02-23-01

I’m going to miss these kinds of days in a couple years. I dunnno if we’ll be able to go back to the lifestyle that seems incredibly hectic to us now. What’s the rush? Kate and I came here to slow down. That’s not our primary reason for being here in Bulgaria – but it was definitely in the back of our minds when we handed our four pieces of luggage to the woman at the Delta counter at the Akron airport about nine months ago.

We went down into the city center to find a couple things that we needed – light bulbs, a toilet brush (quite an essential here) and some other things. We passed by the many “Babas” (grandmas) selling their goods for Baba Marta day, which is in just a few days. I’m not really sure on the whole story behind the holiday, but you can buy little red and white tassel-type decorations that you hang on trees for health and luck. Right now, they’re available everywhere. My students have told me the story about the holiday maybe five or six times already, but I still haven’t gotten the whole story. Maybe it’s sort of like Mr. Jing-a-ling (if you’re from the Cleveland area). Who was he? WHAT was he?? No one really seemed to know, but he always came around at Christmas time, wearing ridiculously large skeleton keys around his waist and we all would say, “Look, it’s Mr. Jing-a-ling!” And we would all stop to look at this man with reverence, hoping his favor would shine upon us (or, at least, throw some candy at us). And no one ever seemed to know why.

We passed by one vendor who is a grandmother of some lucky boy or girl and she introduced to all of her Baba Marta decorations. Kate and I saw a large decoration that were almost like small dolls – which is actually what these tassels are supposed to represent, a man and a woman. They were hand-made and, according to the baba, very expensive – 3 leva ($1.50) – but for us, 2.50 leva. We obviously struck a chord in her heart to drop the price. Kate and I decided to ponder this great expense and walked on to find the stuff we were looking for and eventually found ourselves passing the same vendor again. She recognized us again and as soon as we opened our mouths to speak our beginners’ Bulgarian, she asked us if we were Romanian, Russian, or Polish. We told her, “Amerikantzi.” She rolled her eyes, looked at her friend, and made a noise like she just heard how much Derek Jeter is making in one season for the NY Yankees. All we had was 5 leva bill and she had only 1 leva in change for us. We dug around in our pockets for some smaller money, but no luck. She realized the problem, pulled out her 1 leva and all the rest of the stotinki in her pocket and poured it into my hand – not even close to 2 leva, the change that we deserved. But to her, it was fair even though the price changed three times. It all made sense to her and it did to us, too. There was never a price tag on the thing and I guess inflation is to blame . . . And now we are home with our new toilet brush, light bulbs, and Baba Marta decoration. Will we hang it on a tree? No way! It’s way to valuable!

My students told me about these kinds of days . . . way back in September when this town of Silistra was full of newness for us. Kate and I thought, how could living in this town ever become “boring?” But alas, we woke up today and wondered, what will we do today? Get a toilet brush? Yes! And maybe we’ll clean the kitchen later . . . I wouldn’t actually call it “boring” as many of my students like to say, but I would say that we now, more or less, “know” this town. I’ve had too many busy and stressful days to never say that I’m actually “bored” with a day that requires so little from me. Walking through town means seeing at least three of my students who, most of the time, say, “Hello, Mr. Miller.” Most of Kate’s students seem to be oblivious to the crowd of faceless “adults” who pass them by all day long as they walk with their friends around town. So it’s common for Kate to say, “hey, there’s one of my students”, and then we’ll just pass by and he or she will never even see us. But you know, just being here, in Silistra, walking through the city center and seeing our students, and our students seeing us, is life in Peace Corps – in general, it’s life in community. It’s getting to this point where we “know” the town, where we are living through the bleak, short days of winter, and not leaving. It’s getting to a place where you almost belong. Kate and I are honest with ourselves – we’ll never truly belong here. Our home is somewhere else. For me, the edge of excitement of anything always becomes dull after I know it. The not-knowing is the most exciting part of life. But to choose to go deeper than excitement is to go where the fullness of life is.

-Josh