Home on La Grange!

Tim and I have both been back home from the Peace Corps for a good chunk of time now and we've done our best to prepare for this next amazing mission of cultural exploration and international community service!

While at home, I have had the chance to see my family and a lot of my good friends, and i even had some adventures. Unfortunately there isn't enough time to see everyone... I also tried to lay out a plan for my next step in life - grad school and beyond.

I tried not to adjust to America too much because I'd just be leaving again so soon, and I wanted to maintain a traveling mentality. Some things about home made me laugh, however, some things, like the Northwest outdoors, and enjoying some nice home cooking were too much to pass up!

Aside from spending time with my family - a couple of highlights of my brief trip home were:

Hunting for Razor clams on the Pacific Ocean coast in Washington State! We spent a few hours on a cold, beautiful evening with big plastic PVC (polyvinyl chloride (I'm a scientist!)) tubes that we would use to suck unsuspecting clams out of their comfortable sandy homes! As we strolled through the surf, waves would roll in and out, covering all the holes people had made in the sand while collecting their dinner. There were clam hunters as far as I could see - north and south - every one of them staring intently at the sand by their feet! There was a limit of 15 clams per person, which was easily met on the first day of the season, but I arrived only for the second day and only made it to eight clams by the time the sun sank behind the waves. Cleaned some clams, hung out around a bonfire, drank and told stories - it was a good weekend at the beach!

Hunting for Christmas Trees in the beautiful Gifford Pinchot forest in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State! Nearly 50 tree hunters headed up the mountain as part of a group of trucks, 17 strong and looking for adventure! We drove up into the snow covered hills until trucks started getting stuck and couldn't climb any more - so we stopped, built a fire, had some lunch, and hunted down some Christmas Trees! It was more of a party in the forest with great views and fun in the snow than it was for the responsible harvest of forest products. And man, it was a g.d. good time!!! Being in nature feels so energizing - like a recharge to my batteries of life, readying me for anything that might come my way! The fresh, clean mountain air was enough to keep me smiling all day! It brought back memories of my adolescence - camping and hiking and developing a passion for protecting nature and the force that allows me to feel so incredible! Ironic that this was brought on by a trip to the woods to cut down some trees. It's also kind of funny that the first thing I noticed that I missed after being in Bulgaria for two years was the fresh mountain air of the great northwest! And who better to share it with than a couple of my favorite Peace Corps Volunteers! Emily and Mary came to visit for a week - flying here from Indiana and Florida (two places completely lacking of the great northwest). This was even Mary's first time on the west coast! I tried to show them everything I loved about my home, while at the same time rediscovering the connection I have to my home and community. I'm grateful and lucky to have the opportunities to travel as I do, but at the end of the day - when it's all over and done - I've got a super mighty fine place to come home to! And it's with this connection, strong in my mind, that I begin the next set of adventures that will carry me to a greater appreciation of the wonders that this world and it's people have to offer.

I've got most things in my near future figured out, roughly, but my focus now is on Supercross08! Tim and I have put in some major effort on this development and culture exchange project and we both want it to be supremely successful! Unfortunately due to a lack of sponsorships that we were hoping for, we had to cut short our trip of one year. We're uncertain exactly how long we're going to be implementing this project. Our end date is currently, "When we run out of money." My biggest hope is that we'll have enough time to get a chance to realize and achieve the potential of what we're capable of doing in order to inspire whoever we contact to want to improve themselves and also have a better understanding of the world's people!

Big dreams, you say? My only response is, "Watch this!"

Stories from the Road!

On September 11, 2007, my Peace Corps service in Bulgaria ended. I had said goodbye to almost everyone that had impacted me in some way, and slightly reluctantly, I hit the road. My route home was a seven week journey to Moscow, exploring Eastern Europe as much as my short time would allow.

Serbia
Started off my trip in Serbia where I met up with a friend I had met on a train five years ago, Ana. She lives and works in Belgrade and it was nice to see her for a few days. I explored Belgrade and wondered how Bulgaria had made it into the EU and Serbia didn’t. Belgrade was a beautiful, modern city and the people there were pleasant. However, on my way out of Belgrade I had some bad luck. I got on to a night train bound for Budapest and quickly found a cabin to myself. I threw my backpack up on the rack and sat in the seat by the window as four punk ass kids quickly filed in to the cabin. Two of them were smoking. Well I’d be damned if I was gonna sit up all night on an eight hour train ride while four punk kids kept me awake with their smoke! So I grabbed my pack and headed for the door. As I did one of the guys asked me where I was going. He asked in Serbian, which was close enough to Bulgarian for me to understand and reply. So I said I couldn’t breathe the smoke and was going to find another cabin. He started trying to guess at where I was from – Italy, Macedonia, Russia… never figured out how Italy made his list of possibilities. As I tried to exit, he stuck his foot out, physically blocking my path, and said, “Where are you from?” as if he needed the answer to be satisfied for the night. “Somewhere.” I told him, as I started to feel his friends’ exploring hands trying to make their way into my pockets and my backpack. Well that pissed me right off so I forced my way out of the cabin with a rude shove. Four on one aren’t great odds! One of them followed me out the door and I could feel him still fiddling with my backpack so I turned around and challenged him! “What do you want? What are you doing?” I asked in an aggressive tone. He backed down and I hurried to find another cabin before his lackeys followed him out. In the end, although I was extremely annoyed, I only lost a few minutes of happiness and woke up in Budapest to a new day, in a new city, with new people to make my story more interesting!

Hungary and Slovakia
It had been awhile since I’d backpacked, but even though I’m a bit older than the typical hostel kid, I still consider myself part of that clique. Unfortunately, a lot has changed since I last traveled. I remember the gatherings around the television in the hostel where people watched CNN’s coverage on the Israeli incursions into the West Bank, the accusations the Bush administration made against Iraq for having WMDs, and even the announcement of the new pope. But as I traveled this time around, the only thing on any hostel television was that damned MTV! It was a crying shame! That garbage rots the minds and potential of countless youth and unfortunately it’s made it’s way into my favorite culture – the traveling culture! How can this be? Travelers had become such different people than I remembered. I watched in disgust while they sat silent around the TV watching worthless crap only to occasionally speak during a commercial break to ask if anyone had seen a certain video! The only things they spoke of was which bar they were going to and if there was a hookah pipe? It seemed “the party” was all they were searching for. There wasn’t much conversation about politics or cultural exploration at all! Depressing. With that, I turned to couch surfing. This is a website for travelers that lets people experience the culture first hand! You get to sleep on a hosts’ couch or get taken on a tour of their city! It’s a great way to travel and learn! And it’s cheaper and more psychologically stimulating than a hostel!

My first couch surfing experience was in a small town called Trnava with a great gal named Luccka! She took me to neighboring villages, showed me local coffee shops, we cooked and drank wine, we toured art exhibits in the park and watched a parade for some celebration that neither of us understood! It was a fantastic week! There’s no possible way I could have gotten a better glimpse into another culture than this. My time with Luccka opened my eyes to a new way of traveling – a way that I’ll not turn back from!

Latvia
In Latvia I met up with a friend I had met in Europe five years ago on my first backpacking adventure – Becca! We traveled together through a couple countries and experienced foreign cultures as best we could! However, not all of our hosts were as wonderful as Luccka had been. Our first host while traveling together was a nice old gal that barely spoke any English! Usually language barriers are fun, and for the most part, it was in this case too. The kicker that made this surf an uncomfortable one was this lady’s dog – a stray that she had taken in. The thing looked like she had just taken it in the day before we got there! It had lots of fleas and maybe some kind of skin disease! And it was all about Becca and I!!! It wanted to greet us, jump on us, and sleep with us! It was gross! We couldn’t do anything but laugh, and so we did! And so did our host! But we’re still not sure if we were all laughing at the same thing.

The next family we stayed with in Sigulda had a hobby of keeping up traditional ways of life from their Latvian ancestors – Inese and Andres! Andres made beautiful traditional stringed instruments from wood, all by hand, and played them! Inese made traditional style clothing from different time periods and tribes. Towards the end of the evening, Andres played some music for us, and Inese dressed Becca up in traditional princess attire! It was about as far away from MTV as we could be and it was perfect!

Estonia
The next host we stayed with was in Lahema National Park! Lenne took us on a tour of the Viru Bog and it was gorgeous! I’d never been to a bog before and she explained all the intricacies of it on our three hour hike through the pristine nature! Consistent to my hiking back home, I greeted all the people we passed, but I did it in their language. In Estonian, “Hello” is “Tere” and I said it with my sweetest American accent! Lenne would laugh every time I said it and finally said to me, “You sound like an unintelligent person.” Basically she was politely telling me that I sounded retarded!

Russia
Becca and I were going from one couch surfing host to the next and killing time in the middle of the day to wait for our hosts to be available. So we hung out near the Red Square! It was our understanding that drinking in public was legal on account of that’s what we’d been told and everyone drank in public. Becca bought a beer from a street vendor and was drinking it while we enjoyed some sights. We were moving locations to get some night photography shots and we were to walk past a cop. I told Becca that even though I “knew” the law, it still made me nervous to be drinking in public. Just as she was telling me to relax and to not worry the cop turned around and said, “You can’t drink that here. Show me your documents.” Wonderful…

He used his rough English skills to tell us that we had “broken the law.” Bulgarian is close enough to Russian to communicate so I used my Bulgarian skills to understand that we would have to go downtown with him, fill out some paperwork and then pay a penalty for breaking the law and the process would take about three hours. He took us to another location in the Red Square and we met his sergeant for more intimidation. The police sergeant would address me only and ran through the whole three hour process description once again. He told there would be a car there in ten minutes to take us away!

As another cop came over to distract Becca, the police sergeant pulled me aside and told me that he didn’t want to go downtown and fill out paperwork and call the embassy and all that noise. He said “I can see that you’re good tourists so instead of wasting 3 hours, you can just pay the penalty now and then go see the sights in 10 minutes.” Becca heard that and chimed in to ask if they could just take her to the station and leave me behind cause I wasn’t drinking. She kept saying she would go with them and that it’s not a problem, but there was no way I was gonna let her get taken away by a couple of Russian cops to god-knows-where! So after the other cop came back over and distracted her again, I turned to the sergeant and said, “Take a walk with me.”

He spoke better English than the last guy, but I still needed some Bulgarian to communicate effectively. I explained that I had just spent the last two years in Bulgaria, earning no money, volunteering my time to develop the country. I went on to say that we weren’t here to see the sights - we were interested in the Russian culture and personal experiences. I also said that Becca had made a mistake that we were both sorry for, but that it was an insignificant mistake and I told him he knew that! He tried to play the card of “What would a cop in America do?” and followed with, “Just pay the penalty and you can go see the sights like a good tourist.” So I told him I didn’t want to see any more cathedrals or castles or Kremlins or anything. I told him I didn’t care anymore and he asked why and I told him it was because he had taken away my happiness! I said that in America, we don’t know a lot about Russia and we were here to learn. And then I said, “You’re creating a bad memory of Russia for me and this is what I’m going to have to take back to America to tell my friends and family!” I said that with a little bit of sass cause I was pissed off and really cold.

He was silent for a moment and then looked over at Becca and said, “Is that your lady?” “If it is will you let me go?” I thought, but only said “yes”. He was silent for another moment and then looked at me and said, “Don’t drink on the metro or in a park or near a monument. That’s it, you can go.”

Well that just blew me away to think that I had just out-talked a Russian cop and I was overcome with energy! I shook his hand and told him thanks and he looked away and said, “Have a good evening.” Through the whole ordeal, they all knew that I hadn’t been drinking - yet I was the one that they addressed and negotiated with. It’s a cultural difference that I may be able to identify but I’m far from understanding it.

That said – Russia was AWESOME! The people were super friendly and excited to meet us! Not what I was expecting from my propaganda-like education during the Cold War. Our hosts in Russia were fantastic people and went way far out of their way to accommodate us. We talked and cooked together and through many conversations we were able to break all kinds of stereotypes that had been created by various sorts of media. One of the ones that stood out in my mind was about vodka. Russian vodka is some of the best I’ve ever had – but we were hard pressed to find any Russians that would drink it! I thought all Russians drank vodka, all the time! But they looked at us like we were nuts when we asked to go to a bar that had vodka. They told us they just preferred beer. This, of course, wasn’t the case everywhere or with everyone, but it did happen often enough to surprise me!

I had to fly home on November 1st, and it wasn’t easy to leave Russia, and it certainly wasn’t easy to part with Becca. I had been homesick for so long while in the Peace Corps, yet found myself making this last trip, the trip home, with great reluctance. My Peace Corps experiences, coupled with my traveling experiences, have had a synergistic effect to develop my character. I’ve grown so much as a person and developed into someone I’m super proud to be! I’ve done amazing things – I’ve made amazing friends – I’ve been to amazing places – I’ve created some amazing stories! And I’ve got a future of happiness sitting in front of me that will lead me to more personal development – and this is what I crave! Not even MTV could slow me down now! I’m on my way!

If you're dying to get a glipse into my adventures - take a look at the best pictures you've ever seen!!!

Peace Corps!

I served as an Environmental Education Volunteer with the United States Peace Corps from 2005 to 2007 in Bulgaria.

Below are the emails I sent home:

Peace Corps - About to Begin
A Quick Note from Bulgaria
Brace Yourself, It's a Long One
Here's Your Andy Update
Happy Saturday
Howdy from Kalofer!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Winter Solstice!
Your Monthly Andy Update
Happy International Women's Day!
Andy Kind of Excited!
Your Tax Dollars Hard at Work!
The Happiest Peace Corps Volunteer, Ever!
This Is How We Do It in America!
Politically Correct? Never Heard of it...
Integrating with Hippies!
Biodiesel of Peace!
Save the School!

Photos to Prove it:
Here are the pictures I collected from my Peace Corps service

Save the School!

There's a small village called Asparuhavo in central eastern Bulgaria, home to about one thousand people, that's in danger of ceasing to exist. In fact, this is a common problem in most of Bulgaria's villages - the youth are going to bigger cities to get an education, or for work; or even leaving the country in search of better opportunities. In just about any given village in Bulgaria, you can pretty much count on an absence of everyone between the ages of 18 and 35. There are several country-wide efforts to combat this problem, of which, our week in Asparuhavo was one.

A school teacher, Eleonora, in Bulgaria's second largest city, Varna, took it upon herself to create a project designed to save Bulgaria's culture for the next generation. She wrote a project that was funded by the municipality of Varna for the purposes of cultural education for a group of her students in the form of a summer camp. Tim and I were invited along to compliment the curriculum with lessons of ecology in Bulgaria and personal development skills.

There were 22 gals, 2 guys, 2 Bulgarian teachers, and Tim and I. The kids were broken up into 4 groups and distributed among the teachers (for cultural seminars with local grandmothers) and Tim and I. We started every day with some kind of physical activity - running, push-ups, stretches, etc. After breakfast the kids broke up into groups and attended sessions with Eleonora, Tim, and me for solid eight hour days of learning! It was intense!


Every evening we had some kind of cultural happening or celebration, including dance and song, story telling, and a talent show. The kids loved it!

My niche in this week long gathering was to teach about the environment and relate it to democracy. The democracy connection comes about because Bulgaria is very new to the realms of democracy and it's not well understood here.

My syllabus contained lessons in ecology, wildlife of the Black Sea and bird life in Bulgaria, water quality and watersheds, environmental technologies, and environmental action. My course was discussion based, which means I asked appropriate questions in order to engage everyone and lead them to a particular conclusion. I linked the various aspects of ecology to things in their every day life so they could effectively relate to the concepts I was pushing. I think their favorite was the water quality session, as I made them take water samples from various locations from around the town to test for pH, dissolved oxygen, temperature and turbidity. It was a lot of fun to see the differences in water quality between the swamp, the reservoir, and the natural spring, and to hear their ideas of why they thought the differences occurred.

As my sessions concluded, my goal was for each of the kids to write an environmental based letter to an elected official. I had explained to them that in a democracy, it's the people who have the power, and it's imperative for their elected officials to hear their opinions in order for their thoughts and desires to be known. And the only way to have their thoughts and opinions known is to know how to voice them! So I instructed them on the formalities and proper techniques of writing to a politician, but our theme changed drastically.

As previously stated, Bulgaria's villages are all on a very steep decline. Instead of writing about an environmental problem, these kids chose to convince me that they needed to write to the ministry of education, and the ministry of culture in order to preserve the only school left in town. As of now, funding for the school will cease after next year. This means that the village's 50 children will have to go to neighboring towns for any kind of an education. Exporting the town's 50 school-aged kids only expedites an increase in the population decline of the village. It was extremely important for our group of kids that this village continues to exist and so they embarked on a campaign to save the school! Democracy in action! It was magnificent! Each kid wrote a letter, a well done letter I might add, based on the importance of Bulgaria's culture and small villages and they were all sent to the ministry of education and ministry of culture.

Tim and I made a great combination, complimenting each other without even trying. My training on taking action in their communities and Tim's education on personal development perfectly laid the bricks for these kids to realize the potential they each had. The week was a huge success!

Tim had to go two days early due to prior obligations and the tears flowed freely in a heart-felt, and emotional goodbye. The next day, I announced that I would be leaving one day early. Our Peace Corps service is almost finished and there are all kinds of reports and projects that need to be finished before we leave the country. When Eleonora announced my coming departure, she stumbled and choked on her own words. There was a very awkward 20 second silence while she composed herself to deliver the "bad news" to the kids. Again they expressed their displeasure in losing another of their brief mentors, and probably the sweetest thing I've ever heard was from a gal named Mila (Bulgarian word for "kind") when she hugged me and said, "You're going to miss me!" In the Bulgarian language, saying that you miss a person is grammatically backwards from American English. So what she meant was "I will miss you", but it came out as a literal translation of "you will miss me" and it was all I could do to not laugh. Each of them prepared thank you cards for my departure, here are a few of them:

"Andrew, I love you! I never forget you! I know and to you never forget us!!! (I don't want to you leave!) I LOVE you forever"

"Андрю, ние те обичаме и няма да те забравим! честито хоро!"

"Dear Andrew, Regarding your departure from Asparuhavo. I miss you already. I'm really glad I met you and Tim. I'll never forget what you taught me and I want you to know that our week together had an enormous impact on my life."

"You are very very very (3 times for happiness) COOL, General Judkins! Thank you for everything, that you learned me this week!"

"Andrew, Really I don't know what to say. In this one week you became a part of the company and of my heart. I'll never forget about you! Good luck! I hope you'll remember me too. Now I love ecology and water. But you teached me to be myself! We love you, Andrew"

"Be free like a bird! Andrew, I'll always remember you! You're already our friend! Don't forget us! P.S. you dance amazing"

"I will remember you because you are very smart!!! I will remember you with "пчела" (the bee), with your dance!!!"

"Dear Andrew, You are the most wonderful theacher I've ever seen. I'm learned so much things from you. Thank you! Always be happy! P.S. And you're supperdancer"

"Благодаря за всичко! Много те обичам и си SUPER!"

"Always be with a smile reaching to your years! Your smile is a rising sun!"

"I just wanted to tell you that living with you and Tim here was the most unique experiense I have ever had (and a lot of fun!). Be true to yourself and DON'T EVER CHANGE because you're the greatest guy ever!!!"

Over the course of one week we had effectively bonded with these kids on many levels. We were their buddies, mentors, role models, and dear friends. I've seen these bonds, of course, in America, but never with the intensity with which I saw them here. For someone to cry at news of your departure after having known you for only one week was very touching - to the point of me lacking the right words to describe how it made me feel.

Biodiesel of Peace!

Due to overwhelming and consistent pleas to update my blog, I've decided to toss out a little story for ya. After all, this is easier than responding to the thousands of emails I get on a daily basis.

This Bulgarian heat wave has really let us (Bulgarians and Peace Corps Volunteers) know summer is here and in full swing! For the rest of this heat season, it was my goal to put a lot of extra time into Supercross08 to ensure our success, but as our service in the Peace Corps winds down, I'm realizing that I haven't got a whole lot of "extra time."

Last weekend I had a list of priorities that I really wanted to conquer. Some items on that list were: go for a run, go swimming, remember my sunscreen, feed my fish, but at the top of my list was, "find sponsors and money - hurry up."

Yes, instead of all that, I spent the weekend in a village making biodiesel for my host organization! It was 100 degrees and humid and all kinds of uncomfortable! This was our first run with making a larger batch of the biodiesel and we all had different ideas of how it should be done. I, the only person to have read any of the instructions that I put together, had my idea of how we should proceed. Iliyan, chemist and "my boss," had different ideas. And Iliyan's father, self-proclaimed master of knowledge, disagreed with both of us.

We made some calculations and ran the processor and then sat in the heat to wait. We sat for hours! And it was HOT! I put my chair in a doorway that had a very mild breeze coming through and got yelled at, "you're gonna get sick!" For all who wonder - in Bulgaria, it doesn't matter the temperature, if there's a draft and you're in it - you might die, or at the very least you're going to be sick! On Monday, 92 degrees and our office without AC, Iliyan yelled at me for opening the window, "What are you doing? You know I'm already sick!" I explained that Americans don't generally believe in течение (techeni-ay: the Bulgarian Draft of Death) and one of my other colleagues piped up and explained to me that her father has had a shoulder injury for 16 years that was caused from the течение!

Apart from just sitting in the heat, while we waited for the reaction to finish we also spent time eating enormous meals that Iliyan's mom kept making. I ate more food over the weekend than I did all last week! It was great food, but the combination of the heat, being stuffed, and suffering from the Bulgarian Draft of Death made me one uncomfortable Biodiesel Maker.

In the end, our biodiesel turned out just like it was supposed to. A little dirtier than we would have liked, but success was ours! And to celebrate - we all went inside, closed the doors to keep out the flies and the cool, refreshing breeze, and continued to eat and drink!

The good news is - while Iliyan was distracted with the flu from a gentle wind, I was able to find some time to send off a few letters to potential sponsors! Finally! Of course we need to send a lot more, but the important thing is - it's beginning!!!

Integrating with Hippies!

I had an opportunity to represent Bulgaria in Germany with a group of real Bulgarians at a youth exchange/eco-conference/hippie seminar for two weeks! There were groups from Portugal, Poland, Bulgaria, and of course a group from Germany. This was held in a town called Bad Oldesloe, just outside of Hamburg.

The idea was to go through several environmental workshops all based on new environmentally friendly construction methods. And when I say "new" I mean "newly fashionable in our western culture" as we were learning techniques that are hundreds and thousands of years old.

As part of the official seminar, the different techniques we studied were: straw bale insulation and construction, clay construction, green roofing, resources from waste, and solar energy. These aspects of our gathering were phenomenal! I learned so much about green building and I was really inspired to apply what I'd learned in my future... at some point.

We started out with a three day workshop from a fantastic guy named Steffen Klauke. Steffen was able to appreciate anything made, no matter how hard it made me laugh. He was one of the finest teachers/leaders I've had the pleasure of learning from. We gathered "waste" from a nearby forest (my ecology professor would have kicked my ass for calling this material waste) and he demonstrated/inspired us on what to do with it. There's a picture there of the chair I made from eight different kinds of tree species! I used only screws, nails, glue, and brute force to assemble it! Next to my magnificent chair, in the picture, is a less magnificent but also impressive table someone else threw together.

The second most significant workshop we attended was a week long clay construction workshop in a tiny village that didn't even have a store! The gal leading the group was a character. No body, except the German group, understood a word she was saying and yet that didn't seem to phase her as she went about instructing as if everyone understood perfectly! I think her name was Julia. She showed us this massive house she's been working on for years. Different parts of her castle were in different states of construction. It was a perfect model to show us what to do at different stages when working with clay. We learned to mix the clay with sand, water, and horse/cow shit, or straw depending on what the clay was to be used for. It was a good workshop, but we were coming from warm Bulgaria and the rain, and the cold, and the no showers for a week made the final day there a welcomed one.

The content of this seminar in Germany was amazing! We learned a lot of cool stuff and it flowed very nicely. The people there were great too! Super friendly, interesting, smart, and curious. I enjoyed talking and getting to know all of them. In fact, on a personal development level, my biggest gain from this seminar came from the people - but not in a way I was expecting or would ever hope for.

Generally speaking, these people were hippies. I use that as a term of endearment as I often refer to myself similarly. The separation I found, though, came from their outlook on society. I've been surrounded by environmental scientist hippies for the last seven or eight years of my life and it's what I'd like to say that I've become. These guys were more on the political activist side of hippie and I came to realize I've changed A LOT! They have good goals of saving the environment, cutting pollution, reducing waste, and everything else you would think of as environmental. But they use their goals only as a means to challenge authority. It's true, they're doing wonderful things for the environment, but only as a protest. Eight years ago, I would have been in heaven to be with these guys! But today - all I could think was "What are you thinking?" Society isn't changed by extreme protests from a few, it's changed by education and awareness! Hippies chaining themselves to gas pumps or throwing rocks through McDonalds' windows is the wrong kind of awareness - it just lets people know that you're a crazy hippie! The picture there of the flyer made me laugh hysterically. It says, "Thursday 24 May - Knallhart - electro acid psychedelic trance rave festival against the capitalistic stupidity and the state violence"! It's marketed as some kind of freedom rally, but what kind of societal development could ever come from it? My money's on 'NONE,' but I bet it was a good time! The picture of us dumpster-diving was another action that had me wondering. In a protest on food waste, we had to rummage through supermarket dumpsters and collect all the expired food that was thrown out that day. This was what we ate for the two weeks we were there. It sounds gross, I know, and in general it was. But I will say that there were some fruits and vegetables in those dumpsters that most definitely didn't belong there. My digestive system wasn't too happy about this lifestyle, but in an integration effort - I went with the flow of things.

Our hippie seminar in Bad Oldesloe was timed to finish the day before the G8 summit. The hope of the organizers was that upon completion of the eco-conference, we would attend the G8 protests. I would have rather been a part of the summit! Someday. My ultimate point is - I learned some amazing things over the course of these two weeks, most importantly about myself, but also some hippie things about the environment or whatever.

Politically Correct? Never Heard of it...

spring is in the air! we had an oceanographer in the office the other day! i told her the word for hello in bulgarian and in perfect english she responded with, "oh, you're not bulgarian!" i said with a smile, "what gave me away?" "well i thought you were, but now that i can see you better, it's obvious." she told me. "what if i was wearing bulgarian clothes?" i asked. "nope," she says, "bulgarians are known for being beautiful." great... thanks... maybe her english wasn't that perfect...

as my time in bulgaria continues, i'm feeling more and more busy. my first year here felt like vacation! it was great! but now i'm working my butt off! there are projects going this way and that - presentations today and tomorrow - and on and on. don't get me wrong, the accomplishments i'm making feel great too, but i'm really looking forward to a little break or something! i'll be going to germany for 2 weeks at the end of may for a business trip - i get to learn how to make hippie houses from mud and hay! should be just the break i'm looking forward to! i was invited to partake in a human trafficking conference during the first 4 days of april! the group was 20 high school and university kids, the youngest being 15, and the oldest 20. everyone was from varna, but the conference was put on in a resort town to the north called balchik. this was my first experience participating in a bulgarian classroom setting and it completely blew me away! the teacher, svetla, was the school psychologist that organized and facilitated this whole shin-dig. she opened each session with some kind of "ice breaker" activity. back home i remember doing similar kinds of things like passing a ball around a circle and when you get it you have to repeat all previous names that were said plus your own. normal stuff like that. we played all sorts of wacky games that would have had svetla thrown in jail in any of the 50 states! we played a version of duck-duck-goose, but we stood in a circle, and instead of patting the person on the head as you passed, you grabbed their ass! another, and i don't know if this is still played in schools back home - the game where you hold a ball with your chin and neck and pass it to another person who could only use their chin and neck? well we did something similar, but with a condom on our mouths. we had to inhale so that the condom (still in it's package) was stuck on our mouth via pressure as we passed it to the person next to us! another ice-breaker was to pretend to be passing a bunny to the person on your right, but before giving it up, you had to say which part of the bunny you would kiss. this was a good language exercise for me cause i learned lots of body parts. after the imaginary bunny made it around the circle, we then had to kiss the person on our right, on the body part we had said we'd kiss the bunny! haha! lots of awkward places got kissed... svetla's daughter attended the conference - it was her 17th birthday and svetla had organized a party for the group of 20 in one of the hotel rooms. all the kids bought beer and svetla gave her daughter, radost, a bottle of whiskey, which was shared among the group! the legal drinking age in bulgaria is 18! svetla stayed at the party most of the night, but not as a chaperone, more of a "you're my kids and i love you" type of figure. despite the under age drinking, and all the sexual implications, none of these kids were immature or irresponsible about any of this. no one was inappropriate or shy about any of the wacky games we played. and not even one kid got out of control with the drinking. it was simply a good time had by all. i absolutely couldn't believe what i was seeing! no one got offended during the 4 days of these hi-jinx! every time we'd start a new one of these activities, ice-breakers or parties, my eyes would bulge and my jaw would drop because i know damn well that if that happened back home, kids would lose control, get offended or be offensive, parents would complain or fly off the handle and probably even sue, and poor ole svetla would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law for organizing an educational conference at which everyone had a good time and no one got out of hand! what a different culture, eh?! a few weeks later, i spent the day at my buddy tim's school, helping him teach english. the day was full of sexual jokes, immaturity, kids getting thrown out of class, refusal to participate, and even refusal to learn! no discipline at all!!! i guess i still haven't figured this place out...

another cultural shocker was when i was telling my landlord about my recent trip to macedonia. i had a great time! they speak a dialect of bulgarian and call it "macedonian" and it was funny to hear everyone speaking with an accent. so my landlady went on a tangent about how crappy macedonia is. she described it as a "country of villages" with uneducated people. she also described how everything was grey - meaning all the buildings are built with either stone or concrete and went on to say that everything is crumbling from neglect over the years. i thought to myself "that's the same way i describe bulgaria!" then i laughed as she turned the conversation into a competition between bulgaria and macedonia and kept saying that bulgaria was so much better, but never really saying why.

so, i kinda got hit by a car the other day while i was on my evening run. it really messed up my left knee for a few days. i would feel excruciating pain at random times and for random reasons. my knee went out on me as i was leaving the office and going down the stairs with my coworker - a french gal named helene. so i was hobbling about and holding on to stuff and putting my leg/body in all kinds of weird positions to get down the stairs in as little pain as possible. we went out for a drink after that, and on the way home i complained that my knee was hurting again. helene laughed and said "when you go down the stairs in this way, i think you have something in your pants and enjoy of this feeling." hahaaa!

my time in the peace corps is winding down now. i have less than 6 months left and the looming question of "what comes next?" is on the horizon. my counterpart/colleague/boss, iliyan, is stopping just short of begging me to stay in bulgaria for an extra year. we're making tons of progress for his organization, but i have other passions that i feel i have to chase for a while. at the moment, a buddy of mine and i are pretty into a post-peace corps project maintaining the peace corps ideals. we're planning a year long motorcycling expedition to implement various youth development/education and cultural awareness projects across northern africa, eastern europe, and all of asia. the details are here: http://www.supercross08.com! this project is still in the making and we've got a lot of work to do on it, especially with the funding aspects... we've been talking with several organizations at various locations along our route about partnering for potential projects and every thing's falling into place nicely - so as it stands, these are my "life after peace corps" plans! tell me what you think! and also with my limited days remaining, i'm realizing that i get to come home soon! this makes me quite homesick! man, i miss friends and family and american food - A LOT! it's gonna be great to see everyone again, even though i'll only be home for a short time. still smiling, andy!

The search for partners begins!

It was a dark and stormy night, and by “dark and stormy night” I mean that it was another gorgeous sunny morning as Tim and I arrived to Varna on the night train from Sofia after a two day training session of the support group we were a part of. We made it to my apartment around 8 am and wasted no time in beginning our full day of work! We started out making a few tweaks to our website to get everything current and then we began our search for NGOs in the countries that are to be on our route. We researched NGOs that shared our same ideals and goals and then constructed a bunch of letters and sent them out. Being that Tim and I live in different cities, at best we can only meet twice a month to work these things. So we pushed ourselves to the limit. After 14 hours and about 300 emails our brains finally shut down. Tim looked as if he was in the middle of a “dark and stormy night” story. Good news is, we’re now in contact with more than 30 organizations spread out over our route! We have yet to solidify specific events and projects but it’s still early!

Every time Tim and I are able to get together for another superwork session, we lock ourselves inside and this supercross08 adventure becomes less and less like the vacation I had wanted. Instead, I'm developing a liking and a passion for spreading goodwill and helping others through direct service.

Nothing makes me smile more than making someone else smile!

This Is How We Do It in America!

dear favorite people, the last few weeks/months have been busy! here's your winter update: for thanksgiving, i helped organize an event that 10 other volunteers attended. we went to a very small mountain town called stoikite, in the southern part of the country. in stoikite, there is an orphanage for truants where one volunteer works. we decided to get together and cook them up a big ole thanksgiving dinner to share a bit of our culture with some very underprivileged kids. we got a bunch of food donations from the embassy, like turkey, cranberry sauce and other goodies these kids had never had. all of these kids were in this orphanage because they'd broken the law to some extent - the ages ranged from 10ish to 18. some kids were good kids that had just made stupid mistakes, others needed more help. one gal, 14 years old, had had an abortion one week before we got there. that blew my mind... and then i learned that the reason she had the abortion was because she had gotten raped - because her parents forced her into prostitution! i was speechless! and now she has to live in an orphanage for truants! it was a super sad place and i don't know if i could handle working there as my primary assignment like the other volunteer, sarah. despite the sorrowful state of the orphanage and the kids' lives, they lit up like little balls of energy when they learned that 12 americans who spoke "funny bulgarian" were gonna spend the day with them! more than anything else, i think their biggest problem is just being attention starved. we ran a ping-pong tournament and played frisbee while we cooked, everyone rotating positions of course! one kid latched on to me like glue! he was obnoxious and had found a new best friend... me. all he wanted to do was talk about cars, which wouldn't have been all bad - except i know nothing of his chosen topic! he was crazy for the modern day street racing cars that he'd seen in the movies. he even had a collection of drawings he'd made of his favorite cars - i think he used a stencil though cause they all looked the same, only the emblems of the makers like honda and toyata were different - ha! i had nothing to contribute to the conversation so i just let him talk and pretended to be interested until he caught on to that trick so i told him my favorite car was the old style volkswagen bug! he couldn't stop laughing! he thought i was out of my mind =) dinner came and they all waited patiently for me to make a speech on the history of the thanksgiving holiday and what it means to be thankful for what we have and such. i got stuck on the last word of my speech (good fortune) and tripped over it several times before a teacher stepped in to silence the laughter! it was a good time! the kids all wanted to know why we ate turkey, "are you guys poor or something?" they asked! all us volunteers had stuffed oursevles, keeping with thanksgiving tradition, but the kids didn't really understand that. after the first round of food, they wanted to have a dance party. sarah had her laptop and played some of their favorite songs and we all tried to dance with them - ha! it was a great day, and seeing their smiling faces felt pretty rewarding! my counterpart/colleague/boss, iliyan, invited me to his family's village (kaspichan) for the christmas pig slaughter two weeks before christmas!!! i had heard about it last christmas, but never received an invitation. so i canceled my other plans and got really excited to partake in something traditional and cultural that i haven't seen yet. it was my assumption that a family that raises pigs would kill one of them every christmas and have all the family, neighbors and friends over for a huge winter party!!! so i was expecting a party, when in route iliyan tells me, "the reason all those people come is because it's a lot of work to slaughter a pig." well crap, that's not what i thought was going to happen! ha! we got their early in the morning and we walked out to the pigs. they selected the biggest one and said it was around 450 pounds. they walked it out onto the street where about 5 big guys tackled it and held it down while another guy slit it's throat. i kept asking "how can i help?" cause i didn't know what to do. they just laughed and said "take pictures!" it fought for a while, but in the end - the five guys with the knife won. they tied it to a tractor and dragged it through town - on back to their house to begin all the work - yee haaawwww! there i got to help a little bit more. it's a dirty job, and we spent a few hours doing it, but in the end they found a use for just about every part of that pig! i would say they threw away less than 5% of it's entire mass! some other neighbors came over to buy large chunks of fat, which were still warm, for cooking and eating. the technique i helped out with for dealing with the fat was to cut it into cubes and then throw it all into a big pot. the cubes of fat would half melt making some kind of oil, which got poured off and will be used as lard for cooking during the winter. the leftover parts of the cubes were essentially deep fried, then bottled and eaten just like that - all year round. some kind of delicacy that just doesn't appeal to me. "here, have a piece of deep fried fat!" when the pig was all in pieces and all the organs had been sorted out we all had a drink. i thought it was time to relax, and then they said "ok andrew, you get to help hold down the next one." ha! we went for another pig, but it was only half the size of the first one. we spent the last 7 (yes, seven!) hours of the day eating and drinking and laughing! it was a long, exhausting, and eye-opening weekend. it was great to participate in something so traditional, though i felt quite uncomfortable the whole damn time. in the end, they sent me home with a bag of about 15 pounds of pork and a few apples! i started an environment discussion group! i had to advertise "a chance to practice your english" to generate interest, but i was quite surprised at how interested the participants are in the environment to begin with! it's a diverse group - 2 student council members from 2 different universities in town, a naval academy kid, a couple moms, the ecologist from the municipality, a construction worker and a couple other students. we get together twice a month to discuss current environmental topics led by different volunteers who i've invited. we have a conversation and teach about the environment for an hour or two, then we all go out to the pub! it's kinda fun. and 3 of them have already started volunteering with our organization (this was the ultimate goal)! they're helping me find and collect oil for this never ending biodiesel project! for christmas i headed back to southern bulgaria to celebrate with two of my favorite people over here, alex and emily. alex lives in a small town called nedelino, where i've been a few times to help him out with work and such. the town's not super special, but the southern part of the country is my favorite - it's beautiful and the landscape reminds me of home! for new years i went back to sofia like last year, but without the crowd of other peace corps volunteers. it was me, alex and a guy named tim who lives close to me. we went to the center of sofia where there was a huge gathering! we decided to go to sofia because it's the capital city and this is the date that marks bulgaria's accession into the e.u. there was a concert and fireworks that looked like they were going to burn down the parliament building and they rained down ashes into everyone's eyes! that was funny. people were pretty excited and you could feel something of pride in the air for having been accepted into the european community. when i got home to varna, about 10 people told me they saw me dancing in sofia on tv! january 6th marked "jordonov den," which is one of the most famous name days in bulgaria. tradition has it, that a priest blesses a wooden cross and then throws it into the water. to prove their bravery, the men of the village all dive into the water and race for the cross. whoever gets it, gives it to the youngest person in attendance. i did this last year in kalofer when it was snowing and had some mild frostbite on parts because we stayed in the water dancing and then danced again when we got out! this year, i went to a coastal city called burgas to celebrate with seven other volunteers. we went down to the pier where a couple thousand people were gathered to watch the "brave" men race for the cross. there were only 50 or so swimmers. the police had blocked off the pier and were requiring some kind of medical document to be eligible to 'take the plunge.' as we didn't know about this beforehand, there were eight frowns on our faces... we were all ready to participate, but even more ready to swim in the cold sea water in january! so in front of all the onlookers, we climbed on down to the beach, drew a line in the sand, stripped down to our bathing suits, counted to three and ran into the water like a group of eight screaming lunatics! ha ha! it was a blast! all for now. wishing you a week full of smiles, andy!

thoughts of the day

this is my favorite blog, ever!!!

Supercross08

During my service in the Peace Corps, a fellow Volunteer and I set up a project for an international mission of peace. For seven months I traveled across Europe, Northern Africa, The Middle East, Eastern Europe, Russia and Asia. In the countries through which I passed, I set up discussion groups with youth and community organizations. The purpose was culture exchange: propagating peace through direct dialogue. Project details can be seen at www.supercross08.com.

Amazingly gorgeous pictures, captured frequently during the implementation of this project, are posted at www.picasaweb.google.com/supercross08. Be careful, though, they might just be the best pictures you've ever seen!

Below are the links to the individual projects, stories, and other pictures of my Supercross08 adventure.

Spain
Introduction to Gay Life

Morocco
Marrakech 101
Morocco Integration Success
Children of a Moroccan Village
Project #1: Stereotypes
Islam Meets Sustainable Development

Tunisia
Project #2: International Politics
Project #3: Values and Goals
Dangers of Travel

Egypt
Project #4: Volunteering in Egypt
Project #5: Understanding Islam

Jordan
Team Awesome

Syria
Project #6: A Bridge Between Islam and Christianity

Turkey
Travel Through Turkey

Bulgaria
Project #7: Bulgaria and the EU
Fundraiser for Youth
Follow Up Report from My Peace Corps Service
Project #8: Corruption and a Beach Clean Up
Project #9: Alternative Energy and Easter

Romania
A Romanian Birthday Party

Moldova
Project #10: Volunteering in Moldova

Ukraine
Election Politics and Glimpse of Ukraine

Finland
Russian Visa Blues

Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania
Project Couchsurfing

Russia
Stereotypes in Russia

Mongolia
A Night with a Mongolian Family
Project #11: A Library in Mongolia

Conclusion
The End

Tim Wade, the buddy with whom I worked, also created a list of stories about our work and adventures. Visit his blog at www.timwikoff.blogspot.com to see a different perspective of our project.