Family and Friends,

Family and Friends, June 18, 2000

We are now in the small town of Dupnitsa living with our host family the Nicolovi’s. This is a family of five Yordormeo is the mother, Volodyor is the father, Emilio is their 22 year old daughter, and the twins Silvia and Svetsav (or Svet) both 19 years old. Svet and Silvia go to the University of Sofia (the capital) and Emilio goes to University in Bulgaria in a smaller town.

This family is great! They live in an upstairs apartment. The outside is not well kept, as is the case for all Bulgarian homes in Dupnitsa, but the inside is quite spacious and very nice. There are three bedrooms. They gave us the largest room, which has two single beds (we think this was the parents room and they are sleeping in their son’s room, while Svet is on the couch.) Our room has a table and chairs, a wooden closet and chest and is decorated nicely and looks very pretty. Bulgarians seem to be into tile that looks like marble covering their floors, it is very nice.

The other rooms include a family room where we eat dinner around the coffee table, and watch the family T.V. (MTV!!) and the kitchen where Yordormeo and Emilio prepare the homemade meals. Today I watched Emilio prepare homemade chicken and rice soup and stuffed chicken sewed together with thread. Other things we have eaten are French fries, mashed potatoes, homemade ketchup with peppers, cheese (feta like), sausage, bean soup, bread, chicken soup, a sweet macaroni, and the popular Bulgarian salad of cucumbers and tomatoes. The food has been good and plenty of it! Josh tried the unpasturized, whole milk yesterday and he could not get it down, but so far this is the only thing we have sworn off.

The bathroom is the last room of the house. It is rather nice, but it is all one, meaning that the small bathroom is the shower, so we pull the curtain over the door and take a shower standing between the toilet and the sink! The toilet is very interesting, but better than the Turkish toilet which is a hole in the ground.

Emilio has been taking care of me and we are friends, she is very sweet! Svet has been taking care of Josh. They went to play basketball yesterday while Emilio and I went for a walk in the park. We also went to the center of town. Everyone really dresses up on Saturday’s to go out. The women wear very short skirts or Capri pants and look very dressy, quite a change from America on Saturdays. We also got to experience our first café where we sat outside and got coffee and tea.

We are doing well, but we have lots to learn, we are lucky to have learned the alphabet to be able to read from the dictionary, which we bring everywhere. We really want to learn the Bulgarian language quickly so that we can converse with our family! They know a few words of English and we know a few Bulgarian, but it is difficult to communicate especially with mother and father who do not know any English. Svet and Emilio are the only ones who know a few words of English and they are working with us and learning also! I will write soon. Let us know of happenings in your lives.

You are thought of often

Love,

Kate