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!