The month leading up to me becoming an official peace corps volunteer

Wow! I guess it’s true what they say; time flies when you’re having fun in Bulgaria! Ok, so for all of you people out there hating me for not updating this blog more regularly, well keep the hate coming so I actually keep on top of this and it won’t take you an hour to read my newest post. The past 5 weeks have been really awesome and I’m excited to tell you about them! For a couple weeks now I have been debating what I should write about. You know, which memories and stories make the cut, and which ones are sadly forgotten. Today my counterpart is out of the office so I have had all day to figure it out. Here’s my plan. Give you a little somethin somethin about everything I have been doing and you can ask my questions if you are intrigued by any certain thing. Ok? Ok! Let’s go!
From June 25th – July 4th weekend: I was glad to be back from my permanent site visit because I was able to get back to my daily routine of studying Bulgarian, eating lots of food, and hanging out with my friends. It’s really fantastic. Our group project, “Benches on a hill” was our main focus for the week. As I probably mentioned in earlier posts, but ill mention again because plans changed, our group project was to install 4 benches in our town. 3 of the benches were going to be by the little river/stream that runs through Pavolche and the other up near Tom’s house near the main water source. After having a few meetings with our LT (language trainer) Elli, the mayor, and the factory owner, we thought our project goals were clear. However, when in Bulgaria, never expect what you think is going to/should happen to actually happen. That’s just ridiculous. One day during a break in class, we walked to the factory to pick up the benches. There were only 2, but there was a table also! Elli told us that someone else was making a third bench that was to go up by Tom’s house. We were pretty stoked because we had set a deadline of July 1st to get the benches ready and installed and we received them on the 2nd. Like I said, time doesn’t really matter here, so getting the benches only 1 day late was actually a small success! Anyways, the week was really rainy and we didn’t get to install the benches until the following week (more on that later). So July 4th was just around the corner and our group decided to have a 4th of July party (which we later learned was one of our PC assignments when we talked to other groups about coming to our party and they said they were having one too). We were still excited! We hopped a bus into Vratsa and made some purchases that turned out to be delicious, classic, American food! It’s a good thing we have girls in our group who love to and are really good at baking/cooking deliciousness. As a group we made; 2 kinds of potato salad, 2 kinds of apple pie, deviled eggs (awesome!!!), and watermelon (not so much made, but bought). We made handwritten Bulgarian invitations and delivered them throughout the town. We encouraged people to show up and bring a traditional Bulgarian dish to share. In the morning of the 4th, the guys in our group (me, matt and tom) played basketball and soccer with the boys in our town. It was a lot of fun and I think they enjoyed it. Our girls (Katie, Kelsey and Nichole) occupied the Pavolche girls and young kids with chalk drawings and what looked like duck, duck, goose, among other playground games. As Tom would say, it was екстра, or Extra! As for the actually party, well that was great as well. We had about 35 people show up and most of them brought food. Kelsey drew this really cool map of America with small drawings representing the different parts. For example, in Seattle there was a coffee cup, and in Kansas ears of corn, and an orange in Florida, I think you get the point. From this idea, we had some of the babas (grandmothers) draw an outline of Bulgaria and then the kids filled it in with sweet drawings of the awesome things Bulgaria has to offer. We stared off the party with a little introduction about why we celebrate this day and then sang the national anthem as a group. It was pretty good. The babas then decided that they would outdo us and sing a 10 minute long Bulgarian song. They sing much better than we do, but hey, they’ve got 60 years on us. The party was lots of fun. Everyone had tons of food and drinks and it was an all around success. Whew, I didn’t think this first part would be so long. Stick with it people, I’m sitting in my office sweating, trying to swat the flies away from my face and cup of water while writing this, so the least you can do is keep reading, please. Thanks!!
July 5th – July 11th: So this week was our first “normal” week in quite some time. There was lots of language class, cards, and eating. I don’t remember which day, but one day this week our group went to the capital of Sofia where we had individual meetings with our program director. This trip was to familiarize us with the city of Sofia and how to get to PC Bulgaria Headquarters (dun, dun, dun!!!). The office was really nice and our meetings were only about 20 minutes apiece so we didn’t spend much time there. My conversation was really informal and was basically just to make sure that I wanted to be here and that I am capable of being a PCV. After our meetings we walked around a bit and found a Starbucks. I was hesitant at first, but ended up buying an iced chai tea, which was много вкусен, very delicious. After sitting in the air conditioned Starbucks for awhile, we went to lunch at this Moroccan restaurant the girls picked out. It was pretty good; I had some fruit, meatball sandwich and bloody mary. The restaurants here don’t serve water in pitchers, and I think that the water in bottles is too expensive, so I usually buy a beer but since we were in Sofia I splurged and got a bloody mary. It was ok, no celery or olives or horseradish, bummer… After lunch, we walked around for a bit then stopped in a McDonald’s because Matt had been craving a double cheeseburger for the last 9 weeks. I did not give in to the 1 leva menu although it was mighty tempting. We then got on a bus back to Pavolche. It was a pretty good day. I’m sure other cool things happened this week, but right now I can’t remember them. Like I said, it was pretty normal. Oh, actually something that might have happened during this time is….My host sister’s hamsters died!! It was bad. One day my host dad put the hamsters and rabbit outside in their cages and before my host sister got up to get them, the sun viciously attacked them and they died. The rabbit, палачинко (Palachinko, meaning pancake) barely survived and to this day he is doing well. I also remembered another fun thing we did this week. I don’t want to go back and revise the other sentences so bare with me please. Ok, we went to the Ledineka Cave!! It is one of the biggest, if not the biggest cave in Bulgaria. Or maybe the oldest, I can’t remember. The principal of school in Pavolche drove us there with the mayor, Elli and some other folks from town. It was a blast. The cave is home to a lot of bats and is around 2 million years old. I need to steal some pictures from the other people in my group and put on here. Don’t let me forget. I’m pretty sure I have never been in a place like it. It was extraordinary! Also, I think on Monday or Tuesday of this week we installed the benches and table. They look sweet! We have used them a couple times and they work great. We see the local people use them on a regular basis which is exactly what we envisioned. That is a small victory as well!
July 12th – July 18th: Just like the previous week, this week was pretty ordinary as well. But there was one exception. Tom’s host parents were taking us camping on the weekend and we were stoked! Camping in Bulgaria, hell yeah! So the week went on, studying, playing, eating, hiking, eating, PC meetings and projects and whatnot and even more eating. That Thursday we were in Vratsa for a HUB (PC meeting) and decided to buy our groceries and other items for camping. We were all really excited to camp and that made shopping that much more excited. Well at least for me. I bought peanut butter and jelly and bread and cookies and nectarines and water and beer. I was in heaven. Saturday morning rolled around and I was about as giddy as I was when I woke up to watch Saturday morning cartoons as a kid. It was exciting. Camping, in Bulgaria? Sweet! So it took us about an hour or so to get to Dabrusha from Pavolche. Tom’s host mom’s parents live there and there is a little river that runs through the outside of town. Dabrusha is not big. It’s not even small. There are around 100 people that live there. So with us (Me, Matt, Tom, Jeff, Katie, Kelsey, Nichole, Lydia, Nikki, Sashco, Danny, Danny’s wife and 2 kids and father in law) we launched the population up to a whopping 115! We unpacked next to the river in the shade and set up camp. Because we’re poor, or maybe cheap, we had a 3 person tent for 5 people. It was ridiculous, but actually worked very well. We spent the day drinking, swimming, playing cards and dominos and eating. It was a lot of fun. I tried to catch frogs but they were too fast for me. Maybe next time. We woke up the next morning and sort of hung out for the majority of the day waiting to be driven home. Overall, I would recommend all of you to come here and go camping. It’s an adventure. DABRUSHA!
Im pretty sure my order of events is no longer chronological because we didn’t go camping the day before our tests, so sorry about that. The Saturday before our tests we walked to the local hotel (it’s about a 30 min walk down the mountain) and went swimming. It had been really hot for about a week and we decided to check out the local pool. It cost 3 lev to get in and they had a lot of poolside seating and a huge restaurant/bar. We hung out there all day and I even somehow managed to avoid getting sunburned (I’m getting good at this). The pool was filled with men in tiny Speedos and women in even less. It surely was a site to see. Ok, back to the not so timely timeline.
July 19th – July 23th: On Monday we had our dreaded language test. It wasn’t really dreaded because our group is full of bright people and we all knew we were capable of passing. The couple days before the test we got together as a group and did some studying. I think the best way we “studied” was by talking and interacting with the local people. If you can understand them and they can sometimes understand you, there is no need to worry about a test. That being said, we all passed our tests! Hooray us! We had no more language classes after our test, so our days were filled with getting all our crap ready to move out and making sure we had turned in all of our PC assignments. Tuesday we attended a christening at the local church. It was the first time I had been in the church. I actually thought that it wasn’t functioning anymore. It’s a really small, but beautiful. There was a priest who said some stuff in Bulgarian followed by people lining up, kissing a picture and a cross, then getting blessed with some holy water. It was pretty cool. This was followed by a day full of eating and drinking. There were all kinds of good food. At one point I looked over and saw the mayor ripping open the cooked skull of the goat we were eating. It was a site to see. Sometime later, we talked with the principal of the school about taking us on another field trip to see some more caves. He agreed and took us the following day. This time we went to about 3 different caves around the area. The principal’s friend came with us and he is very knowledgeable about the caves in the area. He took us to God’s Bridge (боли мост) which was really cool and really old. We got to walk around a bit and we even went inside this one part and I swear about 250 bats started flying around. I freaked out and he told me to relax they’re just bats. Phst, I hate bats. Then he said that this is the largest group of cave bats in all of Bulgaria! I’ll throw some pictures up here soon. After we got back from the caves we helped out with a sandwich making contest and the cultural center. Matt’s host mom, Maria, is really into community projects and hosted a sandwich making contest and asked us to help. It was a lot of fun and the kids made some really creative and tasty sandwiches. About 20 kids from the age of 4 to 15 showed up and Maria bought them all some sort of prize. It was really cool. Afterwards it was nap time. Around 5pm we started making food for our party that we were throwing later that night. It was a celebration to show our appreciation for all the awesome things our host families had done for us! We cooked and they cooked and brought drinks. This was really fun because I think it was the first time that all of our families were together, without anyone else. We started around 8 and the party lasted till well past midnight. It was a lot of fun and pretty emotional because it was our going away party. Thursday we had another HUB which was just to show our group projects and some other not so exciting things. Friday was our swearing in ceremony. The day we officially transition from Peace Corps Trainee to Peace Corps Volunteer. It was pretty cool. There were some speeches by important people and we had to swear to uphold the constitution. It only took about 45 min which was nice because it was hot!!! Like I was sweating by 9am hot! We spent the rest of the day hanging out with other volunteers and saying our goodbyes, or see you laters. That night group Pavolche met up with my host sister at the discoteka and hung out for a little bit. I’m going to miss each and every one of them. Spending the majority of everyday with the same 6 people for 3 months is awesome, especially when you enjoy hanging out with them. I’m sure we’ll get together often and when we do it will be awesome! Ok that’s all for now. A week ago I moved into my new place and after I get some pictures and video up, I’ll write about it. Everything is good over here; I hope it’s good wherever you are!

Oh yeah, I just figured out my address so if you want to send me anything the address is (and if you can write it in Bulgarian that would be sweet cause it will get here faster. Also, say that there is no commercial value for anything because if you check anything above $50 I have to pay the equivalent of its value to take it from the post office. I'm poor, please don't do that to me. Thanks!)

джо макдонъл
Общинската администрация
ул. "Георги Димитров" № 85
Област Монтана
Град Брусарци 3680

Let me know if you have any questions about the address.