Well, today marks the beginning of Baba Marta in Bulgaria--Baba Marta meaning, literally, "Grandmother March." "What does this mean," you ask? Well, Sofia Sideshow provided a good explanation about a week ago, but since I've been bugging my students for information about it all week, I'll put in my two cents.
A while ago, 600 years my 12th class says, a dove grasped a pure white string. Said dove grasped said string so hard that the dove pierced its own flesh and bled out a little bit onto the string, causing a spiral of red and white down the string's length. What the dove was doing with the string remains unknown, but it had something to do with the end of winter and beginning of spring. I think there was a flood and the dove was Noah-esque proof of dry land, but this hasn't been confirmed by multiple students.
Most of my students have called Baba Marta a witch, something confirmed by this page. An excerpt:
The mythical character of Baba Marta personifies the spring, the sun that can easily burn the fair skin of people's faces. According to the national belief Baba Marta is an old lady. She is an old lady and she is limp. That's why she carries an iron stick to lean on. The national beliefs define the temperament of Baba Marta as very unstable. When she was smiling the sun was shining; when she was mad at somebody cold weather was firming the ground. The majority of the rituals aim to make her happy and merciful.
One of these rituals happens to be wearing the red and white strings. This seems to make Baba really happy.
So enough history. What does all this mean now. It means that along every major street and in every market here in Silistra there are dozens of tables full of martenitsi. They come in various shapes and sizes. Some are just tied bits of yarn. Some are pendants of yarn that you pin to your chest. Some take the shape of Pijo and Penda, the brother and sister martenitsi, I think. When the salespeople pick up and go home for the night, they leave the streets absolutely flthy with coffee cups, bottles of beer, and food wrappers, but I suppose that's just another sign of the coming of spring.
It also means that half of the students in my classes have given me a martenitsa. I have to put these on and wear them until I see a stork, a swallow (this is a new one this week, but most students seem to agree that swallows apply), or the first blossoms of a fruit-bearing tree. After these signs of spring are duly noted, I have two options: I can hang the martenitsi (multiple martenitsas) on trees, or bury them under a rock. This is to promote fertility to Bulgaria in general. My own general health is secured by wearing the martenitsi all month, since the red (blood of the dove, remember) is there to ensure health.
More than anything else, this all means that spring is beginning, and it has given everyone a little bit of a hop in their step. The weather was great all weekend and the good weather today made most of my students antsy. I fear to think about what the heat of May and June will bring to my classrooms, but those are bridges yet to be crossed.
My own means of enjoying the weather has been to lay on the couch with the windows open, feeling the wind blow in and reading. Current book: John Kennedy Toole's The Neon Bible. Toole's Confederacy of Dunces is beyond doubt my favorite novel written, but I'd never taken the opportunity to read The Neon Bible until my folks sent it to me here in Bulgaria.
The short bio on Toole is that he lived most of his life trying to get a PhD and Confederacy published. After faling to do so for nearly a decade, he committed suicide by hose and exhaust pipe at the age of 31. His mother managed to get Confederacy published after his death, and after it won the Pulitzer everybody and their cousin was searching for something else Toole had written. They found The Neon Bible, a short novel he had written at 16.
Reading Confederacy of Dunces leaves me sad, but content. It's obviously great, and everything about it suggests one of the great stories ever written. Toole had fulfilled his life's ambitions, the pity being that he never got to share in them. Bible leaves me angry. It is not an instant classic like Confederacy, and it isn't funny or particularly happy. There are moments of wit, but it's intended to be a drama and Toole keeps it there.
What angers me is that this guy had written something publishably good at the age of sixteen and been ignored until his death. I was expecting the work of a sixteen year-old, and Neon Bible is certainly that, but it's probably the best thing a sixteen year-old could write. It just makes you want more. Which means I'll have to read Confederacy again. Which may just make it all worthwhile, anyway.
It's a tragedy that Toole committed suicide, but I think the greater tragedy is that the vast bulk of his readers may never have heard of him if he hadn't. It all makes me just want to dive straight into the novel-writing industry headfirst. For now, the shallows of Peace Corps and the Blogosphere are doing quite nicely.