Holidays!!!

I love the holiday season. Its my favorite time of the year. I will be spending the holidays with a couple friends in the South of Bulgaria. All the Best!!!

Opening Presents,

Crystal

Church/The Giraffe living in VT/ Peace

Ohh Sunday Morning! I always loved going to church on Sunday Morning. There is something about a Sunday that has always been an important day of worship for me. I feel rejuvenated alive! Awakened in my faith! Today I went to church for the first time in Bulgaria. Well actually not the first time but it was the first time I went to a church that wasn’t a Bulgaria Orthodox church. The church was something I found through a Peace Corps Bulgarian staff person who attends a Pentecostal Church in Sofia. Most Bulgarians claim to be Orthodox but they really don’t practice the religion or recognize God at all with the exception of holidays like “Poct” (fasting 40 days before Christmas), Christmas, Easter, and various other name days. People in Bulgaria are not very religious and in many cases they are almost atheist. It all has to do will Communism and religious practices being banned yada, yada, yada.

I truly felt the presence of God in that Church this morning. I could not understand the meaning of every word we sang but I knew that the words were powerful! I closed my eyes and sang my heart out. I had a huge sense of relief and peace. I felt at home! We sang another song in Bulgarian that I actually know in English called “Here I am to worship”. It was interesting singing this song in Bulgarian. I really needed to go to church this morning considering all the things I had been through in the last few days.

The past few days have been really difficult. This Friday I went to hang out with my director’s daughter for Student’s day at a café. On the way home we were followed by three or four teenagers that kept calling me “niggarka” (if you look at the word you will understand what it means). I am not sure if this is a derogatory term or not but I was offended. Bulgarians keep assuring me that its not derogatory but it sounds too much like the American word. After we left that situation not five minutes later another group of young people said “Tam e niggarka” (There is a niggarka).

I felt really exposed especially after the woman that touched me last week on my way to work (I talked about this in an earlier post. I decided to chalk it up to another day in life of a Peace Corps volunteer. However, yesterday on my way to the market the guys working construction yelled comments about me being black as well. Than on the way home from the Market (I decided to take a different route) some random man stopped me on the streets and asked me random questions. Needless to say, the conversation ended with a proposal of marriage.

I began to feel like a giraffe walking down the street that everyone stared at because I am so different. I didn’t think I would stand out so much in Veliko Turnovo because there are many tourist but apparently not African ones.

While I was in church one of the ladies that was sitting next to me asked me how I was doing in Bulgaria. I told her sometimes good other times bad. She gave me some words of encouragement After her comments I knew that everything was going to be OK.


Sitting in Church and trying not to be the giraffe in VT (or at least adjust to people staring),

Crystal

Cool Blog Thingys

I am at work now... its friday. I kinda dont want to work. I have had a extremely busy week planning for a fundraising event on 19th December. Two people left work early I should have left with them but I couldnt figure out what I would do at home before my language lesson at 5pm. So, I decided to stay and take random Myspace surveys online. heheheh its fun. The results are below. I just realized that this is my first weekend in Bulgaria where I havent been extremely busy!!!! YES, YES, YES, YES finally a break. Anyhow, back to the surveys.....

You Are Ruby Red

You are warm and inviting - yet a little wild and outrageous. Well aware that you have a dual personality, you work it as much as you can! You like for people to be comfortable around you, but not at the expense of you stealing the limelight. Popular and well known, you make friends easily. You have your big personality to thank for that.

What Color Red Are You?

You Are 58% Open

You are a fairly open person, but you also like to maintain your privacy. You definitely will tell all (okay, almost all) to your closest friends... But strangers and acquaintances only get a peek into your life.

How Open Are You?

You Are a Drama Princess (or Prince)

You're not over the top dramatic, but you have your moments. You know how to steal the spotlight... And how to act out to get your way. People around you know that you're good for a laugh. But at times, your drama gets a bit too much for everyone. Tone it down a tad, and you'll still be the center of attention.

Are You a Drama Queen (or King)?

Your Taste in Music:

90's R&B: Highest Influence Adult Alternative: High Influence Hip Hop: High Influence R&B: Medium Influence 80's Pop: Low Influence

How's Your Taste in Music?

You Are 16% Nerdy

You are definitely not nerdy - in fact, you probably don't know any nerds. You probably care a little too much about your image. No one will know if you secretly watch Star Trek reruns!

How Nerdy Are You?

You Should Learn Swedish

Fantastisk! You're laid back about learning a language - and about life in general. Peaceful, beautiful Sweden is ideal for you... And you won't even have to speak perfect Swedish to get around!

What Language Should You Learn?

You Are a Auditory Learner

You tend to remember what you hear, and you have a knack for speaking well. You excel at debating, foreign languages, and music. You would be an excellent diplomat - or rock star!

What's Your Learning Style?

this was really fun!

Of Course I know how to Catch a Train in Bulgaria!

Remember how I said I was going to go to some other volunteer’s house with my site mate? And how I cooked a ton of food because I just got a new stove? Well we did go to our friend’s town for Thanksgiving, but it took us a while to get there.

My site mate and I were really excited to celebrate Thanksgiving in Bulgaria with PCV friends. I didn’t realize how much Thanksgiving meant to me until I got to Bulgaria. It’s a time for the family and friends. Anyhow, my site mate and I left work early at about 4:30ish to go home to get the Thanksgiving food and catch the 5:20ish train to our friend’s house. Everything worked exactly as we planned it. I had all the food wrapped in proper containers safe and secure. Even the street dog that tried to sniff/eat my pride and glory couldn’t dampen my happiness. We paid the fair for the train secured our place on the train and waited patiently for it to take us to our destination.

We were both extremely tired and dozed in and out of sleep for the hour ride. I finally looked up and asked my friend “Do you know were we get off?”. Her answer was that, “Of course she didn’t because she had never been to the town before”. I started to get a little panicky because I had been to the town the weekend before but couldn’t remember exactly what the station looked like. If you know anything about trains in Bulgaria you will know that the names of the various stops are not always clearly displayed. There isn’t a loud obnoxious voice over the intercom, like in Chicago, announcing the stops. There isn’t even the little indicator thingy like in New York City or Philly, which shows you were you are on your trip. To top it off it was extremely dark outside and we couldn’t see anything but the shadows of the trees.

I looked at my watch and saw we had about 15 minutes left to travel to our destination. I wasn’t panicky anymore because I knew the trip was exactly an hour and we defiantly didn’t miss our stop. I set my alarm and we both went back to sleep. I woke up about five minutes before my alarm went off and SMSed my friends (the one we were going to visit) to say we would be their in about 10 minutes. At that very moment that train stopped to let people out. I asked a Bulgarian girl nearby us if this stop was the town I needed. She said “Da” (yes in Bulgarian) and we jumped out of our sets grabbed our bags of food and headed towards to doors.

My friend made it off the train a couple seconds before me, but as I started to get walk towards the doors, the train started to move!!!! She quickly grabbed the food (Yeah I know save the food let me die) and told me to jump. Being the superwoman that I am, I jumped without difficulty. As I landed on the ground I heard voices yelling from the train in Bulgarian. I had no idea what they were saying and decided to ignore them. Once I got my bearings, my friend and I turned and waved bye to the people on the train, but they continued to yell. We had no clue what they were talking about so we just ignored them and a couple seconds later the train was gone.

I turned around and noticed right away that something was wrong. The entire train station was dark and deserted and it did not look like the station from the weekend before. I said to my site mate, “uhmm, this isn’t our stop. I have no idea were we are”. We both started to laugh hysterically because we knew we were stranded. We walked to the small booth at the station, but no one was there, but we learned that the next train didn’t come pass that station until around 8:00pm. She suggested that we start walking in the direction the train. I didn’t think this was a good idea so when I saw a large group of random Roma (Gypsy) men I yelled for them to help us. My friend was a little threatened by the fact that they were Roma, but it didn’t bother me at all. I asked them how far we were from our destination and they said it was the next train stop. We asked about cab options and they told us the cab number and even called the cab for us. We waited for the cab for about 15 minutes and got to our destination where our friends were waiting for us. Ohh the wonderful world of the Peace Corps!!!

Thanksgiving was really nice this year in Bulgaria. The PCVs I spent my time with were awesome.

There are more pictures of Thanksgiving, if you click on the link on the sidebar you will see them.

Thinking about Cornbread,

Crystal

Am I a Freak Show (Get Ur Mind Out the Gutter)?

I am going to try to make this quick and painless.

This morning I left for work really early because I had a meeting with the program director from the Peace Corps. My program director was coming to see how things are going now that I have been in Veliko Turnovo for a month. I walked about half a block from my apartment and was fumbling with my MP3 player when I heard this woman gasp in surprise. My heart started to beat faster because I thought a car might be near me or that a street dog might be ready for attack.

Than, to my surprise she looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Can I touch, you?” in English. I answered immediately in Bulgarian “Zachto? (Why)”. From her reaction I thought a bird might be on my head or that a snake was on my shoulder and she needed to get off. She walked towards me with her hands outstretched and said, in Bulgarian, “Because I have never seen someone that looks like you before”. How weird is that?!!!!! Can you image someone coming up to you touching you because they have never seen someone that looks like you!!! This totally caught me off guard and almost made me cry. She touched my hand, gasped again, and walked away.

After her violation I felt like a freak show!!! On my walk to work I began to see what I had not totally noticed before this woman touched me. People are seriously staring at me. Every third person that I passed on the street was looking at me today. When I was in my small town Rila people stared, but after a while everyone got to know me so they didn’t stare as much. Veliko Turnovo is a rather large town, so I see different people everyday.

Urggh let me vent for a little please….

Who does this woman thinks she is that she can touch me! I mean I understand that people might not have had interaction with a black person before, but we are almost in the year 2007! Come on! They have MTV in Bulgaria. Bulgaria is about to join the EU for goodness sake. They get all the same music videos here that we get in America. They know that Condalesa Rice is the Secretary of State. I can not be that different or exotic!!! Furthermore, the world is becoming much smaller as people are traveling more to live and work in foreign countries. I mean, I have seen about four black people in Bulgaria since I got here four months ago. Ok, that’s not a lot considering the population of Bulgaria is about 8 million, but still it is very annoying. Peace Corps warns us about how people we stare and treat us as foreigners, but I didn’t expect to feel like an object.

My friends talked about being stared at in their small villages but I thought it was just because they lived in a small village. I didn’t think I stood out as much in Veliko Turnovo considering there are so many foreigners here. Now I am kind of paranoid about meeting new people here. Do they really want to be my friend or do they want to be seen with the “Black American”? On my way home from work, I decided to take the side streets because I couldn’t deal with people staring at me.

Feeling violated and like an object,

Crystal