12-17-00

Christmas is just eight days away and we thought for sure that we’d have snow by now. But we don’t. And it’s been somewhat mild over the past few days. Today was sunny, and Kate and I did a lot of shopping for food because Kate’s family will be coming to visit us in just a few days for Christmas. We returned on Saturday from a town called Dobrich from another training event with the Peace Corps. Our neighbor, oh our lovely neighbor, is below us yelling drunkenly with his friends like sophomores in college. He was loud last night too. We’ve pounded on the floor a few times in the past, but he responded to that with putting his little radio up to his ceiling to spite us. So we wait and sometimes hear other neighbors pounding on his walls, but to no avail. Most of the time it’s quiet here and people come and go with just sounds of footsteps and lightly closing doors outside of our door. What is even better is when he decides to turn on his “Chalga” music (the pop folk music) and whistles along with it. His whistle is like a whistle from the Navy. I expect to hear something like, “All hands on deck! All hands on deck!” It penetrates the walls and can ruin a good book any time of the day. Bad neighbors seem to follow us . . .

We’ve now been here in Bulgaria for exactly six months. Six months ago to this date, we arrived in Sofia, tired and having little idea what to expect. I remember feeling confused because I was looking at the towns that we drove through and it looked like there were no places for people to work. The factories were abandoned and stray dogs were galloping across vacant roads. I hadn’t been to the center of Sofia yet and I hadn’t seen any other town except for the “mountain resort” that we stayed at during our first few days here. The country looked vacant and I thought I was coming face to face with a region similar to the one bombed for months by our military, just a few kilometers across the western border. It seemed alien. I knew only five words of Bulgarian and of the history I knew so little. Shortly after arriving at our “mountain resort”, Kate and I were sitting on one of the mountains, taking some time to write in our journals. I kept marveling at the mountains and I thought this country was fabulous. The nature that was surrounding us was incredible and the apparently limitless possibilities that lay ahead of us seemed like a feast of ideas. I had quickly forgotten the abandoned factories and stray dogs. We were literally, and metaphorically, on the “mountain.” After four days of recovering from jetlag, we descended the mountain to Dupnitsa (by the way, “dupka” means hole and Dupnitsa is named after “dupka” because of its low elevation) for our summer training.

Now, six months later, we’re here in Silistra. Kate and I have a better grip on life here in Bulgaria and we can, *at times*, carry on an intelligent conversation with other Bulgarians. Our apartment has become home for us and we know where to buy the best bread in town. Other volunteers have left and gone home, even though their towns have been some of the best and their apartments, immaculate. We’re living in the furthest corner of the country from the capitol, our winters are supposed to be miserable, and our apartment is half the size of the one we left in the States. But we like it. Our experience as volunteers is quite unique because we are married and people are envious of us having someone to speak American English. You never realize how you miss all those American phrases, like, “like”, “you know”, “ . . . and stuff like that” and stuff like that.

We came to Bulgaria for the experience and to help. I expected the country to change me a little bit. It has and I expect it will continue to. But I thought that I, as a person, would quickly change as soon as we got here. I expected all those things that I don’t like about myself to be left in the States, because, I thought, I was like that because of my environment and the pressures put upon me. (I wouldn’t pressure myself, would I??) But I have found that the things that I don’t like about myself followed right along with me. I continue to respond to certain situations simply out of impulse and reflex, with little or no thought. Our lives are qualified so many times with a thought beginning with “If only. . .” As if we had just more experience, more money, less work, more time, etc., etc. I expected the grass to be greener. But we are the only ones who can make the grass greener right where we are at.

I have also realized how condescending that second reason in the first sentence of the previous paragraph is: “To help”. As if the Bulgarians couldn’t do it by themselves. As if I were the father-knows-best figure reaching down to pull these lowly Bulgarians out of their despair. Yes, Peace Corps is a volunteer organization and volunteers usually help. But I have felt embarrassed when I have recalled the many times I have told Bulgarians that I am here “to help.” They have all been kind when I have said that, but I wonder what they really thought of me when I did say that. The school newspaper put on the title of my interview “I am here to help you.” That was a direct quote from me when the student-reporter asked me if there was one thing that I wanted the students to know. I think if they asked me again, I think I might say, “I’m trying.”

And another thing, I’ve been feeling more patriotic than ever in my life. I was convinced that when I returned form Germany after a month in high school, that no American really knows what it means to be an American until after he/she leaves the country and then come back home. I still believe it and the adage of “distance makes the heart grow fonder” is true even with your country. (However, I am still certain that the American lifestyle is atrociously wasteful and would deplete our world’s resources in less than a month if everyone in the world lived like Americans.) After meeting some foreign-service officials and the Ambassador here in Bulgaria, I’m fairly convinced that America can actually be trying to do some good throughout the country and not just protecting its own interests. I also feel, being a part of Peace Corps, like I’m part of something big. I’m working for Bulgaria and I’m an ambassador for America. To have the whole country of America behind you is a unique feeling while living in a foreign country.

So, there’s my little personal inventory that I’ve taken after our first six months here. And if you made it all the way through it, I applaud you and I’ll buy you a beer when I get back.

-Josh