It has recently been brought to my attention that some of you guys may or may not be having a difficult time trying to decipher all of my Peace Corps babble. So, this blog is solely dedicated to breaking it down for you guys so you will now be hip to the Peace Corps lingo.
Ok, this is pretty much the breakdown of Peace Corps Bulgaria. We have a Country Director (CD) and her name is Lesley and she's in charge of everything and everyone in Bulgaria. Then we have Phil and Jason. Phil is the PTO (and I honestly have no idea what that means) and Jason is in charge of finances. So those are the three big dogs.
Then, out of however many programs the entire Peace Corps offers, we only have three in Bulgaria. We have Youth Development (YD), Community Organization and Development (COD) and Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). I am a TEFL, obviously. It's been said that the TEFLs have the most work and the most difficult jobs out of the three programs here. I'm not trying to make you think that TEFL is better than the others...but it is. I'm not biast or anything.
Anyway, each program then has two or three Bulgarians that are in charge. Dora is the Program Director for the TEFLS and she has two assistants, Valya and Chavdar. All three of them are absolutely amazing. Actually, the entire Peace Corps Staff is pretty fantastic. I think it's really cool how Lesley, Phil and Jason are the only three Americans and everyone else is Buglarian. I like that a lot. Also on staff are three Doctors, a Safety and Security Coordinator, a Training Manager and Assistant (they were in charge of everything that happened during Pre-Service Training), and a Language Coordinator.
Also, there are different groups of Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) here in Bulgaria. The group that I'm in is B26. The B26 group is everyone that left America when I did to come here. We are the 26th group to be in Bulgaria since Peace Corps got here. The group before us is B25 and so on. I think at this moment, we have some volunteers all the way back to B21, or B22. The next group that's coming in (the B27s) are coming in March, so that will be fun.
So that is the Peace Corps breakdown. Hopefully I've cleared some things up for anyone who was confused. If I did leave anything out, though, or you just have questions, leave me a comment and let me know! These questions can be about anything, not just necessarily about this post. Have a good weekend, everyone!
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Blagoevgrad, AIDS and the first day of school. What do all of these things have in common?
The answer is: these are all of the reasons that I haven't written in such a long time. I apologize, but to make up for it, this blog will be extra entertaining and extra long. Grab some popcorn and a Coke and get ready for the stories of the last three weeks.
OK, first of all, we had to do some more training before they shipped us all off to school. So, all of the TEFLs and CODs were gathered together in a town south of Sofia, called Blagoevgrad. It's a gorgeous mountain town with an American University. I traveled to Blagoevgrad with Kerri, Kristin and Mary. We stopped in Sofia and stayed overnight at a hostel called Hostel Mostel. Now, this was my first every hostel experience (I haven't even seen the movies) so I had no idea what to expect. We get into the cab at the bus station and told him Hostel Mostel. When he dropped us off, I got out of the cab and grabbed my bags. I looked around for something that might resemble what I think a hostel would look like, but saw nothing of the sort. I didn't see anything besides whatever construction was happening all around the area. Luckily, one of the other girls saw a small sign above a hidden door with the name on it. We went to the door and pushed the button to be let in. We walked through the smallest door in the world and into a beautiful courtyard. The hostel was amazing. It was clean and bright and not hostel looking at all. Everyone who worked there spoke English and they were all so helpful. The guy at the front desk gave all of us maps and told us the best places to go for food, drinks and entertainment. Then he took us to our room, which turned out to be this cute apartment thing that was on another side of town. He told us that some more Peace Corps Volunteers would be joining us later that night, but they knew where they were going, so he wouldn't be back. The apartment was great, with a nice, clean bathroom, a full kitchen and a common area. We put our stuff down and hit the streets of Sofia to see what we had missed the last time. We bought some sunglasses and did some window shopping. Then we saw it. The one thing that none of us craved but we still had to have it: McDonald's. Now, I didn't eat McDonald's in the States (except for the McFlurry, but that's just on special occassions...and it's so good) but I had to have it. It was the best thing that could've happend to my tastebuds at that time. It tasted like America. After McDonald's, we did some more window shopping and then we stumbled upon Starbucks and indulged yet again. After our very American lunch, we decided to go back to the hostel and rest before we hit the town that night. We got back to the hostel to find more Volunteers there napping. Soon, though, they woke up and we all began talking. They are B25s who were coming to Blagoevgrad too. We all went out to dinner at some Italian place that was pretty good and then we parted ways with the 25s. The four of us went on a journey to find a candlelight bar. It's this bar that's down an alley (not a creepy alley) and in a barn-looking building. The entire bar is lit by candles and they play jazz music. The candles are melted onto the tables, columns, and stairs. It looks really cool because the candles are all different colors and the wax all melts together and looks really cool. If any boy in Bulgaria wants to impress his lady, he should take her there. The atmosphere was very relaxed and not bar-like. The only problem was that after a while it got pretty hot in there with the combination of alcohol and candles. We stayed there for a while until we decided that we should sleep because we had more traveling to do the next day.
The next day, we got up and went to the main courtyard of the hostel for breakfast (breakfast and dinner are always included with the prices). Then we cabbed it to the bus station again and got on our bus to Blagoevgrad. On the bus we ran into more Volunteers and we all traveled together. The bus ride wasn't too bad. I fell asleep for most of it and we were in Blagoevgrad before I knew it. We had to take taxis to the hotel that we were all staying in, which wasn't quite in town. By the time we got there, there was a pretty decent sized group of us there. It was good to see everyone again and hear stories about everyone's permanant sites. A small group of us went to the Mehana for lunch. When "Mehana" is written in Cyrillic, it looks a lot like "Mexican" and the first time we saw it, we thought it was a Mexican restaurant and we all got really excited, until we realized the unfortunate truth. A Mehana is a traditional Bulgarian food restaurant and is the last thing you want when you think you're going to get Mexican. Anyway, thsi time we knew what we were getting ourselves into, so it was good. By the time we got done eating, it was time for our first session. We walked back to the hotel to find over half of our B26 group together again. We had a brief opening session, explaining all of the things that we would be doing in the next week. After that we broke into the groups that we would be teaching with for that week. My group consisted of Jackie, Lexi, Kevin and myself and our counterpart was a woman named Dima (she is the actual counterpart of a B25 and she's fabulous). We called ourselves "The Dream Team".
The following week was filled with teaching in the mornings: The four of us taught eleventh graders and they were fantastic. All of them spoke English very well and they responded well to almost everything that we did. They really liked playing games and I enjoyed watching the others teach. Dima was very supportive of everything we did and took away some of our games and strategies to use in her own classes. At the end of the week, all of the classes had to do some sort of presentation infront of all of the others. All of the classes were great (ours were the best, of course). The eighth graders did the "Thriller" dance, which was amazing. The ninth graders sang the Bulgarian national anthem and the American national anthem, which gave me chills because it had been so long since the last time I heard it. I'm pretty sure I saw a tear in Kevin's (aka Captain America) eye. The tenth graders did a country line dance and then two to the boys beat-boxed, which was pretty epic. The other eleventh grade class did a spoof on "House" and then ended with an acoustic version of "Bad Romance". Our class went last and we did a murder mystery skit in which Lady Gaga killed everyone and took all of the money. The kids had a blast doing it and it showed off what we had taught them that week.
The afternoon was jam-packed with sessions: They were lead by B25s, Bulgarian counterparts or Peace Corps Staff. We learned about different teaching techniques, classroom management strategies, ways to make grammar fun, and just about Bulgarian schools in general. Most of them were interesting and helpful. The final full day in Blagoevgrad was spent going over different ways to raise AIDS awareness. We spent all day doing different activities that we'll be able to take back to our permanant sites. There was also a session on how to put on a condom, using a banana and you would think that adults could get through it without laughing. Wrong. I guess some things you never grow out of.
The nights were used for socializing, drinking and playing games: There was a huge front patio that was used nightly for hours of Apples to Apples, Big Booty, and sing-a-longs. It was nice because pretty much everyone hung out with each other. It wasn't as cliquey as our group appeared to be at HUBS and whatnot. Tuesday night everyone went into the town to see "Inception" in the theatre that was on the American University campus. There were only, like five people in the whole theatre that were not Peace Corps Volunteers. It was pretty hilarious. The movie was also excellent. Wednesday was Mary's birthday, so that night all of our PST group (and some extras) went into the town for dinner and drinks. It was a lot of fun and I think it meant a lot to her that we all came together. Later that night, some of the CODs came out and I stayed out with them because TEFLs rarely get to hang out with CODs during the day.
On the way back from our week of Blagoevgrad fun, Lexi, Kerri and I went back through Sofia. Lexi had to make a pit-stop at the Peace Corps Office and we stayed at Hostel Mostel again. We had told Lexi how great it was and she wanted to experience it for herself. This time we stayed in an apartment that was smaller and closer to the main building. We went to the main building for dinner and found out that a bunch of people were going to the park for some kind of music festival. We decided that we should go too. Why not? We found ourselves walking across the entire city with people from all around the world. There was a guy from California, some girls from Austrailia, some guys from Finland, a guy from Germany, some girls from Austria, and some boys from Britain. It was a blast. We went to the festival and then back to the candle light bar and then to some other bar/cafe thing and then back to the hostel for an all-nighter. It was great. The next day, however, was not as much fun. We did go to Subway and I finally got Ranch Dressing. It was like heaven in my mouth, even if we did have to walk halfway across the city to get it. After Subway, we went back to the hostel to relax until it was time for our buses and we ended up meeting a guy from North Carolina! He went to UNC and his cousin lives in Fayetteville and she's someone that I know, who went to Jack Britt-how weird is that!? Talk about a small world. After that excitement, we went to the bus station and got on our respective buses to go back to our towns.
The next two days I spent resting because that Wednesday was the first day of school for teachers. I had no idea what to expect, I've never been a teacher before. I spent time picking out my outfit and getting all of my supplies ready to lesson plan or something productive. I got to the school and my Director asked me where I had been all week. I freaked out because 1) I had just spent a week with all Americans, speaking nothing but English and I had no idea what she was saying; and 2) This was the first day. She saw the paniced look on my face and told me that she was joking. She knew that I had been in Blagoevgrad. I almost died. Then I went into the Teachers' Room and found my counterpart. The Director gave some long speech that I didn't understand and then she gave out what classes we would all be teaching. After that, we all just sat there. Eventually there were snacks, but mostly just sitting. The rest of the week followed a simiar pattern. I got there and sat. That was pretty much it. I used my time from 8am to 12 noon studing Buglarian and mastering my skills at Sudoku.
The next week, I went with Rory to Dolna Banya for and AIDS camp training. Another B25 Volunteer was putting on an AIDS camp in her town and some other volunteers were invited to help and to learn how to do it so that they can do it in their sites. Rory thought it would be a good idea if I went with him so that I would be able to help him and so that I could physically help him carry back all of the supplies. I agreed because I thought it would be a good idea and it was better than sitting around the Teachers' Room doing nothing. This volunteer, Von, who put on the camp was awesome. She put so much into it and you could tell. We got there the evening before and she gave us a quick rundown of how things would go the next day. She had all of these activities and games that were educational, but fun. We played icebreakers, did trivia, jeopardy, made anatomy figures, played condom volleyball, played regular volleyball, soccer and dodgeball, and wrapped it up with a review. It was fantastic. You could tell that the kids enjoyed it and that they learned a lot too. Each kid got a T-shirt and you could tell that that was a big deal for them, too. All of Von's counterparts at the chitalishte (she's a Youth Development volunteer) were eager to help and were so supportive. The other volunteers that were there were also all B25s and they were all great. It will be exciting to see try to put this thing together in Koynare.
That weekend, there was actually a 5K in Koynare that is also a fundraiser for the town. There was a pretty good turnout. Rory and I participated along with other volunteers that came from nearby to support us. I didn't run the whole thing, but my goal for next year is to be able to run the entire race. I probably need to start now. Either way, the fact that Americans were there was a huge deal and we ended up being in the newspaper (both in Koynare and Sofia), on the news, and on the Bulgarian sport website. It was pretty cool.
Today was the first day of school. I was slightly nervous going into it because I literally had no idea what to expect. I had heard that the day was mostly just a celebration and that I wouldn't have to teach, but all day I was paranoid that I would somehow get stuck infront of a class with nothing prepared. But, not to worry, that didn't happen. The day began with a ceremony in the courtyard thing. The mayor spoke along with some teachers and some guy in robes who kind of reminded me of that rapping rabbi. He sang some kind of jam that I couldn't understand or hear because the mic was bad. All he was missing was a bass line. After the ceremony, we went to the Teachers' Room and hung out for a little bit. I was with the woman that I would be team teaching with. She's not my counterpart or the woman that I met in Vratsa at the Counterpart Conference, but she's great. Her name is Nina and she speaks English and she'll teach the ninth graders with me. So far, so good. Anyway, after sitting around for a while, we went to the cantine (or cafeteria) and there was a banquet layout for all of the teachers. It was so nice. There was food, drinks and dancing. It was a regular party. Today more of the teachers showed interest in me, which I appreciated. Maybe by the end of the year they'll all speak to me. We'll see.
Tomorrow, is the hard part, though. It's the first day of actual classes. I have a lesson plan prepared so we'll see how it goes. The first day is always easy, though. No actual assignments, just icebreakers. Wish me luck!
OK, first of all, we had to do some more training before they shipped us all off to school. So, all of the TEFLs and CODs were gathered together in a town south of Sofia, called Blagoevgrad. It's a gorgeous mountain town with an American University. I traveled to Blagoevgrad with Kerri, Kristin and Mary. We stopped in Sofia and stayed overnight at a hostel called Hostel Mostel. Now, this was my first every hostel experience (I haven't even seen the movies) so I had no idea what to expect. We get into the cab at the bus station and told him Hostel Mostel. When he dropped us off, I got out of the cab and grabbed my bags. I looked around for something that might resemble what I think a hostel would look like, but saw nothing of the sort. I didn't see anything besides whatever construction was happening all around the area. Luckily, one of the other girls saw a small sign above a hidden door with the name on it. We went to the door and pushed the button to be let in. We walked through the smallest door in the world and into a beautiful courtyard. The hostel was amazing. It was clean and bright and not hostel looking at all. Everyone who worked there spoke English and they were all so helpful. The guy at the front desk gave all of us maps and told us the best places to go for food, drinks and entertainment. Then he took us to our room, which turned out to be this cute apartment thing that was on another side of town. He told us that some more Peace Corps Volunteers would be joining us later that night, but they knew where they were going, so he wouldn't be back. The apartment was great, with a nice, clean bathroom, a full kitchen and a common area. We put our stuff down and hit the streets of Sofia to see what we had missed the last time. We bought some sunglasses and did some window shopping. Then we saw it. The one thing that none of us craved but we still had to have it: McDonald's. Now, I didn't eat McDonald's in the States (except for the McFlurry, but that's just on special occassions...and it's so good) but I had to have it. It was the best thing that could've happend to my tastebuds at that time. It tasted like America. After McDonald's, we did some more window shopping and then we stumbled upon Starbucks and indulged yet again. After our very American lunch, we decided to go back to the hostel and rest before we hit the town that night. We got back to the hostel to find more Volunteers there napping. Soon, though, they woke up and we all began talking. They are B25s who were coming to Blagoevgrad too. We all went out to dinner at some Italian place that was pretty good and then we parted ways with the 25s. The four of us went on a journey to find a candlelight bar. It's this bar that's down an alley (not a creepy alley) and in a barn-looking building. The entire bar is lit by candles and they play jazz music. The candles are melted onto the tables, columns, and stairs. It looks really cool because the candles are all different colors and the wax all melts together and looks really cool. If any boy in Bulgaria wants to impress his lady, he should take her there. The atmosphere was very relaxed and not bar-like. The only problem was that after a while it got pretty hot in there with the combination of alcohol and candles. We stayed there for a while until we decided that we should sleep because we had more traveling to do the next day.
The next day, we got up and went to the main courtyard of the hostel for breakfast (breakfast and dinner are always included with the prices). Then we cabbed it to the bus station again and got on our bus to Blagoevgrad. On the bus we ran into more Volunteers and we all traveled together. The bus ride wasn't too bad. I fell asleep for most of it and we were in Blagoevgrad before I knew it. We had to take taxis to the hotel that we were all staying in, which wasn't quite in town. By the time we got there, there was a pretty decent sized group of us there. It was good to see everyone again and hear stories about everyone's permanant sites. A small group of us went to the Mehana for lunch. When "Mehana" is written in Cyrillic, it looks a lot like "Mexican" and the first time we saw it, we thought it was a Mexican restaurant and we all got really excited, until we realized the unfortunate truth. A Mehana is a traditional Bulgarian food restaurant and is the last thing you want when you think you're going to get Mexican. Anyway, thsi time we knew what we were getting ourselves into, so it was good. By the time we got done eating, it was time for our first session. We walked back to the hotel to find over half of our B26 group together again. We had a brief opening session, explaining all of the things that we would be doing in the next week. After that we broke into the groups that we would be teaching with for that week. My group consisted of Jackie, Lexi, Kevin and myself and our counterpart was a woman named Dima (she is the actual counterpart of a B25 and she's fabulous). We called ourselves "The Dream Team".
The following week was filled with teaching in the mornings: The four of us taught eleventh graders and they were fantastic. All of them spoke English very well and they responded well to almost everything that we did. They really liked playing games and I enjoyed watching the others teach. Dima was very supportive of everything we did and took away some of our games and strategies to use in her own classes. At the end of the week, all of the classes had to do some sort of presentation infront of all of the others. All of the classes were great (ours were the best, of course). The eighth graders did the "Thriller" dance, which was amazing. The ninth graders sang the Bulgarian national anthem and the American national anthem, which gave me chills because it had been so long since the last time I heard it. I'm pretty sure I saw a tear in Kevin's (aka Captain America) eye. The tenth graders did a country line dance and then two to the boys beat-boxed, which was pretty epic. The other eleventh grade class did a spoof on "House" and then ended with an acoustic version of "Bad Romance". Our class went last and we did a murder mystery skit in which Lady Gaga killed everyone and took all of the money. The kids had a blast doing it and it showed off what we had taught them that week.
The afternoon was jam-packed with sessions: They were lead by B25s, Bulgarian counterparts or Peace Corps Staff. We learned about different teaching techniques, classroom management strategies, ways to make grammar fun, and just about Bulgarian schools in general. Most of them were interesting and helpful. The final full day in Blagoevgrad was spent going over different ways to raise AIDS awareness. We spent all day doing different activities that we'll be able to take back to our permanant sites. There was also a session on how to put on a condom, using a banana and you would think that adults could get through it without laughing. Wrong. I guess some things you never grow out of.
The nights were used for socializing, drinking and playing games: There was a huge front patio that was used nightly for hours of Apples to Apples, Big Booty, and sing-a-longs. It was nice because pretty much everyone hung out with each other. It wasn't as cliquey as our group appeared to be at HUBS and whatnot. Tuesday night everyone went into the town to see "Inception" in the theatre that was on the American University campus. There were only, like five people in the whole theatre that were not Peace Corps Volunteers. It was pretty hilarious. The movie was also excellent. Wednesday was Mary's birthday, so that night all of our PST group (and some extras) went into the town for dinner and drinks. It was a lot of fun and I think it meant a lot to her that we all came together. Later that night, some of the CODs came out and I stayed out with them because TEFLs rarely get to hang out with CODs during the day.
On the way back from our week of Blagoevgrad fun, Lexi, Kerri and I went back through Sofia. Lexi had to make a pit-stop at the Peace Corps Office and we stayed at Hostel Mostel again. We had told Lexi how great it was and she wanted to experience it for herself. This time we stayed in an apartment that was smaller and closer to the main building. We went to the main building for dinner and found out that a bunch of people were going to the park for some kind of music festival. We decided that we should go too. Why not? We found ourselves walking across the entire city with people from all around the world. There was a guy from California, some girls from Austrailia, some guys from Finland, a guy from Germany, some girls from Austria, and some boys from Britain. It was a blast. We went to the festival and then back to the candle light bar and then to some other bar/cafe thing and then back to the hostel for an all-nighter. It was great. The next day, however, was not as much fun. We did go to Subway and I finally got Ranch Dressing. It was like heaven in my mouth, even if we did have to walk halfway across the city to get it. After Subway, we went back to the hostel to relax until it was time for our buses and we ended up meeting a guy from North Carolina! He went to UNC and his cousin lives in Fayetteville and she's someone that I know, who went to Jack Britt-how weird is that!? Talk about a small world. After that excitement, we went to the bus station and got on our respective buses to go back to our towns.
The next two days I spent resting because that Wednesday was the first day of school for teachers. I had no idea what to expect, I've never been a teacher before. I spent time picking out my outfit and getting all of my supplies ready to lesson plan or something productive. I got to the school and my Director asked me where I had been all week. I freaked out because 1) I had just spent a week with all Americans, speaking nothing but English and I had no idea what she was saying; and 2) This was the first day. She saw the paniced look on my face and told me that she was joking. She knew that I had been in Blagoevgrad. I almost died. Then I went into the Teachers' Room and found my counterpart. The Director gave some long speech that I didn't understand and then she gave out what classes we would all be teaching. After that, we all just sat there. Eventually there were snacks, but mostly just sitting. The rest of the week followed a simiar pattern. I got there and sat. That was pretty much it. I used my time from 8am to 12 noon studing Buglarian and mastering my skills at Sudoku.
The next week, I went with Rory to Dolna Banya for and AIDS camp training. Another B25 Volunteer was putting on an AIDS camp in her town and some other volunteers were invited to help and to learn how to do it so that they can do it in their sites. Rory thought it would be a good idea if I went with him so that I would be able to help him and so that I could physically help him carry back all of the supplies. I agreed because I thought it would be a good idea and it was better than sitting around the Teachers' Room doing nothing. This volunteer, Von, who put on the camp was awesome. She put so much into it and you could tell. We got there the evening before and she gave us a quick rundown of how things would go the next day. She had all of these activities and games that were educational, but fun. We played icebreakers, did trivia, jeopardy, made anatomy figures, played condom volleyball, played regular volleyball, soccer and dodgeball, and wrapped it up with a review. It was fantastic. You could tell that the kids enjoyed it and that they learned a lot too. Each kid got a T-shirt and you could tell that that was a big deal for them, too. All of Von's counterparts at the chitalishte (she's a Youth Development volunteer) were eager to help and were so supportive. The other volunteers that were there were also all B25s and they were all great. It will be exciting to see try to put this thing together in Koynare.
That weekend, there was actually a 5K in Koynare that is also a fundraiser for the town. There was a pretty good turnout. Rory and I participated along with other volunteers that came from nearby to support us. I didn't run the whole thing, but my goal for next year is to be able to run the entire race. I probably need to start now. Either way, the fact that Americans were there was a huge deal and we ended up being in the newspaper (both in Koynare and Sofia), on the news, and on the Bulgarian sport website. It was pretty cool.
Today was the first day of school. I was slightly nervous going into it because I literally had no idea what to expect. I had heard that the day was mostly just a celebration and that I wouldn't have to teach, but all day I was paranoid that I would somehow get stuck infront of a class with nothing prepared. But, not to worry, that didn't happen. The day began with a ceremony in the courtyard thing. The mayor spoke along with some teachers and some guy in robes who kind of reminded me of that rapping rabbi. He sang some kind of jam that I couldn't understand or hear because the mic was bad. All he was missing was a bass line. After the ceremony, we went to the Teachers' Room and hung out for a little bit. I was with the woman that I would be team teaching with. She's not my counterpart or the woman that I met in Vratsa at the Counterpart Conference, but she's great. Her name is Nina and she speaks English and she'll teach the ninth graders with me. So far, so good. Anyway, after sitting around for a while, we went to the cantine (or cafeteria) and there was a banquet layout for all of the teachers. It was so nice. There was food, drinks and dancing. It was a regular party. Today more of the teachers showed interest in me, which I appreciated. Maybe by the end of the year they'll all speak to me. We'll see.
Tomorrow, is the hard part, though. It's the first day of actual classes. I have a lesson plan prepared so we'll see how it goes. The first day is always easy, though. No actual assignments, just icebreakers. Wish me luck!
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