So, my time is up in Bulgaria. In a little under two hours, I will leave the small town where I've worked for the past two years on a bicycle on my way to western Europe. There will be tearful good-byes. But, as they say in Bulgarian, "What can you do?" It has been an amazing experience, to become a part of the school and the community. I felt rootless in America and here I have found a home. A home is a valuable thing to have and it's hard to turn your back on it, but we all do it at some point. I may have posted this poem on here before, I can't remember. But, it's one of my favorites and it captures the ambivalence, if not futility, of leaving:

Philip Larkin Sometimes you hear, fifth-hand, As epitaph: He chucked up everything And just cleared off, And always the voice will sound Certain you approve This audacious, purifying, Elemental move. And they are right, I think. We all hate home And having to be there: I detest my room, It's specially-chosen junk, The good books, the good bed, And my life, in perfect order: So to hear it said He walked out on the whole crowd Leaves me flushed and stirred, Like Then she undid her dress Or Take that you bastard; Surely I can, if he did? And that helps me to stay Sober and industrious. But I'd go today, Yes, swagger the nut-strewn roads, Crouch in the fo'c'sle Stubbly with goodness, if It weren't so artificial, Such a deliberate step backwards To create an object: Books; china; a life Reprehensibly perfect.

I'll be cycling across Europe for 60 days, finishing up on the Atlantic coast of Ireland, looking out over the Cliffs of Moher. You can follow my trip here. It promises to be interesting.

Grand opening of the new and improved stadium on May 21st. There is now water.

The only word I understand from this song also happens to serve as its title: Auschwitz. Of course, you don't need to speak Romany to understand it. The melody carries the weight of the meaning quite easily. It feels old, older than it is, worn down over time, shaped and molded until only the essential remained.

It comes from a scene in Latcho Drom, a film that follows the migration of the Roma people out of India, across Asia Minor, and into Europe. There is no dialogue in the film, only music and the occasional dance captured on rich 35mm. It is a film that you wouldn't think could exist and yet there it is. It is, in that way, much like the people of its subject.

According to several thermometers in town today, the temperature dipped to around -20 C (-4 F) today. Relatedly, I came across this article today from Outside magazine about freezing to death. (via 3QuarksDaily)

There is no precise core temperature at which the human body perishes from cold. At Dachau's cold-water immersion baths, Nazi doctors calculated death to arrive at around 77 degrees Fahrenheit. The lowest recorded core temperature in a surviving adult is 60.8 degrees. For a child it's lower: In 1994, a two-year-old girl in Saskatchewan wandered out of her house into a minus-40 night. She was found near her doorstep the next morning, limbs frozen solid, her core temperature 57 degrees. She lived.And, also, this:

You're lying alone in the bitter cold, naked from the waist up. You grasp your terrible misunderstanding, a whole series of misunderstandings, like a dream ratcheting into wrongness. You've shed your clothes, your car, your oil-heated house in town. Without this ingenious technology you're simply a delicate, tropical organism whose range is restricted to a narrow sunlit band that girds the earth at the equator.

I'd never really thought of humanity as a "tropical" species even though it's so obviously true. Our bodies are completely unequipped for winter, which makes it all the more amazing that humanity has settled a place like Norway. One final quote:

You've seen that in the infinite reaches of the universe, heat is as glorious and ephemeral as the light of the stars. Heat exists only where matter exists, where particles can vibrate and jump. In the infinite winter of space, heat is tiny; it is the cold that is huge.

I've always found the idea of a cold, unwelcoming universe oddly comforting. It makes the warmth we find here all the more special.

I haven't taken any pictures of the cold. Luckily, James has got me covered.

Interesting radio story from The World about 4 women from Brooklyn who sing traditional Bulgarian folk songs in a group called Black Sea Hotel. They also sing Macedonian folk songs, but as any Bulgarian will tell you, they're pretty much the same. You can download their CD here.

This is a blurb by a 3rd grader on the Internews website, a non-profit international media development organization:

"Before I never used to pay much attention to the news . . . But now, I’m a lot more interested. Before I just used to be aware of the presenter on screen. But now I think about the process going on behind the screen, all the constraints of the profession and so on. It’s been a discovery." — Sabrina, a third grade student at Lycée Victor Hugo, in the Paris suburb of Aulnay- sous-Bois, after Internews Europe sent a journalist to her school. I don't know about the 3rd graders you've been hanging out with lately, but the ones I know don't use phrases like "It's been a discovery". Even taking into account a probable translation from the French, it smacks of PR speak.

It sounds like a lot of anecdotes from developmental organizations, stories like the one from Nicholas Negroponte, founder of One Laptop Per Child, aimed at providing $100 laptops to every child in the developing world. He told a story on this episode of To The Best Of Our Knowledge about a teacher who decided to retire out of fear of having to work with the new laptops. However, after she works with the computers for a week and becomes comfortable with them, she decides to come back to school and take a late-retirement in order to work with the new laptops.

It feels like just the sort of anecdote people want to hear. Poor, technologically illiterate people in the developing world embracing technology and changing their lives for the better. And here is why it rings false to me: real change happens gradually and over the course of time. It is difficult and time-consuming and comes with certain sacrifices. The truth is much more complicated.

Epiphanies are rare and not to be trusted, they are story devices shoe-horned into the truth, they're what we tell each other after-wards, the soundbites of our lives. The apocryphal apple falling on Newton's head didn't gently share the secret of gravity. He figured that out through an incredible amount of work. Maybe 3rd grade Sabrina was moved by a journalist's speech from Internews, but she won't be able to articulate why until she starts working for the newspaper in high school. Actual change is something altogether more complicated than what can be captured in an epiphany. And that's why it's so hard.

If you distilled Bulgaria down and, by some quirk of quirks, it didn't turn out to be rakia, it would be Boyko Borisov. He is the current prime minister of Bulgaria, and for better or worse, about as representative of his country as heads of state come: the rough unpolished charm, the murky past, the non-mincing of words. He is a tough guy in a country that values toughness, a big brother type figure ("Brother Boyko") in a country that has always looked for big brothers, and a no-nonsense pragmatist in a place where nonsense (gluposti) runs rampant. It is too early to say whether or not he will guide the country towards economic prosperity, much less be the first PM to be re-elected since the transition to democracy, but whatever he does do, he will fully represent Bulgaria in all of its contradictory glory.

Here is an update on his term thus far from The Economist.

Quick link to a Peace Corps Partnership Project, "English Language Lab", put together by a fellow B-23. She is trying to bring a little life (and English) to a school that is located in a place called the "Valley of Death". You can help.

Here's the executive summary:

This project is a language lab for a primary school in a largely Roma community. Knowledge of the English language is quickly becoming a vital skill in Bulgaria as well as the rest of the world. Students with a strong background in English often have increased opportunities for future careers and education. This project will provide English-Bulgarian dictionaries, books, films, and other media for language learning. In addition, the project includes a multimedia center in the classroom with a computer, television, and music system to introduce technology and other educational materials. With these new materials, students will have access to a more active learning environment that will cater to various learning styles and create a more attractive classroom setting. This room will be used for school English classes, as well as numerous after school activities and tutorials, including English Club and film days. The community will provide the classroom, as well as existing classroom materials, labor and various other supplies. The school is committed to developing an inviting environment and is energetic about this project.

Many Bulgarian schools lack a dedicated school library. Either there isn't the staff to run it or the resources required simply can't be justified, i.e. students don't read. Which, begs the question, would students read if there was a culture of reading and studying at school?

The students at a school a friend of mine teaches at have the answer. They just need a place to get started. He has put together a project with his school to turn an unused classroom into a multimedia library and study center. The school's students have been raising money for over a year through various and sundry fund-raising events, but still need another $1,633 to bring the project to fruition. Consider donating to the cause. Make a donation here.

Here's the executive summary:

The students and faculty of this primary school want to convert one of the unused classrooms into a multimedia library and study center. It will house important reference materials for all subjects taught here, which have been recommended by the teachers. We are seeking help with funding in order to purchase materials for a multimedia library, including print encyclopedias and digital reference materials. The community will also seek funding for several desks and a laptop computer. The library study center will provide students with the space and materials to develop the capacity to answer questions and research subjects that interest them on their own. It will also be a place where students can, after school hours, continue their study with access to reference materials with teachers’ supervision and help. Eventually, this library study center will also provide the place and materials necessary for the teachers to consistently incorporate multimedia materials into their lesson planning, expanding their working knowledge of modern education techniques and thereby increasing their capacity as effective teachers. Our fundraising efforts have sought donations from students’ parents in the form of cash and used books. We have also managed to raise some money through raffles and selling Christmas cards at the village market. The community will also provide donations in the form of labor in cleaning and repairing the room.

When I arrived at site a little a year and a half ago, I was taken on a tour of the town by my counterpart, Pavlina, and my language tutor, Vili. We visited different shops, the church, the cultural center, and various and sundry other places that I can no longer remember. What I do remember is going to the football stadium for the first time. It is on the outskirts of town and as we walked there they both seemed a little hesitant to show it to me. They referred to it as "The Jungle" and "Jurassic Park" because of the overgrown grass and towering weeds. There was a tiny patch of the playing field that was used by local kids to kick around a soccer ball. The track was covered with tall grass as well and wasn't easily discernible as a track. Here is a picture I took several days later:

I was surprised to learn that our town football team actually played their home games in another town nearby. A great deal of money had obviously been spent when it was built. There were bleachers surrounding the entire stadium, a field house with electricity and water, and a dedicated drainage system for the field. It was built in the mid-1980s and functioned until a little after the fall of Communism. As the country faced crisis after crisis during the long and bumpy transition to democracy, things started to disappear from the stadium. The metal piping that made up the fence surrounding the complex were among the first to go. The field house was stripped of its electrical wiring. The wooden bleachers slowly and methodically disappeared. From what I understand, formal football games stopped being played there after the mid-1990s.

This past summer, my counterpart and I, along with the mayor, started the long and arduous task of putting together a project through the Peace Corps Partnership Program to renovate the stadium. We put together a detailed budget and slowly gathered information. Just before submitting the project to the Peace Corps for approval, we learned of a nationwide competition sponsored by Evrofootball, a sports gambling company. Twelve projects, out of over 100 submitted, would be given funding to renovate or build a sports facility. Eleven of the projects were decided by a special jury and one was decided by popular vote. In the end, our project, from our small town, against much larger towns, won the popular vote. And there was much rejoicing. The project will include new grass turf, electricity for the field house, and a water pump that will allow for field irrigation.

This is somewhat old news, seeing as it happened a month ago. But, I've been blog negligent. I am an inveterate binge blogger. As I've now begun rehearsals for a production of "A Christmas Carol" with my school, I probably won't be doing a whole lot of writing here between now and December 22nd. In fact, I probably won't be doing much of anything else either. Collaborating with a large number of people here can be an exhausting experience. It's a constant struggle to motivate students and overcome expectations of failure. Petty rivalries and insecurities regularly flare up and hinder progress. Professional experience or skill is in short supply.

That being said, I'm extremely grateful for the people and students who I have been able to work and become friends with thus far. As I venture into the last seven months of my time here, it has begun to sink in just how much this place means to me and how hard it will be to leave.

We all know making an activity fun is a good way to get people to engage in it. Here we have a bit of whimsical proof:

I agree to a large extent. The problem, however, lies in how quickly we become bored. Those stairs for example: How long will they remain interesting for daily commuters? After several weeks, will they still be taking the stairs? Or, will the discordant notes just annoy them?

To keep a person's interest requires a huge amount of work; to keep 30 spastic 5th graders' attention requires superhuman effort and a deep reserve of patience; patience that I have lost more than a few times. And while I agree that there should be an element of fun in the educational process, I also wonder if we don't cater too much to our attention spans. Scientific research suggests that the ability to focus and delay gratification as children can indicate future success as adults. Can those traits be learned? How do we promote them?

I am now a published translator.

A poet friend of mine, Bisser, came to me over the summer to ask if I could translate some of his poems into English for a new book of poetry. I had translated a short story for him in the past for a collaborative writing project he created, but I found poetry slightly more intimidating. I first put out a call to other volunteers who might be interested in helping out by translating two or three poems. In the end, another volunteer helped to translate 4 of the 25. So, I sat down with Pavlina, my counterpart, and we translated the other 21 over the course of several weeks. It was a slow but gratifying process. She would help me with parts that I didn't quite grasp and I would shape them into something resembling poetry. It was a pleasure to chew on words and parse meanings.

I don't consider myself a poet in any sense of the word, but I am relatively pleased with the result. The book, called Foxtrot, began its first print of 500 copies several weeks ago. I went to a reading in a nearby town on Friday where I learned that it was the first book of poems printed in both Bulgarian and English in the region.

Here's a poem from the book that expresses a need quite simply.

CHAPBOOK

I want to write a chapbook-

tiny, smart, pocket-sized,

a small mouse that startles you,

quiet, yet with a machine gun’s strafe.

I don’t want to act a prophet

by charting charted lands.

Simply, in words I am looking for rescue,

they are sharp, double-edged daggers.

If I find an island of words,

where you also find a sanctum,

it means there are invisible bridges

and my poetry was not written in vain.

I want, in the fear that I too will pass away,

simply to know, that some time after,

someone’s extinguished heart,

might reignite at a single word.

A word from my small, shaggy book-

tiny, smart, pocket-sized,

a small mouse that startles you,

quiet, yet with a machine gun’s strafe.

One of the contributors to my favorite music blog, Said the Gramophone, is producing and acting in a new "comedy webseries" eponymously titled "The Bitter End". The set-up is two brothers, Bernard and Les, temporarily living together in Montreal. Hilarity ensues as Bernard pines for and ineptly tries to woo an actress/waitress/poetess and Les attempts to get his life in order after a stint in rehab. It is, in two words, good television. Thus far, two episodes have been released with four more on the way. First episode here.

Sometimes, in an effort to get a ridiculous fair and balanced slant on the news, I see what's going on over at Fox News. They rarely disappoint. This was the front page online yesterday:

There is so much going on here. The bold block lettering reminiscent of news alerts; the imposing "1 IN 4"; the Earth looming in the background, looking like a still from Independence Day; the thousands of assembled Muslims praying en masse. You could cut the xenophobia with a knife.

Other headlines that they cut due to length:

"1 in 4 worldwide now make you nervous on planes"

"1 in 4 worldwide now want your daughters"

"1 in 4 worldwide now secretly watch Turkish soap operas"

"1 in 4 worldwide now are just plain wrong. You know?"

And, finally.

"THE MUSLIMS ARE COMING! THE MUSLIMS ARE COMING!"

Last spring, I watched a film called Chop Shop, directed by Ramin Bahrani. It's about a young Latino kid fending for himself and his sister in New York's Iron Triangle district. It's a small story, but it carries a weight and heft that is well-earned. Bahrani is uncompromising in his determination to not stoop to cheap manipulation. It rings true, which is a rare quality in film these days.

Bahrani is a relatively young director of Iranian descent who grew up in Winston-Salem, NC. He has made four films, three of which have found wide release. They all deal with how cultural outsiders navigate their world, more specifically, how American immigrants and their families work and live in America. They drive taxis, sell bagels and coffee, help out at an auto parts shop. They are ever-striving and determined to make their way in spite of difficult circumstances. They are the face of America that you don't see as often on-screen, but who make up a huge percentage of the population. Bahrani shows remarkable restraint in telling their stories. There is emotion, but it lies underneath the surface, only very occasionally bubbling over into shouts or fights.

I watched his first major film, Man Push Cart, yesterday. It's about a former Pakistani rock star who now finds himself pulling a bagel cart in the pre-dawn hours of New York to sell breakfast to the morning crowds. In the hands of a less-skilled director, this could've been a terrible movie, replete with flashbacks to the glory days in Pakistan, a benefactor who guides him on to success, a love interest who completes him, etc. Instead, we get something altogether more complicated and interesting and tragic and uplifting. It resembles life.

Today I watched Goodbye Solo, his latest film set in his hometown of Winston-Salem. The basic premise, again, sounds like a bad film. An elderly man gets into a taxi and offers to pay the driver, who happens to be African, $1,000 to drive him to a set of cliffs called Blowing Rock in western North Carolina and to leave him there. The taxi driver, sensing what the man plans to do, spends the film trying to convince him not to go.

The three movies could easily be a trilogy. The running theme in Bahrani's work is that of outsiders determinedly struggling to find their way. It sounds simplistic and broad and it is. And, maybe that's why it resonates so much. Because we all feel like outsiders to some extent or another and we are all struggling to find our way, whether we live in Bulgaria, New York City, or Winston-Salem, NC.

The apocalypse draweth near. From the NY Times, via 3quarksdaily:

For more than 500 years the book has been a remarkably stable entity: a coherent string of connected words, printed on paper and bound between covers. But in the age of the iPhone, Kindle and YouTube, the notion of the book is becoming increasingly elastic as publishers mash together text, video and Web features in a scramble to keep readers interested in an archaic form of entertainment. On Thursday, for instance, Simon & Schuster, the publisher of Ernest Hemingway and Stephen King, is working with a multimedia partner to release four “vooks,” which intersperse videos throughout electronic text that can be read — and viewed — online or on an iPhone or iPod Touch.

1. "Vook", if it sticks, will join "blog" and "tweet" in the pantheon of ridiculous terms related to the Internets. Can you imagine the red-faced shame at telling someone you're reading a "vook"?

2. Granted, this new technology could be great if used as a supplement in, say, books about music (I'm thinking something along the lines of "The Rest Is Noise") or film (clips from mentioned scenes). However, call me old fashioned, but I don't want no video in my stinkin' novels.

3. I had a third point, but my attention span gave out.

4. Read more here.

I am, in a word, sick. This is not a new phenomenon. As sure as seasons change, so do I find myself with the typical symptoms: sore throat, hacking cough, congested sinuses. Last year, as friends can attest, I coughed for the better part of the winter and on into spring. It has gotten to the point where it has become a part of my identity, the coughing man. This gives me an idea for a crime story: a street-hardened criminal with a pulmonary problem who spends his days in the downtown Chicago Public Library reading comics in the carrels and his nights burglarizing the fair residents of the North Shore... that is, until he is identified by an elderly woman who also frequents the library and, though legally blind, is able to identify him by his hacking, idiosyncratic cough. In prison, he is strangled by his cell mate who, in his defense, claims, "He wouldn't stop the coughing. I told him to stop the coughing."

Being sick isn't conducive to living abroad. In fact, it's when I'm sick that I feel the strongest pull of home. All I want is the known and the comfortable. Which brings me to an interesting article in the New York Times about the mind and disorientation:

... the new research supports what many experimental artists, habitual travelers and other novel seekers have always insisted: at least some of the time, disorientation begets creative thinking.

I feel so uncreative right now.

At a dinner soon after I first arrived in town, a Bulgarian friend referenced "Twin Peaks". I was first surprised to hear a "Twin Peaks" reference and then surprised to hear it in reference to what was, by all appearances, a town that could pass for a Bulgarian version of Mayberry. Regardless, the joke stuck and when something ridiculous occurs here, my group of friends trot out, "Twin Peaks". I hadn't seen it since high school and the plot details were fuzzy. I couldn't remember who killed Laura Palmer, but I remembered the bizarre dream sequence in which a dwarf voice is reversed and dances loosely to mellow jazz music in the red light. One line from Ben Horne to his daughter after she ruins the Norwegian business deal had particular personal relevance this time that it surely didn't when I watched it the first time:

If you ever pull another stunt like that, you are going to be scrubbing bidets in a Bulgarian convent.For what it's worth, I have seen neither bidets nor convents in Bulgaria.

The hammered blue skies gave way to the preferred pallor of winter this weekend. Fog snaked its way down the mountains, investing them with mystery and menace. It was a perfect setting in which to watch "Twin Peaks". Bulgaria, especially its small towns and villages, is eminently cinematic: the decay and rust, the gaudy luster of new buildings, all of the little irregularities, the wide Thracian expanse, the thickly treed mountains. If I had money, I would sink some of it into making a film here.

A fantastic article about poverty's influence on cognitive development in the NY Times (from 2006). Paul Tough writes (wrote?) about education for the NY Times and is a regular contributor to This American Life. He published a book that expands on this article.

He sums up some recent research:

Taken together, the conclusions of these researchers can be a little unsettling. Their work seems to reduce a child’s upbringing, which to a parent can feel something like magic, to a simple algorithm: give a child X, and you get Y. Their work also suggests that the disadvantages that poverty imposes on children aren’t primarily about material goods. True, every poor child would benefit from having more books in his home and more nutritious food to eat (and money certainly makes it easier to carry out a program of concerted cultivation). But the real advantages that middle-class children gain come from more elusive processes: the language that their parents use, the attitudes toward life that they convey. However you measure child-rearing, middle-class parents tend to do it differently than poor parents — and the path they follow in turn tends to give their children an array of advantages. As Lareau points out, kids from poor families might be nicer, they might be happier, they might be more polite — but in countless ways, the manner in which they are raised puts them at a disadvantage in the measures that count in contemporary American society.

It treads issues of class, poverty, and self-determination and comes to unsettling conclusions. We would like to live in a world where "success" in life is determined by factors within our control. Society needs, at the very least, the illusion of self-determination. A lot of America's lore is based on this idea. And yet...

They found, first, that vocabulary growth differed sharply by class and that the gap between the classes opened early. By age 3, children whose parents were professionals had vocabularies of about 1,100 words, and children whose parents were on welfare had vocabularies of about 525 words. The children’s I.Q.’s correlated closely to their vocabularies. The average I.Q. among the professional children was 117, and the welfare children had an average I.Q. of 79.I wish I could say my teaching experience here last school year didn't conform to the findings of this study. It sounds like vague scientific proof for classist crackpot ideas. And yet, I can say, in my admittedly anecdotal experience, that my work with students from vastly different socio-economic spectrums, roughly confirms these ideas. Teaching the Bulgarian alphabet to 4th graders was a much-needed lesson in patience. Some of my 7th graders would lose English vocabulary like water from a sieve. That being said, I still believe there is a complexity to these issues that cannot only be addressed from a socio-economic perspective. Issues of class, for the moment, mingle with issues of race. Anecdote. A good Bulgarian friend of mine sat drinking coffee at a cafe in town with a Roma friend. The owner, just having arrived, confronted them and said, "If you want to associate with him (the Roma man), do it at your own house." My friend, in telling me afterwards, noted that his Roma friend had made decent money working in Greece. He was dressed normally. He, simply, was Roma.

Finally, Tough asks:

What would it take to overcome these disadvantages? Does poverty itself need to be eradicated, or can its effects on children somehow be counteracted? Can the culture of child-rearing be changed in poor neighborhoods, and if so, is that a project that government or community organizations have the ability, or the right, to take on? Is it enough simply to educate poor children in the same way that middle-class children are educated? And can any school, on its own, really provide an education to poor minority students that would allow them to achieve the same results as middle-class students? These are questions, particularly the last one, that my school is struggling with.

On a less depressing topic, several weeks ago, I finished this mural with my good friend and Bulgarian language tutor, Vili, who will be teaching 1st grade this year. She picked out the picture (Winnie The Pooh is popular here) and we projected it onto the wall using the school's projector and my laptop. Despite neither of us considering ourselves particularly artistic and in spite of the fact that we are both red-green colorblind, we're both quite proud of the results.

We worked on ladders, dabbing at it with tempera over the course of several weeks, listening to country music on my laptop and old Bulgarian pop music on a small cassette player. The slow, methodical process of applying paint while music softly plays and insects buzz somewhere outside will long remain as a pleasant summer memory. The mural was part of an overall light renovation of the 1st grade classroom. Vili varnished the cabinets and floor and painted one of the other walls. Her new students this year, including an English girl who does not speak Bulgarian, will quickly find out just how lucky they are to have her as a teacher.

I re-discovered Uno last week and, in the process, that I love talking smack with kids in games of competition. I was at a camp in the mountains with other PC volunteers and kids who were from a kind of "home for delinquents". Some of them were orphans, some had committed petty crimes, some had run-away from home, but they all seemed to share one thing in common: a love for Uno.

The card-shark amongst them was Angel, a small boy with a big smile and a cocked baseball cap. He was a fierce competitor who did not suffer fools gladly, throwing cards back at kids ("that's a 6, not a 9!") and making sure the game moved in a swift fashion ("What are you doing, man?! It's your turn!") He sat next to me and our general patter went like this:

Angel: You're going to lose.

Me: No, you're going to lose.

Angel: You think so? We'll see.

Me: Yes, we will see.

Angel: Okay, let's see. (slams down a "Draw 4" and hands me 4 cards) Who's going to lose?!

Me: You are. You will see. You will be the who loses, my friend.

Angel: (sings a line from a song that involves loving Shopska salads which he later plays for me on a cell phone)

They reminded me of many of my students at my school, the major difference being that they were growing up in a place where they lacked the kind of daily support, guidance, and love that only (good) parents can provide their children. And, they are keenly aware of this, sopping up the least bit of attention thrown their way. As I was leaving, I talked with a kid who'd I'd made fast friends with:

Radcho: (puts his arm on my shoulder) We're friends, right?

Me: Yeah, of course.

Radcho: Why are you leaving?

Me: I've got other work I have to do.

Radcho: Are you coming back?

Me: (I really wanted to say "maybe", but instead, I was honest) No, I can't.

photo courtesy of Lauren N.

The kids are lucky enough to have wonderfully dedicated Peace Corps volunteers who work at their school every day. I came only for a day and a night to throw a frisbee around and play cards. I am one among many well-meaning people who flit in and out of their lives and I left wondering about the net effect of it all. Does positive attention, if ever fleeting, help them in some infinitely small way? Or, does it remind them again of what they're missing? I think the answer to both questions is yes.

Madonna is playing a concert in Sofia on August 29th. Darik Radio, the only private national radio station in Bulgaria, recently aired a ten-second spot featuring a message in English from Madonna to her fans: “Hello Bulgaria, this is Madonna and I expect to see you at the August 29 show in Sofia in Vassil Levski Stadium." Innocent enough. However, in Bulgaria, it is illegal to advertise over the radio in a foreign language. Darik Radio was slapped with a fine by Bulgaria's Council for Electronic Medio that will be anywhere between 2,000 and 15,000 leva. To give some perspective, 6,000 leva is about a year's salary.

I'd be curious to know the origin of this legislation. It has the distinct whiff of nationalist fervor that serves to keep Turkish or Romani off the airwaves. It's this kind of attempt to control culture and free speech that annoys me and that, in the end, is fruitless. Cultures will continue to change and metamorphize as they have since the beginning of human civilization. No amount of legislation will change that. Can we not recognize and be proud who we are while also allowing room for what we will become?

I was wondering what Americans were doing with their time.

I have been utterly remiss in my blogging duties. School has ended. Summer is here. I feel great. Perhaps that is why I haven't posted in a while. Contentment doesn't lend itself to blogging. I'm working on organizing a few things at the moment. Time is swiftly moving. I will post something more substantial very soon. Perhaps music. Promise.

I put together this radio piece in April for a more general audience.

I have been unforgivably absent over the last month. I assure you, I am alive and well and living in Bulgaria.

This article in the Washington Post details how translation technology is making slow and steady progress. Will my work here, at least the teaching English part, be for naught in 20 years? Will every tourist have translation software on their smart phone? What will the implications be for how we interact with each other? (If you don't want to register with the Washington Post to read the article, you can use the oh-so-useful Bug Me Not to find a valid username and password.)

Also, from The Economist, English continues its march apace towards the world's Second Language:

Among Europeans born before the second world war, English, French and German are almost equally common. But according to a Eurobarometer survey, 15-to-24-year-olds are five times more likely to speak English as a foreign language than either German or French. Add native speakers to those who have learnt it, and some 60% of young Europeans speak English “well or very well”.

One apparent problem though: Native English speakers in Great Britain aren't learning foreign languages.

The Economist has an article that summarizes a new finding by a few researchers: living abroad increases your creativity . I'm not sure. Anecdotally, I have felt a stronger creative impulse since being here, though that may be because I have a little more free time which allows me to devote more time to creative pursuits. In the end, I think living abroad certainly doesn't hurt creativity, but I'm not inclined to think it necessarily dramatically boosts it. There are countless examples of people who never left a confined geographic area (Emily Dickinson, anyone?) who we would regard as models of creativity. That being said, as a significant life experience, a period abroad could also open up minds, tweak perspectives, and spark curiosity in a way that leads to more creative thought. I'll post some of the results of my increased creative output on here soon. (via)

I recorded this almost a year ago. It's another volunteer's host mom singing Нашата Мила Страна (Our Dear Country). This song is a kind of reminder from home: no matter how far you travel, don't forget your roots.

The chorus translates as follows:

In the world there is only one,

One of our dear native country.

In the world there is only one Bulgaria,

One of our dear native country.

I think Skype's motto is "Take a deep breath" because that's what they want you to do before you start cursing the quality of their service.

I inherited a new bike from some friends and fellow volunteers nearby a couple of weeks ago. It was passed down to them from another volunteer who was here several years ago who brought the bike over from the States. It is a beautiful machine.

Speaking of cycling, this couple almost completely circumnavigated Africa on bikes. They're now making their way home and recently passed through Bulgaria. They had this to say:

Bulgaria wasn't what we expected. It now being a member of the EU we were awaiting pristine highways and modern towns. Bustling cities full of young professionals rushing off to important meetings or relaxing in trendy cafes. In reality Bulgaria appeared to be more on par with Africa than Western Europe. Piles of rotting liter lined the highways and as we passed the Roma settlements (Gypsies for the non politically correct) dirty-faced kids demanded money and welcomed us with a few low-flying stones when no handouts were forthcoming. Villages appeared deserted and factories lay empty, their windows broken or boarded up. The cafes were filled with tired-looking men with deeply lined faces and bulbous red noses leaning over a beer and puffing away on cigarettes. The cities were ringed with gray tower blocks and vacant buildings in business districts told of tough economic times. Low clouds and drizzle added to the depressing ambiance.

I felt a little defensive of Bulgaria after reading this, like they're picking on my family or something. It's not that it's inaccurate, it's just that it's not the entire story. They fill in the story a little more here:

Thankfully, the locals, albeit a bit gruff at first, were kind-hearted and helpful. On more than one occasion we were allowed to pitch the tent on the grounds of a village church. One Sunday morning we were still slurping our porridge and relishing the last sip of coffee when the parishioners began to arrive. Eighty must have been the average age, most were women and they were all dressed in black, many carrying spring flowers with which to decorate the church. They eyed us a bit suspiciously, but broke into smiles when we greeted them with a cheery, 'Dobar Den'. We don't want to make any enemies here, and in all fairness riding along the busy main highway, we didn't see the best side of Bulgaria. We did enjoy Plovdiv's Old Town which rivals that of any Western European city in terms of beauty and atmosphere and, more importantly, the ice cream in Bulgaria is really quite tasty. Our last image of Bulgaria was of a backyard butcher carving up cows, dogs howling and salivating in the distance.

Roman amphitheater in Plovdiv

The image of a "backyard butcher carving up cows, dogs howling and salivating in the distance" is much more interesting to me than "young professionals rushing off to important meetings or relaxing in trendy cafes". Though it's not there yet, Bulgaria certainly has aspirations to become more EU-ified, going so far as to, incredibly enough, ask the EU to help run their government:

In February advisers to the prime minister, Sergei Stanishev, hatched an extraordinary new plan. Under this the commission and other EU members would get more power to intervene where “weaknesses may be qualified as structural and persistent and…cannot be resolved by the Bulgarian government alone”. The plan proposes that European officials and diplomats should be involved in monitoring implementation of laws, managing EU funds and supervising courts, prosecutors and investigators. They would follow cases of political corruption and organised crime that the judicial system has been slow to tackle. The suggestion is that such a “partnership” would be better than the commission’s mechanism—although that may reflect the fact that it would be directed from Sofia, not Brussels.

Eighty years ago, Bulgaria had an agriculturally based economy. Seventy percent of the population lived in small villages and towns. During Communism, the country rapidly industrialized. People migrated to the cities. One and a half million people now live in the capital of Sofia, which is about 25% of the entire population of the country. I've inherited from my Bulgarian friends a nostalgia for a way of life that is all but dead even though I wasn't even here to see it die. I recognize that a lot of the changes happening in Bulgaria are for the better. But, there is something unsettling about watching something change that you have already accepted and love as it is. There's a part of me that wants to leave it be, so that there's a place left where sitting around drinking coffee (or rakiya) with friends is considered an important meeting.

During the first quarter of 2008, 11,111 people filled out the online application for AmeriCorps. During the first quarter of 2009, 35,245 people filled out the online application.

The Peace Corps has seen a 16 percent rise in applications over the last year.

Volunteer service is the new investment bank internship.

I was watching Music Idol tonight. A Bulgarian pop star was singing a song. In the said song, Snoop Dogg rapped for a little bit on a video monitor. I assumed it was just a cover of a Snoop Dogg song. However, then, Snoop Dogg mentioned BULGARIA. I was watching with a good Bulgarian friend of mine and he speculated that maybe the producers of Music Idol (and all the different countries where there is an American Idol type show) paid Snoop to name-drop countries. As in, he would record different versions for different countries: one version for Hungary, Lithuania, Switzerland, etc. This sounded reasonable, if unlikely. His son claimed that the song was recorded with the woman singing the song and that he didn't record a dozen different versions for different countries.

His son was right. Snoop Dogg partnered with a Bulgarian pop singer, Lilana, and a Bulgarian rapper, Big Sha, to create "Dime Piece". This isn't the only love Snoop has shown Bulgaria. He was in Sofia last September for a concert.

From a New York Times op-ed column by David Brooks from December of last year:

Most successful people also have a phenomenal ability to consciously focus their attention. We know from experiments with subjects as diverse as obsessive-compulsive disorder sufferers and Buddhist monks that people who can self-consciously focus attention have the power to rewire their brains. Control of attention is the ultimate individual power. People who can do that are not prisoners of the stimuli around them. They can choose from the patterns in the world and lengthen their time horizons. This individual power leads to others. It leads to self-control, the ability to formulate strategies in order to resist impulses. If forced to choose, we would all rather our children be poor with self-control than rich without it. It leads to resilience, the ability to persevere with an idea even when all the influences in the world say it can’t be done. A common story among entrepreneurs is that people told them they were too stupid to do something, and they set out to prove the jerks wrong. It leads to creativity. Individuals who can focus attention have the ability to hold a subject or problem in their mind long enough to see it anew.

We've had a spate of beautiful weather lately. And, perhaps, this is why my students (and myself) are having trouble focusing on English. Regardless, this article scares me. The internet (I blame it, mostly) has reduced my attention span to that of a gnat.

The Bulgarian word for "dog" is куче (koochay) and it's gender neutral. The Bulgarian word for "love" is любов (lyoobov) and it's feminine, as is the word for "hate", "gun", "cat", and "book". The Bulgarian word for "wind", вятър (veeyatur), is masculine, as is "football", "key", "banana", and "laziness". I've often (okay, maybe not often) wondered what meaning gender confers on the noun. As a native English speaker not used to dealing with gendered nouns, it's an interesting concept. Would the meaning of the word "love" change if it was masculine? For that matter, who decided it was feminine? What makes it feminine? Why is "wind" masculine? What function does gender serve? And if it doesn't serve a function, how has it been able to survive as part of the language?

There is sometimes an obvious logic to it. In Bulgarian, babies are gender neutral. Kids and children are gender neutral as well. A literal translation from Bulgarian of "То е 9 години," (He/she is 9 years old), would be "It is 9 years old."

At times, traditional gender roles seem to play a role. For example, feminine nouns dominate domestic items. Bowls, plates, glasses, forks, spoons, tables, stoves, ovens, microwaves and pots are all feminine. Knives, frying pans, and chairs are masculine. Beds are gender neutral.

There's an interesting new study on the effects that genderizing language has on our sense of words. Robert Krulwich, a fantastic (science/business) reporter who is able to explain complicated things very simply, and co-host of the equally fantastic, Radio Lab, has a new story on gendered languages. Lera Boroditsky, an assistant psychology professor at Stanford University, has this to say:

"Does treating chairs as masculine and beds as feminine in the grammar make Russian speakers think of chairs as being more like men and beds as more like women in some way?" she asks in a recent essay. "It turns out that it does. In one study, we asked German and Spanish speakers to describe objects having opposite gender assignment in those two languages. The descriptions they gave differed in a way predicted by grammatical gender."

When asked to describe a "key" — a word that is masculine in German and feminine in Spanish — German speakers were more likely to use words such as "hard," "heavy," "jagged," "metal," "serrated" and "useful." Spanish speakers were more likely to say "golden," "intricate," "little," "lovely," "shiny" and "tiny."I'm still not sure exactly what role gender plays in our understanding of language or what gender adds or subtracts from language or what sub-meaning is communicated by the gender. But, it's a good reminder of how subtle and meaningful and powerful languages are, of how much culture is tied up in them, and how much history it uncovers.

An article from the Boston Globe on the Peace Corps budget woes:

"We spend more on the military marching bands," said Mark Gearan, who was director of the Peace Corps under former president Bill Clinton. "This is 1 percent of 1 percent [of the federal budget]. There's no question that there's a wellspring of interest around the country. We just have to broaden the awareness of it and then fund it."

Ouch. It's official. We are a red-headed step-child.

Meanwhile, others wonder why the Peace Corps is still in Caribbean vacation spots, or in Romania and Bulgaria - both of which are now in the European Union, and could look closer to home for developmental help.

A valid point. However, Bulgaria is still very much in the infancy of its membership in the EU. Money from the EU was stopped last year as the European Commission found numerous examples of misappropriation of funds. The EU is still wary.

An interesting Economist story on poverty and its effect on learning.

The crucial breakthrough was made three years ago, when Martha Farah of the University of Pennsylvania showed that the working memories of children who have been raised in poverty have smaller capacities than those of middle-class children. Working memory is the ability to hold bits of information in the brain for current use—the digits of a phone number, for example. It is crucial for comprehending languages, for reading and for solving problems. Entry into the working memory is also a prerequisite for something to be learnt permanently as part of declarative memory—the stuff a person knows explicitly, like the dates of famous battles, rather than what he knows implicitly, like how to ride a bicycle.

April 7th marked the one year anniversary of my time here in Bulgaria. Another anniversary, more special and singular, is being observed today: my grandparent's 60th wedding anniversary. One of the unfortunate effects of living abroad is that you miss out on the special occasions and even the not so special ones. My three nephews are growing like weeds (the oldest is in first grade but reading at a 3rd grade level!), my friends are wending their way through jobs and school and relationships, and life goes on everywhere else apace.

I spent last night editing together some interviews I did with my grandparents the week before I left for the Peace Corps. It was a pleasure and a comfort, sitting in my little apartment in Bulgaria on a Wednesday night, to hear their voices spin together stories from 60 years ago. Here they are telling their story:

The song playing underneath is Bing Crosby's "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" which is a song I remember my Grandfather singing as I was growing up.

During Communism, the movies were a large part of cultural life in Bulgaria. Here, in my tiny little town, movies ran on Thursday and Saturday nights. They showed a lot of American westerns, Bollywood musicals, and, of course, Bulgarian films produced by the State. There was a country-wide film distribution system using the rail lines that reached even the smaller towns such as my own. Each town would screen a film and then pass it along to the next town on a train. Admission was cheap (.40 cents!) and in the larger cities there would be films every night. In a country where traveling abroad could land you in jail, films were the only chance to see countries they would never be able to visit.

About a week before Christmas, we organized a projection of It's A Wonderful Life (with Bulgarian sub-titles) in the cultural center. Not only was it the perfect American Christmas film, but it had themes that would be relevant to small town life. George Bailey struggles throughout the film with his own sense of significance and place in the world. As a young man, like most of us, he was attracted to the Big Things: these were what mattered. He wanted to build skyscrapers, to travel to the world's largest cities, to visit the furthest reaches of the Earth. Of course, his plans are never realized. He spends his days as the president of a small building and loan in a small town. It is, in some ways, quite a dark film. I think one of the reasons that the film is so popular is that we relate to these same struggles. We work a meaningless job, we dream big, we fail, we accrue small successes, we find love, we lose it. And, it begs the question, why? After a long day of teaching with what appears to be little progress, I ask myself what exactly am I doing? And so, we sometimes need to hear the idealistic, unabashedly humanistic message that the film provides: that what we do matters to other people; that some small difference is being made in the lives of others in spite of what we might think; and, perhaps most importantly, that people care.

the sub-title: "under the light of the moon"

We projected the film onto the slightly wrinkled white backside of a large billboard that we hung from the battens over the stage. Our sound system was a large stereo that you might find at a Best Buy. About 100 people attended: a mixture of students, teachers, the municipality and city mayor, families, and grandmothers (I pitched the film at a senior citizens meeting). Most of the students came out of curiosity (most had never seen a movie in a theatre before) and left after about 20 minutes when they realized it would not be in color, nor would there be many pratfalls. I wasn't sure if the audience would go along with the film. It was, after all, a 60 year old B&W film with sub-titles. I knew that they were into it when I heard "tsk, tsk, tsk" (a distinctly Bulgarian way of expressing disapproval) in response to something in the movie. The faces that were wet with tears at the end confirmed this.

The school's Red Cross "club" raised money through the film to buy presents for kids in a nearby orphanage. They raised about 250 leva (200 dollars) through the projection. We took a van with some students and teachers to the orphanage to watch a Christmas pageant. One of our students dressed up as Santa Claus (I posted a picture of him a couple of months ago) and he handed out the presents.

a jester at the orphanage

The next day at school, I talked about the film with some students. They wanted to project more films, something more up their alley, something like... Home Alone 3. And so, last night, students from the 7th grade class helped to organize a screening of Home Alone 3. There were probably about 150 Bulgarian and Roma students shrieking with laughter in the darkened theater as the international terrorists on-screen were outsmarted and ensnared in ingenious and humiliating traps set by an 8 year old boy. Bulgarians LOVE slapstick comedy. I found myself caught up in their excitement. A grown man trying to walk with his feet glued onto two plastic boxes with wheels is an objectively funny sight.

As I sat there surrounded by laughing students, I was reminded of a famous scene in Sullivan's Travels. The movie is about a Serious Film Director who wants to make a Serious Movie about the Depression. But, he had up to that point, lived a privileged life. He needed to understand the plight of the people. So, he ditched his identity, dressed in rags, and tried to live the life of a hobo. Through a series of events, he ends up on a chain gang in the Deep South. One evening, the prisoners are treated to a cartoon at a local African-American church: a Disney short called "Playful Pluto". The prisoners howl with laughter at the cartoon and the Serious Director realizes that people don't need a Serious Movie that depicts the grim realities of life. They had enough of that everyday. What they needed was to laugh, to forget. They needed a comedy.

I left the theatre with a slightly less cynical regard for Home Alone 3. It was what it was. It had a purpose. As did I.

Meet a few of my students.

There's a kid in my 4th grade class named Gosho. Gosho seems preternaturally self-possessed, confident, and talks to adults like he's one of them. He would make a good salesman if he ever gets the chance. The thing about Gosho is this: he does exactly what he wants. A month ago, as class finished and the students filed out (read: ran out), Gosho ran up to a kid who he'd been arguing with during class, spit in his face, and ran. It took me a second to process it. The spit. The other boy's stunned face. Gosho running. I caught up with him later in the schoolyard. I put my hand on his shoulder and I told him to look me in the eye. I said very slowly in Bulgarian, "Don't spit on anyone again". His eyes shifted downward and he smirked and I told him to look me in the eye again. His eyes met mine square on. They were devoid of concern and gleamed with a defiance you don't usually see in 4th graders. I told him again and he spat on the ground. I suddenly felt a new appreciation for corporal punishment. With little more than words acting as consequences ("Sound and fury signifying nothing" to quote a poet) in the Bulgarian school system, student discipline is a huge problem here. A little after that incident, a student cracked Gosho on the head with a stick (perhaps in retaliation?) and he hasn't been to school since.

There's another Gosho in 4th grade. He is tiny and loud. The other kids in class tower over him and he squeaks "Gospodinay! Gospodinay!" (Mr! Mr!) to get my attention. We have a game in which I shake his hand for about a minute each time I see him. The longer we shake hands, the harder he laughs, his twig of an arm wriggling up and down. A few minutes later, he'll scamper back up to me and thrust his hand out with a big smile. His other favorite past-time is to dance the kyuchek in class.

Directions to dance the kyuchek:

1. Raise your arms slightly above your hand.

2. Next, jiggle your hips as quickly as you possibly can while swiveling them in a jerky circular motion.

3. Snap your fingers or clap your hands and, for panache, let rip with a yelp now and again.

It's kind of a funny-looking dance to begin with. But, to see Gosho, this tiny little kid, his antennae-like arms punching the air, his hips a blur of motion, yelping and clapping, is to see comedy gold. I took a stick away from him on Friday. He said he wasn't going to leave the classroom until I gave him his stick back. I laughed at the ridiculousness of his tactic. He realized that wouldn't work and he stamped his foot on the ground and demanded I give him the stick back. It was like the mouse that roared. I laughed again and told him it was dangerous. He left in a huff without his stick.

The Goshos couldn't care less about English. They're kids. You can't rationally explain to them why English might be important in the future. In all actuality, it probably won't be useful to them. And, more than English, they need someone there to shake their hands and laugh, someone who cares about the choices they make. Honestly, they may not speak much more English than they do now by the time I leave. But, that's only part of the equation, of course.

Bulgarian choir music on this blustery Sunday. There's the hope and life of Spring in it.

Cheroubikon No.4 by Ioan Kukuzel.

I often eat dinner with some friends on Monday nights. Monday is white bean soup night, made by the grandmother of the family. Before dinner comes the salad course, which lasts significantly longer than in the States. We talk about the week's news, "this is how it is in America", and "this is how it is in Bulgaria" over Coca-Cola and brandy. Once, we somehow got on the topic of animal sounds in different languages. According to Peter, Greeks interpret the sound frogs make as the following: "brake-cake-cake-cakes-kvacks-kvacks". "Ribbit, ribbit" just seems so comparatively boring. We usually wrap up the night with an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO Comedy, 9:30 PM). They love it, which makes me very happy. Neuroticism transcends culture.

One final TED lecture and then I'll start talking about Bulgaria again.

I read most of Barry Schwartz's book, The Paradox of Choice, shortly before I left for Bulgaria. The central thesis is that we (Western, industrialized, well-fed nations) have a surplus of choice in our lives and it is making us unhappy.

I have a banal example plucked from my own life. I am not proud of it, but I have been for most of my life, a picky eater. No salads, minimal condiments, only certain vegetables, the whole thing. Now, living in Bulgaria, this presents a problem. During the summer, every meal starts with a Shopska salad (tomatoes, cucumbers, and feta cheese). I couldn't not eat it. And, so I did, tentatively at first. And a miraculous thing happened. I began to like them. The same thing happened with sauerkraut, sour cream, olives, and pickled vegetables. These are things that, given the choice, I would not have eaten a year ago (I feel a twinge of embarrassment just writing that).

Anyway, Barry Schwartz says we need to find equilibrium in our number of choices. Many people in countries around the world are, of course, faced with too little choice. This lack of options is why there are so many Bulgarians in Greece, Italy, and Spain and why most people speak of my town as if it is slowly dying.

Yesterday, I posted a lecture from a TED conference. Here's another one.

Benjamin Zander has the crafty bearing of a magician, the manic exuberance of the obsessed, and the brash confidence of a conductor. Here he deconstructs classical music in a way that isn't boring.

Part of his message, to keep in mind the long arcs of a piece (of time, of music, of life), has lodged itself in my head. What a perspective, to see in swaths of time, to transcend the day to day. It has had a soothing effect at a time when the dailiness of life here has begun to settle in.

It has been a while friend, I know.

With the oppressingly gray days of January weighing down on me like a heavy jacket, I've been unable to muster the motivation to post. I'll try to rectify. It's all one can do.

Happiness is a fickle mistress. Here's Dan Gilbert on it:

I am now living alone in a bloc apartment in a small Bulgarian town that lies at foot of the Balkan Mountains. I made the honest mistake (one among many) of referring to this small town as a "village" during a short interview for the national Bulgarian television network. Since arriving, I have been remonstrated (with easy smiles and a winking eye) by nearly everyone I've met that this is not a village. Their playfulness betrays the truth: it's a village masquerading as a town.

view from the mountain

I have spent the past week slowly accumulating the necessary accoutrement of modern domestic existence: a trashcan, clothes hangers, salt and pepper shakers, a mixing bowl. I have removed items not in agreement with my half-chosen, half-pragmatic minimalist sensibility: three posters of disconcertingly placid horses that stared at me (quietly judging me (as horses are wont)) from beneath the glass top of my desk, a vase of wilting wild flowers, a decorative table-top crochet upon which the flowers previously decayed.

These were the offending horses.

I share the place with a cabal of ants that have laid fierce claim to my sink and its environs. Had they the know-how, they would fashion spears out of flecks of counter-top and hurl them precipitately at the index finger that I use to snub out their existence. Roaches and fleas are a less common and even less welcome sight. I spotted a solitary flea preparing to feast on my leg on my first night here. It evaded capture (as fleas usually do) and I spent an hour attempting to sleep while hallucinatory fleas (I never actually saw them) cavorted gleefully in the dark. Somewhat more disturbingly, I was awakened one morning by insistent scratchings in the hollows of the cement walls. It was either a rat or an extremely adept impersonator. I expected him (rats are always male, aren't they?) to break through at any moment and leap headlong, his gleaming incisors bared for action, at my neck. I kicked at the wall with my shoe a few times as if to communicate to him: "I know you're there. I'd rather you not scratch like that. Honestly, it's making me uncomfortable." He paid no mind.

On Tuesday, I made two important discoveries in a city nearby. First and foremost, I found books written in English. There's a British Council (an organization that fosters cultural relations between the UK and countries abroad) library in the city that allows you to check out books for a month at a time. I browsed their collection with a goofy grin, reveling in the familiar authors and titles. There were dozens upon dozens of classic writers and books I haven't yet read. My second discovery was Kaufland, a German-based grocery store. It had all the trappings of an American grocery store: the selection was plentiful, the air pleasantly conditioned, and it had similar aesthetic touches as those in the States. I bought a huge bottle of Heinz ketchup.

At first glance, to look at the posters tacked on power lines, on the metal gates fronting houses, and on the corkboards in anonymous municipal buildings, you might think there was a legion of missing, lost, or otherwise wanted Bulgarians. Bulgarian names (Gyorgi, Ivanka, Dimitar) in bold black Cyrillic script head each poster. But, the first thing that catches your attention are the solemn mugshots: a middle-aged man with gapped teeth, a sober-faced baba framed by a head scarf, a dark-haired Bond villainess look-alike, an eleven year old boy forcing a smile. On closer inspection, you realize the people haven't gone missing in the way you thought. The posters are 8X11 inch paper memorials to the dead, varying slightly in content and style, but usually including the deceased's name, a headshot, how long they've been dead, a cross, and a message to the departed. There are companies that produce them for a small fee, their address and phone number listed at the bottom of each one. My guess is that the top-notch Bulgarian design talent is not working on these. And so, despite the memorial intent, it nonetheless feels like a search for someone lost.

Four times a year, Bulgarians, and from what I understand, Eastern Orthodox faithful everywhere, bring food to their loved one’s gravesite. The day is called zadooshnitsa (задушница). I participated in the задушница a couple of weeks ago with dozens of other families at the graveyard as a steady stream of villagers came and went. Each family gathered around a grave with their food (meatballs, sweetbreads, bon-bons, feta cheese, cherries) and made a plate for the deceased. My host family and I gathered around the grave of my host mother’s mother. My host father, Mitko, lit six candles, placing them on the grave to burn down. Then, he sprinkled rakiya (an omnipresent Bulgarian brandy, usually homemade), coffee, and a little bit of Diet Coke on the gravesite. After my host mom, Ivanka, placed the plate of food near the headstone, we made plates for other families who were there and handed them out. We also received plates of food, as well as chocolate bon-bons. After receiving food from someone, you’re obliged to respond with “Бог да прoсти” which means essentially “May God forgive”. The whole event felt kind of like a picnic with the dead. We sat on a bench, shaded by leafy trees, and picked at our chocolate bon-bons and fresh cherries. The wind carried lilting strains of old Bulgarian Orthodox songs that emanated from a frocked priest not far away. The Rila Mountains, looming verdant green in the sun, presided over it all. If it wasn’t a kind of communion, it was something close. We left the plate of food at the gravesite. What small solace might be found when the families return months later to find the food gone, I don’t know. If nothing else, I'm sure the dozens of local street dogs appreciate the gesture.

"The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness." So begins Vladimir Nabokov's autobiography, "Speak, Memory". You can call it bleak sentiment or tempered wonderment depending on how you feel about the "brief crack of light" at the moment. Regardless, we will never accept death. I think it's one of the beautiful things about us: faced with an incontrovertible certainty, we deny it. We do this by plastering names and faces on walls, by sharing our food with the graveyard dogs, and, more prosaically and simply, through the remembrance of shared time, of small kindnesses, of one day in June.

I'm growing a mustache at the moment.

The Bulgarian attitude towards celebrations can be summed up by a phrase more closely associated with the States: More is better. Every week it seems there is a festival, party, commemoration, or town holiday of some sort to attend. Like their climatic brethren in Chicago, Bulgarians squeeze every last ounce of marrow out of their summer as they recuperate and anticipate the bone-chill of winter.

On May 24th, as they do every year, all of Bulgaria celebrated Kiril and Methodius Day, or Bulgarian Education and Culture, and Slavonic Literature Day. Kiril and Methodius were two brothers from Greece (perhaps ethnically Greek or perhaps Bulgarian) who performed missionary work in Bulgaria. They forged the first Slavonic alphabet, the Glagolitic alphabet, in order to translate The Bible into the Slavic languages. Like war and the space program, missionary work sometimes produces useful innovations for the rest of us. The Glagolitic alphabet and, more importantly, its heavily Greek-influenced cousin, the Cyrillic alphabet (created by Kiril and Methodius' student Kliment Ohridski), was instrumental in maintaining Bulgarian cultural identity during 500 years of Ottoman (Turkish) rule.

The Glagolitic alphabet. Much more complicated than Cyrillic

I was somewhat ambivalent about Cyrillic at first. It shares more than a few characters with the Latin alphabet, however only a few represent the same sounds. For example: the letter "H" in Cyrillic represents "N" sound in "neat", the letter "P" represents the "R" sound in "rat". If I wrote "rat" in Cyrillic it would look like "pat". As with the head shake for "yes", it was a somewhat pleasurable challenge to re-train my mind. I literally felt what is was like to be five years old again, learning to read for the first time, sounding everything out, expending every last drop of mental energy. My understanding of how daunting learning a foreign concept can be has increased, as has my empathy for students engaged in the struggle. I trust (or, hope) that this perspective manifests itself in the form of untold patience once I begin teaching.

Two months into study, I have grown rather fond of Cyrillic. It is a purely phonetic alphabet, each letter corresponding to one specific sound. The letter "K" represents only one sound unlike many letters in the Latin alphabet, such as our letter "C" which could sound like either the "K" sound in "CAT" or the "S" sound in "RACE". Try explaining to a non-English speaker why we don't pronounce the "K" in "KNIFE" and you'll understand how tricky our language and alphabet can be. English, as an international language influenced by a number of languages aside from its West Germanic roots is an unwieldy beast incapable of being fully expressed by only 26 letters. The upshot of Cyrillic's pure phoneticism is that it makes spelling in Cyrillic very easy. If you hear the word correctly, you can probably spell it correctly. And, it means that you can read somewhat fluently and with relative accuracy pretty quickly. One letter can also represent several sounds in one fell swoop, making it pleasingly elegant. For example, the "SHT" sound you hear at the end of the word "CRASHED" only takes one letter to represent in Cyrillic: "щ". You would spell the whole word "CRASHED" as "КРАЩ" in Cyrillic.

Bulgarian Cyrillic pronunciation guide

Here are a few examples of names and international words in Cyrillic. You can figure out what they mean using the pronunciation guide above. The Latin alphabet transliterations are at the bottom of the post.

1. РЕСТОРАНТ

2. ХОТЕЛ

3. ХИЛАРИ КЛИНТОН

4. БАРАК ОБАМА

5. ШИКАГО

Yesterday, along with another volunteer, I participated in my first on-camera interview for the local news. I was asked by the reporter if I liked Bulgaria. My response (in Bulgarian) would translate as: "Of course. The mountain is nice. The people is very nice." Thankfully, Bulgarians generally respond with positive enthusiasm with anything we manage to say in Bulgarian. A couple of weeks ago, the four other volunteers in my village and I sang a couple of Bulgarian songs in front of several hundred people packed into a small theatre for a celebration of the 130th anniversary of the school in our village. The cheers and overwhelmingly positive response we got was a little disproportionate to the amount we actually deserved. I would feel guilty if I didn't milk it for all it was worth.

Yesterday was not only eventful for the TV interview. Later in the afternoon, I milked my first goat. I felt a little uncomfortable for the goat. There I am, all up in her business while she placidly chews cud and fixes her distressingly translucent irises on me. As a willing (if not altogether eager) participant in the American Industrial Food Complex, I'm not used to having the food I eat quite so up close and personal.

Here are the English/Latin alphabet transliterations from the Cyrillic:

RESTAURANTHOTELHILLARY CLINTONBARACK OBAMACHICAGOA poster in our classroom.

Bulgarians nod their head when they mean "No" and shake their head when they mean "Yes" (sometimes the head shake is more of a head bobble, which I find easier to interpret). I learned this before arriving in country, but the implications of this had no way of sinking in. Having been here for almost two months, I still find it nearly impossible to nod my head to say "Yes". I have misinterpreted dozens of responses from others because of the head shake. I have undoubtedly confused scores of people. The situation seems to me a good example of how hard it is to unlearn culture. I am reminded of how overwhelmingly blind I am to my own learned behavior. Nodding my head for "yes" just feels so unequivocally right, as if the simple action could never mean something else, much less the opposite of "yes". I read somewhere recently that a lot of writers experience bursts of creativity after being separated for extended periods of time from their native culture. One of the impetuses for the creativity stems from the increased breadth of perspective on themselves and how they relate to their culture. Regardless, it seems impossible to fully understand your own culture without going outside it at some point.

One question I’ve been asked several times is why Peace Corps is still active in Bulgaria despite its recent ascension into the European Union. First, my opinions do not represent that of the Peace Corps nor the United States Government. Second, it’s obviously something that I’ve given a fair amount of thought. My initial impressions are not fully formed, simply what I’ve heard from Bulgarians and observed thus far.

While Bulgaria is relatively developed, there still exists within the country a great deal of poverty and economic disparity not seen in the G8 countries. It is politically stable, but that stability comes at a cost. A book that I’m reading right now about the post-Communist period in Bulgaria states that the political elite who ran the country before the fall of Communism still retain a majority of the political power and financial capital today. In many ways, Bulgaria is still paying for the peaceful transition towards a democracy during the 1990s. From The Economist: Bulgaria, similarly, prefers talk to action. Multiple new anti-corruption agencies are poorly co-ordinated or have never got going. No case of high-level official corruption has led to a successful conviction, just as not one of more than 120 gangland shootings since 2001 has been cleared up. EU officials (and most Bulgarians) believe that organised crime reaches the highest levels of government. The forced resignation of the interior minister, Rumen Petkov, in April, has made little difference. Brussels is considering cutting billions of euros in aid and withdrawing recognition of Bulgarian court decisions.

Laws are codified, but they are often altogether ignored by both citizens and police. For example, it is illegal for anyone under the age of 18 to buy alcohol or cigarettes, but any fifteen year old can walk into any store or bar and buy both.

Much hope was raised in Bulgaria when it joined the European Union last year. However, one unfortunate side effect of this action was that thousands of talented Bulgarians decided to seek job opportunities abroad in other EU countries where they could now legally work. This has left the country and the villages in particular with a smaller proportion of young skilled workforce. Those who stay behind compete for scarce opportunities in the larger cities.

This is not to say that people are starving. They don’t live in fear of armed militias forging a coup. The political climate, while corrupt, is stable. There is running water in most homes, electricity, and very often even internet. Paved roads, while not in great condition, are extensive. And so the work I’ll be doing here will be a different, less romantic kind of development work than the kind with which Peace Corps is usually associated. I will not carry my drinking water on my head for two miles. But, that kind of romanticized notion of asceticism has little to do with actual development work. We help not because the work is hard, but because there is a need.

This is all to say, a need currently exists for Peace Corps volunteers within the Bulgarian school system. If I was not entirely certain of this prior to arriving in country, I am now. While teaching English may appear to be a kind of cultural imperialism on the part of the Peace Corps, there is a huge demand for it within Bulgaria. The ability to speak English greatly increases job marketability not only within Bulgaria but in EU countries. Peace Corps TEFL volunteers are usually placed in those places within the country with the greatest need: the villages. These students have little to no access to English language books, native English speakers, or interactive teaching methods. I will work in a school where 40% of the students are an under-served ethnic minority. As I wrote before, most Roma students don’t make it past the 8th grade because they usually marry at that age. As it was during the Communist era, resources are allocated to those students who perform well. Students who struggle are not given remedial classes nor held back. Every year they fall further and further behind.

So, my challenges in Bulgaria will perhaps be of a slightly different nature than other volunteers around the world. I have more resources and perhaps creature comforts at my disposal. (This is debatable. I will still battle fleas in my apartment, freeze during the winter, and probably flush the toilet with a bucket of water.) Nonetheless, my goals and aims are the same: to help in some small way and perhaps make a few friends.