Glory Ho

First, ditto on what Michael said–thank you for reading the blog and commenting. I really appreciate it!

Ah, the language. Thought not the most exciting topic, I felt it necessary to blog about this immediately, as we live and breathe Bulgarian right now.

I remember this feeling from years ago when i was traveling across Europe. . .that unnatural, and certainly Un-Andrea, yet unexpectedly comfortable feeling of having no idea what others around you are saying. Per my typical social frenzy, it can be quite isolating, but it’s also pressureless. Rather than knee-shifting silences and escapes to the bathroom around new friends, you just keep listening, smiling and sipping that Antique-Row-like shot glass of Rakia. You become familiar with vague instructions, comfortable with planless days and you’re hardly bothered when you leave at 10:30, rather than 9:30 (which you showered and dressed for) because you mixed up the words for “nine” and “ten” the night before.

Bulgarian is a Slavic language and uses the Cyrillic alphabet. This alphabet has around 29 letters and contains some probably two-thirds letters that we’ve never seen before, then a third that are familiar like a backwards R and a backwards N, a few that are, in fact, our letters, but don’t stand for the same sound, and then a few just like ours, but with more limitations. So, for example, “B” is not a “B”. It’s a V. So, herein lies its own challenge. Not only are we trying to learn new letters, but when reading and writing, we’re trying to reverse 27 years of previous teaching.

And then there are the usual language challenges that the creator of the English language (feminist that she must have been) decided to ditch, like masculine and feminine verbs, nouns and adjectives. This, in short, means that the rest of the words in a sentence can change dramatically depending on what object you’re talking about.

I love learning the language, but it’s very difficult. Most frustrating is when you learn a few words and attempt to create a sentence only to have the Bugarian you’re speaking with simply stare back at you like you’re speaking Japanese. This is because you’re not quite pronouncing the words right. AARRGGH! Too, most people aren’t patient enough to wait around for me to think of the right word.

So, I hope this gives you a glimpse of our language experience. I feel extremely fortunate to be here in the Peace Corps. Just imageine it–We have no bills, no cell phones, very minimal expenses (shampoo, kleenex) no real job yet (I’ve only made one or two lists since I’ve been here!) we’re getting four hours of language lessons every day and we stay with a family who is eager to hear about our culture and share their home.

Nastrave (Cheers)
Love, Andrea

On Saturday I went to the bazaar. For me, this word conjures some very specific images–in one period of my life: 70′s style church halls, grey folding chairs, crochet-like bathroom decor and saran-wrapped loaves of pumpkin bread (if only Andrea Ashdown could read this). In another, I can hear the 90s song “How Bizarre” an incredibly catchy one-hit wonder during my summer in Boulder. But I digress. The bazaare here is a weekend outdoor market that creeps through parking lots and jumps along the train tracks through Kostanets. I had been warned that the “gypsies” or “Roma,” a somewhat mysterious, fortune-telling, pick-pocketing, but generally harmless minority group in Bulgaria would be on the prowl, so I watched myself.

Basically, the bazaare is the mall. While the fruit market is a half a mile down the road (I love going there as well–plums, tomatoes, corn, cucmbers and watermelon abound–think Farmer’s Market without gourmet labels, free samples, signs or crepes) here, you can find anything from live rabbits to leather sandals, saran wrap to spark plugs, toilet paper to pocketbooks. As Michael and I have found in our previous travels, clothing moves pretty fast. Even if people are peeing outdoors and subsisting on rice and cornmeal, they’re doing it with style. And this brings me to the dress here in Bulgaria. Women are pretty small here so they pull a lot off–you see bare midriff, pointy toes, platform heels, skin-tight tops, fishnetish coverings, gold covered teeth (a whole other BLOG topic entirely) and shiny-silver decals. And this is all at the bazaar. Not just for sale at the bazarre, but ON people at the bazaar. There is no casual–women, especially, are always dressed up. Shorts are non-existent. Even on men, I rarely see these. Flats, unless they have gemstones on the toe, or you’re a “baba” (grandmother), are rarely seen. I used to think I was sometimes impractical in my shoe choice, but I now feel like an REI queen.

Near the market’s entrance, I smelled a barbeque. It was coming from a table with a makeshift black tarp. A baba was turning “kyoofte” (small ground beef patties with spicesa and onions) on the grill and there was a dutch oven full of hot water and what looked like sausages of some kind. Remarkable, there were very few flys to be seen (flys are a big problem here). Lori, it must have been all those brats we ate toward our departure, but I knew the semll. She was placing them in massive, but remarkably soft homeade buns and then, there! A flower-smocked patron was putting ketchup on her food! I guess I didn’t realize how much I had missed American food until I had that brat with ketchup (yes, I know, many people do not eat brats with ketchup). But man, it was good. Of course, when I was finished, there was nowhere to dispose of my napkin. Finding a garbage can in outdoor Bulgaria is a challenge. It works like this: people nurture the dirt of their own property with water, scissors, prayers and superstitious traditions, but outside their gate, the road, the city center, even the decorative, biblical-looking water fountains belong to nobody. As a result, litter is a huge problem.

As I wandered through the market, I stopped to pet the rabbit long enough to engage in conversation with the merchant, who, after finding out I spoke English, was eager to tell me that he had a neice who was in Australia. Mitc was a kind, elderly man and I used all the Bulgarian I knew before saying goodbye. Then there was Ivan, who has a daughter studying in Los Angeles. I bought a tiny, battery-operated piano for Nia for her birthday from him and we spoke as many words as I knew. Albana and Tonya were women I had seen before, two of several ladies who sit idly in front of their barely recognizable “magazines” (shops). Stores here often don’t have signs, and so, to tell patrons there are good inside, they hang rubber-like red, blue and yellow streamers down the door of the entrance. I had a lovely time chatting with them as well. Bulgarian people, as this demonstrates, are often very kind and eager to speak with a foreigner. However, even in this small town, people don’t greet each other unless you specifically know each other.

Every time I enter the Bulgarian world, I become a little more confident and a little more comfortable. Just takes a little time.

Stravete! I’m in Bulgaria and I’m writing. My apologies for the delay–I’m thinking bout all of you so here goes. . .I went for a run the other morning–it must have been the blood-pumping sensation, but everything popped from it’s horizon–smelling, looking, tasting and sounding sweeter and more colorful. The geraniums on Magdalena’s porch, the two visible teeth against Yule’s tanned farmer skin, the overgrown wildflowers against the yellow-washed stucco and the red roof tiles against the blue and white sky. This is when I realized I needed to blog. Life here is good. I love learning Bulgarian and Peace Corps is taking very good care of us. First a basic summary:

I’m living with Sashka, (23) and Marty (32) and their 10-month old daughter, Nia. (just like my favorite exercise! Erin, any news??) Their parents, Maggie and Yule, live in an adjacent house–between is a Peter Cottontail sort of garden with corn, tomatoes and grapes (from which they make wine) and a comforting farm-like area with rusty spickets, tools, stray cats, canning materials and drying workboots. They watch Nia whenever Sashka and Martin cannot and cook all the meals (pretty handy huh!!) Maggie is a great cook–we eat vegetable soup, rice-stuffed peppers, beef-onion-spice meatballs “kufti”, tomato-onion-cucumber-feta “shopska” salad and bread, more bread and a little more bread with eggs and spinach and cheese. Carb-heaven. Right now, it’s like we’ve moved to Europe. We aren’t struggling or suffering (sorry to disappoint!) but as they say in Pulp Fiction, it’s the small differences. (more later) I have a spacious room with two twin beds and live in a comparmental house with modest, unclutteed, but contemporary decor (television and microwave,e tc). Marty is a policeman and Sashka works at the library and does nails from a shop in the basement (two tables, a wash basin and some nail polish). She’s quite girly, with “Carrie Bradshaw” skirts (Yes, they have Sex and the City, Fear Factor and Survivor here) and bought a purse for me as a welcome present–how happy was I?. They both know very good English, are eager to keep me happy and they’re very accommodating. Last weekend we went to the discotecque from midnight until four (remarkably similar to any club in America, with prices to match) but no Denver Diner as a post-dance retreat. (Amy & Emily–they played Black Eyed Peas and dance music and then, out of the blue came the Dirty Dancing theme song!) My typical day is this: Awake around 7, get up at 8, wash my hair and shave my legs in the shower while trying desparately to keep the spraying water in a two-by-two foot pool instead of running all across the floor because there is no shower curtain, then squeegee up the water with a mop of some kind, pray that my hair dryer will work on the first try, get dressed, grab some yogurt or a croissant, change from my slippers into my real shoes at the door, leave (they never lock the doors) and begin my 4 minute walk to our school (oochileeche) for our 9-12:30 Bulgarski lesson. (Four other volunteers in a sunlit room with flipcharts, markers and conjugation games) At 12:30, every day, I go home where Sashka and lunch are waiting for me. The rest of the afternoon is self-study, so I run errands, walk to Cafe Romantica (a Starbucks-like place), do laundry (the washing machine takes an hour and there is no dryer–clothespins, what a concept!) check email at the Internet Klubootz or go to the Cinema, bus station, library, market, discoteque, video store. All are within a 5-10 minute walk, but my host family has a car and uses it all the time. Michael and his family are that close as well. We feel like we are high schoolers dating because we walk home from school together, hang out in each other’s rooms, but rarely sleep together. Although, our family is quite happy to let us do that whenever we want. They know each other. Every night there is Rakia (a whiskey of sorts) with cigarettes and talking. Kostanetz is a lovely small town of about 10,000 people–the roads are rough, and while rock piles, bricks, cement blocks and weeds tend to roughen the landscape, the cows, goats, stray dogs, vintage Volvos, flower-covered gardens, green-gated homes and museum-store-like photo-worthy old men and women are beautiful. The weather is exactly lie Colorado. Hot then cold, sunny then rain.

The learning experience of this week is about shopping. I set out to buy pencils the other day (lots of mistakes with the Bulgarian alphabet and I only had pens) So I wasn’t picturing Target or anything, but hopeful, I did bring along my mechanical pencil as an example. After a bit of searching along the shelf behind the counter in the tiny shop, there it was! A mechanical pencil! I said I would take ten: Iskum pet! But ne, soma etno. (only one!). Hmm. I see. Only one. Okay, so I’m really going to have to keep track of this pencil, huh? Like not lose it or anything. No letting it roll behind the bed or down the side of passenger seat (as if I have a car) or letting it disappear at the bottom of one of my purses. Right. I mean, it’s a pencil–they were so plentiful in my former life that if I lost one, I just grabbed another one. I thought about this a lot. How many other things did I used to buy three of, thinking, “oh well, if I lose one, I still have two left!” Here, they have smaller homes without room to store a twenty pack of pencils. Here, they buy a pencil, use it and go back to buy another pencil when they need it. Here, they take very good care of their stuff-even pencils. You can bet it has a special place in my backpack.

I miss public toilets with paper products, Strawberry Special K with cold milk and ice in my drink. I love learning Bulgarian and every day is a confirmation that we did the right thing. Do scorra. Davishdane—Andrea