8-6-00

Now that we have been here in Bulgaria for almost two months, it is sometimes hard to believe what we once had back in Ohio. It is hard to believe that we had a car. That may sound odd to you, but after not driving for two months (and I still won’t drive for another 24 months) it is hard for me to imagine myself driving such a big piece of machinery down the highway. And then to think that the $20-$25 that I would spend to fill my tank up is about one-fourth or one-half of an average Bulgarian’s monthly income, it blows me away. Our host family has one car. It is a small white “Dacia” and it looks like it was made in the 1970’s. The steering wheel has to be turned about 30 degrees to the right in order to go straight and the interior smells of gasoline fumes. When our host father came to pick us up on our first day in Dupnista and lit his cigarette as he careened down the small streets, I thought the car was barely going to make it to our new home. But now I see it as a decent car. It does what it needs to do and so what if you lose a few brain cells from the fumes? We only use 20 percent of our brain capacity anyway! Now don’t get me wrong, Bulgarians aren’t the simple, pure, humble and happy-with-what-they-have-people. Just like us Americans, they go ga-ga over the fancy cars that drive down the streets like the rare but hefty BMW’s and others. It’s amazing to see my American standard of living slowly melt away as I am further immersed into this culture.

Kate and I went out to eat tonight. We don’t do this very often, but we needed some time together. Kate had a salad, a casserole dish, and some chicken. I had salad, fried mushrooms, and a traditional stew. We ordered more than enough and we couldn’t even finish what we had ordered. When the bill came it was 11.60 Bulgarian Leva. Right now, the exchange rate is over 2:1 American Dollars for the Bulgarian Leva. Our meal cost us $5.80. Back in America the same meal would have cost us nearly $30. To make things even better (or worse) most Bulgarians don’t tip or at the most they simply round up the bill and leave the change for the server. So we left our waitress the equivalent of .20 cents for a tip. Now that we are living on a living allowance that puts at about the same standard of living as the average Bulgarian we realize that the meal that we had tonight was quite extravagant. Kate and I are each given 50 Leva per week. So when we go to the store to buy some soap and shampoo and it costs us 6 Leva we say that that’s expensive and know what it feels like to try to make it here in Bulgaria like a real Bulgarian.