My Co-workers

The Regional Development Team, Shoumen.
a.k.a my co-workers

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Orphanages, Concerts, Surf & Turf, and Beaches (again)…

Orphanages. So, I am in the process of finishing my first real project in Shoumen. The local orphanage has had problems with people (mostly drunk) banging on the windows of the first floor. The project will, hopefully, work to deter this. I guess I mention it because this is a fairly typical thing I will be doing.

Nothing landmark and defiantly not as romantic as the images ‘Peace Corps’ brings to mind. But, it is doing some good. That is all you can really as for: to leave the place better off than it was when you got there.

Concerts. For the last month, there have been weekly concerts put on by the municipality. These concerts feature the Shoumen symphony. The concert ‘hall’ is a huge concave cliff – though they call it a cave. The acoustics are supposed to be very similar to a manmade band shell. But, never mind the physics of it, the concert was great. It was nice to attend an outdoor concert and see that Shumen puts such a high priority on music.

Surf and Turf. A friend of mine was passing though and stayed the weekend in Shoumen. We decided to go to the ‘Billa,’ which is a super-westernized food store.

In it you can find: frozen pizzas, fresh bakery, a deli, cereal, a candy isle, and the ingredients for surf and turf. A picture tells the story better than I.

Beaches (again). Well, if you haven’t clued in quite yet, I really like the beaches here. A while back we went to a placed call Senamoritz. And, because one of the other volunteers (with the environmental group) works in the nature preserve there, we got permission to camp on the beach. It was amazing. The hike to the beach (we pretty much had it to ourselves) was beautiful. It really reminded me of the ‘Cinqua Terra’ hike in Northern Italy.

So, we built a fire and spent the night under the stars and next to the Black Sea. One problem: it started raining. So, here we are - highly content in our practice of spontaneity and enjoying life simply - when the sky opens up. I had no tent, sleeping bag, tarp… you get the idea. The routine turned into this, we stood in our swimsuits by the fire during the rain (with clothes under some beach rafts we had picked up earlier) and waited it out. Once it died to a drizzle, we would toss on our clothes to warm up. Then it would rain again. And we would repeat. It was great. We didn’t have any complainers and we just made the best of it. Luckily, the next day was beautiful and we had a full day of sun. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Hope all is well and take care,

Mark

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4th of July...

The holiday weekend ended up being fairly calm. It is strange to think about all the festivities going on in America; in all reality, it was just another weekend. When there is nothing in the media, no fireworks to look forward, no parades… it is tough to get in the mood. Or more specifically, it there is nothing to ‘get in the mood’ for. Anyways, we hung around on Friday and took part in the Shoumen nightlife – which is not that bad, actually. On Saturday, we attempted to flag our patriotism. It was a half hearted effort that manifested itself in whiffleball. After about 30 minutes someone mentioned the fact that we will need to conduct a thorough full-body-tick-check when this was all over. We started our way home.

After a bit, we headed to Varna (the beach town). As always, Varna was good times. It is hard to beat a beach town that is packed with young people and cheap. After a hot day on the beach and a long night at the clubs on the beach and a quick night’s nap (again, on the beach), I was hungry. So, I indulged in a giant, drippy doner (the tastiest snack this side of Portillo’s). For whatever reason – though I suspect not leaving the beach for more than a couple hours has something to do with it – I think it was the best doner I have had the honor of consuming. Soon enough, it was late Sunday. I am pretty sure some one said ‘happy 4th of July’ and then we went to a Chinese restaurant. Nothing says ‘Home of the Brave’ like sweat and sour chicken.

The following day, I drug myself out of bed and headed to my desk at 8.30 am on the nose. It was my birthday. If you ask me, ‘do you feel any older?’ My only real response is, this is the first-time I have had to go to work on my birthday. So, I guess so. Luckily, my coworkers remembered and made a big deal about it. They gave me a lot of pink flowers (because it is a tradition, not because that is their impression of me) and I gave them chocolates (again, per decorum).

A full day of work was followed up with a nice evening with my new sitemates. A sitemate is Peace Corps lingo for another Volunteer that lives in your town; and, I got two of them on Friday. As our getting-to-know-you slash happy birthday to me gathering we made Mexican…from scratch. We have no Old El Paso salsa or premade tortilla here. It is all done the old fashioned way – as long as you read ‘old fashioned’ as throwing some stuff – that you remember being in Mexican food – together and then eating it. To be honest, it is not that hard and really does taste much better than the store bought stuff. (A bold statement from a person who a year ago was still working on perfecting the ‘double batch’ of Easy Mac.)

Well, I hope all is well out there in the land of Papa John’s delivery (things are good here),
Mark

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