Buzludzha

It was one of the coolest places I’ve been to in Bulgaria. Last weekend I went to the old communist party headquarters. The building was located on top of a mountain overlooking the rose valley.  It would be hard to reach it without a car.

A perfect location for all the head hanchos to meet and lead the country, right? In the distance you can (sort of) make out a little “rook” like building. That is the site where the Bulgarian and Russian armies turned back the Ottomans in 1877-78. It was Bulgaria’s Saratoga.

Given this history of the area, it’s too bad the building they built to rule the country looked like a UFO…

I’m not really sure what they were going for there but it’s interesting nonetheless. A flying saucer with a smoke stack.

Veliko Turnovo

I know it’s been a long time since my last post. There hasn’t been too much to write about and we’ve been having frequent rain showers in Chirpan. This has taken out my internet. I went about two weeks with out it.

Last weekend I went to Veliko Turnovo, Bulgaria’s second capital. It was stunningly gorgeous and I regret waiting so long to visit. I took several photos and I’ll let them do the talking. The full album is linked below.

Tsarevets, the fortress in VT

Tsarevets by day

Veliko Turnovo from Tsarevets

Veliko Turnavo

Seven Bulgarian Scandals

June 30 (Reuters) – Bulgaria’s Socialist-led government has been plagued by high-level corruption scandals during its four years in power, prompting the European Union to freeze millions of euros in aid for the bloc’s poorest member.

Brussels criticised Sofia for failing to cut links between virtually all political parties and “rings of companies”, a phrase used by Ahmed Dogan — the kingmaker in the ruling coalition and leader of the ethnic Turkish MRF — to explain how parties are funded.

Last year, Transparency International rated Bulgaria the most corrupt EU nation. Despite numerous pledges, Sofia has not convicted a single senior official of graft and has sent to jail only one crime boss since the end of communism in 1989.

Suspected criminals have received temporary immunity from prosecution after registering to run for parliament.

The agriculture and environment ministries, both controlled by the MRF, and the construction and the economy ministries, controlled by the Socialists, have been allegedly involved in some of the most notorious schemes in the past few years.

Here are the main scandals:

Pics

Here are a few pictures Trevor posted on Facebook. I’ll post more once I take some.

Walking down the main street in the Roma Mahala (Gypsy slum) with (lt-rt) Trevor, Mustafa and me.

(lt-rt) Mustafa, Toby (Trevor’s brother), Tommy. Mustafa and Tommy are fantastic football players and eager students

My class at the church in the mahala.

Trevor and I at the entrance of the mahala

That’s it for pictures I’m going to steal. I’ll post more late

Last! Day! of School!

Yesterday was my last day teaching my kindergarten class. I’ve been teaching them since the beginning of the school year, four days a week for an hour a day. With this much English, my students can now speak very well. In fact, I believe they can speak much better than the average sixth grader! I was talking with my Bulgarian tutor, who is an English teacher, and she was telling me how depressing it is as they can hardly speak at all. This is despite four or more continuous years of studying. I hope my students will keep up with their interest in learning English. If they do, they will be my gift to my tutor…three years from now.

As it was our last day, we were really light on the “teaching part” and focused more on the “let’s have fun part”. I ran through the commands I’ve taught them (stand up, sit down, run, walk, etc), played Red Light, Green Light and a rousing game of Duck Duck Goose (I swear, that game is like crack for Bulgarian six year olds). Then I asked them all to draw me a picture so I could take it home with me. They were really eager to do this. Here are a few of their drawings:

However, once they finished their pictures and discovered that I had a picture of Pluto for them to color, they became much less interested in completing their picture for me!

I had a blast teaching them and I will sorely miss them. I wish them all the best in the first grade.

Last day of school

My New Friends

Since I’ve been back I’ve been pretty busy. I’ve been hosting the PCV before me in Chirpan as well has his brother. It’s been great hanging out with his since he’s introduced me to his old friends.  But the big news is we went to the Mahala (the Roma slums). I’m going to have a lot of free time this summer so I’ve been looking for another project. What better way to finish off my service than helping the most underprivileged? Here’s how it happened:

The Roma people have historically been kicked around. During communism in Bulgaria, they were rounded up and put in separate communities only allowing them to enter town on market days. However, most Roma people are suspicious of outsiders and intentionally separate themselves. This is the biggest obstacle trying to enter the mahala-they don’t really want you there. Given this, you usually have to be invited in by someone. I didn’t have any Roma friends so this was a problem.

We walked to the edge of mahala and sat on some steps overlooking the slum, hoping to get noticed by a group of guys asking us what we were doing. We could see being out and about, some obviously wondering what those white dudes were doing looking into their neighborhood. No one came up to us to see what we wanted. We then decided to take a leap of faith and walk straight into the mahala, uninvited. We decided not to walk down the main street but a side street instead saying “hello” or “good afternoon” to everyone that made eye contact with us. We hadn’t been in the slum for more than two minutes when one of the many people eying us suspiciously asked us what we were doing in their neighborhood. We smiled, introduced ourselves, shook their hands and explained ourselves. Straight off the bat, they asked us if we were missionaries (I’ve been asked this before having been to mahalas in the past so I was prepared to dispel this quickly) As soon as I told them that I was an American looking to teach English for free, their skepticism vanished. It turns out, there is already an English group taught by the pastor of their church. We were, in fact, standing in front of their church (Adventist) and they invited us in to see their place of worship. We stressed that we were not religious and that our English lessons would be open to anyone who wanted to attend.

After our tour of their modest yet lovely church, they said their group would be meeting at six that evening. We were amazed how quickly everything went- in literally five minutes from entering the mahala, we offered a room, class and time to teach English. They then took us out to a cafe; one of the nicest I’ve been to in this country. It was on the second story, outdoors and offered a nice view of Chirpan in the not-so-far distance and the bustling street below. I wrote down my name and number for one of my new friends and he let the pastor know that an American would be joining their class that evening.

That evening we returned. I made copies of the first twenty pages or so of the text book I usually use. It’s the same book the Peace Corps provided for us to learn Bulgarian but translated for Bulgarians to learn English by a PCV. There were about eight students and the lesson went very smoothly;everyone was eager to learn. They had their second lesson the next day (Wednesday) and at the end of that class, they wanted us to return for a third day! My new friends, are quite simply, awesome.

Back

Sorry for the lack of posts; I was in the US for 17 days due to a family emergency and my brother’s graduation.

Internet

We’re been having a few thunderstroms recently in Chirpan and they’ve knocked out the internet in my apartment. This, of course, is nothing new. My LAN cable goes out through a drilled hole in my window frame and up to the roof. Yep. Just a regular old cable. Exposed. On the roof. As soon as I get the internet back at home, I’ll post about my expirences at Rila over the Bulgarian Orthodox Easter last Sunday. Do skoro!

LPI

The LPI, which stands for “Language Proficiency Test” is the test Peace Corps Volunteers take to get their language skills ranked and rated. There are a total of ten levels. In order to “pass” training, volunteers must get a score of at least “3″ (Novice High). This rating varies from post to post but the standard is “4″ (Intermediate Low). Bulgaria is lower because Bulgarian is a tougher language than say, French.

I’m writing about the LPI because last week I took the test again for the first time since MSC (Mid-Service Conference) in September. At that point, I had stalled at Intermediate Medium (”5″), the ranking I received at IST (In Service Training) in February of 2008. They say you need at least three month before advancing levels. What do these levels mean? Out side of completing PST (Pre-Service Training, the first thee months of PC service; before you become a volunteer) not much. Though if you plan on going to grad school, a government language assessment usually gets you out of the requirements. I took it again to see my progress as well as fulfill this prerequisite at my grad school.

I surprised myself and receive “Advanced Low” (”7″). The questions got much tougher. No more “describe what you do every day”. I got questions like “do you think Bulgaria entered the EU too early?”, “What can Bulgarians to do fight corruption?”. Yeah, no fluff there.

The description of “Advanced Low” do a really good job describing how  feel about my Bulgarian: Fluency within certain areas (for me this would be describing life in the US, my work, what I do everyday, etc) but trailing off with an expected twist or complex topic (say, how to defeat corruption in Bulgaria).

All in all, I’m impressed with how far my language has improved. I’ve gone from “I am a banana” to “I believe in some areas, Bulgaria joined the EU too early”. And this from a guy who too 12 semesters of Spanish.

So, for the B-25s fretting about the Bulgarian language: just worry about the Cyrillic alphabet for now (which, once you get the hang of, is super easy). The rest will be beaten into you. There is no escaping that. Also, you’re going to make an ass of yourself. Every day. The sooner you accept that, the more confident you’ll become and the faster you’ll be able to speak.

Football Tournament

Last weekend was Chirpan’s Fourth Annual Charity Football (soccer) Tournament. The even had a lower turnout than last year. This is largely due to the fact that it was during spring break and most volunteers and students were on vacation. But it was the only time the stadium was available so, I’ll take what I can get.

We had four teams: a semi-professional team from a village (the Rangers), a group of Turkish medical students from Plovdiv, children from the Center and Peace Corps Volunteers.

The tournament started out with an exhibition match between the Rangers and PCVs with most of the water being carried by the med students.

The final score was 4-1, Rangers. The med students weren’t too happy about the outcome, but in my book, not getting shut out was a victory in it’s self.

The tournament began with the med students taking on the Rangers and the PCVs taking on the kids from the Center. The med students won and and so did the kids. The PCVs were left fighting for third against the rangers and the kids for first.

The end result was: Med students, kids from the Center, Rangers with the PCVs falling dead last.

But winning wasn’t important; it was all about having a good time, raising some money for the Center as well as their profile in town. After the game, we enjoyed a beer on the field and the PCVs taught the Turks how to play American football. Later that day, we went to the Center to take a tour of the facilities.

All in all, a good day; despite the low turn out. Hopefully this will become a sustainable tradition.

From Football Tournament

Football Tournament