December 20, 2003
Santa's a Horo Dacing Giant
It was meant to be a surprise, and I think Santa's appearance did come as a surprise to most of the kids. I'm not sure what the age limit was for realizing the coincidence in "batko Robert" and "dyado Koleda" (Santa) being 6'7 guys with thick American accents, but a lot of the kids seemed to be believers, which was nice.
We came in, I gave a "ho ho ho" and said a few Merry Christmases, and then the kids had me sit down. They had their show all set up, it was pretty much the same show we had seen the night before, but it was a good time nonetheless. It started with a few little girls doing a Christmas tree pageant. They did a little ballet and took a bow.
Then came a singing group. The kid in plaid, front and center, really bought into the whole Santa Claus thing. He was attached to my hip the whole night, poking my paunch, and wishing me Merry Christmas. Incidentally, Bulgarian Christmas carols are strange things. None of my students really knew any, and in fact knew more songs in English. The carols seem to be just for shows. They're all very well rehearsed and sung in large groups.
And this is what Christmas used to be about everywhere: boys going from house to house caroling and asking for cake. You know, now bring us some figgy pudding and all that. Apparently, they have to be bachelors, they go from house to house with staffs, sing songs, then ask if there's a married man in the house (for some reason). Then they get cake. It doesn't seem to happen in real life anymore though. Again, it's all for show.
Then came the surprise of the night. A bunch of eight year old Bulgarians doing a cowboy routine to country music. They had fake little guns, little whips, everything they needed. Absolutely hilarious and adorable and all that. We were all leaning out of our chairs laughing.
Mishu led the whole group of orphans in one last song. Mishu is a very good singer who's graduating this year and leaving the orphanage as a result. The kids all seem to look up to him, and it seems like they're all going to miss him. They really are like 74 brothers and sisters living without parents. Of course, you can see it in their faces that no number of siblings makes up for the loss. Nobody seems to know what Mishu will do when he leaves the orphanage. It's always a mystery when the kids leave.
Then every kid got a bag of candy, small toys, and fruit. It was all very orderly and done one at a time, which meant it took forever, but made sure every kid got to say "hi" to Santa and get a bag of candy.
After the candy was dispensed, we gave them 3 copies of the new Harry Potter book in Bulgarian and a couple of balls which will probably all be lost within a week. We helped clean up the room, then bolted so I could get the roasting gear off and eat dinner. It was a good night overall, and not nearly as exhausting as most trips to the orphanage are. I think the Santa appearance put a lot of the kids into a state of awe and kept many of them at a safe distance.
So I woke up this morning and went to a couple of shortened classes where the most work we did was play hangman in English and hand back some tests. I came home and realized that the year's work in Silistra was done. Time to go to Greece and celebrate. I'll be leaving tomorrow, so expect sporadic posting over the next two weeks. There will be a Christmas post though, so come back for that. Until then, Happy Holidays!
Note: I'm having trouble uploading the last of the photos. They'll be up whenever I can get them there.
Posted by Rob at December 20, 2003 05:36 PM