Here's Your 'Andy' Update!

a big cultural difference that's been hard to adapt to
is the way bulgarians nonverbally say yes and no. back
home, "yes" is a nod, up and down, and "no" is a
shake, left to right. here, in bulgaria, a "yes" is
given with a wacky motion that i can only compare to a
bobble-headed doll! it's hillarious to watch, and
difficult to mimic without laughing. some are more
expressive than others. i ask them questions and i see
big smiles with their heads going crazy this way and
that for a response. the less expressive bobbles look
more like a shake, from left to right (what i'm used
to as "no"). and a "no" is given with a short nod up
and down, which is pretty much what "yes" was back
home. so, i always end up asking the same question
several times cause i can't tell if they're telling me
yes or no in bulgarian head language, or if they can
see that i'm american and are telling me yes or no in
american head language! got that? bobble your head if
you understand...

we had a meeting with the local police to learn how
the law enforcement works in krichim and other nearby
cities. we learned that the biggest crime is robbery.
robbery in the home... of the home basically. people
will steal metal from houses to sell to recyclers! i
thought it was kind of a funny thing to steal. and
there was a big issue of pick-pocketers too.
apparently they're very, very good. in fact, some of
the professionals cut off their own thumbs to reduce
obsticles for getting into your pocket!!! is that
insane or what! people are always saying look out for
the 4 fingered gypsies! there's a lot of racism here.
the main minorities in the country are turkish, and
roma (gypsie, but gypsie is evidently a deragatory
term). the turkish aren't liked by the native
bulagrians, but turkey doesn't like them either. and
nobody likes the roma. their reasons for dislike and
separation are very childish, but i'm sure they're
very deeply rooted. they say they don't like them
simply because they're them. stupid.

went on a 3 day site visit of the town i'll be
stationed in for the next 2 years. it's beautiful! the
name is kalofer. it's smack dab in the middle of the
entire country next to a bigger town called karlovo,
an hour north of plovdiv, bulgaria's 2nd largest city.
i'll be situated at the foothill of the highest peak
in the balkan mountains, mt. botev! there's a huge
national park here, central balkan national park, that
includes 9 large protected areas where people aren't
even allowed to go unless there's a trail running
through it, in which case you're not allowed to leave
trails. it's one of only five parks in all of europe
to qualify for the 'PAN Parks' certification. it was
explained to me that this means it's the purest of the
pure as evaluated by an independent organization. the
entire national park is more than 71,000 hectares (716
sq km), and is home to some impressive statistics on
biodiversity: more than 2,000 different species of
plants, including 1900 vascular plant species, 188
species of aglae, 229 species of moss, and 15 species
of ferns. 123 species of birds, 2,387 species and
subspecies of invertebrates, and 256 species of fungi!
in the park there are 13 local endemic species, 10
species of bulgarian endemic plants and 67 species of
balkan endemic plants!

the town of kalofer is 3,600 people, the vast majority
of which are either younger than 16, or older than 40.
there might be a few people i haven't met yet that are
within my age group, my 2 coworkers, elena and nadia,
are 27 and 22! elena has a 4 year old son that adores
me. the kid's name is yanni and he has more energy
than i've ever seen in a 4 year old! he's always
telling people i'm his friend and challenging me to
races! the town's population has declinded 50% in the
last 10 years. this trend is common throughout
bulgaria as college kids, or people with some
education, leave the country for western europe or
elsewhere in search of work. my apartment is cool and
only a short walk from my work. though everything in
town is a short walk from everything else. i have a
bedroom, living room, bathroom, and half a kitchen.
there's even an electric heater, and a boiler for hot
water! hot damn! and... a sit down toilet!!!! i can't
wait! i'll occupy the first floor of a 3 story
apartment. the 2nd floor is my landlord, baba tina
(baba = grandmother) who evidentally takes the
initiative from time to time to come in and clean the
place up a bit. this i learned from the pcv that i'm
replacing. on the 3rd floor, lives elena and her son,
yanni, so i'll have pleanty of noise around to keep me
awake! the small town lifestyle is going to take some
getting used to. before i arrived, the tourist office
learned that i was 26 and did taekwondo. 2 days later,
i went to a restaurant where the two ladies working
said they heard i was very healthy, i didn't drink any
alcohol, and i was a zen master! i don't know if the
gossip will be a source of humor or a source of
frustration...

in any case, my job will be working in the tourist
information center for an eco-tourist association
(NGO). when i found that out i was quite bummed. i
hate tourists. and my new boss, mitko, works 361 days
a year. great... good news is, i'm not just stuck
greeting ungrateful tourists everyday. most of my job
will consist of writing projects. this means that i
need to come up with ideas for project proposals so
that our association can get various grants from
different EU donors or elsewhere. once we get the
projects rolling, the idea is that more tourists will
come to kalofer to appreciate the towns rich culture
and natural beauty of the park, and leave a bunch of
money while they're here, in turn boosting the local
economy. the fun part is our partner organization is
the national park itself. so, i get to work on many
environmental education projects within the park,
instead of just staying in kalofer. that means, i get
to spend quite a few work days "researching" up in the
hills! anything for a nice hike! there's another pcv
in town, sara from minnesota. she's an english teacher
in the school here. i'll probably hang out with her
once in a while. the association i'll be working for
has a website: http://www.kalofer.com and website of
the national park which i'll be doing many projects
for is: http://www.visitcentralbalkan.net both are
available in english, so find the icon that says
switch to english or something like that.

the itenarary has me in krichim, learning the language
and minor other trainings until october 26. on the
27th, if i pass my language test, i get sworn in as an
official peace corps volunteer (now i'm just a
trainee). then, moments after swearing in, we all get
shipped off to our permanent sites, in my case -
kalofer. the closest good friend i have will be 2
hours away by bus. but that's considering the bus is
on time. when i tried to leave kalofer and come back
to krichim after my site visit was completed, the
12.10pm bus didn't come until 5.40pm! so my two hour
bus ride home turned into a full on 8 hour travel day!

hope all's well on your end. thanks for saying hi on
my last email. say hi again!

andy

Brace Yourself, It's a Long One!

hey gang!!!

well, i guess i'm sorta settled in. the town i'm
living in right now, krichim, is the envy of all the
other volunteers. there are 10 sites, and this one is
the best, on account of character, beauty, people,
resources, and surrounding landscape. a river runs
through town and it separates the bulgarian people
from the turkish people. the roma (gypsies) live along
the river in a camp of sorts. they call themselves
turkish because of descent, but near as i can tell,
it's religious separation with the bulgarians being
orthodox christian, the turkish being muslim and the
roma having their own religion that's unknown to me.
in any case, i live with a "turkish" family and
they're fantastic! the only drawback is that i'm one
of only two volunteers out of 50 that have to use an
eastern style toilet. that is, there's no other option
available. an eastern style toilet, aka turkish
toilet, is basically a porcelain hole in the ground.
so i haven't been able to sit down to take a dump for
almost 3 weeks now! and the flusher isn’t even
connected to the porcelain hole. there's a measuring
cup sitting underneath a spigot that i have to fill up
to “flush”. i tried to make it fun at first and just
pretend i was camping... but sometimes i just wanna
relax - know what i mean.

other satellite groups come for visits and never want
to leave! so i'm lucky in that sense. i'm having a
hard time remembering people’s names. i met a guy the
other night who was kind of offended when i said it
was nice to meet him, because he said he's seen me and
said hi, nonverbally, many times before! oops!

my family knows everyone in town. of course it is a
small place. my host father, mustafa, still tries to
get me to go hunting with him and i won't be able to
avoid him for long. although i just learned the
typical hunting technique - get drunk, send one guy
into the brush to flush out whatever prey is in there
while the other guy shoots at whatever comes running
out! great! ha! according to my superb comprehension
skills, my host father works 15-day weeks, he works 15
hours a day, makes his own wine and drinks 2 liters in
a single sitting. used to be a wrestler and a boxer.
i've also learned that the men here are
extremely macho. it's probably the only thing i really
don't like about the culture (that and the toilet) -
every guy walks around looking like he has something
to prove. my host mom, ozhgyoon, is an out of work
teacher. she has connections within the city
municipality that rival ken lay's connections with the
bush administration! she knows everyone! only she uses
her powers for good - she frequently writes projects,
the most recent that was completed was the
construction of an eco-trail in the hills that i have
yet to explore on account of my messed up knee. it's
driving me crazy! i'm only going to wait till this
weekend, then i'll hop up the hill if i have to! right
now, she's trying to start several projects, one for
eco-tourism, one for a youth group, and another for
environmental education. i'm going to help her get
grants for them, if i can. she's a real hoot too – she
tries to teach me new words all the time. she often
breaks out an old russian picture book and says all
the words for all the pictures. the other day, we were
walking down the street and she pointed to a goat
walking in the opposite direction and told me the word
for “goat”. She waited for me to repeat it – after a
moment, i pointed and said the word for “dinner” and
she about died laughing! the oldest of my younger
sisters, vildanae (villi) is 17, but she tells
everyone that she's 15 (?). she cuts hair for an
income. nice gal... sometimes... but she has a very
short temper and gets mad at me when she can't figure
out the right english words to say. last week, i came
downstairs for breakfast and she was all dressed up. i
told her that she looked very nice and asked if there
was a special occasion today. she didn’t understand
so i tried several other routes to tell her that her
and her sister looked nice today. finally she said
“uno momento” (she gets a kick out of spanish) and
she ran upstairs, changed her clothes, then came back
down to continue cooking... i have no idea what she
thought i was saying, but obviously we were both very
confused! the youngest sister - 15 but claims 14,
gyoolchen, is the workhorse around here - she takes
care of all the grunt work. i often try to help with
dishes or something, but i get yelled at "turkish men
don't do the cleaning" they communicate to me. they
won't even think of letting me do my own laundry! ha!
and so far, me cooking is out of the question as well.
not that my cooking would score any points with anyone
in the first place compared to what they're giving me.
i had read that this was a meat and potatoes type of
place and was excited because that sounds good. but
vegetables seem to reign supreme so far. so many
vegetables... i think it's cause it's the season
though. canning is quite popular too. people really
don't have much money here. one of the guys in my
group lives with a family whose income is roughly 40
USD per month. and half of that goes for electricity!
so if they didn't have their garden, they wouldn't
eat.

my language classes are going well. my language
trainer has pulled me aside twice to tell me to be
patient with the other people in class. they're
really slow and i'm eager to know the
language, so i've been going ahead. this week, maria,
my teacher, ordered a backup teacher to work with
everyone else and she spends more time with me one on
one, which rocks cause now i can pull ahead of the
other groups!

next week i find out where my permanent site will be,
and which program i'll be working with for the next 2
years!!! i'm pretty excited! we find out, and then go
visit for a week. i won't actually move to my new site
until october 28. 2 more months of language first!

the other day, me and 2 other volunteers hung out at
another volunteer's place for something called
nagosti. a nagosti is a very, very bulgarian thing for
the purposes of socializing. and it can last for hours
- snacking and drinking! what a wonderful thing! in
any case, the host mother of my friend reads fortunes
in peoples coffee cups. she reads the grinds left over
at the bottom. for my two friends, she was dead on! it
was really amazing! she picked out "architecture" as
the profession of my buddy alex's brother without
having any kinds of clues - how random is that! and
for my friend christin, she
told of a guy in her heart whose name that started
with "t". her only long-term relation ship was with a
guy named troy! that's a one in 26 guess... or
prediction rather. i thought it was all hogwash, but
there were too many, too accurate statements that kept
coming out of her mouth. for me, she told nothing of
my current life or past, only my future -
apparently, i'm going to india at some point for some
time. i'm going to climb mt everest. traveling is
going to be a big part of my future (i already knew
that), i'm going to end up working in a small, secret
company in the u.s. with only 2 or 3 other people. oh
yeah, and i'm gonna be really, really happy! that
rocks cause i like being happy!

well, if nothing else, it was good coffee.

thanks for reading. write back and tell me hi.

- andy
- clive
- or however you know me!