it's prettier than you think

so i was tired of googling zlataritsa and the only pictures available were ugly, old, out of the 70's pictures.
so i got a user account at pictures of bulgaria and uploaded two photos.
so that makes a whopping total of 4 photos available.
but please, tell me how much better my pictures are than their's...
(i labled mine... the river and the meadow (i negleced the 'a' when i uploaded it.) i also uploaded one of some people riding horses, but i don't know if that one is up yet.
just search for zlataritsa in google. click on pictures of bulgaria website. then click on photo galery.
or go here.
http://www.picturesofbulgaria.com/photo_gallery/zlataritsa.html
now i need to work on the wikipedia article i started in january.
yes, i didn't get that far with it, but somebody must have found it and put up the same ugly 70's pictures i detest.
this is unacceptable.

Do I contradict myself?

Very well, then, I contradict myself;
(I am large - I contain multitudes)

so i met with my older students sunday night and we discussed what to present in english at the upcoming town holiday
we decided on a poem since, if i'm to be perfectly honest, we knew we could find one pre-translated, saving us the work of not only writing a speech but getting it exact in both enlgish and bulgarian (not that anyone would know one way or the other)
but anyway, as luck would have it i found my favorite online, printed it out and brought the english and bulgarian versions today to the club house to see what they thought.
all the kids, not just the older ones got all excited. (who knew bulgarian children dig 150 year old american poems...)
so now there's a slight change of plans.
now i have a group of 10 students ranging from 6-12 grade reciting Walt Whitman's Song of Myself (1-7) in English with me and the other students reciting the Bulgarian translation.
yep, we're gonna have walt whitman and baseball at the town holiday.
just one more, slightly unnerving, example of how i had to go to bulgaria to be american.

I know I am deathless,
I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter's compass,
I know I shall not pass like a child's carlacue cut with a burnt
stick at night.

I know I am august,
I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood,
I see that the elementary laws never apologize,
(I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by,
after all.)

I exist as I am, that is enough

to laugh like a brook when it trips and falls...

so today i went on a hike with 15 of the kids and one of the teachers from the school. this is only the second weekend so far of such hikes but we plan on continuing indefinitely as a sunday tradition.
we walked through the acres of yellow flowers that have grown so tall and thick that you could only see the tops of the kids heads when they were wading through them.
and hiked through the hills while passing grazing cows and babas tending to them.
then during the breaks the kids played frisbee while i answered "how do you say (insert word or phrase here) in english?" questions.

the whole time i had this almost uncontrolable desire to bust out in "sound of music" songs as that is exactly what it looked like with the beautiful nature all around and the kids frolicking and singing. (bez nazis and matching homemade window curtain outfits of course)
anyway, it was great.
well, if you like that kind of hiking singing hanging out with kids thing.

and yesterday i went exploring by myself the hills around my town.
i managed not only fall in the river but also be chased by what i can only assume were hornets or wasps of some sort for a good quarter mile but surviving with only one sting, relief that nobody saw the crazed swearing 400 meter sprint and the knowledge to be a bit more careful next time as apparentally they aren't too fond of having their home disturbed.
however, also during my sunshine filled excursion, i also discovered that there is a sand beach on our river hidden from the road down past the railroad tracks and, like most places once you leave the center of town, completely secluded. i lay there on a blanket for a good couple hours just enjoying the sunlight and the birds and the river and the fact that it was warm and spring and i was in bulgaria able to get chased by hornets and fall in the river because even with things of that sort it still beats being back in detroit wishing i was anywhere but.

the flea bites are back again... which means now it's official

continuing to perseverate on the fact that it's spring until... well, until it's not spring anymore.
but then it will be summer.
which, although wonderful in itself, is still a step closer to the impending winter.
but let's not think about depressing things of that sort now.
just the absolute (relative to winter) bliss that is spring in bulgaria.






so the top pictures were taken from the vast fields of wildflowers that blanket the road leading into my town.
the following are more from the club house. some kids making jewelry while others worked getting some furniture ready.
the one of me is a picture that one of my kids took because she made the green necklace i'm wearing and wanted me to see what it looked like.
by the way, i love the necklace and even if she hadn't tied it in a permanent knot around my neck, would have worn it anyway.
what else to write about...
well, we are starting to get ready for our town holiday (may 9th)... which, by the way, kelly will be here for!
on my end, the municipality wants my kids to do a baseball demonstration... they are even going to buy uniforms and everything.
apparently we are going to be the eagles with violet and gold as our colors.
ok. works for me.
uniforms for my kids and i didn't even have to ask for them?? we could be the flying ardvarks with mustard and puce and i'd be happy.
also, i took my group of older students to the municipality today to talk to the assistant mayor because they had the idea to give a speech in english for the town at the festival.
the assistant mayor said no prob bob and all's a go.
so thursday we will start writing and practicing the speech...
oh, i forgot to mention that i will be translating the speech into bulgarian after the kids speak in english.
should be interesting (read: hilarious)
i'll try to have kelly get it on tape.


oh yes,
and if anyone (read: mom and dad) has this deep compelling need to send me something (i soooo know you do!)
i would give anything for a few bags of my completely unavailable in bulgaria favorite tea. (ok, the stuff from turkey is awesome too...but this is different...it's like apples and oranges, you just can't compare)
http://www.guayaki.com/index.php?p=view_category&category_id=11
anything on the left would be fantastic... although orange blossom, chocolate, or mint are best ;-)

and send it to:
Tracy Read
Chitalishte
Ulitza D. Palev #2
Zlataritsa 5090
Bulgaria

or if you're handy with cyrillic you can be fancy and go with:
Трейси Рийд
Читалище
Ул. Д. Палев #2
Златарица 5090
България



hope it warms up over in michigan... till then i'll just be enjoying the flowering trees everywhere around me and thinking of you.
miss you all

chocolate bunnies, mac 'n cheese

although i'm tempted to postdate this, due to katie's comments on that sort of thing, i won't.
so here we go.

easter weekend.
lots of fun.
i had some other volunteers visit which made it the second weekend in row with visitors...my town must think that the americans are taking over or something.
friday a few of us went out to the cafe in my town and stayed up till 4am doing random things. like making porridge... ok, maybe that was just me.
regardless, we stayed up late.
my plan for saturday was to cook a nice dinner for everyone, but after walking around turnovo all day with such little sleep i was exhausted so we ended up with salad and macaroni and cheese.
thanks to maggie for the kraft mac and cheese.
traditional easter food, nali?
we also made it to the midnight easter vigil in my town, which was definitely interesting. the most being where the priest comes out with two large candles and then everybody rushes to him as if he were a rockstar trying to get their candles lit.
we were all pretty fascinated by it, but then someone made the point that if it were the pope here and everybody were catholic you know that there would be people dead in the stampede to get their candle lit.
so true.
no matter what denomination or where you're from, i suppose people figure every little bit of extra blessing helps. and if your candle is lit directly from the priest himself instead of the fire passed down, well, all the better i say.
as for us, we waited and had ours lit by someone who got it from someone who got it from the priest.
and through a series of fire borrowing we managed to keep ours lit through the entire outside sermon.
tradition says you are supposed to keep it lit on the walk back to your house while you remain silent.
well, we figured we did a pretty good job with the candle thing and called it quits once outside church property.
god will understand i'm sure, even if we didn't get ours lit right from the popa himself.
so we made it back, exhausted from the day and then managed to sleep 6 people in my tiny apartment.
happy easter No. 1 in BG.

the grass is always greener...

in zlataritsa.

i don't know why, but it is true.
the grass literally IS greener in Zlataritsa.
it is beautiful.
people are out, weather is warm, i actually have some work to do.
and best of all, i'm not cracking up at site anymore.
so except for stacie's departure, i'd have to say that things here are pretty good. actually, really good.
finally.





so we are making a club house in zlataritsa.
i'll be there every day with crafts or english or baseball or frisbee.
but now we are just getting it cleaned up first.
and having some fun too.

well, it's about noon and i'm at the peace corps office in sofia right now.
good news: i found the tom robbins book i had started before i left for bulgaria but was forced to return before i departed and never actually finished.
bad news: the reason i'm here.
one of my closest friends here and previous sitemate during training left for america at the crack of dawn this morning. she won't be coming back. not of her choice. medical issues and things of that sort. so while the realistic side of me is happy that she will be getting the best care available in colorado and will hopefully have a full recovery, the selfish side keeps thinking how much it freaking sucks that she won't be here anymore.
just last week we had started planning a trip to macedonia at the end of may.
sigh...
you don't even realize how attached you are to people until they call you at 8am on a saturday morning telling you that they are being not only medevacted to the US, but medically seperated as well.
so easter sunday i hopped on a bus to sofia (because there was no way she was going to leave without having a chance to say goodbye) and spent the night hanging out with her in sick bay (the bedroom in the peace corps office where volunteers stay for medical reasons) then at 4am we got up and headed with the PC driver to the airport.
yes, i know i'll see her again.
and health is more important and all that.
but she was one of the most positive, upbeat, thoughtful, and all around great people we have here, and i miss her already.

after living here 8 months i have found that bulgaria is basically composed of two types of people: those whom i can understand, and those whom i can not. through trial and error i have found some basic essential truths when dealing with the latter.
one is that without a doubt, the only word you really need to know is the local word for "maybe"
you can fake pretty much any conversation with that.
that and "i don't know"
but you have to add the facial expression too.
not like "i don't know because i'm a dumb shit" face.
but more like "that is a very interesting question, i will need some time to reflect on it to give it the proper answer a question such as that requires."
if they don't seem satisfied with the "i don't know" combined with the face, then resort back to "maybe".
if it is a yes or no question (most likely as i have discovered more people speak to foreigners in mostly yes or no questions) then 'maybe' will likely work.
if not, then by answering maybe to a question that maybe is not a correct answer, they will usually see that it is much too much of a challenge to continue with the conversation and give up, thus letting you off the hook.

and there you have it.
my 2 minute course on conversational bulgarian.