I'm Back! I'm Back In Bulgaria Again!

It was a long, long trip to Bulgaria and when I arrived, there was no one there to meet me. I looked all around, walked here and there, but there was no one waiting for me! I decided to sit down and dink around on the internet for a while before I decided to panic. I looked up occasionally and scanned the people who were meeting fresh arrivals. Finally, I saw my ride. A guy holding the Peace Corps logo and a gal I recognized as one of the program staff. I welcomed them to the airport and told them I had been waiting an hour. They in turn said they had also been waiting an hour. Ha! My ass!

They roughly explained how things would go over my 4 days of orientation and then dropped me off at my hotel. It was 14:30 and I was exhausted! But I had to stay up till the end of the day to beat the jet lag. I started unpacking my bags a bit so I could get cleaned up when all of a sudden I got hit with an unexpected emotion that begged the question: What the hell am I doing??? Haha! I left a job and a home to go gallivanting around again! Well, that emotion died when I remembered that I love to gallivant, and that was that.

I decided to kill time by walking around to familiarize myself with the area and maybe see if I could get a SIM card for my phone. Plus, I was starving. As you can see, going for a walk on the side streets is literally a walk on the street as drivers use the sidewalks for parking.
I used this first meal to christen my new diet with a doner kebab! Oh man! And right across the street from the kebab shop was a phone shop! I chatted my brains out at each store and the people responded with a very genuine curiosity. It was a neat feeling. In fact, my language is really coming back fast! I was a bit worried at first, but I've had some really nice conversations with some really nice people so far! Obviously, I've forgotten some things, but they'll come back.Things Bulgarian started standing out on my walk. Even with my olfactory fatigue, I could smell the distinct smell of Bulgaria. And it all came rushing back. I heard car alarms, barking dogs, the landlady yelling, people having sex. I saw crumbling sidewalks and buildings, litter, potholes, puddles of who knows what – and in the mix of all this life and chaos, though it may seem contradictory, there's an obvious simplicity to the lifestyle here. Although the cars speed by, these peoples' hurry isn't to keep up with the Joneses. I find that they live to meet their needs today rather than focus on making sure their needs are met tomorrow. Which way is better? Is one actually better? Ensuring that you have stability and security in the future is a good thing – but there is a price that is paid for it. For me, that price comes in the form of worrying, working too hard, and stress. If one were to choose to focus on meeting the needs of today, the insurance of meeting tomorrow's needs may not be there, but the worrying and stress would be drastically reduced as well. I wonder how to quantify that to see if it's worth it? I'm not saying they neglect the future, they simply don't seem to be constantly preoccupied with it. While I may be generalizing a bit, it's also possible that my observation isn't exact in its accuracy... but that's not likely.This picture made me laugh. I wanted to capture the environmental efforts of Sofia and this guy came up and took a box from the bin. In fact, reuse is better than recycling so bravo, Bulgarian!

I met with a Peace Corps doctor for my medical orientation. The acting doctor was a visiting doctor from Peace Corps Kazakhstan. He had a 30-year career as a doctor in the Soviet Union Army and he's spending his retirement as a doctor in the United States Peace Corps! I love the contrast! As you can imagine, he was a pretty interesting guy. Stone cold serious, but yielding to emotion for a smile now and again. He'd be fun to get to know, but he's leaving in a few days.

On Monday, I went to lunch with a lady from the office and she took me to a nearby restaurant. It was Nikolov den (Nick/Nicole's Day), a holiday on which you are supposed to eat fish so I ordered the fish soup. She told me that if I find a fish scale in my soup, I have to take it out and put it in my wallet. And I should leave it there for one year until next year's holiday. Does this contradict my observations about living for today? No. Anyway, I thought I had dodged a bullet by not finding one, but the next day she brought in some scales and let me choose one. She insisted that I put it in my wallet and stressed that if I didn't, I would have NO MONEY for the whole year! At least I can be sure that no one will want to take my wallet now.

Today I swore in and am officially a Peace Corps Response Volunteer! Woo! Tomorrow, I will get a ride to my new town of Silistra. It should be a 6-hour drive if all goes well. I really lucked out in getting a ride - when I was a volunteer the first time around, we all had to get to our sites on our own. Silistra would be a long trek using trains and buses, not to mention a super hassle with all my luggage. Anyway, I'll have a story and a picture from there in a while.