Sunday, November 19, 2000

Has it already been one month since we last wrote in here? Time has gone by quickly! It is Sunday here – the roughest day of the week in Bulgaria. Most people stay at home all day, napping, watching TV, drinking coffee, and so on. The whole country takes a break on Sundays. A rest day is called a “pochiven den.” The streets are nearly empty. Only a few people are at the bazaar, selling their vegetables, spices, and fruits. And only a few people are buying. It is the day when people will ask you if it is okay to call before 10am, so they won’t wake you up. Most cafes are open and these are the places you will find the few people, who are out, spending their time. The weather today is sunny and crisp and we are wondering when winter will rear its ugly head. Last year at this time, there was a foot of snow on the ground. We are living in the coldest part of Bulgaria. The winds will whip across flat Romania, across the Danube. Those whose flats face north generally have the coldest apartments in all of Silistra. The view is beautiful in the summer, but from what I’ve heard it’s not worth it.

In the past month Kate and I have been invited a few times to dinner and we have felt like we are becoming more a part of Silistra every week. The pastor and assistant pastor of the church Kate and I have been attending had us over to dinner with their families. Kate’s tutor and her family had us over to dinner last Friday. Kate’s tutor’s husband made us a dinner of a garlicky pickle salad, Moosika (potato and meat casserole), and dessert. They also served us plenty of the homemade liquor, “rakiya” and their homemade wine. Bulgarians drink hard with the salad and then lighten up with the main course. He kept offering me more and more rakiya, but after about one and a half glasses, I was wondering if Kate was going to have to carry me home. Of course we had bread – no Bulgarian meal is complete without a loaf of bread sliced up for all to eat.

Kate and I have picked up the same habit – we consume about two or three loaves of bread every week. We never ate that much bread back in the States. In Bulgarian, bread is “hlyap.” It is truly the staple of the Bulgarian diet. In the states, we have so many choices for food and bread is mainly used for sandwiches. But here, when you go to the store to buy a loaf of bread, it is un-sliced, costs about 20 cents, and the clerk hands you the loaf of bread with her bare hands. She pulls it out of a basket or rack of numerous loaves and hands you it like a tool, maybe a hammer or a screwdriver. I grab it, pay my 50 stotinki and then walk home with the bread in my hands. Quite often, you will see a boy or girl, sent out to pick up a loaf of bread just before dinner, with the loaf tucked under his or her arm, pulling off pieces of the bread for a snack. What probably offends our American sensibilities the most is that the bread is not in a clean, plastic wrapper, and the clerk hands it to you with her bare hands. By the time the bread gets into my hands it has been touched by so many other hands, that many Americans would want to take it home and scrub it off before they eat it. But that’s not the Bulgarian way. And I haven’t been sick yet. Every morning, in Dupnitsa, our host father made us breakfast with his construction hands – full of dirt under they nails and many times stained with the grime of a construction worker. We Americans are so sensitive to the dirt of life. I have to admit that even still, when I buy bread, I feel a little twinge when the clerk rips the loaf out of the basket with her hands and lays it on the counter. But even already, a freshly baked loaf of Bulgarian bread can make my mouth water. I crave it now – especially a big, thick slice with a rough crust and a soft center. Every store sells bread and it would be inconceivable if they didn’t. In Dupnitsa, during training, I saw so many people carrying loaves of bread that it became a “Bulgarian” thing to do, in my mind. And when we finally came here to Silistra and began to buy our own food, I felt a surge of feeling more like a part of this culture just by carrying a single loaf of bread home for dinner. Carrying it in one hand, letting it swing back and forth in accordance with my gait, or tucking it under my arm with a bag of fruits and vegetables in the other is a symbol of living here in Bulgaria.

-Josh