This is the official retirement of "so there I was..." It was a good blog. It did what I asked of it, even though I neglected it. It contains so much of the last two years, but at the same time lacks so much. It was there when I was frustrated, happy, bored, amused and verbose. Sometimes even angry. Sometimes even happy.

But one month from today, I will be eating hot dogs and drinking root beer and watching fireworks for the first time in two years. I will be jet lagged (I fly home July 3), but home.

I can't say these two years went by quickly. Perhaps, once I am home and the tiny details of my time in Bulgaria are blurred together in the stories I will tell over and over, it will seem like a blip. But sitting here, in this apartment, looking at my last month of service fill up with good-byes and final grades and last-minute trips, it seems like I have been here forever. I was 22 when I stepped off that plane, and now I am 25. That, dear friends, is no small chunk of time.

I am daunted by the prospect of starting over, again. I am daunted about trying to find a real job and move to a more permanent home (at least home-city) and set up a life. But I am ready to do it. I am ready to jump into the unknown again. I came to Bulgaria for the challenge, and I have taken all I can from it. I, in short, am burned out. Burned out, burned out, burned out.

For the past few weeks, I have been overwhelmed with moments where I want to be sitting on a plane, and moments when I just want to live this lifestyle forever. I want to leave, but I don't want to leave. I like being a foreigner, but I don't like being a foreigner. I like my solitude and freedom, but I miss living with people and having more constraints. I am so utterly ambivalent towards this month that I can hardly stand it.

So with this ambivalence, let me relate my one certain truth. This is my goodbye. I am signing off. It was good knowing you, and may this honest, rambling, sporadic and gap-filled blog represent my time in Bulgaria, out there in cyberspace, for years to come.

So, we recently had our spring break (which for my group is the last time we can really leave the country without a work excuse). I took the chance to go visit a friend, Sarah, in Ukraine. She had been a volunteer in my group but went home in the spring of last year and found a job teaching English in Kiev. We like to consider ourselves travel warriors, and I think we earned our stripes on this trip... I arrived on Saturday night, and Sunday afternoon we caught a train from Kiev to Sevastopol, Crimea. The train ride was 19 hours, made better only by the fact we had beds in a 4-person compartment complete with sheets and tea service. We got to Crimea early Monday morning, found a hotel, and deposited our stuff before heading out to find a bus to Balaklava, a little town near Sevastopol that has an old Soviet nuclear submarine factory hidden in surrounding caves. It was while trying to find a boatride over to this factory that I realized I no longer had my wallet. Someone had stolen it, and with it $200 in Ukrainian grivna, my Bulgarian ID card, my Peace Corps ID card, our return train tickets, my only American debit card and credit card, my Bulgarian bank card, my return flight info, and most fatally, my passport. I had no money, no identification documents. Plus, in Ukraine, you need a passport to even by a train ticket, and I was as far from the American Embassy as one could be in Ukraine. In short, I was screwed. Luckily I had Sarah, who had money and a Russian dictionary. We hightailed it back to Sevastopol, back to our hotel, and I emailed everyone in the PC Bulgaria office I could think of with my hotel phone number. Within half an hour, Sergei (the Safety Director of PC Ukraine) was on the line, arranging for me to meet with two volunteers in Sevastopol to go to the police station and report the crime. They were very new volunteers and barely knew Russian, but between my Bulgarian and amazing charades ability, we managed to get the job done and I was able to use the document to buy a train ticket for the next night. Determined to enjoy Crimea while we were there, we spent the next day wandering Sevastopol, a wicked cool city with CRAZY Soviet military memorials (there is still a fleet of Russian Navy stationed there). Sarah and I are both avid lovers of Soviet military art, so we were in heaven. As evening rolled in, we caught our second 19-hour train ride in two days and headed back to Kiev to deal with "the situation." When we got home the following afternoon, I had an email from Sergei...All it said was, "Your documents seem to be found. Call me immediately." After a small freak out, I called him and he told me to come to PC Ukraine office to discuss it. Once there, he explained that someone had called the American Embassy to report that he had found my passport, but he "seemed reluctant to hand it over to the police" in Crimea. According to Sergei, this guy wanted a bribe, which is against PC policy. He said that we would just have to try and convince the guy to go to the police and hand in the wallet. He set me up an appointment at the embassy on Friday (this was Wednesday), and told me to sit tight until then. Meanwhile, the president disbanded the parliment and there were protests everywhere, so we were told to keep a low profile and stay away from crowds. Also, mom and dad managed to Western Union me some money, so that made me happy. So, Sarah and I took in the sites of Kiev. There are some amazingly beautiful churches, as well as amazingly hideous statues of dead people. The most stunning statue sits on top of the "Museum of the Great Patriotic War (WWII)" and is called "Rodina Mat" (Motherland). She is sort of the Soviet Statue of Liberty, only she's tin, muscular like a bodybuilder, holding a shield with a hammer and sickle in one hand and a sword in the other, and is just hideous. We also went to this monastery where a bunch of monks lived in caves and died there and now they are put in glass coffins lining the walls of the cave...Tourism in Ukraine truly is bizzare. On Friday morning I prepared myself to get a new passport...I had photos taken, I put $100 in my wallet, and we headed to the PC office. Serei wasn't there, but "my case" as they called it, had been handed to his assistant, Andrei. Andrei came out with the news that the man in Crimea who had my wallet was in fact a border guard, and since there is some sort of hostility between border guards and the regular Crimean police, he refused to hand my wallet over to them. He wanted to use "his channels." He said he had given my wallet to a colleague who was leaving for Kiev, and that it would be waiting at the embassy for me by 9am. We called the embassy, but no wallet. Andrei sent Sarah and I to the lounge to wait, and we waited. At 1pm, precisely one hour before my appointment at the embassy, Andrei came to find us. The wallet was at the Borisopol airport outside of Kiev. In a PC van, Sarah and I made our way out to the airport, met with a security guard, and retrieved my debit and credit cards, my Bulgarian and PC IDs, my return flight info, and most importantly, my passport. This was Good Friday, and I call it my Good Friday miracle. That night we met with some friends and celebrated. On Saturday we went to Chernobyl, which I might write about at some later date. For now, I would like to close saying when you travel in Ukraine, WATCH YOUR BACK.

Ahhhh, Thracian Kukeri. If I was an evil spirit, however, I don't think I'd be scared...

The backs of my Kukeri...These bells, by the way, are LOUD.

I am so off on writing...I haven't written a Dover Post article in ages...I haven't written a blog since January. Part of this is because I am lazy. Part of it is that life doesn't seem so exotic as it did last year. Part of it is that senioritis has set in, and we are encouraged not to be negative about Bulgaria in public forums...But whatever the reason, this blog has been dying a slow death.

I can't promise a vitally healthy blog anymore, but I will try to include sum-ups of my last few months in the Balkans.

Since I last wrote I have had two visitors (training-mate Ethan and fellow Doverite Monica), gone to Istanbul, watched my town's Kukeri and bided my time at school. In short, have guests was fun, Istanbul restored my faith in the Balkans, Kukeri was amusing as always and school has gotten progressively less good. I have had to call my director in the middle of class on my cell phone to have her remove a student, another student and his mom almost killed another boy during a spectacular fight including a car (note: the guilty boy is still at school), no student has gotten above a 50% on any test I have given even though they get the test a week in advance, two boys almost broke my laptop sitting on my desk while I was walking around the classroom to check homework, and the level of whining and lying and cheating has hit fever pitch. I am soooooo ready not to be teaching anymore.

On the good side, the weather has been very nice, we had a couple of really fun holidays (including Baba Marta -- my favorite Bulgarian holiday), I have acquired 4 new pairs of knitted baba socks, I have a lot of fun plans that should make the next few months fly by if my wallet can handle it, and I have finally found Heinz ketchup in Sliven. All I have to say about the last part is IT'S ABOUT TIME!

So that's the update for now. Don't know when I'll update again. Until then, happy trails to you.

Well, she didn't so much "come back" as "I found her!"

I was sitting in my chair when I heard an unhappy meow from the ground 3 stories below my balcony. I decided it had to be Zaeka...

I grabbed a flashlight and a can of tuna and proceeded to lean in all of the open windows along the back of the basement dripping in tuna water. In the window directly below my downstairs neighbors, I heard a thumping in a pile of broken down boxes. I called her name, and heard the slighest meow.

After dripping some tuna water around the pile, I heard the creature working her way towards me...When she popped her head out I instantly knew it was her. It was Zaeka's adorable little head peeping out at me!

She was still pretty spooked, so I put the tuna in a place where she'd have to climb out a bit, then I literally grabbed her by the neck and manhandled her until I got her into the apartment. (Actually she recognized the door and immediately started bawling.)

When I put her down inside the door she meowed loudly at everything, as if saying hello to it after a long absence. Tail piqued, ears back, she slowly remembered the more comfortable, safe life she had lead with me.

For fear of a flea infenstation, I gave her a bath right after I fed her. That was where this photo was from. As you can tell, she was none to happy (and very cold afterwards), but now she's adjusting.

So, she's back. Yay.

Zaeka (my cat, my companion, my headache and my main object of conversation) has disappeared. She bolted from me out of fear on Sunday during our "Get Zaeka Adjusted to Outdoors" romp, and the last I saw her she popped through a broken window into my building's basement. Where could she have gone, you ask? God only knows.

The search for Zaeka began immediately...I put food at the two places she could have entered or exited the basement. A neighbor who has the key to the basement opened the gate to let me walk around for a while. I called for her and psssted for her and got no response. The next day at school I had a collegue make a little advertisement for me to put on the building's doors. And I played the waiting game.

The search has had it's lighthearted moments. Tuesday afternoon a little boy from fourth grade rang my doorbell after school and shouted they had found her by the place where I had last seen her. I followed him with flashlights and some food and found a crowd of fourth and fifth graders huddled around the door trying to block her in. But when I decended the stairs and crouched in the corner where they had seen her run, I found nothing.

When I went back outside, I found a pack of ferral cats who all look exactly like Zaeka...I assume it was one of them that the kids saw. I was sorry to disappoint them so.

Everytime I go out, I walk by that broken window and call in to her. I wander the back of the building where she could have escaped through another open window...I'm sure the neighbors think I'm crazy. But they all ask about her, if I've found her. One couldn't ask for more friendly people.

But as it looks like she might be really lost...and I mean GONE...I will send this out into the world as a bit of a reverie for her.

She was a cat named "Rabbit." She liked sunny spots and the small of my back when I laid in bed, her pink nylon cube mom and dad sent from the States, licking everything, climbing the curtains, pooping when I had just cleaned the litterbox, sleeping on my radiator in the winter, and chirping at flies and other intruders.

She sighed when she settled...a deep, contented sigh. She ate very slowly. She put her ears back to hunt me. She wasn't scared to bite. She wasn't scared to scratch. When she was really pissed, she even spat.

She was not a gentle cat, but she was spunky. She was pretty, and I'm very sure she knew it. Wherever she is, I hope she overcame her fear of outdoors and is having fun hunting for real.

Goodbye, Zaeka. I hope all is well.

Here is the view coming down the lift in Sliven. My god it was cold.

So my folks came to spend Christmas and New Years with me in Bulgarland. Aside from a few catastrophes, it was a good time. We schelped up and down the country, almost slid off of icy mountains, went na gosti to eat freshly-killed pigs, watched men in goathair dance around driving out bad spirits, slept with earplugs. Crazy.

While we were gone, I had my elderly neighbor stop in to feed and love on the cat a bit. I told her the catfood was in the fridge. I figured she'd run out, so I stocked up on some kremvish...

When I returned home, I saw three brown chunks of something sitting in her food dish. at first glance, I took them to be...feces. There was another blob on the floor, and with trepidation I approached it to discern what it actually was.

As I got closer, I caught wiff of mint. What the...?

Then it hit me. It was my Aunt Dori's fudge.

My Aunt Dori had sent along a tin of her chocolate-mint fudge with my folks for us to eat on Christmas. I had left the tin on the TOP of the fridge, and when the food ran out I guess Stoika thought it was cat food. FUDGE! CAT FOOD!

I got a good laugh about it, cut up some kremvish and watched Zaeka gobble down food she could actually eat.

The next morning I was woken by the sound of keys jingling in my door. I stumbled out of bed and opened the door to find Stoika trying to come in with a pan of banitsa (a Bulgarian pastry with cheese). She had made the banitsa for the cat, since there was no more food.

BANITSA! FUDGE! What do they FEED Bulgarian cats?!

Anyway, all's back to normal now. Zaeka's taken to sleeping on my back at night, and on the heater during the day. All's well with the world.

Aaaaand that was my feeble attempt to force myself to write. Happy 100th Blog. Check ya later.

My friend Plamen sent me this photo to show me what my folks and I missed out on by coming into town a little too late. Bummer.

So, my kids are getting more and more geared to the coming vacation. This is obvious through their constant tangents, laziness and, let's face it, fist fighting.

But my 7b class got onto a pretty funny tangent today I let them run with for a while...But first let me recount a recent experience.

For those who are unaware, one of the long-standing Bulgarian Christmas traditions is the slaughtering of a family pig. It's a day of family togetherness, along the lines of going into the woods to find the perfect tree. Only this is in their yards, and it is much more...bloody.

I woke up this Saturday to the screaming of a neighbor's pig. Of course I rushed to the balcony to watch. It was a cold morning, gloomy, thick frost on the ground, but that made it perfect.

They were dragging the pig out of the pigpen, and he seemed to know what was coming. He was screaming and kicking and being more violent than any pig has the right to be. The men of the family brought him to the center of the courtyard and laid down on him to keep him still.

Then they began the cut. Across the throat. Slow, deliberate. The screaming is indescribable if you've never heard it. But then it happens...the moment of recognition and resignation. As the blood begins to collect on the cement, the crying stops, the thrashing slows. This might be due to the encroaching weakness from loss of blood, but I like to think that in some cosmic way the pig realizes he is fulfilling his destiny...This family has nourished him, and now he must nourish the family. The moment of death is obvious (a total-body jerk), and as soon as the pig is dead he is hoisted onto a table and the skin is blow torched off of his bones. His fat is stewed. His meat is divided up into portions. His ears are given to the kids to chew on. And when that family eats the meat it is not just meat, but rather an animal they raised and knew and cared for.

But enough of that...Back to my 7b class.

This is my class of 13 boys and 2 girls, and today was a very "boy day." While they were working in their notebooks, one kid asked another kid when his family was killing the pig. The other kid replied they had killed one over the weekend, and planned to kill another this coming weekend. Another boy asked one of the girls when her family planned to kill some of their rabbits. She said soon, to which another boy said that all of his family's rabbits had been taken down by some disease in September. The girl then looked at me and said, in Bulgarian, "Killing rabbits is the worst. They sound like children screaming."

The boys started to laugh at my mildly shocked expression and began to throw their killing stories out to me. One boy's family, apparently, had gotten their pig so fat this year that it would have taken too long to bleed out, so they shot him. (All the boys then started holding their arms like they had shotguns and went POW POW while laughing.) Another kid informed us that once his family had killed a pregnant pig, and the baby meat was the best he'd eaten ever. (The kids all nodded knowingly with this one.)

After I had had my fill of these killing stories, I forced them back on task for a while. But I can't help remarking that even though it wasn't an entirely productive class, it was an amusing one.

Good Christian friends, rejoice

With heart and soul and voice;

Give ye heed to what we say: News! News!

Jesus Christ is born today!

Ox and ass before him bow,

And he is in the manger now.

Christ is born today, Christ is born today.

Good Christian friends, rejoice

With heart and soul and voice;

Now ye hear of endless bliss: News! News!

Jesus Christ was born for this!

He hath opened heaven's door,

And ye are blest forever more.

Christ was born for this! Christ was born for this!

Good Christian friends, rejoice

With heart and soul and voice;

Now ye need not fear the grave: News! News!

Jesus Christ was born to save!

Calls you one and calls you all

To gain his everlasting hall.

Christ was born to save! Christ was born to save!

(Song 2....All three verses rock.)

Hark! the herald angles sing,

"Glory to the newborn king;

Peace on earth, and mercy mild;

God and sinners reconciled!"

Joyful, all ya nations rise!

Join the triumph of the skies!

With the angelic host proclaim,

"Christ is born in Bethlehem!"

Hark! the herald angles sing, "Glory to the newborn king!"

Christ, by highest heaven adored,

Christ, the everlasting lord;

Late in time, behold him come,

Offspring of the virgin's womb.

Velied in flesh, the Godhead see.

Hail the incarnate deity,

Pleased with us in flesh to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel.

Hark! the herald angels sing, "Glory to the newborn king!"

Hail, the heaven-born Princ eof Peace!

Hail the son of righteousness!

Light and life to all he brings,

Risen with healing in his wings.

Mild he lays his glory by,

Born that man no more may die,

Born to raise the sons of earth,

Born to give us second birth.

Hark! the herald angles sing, "Glory to the newborn king!"

Being raised in both a musical and Methodist home (and one in which my father firmly believed in singing all verses of songs), hymns are as integral a part of my make-up as my blood type. It is no surpise, then, that I find the most inspiring texts for a Christian soul are the lyrics of old time Christmas hymns and carols.

Unfortunately, I believe that the tunes are so familiar to us they begin to loose their meaning. WHen was the last time you really truly listened to yourself singing a Christmas carol? When was the last time you thought about the meaning of the words, instead of just belting out the long-remembered melody?

In the interest of resurrecting these great works of Christian art in this, one of the great Christian seasons, I will daily (okay, maybe not daily, but frequently) update this blog with the text of one of my favorite carols. Read them and think about them. I hope they make Christmas more meaningful for you.

So, carol 1: It Came Upon the Midnight Clear

(text written by poet Edmund Sears in 1849, based on text from Luke 2:8-14) I like to pay special heed to the third and fourth verses.

It came upon the midnight clear, that glorious song of old,

From angels bending near the earth to touch their harps of gold:

"Peace on the Earth! Goodwill toward men, from Heaven's all-gracious King!"

The world in solemn stillness lay to hear the angels sing.

Still through the cloven skies they come with peaceful wings unfurled,

And still their heavenly music floats o'er all the weary world.

Above its sad and lonely plains, they bend on hovering wing,

And ever o'er its Babel sounds the blessed angels sing.

And ye, beneath life's crushing load, whose forms are bending low,

Who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow,

Look now! For glad a golden hours come swiftly on the wing.

O rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing!

For lo! the days are hastening on, by prophet seen of old,

When with the ever circling years shall come the time foretold

When peace shall o'er all the earth its ancient splendors fling

And the whole world send back the song which now the angels sing.

In Russia, if you disagree with the people in charge you are either shot in your elevator or poisioned with radiation.

Therefore, it is not entirely my fault that in my Russian blood runs a strong sense of authority and even stronger vengence when that authority is crossed.

Thankfully, my Anglo-genetics have tempered this vengance and made it slower...My lines are not easy to cross. It has not, however, mullified the effect of the vegance when my inner Rusnak rears his ugly head.

My seventh graders have crossed the line. They BARRELLED across it actually...with their GSMs in class and MP3 players and incessant talking and asnine question-asking before I can finish explaining something, then asking me forty more times to explain what they missed while asking me the asnine questions. I can't explain things for the volume of "MISS! MISS!"es I get yelled at me. Kids get up and wander around the classroom, peruse the books, steal other kids' backpacks which starts another chorus of "MISS! MISS!," they cheat constantly and without shame or discretion. I feel like I walk into a snake pit every time I let them come in the room.

So today they were doing an extra credit assignment for the test we are taking tomorrow. I told them no cheating. They started wandering around the room looking at eachother's notebooks. I told them the next person who stood would get a 2 (an F), so they started to shout across the classroom. I told them the next person who shouted would get a 2. They started to throw bits of paper with the answers on them. They asked me how to do the exercises (even though the instructions are in Bulgarian and there is always an example) 40 times, and kept hollering "MISS! MISS" and mobbing me at my desk as I wrote the 2s for standing up and shouting.

And I flipped. The Rusnak turned himself on.

I screamed at them to get away from me, to sit down, to shut up and to read the instructions. I told them they had done it, and I was going to give each and every kid a different test tomorrow so they couldn't cheat even if they tried. I told them I would take their tests if I saw then looking at another test. They said I couldn't do that, and I said, "Watch me." A few of the most b*&%$# girls rolled their eyes and said they'd skip tomorrow (and in Bulgarian that means you can't give them a grade), so I told them that I would grade the Extra Credit like a test and put THAT on their grade report (I had already seen theirs and there was not one correct answer.) They just sat, stunned.

But I tell you, this Rusnak vengence is a very productive emotion. I will sit here and make separate tests of each of the 19 monsters if it takes me until classtime tomorrow to do it. The Rusnak will only be assuaged when I can see each of their faces when they realize that for the first time in their little lives, they will not be able to cheat their way through.

Of all the cultural differences I have overcome in my time here, the blatant cheating is something I will never, ever be able to condone. Maybe it is my innate Americaness that tells me you must succeed on your own merit (or at LEAST be called out and publicly humiliated when you cheat and therefore feel a great sense of shame and ruin, which is totally not true in Bulgaria), but it is what has made our country good. It is why we work.

As much as I would like to think I am embarking on this test to serve as a valuable tool to these uneducated Bulgarian kiddos, I fear I am mostly doing it to see the look on their faces when they realize they will be judged on their own merit, and will be found wanting.

On the first day of school this year, a fellow teacher and I met on the path and walked the rest of the way together. We ended up having to cut a huge herd of sheep on their way out to pasture, and as we did it a huge smile lit up her face. When I asked her why she seemed so happy, she told me that it was good luck to cut through a herd of sheep, and since it was the first day of school, she believed it symbolized a good year for both of us.

For a while, I was inclined to succumb to this superstition. Compared to last year, this year has sailed by on gold-tinted wings. Apart from the loss of my best Bulgarian friend, this year I feel more competent in the classroom and can see some results.

But now I am loosing faith in the idea…I have cut a herd of sheep twice a day for the past week, and have not discerned any marked improvement in my luck. Perhaps it is all being packed away and saved in my kharma bank for something really amazingly wonderful, who knows. All’s I know is that I want it to happen soon…It’s tough tromping through the stink and fecal matter that is a Bulgarian herd of sheep without seeing results.

However, the sheep-watching has inspired some reflections on modern Christianity. Bear with me through this awkward transition.

As most westerners know, the symbol of the shepherd has often been used in Christianity to illustrate Jesus Christ. The parallels are quite beautiful…Both protect gentle creatures from danger. Both lead lesser beings to places of sustenance and goodness. Both are solitary and diligent. Both love their creatures, and both depend on them to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, maintain the health and balance of God’s kingdom, and provide company.

But the shepherds I have seen in Bulgaria are not this type of shepherd. Perhaps they do protect their sheep from danger, but they also smack them with sticks and curse at them in a language the sheep do not understand and cannot respond to. Perhaps they do lead the sheep out to pasture, but the pastures are very often polluted with garbage that other shepherds have left behind. Perhaps they do care for the sheep, but it is only because the sheep are their source of money and power.

I cannot picture Jesus using sticks to keep his people in line. I cannot seem him yelling and cursing at us when we’ve strayed from the path. And I certainly do not think Jesus saw mankind as a source to gain power.

But it seems to me that Christian fundamentalists in recent years have taken to this second image of the shepherd. The only differences are their sticks are laws to ban things they see as vices and sins, their curses are abuses and intolerances thrown at non-Christians, and the power they seek is in the halls of congress. Theirs is the “force them into the right path” shepherding rather than the “lead them to the right path” shepherding.

As far as I am aware, Jesus never lost patience with someone who questioned him in a logical manner. Jesus never told anyone they were less Christian because they questioned their faith. And Jesus certainly never used laws and force to keep his followers from straying. He lead by example.

But look at the example in the fundamentalist church. How many scandals are there—sexual, financial and social? How many acts of violence have been committed against those considered “sinners?” How many “religious” men have sought political, secular power (something Jesus neither wanted nor advocated) so that they can create laws (a secular, forceful kind of guidance) to push their own ideas and belief structures? It’s plain to see why average parishioners are confused…If in fact their leaders are leading by example, they are leading people to a very un-Christian place.

I hope against hope that one day they will return to the truly Christian, Jesus-inspired philosophy of shepherding.

On Friday morning, I got a phone call from the deputy mayor. He wanted to know if I'd like to accompany the municipality employees to the smallest of Straldja's villages for the community's holiday. Since I never turn down an invite to "the celo," I agreed and woke up early Saturday to meet them.

The day was perfect...One of those beautiful November days with a slightly warm sun, a low crisp breeze and not a cloud in the sky. We drove past all the dying fields and the mounds of overturned earth until we reached the far edges of our obshtina (municipality) and turned right. In the groove between two rolling hills lay a community of about 40 homes, a church and a shop.

The median age of people in Bulgarian villages is 60, and this one had a population of about 100 people. Most were kerchiefed old women or their husbands, whose skin had turned to leather after years of working in the fields. There were about two younger families, with kids who most likely use the village as a playgroud (I know I would have).

So the holiday went off as expected...There was a folk singer, old people dancing hours of horo, and the boiling of a freshly-slaughtered lamb. There was a dedication in the church where I got soaked by a bunch of holy water-drenched branches the priest was flinging around. And all the while, my camera was snapping away. (If I can manage to upload my video clips to YouTube, I'll link them here...This might be too high tech for me).

Around 2 in the afternoon I was tired of trying to discern country Bulgarian dialects and opted to return to town with the deputy mayor. There I hibernated until, well, tonight.

So, according to the census folks, we hit the 300 million American mark. Good for us...In a world where developed countries aren't having babies and semi-developed countries are loosing hoards of people to more-developed countries and undeveloped countries are just barely hanging on, we are growing. We are changing. We are ensuring our future, building our workforce.

But I know that many of us are worried. We're worried that the "face of America" is changing. We're worried that most of these births are in the minority groups. Huge chunks of that 300 million are foreigners, many of whom do not speak much English and "steal" American jobs because they'll work hard for less money than "real" Americans. Unknown amounts of those immagrants are in the US illegally. Amazingly, within our lifetimes, white European Americans will only amount to about 50% of the population. To many of us, that is a scary statistic.

But to those of us who feel this way, I say get over it. Every single one of the white European Americans living in the US are there because someone in their bloodline came to America in a group that the people already in America thought would bring down the country (how much did people fear and despise the Irish, the Italians, the Poles?) Each of these groups changed the "face of America," took jobs from existing Americans, and had a hard time learning English (yes, I am including the Irish in this.) With all these years of change, I would like to pose the question:

What exactly is the face of America?

If it can change, there must be one. But as far as I can tell, America is always changing faces. Once upon a time those faces were tan and wise and living in harmony with nature. Then some paler faces from Anglo-Germanic Europe came by and began to build a replica of the homes they left behind. They brought over darker faces to help them build their great society. Later Slavic faces and Hispanic faces and Asian faces and Latino faces and Green faces and Purple faces and (oh wait, this isn't a Dr. Suess book) came and all put themselves into the flow of the people already in America. They brought their food, their holidays, their languages, and all of it mushed together and made, apparently, a big pluralistic face. The Face.

But can't you see?...The Face is change. The Face expands and contracts and changes colors to accomodate the change. It always has, and it always will. To fear the change, to fear the pluralism, is to be unAmerican. It's who we are. It's who we've ALWAYS been. Without it, we are not America. Stagnicity would be the ultimate "change of face."

I am not saying it will be easy. It never has been. We will have to watch our resources (human, educational, environmental and financial) but to be honest, we should be doing that anyway.

I say that we celebrate this. We are now 300 million people...THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE! and that shows we will continue to be the same, interesting country we always have been.

So my rage and frustration at the Yambol Post office has reached a head.

I recieved notice of a package last Wednesday at around 3 p.m. As you may already know, I have to go to Yambol between 10:30 and 11:30 a.m. Mon, Wed or Fri to pick up boxes. Like most normal people, I work Mon and Fri during those hours, and since I teach, I can't take the at-least-3-hours out of my day to catch a bus to town, wait in line, and wait for a bus back. Luckily, my director gives me Wednesdays free, so I usually go then. But this doesn't do me a whole lot of good when I get the notice Wednesday afternoon.

So the next possible day is Friday, a national holiday...A POSTAL holiday. The next possible day is Monday, when , oh yes, Becca has to work. The next possible day is Wednesday, but this won't do as Becca has to be in Sofia for a big presentation at the Peace Corps anniversary event.

Today, this afternoon, I'm sick and tired. I've made it through school, but have no real energy for anything else. I am sitting, sipping tea and watching some DVDs when my phone rings. The ladies in the place where I go to get my small mail are calling and say I received a slip saying tomorrow is the last day I can pick up my box. They are frantic. I go and get the slip...Which is marked in bright red letters the hours of operation, as if the problem I have is that I can't read dates and times. As if I don't care about my package and had no intention to go and pick it up.

I bid you to also remember that these people have opened my boxes without me present, have made me open them in front of them, have harrased me about children's books, have threatened to confiscate my things, and (someone) stole a box of Girl Scout cookies from me.

The good news in all of this is my super counterpart has agreed to take the classes I'll miss tomorrow getting this box.

AND, I have another good friend in Sliven, who has agreed to let me borrow her name and address so I never have to deal with these people again.

So, if you wish to send me a package over 2 kilograms (so, anything bigger than a padded envelope), send it to:

Christin McConnell

ATTN: Rebecca Grudzina

P.O. Box 347

Central Post Office

Sliven 8800

Bulgaria

Just let me know when you send it so we can be on the lookout. With this new plan, I won't have to go back to that hell on earth.

I returned to Bulgarland yesterday...It was a sweet reunion. I loved America, but it was nice to get back.

Being back home was more like being on the set of the movie of my life than my actual hometown...Things are how you remember them, but just not entirely normal. You see people you know, but they aren't in your current storyline. Unless you have been in the Balkans for a year and some change and then gone back to the states, you can't really picture it.

But anyway, we did have some good times in Dover. I ate every meal I like (I almost had to double up dinners) INCLUDING Thanksgiving with the extended family. (We now know why it is not a summer holiday...That turkey is rough when it's 100 degrees outside.) I helped my bestest friend find the dress I'll wear as Maid-of-Honor in her wedding next summer. I even got to DRIVE to Washington DC. Mmmm, driving.

But now I'm back, getting into a routine again. I cleaned everything but my kitchen today...That will be a task when I come to it. Tomorrow I plan to go swimming, so word. AND my Darien Book Aid books arrived while I was gone, so I spent all evening opening them up and getting excited about all the BOOKS. I LOVE books!

Okay, that's it.

I had the month of July planned to the day...literally. I was to go from my Fourth of July celebration at the beach to a week and a half at Roma camp (also at the beach) to an Anti-Trafficking in Persons conference in Sliven, to Sofia to pick up my parents, to a two-week schelp all over Bulgaria.

I made it as far as the Fourth of July celebration.

I had been having these stomach pins sporadically since March. As July hit, I was having one every single day. Finally, on July 3rd, I decided I'd had enough and emailed the office in the middle of the night. I figured I'd get an appointment right after camp, before my folks were due to come.

The next morning I traveled to Tsarevo to be with Americans on the Fourth, and the greater part of the day was spent having fun with Rachel. But sure enough, come evening, the stomach pain returned. I decided not to wait until the end of camp...I emailed Dr. Robert to tell him to put me in at his earliest convienence.

The next day he called and said I could get an appointment in Sofia on the 7th, so I decided to head home. I traveled back the way I had come only the day before, and watched my week at the beach slip away.

Thursday afternoon, the 6th, I traveled towards Sofia. The pain was back, making a pretty miserable 5-hour bus ride. I stayed at Hostel Mostel, which was not pleasant in my current condition. The next morning I went to the office for my exam, and they took me to some clinic for an ultrasound. Yup, it was gallstones. I'd have to be sent to the States for surgery.

That night I spent in Sofia with Monica, a fellow Doverite, and had the worst attack yet...After that, my stomach was toast.

Dear Dr. Robert sent me back to Straldja to wait for my marching orders from Washington. Rosie was very very helpful, as were all my older friends in town. But suddenly all food made me ill to contemplate, and I slowly got weaker and weaker laying in my apartment waiting, just waiting for that blessed call from Sofia.

Finally on Thursday it came. Dr. Robert told me to make my way to the office so I could go over all the paperwork and such on Friday. I took the 6:30 bus the next morning and halfway there, Dr. Robert called my cell phone. They had found a flight for me the next morning. The end of my agony was in sight.

I got to the office around noon and went through all the paperwork (man do they love paperwork). Since my flight was at 7:45 the next morning, they wanted me to sleep in the compound's Sick Bay so the driver could take me bright and early. As soon as it was dark enough to sleep, I got in bed and tried to sleep.

I think I worte about it before, but I must reiterate what a hoot it is to sleep in that compound, complete with two guards, a huge electric fence, bomb-proof doors and cameras in every nook and cranny.

The next morning one of my favorite PC drivers (the silver fox) drove me to the airport and wished me well. I got on a plane and nearly 4 hours later I was in Gatwick airport in London.

Coming out of the check-in area in Gatwick was like Rip Van Winkle waking up in the middle of Times Square. Everything was in English...no Cyrillic anywhere...The were huge stores everywhere, including ones with nothing but English books and eateries with a million kinds of soft drinks. For the first time in a week, I was hungry.

I didn't have any pounds (though I had fistfulls of leva and dollars), so I initially despaired. I was so hungry, and the sandwiches looked amazing. And they had GINGER ALE. And NESTEA. I wanted FOOD.

On a whim, I timidly walked up to a guy refilling the sandwich cases. 'Excuse me,' I asked.

'Yes?' he asked.

'Do you accept...credit cards here?' I said in the careful English I am used to speaking to my students (I never speak English to strangers anymore).

Well, he looked at me like I had asked him if they sold sandwiches there. 'Yes, of course,' he said.

I was in heaven. I could EAT! And use PLASTIC! I stood in line and waited for my turn. When I got to the front, I saw an apparatus like a card scanner in front of me. I asked how to use it.

The woman behind the counter grabbed my card and said, 'Oh, yoouuu don't have a chip.' She then scanned it in the register.

A chip? What in god's name is this 'chip' she spoke of?...I still don't know, but it made me wonder how long it had been since I was in a real Western country (the answer was over 15 months.)

After my little adventures in food, I caught my longer flight to Philadelphia. I arrived at 4-something p.m. local time, and met my folks. I wish I could say it was weird, but it wasn't. Sure the cars were nicer, there was no Bulgarian, the roads were huge and busy, but I think I pictured America so much in my mind's eye that seeing it for real wasn't a real shock. We'll see how it goes after a few days.

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This here entry is a huge entry about a trip which took place at the beginning of this month.

This is the story of one Peace Corps volunteer’s journey to the far reaches of her host country with a gaggle of her crazy students and colleagues. Some parts of the following epic might be inappropriate for readers with weaker stomachs or overly-sensitive sensibilities. Be forewarned.

The Departure

We left at 6:30 a.m. from Hotel Hemus in the town center. The bus was clean, the students showered and alert even at that time in the morning, and the course mapped before us.

We followed the main road through town towards the Balkan foothills that lie directly to the north. As we began our summit, I learned a new verb: povrushtam. Translation: to vomit.

The plain-raised, rarely-traveled kids took to the mountains like horses to water. It started with Yoli, one of the girls in my fifth grade class. Her classmate, Mische, tugged on my arm. “Gospozho, Yoli povurne!”

At the time I didn’t know the verb. “What?” I asked.

“Yoli povurne!” she repeated.

Rosie, who was sitting next to me, jumped up. “She’s throwing up,” she told me.

Sure enough, Yoli was bringing up her breakfast juice in a little plastic bag two seats behind me. No one was really paying attention or hooting or hollering (as they would certainly be doing in America). She just did her business and tied up the bag.

A few moments later, one of the older boys made his way to the front of the bus. He had turned an unnatural color of whitish-gray, the color of someone who hasn’t seen sunlight…ever. “I don’t feel good,” he told my colleague Toschko, who was in the frontmost seat. Toschko made him sit down next to the window, and the kid laid his head on the window and visibly tried to keep his stomach contents internal.

There was a brief respite from the illness during our first roadside break an hour into the trip. Almost as soon as we started again, the swaying of the bus hit again.

Another of the older boys came to the front, not quite as pale as the first boy, but obviously not okay. He sat down in the aisle, and I dug around my bag for my Peace Corps supply of chewable Pepto Bismol tablets. I gave each of the boys one, and one to Yoli, and decided to keep them near at hand.

Three minutes later a second fifth-grader, Zarko, reached for a bag. His seatmate Stefan alerted us, “Gospozho, Zarko povrushta!” He too did his business without fuss and tied up his bag. I administered some Pepto, and we continued on.

When in Bulgaria

Our first stop was about 3 hours into the trip in the ancient capital of Bulgaria, Veliko Preslav. We immediately disembarked and asked a local where we could find toilets. She pointed to a hill, around which there was the remains of a fortress wall. We headed to the ruins, and set up a system of outdoor peeing…Boys went first, then the girls. There we were, lined up in a row, popping a squat.

As soon as we had finished, we turned around and say actual bathrooms on the top of the hill. Woops.

From that little grove we wandered to some more ruins which were currently being unearthed by a team of folks. Nearby there was what I assume is the only remaining true tourist attraction of the town…the Zlatna Chirkva (Golden Church).

To be honest, I can no better describe the church than its name can. It was yellow, and a church. End of story.

After schlepping around in that set of ruins, we re-boarded the bus and headed to Shumen, one of the bigger Bulgarian cities.

Becca being Grudzina

We arrived in Shumen just at noon, and immediately headed for the main event in town…the huge-ass monument to Bulgarian liberation at the top of a mountain. It’s a thousand-and-some stairs up, and worth every huff and puff.

As usual, I got stuck in a middle gap between the kids who rushed ahead and the kids who lagged behind. I was alone, but it didn’t disturb me because hell, it’s a big staircase. How could I get lost?

I made it up about a billion of the stairs and came to a road. There was an abandoned café in front of me, and a road that went off to my left. Thinking I had made it to the top and needed to just find the monument, I followed the road.

I followed and followed. It went through a little forest, then crossed the plateau on the top of the mountain. For three or four kilometers I walked, all the time thinking I was close, that I HAD to be closing in on it.

Eventually, I did. I saw the huge stone walls across a meadow, and walked towards it.

When I got there, I was alone. It was dead silent except for the wind howling over the mountain and echoing in the stone chamber. I was alone in a world of gray stone statues, twenty-times as big as myself, holding swords and scowls, on the top of a hill with no town or people in sight. And friends, it was creepy.

Just as I was starting to freak out (I had held it off for a good long time), I found the slowpokes from my group. “Wow, where were you?” they asked. I told them I had taken the road, and they all laughed, silly American. They took my camera, snapped a photo of me next to one of the stone beasts, and showed me where the staircase was.

Where I had turned left and followed the road, I SHOULD have taken a hidden stairwell to the right of the abandoned café. Again, woops.

The Mysterious Toschko

Once I made it down the kajillion stairs, I wandered to the town center to meet the bus. We boarded and headed out to Madara, a small town near Shumen known only for it’s ancient carving of a horse, dog and lion on a cliff.

Most of the kids didn’t care about the carving, so they stayed at the bus and Toschko and I took the good…I mean interested…kids up the stairs.

At the top, some of my fifth and sixth graders stared pointing things out to me. After a few minutes, I looked up and saw Toschko “talking” with this group of two women and a man.

I couldn’t understand what was happening. He was speaking broken Bulgarian and using his hands with random English words. At first I thought the people were Bulgarian, and I couldn’t understand why he was talking that way to them. This went on for a good minute or two until he saw me looking at him.

“Becca, Deutsch!” he called to me, pointing at the people. In Toschko language, I knew this meant they were Germans.

In English, one of the women said, “We aren’t German. We’re Swiss.”

The English, as it always does now, caught me off guard and I stared at them for a moment. Then I said, “Oh, you speak English?”

“Yes,” the woman said. “Do you?”

“Yes,” I said. “Toschko was trying to explain to you what is carved into the cliff.”

At the mention of his name, Toschko perked up and yelled to the kids, “Kazhete na Angliski ‘kohn!’” (Say ‘horse’ in English!)

All of my little fifth and sixth graders hollered, “Horse! Horse! Horse!” and began flailing their arms pointing to the horse on the cliff.

“A sega, ‘kuche’!” (And now, ‘dog!’) Toschko yelled.

“Dog! Dog! Dog!” the kids replied, this time franticly pointing to the dog.

The poor Swiss tourists had no clue what was happening. Finally the other woman said, “Oh, we read about this in the book.” Then she added, “Are you a school group?”

I explained that we were on a school trip, and that these were my students who were eager to try out their English.

“So, you are Bulgarian?” she asked.

“No, no. I’m American. I am just teaching here,” I said.

“Oh, I THOUGHT you spoke English awfully well,” she said with a chuckle.

By that time Toschko and the kids had become bored with all the English and started to leave me behind to go to the caves. Not wanting a repeat of the Shumen mishap, I trotted off after them. Unfortunately, the caves were closed (a rock fell on a kid last fall and they decided it was unsafe…) so we headed to the bus and rolled on to Varna.

Introduction to Zarko’s Whistle

Zarko (one of my fifth grade boys) bought a whistle in Shumen, one of those recorder-type whistles sold the world over. It became a full-blown character of the story, in my opinion.

As soon as he got it, it was evident that he and Naska, one of my colleagues, would exist at opposite ends of the whistle-spectrum – Zarko on the side that the whistle was always appropriate, and Naska on the side that it was better used as a weapon.

Zarko played and played. On the bus he played. He played in the toilet and when wandering outside. He tooted it along with the songs on the radio, tunelessly but rhythmically. He did it without malice, but without regard to those around him and just how annoying it was.

Finally, as we neared Varna, Naska had had enough. She had told him to put it away, stop playing it, but he had continued, and she wasn’t in a good mood anymore. She grabbed the whistle from the boy, and smacked his hand with it.

He huffed and reached for it. She snapped his hand again.

An older boy came up to ask if he could smoke. Naska was fed up with him to, and smacked him with the whistle.

Zarko began to cry. “Not the whistle! Not my whistle!” The older boy cowered beneath the light smacks, but didn’t relent. Naska kept smacking him, and Zarko kept wailing “Not my whistle!”

After a while the boy returned to his seat, Zarko calmed down, and Naska kept the whistle caught in her tight fist. But it was not the end of the story of the whistle…

White White People

On our way to Varna we stopped at the second capital of Bulgaria, the name of which escapes me, to climb around the old basilica ruins.

We arrived in Varna around 4 p.m., the sea capital of Bulgaria, and were dropped off by the Archeological Museum in the town center.

It was a special day at the museum. It was one of the rare occasions when the collection of the world’s oldest worked gold (which is almost entirely made up of gold found in Bulgaria) had found its way home to Varna. Most of the time it travels the world, only returning to Bulgaria once every several years.

Some of this stuff was amazing. No, scratch that, all of it was. I am not generally terribly impressed with Bulgarian museums (it happens when you’ve lived in London…), but THIS impressed me. The younger kids really appreciated it. The older kids tolerated it while waiting for their next cigarette.

Once we were done there we set the kids free in the city (a common feature of Bulgarian fieldtrips) and we teachers headed for some grub. After two hours, we boarded the bus and went to our hotel – a “Rest Center” north of the town.

Since Bulgarians don’t have much money, and their resorts’ prices are catered to foreign wallets, they rarely have a choice but to stay in such Rest Centers rather than hotels. Rooms are generally clean, but Spartan. This center we were sharing with a group of Russians who were on their 23-day vacation.

These Russians were…white. They were literally the whitest white people I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been to Sweden in November. It was as if their skin had never seen sun, EVER. While we were all putting on sweatshirts and jean jackets to ward off the evening chill, they were in bathing suits and flip-flops.

Most of my kids have studied a little Russian, and the languages are close enough that with hand gestures, they could understand one another. The Russians, however, did not understand MY Bulgarian, but had studied English.

The center was not in any town, so the kids’ antics were confined to the pool and the immediate area, another bonus to the out-of-the-way rest center. I slept in a room with the other three female teachers (Rosie, Tanya and Naska), and actually got a decent night’s sleep.

A Changing Bulgaria

Day two started with the same monastery built into a cliff I saw the first time I went to Varna. Cost of admittance had increased from 50 stotinki (like 30 cents) to 2 leva (like $1.50) due to the new rules that Bulgarians and foreigners must pay the same price for things. While this may not seem like much, when you have budgeted a trip to last stotinka, it’s a hit.

Once we had our look around we headed to Balchik, a town further north up the coast. The main sight there is this amazing botanical garden overlooking the sea, which tops any garden I have ever seen.

I ended up wandering around with my little group of fifth graders. While precious, they were also annoying as hell.

Each one of them wanted their picture taken in exactly the same place, but by themselves. This basically meant that every ten minutes I had to take four separate pictures of the same exact thing, only switching up the kid. When I suggested group shots, they all scowled and huffed. Then I called them Japanese tourists, and though I doubt they got the joke, it became our little catch phrase. I’d say, “Where are the Japanese tourists?” and they’d all come running.

After the gardens we drove to Cape Kaliakra. It is a cape with these crazy high and jagged cliffs and a tragic legend…Apparently when the Turks were invading, some of the Christian girls who lived on the cape decided they’d rather die than be raped by the Muslim Turks, so they tied their braids to the rocks, wrapped them around their necks, and jumped off of the cliff to hang themselves. There is a creepy monument depicting this at the entrance to the cape.

Besides being a beautiful, very wild-looking spot, there wasn’t much to do. We took our photos and headed out towards Silistra on the Danube.

Not So Blue

I hadn’t yet seen the Danube, so I was very excited. You hear so much about it…It’s more famous than even the Mississippi! But, like the Mississippi, it is just a river, a fact that hits you when you visit it and see, yup…it’s water with land on the other side. (Granted, in this case the land was Romania, but still).

After touring the city’s fort, we were set loose in the center for a while to find food and find the river. Some of the boys immediately found beers to drink, which infuriated Tanya, who until that point had been overly lax with the kids. “Most of them have never SEEN the Danube,” she said. “They aren’t people!”

Once we had taken a sufficient amount of photos, we herded up the kids and found our second “hotel,” – an old communist campsite outside of the town. (During communism they used to send kids to these camps where they lived in dorms and such. Now they are run down, but still operate for such trips).

It was in the boondocks, if ever I’ve seen boondocks. Flat river-plain all around. Grass up to your ass. A brick building that had once been an attractive dorm now dilapidated to a roof and some walls.

I was in a room with Rosie, which shared a bathroom with the room where my fifth grade girls slept. Rosie and I and the other teachers lingered outside chatting while the kids caused a raucous inside. At around 10 p.m. I went inside to find my cell phone and found my girls hiding in their room.

“Gospozho! There was a MOUSE!” they cried.

Not sure I had understood them, I asked, “A mouse?”

“Yes!” they yelled. “We called one of the older boys and he chased it out, but it went into your room!”

Great, I thought.

As I was getting ready for bed, Mitko, one of the sixth grade boys who is a bit of a pansy and had been with the fifth grade girls for most of the trip, asked me if he could sleep in their room because he was scared to sleep downstairs with the older (and drunk) kids. I couldn’t make him do it, so I told him it was fine.

A few minutes later Galka, one of the fifth grade girls, came and said they didn’t want him busting in on their slumber party. In an effort to salvage the kids’ feelings, I told him he had to come sleep in the room with Rosie and I to protect her from the mouse. He took the bait, and took his responsibility seriously by sleeping with a shoe in his hand.

Payback’s a B****

The kids partied and partied. They drank beer they had bought in town. They played loud music and danced and danced. Naska was on duty that night, and the kids never let her go to sleep. With Naska, apparently, this was a mistake.

Naska is a matronly lady, and as such she is accustomed to disciplining children with smacks and hollers. When she was denied sleep, her usual ways were heightened by acute sleep deprivation and a thirst for revenge.

When we boarded the bus, the older kids looked rough. Haggard. Utterly hung over and tired.

Naska grabbed the bus microphone and announced, “No one will sleep. You didn’t sleep last night, so you will not sleep on this bus.” She then brandished a stick she had found outside. “If you fall asleep, I’ll hit you with this stick.”

A few minutes into the drive, the kids in the back of the bus started to nod off.

Zarko began to toot his whistle again. But instead of Naska yelling at him, she grinned at him and said, “Go play that in the back.”

Happily, he hopped out of his seat and ran to the back of the bus, playing nonsensical notes into his whistle and squeaking and bouncing around.

A few minutes later there was a loud screech and Zarko came barreling up the aisle with an eight grader at his heels. The older kid grabbed the whistle and started smacking Zarko with it, pushing him into his seat. Naska stood up and started beating the older kid with her stick. The eight grader hightailed it back to his seat, and Zarko grinned at Naska.

We stopped briefly in Ruse, the most European city in Bulgaria, and then began the long trek home. From that time on, there are no stories really worth recounting…It was hot, and everyone was exhausted.

We arrived back in Straldja around 6 p.m., just as dusk reached its prettiest. And we all headed home to rest.