Hey Guys,

Finding Some Culture in Varna and some other stuff/ The return home

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We spent a nice day and a half in Varna this weekend trying to find some culture. We were missing the arts and in search of some. When we lived in Columbus we were so blessed to have the Palace theatre and the Ohio Theatre near us along with numerous other outlets for the arts. Once in a while there is a show at the theatre in Silistra or a more recent movie at the movie theatre, but there is more variety in the bigger towns of Bulgaria, like in America. We traveled to Varna to see the sea, see a symphony and watch a fairly new movie. It was great; we did all three and were able to escape for a while. We also got to observe some different unexpected things.

March third is the Independence Day of Bulgaria and on the eve many people met at the municipality building and stood with torches of fire and paraded down the center with Bulgarian folk music leading them. It was quite an interesting site.

Another thing we experienced were a number of beggar children begging for money as we sat outside at a café. The restaurant workers would try to shoo them away as best as they could but they were all very persistent. Most people don’t even look at the children for if they do the children will become even more determined to get money from you. As we sat at the café I watched one lady give a child a piece of chocolate just to get him to go away and she shoved him as she did so and then took a drag on her cigarette. I saw a lady talk to the children kindly but turn them down and I saw many people say, “ I don’t have any”. And then look away. It is difficult to decide what to do in these situations. As we sat there it seemed like a whole parade of beggars came through. First it started with two boys around the age of 8, then came two girls with babies and then came two 5 year olds. It seemed as though they were grouped off in these ways for effect or for strategy or at least like they were very used to this routine. Even the younger ones with their long faces and the sad smiles they give. It is hard for me to imagine how they are feeling or if they like their life or not and I will never know. We did end up giving them a few coins as we walked from the café. These people that were begging are part of the minority group the gypsies. Most Bulgarians really do not like this group of people and I often hear my students calling each other gypsies as a way of making fun of each other. This hurts me. Not all gypsies make their living begging for money but some do. The Roma people do set themselves aside on purpose because it is a part of their culture and maybe it is for this reason that they are an easy target – because they are different.

We returned on Saturday because we were celebrating a name day with my tutor and her family. When we returned we were not home but a half hour when Josh began smelling smoke. For about 15 minutes we ignored the smell thinking it was either the candles we were burning or the trash dumpsters from outside. When the smell and smoke did not go away we looked outside to discover a fire truck and many people standing outside looking up! A few of my students were standing outside of our block by the fire truck waving up at us with puzzled looks on their faces. Shortly after that we realized – oh, there must be a fire in the building! It turns out the fire was in the apartment just above us and that is the reason for all of the smoke in our apartment. We decided to leave the apartment to figure out the whole story. Apparently the people were not home above us but there was a small fire in their apartment. Luckily it wasn’t too bad, so we only had to deal with smoke and not water from upstairs. We went for a walk hoping that when we returned the smoke would be more under control, but when we returned the smoke was still visible and the smell was worse. We aired the place out the rest of the day, and that’s all it took. The fire is gone.

-Kate