect, really.  Come to think of it, getting Bulgarian kids to agree to come to the Roma side of town, let alone help teach in the school there, is a big deal in itself.  Here’s to them.

Mitko was sadly missing on our second day, due to a Tennis related leg injury. These four kids were wicked bummed about it.

So, now that it’s begun, the hope is expansion – a few more language/math school kids to join, and maybe another class to work in.  Most of these kids in Petar Beron won’t continue beyond 8th grade.  Hopefully the contact between these two communities will continue, and at least a few of these kids will recognize that they too can go to High School.  The dream of Petar Beron’s new director is to successfully send one of her kids to the language or math school.  This is just one small step in that goal.

The Gang's all here - 4a class starring Mitko, Nelli, Lucy, Mr. Vasilev and myself.

You can check out all the pics here.

Whakyfkjiengacluvka?!

Well, to be honest with you, I’ve just got too much work to do this weekend to write a proper blog.  But things have been happening and pictures have been taken, and y’all have the right to see them.  Therefore, they’ve all been posted on our flickr page, and I’m going to give you links one by one to where the excitement begins there, for your viewing pleasure.  Sadly, few words will be written to describe such events today.  We can discuss later.

Снимай бе! Take the damned picture already!

First and foremost – the Kukeri invaded our wee town of Yambol.  This is some kind of pre-christian tradition, possibly Thracian, to chase away bad spirits.  Yambol has one of the bigger Kuker festivals in Bulgaria, although it pales in comparison to that of Pernik’s (so I’ve been told).  Still, there was a whole day of dudes in crazy costumes running around in the rain with giant bells hanging off their shoulders, performing strange skits that I can’t explain.  It sucked to be running around in the rain that day, but I’m sure it sucked even more for the people covered in animal fur and hides who were getting soaked.  Here’s the link to our flickr page.  I’ll include a few more pictures below.

This dude came running at me and smeared some black paint on my face - I don't know why but I'm sure there was a reason for it.

One of the groups takes a "rest" after their performance that includes more jumping up and down. Notice the size of the bells on that dude - each group spent hours marching and jumping with god only knows how many pounds of iron hanging on their shoulders.

This was one of the recurring characters in each group - he seemed to be the leader of some sort, and blew his whistle a whole bunch.

Everyone gets involved

moving on:

Wheeee! Everyone take a ride on the tanks!

So for the past, well, maybe 5 months, I’ve been slowly putting together a project to send a serious of pen-pal-style packages between myself and multiple other volunteers in Eastern Europe.  After much planning, my 10th and 9th grade optional classes and I sent out a package with pictures of our dear Yambol and descriptions of our city to a volunteer in Macedonia.  While we were putting this together, one of my 10th graders (on the right in the above picture) had been working to get us access to what is effectively a military equipment graveyard in Yambol, where her father is putting together a project to make a Tank museum.  She wanted to take pictures of the project and describe it to our Macedonian buddies – but after much hemming and hawing by the municipality in terms of giving us access, we didn’t get the pictures taken in time for the package.  All of these tanks are out of use, but many go back to the 2nd world war, and at least one is only 1 out of 4 remaining in the world.  There was a lot of information on tanks given out on this day – I don’t know how much I really understood, but it was pretty interesting.  It was pretty crazy to imagine, as I stood in a field of rusted German and Russian tanks and Russian built trucks, that only 20 years ago we were sworn enemies.  It certainly made me happy to know that I was here with an organization known as the peace corps, looking towards the future of Bulgaro-American friendship.  Here’s the flickr link for those pics.

Our guard/guide for the day has been working in the Bulgarian army 27 years. He felt the museum was a little silly, as he'd prefer "all the tanks to be melted down and forgotten about. There's nothing more horrible made by man than war." Here he's showing us a mobile dentist's truck - Russian built truck with Bulgarian made dentistry equipment.

My student's father and our guide inspect old maps of one of Bulgaria's many wars with the Ottoman Empire, as shown inside the base.

moving further ahead, well really slightly behind:

Probably the most awkward snowball-in-mid-air picture ever.

So, the weekend before visiting the tanks, Vanessa, our buddy Jessie (above) and I went to visit our friend Dan in his village in the heart of the Rhodope mountains.  It was a blast.  Winter gave it’s (hopefully) final lashing, left us with some beautiful snow to throw at each other, and the NASA certified “best air in the world” (according to the residents) filled our lungs with clean.  It really was incredibly beautiful, and we’re all just a bit jealous of Dan now.  Pictures.

Oh that NASA air. Dan let's 'em know.

Partytown later that night - Ibiza ain't got nothing on the Rhodope mountains.

So that’s what the life looks like right now.  Well, actually, life looks like Vanessa and I holed up inside, me correcting papers and preparing lessons for Monday as well as prep work for assorted different projects.  So, along those lines, I’ll include a picture of my colleague Asiya with two of our students from the Roma/Turkish school that I work at one day a week.

Here's to you, Bulgaria.

Orthodox Priests gotta get their mineral water sometimes too - at the public fountains in Sofia.

The weather these days has been unbelievable – somewhere in the 60s, certainly.  Vanessa and I have each, in our own moments, been guilty of faux-spring excitement; well, I’m not sure what the proper term would be, but it’s when it’s kind of warm outside, so you go out underdressed and excited and end up being cold.  The ice is entirely melted, which has saved me from falling on my ass again, but alongside some recent downpours has completely flooded the river Tundja.  If you go a few posts back, you’ll see a photo of a shantytown across the river from the Mahala – last tuesday, looking from the upstairs window of the Roma school, I saw that those houses are now flooded up to about the windows.  The town of Elhovo, further down the river, has had serious flooding problems, and Bulgaria also opened some emergency floodgates of the river Maritsa (that runs through Plovdiv), thus flooding parts of the province of Edirne, in Turkey.  Ouch.  But let us discuss things non-weather related.

That's right, even mid-sized Bulgarian cities have international boxing tournaments from time to time. You can see at the corners of the ring "Община Ямбол," Obshtina Yambol - Yambol Municipality.

When we first moved here, we often wondered: “if Bulgaria was America, what city would Yambol be?”  My first argument was that it was the Albuquerque, in that during the summer it was very dry, it’s a mid-sized and moderately important city, and I can’t remember what else.  Of course, Albuquerque is much larger than Yambol, and winter was neither dry nor hot, so I think that argument is quite out.  Yambol is more the size of Jacksonville, FL.  Certainly, if Bulgaria were New England, I think Yambol could be considered Springfield, MA, except with less corruption than Springfield, and probably not as much mafia.  So – Imagine that you are a French aid worker, you’ve been assigned to teach French in a school in Springfield, MA, and otherwise given the assignment of making the city a better place, and you might get some idea of our time here.

Now imagine that in your time in Springfield, MA, an international boxing championship comes to town.  I guess it’s not quite as ridiculous in Springfield, but it was a hell of an experience here in Yambol, as Yambol tries to remake itself as a boxing center for Bulgaria.  Many countries were present – France, Switzerland, Syria, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Moldova, Cuba, Turkey, Bulgaria, Macedonia; I know there was another one or two countries there but I can’t remember quite who.  We ran into the Cuban boxers a few times in town, buying döners or trying to buy giant bike tires at the bazaar.  The Syrian guys were amused by the children driving little plastic electric-car things in the town center on the weekend.  The Armenian boxers were hanging out with at least one Armenian Yambolite in the bleachers (Armenians are apparently the 4th largest minority in Bulgaria behind Turks and Roma).  It was a true international hullabaloo.

The Cuban heavyweight taking a rest between rounds

The tournament lasted 3 days, but for only the portions of the two days we attended, it was quite a lot of boxing.  Although the spectacle was incredibly fun, most of the fights were pretty unexciting.  Still, a few were really interesting – it was sad to see the Uzbeki heavyweight get pummeled by his Russian counterpart, a historical repeat that didn’t mean much to the audience – you can see a picture from the match above.  However, in the final middle-weight(?) match between Turkey and Bulgaria, things got understandably heated.  The match was going in Bulgaria’s favor for the first round, and each successful hit was a grand cheer by the audience, but slowly things turned around and the air became thick with the wounds of history, each Turkish punch throwing salt on them.  By the end of round 3, Turkey took the match 5-4.  This not only meant that Bulgaria lost, but that the Turkish national anthem would be played at the medal ceremony.  Only about half the audience stood for it, and grudgingly so, whereas the other half sat defiantly.  It was sad to see history overwrite the attempts at camaraderie and neighborly love that is such a sporting event.  I guess that’s just life in the Balkans.

The Yambolski Bezisten - 30s? 40s? 50s? Who's good with southeastern european bus vintages?

I found my way to an online stash of old pictures of Yambol (Jambol or Jamboli by old spelling.) These photos adorn many a Yambol restaurant, as pictures of the Parthenon and Meteora hang on the walls of every greek pizza restaurant in Massachusetts (Wayland/Sudbury/Newton House of Pizza, etc.) In my search for such photos, I stumbled upon a bunch of NYTimes articles from the late 19th century about the Russo-Turkish war as it was happening on Bulgarian soil (search the NYTimes website for Jamboli or Roumelia) – some of the articles include conflicts between Bulgaria and Servia (Serbia) in 1885 and thereabouts.  Others are from the 1912-1913 balkan wars, such as those relating to Adrianople (now Edirne – see last blog post).  I especially like the article “Turks reported out of Adrianople, Allies said to have won Bulgaria” from June, 1915.  Bulgaria would join the Central Powers 4 months later, declaring war on Serbia and fighting alongside the Turks on the German promise of restoring the borders of the Treaty of San Stefano.

The Yambolski Bezisten - as seen today. What happened? The inside is now practically empty, no buses stop there anymore, and few people use the few shops/cafes that now surround the building. I'm for historical preservation and all, but this thing is historically a market so you think it could be preserved in function as well.

Finally, on a note unrelated to Bulgaria but more related to my personal whims and fancies:  A NYTimes article on the “My Way Killings,” in the Phillipines.  This is, of course, referring to the classic Frank Sinatra Karaoke song My Way, and the numerous people who are killed for singing bad versions of it.  The last time I remember publicly singing karaoke was 5 years ago in a swank apartment in São Paulo, in which I sang My Way, and was subsequently told by our host that he hated that song.  I didn’t know that I may have been cheating death…

A man selling wheat kernels among flocks of pigeons in Одрин, Турция - Edirne, Türkiye

So let’s talk about neighbors.  In Bulgarian, there are two commonly used words for neighbor – Съседи, sasedi, and Комши, komshi.  They mean pretty much exactly the same thing, except that Комши is, in fact, a Turkish word.  Some Bulgarians use the word without problem, often pointing out that it’s a Turkish word.  I’ve had at least one Bulgarian tell me not to say that word because it’s Turkish.  In reality, the Bulgarian lexicon is chock full of Turkish words, vestiges of the Ottoman Empire’s 500 year domination of the Balkans.  Supposedly, balkan is an old Turkish word for mountain, and it is from this that the region gets its name.  Чадър – chadur, umbrella.  Шапка – shapka, hat.  Боя – boya, paint.  Диван – divan, couch.  The list goes on, but many of the Turkish words in Bulgarian are for these household items, as well as some foodstuffs among other things.  Vestiges are even left on some Bulgarian surnames: Пейнирджиев, Peynirdjiev, from the Turkish “Peynirci” or cheesemaker, Арабаджиев – Arabadjiev, from the Turkish “Arabacı” or driver, Чорбаджиев – Chorbadjiev, from the Turkish “çorbacı” or soupmaker; in a similar way that english surnames such as Smith and Taylor clearly denote past occupations.  In reality, after Bulgarian liberation from the Ottomans in the late 19th century, the Bulgarian language and culture went through what is called the възраждане, vazrazhdane or renaissance.  It was at this Time that Sofia became the capital and was drastically expanded, the Bulgarians became again masters of their own nation-state and various institutions that go along with it, and most interestingly for me, the Bulgarian language was cleansed of many of its Turkish words and replaced with words mostly from old church-slavonic and Russian (Russian being a slavic cousin as well as Russia being the liberators of Bulgaria).

The Ottoman-era Mosque in Plovdiv, Bulgaria's 2nd or 3rd largest city, and perhaps the 6th oldest city in the world. This picture featuring Mike of Peace Corps fame, who now works there with his wife Lynn.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “neighbor” as “one living or located near another.”  It does not mention, however, wars over where the property line is (Balkan wars, 1912-1913, WWI, WWII etc.), who’s got the prettier lawn and the bigger SUV (Cold war), the building of fences and hedges to keep the neighbors out (also the Cold war), the gossip on the street (Propaganda), occasional neighborhood meetings (the Black Sea Synergy Initiative, perhaps), the teaming up of certain neighbors against others (the EU, NATO), gossip about new neighbors on the block (Romania and Bulgaria getting into the EU, Turkey’s accession hopes), and so on and so forth.  These are all feelings that at one time or another have made themselves present to us in small conversations or general approaches to the subject – and most especially concerning Turkey, seeing as it was a former colonial power here.

Racist Turkish kitty hates Bulgarians.

Nevertheless, despite all the fences and fights over lawn size, history unites neighbors in culture whether they like it or not.  Bulgarians, for example, are incredibly proud of their tripe soup, Шкембе Чорба, from the turkish “Işkembe çorba,” (Ishkembé Chorbá) which can be eaten throughout the Balkan peninsula.  The çorba I had in Turkey, in fact, was delicious.  On a much more significant level, ethnic minorities are left spread throughout the region, in another ethnicity’s nation-state.  Turks in Bulgaria and Greece, Greeks and Bulgarians in Turkey, Hungarians in Romania, Albanians in Macedonia and Serbia (aka Kosovo) etc. etc.  During the time of the Ottoman Empire, most of this area was known as Rumelia, with its capital in Sofia, then a small town.  It is from this region that many distinguished Turks have come from and/or are descended from.  Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, father of the Turkish Republic, was from what is now Thessaloniki in Greece.  I’m sure many of you have heard that Istanbul is the only city in the world to be located both in Europe and in Asia.  But to be more specific, Istanbul lies in Southwest Asia (the middle east), and Southeast Europe, aka the Balkans.  The word generally conjures up images of the fall of Yugoslavia and the atrocities associated with it, the most extreme and recent examples of the volatile history of an area that includes also Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey.  The Balkans are known for their territorial battles, and the term balkanization is even accepted as the “breaking up (as a region or group) into smaller and often hostile units”.  And so we arrive in Одрин - odrin, aka Edirne, aka Adrianopolis, just over the border in what is now Turkey.

A group of female, muslim tourists (impossible to say from where exactly) taking each others' picture in front of the Selimiye Camii, the main mosque in Edirne and the largest on the Balkan Peninsula

Well the Ottoman Empire has long since deceased, the cold war is over now, and weekend trips from Bulgaria to Edirne have become commonplace.  Street sellers hawk their wares in limited Bulgarian or Greek (not english) to the streams of tourists visiting the mosques or the markets.  Edirne is about 90 km from Yambol, and including the 1:30 to 2 hours at the border, it’s about a 3 and a 1/2 hour ride to get there.  Transport is usually in large group excursions on a Saturday day trip, Rakia in hand for the morning ride, shopping lists prepared.  How many kilos of baklava to buy?  How many sheets of handmade phyllo dough?  How much helva? How many kilos of olives? How much laundry detergent (no joke)?  I’ve taken two trips to Edirne so far – once with my school on a charity trip of sorts, and the second with a Bulgarian musician friend of ours, and both have involved a lot of shopping.

Inside the Bulgarian Church Sveti Georgi, Edirne, Turkey

But before we get to where to find the cheapest baklava, let’s talk some more about neighbors.  Edirne has changed hands about 16 times in various battles, and at one time or another was an important Bulgarian city, as many Bulgarians will quickly remind you.  After World War I and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, when Atatürk saw that the Entente Powers were to give Edirne to the Bulgarians, he rushed to invade the city and claim it for the new Turkish Republic.  This was, as well, an important Ottoman center.  Although the Bulgarian population is small here, it still exists, and any Bulgarian excursion to Edirne will begin with the visit of at least one of the two Bulgarian churches left in the city.  On my trip with the school we delivered various Bulgarian books, cultural and religious Icons, and met with the daughter of the priest at Sveti Georgi.  Other groups of Bulgarians were coming in and out as we arrived there, on the edges of the city, to keep their kindred neighbors’ culture alive, and to try to hold on to a time that this was Bulgarian land.

The Bulgarian Church Sveti Georgi - I've yet to see another Bulgarian Church in the same style. Perhaps I just haven't travelled enough yet.

Lighting a candle in Sveti Georgi

From there we moved on to a fort preserved since the Balkan wars of 1912-1913, when Bulgaria was attacking and trying to reclaim Oдрин for itself.  Amongst fez-donned mannequins, dusty old speakers narrating the events of the time in Turkish, surrounded by photos of the devastation of the time, there was one picture and its caption that fascinated me.

The caption reads "A Turkish mother who managed to save her child from Bulgarian Bayonets"

The more I learn about the history of this area, the more I realize how similar it is to the modern media – as much as a journalist can never truly make an objective report on a situation, neither can a historian.  In many cases, even, it is maintained either in history books or in the public knowledge as a weapon against your neighbors over the border.  During communism, all Bulgarian history books used the term “Турско Робство,” or “Turkish Slavery” to refer to the Ottoman empire – not only to maintain a certain image of the history, but also to maintain an enemy in the NATO member on the other side of the border.  Although Bulgarian history books no longer use that term, it is still the most widely heard to refer to the Ottoman era.  Certainly, the above picture and its caption helped to do the same on the NATO side.

The first snow of the year in our area and I just happened to make it to Edirne

As I mentioned above, however, both trips to Turkey involved a lot of shopping.  In fact, the second trip was almost primarily a shopping trip that I abandoned halfway through, as there was only 1 hour reserved to see the city.  Life in Bulgaria is such that a trip to Edirne is focused around not only visiting the Bulgarian churches, but getting the real deals wherever you can.  In this case, it involves quality Baklava, Helva, Phyllo dough (handmade in Edirne – the stuff is fantastic for Banitsa), olives, and most curious for me – laundry detergent.  Apparently the stuff is just that much cheaper.  There is an entire section of Edirne dedicated to selling these various products to Bulgarians.  The Turks there either speak just enough Bulgarian to help out their customers, or are Turks who once lived in Bulgaria and fled during the forced name changes and therefore speak fluent Bulgarian.

outside one of many stores dedicated to selling laundry detergent to Bulgarians

And finally there’s time spent in the city center itself.  There are tea-sellers running to and fro around the city, with trays full of strong, red tea in beautiful glasses.  Exactly how you order one, I’m still not sure, but somehow you do and then leave the glass wherever you are.  They’ll come back and pick it up.  There are over 30 mosques in the city, and 2 major bedestens, or covered markets, much like our bezisten in Yambol (except the turks actually use theirs as proper markets).  The turkish version of Banitsa, börek, is golden and delicious, available in cheese, spinach with hot peppers, and potato among others.  The baklava is tasty although not as good as the Lebanese/Palestinian baklava in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn (sad to say), but the halva is fantastic.  Lahmacuns and döners are everywhere on hand, işkembe çorba is hot and ready, and the Turkish coffee is expensive and very small.  Despite the name, this is a tea drinking town – and I’ve been told it’s the same throughout most of the country.

Sometimes it's nice to know that we're still in the Balkans - note the minaret of the Selimiye Camii in the background

The most striking piece of the city has to be the main mosque – the Selimiye Camii (Selimiye Djamiyi) – as shown in one of the pictures above.  The mosque was built between 1568 and 1574 by the distinguished architect Mimar Sinan for the Sultan Selim.  On my school trip, we managed to arrive in the mosque just as the call to prayer began bouncing off the walls of the city.  Men were rushing to wash themselves before entering the mosque.  Outside the courtyard, the minarets can be seen from most of the city – Sinan considered it his greatest achievement and it is one of the crowning achievements of Islamic architecture.  At least that’s what Wikipedia tells me.  It is, however, truly awe inspiring to behold.

The courtyard just outside the entrance to the Selimiye Camii

Vanessa inside the mosque

The Dome of the Selimiye Camii - during the Bulgarian siege of the city in 1913, a cannonball hit the dome and it survived. A mark can still be seen to this day, and Atatürk forbade it to be fixed, so that future generations would not forget.

At this point, I’ve pretty much hit blogger’s block, if there is such a thing.  I’ll live you with a few final pictures of the city and allow you your own impressions.  I was amazed, personally, at how similar and drastically different it seemed from Bulgaria.  I’m still waiting for the neighborhood block party.

this guy was dressed almost exactly like me - I had to come all the way to Turkey to finally fit in.

Ottoman style house - there are wooden houses like this slowly deteriorating in central Istanbul, technically owned by Greeks who fled ethnic violence in the 50s and 60s, but who currently have no legal right to the deeds. The Balkan wars of old are now fought in the courtrooms of the European Commission and the accession talks of the EU, with Greece and (sometimes) Bulgaria threatening to use such cases as prerequisites toward membership.

kömürcü - the coal seller

inside one of the bedestens - note the picture of Atatürk.

The üçşerefeli camii - one of the other major mosques of Edirne

as seen in the courtyard of the Selimiye Camii

The sun sets through the windows of the Selimiye Camii.

goodnight all.

The Church Свети Николай (Sveti Nikolai - Saint Nicholas) as seen these days.

Maybe two weeks ago, the news was abuzz with a cold snap in europe, as train lines were brought to a halt in England, Holland, Germany and the like.  Eurostar trains became stuck in the chunnel even.  It seemed like the end of days, perhaps – Страшния съд – “the scary court,” or judgement day.  However, here in southeastern europe, we had a surprisingly strange warm spell, especially during new years and for a week or so afterwards, as temperatures were in the 50s and 60s here.  It was much appreciated.

Some goats grazing in a nearby schoolyard in the good old days. I.e., a few weeks ago when it was warm.

Well them days are gone.  It’s cold as the dickens, with record low temperatures hit in Yambol (-20 C, or -4 F).  Now I know that yes, it gets that cold in Boston regularly, but the indoor heating is a little better put together in New England.  Not that our heaters aren’t trying, but they’re no match for our windows.  That and there aren’t so many snowplows here – my 30 minute walk to school has become a 40 minute duckwalk on a field of ice.  I’ve bit it twice so far, once with a bag full of groceries.  Luckily only one carton of yogurt fell victim, and everything else in the bag was thankfully packaged in plastic.

On the way to school

So with post-vacation depression and winter depression fully set in throughout the town, life has yet again slowed down a bit.  First semester is coming to a close this week, and next semester should bring some interesting developments.  My time in the Turkish/Roma school is currently on hold as there’s a measles outbreak in country, and although my record shows that I’m immune, I don’t want to inadvertently carry the disease to the language school.  Sadly, the outbreak has primarily affected the Roma community, as a lack of trust between the Romani and the Bulgarians has led to few Roma children being vaccinated, despite the vaccine being provided free of charge.  We’re told there is a wide sweeping vaccination campaign ongoing now, and hopefully it should subside soon.

Vanessa outside the former Sofia Bathhouse - eventually to become a museum of the history of Sofia

So in the end, we fight on in our battle to stay warm and happy.  A recent trip to Sofia has provided us with new spices and teas from the Arab quarter, including even some Yerba Mate – memories of Bay Ridge abound.  There’s a possibility that in a few months I’ll begin an intensive, 3 month, after-work Turkish Language program in Yambol.  I’m worried about it taking over my life a little, but I’m curious to meet some other Yambolites interested in the language, as well as really dive into it myself.  My search for a personal tutor has thus far failed.

Finally, to quote a Tupac song that was played for me by one of my 9th grade students as part of a “pick a song you like and interpret it” project:

Life Goes On.

Stay warm everybody.

Another cold night falls on Yambol - view leaving the local Rakia distillery

Well a long time has passed since my last post.  The piggy flop epidemic has since calmed itself down.  Rakia (homemade brandy/grappa of sorts) making season has come and gone, and thankfully many varieties of rakia have made their way into our cupboard – as well as the homemade wine it was made from.  Туршия (turshiya), a pickled salad mix of of cucumbers, cabbage, carrots etc has made its way to the dinner table most nights.  Citrus, imported from Greece and Turkey though they may be, is in season and a successful attempt at making homemade orange marmalade is getting slathered on whatever we can think of slathering it on.

View from the south of the apartment during one of the lonely snows of the Ямбол winter

The weather has been odd, certainly.  We’ve had maybe three total days of snowfall, which quickly melted in the following rains, and while the rest of Europe has been in deep freeze, we’ve been having 50-60 degree weather for a week or so.  The cold is slowly moving in, but it looks like snow just isn’t too much in the cards for us here in Yambol.

One of the nicer things about Yambol is that at any given time of the day, there are 2 or more accordionists playing somewhere in the center, their heavenly horos bouncing off the bezisten

But, of course, there are other things happening in our lives besides food and the weather.  Barely.  I’ve finally begun a day a week at another school in town, the primary school Dr. Petar Beron, located in between the Turkish and Roma quarters and comprised of both communities.  I’ve been reading myself to sleep recently with country reports released by the Roma Education Fund and evaluations of NGO Roma desegregation projects, in the hope to find some good ways to improve these kids education.  It’s a long, complex story, and no one person or group is to blame, but the fact is that the system is failing these kids.  Some of them, particularly the 4th grade class I work with, are cute as the dickens.  They’ve been asking me for my skype name nonstop – I had to make one up just to deal with students.  When the 2nd semester begins in February, I have a project planned to bring some of my kids from the language school into some of the classes in Petar Beron to tutor and get to know these other kids personally.  It’s kind of a cross-border project within borders…

My 9a class and I make a snow grandma who we named Zhora - aka Снежена Баба Жора (Snezhena Baba Zhora). Note the moustache.

As for the cats – a christmas tour to Holland and a New Years  in Vurshets apparently turned Gambi into a sink kitty.  We didn’t really know such a thing existed until we got back.

Sink kitty!

Fridge Kitty! - The Romanian flag in the background is from the visiting Romanian students a few months back. But I promise I live in Bulgaria.

Oh and speaking of our christmas/new years detour…

Jaap!

Puck!

A toast to our dear Dutch cousins Jaap and Puck, who for four days diligently stuffed Vanessa and I with bread, butter and appelstroop (a new favorite of mine), chauffered us around their startlingly clean and organized country on their bikes and trains, and generally putting up with us youngins.  They also let us take pictures of them with this silly hat on.  Really though – it was an excellent way to spend our christmas, and we can’t thank them enough for putting in the time and effort.  And although I have no pictures to show it, our visit to their son Erik’s family was equally delightful, and here’s to Erik, Monique and the rest for welcoming us so graciously into their home.

They even let us loose in Amsterdam for a day

The Swans of Amsterdam

Self explanatory...?

A brief, early morning layover in Budapest on the way home to BG

Ok well this is turning into a marathon blog post.  But just to finish it off, a few shots from Yordanovden. Considered to be the day that Jesus was baptized in the Jordan river, elegible bachelors in the Bulgarian Orthodox church (and the Greek orthodox church, as well as possibly some others) jump into rivers and large water bodies chasing after crosses thrown by priests.  To put it briefly.  Around here, that means jumping into the river Tundja – which I probably would not jump into for 100 bucks.  I mean, not to be rude, but would you jump into the Charles?  The Hudson?  Anywho.

Step one is a matter of staging - I showed up an hour and a half before the priest finally arrived, and everyone was rushing to find the best view on the banks of the river. It was quite a scene.

Seeing as it happened in the middle of the day and I was lucky enough to not have classes for exactly the period of time this took place, 10:30-12:30, I can't help but wonder if this was the retired/unemployed crowd

The guy in the Kayak was the smartest of all - he definitely had the best view. No one around me had ever seen a kayak before, they kept asking what kind of canoe that was and where his legs were. Oh, and how he doesn't get soaked. All good questions really.

And the priest finally arrives... Blesses the cross...

And they're off! For all that waiting, this part didn't take more than a minute. The guy who won apparently snagged the cross the last 4 years as well. This is kind of like that pizza eating contest in Brooklyn we managed to watch 2 years in a row, where the same guy ate 16 slices of pizza in twelve minutes. Kind of.

Happy new year!