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 ;)

the proof

a conversation with my mother reminded me that you, my readers, might not have the first clue what chalga music actually is in its living and breathing form. fret no longer. i present you two regularly played chalga songs: "nakarai me" (make me (roughly)) and "vsichko mi dai" (give me everything). DISCLAIMER: they're pretty raunchy. watch at your own risk.



allow me to interject that "azis" is not only obviously queer (read: transgender), he is also of roma origin. talk about the complexity of intersecting oppressed identities navigating a ridiculously homogeneous society.

a quote taken from an unknown author commenting on novinite.com regarding azis:

"I wouldn't call him a hero. He's more of an oddity. If Michael Jackson had been born in Bulgaria he would be Aziz."



there it is. the music of the bulgarian future. the music i lived and breathed every single day while living with my host family, all last year as it blared from cell phones in my classroom, sitting at the villa arguing about it over christmas vacation. the music serenading me during dinner at the local restaurant. music i won't miss when i leave in 4 months.

this probably goes without saying, but one needn't see too many more videos to make up their minds about this style of music. apparently, you like or you don't.

i suspect you don't need me to help you make that decision.



a few additional related (and by no means academic) links here and here.