| Thursday, 20 June 2002: The new Volunteers! |
| So, The new volunteers (or should I say trainees?) arrived yesterday. It was soo much fun meeting them at the airport! I think a few of us were even more excited to meet them this year than we were to arrive last year. Jake and I were chosen to go buy the traditional cherries, and we bought 6 kilos of them! Trying to be a little different, we bought a bag of strawberries to force upon the poor, weary travellers. When we got to the airport, we had some time to kill. Where did we end up? You guessed it. In the airport cafe. We're not really turning into Bulgarians, are we? A few of us were a little worried that their flight wouldn't make it in, because of the Air traffic controllers strike. Little did we know that their conencting flight in Frankfurt wasn't affected because the ATC in Germany weren't going on strike. We were scared to say the least. I mean, we take a day off work and travel all the wy to Sofia, and heaven forbid it if we had to stay an extra day there just to meet them. Jessica was also on the flight with them, and she was brave. I would definately not want to be on that plane, at least not with them knowing I had been here a year. If I had been one of the new volunteers, I would have driven her crazy with questions. When they got here, it was amazing. None of them looked hungover or tired. They were all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as they waited in the hot sun trying to determine which people were volunteers helping, and which people were just trying to steal their luggage. They were also very forgiving about my strawberries. See, I was trying to be different, but the cherries are chosen for a reason. 3 hours in the sun do not make pretty strawberries. They were starting to juice a look gross, but they were nice enough to eat them anyway. (Un)fortunately nobody's luggage got lost, so they headed out to Strelcha quickly. All of us wanted to spend some more time with them, to get to know them, but we understood what they were going through. So after a few more cherries, and a heartfelt round of "Good-lucks!" they were off, and we were left to go about our daily lives. I'm so happy they are here, and that there is such a large group of them. I wish them lots of luck and patience, it's going to be a bumpy few months of training! -Sarah |