The Happiest Peace Corps Volunteer, Ever!

hey everybody! gee wiz, it's been a while since i've written, sorry. i'm still alive - just doing other things. know what i mean. over the summer i had a spell of bad luck. went swimming with some friends on a very stormy day - we had the beach to ourselves! the waves were about 2 to 3 meters high and we were having a blast! unfortunately i chose to ignore the fact that the water smelled like sewage and that i was gagging every 10 minutes or so and i ended up with a nasty eye infection that later moved into my lungs. i developed a nasty cough where i choked every time i coughed and i couldn't breathe in or out. it sucked. the doctor thought i had asthma, but after several tests, it was determined that i only had bronchitis. we were having so much fun playing in the waves, but now i know not to swim in water that smells like sewage. since then, i've found some beaches that are away from any tourists and direct sources of pollution - so i only swim there now. this summer got pretty hot, and one thing i just can't get over are the superstitions here. for example, it's common belief (mostly among older folks) that a draft will make you sick. i can see the logic in that, if the draft is cold, right. but in the heat of the summer people were giving me dirty looks and actually arguing with me cause i open the windows on the bus to get a breeze. "close the window! do you want to get sick?" they asked me in disbelief! i mean, we're talking 95 and 100 degree days, on a packed city bus with no ac! one minibus even had a screw drilled into the latch on the window so it couldn't be opened at all! ha! i took the month of july off from running cause i couldn't breathe or anything on account of swimming in sewage. and breathing is important when you run. but i started off strong in august and on september 6th, i ran a half marathon from a town called sedinenie to a city called plovdiv. it was an organized run on one of bulgaria's national holidays. this particular holiday is "unification day" marking when bulgaria's two halves were united into one whole bulgaria! there were about 200 people that showed up for the 23 kilometer run and as we were lined up at the starting line they were doing some kind of tradition or something. i didn't notice cause i had race jitters and i was just plain excited. i popped in my music and turned it on to wait for the starting pistol. well for some reason i felt the need to announce to everyone what i was listening to and in the middle of a 'moment of silence' to observe all the people that had fallen during the fight for bulgaria's independence, i yelled out "hey guys, i'm listening to creedence clearwater revival right now!" ha ha!!! oh man, people kinda gave me dirty looks and i didn't understand why till later when someone explained to me what i had done! on the work front - it was a slow summer. i've mostly been involved with planning events for peace corps volunteers and training sessions for new volunteers. i had gotten all of my biodiesel project written and was ready to submit it to start receiving funds to implement the project when i learned that the whole damn thing needs to be written in bulgarian! ha! so, i had to start over. this is slow going because i don't know most of the technical words, but i'm getting lots of help from my bulgarian counterpart and we should have everything squared away soon. i hope... while waiting for that to develop, i've started an environmental club to get university students involved and just plain aware of environmental issues in their country! my group had our mid-service conference, which means my service in bulgaria is half over! i can't believe i've been here for so long! it went by too fast and having only one more year in front of me doesn't seem like enough. it was really great seeing my friends again! some i hadn't seen for almost a year! of our original group of 50, there are 39 left. people have left for various reasons but all my close friends are still here, saving the world! at this conference, i debuted my new hair style! a comb-over! i was inspired a year ago by a teacher who had the most amazing comb-over, ever! and i decided to grow my hair for a year so i could have one too! i kept it for a couple weeks and it got a lot of laughs from a lot of folks! my bulgarian counterpart laughed for a solid 10 minutes!!! then someone in the office came to one side of me and blew my hair as if to be the wind to see my hair get all messed up! they laughed for another solid 5 minutes! they even brought out a fan to mimic wind! it was fun, but i shaved and i'm back to being my gorgeous self again. traveled to greece for the athens marathon that a group of us had been training/planning for since last fall! i had sooo much fun!!! 15 volunteers ran the race and 3 volunteers came down to support us! only one guy had run a marathon before, so this was all very new to us. did a bit of sight seeing, but mostly took it easy. on race day - november 5 - we piled into buses that took us to the town of marathon, where the starting line was! there was so much excitement in the air!!! i ran with my buddy tim for the first half when his injuries got the better of him and he had to slow down. we had been running with some other volunteers too - running's never been so fun! i was on my own for pretty much all of the last half of the marathon. it was brutal! the landscape had changed from beautiful mountains and sea to boring, typical big city. around 3/4 of the way through my legs and feet were killing me, but i persevered and finished strong! much stronger than i had anticipated! my time was 4 hours 10 minutes and 15 seconds! i was shooting for 4 hours 30 minutes, so i blew myself away! the course was mostly uphill, though not too steep. and i ran the whole thing in a pair of $40, 3 year old running shoes that i had to cut toe holes in because they were too small for me! i rock! at the end, i was overwhelmed with excitement! i started congratulating everyone around me, and hugging people - even people i didn't know!!! every time i got to watch one of my friends finish the race, i would get overloaded with excitement again! what a day! i ended up with only one or two small blisters, 4 black toe nails, a knee that doesn't want to bend any more and a smile that just won't go away!!! my results are posted here: http://www.athensclassicmarathon.gr/results2006/html/?index.asp?lang=English (i'm on page 32) our fundraising for the bulgarian scouts didn't go as well as the marathon. we made it to $2,500 of the $10,000 we were aiming for. but we have some months left to continue raising money and there are some plans in the works for local events to raise the rest of the money. bunch more going on - but for now, i'll let my pictures do the talking: http://picasaweb.google.com/00Judkins/PeaceCorpsBulgaria20052007
hope everyone's happy as a bag of wigs! love, andy/clive/favorite peace corps volunteer in bulgaria/happiest marathon runner ever!

Your Tax Dollars Hard at Work!

zai-yek! (that's howdy in arabic, but in bulgarian it
means rabbit!)

been making some accomplishments and decided it was
time to take a little holiday down to egypt! it was
fantastic!!! i've never traveled with having favorite
places before, it has always been about meeting
people, other travelers. but egypt may have changed
that. i went with goals of seeing the pyramids and
learning more about the mystery that is egypt. but
after arriving, that stuff took a back seat to modern
day egyptians and their culture! crystal somehow
managed to pick up the chicken pox a day before our
arrival into egypt, which was hilarious and
unfortunate at the same time. we decided to go to
egypt without a tour group to allow for more freedom
and also to save some money. we stayed in hostels and
took local transportation and we pretended to be
egyptian even though it was impossible to convince
people of that... even when we said we were from the
far north of egypt. ha! anyway, the first hostel we
got to, in cairo, had some superb people working
there. we befriended them immediately, and the one
guy, amir, took us to the hospital and translated so
crystal could get some help. the whole hospital visit
was less than a dollar! they gave her some kind of
topical medicine to help relieve the itching but it
turned her skin bright, bright purple! oh man! it was
really funny! while she stayed in bed for 2 days, alex
and i explored cairo. it's a neat place! 20 million
people and only a handful of traffic lights! it was
insane! drivers constantly honk to let other drivers
know where they are. intersections were big messes of
merging cars. pedestrians just jumped into the mix and
waited for chances to hop from one lane to the next in
between cars that were within a foot of you on either
side and cruising along like a real life game of
frogger! and in all this chaos - people get to where
they need to be! i can't believe they manage under
these conditions, but they do! the pyramids were
great, of course. but the hoards of tourists really
took away from their magnificence.

headed out into the desert on a 5 hour bus ride to the
bahariya oasis! there was some kind of natural hot
springs that allowed there to be life in the middle of
the desert, and there a small town existed. it was
great to get away from busy cairo. the beauty and
quietness of the desert were something far more
amazing than the overcrowded pile of rocks i had come
for. we hung out with locals, having tea, watching the
sun set, dancing and listening to their music. one of
the things i really appreciated early on from this
culture was the absence of western music! there were
no britney spears, madonna, backstreet boys, 50 cent
or any other horrible sound-atrocities that get sold
around the globe. nope, in egypt, they listen to
egyptian music - and it was wonderful!!! next day we
headed off into the desert for a camping excursion!
spent a good hunk of the day without roads, just
driving along in the sand - it was cool! saw the black
desert, which was created from the erosion of volcanic
rock and now there's a black dusting of rock covering
everything. we climbed a small mountain and the view
looked like it went on like that forever! but of
course, we drove for another hour and we were in a
completely different place called the white desert
with just as beautiful a landscape, and also looked
like it went on forever! i liked this place very much.

headed back to cairo to catch a night train to aswan.
had a quick dinner, which crystal and i both got food
poisoning from. the train was 13 hours long... pure
torture! we arrived at 2pm and i slept for a solid 24
hours once we got our hostel. we both went without
food for the better part of 3 days. so, we didn't see
much of aswan or luxor. alex says they were pretty
cool places. all i can say is that they have crummy
hostels that cost less than 2 dollars.

from luxor, we took a night bus to dahab. our bus
broke down twice before we finally switched to
another. in all, it was a 20 hour bus ride! dahab was
great though, and more than made up for the bus ride!
some damned terrorist bombing had been there a week
before we got there, and as a result the town was
quiet and quite mournful. the water was gorgeous, and
felt great! alex went diving and crystal and i
snorkled! i'd never done that before - it's really
cool! there were some great reefs with all kinds of
fish of all kind of colors!!! it was amazing! and now
i have a new hobby!

took a quick jaunt to alexandria and wandered the town
for a day. we were followed around by children and old
folks alike who were keen to ask us where we were
from, our names, and then would quickly follow with
"welcome to egypt!" they were super friendly people!
the more bold children would see us from far away and
make a b-line for us to shake our hands!

finished up our trip back in cairo. said goodbye to
our new friends, and took one last crazy ride in a
taxi! our favorite taxi driver, who had on a previous
occasion almost plowed over a lady pushing a stroller
to park illegally so he could run into a mosque and
pray really quick - all the while we were en route to
the hostel, took us to the airport and sang and danced
while he did it. he gave me his favorite cassette tape
and told us all "life is delicious, i'm not rich but
i'm happy, what can i do?" what a holiday!

there's a new group of peace corps volunteers in
bulgaria now. group 19! one of the committees i'm on
has to deal with introducing them to the peace corps
lifestyle and be there for them if they have a
problem. so lately, we've been working on that a lot.
the biodiesel is still going... but not nearly as
smoothly as i wanted it to... i wanna just jump into
it and do it and have it be done and functioning!
however, that's not how things work here, and i'm
having a difficult time adjusting to a new way. they
want plans and budgets and partner organizations and
applications for everything! so paperwork is taking up
a great deal of the time that i would have been
getting my hands dirty... guess it's a learning
process for me too.

the other weekend i participated in an orienteering
competition! i've never done this before. the
"Varshets Cup" was held in a small town that attracted
bulgarians from all over the country. my particular
route was 17 markers, spread over a 2.8 kilometer
course. i saw other people using compasses and maps to
navigate their way through the town and the forest
that it bordered, but i wasn't given a compass - they
told me i wouldn't need it. no problem, 2.8km is
short, i thought. i got a map as i left the starting
line and i was running and having fun! up till marker
4. it was far into the forest and my map sucked. i
went way passed it, and ended up off the map and
completely lost! i had almost made it to the
neighboring town before i got my bearings... people
were getting times of 17 and 18 minutes for the
course. i never found the 4th marker, or any other
markers. i did however find my way back to the
starting line only an hour and a half after i had
left! i arrived just as the search party they had
assembled was setting out to find me! it was pretty
funny, and now the entire town will remember me as the
guy who got lost...

here are some updated peace corps pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/00Judkins/PeaceCorpsBulgaria20052007

and here are my egypt pictures:

well, the summer is finally here and the weather is
fantastic! i'm gonna try and take advantage of it and
start a running club! would be cool if it worked, but
i have a feeling it'll be difficult as people here
aren't into health so much. last wednesday was a
national holiday here to celebrate the cyrillic
alphabet! alphabet day, they call it. so everyone had
the day off! i spent it on the beach and now i'm
beginning to appreciate my newer position in varna!
the peace corps rocks!

lots of love from bulgaria,

andy!

Andy Kind of Excited!

zdrasti vsichki! (that means "howdy everybody!")

the other night on the way home from work i stopped in
at a tiny shop to get some food and such to make
dinner with. as i was leaving, a well dressed man came
in and asked where i was from. he introduced himself
as the mayor and asked to buy me a drink. so we drank
and chatted. him and the guys working at the store
were really impressed that i had come to bulgaria to
volunteer for 2 years. they asked the typical
questions i get: are you married, do you have a
girlfriend, why bulgaria, do you know anything about
bulgaria, what are you doing here? stuff like that.
eyes lit up when i told them about my biodiesel
project, which i'm pretty excited about myself. except
for one guy. he wasn't excited at all. during the
silences he would quiz me: where's winston churchill
from? who invented the telephone? and other ridiculous
things. he was the first one to point out that my
project wasn't really that cool. "people have been
doing that for 150 years" he told me. i told him that
i was trying to show the community how to do it
themselves and more importantly try to instill some
kind of environmental consciousness in the community.
"yeah, but people have been doing that for 150 years"
he told me again. so i said, "well, do
you know how to do it?" to which he responded, "no,
nobody knows how." ha ha ha!!! i had to hold in my
laughs! it wasn't till i got back to my apartment that
i realized he was thinking about the process of
converting oil to fuel, rather than converting dirty,
waste cooking oil to usable, clean biodiesel. oops -
another mistake in communication. i explained it to
him a few days later, and now he thinks i'm neat.

went half way across the country, to vratsa, for st.
patty's day. one of the volunteers was having a
birthday party and there were a bunch of us that were
going. i always like getting together with people from
my original group. the peace corps did a
fantastic job with activities to form bonds between
everyone and we all became friends really quickly. and
it's really nice to see everyone again and find out
what they've been up to and how they're doing and
such. we were gonna go to an irish pub, but instead,
we didn't. we went to a few different places and ended
up at a dance club and danced the night away. it was
nice. took a night train home with my buddy tim - we
live in towns that are close to each other. i went and
pulled down the window of the train to blow a snot
rocket out of, cause i didn't have any tissue and this
was a chance to use one of my boy scout skills. well,
the windows are spring loaded and when the train
rocked the window somehow came free of its friction
grip and sprung closed at an incredible speed! before
i knew what was going on, the handle caught me square
in the chin and knocked me back a
bit! it was pretty funny despite the pain. then i
learned that it had torn me open! i bled for a while
and then went to bed.

my running schedule is getting more regular and i'm
getting excited for this marathon in november! i've
still got a long way to go to be marathon worthy, but
i'm on track! i'm really not happy about the roads
around here to run on. well, more it's the drivers on
these roads. i have about one close call per week or
two weeks. it seems that looking both ways before you
cross a street just isn't enough! i can't believe it -
if someone drove like this back home, they'd either be
arrested or shot by another driver (or walker). and
everyone here drives like this! it really sucks!

as i walk to work, i share the sidewalks with many
people and one of the things i do is try to make eye
contact with everyone i pass. i do this to hand out
smiles and potentially meet another local, but also i
enjoy reading peoples faces to see what they're all
about. not too many people will make eye contact with
me, but as i'm watching what they're watching i often
see confusion and a little bit of fear when their eyes
study me. it's all due to the nalgene bottle i carry
with me everywhere. i figure it's nice, convenient and
healthy to always have good drinking water available
whenever i want it, but the locals
stare and ponder at what it could be. evidently
nalgene hasn't hit the european markets yet. the few
people that have had the guts to ask what i keep in
the bottle, ask like this: "is that vodka?" ha ha
ha!!! they see me with this thing everyday - who
can imagine someone drinking a liter of vodka every
day! maybe they're just hoping i'll share!

went to a fundraiser soccer tournament the other
weekend even though the locals called it football. it
was a blast! the money raised went to a foundation for
at risk youth. we all paid to enter this tournament
and picked 4 or 5 person teams and then
had soccer matches! i rocked! unfortunately it wasn't
enough to match the skills of the other players that
were there! we did some kind of a double elimination
tournament and in the end a group of local kids won!
they were fantastic!!! and the kicker was that they
were a team of roma kids that go through life shunned
by the rest of the community for being roma (the 1st
or 2nd largest minority group in bulgaria). the
bulgarian kids that they beat were really, really
upset, and i'm sure it wasn't just because they lost
but who they lost to. after the awards were handed out
we all just kinda played around - there was a
frisbee and an american football and it ended up being
a great tool for integration after the competition
aspect was finished. there was a newspaper reporter
there (the only one in town) and he took several
pictures of my tattoos and interviewed me for a story!
funny that there's this incredible fundraiser going on
and this guy wants a story on tattoos!

i'm on another committee!!! this one i had to apply
and qualify for through a series of rigorous essay
questions! it's the volunteer support network -
basically a small group of volunteers that help other
volunteers out when they have problems. not only
offering guidance and advice, but also planning morale
boosting activities. i'm pretty excited about it! in
fact, i've seemed to develop another reputation! this
is a poll that someone put up on our new yahoo group
to discuss issues about the marathon - training runs,
training schedules, travel and accommodations,
fundraising and such:

POLL QUESTION: how awesome is it we have a yahoo group
page?

CHOICES AND RESULTS
- really awesome 0%
- really really awesome 9%
- andy excited kind of awesome 91%

and people have started using that in conversations:
"i'm 'andy kind of excited' to see you!" and things
like that! i'm a new catch phrase!

i did my "survival camp" training with the bulgarian
scouts 2 weekends ago. i was super excited because i
was told we would be given a knife and 500ml of water
and had to survive in the forest for 4 days! what a
challenge! what an adventure! but as it turned out it
was just a camping trip that included a 24 hour
endurance test... big deal. i mean, i love camping,
but what a let down. so we had to build a shelter with
only an axe for tools, make a fire with some flint,
sleep in shifts in the cold (got down to about 40
degrees), and various other tasks... we didn't receive
any special training or anything, i just had to rely
on my superior primal survival instincts and the scout
i was partnered up with. so, now that i survived, i'm
"qualified" to help be an instructor or at least
"helper" for different scouting activities.

was wandering around varna with some other peace corps
volunteers last weekend and we decided to go check out
the port and see if we could go for a boat ride. we
ended up in some ticket office staring through some
locked glass doors at a submarine.
a turkish military officer was looking at us, so a gal
we were with waved at him and he asked if we wanted to
visit the submarine! cool! so we walked around the
building where we were stopped by some bulgarian
military guards until the turkish officer told them it
was ok. the bulgaristanis (as the turks call them)
confiscated our cameras, phones and bags and allowed
us to pass. we then got a full on tour of this
submarine, chatting with the crew and playing with the
periscope! it was really cool!

a friend from home is visiting, which is really nice!
her, i and another volunteer who's from salem are all
going to egypt in a couple weeks! i'm pretty stoked
for that! i've wanted to go there for quite some time!
will try and get a picture site going for some
reliable picture presentations!

hope everyone's doing well!!!

chow! (that means "peace out!")

andy!

Happy International Women's Day!

hey gang!

this week's weather here has been pretty crazy!
monday, i went for a run before work and didn't have
to wear a jacket the whole day - it was perfect spring
weather. tuesday, i woke up to a half an inch of snow
and it continued to snow all day long. wednesday was
so windy that every gust of wind would set off a
different car alarm - i'm so sick and tired of car
alarms... they can't possibly do any good. and today,
thursday, there's not a cloud in the sky - beautiful,
sunny day! so weird! my new counterpart explained to
me that this is "woman's month" because the weather is
just like a woman - completely different from one
moment to the next! ha! this guy is hilarious - he
jokes around with me all day long! and it's the good
kind of humor too - the kind that's not allowed back
home cause of pesky "politically correct" attitudes.
even when he says something that's not funny, i'm
laughing at him instead of with him cause i think he's
funny! we're gonna be good friends!

the move to my new town was exhausting and i'm glad
it's over. though more than a month has gone by, i'm
still not quite settled in yet. there are still things
i need to buy for my apartment, and there are still
things i need to find in the city. in fact, i haven't
even met my new neighbors yet! life in a big city is
completely different than that of kalofer. in kalofer,
everyone knew me before i even showed up! here, it
seems no one really cares. but as the days go on, and
i interact with different members of the community,
people are starting to recognize me and ask where i'm
from and what i'm doing here and such. i've found it
easiest to frequent a few places regularly and in
doing so i've made some friends. there's a lady that i
pass on the way to work every day that owns a fruit
stand and she always comes out to tell me to have a
good day. and the owner of the tiny grocery store at
the bottom of my apartment complex is insistant on
conversing with me any time he can catch me! he always
wants to know how to say something in english and if i
know the equivalent in russian (?). i can't understand
most of what he's saying anyway on account of the
cigarette in his mouth and the bottle of whatever that
he just finished drinking. the people i interact with
seem reluctant at first to say too much - but when
they tell me that i speak very good bulgarian, and i
say "thanks, so do you" they always laugh and open
right up to me. but with that said, there's only a few
people here that i've really spent any time talking
to.

varna is a big city, and with it, there's the big city
mentality. people are cold and less willing to talk.
back in kalofer and even krichim, i would greet anyone
i passed - here when i do that i get looks like i'm
crazy. this city is way too big, way too fashionable,
and way too busy for my comfort level. the one saving
grace is the ngo i'm working for.

i'm working for a non governmental organization called
Public Environmental Center for Sustainable
Development. they've been around for 10 years or so
and have done some fantastic things! the work here is
a far better match for my skills and passion. and my
counterpart is a far better match for my personality.
he's a big goofball - always laughing! the work i'm
doing: there's a weekly paper collection/recycling
campaign that we do with various participating
businesses in the community. the idea was based on
saving trees, not just recycling paper, and that
mentality goes a long way with me. along with that,
there's an annual beach cleanup with local kids. this
spring, there'll be a tree planting campaign for the
kids throughout the city. outside this ngo, i'm
working with the bulgarian scouts, which is also the
recipient that our group has decided to do the
fundraiser for the athens marathon this coming
november. but the big project i'm working on, is
bringing biodiesel to bulgaria. biodiesel doesn't
exist here, which is silly because there's a lot of
diesel cars here and biodiesel can be cheaper
and is way, way better for the environment. so, my
plan is convince people that i can make really high
quality biodiesel from old, waste cooking oil that's
been disposed of from restaurants in town. then, i'm
gonna teach a few people to do the same, and try to
promote its production and use! it would significantly
improve the air quality here if it catches on. the
trick is getting it to catch on!

my new counterpart explained to me that everyone's
mentality is still back in the communism days. that
is, they don't really care to think about
environmental issues because, "hey, the government
will take care of it." it's unfortunate to see that
kind of mentality, and perhaps my biggest challenge
while i'm here will not be to make a really cool
biodiesel project, but to convince the community that
if they want something done right they have to do it
themselves! or something like that. in any case, i am
really excited about bringing biodiesel here and with
various people that i've encountered and told them
what i'm doing - it sounds like they're all for it
too. for now. but it's proven hard to implement. i
spent all day today walking around through the city
looking for a thermometer and ended the day without
success. i need to measure the temperature of the oil
that i'll be converting to fuel and a thermometer
would suit me best to do this. i stopped in every
store selling anything closely related - anything
related to cooking or car parts, i stopped and asked.
the word in bulgarian for thermometer is: "termometor"
- almost identical! and at each place they looked at
me like i had asked for a "&^@!$#" nobody understood
my vowel pronunciation, so i had to go through saying
i wanted something to watch how much the temperature
is. "oh, termometor!" they would say... it got
irritating pretty quick. and in the end, i was empty
handed. all i want is a little thermometer! how hard
could that be!?! but, i guess in relation to how
reliable most ovens are here, who really needs a
thermometer to begin with! ha!

last week i went to istanbul! it was wonderful! i
mean, the city itself was quite nice, and i'm not
usually keen on big cities. but i think the best part
was getting a small break from bulgaria. i love it
here, don't get me wrong, but a break was definitely
in order! istanbul was huge! and the different
districts we visited had completely different feels to
them as if they were their own cities. i enjoyed it a
lot - and for being so close to bulgaria, and having
it's historical significance with bulgaria, it's such
a different place! the people and culture were so
completely different! i was amazed. and further, i'm
fascinated with the turkish culture and want to
explore more. good thing i'm so close!

well, that's mostly it from here... i mean, i've
mostly been focused on trying to make myself
comfortable in my new apartment and new city. i do
have a couple new talents that i can add to my list of
skills: i can make a mean lentil soup and some of
the finest chocolate chip cookies (from scratch) in
all of bulgaria! they don't have cookies here, so when
i make them, people get really excited! below is some
contact/communication info, as i finally got internet
in my new apartment - and soon i'll post some new
pictures!

hope everything is wonderful and happy on your end!
tell me hi or something.

your favorite peace corps volunteer in allllll of
bulgaria,

andy!

Your Monthly 'Andy' Update!

the tourism association i'm working for threw a
christmas party for all of its members. there were
about 60 people. there were some food and a bunch of
drinking, and they had some wacky activities planned
as well. i really couldn't understand what was going
on with the activities, but when the people at my
table all stood up, i followed. we sang and danced
till way late at night. i'm normally not much for
dancing. in fact, i normally do my best to avoid it at
all costs, but i'll tell you what, after a glass of
wine or two, and some lady is grabbing me by the hand
and dragging me onto the dance floor - well, that's
another story. so, i danced my little heart out all
night long! i had no rhythm whatsoever, and after a
while i wasn't even trying to pretend like i did have
it. i just tried to shake my hips as fast as i could
to keep up with everyone else! ha! in these group
gatherings, and also for small parties or something,
eventually there'll be some kind of classic bulgarian
music going and everyone gets up and dances the "horo"
(the stress is on the second 'o' in case you're
wondering). the horo is one of my favorite things,
next to rakia. the whole crowd gets hand in hand, in a
huge horo-line, and you just kind of dance together in
a rotating circle. i like it cause it's mostly easy to
figure out and everyone's involved. throughout all
this dancing and fun, a local gal named dora was
following me around everywhere. she kept wanting to
dance with me, despite my persistent casual attempts
at leaving to dance with everyone else. but she was
way aggressive, and would literally drag me back to be
with her! that was kind of funny, and also, she knew
what she was doing, and i, very obviously, did not. so
she was throwing me this way and that like a rag doll!
at one point, i think she wanted me to dip her or
something and she leaned back while holding on to me.
well, we both went down to the ground - me falling on
top of her! ha! oops! the whole town was teasing me
about it the next day!

christmas was amazing!!! my friends came from all over
the country! there were 10 of us in all! half were
here for friday night and it was just kind of quiet
and nice. everyone else came on saturday. we did group
cooking and cleaning and had an absolute blast! it
didn't quite feel like christmas, but it felt great
anyway, and everyone stayed way positive - no drama at
all! christmas eve, the tradition here is for a guy to
go out with a group of his friends (all men) and go
sing christmas carols to a girl he likes. if she
thinks he's doing a good job singing, she lets him in
and they all have a party! well, our group was too big
to tag along on the singing extravaganza, but we heard
different groups on the streets all night long! my
bulgarian friends said they were out till 4 in the
morning, singing and drinking wine. red wine is the
winter drink here, and they stay so close to tradition
that you have a really hard time finding a restaurant
in the summer to serve you a glass of wine. only in
the winter! christmas morning, i cooked everyone the
best scrambled eggs they've ever eaten! at least, i
kept telling them that until they believed me!
christmas dinner was amazing too - we had a ham! i
know it doesn't sound like a big deal back home, but
here - you can't find ham! i didn't quite get the full
story of how we got ours... a couple gals in our group
did the searching and when they tell the story of
their search they always end up at them inside a
larger grocery store in a bigger city and one gal
pushing the button to call the butcher over to ask a
question. but the "butcher call button" as she
referred to it, was actually the fire alarm! so she
set the damn fire alarm off while trying to ask her
question... and the funny part was, no one did
anything. not the butchers, not the other shoppers, or
other staff! how funny is that! we didn't have a
christmas tree, but i made everyone a stocking with a
deal of candy on it. my buddy alex brought all of his
christmas presents that his family had sent him with
him to my house to open on christmas morning! so after
we had eggs, we all sat around and watched alex open
his presents! ha!

and to follow up christmas, just when i thought things
couldn't possibly be any better - new years happened!
what a holiday! i traveled to sofia, the capital, to
meet some friends. the first night we stayed in a
hostel and just kind of took things easy. new years
eve, we ate at a vegetarian restaurant, which was
really good despite the lack of meat, and met up with
everyone else in town. there were about 20 volunteers
from our group of 50 and we gathered at a couples
house who live and work in sofia. we told all kinds of
stories from our sites and had a great time. just
before midnight we went to the center of town for the
public celebration. there were thousands of people
there, a stage with some wonderfully annoying chalga
music, and happy faces everywhere! i got so excited i
ended up getting separated from our group and i was
dancing in huge horo lines! it was magnificent! i
ended up back with my friends a time or two, but
mostly i was having a blast just dancing with the
locals! there were some fireworks at midnight and i
tried singing the new years song "auld lang sine" or
something like that, cause i had printed the lyrics
off the internet. no one was joining in with me, so i
sang louder and louder till i was just yelling! that
kind of singing skill doesn't get a person invited
into his girl's house on christmas - but gee wiz, i
was have fun! you're probably all curious as to what
my new years resolution is. ok, i'll tell: i'm gonna
run the athens marathon! it's in november, so there's
plenty of time to train, and a big group of us
volunteers are going to make some kind of team out of
ourselves and do a fundraiser for "habitat for
humanity" i think. i'm really excited for that!

had a language class and stayed late for a small
nagosti with my teacher and her cousin. we were
chatting and eating and drinking and such and she
offered me some kind of meat that looked like a
sausage but rolled up into a disc. of course i took
it, cause who can resist rolled up sausage, right! she
told me it was called "carnage" ha ha ha!!! oh man, i
don't know a quicker way to kill a good thing than to
associate it with "carnage"! of course this was how
the bulgarian word was pronounced, and it has a
different meaning when translated to english... but i
couldn't stop thinking that i was eating 'carnage' and
it made getting through my wonderful piece of rolled
up sausage, quite difficult!

on january 5 there was some kind of concert to welcome
in the holiday on january 6 - yurdonov den or
something like this. anyway, the concert was really
cool. there were dancers, singers, actors and
musicians each putting on a small show. my favorite
were the singers, they had magnificent voices, i think
they're called a choir or something. it all appeared
very traditional because of the music, outfits, and
dance. but then a couple of dancers did a number to
"i'm so excited" i had to laugh, it was pretty funny.
the day following this tribute to the national here
hristo botev, is called "yordonov den." it's one of
the most significant national holidays in bulgaria. it
starts out with wine, very early in the morning. i was
awoken by some friends around 7. they came into my
apartment with a 2 liter soda bottle filled with home
made wine. they looked drunk already and continued to
pass the bottle around. that's really unpleasant to be
drinking that early in the morning, and i quickly
bowed out. after a while we joined a crowd of about
700 people gathered around a particular spot of the
tunja river that runs through town. there were about 3
or 4 inches of snow on the ground, and it was snowing
and cold. and here comes the rest of the tradition: a
group of guys jump into the river on one end and walk
toward the crowd while playing some traditional music
with drums and a wacky thing that looks like bagpipes
but sounds awful. then a priest throws a wooden cross
into the center of the men. whoever gets the cross
first, gives it to the youngest kid in the river. then
they dance the horo and sing. this is when my friends
and i jumped in! it was soooo cold! we all joined arms
and danced the horo! i tried to sing along to keep
excited and not think about the cold, but i didn't
know the words, and no one had printed them out for
me! we worked our way slowly around the horo circle,
several revolutions, for about 10 minutes. the deep
part of the river was high on my chest almost to my
neck and the shallow part was still above my waist.
after the initial shock of the cold, my legs felt like
they were on fire! it hurt! what a feeling! we all
exited the river at about the same time and went to
the road where the band was playing. there we did the
horo for another 10 minutes in the snow, completely
soaking wet! after 20 minutes of temperature torture,
i decided to head back to my apartment. i had been
separated from my friends and couldn't find them, so i
just left. my body was shaking soooo violently i could
barely get my key into my door! i've never shaken like
that before, not even when i was dancing at the
christmas party. ha! it was intense! the legend is,
that if you don't get sick from doing that, you'll be
healthy all year! but i think that's hogwash - cause i
didn't get sick, until 2 weeks later - and now i'm
sick as a dog!

well, due to an ongoing personality conflict with my
counterpart here in kalofer, i will be moving to
another assignment. i've had several meetings with the
peace corps and the solution will be for me to move to
varna, a 6000 year old city on the black sea coast,
where i'll be working with an environmental
organization that does beach cleanups, environmental
education for youth, they run a recycling program, and
they're pushing for some kind of alternative
transportation in the city, mainly promoting bicycles.
i'm stoked! this is way more of what i had wanted to
do in the first place, and i met my new counterpart
and he's a goofball! it sounds perfect! the plan is
for me to move at the end of the month, but i need to
travel there and help find an apartment first. of
course it's not all fantastic - the town is something
of a tourist resort for british and german vacationers
and i'm not sure how well i'll be accepted as i am a
foreigner also. plus, i'm moving from a 3500 person
mountain town to a 350,000 person costal paradise -
there's good things and bad about this. but the
important thing is, i'll be working with really cool
projects!

that's it for now, hope all is wonderful on your end.
write me back and tell me your new years resolution!
it's supposed to be in the minus 20's all over
bulgaria tomorrow! that's less than -4 degrees F! hot
damn! that's fun!

andy