Hmmm. I have to stop this strung out storytelling. It gets dull after awhile. I mean, the past is passed, right? Anyway, to close things out, we stayed at the Sheraton in Sofia for a night last weekend in order to get the family out of the country in a more orderly and peacable fashion than taking an all-night bus the night before the flight to London. Great, big monolithic place, the Sofia Sheraton. The rooms were great (one cockroach in the bathroom had to be removed. You just can't help it here I suppose), and the location had everything we needed when the day turned unbearably rainy. The center of town is always a really nice place to be.
Saturday saw a trip to the Natural History Museum, reconfirming my belief that natural history museums in general are creepy houses of death. It was nice going in there and seeing what Bulgaria had on hand, but five floors of dead animals can get a bit overwhelming. I don't care how many of them may have died of natural causes, when I look at animal behind glass all I can think of is that scene in the original Planet of the Apes when Charleton Heston sees his colleague in a display case. Seeing Bulgaria's prize-winning bear really did it. He had a medal the hunter had won in dangling from his paw. After I saw that, I suppose I was pretty much ready to go.
We went from the museum back to the hotel, where we grabbed our stuff and checked out. We luckily managed to grab an O.K. taxi in the pouring rain and I had a great conversation with the driver about everything from my family's great time in Bulgaria to my love of the Lakers. One expensive lunch at the airport later and the family was through the security check and I was back in a taxi toward the center.
That night I went to Murphy's with a group of B-12s, the veteran volunteers. They were in town for their completion of service conference, which is happening this week even though the group won't be leaving until late June or July. The pub was packed full of people rooting for the French in the big England-France rugby game. One guy was dressed in a pink shirt, red, white and blue suspenders, and a beret. He spent most of his stime standing behind me and cheering as the French won what turned out to be a reasonably close game. After the fans had all left, we volunteers spent our time writing funny things down on the free advertising postcards floating around the bar before calling it a night.
Sunday morning was basketball time with various government-working Americans and Bulgarians affliated with PC or the embassy. For some reason, most the Americans coming to Bulgaria seem to be giants. The average height in a few of the games was literally around 6'4. I was the tallest, but that only meant I got banged around more when I went anywhere near the paint. Still had my share of blocks and rebounds though, and I even scored when the mood hit me right. About seven full court games to eleven later, we all left exhausted and I took a shower back at Peace Corps headquarters. I hauled my tired legs to get to the bus station before the three o'clock bus left and made it just in time. A relaxing and peaceful trip home followed, and the long week ended.
So, that's that. More topical news coming tomorrow. I have to write a test for my eleventh graders now. It may well be a long night.
So, where were we? Right, school. Monday morning, a week ago, everybody ate a light breakfast at the hotel. The breakfast was free to everyone in the hotel, and none of the staff had any problem with my joining in until the last morning we ate there. Then I had to pay three leva. I'd say it was worth it. I think they let me slide because I did all the talking and if I weren't there, my Mom and sister would have beat upon the waiter until he figured out they wanted more yogurt. It's an everybody wins kind of situation, I think.
Breakfast finished, we walked around the riverside, explored a couple of the ruins, and headed off for school sometime near 10:30. We went to my first class and sat around, talking to the students before the bell rang. The first class went rather well. We talked about the potential differences between Bulgarian and American weddings (the subject matter of the week) and we all decided that they're pretty similar. Bulgarians, apparently, don't have ushers or a maid of honor, but other than that, everything's the same. There was a lot of useful dialogue between the kids and the family and everything was going peachy.
Then we moved on to the other eighth class. The kids there didn't quite seem prepared in life to have a large group of Americans in their classroom, they still seem to be in some form of awe. At any rate, they spent the whole class nervous, looking behind them at the family, and talking. At one point, it got so loud, that Dad apparently couldn't hear over the din. So, in a perfectly understandable appeal for respect, he slapped a table in the back and asked everyone in the class to quiet down in the sternest voice he has. This kept them quiet for four or five minutes. But I fear it only made them more nervous, because they were up and talking at full force soon after. It was a pretty long class, and afterward my family was pretty sapped.
So they all went back to the hotel and napped while I taught eleventh class. And that's largely how the rest of the school week went. Napping and teaching. I suppose it was a good comination. Mom came to twelfth class Wednesday morning, and they gave her a good, solid quizzing. Many of them seemed visibly upset that she's a vegetarian. They demanded answers as to how a person could avoid eating meat. It isn't a terribly foreign concept in Bulgaria, all restaurants usually have some vegetarian options, but Silistra has a meat-packing plant, and even though the kids spend all available time talking down the quality of its meats, they still feel like they have to defend the industry.
But other than that exploration into eating habits, the classes were pretty much standard fare. The rest of the time the family and I spent wandering around Silistra and seeing all the sites. When everybody got tired, we'd wind up back at my apartment and relax. Sometime during the week, during one of these periods of relaxation, I noticed a pair of doves working on a nest in a tree 8 or 9 feet from my building and level with my apartment on the fourth floor. They have two eggs in there, and they're still taking care of them well. Pictures will come tomorrow, and I'll make updates about the nest's progress. Everytime I walk into the living room I go straight for the window to see how they're doing. It's kind of addictive.
Once we'd exhausted all of Silistra and seen the pair of doves, we decided it's be best to spend an extra day in Sofia. We all hopped on the bus Friday at one and set off for the big city. The stories about which, since I've already been in the internet club fot a while, doing unsite-related things, will have to wait until tomorrow. Until then.
So, The family has left. They boarded a plane Saturday afternoon and hopped on out of Bulgaria. They've all reached their respective homes. Things are suddenly much more quiet around here. I don't have to order four things at meals, I can spend as much time as common sense allows in the internet club, and I don't have a nagging feeling that I need to provide everyone a good time. There's a certain sense of freedom in that, but I still sort of wish they were all around.
The week of hosting began last Sunday, when I visited the Silistra orphange 12 hours before boarding a midnight bus to Sofia. The kids there were great and insisted on doing everything, as usual. The spring weather has been great, and Debbie and I visited the kids on a particularly great day. We started down on the basketball court, where I participated in about fifteen different games that only sometimes resembled basketball. Most of the time the games involved running around the middle of the court chasing a kid dribbling the ball or being chased while dribbling. Then there were the standard groups of kids who wanted to be lifted up for a dunk. And of course there was the "me against the orphanage game," but I've found the kids get bored of anything official or score-based, so that game ended quickly.
After the time on court was deemed finished, the kids dragged me up the hill to their playset, where they all showed me the tricks they've learned to do on the chin-up bars. They also requested that I do chin-ups on the high bar. I obliged, but found the winter had been pretty rough on the ol' upper body and I couldn't do nearly as many as I could last year. I've started a new morning workout routine to get myself back into orphange shape for future trips. After, the show of strength, the kids jumped up and down on their giant tractor tire, then took me around the back to the lawn.
There, we played a little rugby, which is what the orphanage kids think American football is. Playing rugby at the orphanage involves running back and forth with a ball and avoiding the players on the other team, or in my case, letting the other team jump on me and attempting to cross the field while they try everything in their power to drag me down. Both parts are fun, but it also carried on the day's newest activity: fake crying to mess with Batko Robert's head. One kid would tackle another kid on or near a rock, and the tackler would run up to me and say that the other kid was crying and needed help. Worried, I would trot over and the kid on the ground would shout "just kidding!" in Bulgarian and run off. Good times for all involved, although I got tired of after the tenth or eleventh time it happened.
With the kids hopping along the fence and shouting goodbye, Debbie and I walked off and I returned to my apartment to take a shower and watch a DVD. Twelve hours later I was on a bus to Sofia to pick up Mom, Dad, and my sister, Tricia. I took a bus out to the airport with Linda, another volunteer, who was going to the airport to pick up her visiting son. Her son came in from Milan, we shook hands, they left, and a huge mob formed as five international flights arrived at the arrivals terminal in the space of fifteen minutes. Somehow, my family made it through customs and the horde of people waiting in something approaching good time. They made all necessary pit stops, we talked about what would happen with money, then we made it out to the cab area.
There, four independent drivers suggested we try their fifteen leva rides when I knew a fair cost would be something around five or six leva. We finally managed to grab a cab from O.K. taxis, a company which has never attempted to cheat me in Bulgaria and runs a perfectly fair meter. We got to the city center for exactly six leva and ate a vegetarian lunch (For Mom and Tricia) at the Dream House. We stopped in at Peace Corps Headquarters for an e-mail check, then it was off to the bus terminal to catch a ride back to Silistra.
Five minutes into the walk, Tricia had her cell phone removed, unwillingly, from its home in her backpack. She didn't see exactly who did it, but suspected a member of a group of three women. I confronted the woman, hoping for a confession out of surprise, and she opened her purse and showed me all of her pockets. I sighed, the family called it a good effort with unfortunate results, and we carried on toward the bus station.
Seven hours later, round midnight, we arrived in Silistra. I checked the family into the city's central hotel, the Zlatna Dobrudja, and stumbled my way home after a long day. My first class would began in ten hours, and the family would be coming along. Things of interest were bound to happen. And you'll learn all about them when you read tomorrow's entry.
This week will only see me teaching three days of class. On Thursday, the country's spring holiday begins, and I have no immediate plans but to sit back and enjoy Silistra and Bulgaria. Expect plenty of entries as long as there's something worth writing about, and maybe even if there isn't.
One last thing: Comments are now re-opened. Praise, mock, and discuss at will. Also, please ignore the poor, depressed little kid named Tom or Anita or something if you see the name in the comments. Don't let his cursing scare you, he's just craving attention and all his little indiscretions will be deleted as soon as I get around to them. I can't ignore his stuff, but that shouldn't stop you from doing it.
Well, everybody's here, and we're having a great time. Mom sees Bulgaria in this great light. Everything's beautiful here, apparently. She doesn't see the garbage, or the old, crumbling blocks that I've been looking at more and more. Instead, we've been focusing on all the old, antique buildings Silistra has along and near the river. It's been awfully refreshing.
At the same time, spring is coming in force. The weather has stuck in the mid-sixites, trees and flowers are blossoming all over, and ant holes are popping up out of the cement along every sidewalk. The weather has been breezy, but just warm enough, and life has been good.
In the class visits, the results have been mixed. As much as the kids have been dying to see my family come, they were shy, nervous, and noisy when everybody did show up. Things got so bad in one of the eighth classes that Dad had to ask everybody to quiet down. After that, he saw how great telling them to be quiet can be in the short-term, but five minutes later they were just as loud. I gave them a stern talking-to today while the gang was relaxing at the hotel, and they were quiet throughout the hour. We'll see how long that lasts.
All in all, the week so far has been a great change of pace, just as anticipated. It's been fun ordering food for everybody, getting them to try all the Bulgarian stuff, and seeing their reactions to everything.
Above all though, it's great being around the family again. I could tell myself that I'm never really homesick in Bulgaria, but it wouldn't be true. Sometimes, on the harder days, the thought of home comes close and lingers longer than I'd like it to. Having my family here is a great reminder of all that I miss, and also all that I'll love returning to when I head back a year from now.
Life in Bulgaria is great, sometimes I wonder how I'll ever leave, but this week I'm reminded about how much I'll have to go back to. It will make this next year easier, and I'll value each day in Bulgaria, in this quirky, lovable, and great country that much more. Mushy, kind of non-sensical, I know. But true.
Also This is fun! After messing up and not closing the more recent comments sections, I've decided to leave them open until I fix up the anti-spamming stuff. This Tom/Anita/annoying person apparently has nothing better to do than post a bunch of messages every day to each of the comments sections below. So I propose that we find out how little a life he/she/it has. So far, we're at three days of silly, grammatically incorrect comments. Each day where I get new comments spam will only add to his/her/its record of lifelessness. Let's all wish him/her/it luck in the goal of being completely useless.
The comments section is now closed until my host gets some anti-spamming upgrades to make the assholes go away. You all know who to blame. I'll still be updating, there just won't be any comments.
Later.
The week ended well enough. Classes Thursday were calm, peaceful affairs full of attentive students who not ony listened, but asked relevant and interesting questions to boot. It was a nice, small victory in the war on noise in the classroom. There were residual complaints about what happened Wednesday, but all was settled by the end of class. Thanks to everyone offering advice and spport on the discipline issue, both in the comments and through e-mail. Every new idea and strategy helps.
For now, the "permanent 2" experiment seems to have worked. It was, all in all, a pretty solid day. I have no problems with the teaching week ending like that.
My Tournament bracket, though, is another story. In a decision I regret, I picked Stanford to go all the way, and so far they've held up. But my Cinderalla picks were knocked off, and although I don't have Florida going too far, it was painful to see that I'd picked the wrong 5 seed upset (I had BYU making it. Didn't happen). Nothing's doomed here, but I could've had a better opening day. I guess that's what I get for not watching any regular season games, seeing few scores, and doing research the day I filled out the bracket. It could've been a lot worse.
I'm going to make a trip to the orphanage Sunday, and will try to write about it that afternoon. Next week may be a bit hazy though. The family's coming out, so it will be a Very Special Young Famiy Reunion in Bulgaria. Check in often, but I'm not sure when I'll be updating (Of course, that's nothing really new).
Finally, a short promotional opportunity:
Nick, a Stanford attendee and worshipper of a tree or Cardinal or whatever the hell their mascot is supposed to be, reads The Alaskan Bulgarian regularly. Shouldn't you, too?
I had to yell at and punish some of the good kids today. I always hate doing that. I was a good kid in school, and I never liked being yelled at. I always knew there was a reason and that the teacher would forgive me, but there stood the yelling and the punishment. And after that, today, came the fifteen minutes of complaining and protests that none of this was fa-air. Somehow, eighth grade Bulgarian kids pick up American pre-teen affectations when they whine. I would call it a universal thing, but the kids never say "Ne e chest-no!" when they complain in Bulgarian, so it must be something about English. Further research is obviously needed.
Anyway, eyes were getting watery and I cut them a deal based on their future behavior in class. I realized I had gone over the line, and now acknowledge the whole thing as a failed experiment rather than a mistake, per se. I have to experiment because I can't send a misbehaving kid to the assistant principal's office in Bulgaria (It doesn't exist), I can't give them detention (Again, the existence problem), and I can't send them out to the hall to sit and think about what they've done because they'll probably just go downstairs to the cafe and buy some breakfast or lunch.
So I today I decided to use grades at their most vicious. I put 2s (Fs) straight into the Dnevnik, the class register. And for kids that don't like getting 2s, that was really severe punishment. Of course, they didn't immediately grasp the concept that this could serve as a warning and that being good the rest of the term would mean excellent grades. They just see that 2 and freak out beyond all consolation. I probably would have done the same thing when I was their age. You tend to have these things figured out by senior year, but when you're 13 or 14, an F still screams failure.
Oh well, at least I can expect a day of silence tomorrow, that was the deal I arranged. They'll be "acting" (multiple definitions) on their best behavior tomorrow. It'll be hard, and it was hard today, but silence must be earned, I guess.
I went a ways south for the weekend, to the small town of Veliki Preslav. My mission: To help another volunteer get a webpage up and running and show her the ropes of updating such a thing. The result: The Veliki Preslav Museum Webpage.
The town is a great place, similar in many ways to the old stomping ground Sitka, in Alaska. It used to be Bulgaria's capital, long ago, just as Sitka was Alaska's capital long ago. Since those days, it has come off its pedestal and settled into a town of about 8 or 9 thousand, just like Sitka. And also just like Sitka, it relies, in part, on tourism. It just doesn't do the tourism thing as well as Sitka at this point, getting only an estimated 10,000 a year, which is probably very optomistic.
Nevertheless, it's a beautiful town. Rolling hills run from one to another and in the valley sits the old palace of The Great Preslav, now mostly in ruins. It has an interesting history, does the palace. The man who found it was running on less than they had when they found Troy. There was a line in a poem about it, and in the 1910's an archaeologist decided to treasure hunt on that clue and a hunch.
Turned out to be a pretty good hunch. The palace is massive and turned up a lot of gold and medieval Bulgarian pottery, all very valuable finds. Now there are excavations all over the site and a beautiful museum nearby. All very interesting, too.
So we hung out there for a weekend. Sheryl, the volunteer in Veliki Preslav, and Tiffany did most of the cooking while I babysat Sheryl's puppy, an explosive ball of legs Sheryl picked up at the Shumen bus station and nursed back to health. It was nice being around a dog again. There's something universally comforting about a dog that I can't go long without.
And then after all the work and play was done, I had to head home yesterday afternoon by bus. It was a small, old "Busoil" covered in grime and making a sound like a coughing hippo when we ten passengers got on board. It died 45 minutes into the trip. Dumping oil onto the street, apparently.
So we waited 2 hours in the middle of nowhere before a minbus come from Shumen, picked us up, and took us on to Silistra. During the whole thing, I sat back in my chair and read. The weekend had been far too peaceful and relaxing to let an ancient Bulgarian bus stress me out. And I figured everything would work. Fortunately, everything did.
Coming home from a long day Monday, I stopped in at the OMV across the street from my apartment. OMVs are a gas station/convenience store combo common across Bulgaria. They're one of the few large franchises here and, in an interesting point bordering on irrelevance, each store looks exactly the same, something common in America but almost creepy here. I was feeling a bit off at the time and needed to get some cold-clearing supplies for the night: a bottle of water, Vitamin C-enriched juice, etc.
One of the things I love about OMVs is that, even though they may not have everything I need, I always know exactly where the things I want to buy are and can get in and out in a hurry. The OMV is the only place in town where I have the power of gathering my own stuff before I get to the register. Everywhere else I have to point while the shopkeeper gathers. Where things get iffy is when I get to the register, and the spectre of change rears its ugly head.
In America change was never something I worried about. I would give a cashier a bill and that cashier would give me a collection of bills and coins without fuss. The coins would go in a jar at home, and if I ever felt active I'd take the jar to a Coin Star or a bank and get the whole thing turned into "real money." In Bulgaria, I've had to completely overhaul my change philosophy. Stores never seem to have any coin, and if I give the cashier ten or, God forbid, twenty leva, I usually get an angry look before the cashier stares glumly at the register, trying to figure out what to do with me and the money I've given them.
So I always keep a supply of change in my pocket, ready for action. If that cashier wants three stotinki (roughly equivalent in importance to 3 cents), I'm ready with it. But I was sick Monday, my pockets were stuffed with Kleenex, my head was sagging, my eyes drooping, and my nose was clogged to all hell. So I took a risk, and when I got to the register I dropped a ten leva bill on the counter and crossed my fingers in the hope that the cashier would give me change and I could drop it in my pocket and just get home quickly.
No such luck. She glared at me.
"Do you have stotinki?"
"Nyamam," I lied. I had change somewhere in my pocket, but I didn't want to dig for it. So I shrugged my shoulders and looked sorry. She stared at my ten leva for a moment, then glared at me again.
"You have no stotinki?"
So she'd beaten me. It would take longer to continue the evil lie. I dug into my pocket, pulled out my Kleenex and keys, and finally got to my change, which came out in a big handful. The cashier's eyes got big and she grabbed by hand . . . grabbed my hand, people.
"LUZHETS!," she cried, loudly. Liar. She called me a liar in the middle of a convenience store. After that, she tried to pry the right change out of my hand before I could get it for her. I beat her to it, she settled the bill, and I grabbed my bag to get out of there and get home to relax. She happily chirped "priyatna vecher!" ("Have a good evening!") as I was walking away and I angrily mumbled something that sounded like "priyata veka" through my roadblock of a nose and throat.
I stumbled home and managed to get to the apartment where I happily drank my juice and water and found myself much better the next morning. Haven't seen that cashier again yet, but it's not really my way to seek revenge, even if I had some idea of what the revenge for this situation might be. This is Bulgaria, and if I knew that woman I'm sure she'd be inviting me over for dinner every other night, but as long as we're strangers across a counter, she has cart blanche to be as rude as she wants to be. It just seems to be the way of things around here.
On a slightly similar note, I realized today that I can now be proud of one major and tangible accomplishment here in Bulgaria. At the very least, by the end of my first year here, 120-odd Bulgarians will now ask "May I go to the restroom?" instead of "Can I go to the toilet?" when dealing with Americans. I don't let my students go anymore if they ask in the wrong way, and they've adapted quickly. I'm sure this change will be critical for each of them someday, although I have little idea how. We'll just have to wait and see.
That's it. Winter is no longer my favorite season. The junta in my head was extraodinarily successful over the weekend and a vote will soon be held to elect a more legitimate favorite season. The events were really only slightly unexpected as the revolution has been building for some time.
It started Friday, when--in early March--a small snowstorm blanketed Northeast Bulgaria in a thin sheet of snow and ice. Can't be concerned with snow though. It's a force of nature, it happens, it must be dealt with. But here in small-town Bulgaria, snow means the double whammy of wood-burning stoves and, more inexplicably, burning garbage bins.
Burning garbage bins are something a person comes to expect in Bulgaria. People burn trash to get rid of it when collectors ddon't and at night to keep warm. The worst part of all this is that it doesn't seem to matter what gets burnt. And this applies to all stoves, fire places and garbage bins in Bulgaria. When people are drunk, they throw plastic and glass bottles into the wood-burning stoves at bars and cafes. And everybody has to put trash somewhere, so the burning garbage bins always have the wonderful chemical mix of everything you've ever been told shouldn't be burned.
All this has given me allergies, something I've never really had before. My throat itches, I get a headache, and my eyes water on days when it's particularly dry, stuffy, and cold. These moderate allergies seem to lead to cold after cold, the last one I picked up this past weekend while on a trip to Isperih. So now I have a heavily stuffed nose again, and I'm not a bit drowsy. Early to bed tonight and lots of water and Vitamin C and things should be better, but the endless parade of colds has gotten to be too much.
Winter has to go. I'm tired of it and I'm doing anything short of human sacrifice to make sure it speeds away. You'd better believe that I'm wearing my martenitsi 24-7. I'm not normally a superstitious person, but some things require extra measures and winter in Bulgaria, even the moderate one that people are calling this one, is just one of those things
And sadly, that isn't saying too much. Somebody must've forgotten to wear their Baba Marta martenitsa, because what had been a warm week leading up to spring has suddenly turned into snow. Not a storm or anything, but it's blowing and it's cold again and it's annoying.
All this excitement follows what turned out to be 3 full days of school holiday leading up to the weekend. I've been cleaning, reading, and watching the Discovery Channel. I've got nothin'. So let's call it a week, and I'll give a nice, classy style update Monday. That sound good? Thought so.
Just noticed something. The internet club here has a bathroom. Not exactly the cleanest place in the world, but it's passable. Anyway, the bathroom has a drain in the floor. It's filthy, clogged, and I doubt it works anymore, but it's there. Which makes me wonder about that bathroom. Did it have a shower once? Why would it have a shower? What was the internet club before it was an internet club and why would that place need a shower? These are questions with answers maybe only one person knows, but he isn't here right now and speaks nearly incomprehensible Bulgarian, so the club's past will have to remain a mystery, another hazy section of Bulgaria's past.
Which reminds me: I learned another Baba Marta legend today, this one from my tutor. It seems the whole thing may have started with Han Omurtag, a Bulgarian king, who was going to have a kid. If the kid came out a boy, the birth would be marked by the wearing of white thread and if it came out a girl, everyone would have to wear red thread. Soon after the passing of this...um...law, his wife gave birth to twins, one boy and one girl. Omurtag then passed an amendment dictating that on his kids' birthday every year (March 1st, as it happened) everybody should twist the two colors together and wear the strings until spring officially began in accordance with the rules for the beginning of spring already listed on this site. My tutor's story has it that the people thought this new law was all kinds of fun and invented Baba Marta to spice it up. So if you came here for Baba Marta stories, you now have your daily fix.
Today has been one of those lazy holidays where I have no school to teach and consider doing laundry, grading, a little cleaning, and writing a post a rousing success. Tomorrow will be one of those lazy working days where getting the kids to spend the entire period speaking English will be a rousing success. Over half the school's faculty has left for a ski vacation/seminar in Borovets and most classes will be cancelled tomorrow. Come to think of it, I'll be lucky if any students come at all. Not out of disrespect for me, but for the understandable argument that it would be a waste of valuable free time to come all the way to school for only one class.
I didn't go to Borovets for several reasons, one being that I don't ski. Actually, I've never gone skiing. I wear size 17 shoes, and ski places never have boots my size. I actually love the look I get from people when I give them this reason. Their first question is usually, "Why don't you get them custom made?" Now, I ask you, would you fork over God knows how much money to buy a pair of boots for a sport you're not even sure you'd like? What would be the point of that? It'll have to happen some day, I'm sure. And for the rest of my life I'll have a pair of enormous ski boots in my closet that never get used. But that day hasn't come yet, and probably won't come while I'm in Bulgaria. That would mean I'd have to spend most of the trip in a cafe, breathing the second-hand smoke from a dozen German and French teachers complaining about their kids. Call me asocial, but I'd rather teach unattentive students, thank you very much.
So I'm here in Silistra, analyzing internet club restrooms and national holidays. Hmmm. Oh, and that "Faith" song is playing on the radio. It's been playing solid since my arrival here last April. I think I have most of it memorized, and I don't think I've ever intentionally listened to the lyrics. That's the crazy kind of life in Bulgaria. And about all I think needs to be written today.
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.