7-09-00

Dear Family and Friends –

It has been almost one month since we left Ohio and we’re still alive here in Bulgaria. It’s Sunday afternoon here and it is a “pochievka den”, or “rest day.” The rest of the week is full of training at the elementary school from 8am to 5pm. The training is extensive and full of language classes, medical sessions, cultural sessions and technical sessions about teaching in Bulgaria. Speaking of language, that is still the biggest hurdle for us here in Bulgaria. We take about 2-3 hours of language classes every day. We are learning slowly but surely. Our host family has been patient with us as we try to move parts of our mouth that we usually don’t use when we spoke English. (For those of you who have learned a foreign language with a native speaker, you know what we mean!)

We’re living in Dupnitsa, a town about one or two hours south of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. It is relatively small – about 40,000 people, but we like it. So far, the summer has been extremely hot here. The past week has been in the 90’s and sometimes reaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s unusual for this region to have such hot weather right now. The town has a typical European city center. There are an abundance of cafes (the continental pastime of Europeans) and little shops. The exterior of most Bulgarian buildings does not reflect the interior of the inside of the buildings. Usually the inside of the buildings are very clean and well kept. The exterior of the buildings are many times in disrepair and, like our home, under construction for ten years or more.

The people here are, by my midwestern standards, not very friendly on the street. However, once you meet someone or enter their home, they turn into your best friends. Our host family is wonderful to us and they are taking great care of us. I think we mentioned that we are living in a five room flat with a five-person family. We have been given the largest room for our bedroom and the brother and sisters (Svetly, Sylvia, and Amelia) sleep in a room, while the mother and father have the other bedroom. Rarely have I felt that this flat is too small for all seven of us. It is actually very comfortable.

As far as the food, we are eating fairly familiar things. We eat an abundance of cucumbers and tomatoes doused in oil and salt. (Too bad Kate doesn't like them!) They have little or no lettuce here and their salads consist of mainly those two things. Many evenings, we have soup or stew here at our host-home. The food is not as spicy and blander to my tastes. We have cheese-stuffed peppers, instant mashed potatoes, french fries, bread with every meal, sweet juice, and more. As I mentioned, we have little meat, and if we do it is usually for an occasion. They have one big freezer in the kitchen that is full of a pig that was slaughtered about two months ago. That will probably be eaten over the next ten months or so. I've heard horror stories from other trainees about their meals, but ours have been edible and nutritious. By the way, Mom, we have been taking a multivitamin every day!

The spiritual life here in Bulgaria has been anything but impressive. When I have asked people about the Church, I have gotten apathetic responses. We had a historian from the University in Sofia come to talk with us and he admitted the stagnant state of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. He admitted that it is almost non-existent in social issues. Its impact on the Bulgarian society, in my opinion thus far, is questionable. (Quite surprising considering the state of Bulgaria.) We visited the church here in Dupnitsa, the cathedral in Sofia, and a smaller one in Sofia (to my eyes all magnificent!). There are no chairs and the space is more suited to personal prayer than worship. There are small shrines around the spaces and you can buy prayer tapers for 10 stotininki each (about 5 cents) and light them and add them to the many prayer stations throughout the space. The space is filled with beautifully painted icons and they have been darkened over the decades by smoke damage. It is everything you would expect an Eastern-Orthodox church to be -- rich, deep colors in the icons, a trace of incense in the air, and awe-inspiring architecture. I made it down to the Dupnitsa church two Sundays ago at about 11am to see if I could catch a liturgy or something, but there was a wedding going on. I was allowed inside, as anyone else was, to light the prayer tapers and spend time in contemplation. (Personal space is another issue altogether!) The wedding went right along with about 20-30 people in attendance. We saw the same thing in Sofia. The priest sang the liturgy in Bulgarian and the service in Sofia and Dupnitsa were almost identical. I really want to look into this more and do a paper on the Bulgarian Orthodox church for credit over the two years. I would like to interview a couple priests and do some more research online. Since church life has been central to both Kate and I for so long, I'm a little worried that that might be a difficulty that we'll have to search hard for, for an answer. I'm unsure if the church here is anything more than a place to have your traditional rituals done and then continue on with your life. I'm sure that Bulgarians have the same questions about God, existence, etc, but it seems that they deal with them in a very different way. Either we're going to have to become more Bulgarian over the next two years, or we're going to have to start our own church here. : )

-Josh