end

i feel the inspiration to write something. not a summation of this experience, as i can hardly imagine what that would include. rather, something...anything, to put down somewhere these things that are floating through my head, memories and anxieties and beautiful days and food. this is going to be a stream of consciousness about what bulgaria is in my head, what is has been in my life these two years. this is an attempt to answer "where do i start to talk about bulgaria?"

bulgaria is roads that are more potholes than roads. sunflower fields littered with plastic bottles and bags. bulgaria is humiliating and distant, the collective operating on an unspoken wavelength of an eerie mental disconnect from the world at large. beautiful mountains that remind me of colorado and cold, damp spaces people wander through and clean. brooms with no sticks attached and babas bent over sweeping dirt from the street. mixed in is a combination of sheep droppings and rocks and hay. dark underpasses and street lights that blink fluorescent or simply don't work. the pungent scent of stale urine rising from public walkways and less-frequented corners on busy streets. bulgaria is dark bottles of cheap beer and the smell of rakia from the night before on a scruffy man with unwashed hands and the smell of cigarette smoke, dirty clothes, and skin assaulting your nostrils on a 5 hour train ride. broken sidewalks and hidden puddles, tiny shops where you have to ask for everything you want, a true test of language skills. 3 in 1 nescafe coffees and small sour dough pretzels, bankia water bottles and expensive coca cola products. cold, cement walls and floors and dilapidated wooden windows that serve as less of a shield to cold wind and winter days than sheets of paper taped together.

bulgaria is delicious food and tomatoes and cucumber salad. it's bread on the table at every meal and staple music and dance plastered on the television, drowning out conversations and taxing the minds of those suffering beneath the sound. new siemens trains and old russian trains from 1979 that haven't ever been washed and were once fire engine red, or so i imagine. now, they look like rust. they aren't rusted, they've just never been washed. stray dogs, cats, animals lurking everywhere in cities, small towns, and villages. the smell of body odor pressed into clothing that is 10 years old which reminds you of the price of deodorant. bread is 80 cents and deodorant is 6 bucks.

bulgaria is cold, dark eyes that will stare into you unflinchingly and uninterested. no one owes anyone anything here and kindness, although plentiful when found, is daunting to seek out. it's watching young teenage boys treat girls like they treat animals. hearing a message about the 6th grade student with the lip piercing who was married off over the weekend, rapidly filling in blank spaces with fake grades so they can be sent on their way out of the education system with no hassle. beautiful hikes and more land to explore than i've ever seen. people who are genuinely in love with working the land, people who know how hard it is to work the land mourning the inevitable restructuring of attitudes towards farming, each generation less interested than the one before it. each generation finding better, faster ways out of the country. it's students like roro who love animals and volunteer at the animal shelter, yet cannot focus in the system he's forced to be in. his mind expands, his consciousness tainted by his iphone and the world outside. communism lives and breathes here still, in this way, this information vacuum and the systematic brainwashing. pessimism. hope that's pessimistic and failure that is enthusiastic. i told you so doesn't need to be screamed out loud. we get it. i get it.

kindness and hospitality we could only dream of genuinely providing. we don't know hospitality like these people do. i argue we don't want to provide it. it requires effort, time, slowing down and struggling through dinner. eating salads over 2 hours of time, not 12 minutes. train tracks. grey apartment transformers that serve as apartment blocks by day and evil mental infiltrators by night. the soul is controlled by the inadequate heating, the stench of poorly executed plumbing systems, dim lighting, cold cold cold everything.

time to sit and watch an entire go by. where else do you have to be? benches made for this, benches of wood branches nailed together. babas in colorful layers concocting juicy stories of the same contingent of people who walk by their block each day. it's drinking coffee plus coke plus water when you meet someone at a cafe. ordering just one of the three leaves you feeling like a strange cultural amateur. reading books. lots of reading. watching movies on surfthechannel.com and spending more time on the internet than you ever thought possible. electronic lifelines become the most exciting part of every day. admitting that becomes easy after two years in bulgaria.

gorgeous seaside beaches and very little clothing. cheap food and beer under umbrellas and music playing in the cafe just a ways down on the beach. horse flies. cockroaches and giant spiders. feeling lucky you're not contending with rats or snakes. crossing months, then weeks, then days and half days off a homemade calendar on the wall. gently packing up that calendar to return with you so you never forget how between the start and finish, two years really passed. and almost all of the days in the middle were long and tough and draining and rewarding in their own way.

smoke everywhere. banitsa pasteries. buses. car alarms. finding peanut butter. cooking to pass the time. traveling almost every weekend for 2 years. sleeping next to 8 other people on a dirty floor in a sleeping bag and makeshift pillow. dancing at discos until 5 a.m. anxiety over teaching. being sick every other month or more. listening to the saddest conversation about bulgaria's future from a woman who looks so normal and put together and fresh she could be your family member. looking into her tired eyes. guessing the words you don't know to spell out her conspiracy theory in your mind, make sense of what she's quickly saying to you. knowing a language and still needing more. huge, cold houses. beds in kitchens, hand washing clothing. the same conversation with bulgarians across the country. like it's some rehearsed speech people are taught in school: "if in contact with foreigner, dispense information immediately".

having faith in yourself. protecting that and cultivating that in a place that is waiting for a savior. hope is spread sparingly. slowly.


this has been my experience here. this is my last post. thank you for reading.

dear bulgaria

dear bulgaria,

i have thought often of writing this letter to you. i hadn't planned to draft it and then post it this morning but, sigh, the time is right to say what really needs to be said.

i don't understand you.

i wandered out into your beautiful blue, spring skies this morning to buy bread, strawberries, and yoghurt. in the store, one of your women screamed at me while i was standing in line because i had taken my container of yoghurt out of the refrigerator machine on my own, as i have done hundreds of times this year. when finally it was my turn to check out, i asked for bread, which the same clerk had to get for me, and she pretended (or actually) she did not understand my request. i asked for bread three times in front of the line of 10 people before i told her to forget it, thank you, i'd just take the yoghurt.

in the bazaar, i found myself again the receiving end of another person's wrath. this time, though, i wasn't buying enough strawberries to satisfy her demands and she refused to sell me strawberries. this is not the first time this has happened in pernik or in sofia. had there been a sign saying i needed to buy at least a kilo of strawberries, or the equivalent of TWO plastic containers, i would have happily found another vendor to buy from.

it's been an interesting two years, bulgaria. but i have to tell ya, i am ready to go home. our lives are too short to live with so little love and kindness going around. and i choose kindness, not matter how superficial, over your bitter glares and cold shoulders any day.



ciao ciao,
amanda

two worlds

it is fair to say i went through two very different peace corps experiences.

the first year, i lived in a tiny town in rural,southern bulgaria, worked in a school that was nearly 100% roma and lived in microcosm of fear and anxiety which, originated from relentless harassment and culture shock.

the second year, i lived in a large industrial town near the capital, worked in a language profile school and lived in an average, cold, problem-ridden apartment block.

it is no exaggeration to say that i probably would not have made it through a second year in my first site. i've spent this second year trying to explain "why" to people, to colleagues, to other volunteers, to myself. i've spent a good deal of time feeling very angry about what i experienced last year and feeling bitter towards other volunteers who never could grasp what it was like for me.

i can't make the awfulness of last year make sense. only a few volunteers ever saw my site last year. only a few can realistically grasp the magnitude of suck that colored my first year in bulgaria. and only pictures can speak to abysmal physical gaps between where i was last year and where i am now.

i never found the courage to take many pictures of the town i lived in last year. it always felt like i was a spectator in a zoo taking souvenir pictures to send home while the people lived their lives. they were not zoo animals to be gawked at. when i saw a fellow volunteer post pictures of her roma neighborhood this morning, i opted to take them from her blog and post them here to give you an idea of what my old town looked like. click on the link to see her entire entry, it has additional photographs from her site.

here are two images of the world i lived in last year:


and two additional images of the world i live in now:




in my opinion, this is a country divided. this is a country in which huge populations aren't, in fact, living in the european union. they're living in neighborhoods full of trash, with limited electricity, no running water or indoor plumbing. and what i learned last year is that when people live in environments where they are simply struggling to survive, one can't possibly comprehend how learning the english language is a priority.

i am grateful for the chance i was given to have these two experiences. and i am grateful i get to return to my home soon. i am grateful i know that working in such places is not my calling. and i am grateful for the way my old site forced me out of my comfort zone, forced me to think carefully about the idealistic notions of "helping" people and "development" work, forced me to grow up.

another sleepless, restless night. tuesday nights are awful because they always come before my wednesdays. and wednesdays are usually really long days.

i got to thinking...

i can still remember the morning i left for peace corps staging in d.c. i was one hell of a hot mess that morning, as my mom will tell you. frantically, i packed my three still-unpacked bags in the dark of the early morning. frantically, i shoved my stuff out the door and into my dad's car. frantically, i continued cramming winter sweaters into my already over-stuffed hiking bag as we raced to the airport.

if i could go back and redo that morning, i would. i would pack my things days in advance. i would have a party instead of scheduling 7 "mini dates" with people i wanted to see and say goodbye to on the day before departure. i would spend all my spare time with my family in those final days and hours.

now that i've got just two months left of this two year experience, it's clear to me that

A) i won't be leaving for a straight two year period of time ever again. it's long.

B) i would tell new trainees to leave that extra sweater home and forget the battery packs, too.

C) i can't WAIT to see and hug my family, something i didn't do very well before i left.

love to you all! transition is coming and it feels great =)

spring

nothing could be ugly on a day as beautiful as today in bulgaria.

i spent the day riding a train back from a conference earlier this week. when i passed andrea's old village en route home, i gazed upon the green green hills rolling into the mountains punctuated by small caps of snow in awe and felt nothing but silent joy. the wounded artery of a road leading from her train station to the town center was not so desolate or miserable looking today. the blue skies and sunshine erased the awful feeling of having walked that road in the snow and cold just a few months ago.

life felt so light and joyful today.

i am grateful i am leaving this place- this often cold and grey and miserable place- in the spring when it's hard to feel anything but cheer and gratitude.

i am grateful i gave myself this time to stay, to struggle and reap the benefits of having worked so hard not to succumb to the cold.

i am almost done. and i will remember the beauty, the sunshine, the lush green rolling hills more than any of the darkness.

i couldn't say that until today.

sitting with me

there are still days when i forget to put on great music, sip tea, do that which comforts me and enjoy the process of just being present with me. not many, but some.

i evolve even now and change with the passing days. i am still not my own best friend. i am not always kind to myself. however, i sat with myself every single day these (nearly) two years and if nothing else, i have gotten to know me well. good or bad, i was there for me when the ups and downs were blowing through the days and months.

today, i realize that many people never get the chance to sit alone long enough to get to know themselves inside and out.

and there's this sneaking suspicion creeping up on me that someday...far away from bulgaria... and the cold of this dead winter...

i am really going to miss me and all the time i have been afforded to sit with me and get to know me while here.

which is a slightly terrifying admission given that i'm more than ready to come home.

it's shocking that it took me this long to understand this was really about me all along, learning to just be with me, learning to simply enjoy my company. two years alone in a foreign place to learn how to sit and be present with me.

no easy task, that.

bitter rant. short in length.

what is this sick sense of satisfaction one gets when one reads a blog post written by a youth or community development volunteer who takes a break from sittin' at their desk one march week to "substitute teach" and then proceeds to gather up juicy "war stories" to prove...that teaching is hard?

welcome to the club! dobre do6li pri na6ite lydi hora! (can you even say that in bulgarian? welcome among our crazies?)

ahem. excuse the oozing bitterness. cue chariots of fire soundtrack...NOW... for this one's decided she is NEVER going to be a teacher. EVER. AGAIN.

and also to celebrate that she's gone a bit insane over here.

and to be fair, those nice cod and yd volunteers have hard jobs, too. right? right?! they have days that feel as asinine and completely frustrating as my day today was, right? oh good. i hoped so.

sigh.

edited to add: i realize this is NOT a productive post. that is why my blog is private. because i trust you all won't judge me too harshly ;)