Monday, August 21, 2006

A Day in the Life....

I've now been in Boboshevo for over a week and have quickly adapted to the small town lifestyle. I awake at eight to a large breakfast and pot of espresso with my host mother Raina. After stuffing myself and still being told I don't eat enough I head off to classes at the community center at nine for five hours of Bulgarian language training. Lunch comes at one where all five of us volunteers sit by the river, eat our sack lunches and throw pebbles and cheese at the passing frogs. At three, when our lessons end we head to the local cafe for what we like to call "Pirinsko Time." This consists of us sitting outside in the sun, drinking the local beer, playing cards and talking to the locals. At around six we depart to our respected homes. I have officially began my training for the 2009 Bolder Boulder to reclaim the Helms family crown and at seven every evening, I jog 8 kms through the beautiful Bulgarian countryside to the town of Sopovo. After a quick shower and talk to the kids who hang out and wait for me in front of the bloc, I have dinner with my host family. This consists of massive amounts of food followed by a glass of rakia with Stephan and a rousing discussion of soccer, weather, and whatever else might be on the TV. I then do my homework and studying until I head to bed. On the weekends I head up the hills with my host brother, Miro, and BBQ with him and his friends. At nights we head to the gas station/restaurant for dinner and converstation with the locals. My Italian is still proving valuable as my Bulgarian is elementary yet everyone speaks Italian. Its been a great way to break the ice and make friends in my small, Bulgarian town. All in all, things are going great and I couldn't be happier...

Monday, August 14, 2006

Dobre Dosh'li V Boboshevo

So much to say, so little time... I have been in Bulgaria now for a week and am absolutely loving it. We arrived in Sofia on Monday morning and drove to the small mountain town of Panichiste for staging. The entire group of community development and youth development volunteers stayed at a small hotel for three days of training and staging. The group is composed of 42 people, a majority of them being young and out of college for a couple years. It was great spending time and bonding with the group and I feel very lucky to have been placed with such a great group of individuals. On Friday morning we all boarded a bus to the town of Dupnitsa to meet our host families.

My home for the next two and a half months will be Boboshevo, a small town of around 2,000 people in the south-west of Bulgaria. It is a small but beautiful town with great people and very little else. There is a cafe, one restaurant/gas station, and a couple of small stores but no internet, no public phones, and no bank. Sadly this means for the next few months my updates will be sporadic at best and probably only once every week or so when I come into Dupnitsa. I will also be unable to post any pictures of the town for now but if you can find any online I highly suggest checking it out. I am living with a great family in a small, soviet-style apartment block near the center of the town. Stefan is a 62 year old chicken farmer who enjoys his rakia and singing and Raina is an incredible cook who works for the municipality. I couldn't have asked for a better family to be stationed with despite the fact that they speak no English and I speak almost no Bulgarian. Yet we get by and life is good. I am stationed in Boboshevo with four other volunteers and Yulia, our Bulgarian language trainer. Days consist of helping Stefan and Raina out in the garden, canning food for the winter, walking around town and studying Bulgarian. I have been jogging every day which will be a necessity as I seem to be eating all the time. Just last night I had three meals from 8 PM on.

One ironic thing is that many Bulgarians from the age of 20 to 40 speak Italian as they live and work and Italy during the year and are simply back home for the Italian holiday of ferie. So although my Bulgarian is lacking my Italian is in top form... As for now I must go get my lishna carta or national ID card but I will be back in Dupnitsa on Monday with another update. Dovishdane!

Thursday, August 03, 2006

The Time Has Come


In ten hours from now I will be boarding a plane to Washington D.C. and officially embarking on my Peace Corps experience. Despite the fact that my departure is so eminent, I still can't fully comprehend that I will be away from Colorado for over two years. At this point my range of emotions is varying from excited and anxious to nostalgic. It has been hard to say goodbye to the many great friends I have here in Colorado and will be even harder saying goodbye to my family tomorrow. Despite this, I have never felt more ready for the journey ahead of me. I feel like this adventure is something that I've always been meant to do and that in itself is a very satisfying feeling. Although I don't know what lies ahead of me these next two weeks, let alone two years, I know this is what I'm meant to do at this point in my life. In the words of one of my favorite songs... "Strapped my memories to my back, I'm leaving... I'm already gone..."

-Currently Reading: "Survivor" by Chuck Palahniuk
-Currently Listening to: "Orange Sky" by Alexi Murdoch, "S/T" by Ghost Buffalo, and "S/T" by Planes Mistaken for Stars