Today was a good day.
Ok. I get the question, ‘Why haven’t you updated your site.’ Answer, ‘Nothing important has really happened.’ And they said, ‘You are in Bulgaria, even boring stuff has to be interesting.’ So, without further adieu, a semi-typical day in Shoumen .
07.20 – Cell phone alarm goes off across the room. Morning me curses nighttime me for always putting the alarm so far away. I get up, I hit snooze.
08.05 – Wake up in panic. Somehow snooze got mixed up with off. Make Steely Dan play a mix of Chicago and Rusted Root: aka ‘Morning Mix.’ I get up and check to see if the water heater decided to work today; it did. More than relived about that, I enjoy a hot shave and shower. Dry off with a towel that I have been promising myself for awhile to wash and toss on my suit. Today is a suit day.
08.27 – Pack up Steely Dan. Put on shoes – switching from my flip-flops to shoes is the hardest thing about Peace Corps. I always wait for the last possible second.
08.35 – Show up a couple minutes late for work. Offer the typical salutations and pleasantries to the folks that work in the Municipality. Decline a cup of coffee.
08.45 – Boot up Steely Dan. Plow through email while chit chatting with the coworkers about what happened the night before.
09.00 – Continue working on a project called ‘Fair Health Care for Minorities;’ this puppy has blossomed to 17 pages and is still growing – the deadline close-of-business Thursday.
09:45 – Head to a HOSPICE center for the big Christmas exchange between the folks from the retirement home and the orphans. [The women knitted socks for the kids and the party was to thank the babas and give the gifts to the kids.] Decline a cup of coffee.
10:00 – Am standing in front of three microphones describing the project [this is why today is a suit day], thanking those involved and answering the ever-present question ‘why haven’t you married a Bulgarian girl yet? … Don’t you like our girls?’ I get through the interviews, intentionally fumbling through some of the more personal questions.
10:10 – Welcome the guests, children and babas. Explain the project, again, and hand out gifts. The socks and an orange for the kids and a little thank you for the babas who worked for a month to make fifty pairs of socks.
10:30 – Kids perform a series of skits that they obviously spent a lot of time learning. At one point one of them puts on a pair of glasses with a carrot tied to the bridge and a white hat; he is frosty the snow man. A Bulgarian version of Jingle Bells and then a choreographed dance to a local pop hit.
10:50 – The kids bow out to make way for the retirement home choir. Accompanied by an accordion, the ‘pensioners’ sung some Christmas classics – in the local tongue – and it all ended in the group dancing the horo - the traditional line type dance.
11:05 – Snack time. Some sweets and a juice to wet your whistle while being serenaded by the accordion guy. Decline two cups of coffee.
11:25 – In conversation, a baba tells me never to get old. I am stumped for a response, not due to language. Quickly force topic change.
11:30 – We walk back to work.
12:00 – Lunch at the cafeteria. A seasoned chicken breast, fries, rice, and lutiniza [a red peper spread, sauce].
12:20 – Grab a cup of coffee and some cookies. [I have fallen into really enjoying a cup of coffee – you would call it espresso – and something sweet after lunch.]
13.00 – Go to pay my electric bill. It is a really satisfying feeling to go and do things like that with out having to have a language chaperone.
13.30 – Work on this.
14.00 – Spend the rest of the day working on the ‘Fair Health Care’ project and a project to get heating installed in the Retirement home. (Right now, they are using coal.)
16.50 – Head out from work and meet with my University class.
17.00 –Talk about their recent student holiday and read/analyze some American poets: Whitman, Maya Angelou, Thoreau, and Falkner. Review some of their writings for other classes.
18.30 – Get home, put on tee shirt, jeans, and a pair of sandals. Toss on long black dress coat and go back out to buy something to eat.
19.00 – Come home with 6 eggs, loaf of bread, two packs of Raman type noodles, and cheese.
19.15 – Grilled cheeses and Raman are ready. Eat while listening to a This American Life show off of internet radio. www.thisamericanlife.org
20.15 – Radio show is over, make a cheese omelet. Watch a really, really bad 80’s movie.
22:00 – Finish this.
So, there it is. A semi-representative narrative of what I am doing out here.
I will be back in the good old US of A in less than a week. Hope to see you guys soon,
Mark
Rockin' out with babas and an accrodion, nothin' like it.
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