Life is fluid and so is this blog

The na gosti (party) I went to today was very interesting, sad and emotional for me. In an earlier post I talked about a man from Yemen, his Bulgarian wife, and their two boys that are 16 and 13. I got a phone call at around 4:45 asking me when I was going to come. Actually they woke me up from my afternoon nap. I usually don’t take naps in the afternoon but it’s been a long weekend and week. I had another visitor this weekend that stayed until early Sunday morning. We had a great time because we talked A LOT about what it means to be African American in the Peace Corps in Eastern Europe. As of right now we are the only black women in Peace Corps Bulgaria. I am truly blessed to have another black woman in the same country as me because we can do each other’s hair and swap hair products! It’s awesome. There is another African American guy but I have never met him before. We are all hoping to get together soon just to be around each other. Man oh man do I miss black people! Anyhow that’s a tangent that most people will not understand unless they are black or part of a minority ethnic group in the U.S.

Anyhow, I hadn’t planned on being at their house until about 6pm but they sounded eager for me to get there so I said that I would be at there in about 30 minutes. The entire time I was getting ready I was praying that nothing would happen to me. Its interesting being in a foreign country because I have to be extra careful who I associate with, especially in Eastern Europe. There is always the possibility of being trafficked, kidnapped, or robbed. Don’t get me wrong I am very safe in Bulgaria, actually safer than I would be in the U.S, but there is always the thought in the back of my mind to be extra cautious because as an American I might appear to be a bag of money to people rather than an actual person. I also have to think about skinheads and racist people that might hate me because the color of my skin.

I caught a cab to their apartment but the cab driver had no clue were he was going. First he stopped in front of this random building and told me that it was the place I needed to go. He looked at the number of the block apartment realized his mistake and drove me to the correct place. To be honest I had no idea that I was at the wrong apartment! This was my first time ever going to their apartment so the cab driver’s guess was as good as mine. I am forever grateful that he realized his mistake and took me to the correct place and didn’t charge me extra money. This month I am extremely broke so an extra stotinka (penny) would have killed me. As we drove up to the correct building the youngest son was waiting outside for me with a huge afro and no coat. After I paid the cab fare he asked me how much it cost. I was a little thrown off by this because I didn’t expect a little kid (he really isn’t a little kid but he looks 7 to me instead of 13) to ask such a blunt question. After I told him the cost he tried to pay me back for the cab fare. I absolutely refused to take the money even though I am broke for the moment. He looked at me with surprise and we walked to their block and apartment.

The first thing I noticed when I walked in was the rug on the floor. It looked out of place in a way. Actually it looked brand new! I was caught off guard because I know these people don’t have much. There apartment was clean and neat but very typical Bulgarian (I will not go into detail because I might offend Bulgarians that read this blog). The husband works at the market and the wife has a handicap. One of her legs is shorter than the other which causes her to walk with a limp. I ignored the rug for the moment, as I tend to do with things I don’t understand, and let them show me the rest of their apartment. Actually they didn’t show me the rest of their apartment they took me to the living room that had a knee high table surrounded by three chairs, and a typical mini Bulgarian bed covered with a red hot fur blanket. The curtains were the same color as the blanket, which brought the color scheme of the room together. In the corner was a desk and computer that they continued to play rap and hip-hop music on to impress me. Every time a Bulgarian person asks me what kind of music I like they automatically assume I like rap or hip-hop and that I hate chalga. I like all kinds of music and chalga doesn’t bother me much when I don’t have to watch the videos. To me Chalga sounds like music from the Middle Eastern part of the world. I really cant describe it in words but I do have a chalga song on my myspace page as background music.

The entire night they constantly played random artist like 50 cent, Snoop Dogg, Lil Bow Wow, Beyonce, etc for my “pleasure”. It got a little annoying because the boys would sing swear words that they did’t understand in front of their parents. When I explained to them that the words they sang were bad words in English they looked at me with surprise and asked me what they meant. Of course, this put me in an awkward position because then I would have to use swear words in Bulgarian to translate. I come from a background where it is really disrespectful to swear in front of older people so I simply said the words were bad and that I did not feel comfortable swearing in Bulgarian. After that conversation they constantly asked me if a song had bad words in them and switched the music if it did. An hour and half later of listening to rap music someone had the wise idea to turn on the television. We ended up watching a program about Rwanda that almost had me in tears.

The father and I watched the program earnestly because we felt a connection with the black people on television while the wife and children didn’t seem that interested. Essentially it was a documentary on life in Rwanda after the genocide. They showed the preserved bodies of children, women, and men that had been slain. While watching this movie I started to feel really guilty about being in Bulgaria instead of an African country. I questioned my purpose here and thought to myself “I could be helping my own people who need so much more”. My work would be more meaningful in Africa! People were eating from wooden bowls off the dusty ground; they got “fresh” water by digging a whole in the ground. I could see myself in a remote village in African. I would have a different braided hairstyle every week, every outfit would be homemade with beautiful African prints, all the hair products I need would be at my disposal. As my mind began to take a turn to hair products and clothes I knew that I was back to reality. I could survive in a remote village in African but now wasn’t the time because I am in Bulgaria. I eventually want to get the Ghana citizenship but this will not happen until after a couple years. I have been to Ghana and plan to visit other African countries soon but Africa is too much of sore spot for me. I can’t live there unless I know the work I do there will cause drastic change. Africans are my brothers and sisters from a different continent. They are the ones that weren’t taken by slavery but were stricken with poverty and colonization. When I was in Ghana a Ghanaian professor once said that “Africans Americans have the mindset of slaves and Africans have the mindset of the colonized, I don’t know which is worse”.

Wow this blog took a complete turn again but I will try to bring it back…. However I am extremely tired so I need to finish this tomorrow.

Tomorrow I need to talk about the importance of the rug, the dinner we ate, braiding the kid’s hair again, using their bathroom, and the cab ride home. I think I was at their place for at least five hours so there is ALOT to tell! Sorry to leave you hanging but I can’t keep my eyes open anymore.


Thinking of dreaming,

Crystal